Notices by Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net), page 8
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Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Saturday, 04-Aug-2018 18:42:36 UTC 
Bob Mottram π§ β β
I read some of the mailing list drama about Speck. Linus no doubt let this pass because Google will be a major influence in the Linux Foundation, indirectly paying his salary.
https://itsfoss.com/nsas-encryption-algorithm-in-linux-kernel-is-creating-unease-in-the-community
This is the advantage of FOSS. The NSA can bribe engineers, but distro makers or end users can still remove the offending code if they're aware of it. -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Thursday, 02-Aug-2018 21:15:17 UTC
Bob Mottram π§ β β
I'm generally in favor of Basic Income as an immediate measure which could improve the situation and get rid of the bureaucratic and corrupt existing welfare system. But Basic Income is no panacea. It's biggest problem is that it depends upon the whims of politicians, who can cancel it or reduce it to a meaningless level overnight.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/08/02/i-may-end-up-homeless-again-six-ontarians-talk-about-their-life-before-after-and-once-again-without-basic-income.html
Basic Income is a sticking plaster on a much more fundamental problem: the centralization of economic power. So long as a few people control most of the resources there will continue to be grinding poverty. -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Aug-2018 18:02:31 UTC
Bob Mottram π§ β β
I think Mitchell Baker is misunderstanding Free Software. It never really was about being gratis. Stallman himself I think sold copies of Emacs for years. -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Friday, 27-Jul-2018 16:34:15 UTC
Bob Mottram π§ β β
NetSpectre https://misc0110.net/web/files/netspectre.pdf
netspectre.png -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Jul-2018 08:59:30 UTC
Bob Mottram π§ β β
I expect that current narratives around online harrassment and "fake news" will be translated into government attempts to regulate social media.
This is something to watch out for, because it has happened elsewhere.
Legitimate problems can be cynically exploited by politicians to conduct power grabs such as "the government must regulate social networks" or "the government must ban independent sites or blogs". -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Friday, 20-Jul-2018 13:40:27 UTC
Bob Mottram π§ β β
The ideal Facebook clone based on ActivityPub would look like Hubzilla.
No wait...just install Hubzilla.
Hubzilla has solved problems which ActivityPub hasn't even started to solve yet. -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Monday, 16-Jul-2018 10:33:00 UTC
Bob Mottram π§ β β
Arch is ok, but upgrades are a bit like playing Russian roulette with your OS. -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Sunday, 15-Jul-2018 11:45:11 UTC
Bob Mottram π§ β β
hindentrump.jpg -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Friday, 13-Jul-2018 09:11:08 UTC
Bob Mottram π§ β β
With the Mastodon recommended followers system I notice that there's a built in blocklist under the control of whoever wrote that system. The same recommendations system is also being used in Pleroma.
If this system becomes common (it might) then there will be one person with the ability to decide who is or is not a legitimate fediverse user. -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Friday, 13-Jul-2018 08:55:21 UTC
Bob Mottram π§ β β
In general, avoid algorithmic anything in social media systems. No rankings, ratings, top ten, top users to follow or anything like that.
Global signals have centralising effects which lead to celebrity cults and other bad things.
If you do insist upon doing that then it should be opt-in and strictly under the control of the user. Not the admin. Not some random dude with a blocklist.
algorithm.jpg -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Friday, 06-Jul-2018 08:46:04 UTC
Bob Mottram π§ β β
@paulfree14 @inso
It's not that W3C is broken exactly, it's just that it's not the kind of organisation which most people think it is (i.e. an impartial standards making group for the benefit of the internet). -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Thursday, 05-Jul-2018 10:19:25 UTC
Bob Mottram π§ β β
European Parliament has voted 318-278 against Article13 and Article11.
But the pattern is that they always regroup and try to come back with similar BS later. Freedom is a constant struggle. -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Jul-2018 17:42:04 UTC
Bob Mottram π§ β β
Indeed Github now blocks Tor. It didn't take long for Microsoft to get going on the evilness. -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jul-2018 09:08:18 UTC
Bob Mottram π§ β β
Found another example of a site trying to be GDPR compliant but failing miserably. After some blurb there are big "Ok" and "options" buttons, but selecting "options" only takes you to another "Ok" button.
So really the only possible option is "Ok". -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jul-2018 08:53:46 UTC
Bob Mottram π§ β β
"Getting sites to agree to our own personal terms and policies is not a stretch, because thatβs exactly what we have in the way we deal with each other in the physical world."
https://blogs.harvard.edu/vrm/2018/06/23/matters -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Sunday, 01-Jul-2018 20:24:43 UTC
Bob Mottram π§ β β
"As projects get older, they tend to move away from the benevolent dictatorship model and toward more openly democratic systems. This is not necessarily out of dissatisfaction with a particular BD. It's simply that group-based governance is more "evolutionarily stable", to borrow a biological metaphor. Whenever a benevolent dictator steps down, or attempts to spread decision-making responsibility more evenly, it is an opportunity for the group to settle on a new, non-dictatorial system β establish a constitution, as it were. The group may not take this opportunity the first time, or the second, but eventually they will; once they do, the decision is unlikely ever to be reversed. Common sense explains why: if a group of N people were to vest one person with special power, it would mean that N - 1 people were each agreeing to decrease their individual influence. People usually don't want to do that. Even if they did, the resulting dictatorship would still be conditional: the group anointed the BD, clearly the group could depose the BD. Therefore, once a project has moved from leadership by a charismatic individual to a more formal, group-based system, it rarely moves back."
https://producingoss.com/en/consensus-democracy.html -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Sunday, 01-Jul-2018 10:14:55 UTC
Bob Mottram π§ β β
After cursory investigation there are quite a lot of Google references in the Riot android app. It looks like analytics is not much of a problem, especially if you installed from f-droid. It's either off by default or you can turn it off from settings.
The main Google integration is GCM and that only applies if you installed from Google Play.
So basic opsec with the Riot app is to only install it from f-droid and prefer xmpp when possible. -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Saturday, 30-Jun-2018 17:42:13 UTC
Bob Mottram π§ β β
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Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Friday, 29-Jun-2018 19:00:21 UTC
Bob Mottram π§ β β
This article is unbelievably awful, but fun because of how wrong it is.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-tech-avengers-1530285064
TL;DR Industry insiders aren't going to save anyone from anything. Tweaking around with "screen time" or interface design or adding extra "street cred" from a younger generation doesn't address any of the real problems with Sillicon Valley.
If any of these rich morons were actually sincere they would have to abandon their business models and start again with federated and distributed systems with no data concentration. But of course they're not going to do that. -
Bob Mottram π§ β β (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Friday, 29-Jun-2018 12:17:27 UTC
Bob Mottram π§ β β
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