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[#] Thu Feb 25 2016 16:19:08 UTC from zooer

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Hello!  This room needs a good post after three years.



[#] Fri Feb 26 2016 15:14:59 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

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If the room wasn't networked it would have auto-deleted by now.  It might be argued that consumers actually won the DRM war, at least when it comes to recorded music.  Most of the big stores are now DRM-free, and all of them sell individual tracks in addition to entire albums.

Other areas, maybe not so much.  The MPAA are still at large.  It seems to be a smaller issue though because most people don't want to carry around a thousand movies and move them from device to device.  And although I personally don't believe in copyright, it doesn't bother me a whole lot to pay $3 or $4 to Google or Verizon to rent a movie.



[#] Sun Dec 29 2019 05:13:35 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

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This is kind of scary.

"(AFP) b The United Nations on Friday approved a Russian-led bid that aims to create a new convention on cybercrime, alarming rights groups and Western powers that fear a bid to restrict online freedom.
The General Assembly approved the resolution sponsored by Russia and backed by China, which would set up a committee of international experts in 2020.
The panel will work to set up ba comprehensive international convention on countering the use of information and communications technologies for criminal purposes,b the resolution said."

Since the IANA is no longer controlled by the United States (fuck you Obama), I am wondering if this means that the United Nations now essentially has veto power over the existence of any web site in the world, since they could basically rule to have someone's domain seized for non-crimes like "blasphemy".

Hopefully this will hasten the move to new networks that cannot be tampered with by authorities.

[#] Sun Dec 29 2019 17:51:10 UTC from nonservator

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copy pasta'd, slightly cleaned up

 

Go ahead, create your own website. Start getting popular with free information
sharing and zero censorship? Oh no! All of a sudden you can't process donations
by credit card because financial institutions and payment processors have
banned you.

What's that? You got enough money together where you can just buy your own
servers and handle all that traffic? Oh no! All of a sudden you can't get
non-credit card donations. Paypal, Patreon and all the rest have banned you,
because hate speech or some bullshit.

What's that? You were able to get the money together independently to keep your
website online and run your own private servers? Oh no! Your ISP banned you
from their hosting platform and on top of that, your domain name was seized by
the registrars.

What's that? You created your own website on your own servers running on a
network outside the US? Oh no! Now all the major search engines have removed
you from their search results.

What's that? You have a big enough following who privately donate to you so
that you can keep your website going on a server outside the US? Oh no! You've
been named in a lawsuit by the ADL and SPLC. They want you to provide all the
information about your donors, who goes to your website, and so forth. They
promised they weren't going to use that info to dox people, even though they
have no legal reason to want it. But now you have to go to court to fight and
keep your user information private.

What's that? You won the lawsuit and were able to keep all your information
private? Oh no! Now some DA with direct connections to the ADL and SPLC are
charging you with conspiracy and saying that you are an accomplice to hate
crimes that have not even been proven to have even taken place. And they are
going to get a warrant to get access to your servers and everything else, but
they totally promise that they aren't going to make that public. And now you
have to go back to court again to fight this and to get an injunction to even
give up that information before the cops can come steal it. Good luck with
that! I'm totally certain that they aren't going to leak that information.

But yeah other than that you are totally free to start up your own website



[#] Thu Jan 02 2020 17:19:14 UTC from LoanShark

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I definitely don't foresee any problems with allowing Russia to lead a UN convention on cybercrime. ;-p

[#] Tue Feb 04 2020 18:53:45 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

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Hey, they're experts on the subject, so why not.

[#] Fri May 22 2020 18:12:18 UTC from zooer

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Apparently "Zoom meeting" is now the term for any video chat.  The nurse for my doctors office emailed me "zoom meeting" information but it wasn't a zoom meeting.



[#] Sat May 23 2020 17:53:39 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

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Because the Zoom software has become the overwhelmingly default choice for consumers (and good for them I guess, they hit the right spot on the freemium scale for the current situation) it seems to be on the way to becoming a genericized trademark, just like Kleenex, Xerox, Band-Aid, Jell-O, etc.

[#] Sat May 23 2020 20:36:58 UTC from nonservator

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Looking at the abysmal state of video chat is like a microcosm of the whole "Desktop Linux" nightmare/pipe dream. Either sign yourself over body and soul to the social justice commissars of Silicon Valley -- with a little Chinese boot on your neck for a dash of extra flavor -- or suffer with software that requires advanced degrees in weaponized hyperautism just to get it up and running. Usually more like limping -- my God, the lag of Electron apps makes OS/2 on 1Mb of RAM feel like farting through silk in comparison. And forget about chatting with anyone other than fellow autists.



[#] Sat May 23 2020 21:33:03 UTC from zooer

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Yes I was comparing it to Q-tips and Kleenex.  The doctor's office didn't seem to have a clue, one nurse said "Telemed" and I asked if it was a phone call or video.  I searched Telemed and it left me more confused.  The email said "Zoom meeting"

The odd thing is this doctor and another video visit doctor were at home.  The office asked me if I wanted to come into the office or do the video chat.  If I said come into the office they would have set me up with a video char with the doctor because the doctor was at home.

 



[#] Thu May 28 2020 17:37:25 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

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Interesting developments this week about the Bottom Feeders ... in this case, Big Tech, specifically, the toxic cesspool called Twitter.

Set aside for a moment how you might feel about @realDonaldTrump , as he is really only a bit player in this.

By "fact checking" anyone in the way they are now doing, Twitter is overtly exerting editorial control over discussions of public policy. This makes them a publisher.

The big social media cesspools have resisted, for a long time, being classified as either platforms or publishers. If they are platforms, they can enjoy common carrier protections, but cannot edit, censor, or otherwise manipulate the content of their sites. If they are publishers, they can exert as much editorial control as they like, but they are then able to be held responsible for anything illegal that happens on the site.

Fecesbook and Twatter want to have it both ways. They want the common carrier protection of platforms *and* the editorial control of publishers. In the words of Andrea Widburg, an upcoming executive order may "target the social media giants' current immunity from libel and defamation suits because they're viewed as bulletin boards, not publishers. However, when they actively manipulate content b especially the most political content of all, which is statements from the President of the United States b they've put themselves in an editorial position and should be held liable."

[#] Thu May 28 2020 18:23:41 UTC from LoanShark

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There is no legal distinction between a publisher and a platform
There is no legal distinction between a publisher and a platform
There is no legal distinction between a publisher and a platform

[#] Thu May 28 2020 23:25:47 UTC from nonservator

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Repeating things doesn't make them more true

Repeating things doesn't make them more true

Repeating things doesn't make them more true



[#] Thu May 28 2020 23:49:00 UTC from zooer

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Santa Claus is coming to town

Santa Claus is coming to town

Santa Claus is coming to town



[#] Fri May 29 2020 13:37:06 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

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The law begs to differ. 47 USC section 230 (ironically, a provision of the Communications Decency Act, whose original purpose was to *restrict* free speech) declares common carrier protection to "interactive computer services" on the basis that they are online intermediaries carrying user generated content, rather than editors curating and publishing selected content.

[#] Fri May 29 2020 14:44:11 UTC from LoanShark

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That's a popular interpretation lately but it's wrong. CDA provides those common carrier protections to *all* sites. There's literally nothing in there that says sites have to let users behave however they want in order to be protected.


[#] Fri May 29 2020 15:15:51 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

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It looks like that debate is about to explode into the foreground at this point. I think it's long overdue. Back when there were more than four web sites on the Internet it might not have been quite as relevant, but when network effects allow web publishers to act as choke points (like Microsoft did to computing in the past) it is time for them to be reined in.

Fact check: TRUE

[#] Fri May 29 2020 18:05:15 UTC from LoanShark

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There's a lot of people, left-wing and right-wing alike, who don't understand the CDA.

Stripping CDA protections from Facebook and Twitter will make them more liable for content posted by their users. This will, in turn, make them *more* likely, not less, to do things you don't like, such as censoring (or "fact-checking") your posts.

There's understandably all this social media bashing on both sides, but people (who are supposedly pro-free-speech) are proposing things that would have exactly the opposite of the intended effect (which I thought was to preserve free speech)


Derp.

[#] Fri May 29 2020 18:38:13 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

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Well it seems that the proposed remedy is to repeal 230 instead of enforcing it. I'd be ok with a remedy that goes in either direction, because Big Tech seems to want it both ways.

[#] Fri May 29 2020 19:59:22 UTC from nonservator

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Most days, all you can do is lol.



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