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@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

Dark_Arc

@[email protected]

Hiker, software engineer (primarily C++, Java, and Python), Minecraft modder, hunter (of the Hunt Showdown variety), biker, adoptive Akronite, and general doer of assorted things.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

Anonymous users are dominating right-wing discussions online. They also spread false information (apnews.com)

The reposts and expressions of shock from public figures followed quickly after a user on the social platform X who uses a pseudonym claimed that a government website had revealed “skyrocketing” rates of voters registering without a photo ID in three states this year — two of them crucial to the presidential contest....

Dark_Arc , (edited )
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or they’ll be killed.

I feel like this risk is drastically overblown. Every LGBTQ person isn’t going to be hunted down by some deranged lunatic just for speaking their mind.

If you’re in Afghanistan dealing with the Taliban, fine I’ll buy that you need anonymity. However, for those of us average folks in a western country that still has reasonable laws on the books… I don’t see it happening.

Most people are already trivially doxable. If you really wanted to, I’m sure you could figure out how to come to my residence and harm me if you were sufficiently motivated (please don’t, that would be a major downer).

I’ve had plenty of arguments on the Internet, thus far that hasn’t happened. Most people just want to live their life…

This also goes the other way too, the nastiest people/the ones making repeated threats could be more quickly identified/stopped from making those threats, creating swarms of harassment accounts, cheaters could be stopped in games because a ban would be a “no you are really truly banned for X number of years” (and those of us that enjoy multiplayer video games could stop having to install ever more invasive software on our computers).

I think there’s a time and place for anonymity; anonymity has certainly allowed history to be changed for the better in the past, but I don’t think it should be the default (it never has been until very recent history)… and I’m very concerned that anonymity could end up changing history for worse (and already has).

Trump may never have been elected if the broader public wasn’t flooded with anonymous “supporters” in 2016 and those of us arguing for Clinton ended up wasting time arguing with bots.

Also, this single identity is impossible to implement on the technical level. It’s too easy to cheat with that.

No idea what you mean by this. It’s pretty easy to have a single identity and/or government verifiable identity system.

Dark_Arc ,
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Journalism is basically beyond saving at this point…

I mean, it’s basically a no name website. It’s not like this is a NYTimes, AP, or The Atlantic headline.

Edit: I guess what I’m really asking is, it’s a bad headline from a small publisher (it’s surely happened many many times for decades), can’t we leave it at that without the dramatization?

Dark_Arc ,
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But go to all those sources you mentioned and tell me how many times some “slammed” someone else

Okay … Let’s google it … I’m open to be being bias checked; The Atlantic and NY Times.

Some “The Atlantic” examples:

  • “Boston Fire Chief Slammed Over His Response to Marathon Bombing”
  • “Northeast Slammed by Blizzard”
  • “The Storm Heard Round the World: How Sandy Slammed Global Aviation”
  • “This is What 400 Pounds of Sumo Wrestler Getting Body-Slammed Looks Like”
  • “HuffPo’s Sex Strategy Slammed”
  • “Republicans Slammed for Recruiting ‘Hicky’ Actors for West Virginia Ad”
  • “Everyone’s Getting ‘Slammed’ This Week”

Some “NYTimes” examples:

  • “A Window Into Chinese Government Has Now Slammed Shut”
  • “Trump Slammed the W.H.O. Over Coronavirus. He’s Not Alone.”
  • “Regional Banks Slammed by Fear of a Broader Financial Crisis”
  • “How Mink, Like Humans, Were Slammed by the Coronavirus”

What’s your point exactly? These aren’t (IMO) atrocious headlines; I suppose a few could be more informative for sure but also these are like ~1 per year.

Dark_Arc ,
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It wasn’t bad faith, but I’m blocking you for being a waste of my time.

Dark_Arc ,
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I really don’t see Nintendo publishing an emulator that runs on hardware they didn’t make (yay unnecessary e-waste).

Dark_Arc ,
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Except when it’s like… “I bet that was the answer I needed, crap.”

Dark_Arc ,
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It wasn’t a little kids game until years later. Also I think it’s old enough that the early versions were actually Java 6… I remember updating my code for Java 7.

Dark_Arc ,
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It has its own index in addition to aggregating results.

Dark_Arc ,
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Honestly this is probably for the average user… Because Google doesn’t want to receive calls that XYZ (that uses Bluetooth) is broken from those that are tech illiterate in the general public and accidentally turned Bluetooth off.

My grandpa as an example would also not read your pop-up.

The general public is not concerned with disabling Bluetooth for more than a power saving or troubleshooting step… And even then, it’s going to be an accident more than a choice for a lot of people.

Dark_Arc ,
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That might be a partial motivation for sure … but Bluetooth is used for so much these days (there’s not even a headphone jack, Bluetooth speakers are everywhere, etc) I have a hard time believing any significant portion of the general public is turning off Bluetooth for an extended period intentionally to begin with.

Let alone enough that it would be enough people to be a concern regarding their tracking network taking off.

Dark_Arc ,
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How would you even call Google?

about.google/contact-google/

support.google.com/pixelphone/gethelp?sjid=160788…

Google is not unreachable and they might not know that Google runs Android, but if they have a Google Pixel phone well, they could very well end up contacting Google for help.

Dark_Arc ,
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Yeah no, there definitely is wise spending.

Spending all your money at the casino, spending all your money on alcohol, etc. That’s majority different from spending money on food, shelter, an education, etc.

There’s also a difference between spending money that was given to you vs spending money that you did something to earn. That’s part of why welfare is such a contentious program in the country. “I want them to have food not half a dozen kids, 17 pets, brand new phones, and cigarettes.”

The fact of the matter is, most recipients don’t spend the money on that and they do spend it wisely just like the folks did here.

But yeah, if you’re asking for me or anyone else to give up a portion of our salaries to create universal basic income, etc, it needs to be proven to be a net benefit, and how “wisely” that money is being spent is important.

We wouldn’t rejoice at a politician taking more money from the public fund for a personal trip to the Bahamas. If it’s shown this money just becomes vacation money, it’s clearly not needed and frankly shouldn’t be given.

Understanding how the money is spent is important.

Dark_Arc ,
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If it’s government given money, that’s somebody’s tax dollars and the government absolutely should have a say, because the people giving that money should have a say.

Dark_Arc ,
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When you take someone else’s money, you should have a good reason for doing so. Money is an exchange of labor, straight up. You’re not entitled to anyone else’s labor without qualification.

Social benefit programs are just that, programs for the social benefit.

People are allowed to have vices, but irresponsibly spending other people’s money is not okay, just like breaking/trashing other people’s stuff (and thus spending their time and money) is not okay.

This is a basic part of the social contract.

Dark_Arc ,
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Because it works out so well when we just let people run away with money?

You’re making the same argument that a lot of Republicans make. “Corporations will be honest with the public money we give them, we don’t need all this administrative overhead.”

There’s definitely something to be said for minimizing administrative overhead. However, that’s a very different argument than “there’s no such thing as wise spending and we just shouldn’t care where the money is going.”

Dark_Arc ,
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(Response is here: social.packetloss.gg/comment/1528226)

Dark_Arc ,
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So, in summary…

  • Original comment: "We don’t need studies"
  • Me: "Yes, we do need studies. This is important data to keep track of to make sure the money is being put where it’s most desperately needed."
  • You: “We don’t need to keep track of where money is going, people are honest. We have studies!”

In other words…

  • Original comment: "Studies are useless!"
  • Me: "Studies are not useless"
  • You: “Studies are useless, because we have proof that studies are useless, via a study”
Dark_Arc , (edited )
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Actual original comment’s very first sentence:

The entire concept of a scientific study to determine whether people spend this money wisely is bunk

You: putting words in my mouth, doubling down, and missing the point.

Me: Over this.

Dark_Arc ,
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No that’s not how it works. It is extremely common for government issued money to come with stipulations on how it can be spent.

Dark_Arc ,
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IRCv3 the “next gen” version of IRC is woefully inadequate compared to Matrix. The IRC working group is only worried about the IRC client protocol and the effort seems to have largely stalled. That’s like defining the protocol for Lemmy servers and clients without the Lemmy server to server communication.

ircv3.net/wg

XMPP is a potentially more compelling option/a good option. I don’t know enough about the low level details to really debate whether XMPP is “better or worse.”

I don’t think either of these protocols being older qualifies them for superiority on the merits of “standing the test of time.”

Dark_Arc ,
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To be fair, the common thief isn’t into that sort of burglary. They’re looking for something they can pawn or use themselves

Dark_Arc ,
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Looks like the sway tiling window manager with a custom theme and emacs open to some elisp … and a couple other programs open (potentially they’re also emacs TBH)

Edit: yeah looking closer all the windows are just different emacs functions

Dark_Arc ,
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We need identity to be disconnected from authorization so it hardly matters if your SSN leaks.

Dark_Arc ,
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I don’t know about that. Have you ever been anywhere with soviet construction?

I felt much more comfortable in post and pre Soviet era buildings when I was in Prague a few years ago.

The Soviet era buildings also were quite ugly and uninspired. My Prague native cab driver also volunteered his opinion on Soviet construction which can be summarized as “👎”

Dark_Arc ,
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I don’t think it’s that simple in a sense. You risk crashing the housing market which will leave a lot of people that “just barely made it” into the housing market far worse off if you just rapidly mass-build housing.

There also just aren’t that many builders/contractors that do good work available so you run the risk of building a lot of housing that’s in a state of disrepair soon after construction/never built properly. There are plenty of housing inspectors on youtube speaking out about housing developments and how ridiculously bad a lot of the modern builders are.

You also need to find the land to build on in a time when land conservation is increasingly recognized as important/there’s little public land left. That means buying up even more (likely) good farm land.

You can start buying people out of their inner city neighborhoods in disrepair and start revitalizing them, but that’s gentrification that often leaves the people that were living in those homes worse off. Where I am in Akron there are plenty of houses, just lots of them folks don’t really want to live in them (they’re in disrepair in “high” crime areas) or they’re being rented for absurd prices. I think revitalizing these neighborhoods and forcing a cap on rental properties is the most promising, but it needs paired with a general economic support system for those already living in the neighborhood.

I don’t think there’s an easy fix here.

Dark_Arc ,
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Yeah, this would be a weird thing for valve to do for sure. I think they could afford it… But they already have Source 2.

US judge receptive to Trump documents claims in warning sign for prosecutors (www.reuters.com)

A federal judge overseeing the criminal case that accuses Donald Trump of mishandling classified documents has signaled an openness to the former U.S. president’s defense claims, in a sign that prosecutors might face a difficult road ahead....

Dark_Arc ,
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It’s such a politically loaded issue… I think the ideal would be like a Bush appointed judge. I doubt that’s going to happen though.

Dark_Arc ,
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It’s true the government can do things very very well. However, it needs proper finding to do so and Republicans most of all are unwilling to spend the cash to allow the government to many effective hires at the scale necessary for something like national email.

It would also likely be a surveillance mess given 3 letter agency interests in communications. It would take a pretty significant shift in national security strategy (and possibly a time machine to elect Al Gore and/or stop 9-11) to get us out of that mess.

Dark_Arc ,
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I haven’t noticed much beyond emails about general product news.

That’s compared to Feedly which actively would popup “hey! have you considered paying us like… 2k/yr (or maybe it was 2k/month) for some service you don’t care about that really should be part of our normal RSS product that you’re already paying like 200/yr for? Also there’s no way to turn these notifications off and we’re going to keep sending them periodically. Oh! And we’re not going to work on anything you might find interesting or reasonably priced, so … have fun!”

Dark_Arc ,
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I liked it when it was first a thing and you’d see huge crowds of people in their early twenties out in parks and things … but I don’t think I ever really liked the game itself.

Dark_Arc ,
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It says in the article they’re aiming for 4070 performance at the top end. So, still not quite 3090 performance sadly.

Dark_Arc ,
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This is the 4070 they’re comparing, not 4070 Ti.

Dark_Arc ,
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Looks like he’d done a lot for various US companies on his LinkedIn.

I would not be surprised if he was previously legit but pressured into doing this by the CCP.

Dark_Arc ,
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I honestly think the NSA has changed. If you look at the known backdoors they haven’t got caught making any new backdoors since like 2010. Their MO also seems to be more hardware and encryption (more of an observational charter) than manipulation.

There’s also evidence US Congress acted to stop the NSA from doing these underhanded tacits at least once www.wired.com/story/nsa-backdoors-closed/

They’re not idiots, lots of smart people there that surely understand the risk of something like this to US national security interests. It’s not the NSA that’s been asking for encryption to be broken in recent years. They’ve been warning about quantum threats and … from what I’m aware of actually been taking on the defensive role they were conducted to perform gizmodo.com/nsa-plans-to-act-now-to-ensure-quantu…

This seems like something that could actually be weaponized against predominantly western technology companies so I’d be very surprised if it was them and very surprised if they used someone that appears to be a Chinese born resident to do it.

Dark_Arc ,
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There is a difference from finding something you can take advantage of and putting it there though, no? This sounds like the former.

But still, it’s a good point, thanks.

Dark_Arc ,
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Basically two points, they stopped inserting backdoors and their backdoors seem to have only ever been to show them what’s going on (so this just doesn’t look like them to me).

I didn’t really comment on “what they do now” as much. I think they do continue to spy, finding preexisting vulnerabilities is definitely one way to spy. I wouldn’t be surprised if they report the worst ones in NATO systems to be repaired and keep the others for themselves.

They also tap into weak points like Google and Apple’s notification services where things aren’t end to end encrypted to gather information. I believe this was revealed recently.

Snowden I recall saying the modern NSA is more interested in metadata than what’s actually in the message as well.

In general, I think they still do some shady stuff, but I don’t think they do shady stuff that risks compromising a system. This exploit is quite literally a system compromise as (if I understand it correctly) it allows bypassing sshd authentication.

Dark_Arc , (edited )
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

Oh Christ, that’s not the same thing and you know it.

Dark_Arc ,
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You 100% should have to keep your systems up to date. It’s a danger to yourself and everyone else when you don’t.

Dark_Arc , (edited )
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If you want to phrase it as a “personal responsibility” thing, then you should frankly be criminally liable if your system is used for a DDOS attack.

Dark_Arc ,
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You think it’s funny for your system to take part in an attack potentially costing billions of dollars in damages because you can’t be bothered to switch off of Windows because “you don’t like what Microsoft installs with their security updates” or “actually install security updates”?

Dark_Arc ,
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+1 for Libro, I’ve been very happy with their approach and the DRM free store

Dark_Arc ,
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I feel like I’ve seen more people calling this out lately; glad to see it.

Dark_Arc , (edited )
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Let’s try it… No.

It’s just going to turn into a spam fest.

What I like about downvotes is they let what’s controversial be shown as controversial and similarly what’s just an unwelcome idea be shown as such.

Dark_Arc ,
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It looks like the flatpak internally uses snap. Very strange setup:

github.com/flathub/…/com.authy.Authy.yaml#L42

It’s all on flathub though, it’s no secret.

Dark_Arc ,
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Paramount Plus has the worst streaming app I’ve seen honestly. Even dropout.tv is better.

Dark_Arc ,
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That’s not entirely fair either though… They can incorrectly summarize, omit important information, or just make stuff up.

Dark_Arc ,
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All I am saying is that it is fine to be critical of LLM and AI claims in general as there is a lot of hype going on. But some people seem to lean towards the “they just suck, period” extreme end of the spectrum. Which is no longer being critical but just being a reverse fanboy/girl/person.

Fair, nuance is an endangered species.

Dark_Arc , (edited )
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

I get mine from Qobuz as DRM-free flac

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