When we teach WW1 history and show photographs of men in the trenches, and no one knows if they are real or midjourney fake then we are in deep trouble. Or teach scientific principles through research papers and don't know if the text is authentic human created or response engine output, we are in deep trouble. Imagine a hundred other contexts and you understand why gen ai is such a massive problem.
@DrPen Human autentication #protocols are going to be very necessary very soon.
But the problem is, people won’t start to want them until it’s already too late. And when that happens they’ll be ready to sacrifice their privacy for convenience.
When privacy is gone, we’ll be at a risk of losing democracy as well.
if you want to help people access the full, uncensored internet via Tor, and you're a fedi admin, here's a way you can help. you may know about Tor Bridges and how they're used by people behind repressive governments that censor the internet to safely access the net. countries like China or Russia block the public list of Tor relays, for example.
WebTunnel is a Bridge method that uses a reverse proxy that you configure using your existing nginx (etc) web server that points to your server's local tor daemon. so your fedi instance can be a bridge to the Tor network for people who cannot connect to Tor normally. disobey.net is hosting one ^^
one thing to note is that it's important to disable nginx (etc) web server logs, since the people who use bridges are connecting to you as their first, trusted hop onto the tor network. something to keep in mind to maximize privacy and reduce your own liability.
#SocialMedia#Misinformation#ConspiracyTheories#Disinformation#Anonymity: "The incident sheds light on how social media accounts that shield the identities of the people or groups behind them through clever slogans and cartoon avatars have come to dominate right-wing political discussion online even as they spread false information.
The accounts enjoy a massive reach that is boosted by engagement algorithms, by social media companies greatly reducing or eliminating efforts to remove phony or harmful material, and by endorsements from high-profile figures such as Musk. They also can generate substantial financial rewards from X and other platforms by ginning up outrage against Democrats.
Many such internet personalities identify as patriotic citizen journalists uncovering real corruption. Yet their demonstrated ability to spread misinformation unchecked while disguising their true motives worries experts with the United States in a presidential election year.
They are exploiting a long history of trust in American whistleblowers and anonymous sources, said Samuel Woolley, director of the Propaganda Research Lab at the University of Texas at Austin.
“With these types of accounts, there’s an allure of covertness, there’s this idea that they somehow might know something that other people don’t,” he said. “They’re co-opting the language of genuine whistleblowing or democratically inclined leaking. In fact what they’re doing is antithetical to democracy.”"
"After his exhibit closed, the postcards took over Frank’s life. Hundreds poured into his mailbox, week after week. He decided to create a website, PostSecret, where every Sunday he uploaded images of postcards he’d received in the mail." —Meg Bernhard for Hazlitt
#Privacy#Glassdoor#Anonymity: "Glassdoor, where employees go to leave anonymous reviews of employers, has recently begun adding real names to user profiles without users' consent, a Glassdoor user named Monica was shocked to discover last week.
"Time to delete your Glassdoor account and data," Monica, a Midwest-based software professional, warned other Glassdoor users in a blog. (Ars will only refer to Monica by her first name so that she can speak freely about her experience using Glassdoor to review employers.)
Monica joined Glassdoor about 10 years ago, she said, leaving a few reviews for her employers, taking advantage of other employees' reviews when considering new opportunities, and hoping to help others survey their job options. This month, though, she abruptly deleted her account after she contacted Glassdoor support to request help removing information from her account. She never expected that instead of removing information, Glassdoor's support team would take the real name that she provided in her support email and add it to her Glassdoor profile—despite Monica repeatedly and explicitly not consenting to Glassdoor storing her real name." https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/glassdoor-adding-users-real-names-job-info-to-profiles-without-consent/
"Glassdoor now requires your real name and will add it to older accounts without your consent if they learn it, and your only option is to delete your account."
#UK#Healthcare#NHS#Privacy#Anonymity#Palantir: "Opensafely has its own database query language, built on SQL, but tailored to medical research. Researchers write programs in this language to extract aggregate data from each NHS trust's servers, posing medical questions of the data without ever directly touching it. These programs are published in advance on a git server, and are preflighted on synthetic NHS data on a test server. Once the program is approved, it is sent to the main Opensafely server, which then farms out parts of the query to each NHS trust, packages up the results, and publishes them to a public repository.
This is better than "the best of both worlds." This public scientific process, with peer review and disclosure built in, allows for frequent, complex analysis of NHS data without giving a single third party access to a a single patient record, ever. Opensafely was wildly successful: in just months, Opensafely collaborators published sixty blockbuster papers in Nature – science that shaped the world's response to the pandemic.
Opensafely was so successful that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care commissioned a review of the programme with an eye to expanding it to serve as the nation's default way of conducting research on medical data:
(...)
This approach is cheaper, safer, and more effective than handing hundreds of millions of pounds to Palantir and hoping they will manage the impossible: anonymising data well enough that it is never re-identified."
🇩🇪Vor der Europawahl will die EU-Kommission soziale Netzwerke zu "Schutzmaßnahmen" drängen und gibt euch vorher die Gelegenheit zur Stellungnahme. Kritisch z.B.:
1⃣Das geforderte Vorgehen gegen "inauthentische" Accounts gefährdet das Recht auf anonyme Internetnutzung
2⃣Das geforderte Vorgehen gegen "Desinformation über den Wahlprozess, z. B. über Wahlunregelmäßigkeiten", gefährdet berechtigte Kritik an Wahlfehlern wie etwa in Berlin - was wahr und was falsch ist, darf nicht Entscheidung der Internetkonzerne sein!
3⃣Die geforderte Kooperation mit allen möglichen Gremien geht weit über das hinaus, wozu die Plattformen verpflichtet sind
🇬🇧In the runup to the 2024 elections to the European Parlament, the EU Commission wants to urge social networks to "mitigate risks" and is giving you the opportunity to comment beforehand. Some problematic recommendations are:
1⃣Calling for action against "inauthentic" accounts jeopardises the right to use digital services anonymously
2⃣Suppressing "disinformation on the electoral process, such as election irregularities", jeopardises justified criticism of electoral errors such as happened in Berlin - what is true and what is false must not be for big tech to decide!
3⃣The called for cooperation with all kinds of bodies goes far beyond what the platforms are obliged to do.
The @torproject doesn't answer to any shareholder, but is responsible for many different stakeholders.💜 🧅
"This is a collection of anonymous user stories from people who rely on Tor to protect their privacy and anonymity. We encourage you to share their experiences with your network, friends and family, or as part of your work to promote the use of privacy-preserving technologies like ours and help us defend strong online protections." #privacy#anonymity#security#humanrights https://community.torproject.org/outreach/stories/
It occurred to me that in the same way we use census data collected 100 years ago to trace our ancestry and family history, our great grandchildren may have access to the data being collected by Google and Apple and the Government about us now.
The Tinder account you had while married.
The location tracking data that puts you at a specific event like a civil rights protest or January 6th or even a major concert or sporting event.
The contacts that were stored on your phone and all of the emails and texts you sent and received.
Your photographs of cats, bags of weed, and yourself.
AI generated versions of your voice.
You may not be an important historical figure but your descendants will have more information about you than any descendants of royalty have now.
🛡️ When you are keen on web privacy, i.e. anonymity, what do you use? Is there actually a difference for you between @torproject, @i2p, @Freenet and #GNUnet and is their use important to you? Multiple selection possible.