@angdraug@mastodon.social
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

angdraug

@angdraug@mastodon.social

Technologist, activist, poet, community organizer. Debian, Semantic Web, Indymedia, OpenStack, big tech sellout, barley.cloud, circle.lt, жыве Беларусь, he/him.

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

angdraug, to TikTok
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

I recently saw a conversation between two people I respect that ended poorly. This being a social platform, shortage of mutual understanding is not surprising. Most of the time, I just back away slowly, but this time, the topic is important enough, and I think I can see a framing that can help make conversations about it less antagonistic.

The topic is around .

If you don't know what threat modeling is, start here: https://circle.lt/post/20190405-social-networks-hygiene/#threat-model 1/

angdraug,
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

When different people prioritize different kinds of assets and threats, it's easy to end up comparing risks that can't be compared or balanced.

For a protester, the assets they need to protect are identity and location history. The threat they need to protect it from is local law enforcement. If a hostile foreign government operated platform such as is less likely to volunteer their data to FBI, it's a bit safer for their use case than domestic platforms other than messengers. 2/

angdraug,
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

Personally, I think activists made a Faustian bargain, and I will explain why, but it is their bargain to make, and it is not made of ignorance. Trying to educate them about the privacy and addictiveness problems of TikTok will only piss them off.

As I said in my pinned thread (https://mastodon.social/deck/@angdraug/103723061898294822), the asset I am most worried about, now as much as in 2020, is democracy. Here in the , it protects me from 's prisons and from 's bombs. 4/

angdraug,
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

For a protest organizer, the main asset to protect is their ability to reach people. The main threats to that are censorship, ranking algorithms, and network effects. If is where they can reach the most people, they're going to use that.

Same thing happened with in in 2020: it attracted more people to the protests, even though in the end it burned many with its weak security. Would it be better if protests didn't happen at all, due to lack of reach? Not really. 3/

angdraug,
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

Global social networks with algorithmic feeds make 10x worse.

A lot of people underestimate how bad it is, for the same reason people underestimated COVID: humans have no intuition for exponents, mechanical metaphors like weight and velocity really don't work for epidemiology.

In a race of exponents, a 0.1% advantage takes only 700 iterations to grow into a 2x advantage. On a platform with a billion users, a 0.1% difference can make one narrative overtake another in hours. 6/

angdraug,
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

The main threats to democracy are and . Mitigating the risk of war has never been as straightforward as today: arm , arm , and let their resistance deter fascist empires from invading their neighbors.

Disinfo is a harder problem. Like cancer, it exploits freedom of speech and other essential aspects of democracy to turn a society against itself. Like with cancer, any treatment has to walk a careful balance to eradicate the disease without killing the host. 5/

dangillmor, (edited ) to random
@dangillmor@mastodon.social avatar

Microsoft is refusing to let me update an older (Thinkpad T460) laptop to the most recent version of Windows 10 (it won't run Windows 11 at all, which is fine since I don't want to use it).

Install/upgrade fails every time with obscure error codes that defy troubleshooting.

Next step: Ubuntu 22.04, which is the most recent version of that Linux flavor and works great on older hardware.

Note: I've been running Linux as my primary OS for more than a decade...

Update, found a workaround.

angdraug,
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

@dangillmor Debian 12 is more recent than that and runs great on T460.

angdraug, to random
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

This is rich. Companies that make billions in profits and pay almost no taxes (1.2% in case of Amazon) are demanding that the federal government foots the bill for an organization they all need in order to make more profit from AI.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/23/top-ai-companies-seek-more-cash-lab-keeping-ai-safe/

caseynewton, to random
@caseynewton@mastodon.social avatar

From the US to Europe, the news just keeps getting worse for TikTok — and the company's plan to reward users for scrolling isn't helping https://www.platformer.news/tiktok-ban-house-vote-senate-lite-eu/

angdraug,
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

@caseynewton There's something you seem to not understand about Cantwell. Read this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/04/13/congress-maria-cantwell-online-privacy/

angdraug,
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

@caseynewton If you have read it, why would you take anything Cantwell says about what she's going to do at face value? There's a pattern of her sabotaging tech regulation bills after endorsing them. This one, she didn't even cosponsor. Just look at the list of her top campaign contributors from OpenSecrets, that alone is enough to tell you whether or not she wants to open the Pandora's box of evaluating the national security threats posed by the big tech.

But many aides said the episode was part of a pattern: Cantwell would publicly criticize other members’ tech initiatives, take umbrage at lawmakers leading them in her stead, and then either let the push fizzle or quash it behind closed doors. “Legislation would be worked on for months, hours and hours and hours of staff time would be invested, member conversations would be had, and then all of the sudden things would go in a completely different direction,” said a former Senate aide.
Top contributors: AIPAC, T-Mobile, Microsoft, Amazon, AT&T, United Airlines.

stux, to Ukraine
@stux@mstdn.social avatar

It's SUPER amazing that the US approved a new aid package for ! :party:

Much of the old stockpiles of ammo and weapons is send from the US and not checks for cash.. :nkoFacepalm2:

When old stockpiles dry up they need to be refilled what in the process creates a TON of new jobs for AMERICANS

People who tell you otherwise often have little clue 🤷

angdraug,
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

@timbray @stux After working in big tech for almost a decade, I'm no longer convinced that government spending, and even military spending, is universally more wasteful.

A lot of what large corporations do is net negative on the public harm vs good scale. Compared to that, being merely inefficient is a win. And don't even get me started about corruption...

danilo, to random
@danilo@hachyderm.io avatar

I don’t think it’s productive or healthy to spend a lot of time being righteous about this

But four years into the abject Covid shitshow, we now know conclusively who is:

  • a systems thinker
  • in solidarity with those who have less economic power
  • fighting eugenics and ableism
  • able to resist peer pressure
  • resolved in their convictions
  • thinking for the long term

spoiler: it’s our friends who still mask, it’s organizers who sweat the details of air quality

to the stubborn minority: ✊🏽❤️

angdraug,
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

@danilo Long COVID should be categorized as disability, and everyone who got COVID due to their employer or school failing to use all available options to protect them, including allowing remote work and remote schooling, should be able to sue for compensation of workplace injuries.

box464, to random
@box464@mastodon.social avatar

A takeaway from the is people need ways to make money here.

Very little funding reaches fediverse developers. Regardless, they push forward because they believe in this idea.

Not to mention users that want to make a living in this space.

I support fedi projects and the people making them, even when those investments make it more expensive to be here.

It's worthwhile. It's not enough.

Wish I had a solution. But I'm happy to offer support to those that do, and hope you will too.

angdraug,
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

@box464 Fact. I, for one, gave up on my hope of making even a minimum wage level of money from running and moderating a Mastodon instance.

Allowing your social experience to be ruled by the privileged few who can afford to work non-billable hours isn't much of an improvement over it being ruled by a handful of billionaires.

ErikJonker, (edited ) to Russia
@ErikJonker@mastodon.social avatar

The possibilities for the Moscow attack are in my view the following,
#moscow #russia #geopolitics @geopolitics
please vote what you think is most likely:

angdraug,
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

@ErikJonker @geopolitics Obligatory historical precedent reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Russian_apartment_bombings

dansup, (edited ) to random
@dansup@mastodon.social avatar

Edit: As mentioned below, it appears to be a bug, not intentional!

Threads hiding @pixelfed mentions, not a good look Meta 🙄

angdraug,
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

@dansup @pixelfed made block links to in 2016: https://www.androidpolice.com/2016/09/09/whatsapp-is-blocking-telegram-links-in-the-android-app/

This was not a bug. It took getting caught and called out by tech press for them to quietly back this out.

angdraug,
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

@tivasyk @TFFPrisoner Telegram is much like TikTok: way too beholden to an authoritarian regime to be trusted. I support the TikTok divestment act, and if Telegram goes down in flames I will shed no tears.

That doesn't stop me from calling out Zuckerberg's anti-competitive tactics. Facebook, due to its massive scale, does more harm globally than Telegram and TikTok combined, even though it's not overtly beholden (other than the Milner investment) to Russia or China. Delenda fucking est.

angdraug, to random
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

I was born and lived most of my life in a country just like this. is the only American writer I know who truly gets it. It's not just his experience, it's also lots and lots of empathy and willingness to understand other people. Every word of this essay is true and matches my lived experience in to a tee. Americans, don't let you country decay into that.

https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-strongman-fantasy

angdraug, to random
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

Looks like Taylor Lorenz is as bad at fact checking as she is at reporting about trans teens. Her attempt at fact checking the TikTok hearings isn't just carrying water for social platforms controlled by authoritarian individuals or governments, it's so sloppy it's embarrassing. WaPo, please stop giving her gigs she's unqualified for, just leave it to corp PR pros next time. 1/

angdraug, to random
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

It's ok to summarily block people spreading FUD and conspiracy theories about .

angdraug,
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

Still accurate.

Context of the day: https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2024/03/29/4

"openssh does not directly use liblzma. However debian and several other distributions patch openssh to support systemd notification, and libsystemd does depend on lzma."

No, systemd is not the root cause. The root cause is the sorry state of funding FOSS that leaves even core system components crumbling under tech debt.

We already had that conversation after Heartbleed. We still haven't solved it.

angdraug,
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

@ajsadauskas @Ilovethebomb @lordriffington @tomiahonen Even today, remembering MeeGo and N9 makes me ache for the world of mobile personal computers that might have been. At the platform level, Android still hasn't caught up to what MeeGo had from the start.

charliejane, to random
@charliejane@wandering.shop avatar

If you're in San Francisco (or really anywhere in one of the Super Tuesday states) please vote.

No, your nomination vote for president (probably) doesn't matter this time. But there's tons of other important stuff on the ballot.

angdraug,
@angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

@charliejane This. On my ballot, two very important choices turned out to be the most obvious (Senate primary is a choice between Adam Schiff, two Democrats who oppose helping Ukraine defend itself, and a Republican Reagan impersonator) and the least obvious (outsiders trying to hijack the Democratic County Central Committee). Pay attention and vote!

jsrailton, (edited ) to egypt
@jsrailton@mastodon.social avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    angdraug, (edited )
    @angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

    @jsrailton @citizenlab This is great news, at last! Belarusians demanded that Sandvine stop supplying the Lukashenka regime since 2020, protested at their offices in California, and we were entirely ignored for years. If they, along with their owners Francisco Partners, go out of business, good riddance.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-28/belarusian-officials-shut-down-internet-with-technology-made-by-u-s-firm

    dangillmor, to random
    @dangillmor@mastodon.social avatar

    What @Flipboard is doing here -- federating magazines -- is incredibly important. Read @mike's post to understand better how they're approaching it and why it matters.

    https://medium.com/@mmccue/federating-flipboard-magazines-575a18297bd6

    angdraug,
    @angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

    @mike Ah, so Flipboard provides curated content discovery, but no integrated content consumption. I see now how it leaves it up to content creators to build and manage relationships with their audiences.

    What do you think of the Scroll.com model? I don't know how much of a shot it had to become viable, but it was a huge disappointment when Twitter acqui-buried it. Wish I could have all my news under a single subscription and readable in Pocket/Ephemeral.

    @caseynewton @dangillmor @Flipboard

    angdraug,
    @angdraug@mastodon.social avatar

    @mike After a cursory glance, @ukraine indeed looks more useful. The sources you mentioned look good. I also recommend @timkmak and pravda.com.ua/eng.

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