@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

markhughes

@markhughes@mastodon.social

Boatperson, computer wizard, qualified counsellor, stick twizzler, father, and self enquirer.

Helping those building democratising technology to reverse the corporate capture of online spaces. Ex: #SafeNetwork

Techy self: https://fosstodon.org/@happyborg

Techy blog: https://dweb.happybeing.com

#nobridge

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tante, to random
@tante@tldr.nettime.org avatar

Quick question: Have any of the tech experts who claimed crypto to be real and important and meaningful and totally not a scam apologized so far? Or have they all just switched to doing the same for "AI"?

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@tante I don't speak about it because most who do (on either side) have closed minds.

Example: all cryptocurrency is a scam versus cryptocurrency must save the world.

I see a future for secure p2p tokens, but I'm wary of discussing that part because I think people switch off to anything else the moment it's mentioned.

What I do think is bad is energy inefficiency, centralisation of power and fraud, all of which are rife in many industries and monetary systems, not just blockchain based tokens

thisismissem, (edited ) to fediverse
@thisismissem@hachyderm.io avatar

Okay, so, I've just done a review of the features in both and .

I've written up a fuller report on the IFTAS matrix, but the tl;dr is: if you care about user safety, do not deploy either of these.

They do not feature comprehensive or well built moderation tools, and you will not be able to effectively moderate instances running this software.

You are better off waiting to deploy these once they mature more.

Edit: removed user mentions to stop spamming them.

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@thisismissem it's a shame moderation is not in place before growth but that's almost bound to be the case, as with Mastodon and every other online service.

Saying wait until it's there hampers growth and without that you won't get moderation tools so I don't agree with your conclusion.

Reviewing has value, highlighting deficiencies and lobbying for improvements is great, but hampering growth is not IMO. It's also good to let users know the risks of joining so they can make that choice.

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@thisismissem You said don't spin up instances until X.

I'm saying you won't get X without allowing to thing to grow.

It's how it ends up being whether it's a corporation or a single coder.

Most of what you did is valuable and can help us get X.

signalapp, to random
@signalapp@mastodon.world avatar

Announcement! Signal is refreshing our board as we grow. We’re delighted to welcome Katherine Maher, Amba Kak, and Jay Sullivan as Signal’s new Directors. Learn more here: https://signalfoundation.org/

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@signalapp is becoming increasingly annoying and I won't be inviting more friends or donating in future because of that.

If that's due to leaving then it's a big shame he's moved on after creating an effective solution to a serious problem.

It's a shame that legacy is being trashed so soon but I'll be looking for something that isn't centralised and which I can control, rather than a thing which thinks it should control me the way Meta and other sociopathic entities operate.

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@salt @signalapp It has started nagging me on a regular basis. I use it indeed so almost every time I do I have to deal with its nags.

It's a messaging app, I want to use it to exchange messages with friends, I don't want messages from it

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@salt @signalapp I'm not here to teach you about Signal, sorry

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@salt @signalapp if you don't know about the nags how can you help?

I'm guessing you haven't seen them because they are testing, or you are using an old version.

If you want to help, best ask if someone wants that first.

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@salt @signalapp that's nonsense. You are blocked.

talon, to random
@talon@dragonscave.space avatar

At this point I am literally just begging you to stop putting hCaptcha in your apps. Please. I don't know what else to do. Please. Please don't do it. If it's on a website we at least have a chance. As bad a chance it might be. But if it's in your app anyone who can't do a captcha is completely locked out. So please. Do not do it.

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@talon for interest, are there alternatives?

markhughes, to random
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

About Kate Raworth and Doughnut Economics. How have I not heard this before? 🤦‍♂️

This is the best article I've read on the plight of our economic and climate crises, not offering prescriptive solutions but new ways of looking at what is, and inspiring new thinking that generates decentralised action, bypassing fractured, frozen thinking and systems.

is an amazing thinker and communicator.

Well worth a read:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/08/the-planets-economist-has-kate-raworth-found-a-model-for-sustainable-living

interfluidity, to random

a thing i don’t get is what is new. i mean, computers have long been much, much “smarter” than humans in, for example, their ability to perform arithmetic, or to remember things. recent AI tools are interesting for sure, but what superior competence of theirs makes these new systems so threatening, compared to older superior competences?

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@interfluidity hype and human 'hallucination' is what makes this seem a much bigger step than it is.

It's the first time computers have seemed human in how we interact.

People are projecting human qualities into them because they don't understand what LLMs actually are. So people make invalid assumptions, and VCs and corporations are exploiting this, deliberately anthropomorphizing 's with terms like "hallucinate" instead of "make false statements".

Of course journalists amplify this. 🤷‍♂️

Decentralize, to random
@Decentralize@dt.gl avatar

's Ring to pay $5.8 million to settle FTC privacy lawsuit

https://web.archive.org/web/20230531192244/https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/31/tech/amazon-ring-ftc-complaint/index.html

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@Decentralize

👆 BREAKING: Super rich company fined pocket change for massive, deliberate abuse of people's privacy, for... profit.

steely_glint, to random
@steely_glint@chaos.social avatar

My Chrome has just updated and is now offering me some "Ads Privacy" options.

What they tell me is how f-ing invasive the Ad web is.

Why would I want one site to tell another what I'm interested in ? No Gossiping behind my back !

And no Google I don't want to help measure the effectiveness of ads since effectiveness is a synonym of making me do something I didn't intend to.

The Googlers obviously think this s**t is normal - am I alone in thinking they have lost their minds?

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@neil @steely_glint ads, not targeted ads. Paid ads are poisonous to humans.

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@neil @steely_glint you may well be but all paid advertising is necessarily bad.

It is a vector for those with money to exert control, its purpose is to subvert autonomy to the will of the advertiser.

We would have a much better society if there were no paid advertising. Word of mouth was and is more reliable, more human.

It is the same issue over social media algo's and why I prefer Mastodon to Twitter.

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@steve @tom @neil @steely_glint you can argue this back and forth endlessly, such as creating false demand for things people don't need (eg bottled water in UK) etc, which also has externalised costs (eg environment). That's not my point.
1/2

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@steve @tom @neil @steely_glint My point was simple, I don't like advertising at scale (I said paid, but it is the ability to use money to scale that I most dislike).

My reason is that paid/scaled up advertising by its nature seeks to undermine autonomy (manipulate, persuade, influence en masse) in the interests of the advertiser which one way or another is likely to be against the interests of us targets.

2/2

glynmoody, to random
@glynmoody@mastodon.social avatar

UK ministers engaged in bitter fight to halt release of Covid secrets - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/may/27/uk-ministers-engaged-in-bitter-fight-to-halt-release-of-covid-secrets insane: UK gov fighting its own inquiries...

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@glynmoody looks like they haven't taken legal advice if the article is to be believed. She has seen proof that they can't be trusted and would win in court so why would she back down now?

openrightsgroup, to random
@openrightsgroup@social.openrightsgroup.org avatar

🚨 BREAKING 🚨

Today we expose how the Information Commissioner's Office (UK) failed to protect our privacy during the pandemic.

Our report finds that our data rights weren't enforced, despite clear breaches of data protection laws by the government.

Find out more ⬇️

https://www.openrightsgroup.org/press-releases/org-report-finds-that-ico-failed-to-hold-the-government-to-account-over-use-of-public-health-data-during-pandemic/

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@openrightsgroup this is why I opt out of everything I can that government and corporations are collecting, especially apps and especially government apps.

Use VPN and websites wherever you can.

ifixcoinops, (edited ) to random

A fediverse feature that'd be way better than pinned toots: go to my profile and find a sidebar with a hierarchical menu of plain ol' HTML pages that are stored on my home instance, this is where I put the actually Good Stuff.

Easy Little Federated Websites, call it, ELFWS, think of Legolas surfing, easy to remember.

Add a button on every toot that takes you to that user's web pages. Label it "Good Stuff" so we can acknowledge that most of what I post and boost is shite

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@ifixcoinops meanwhile ChatGPT swears blind that it invented this design.

Pwnallthethings, to random
@Pwnallthethings@mastodon.social avatar

UK defsec Wallace: "We know the Russians have ... a specific naval program to look at and potentially sabotage or attack critical national infrastructure belonging to its adversaries [in the West]"

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/05/19/7402883/

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@Pwnallthethings ... because we have one too. 🤷‍♂️

glynmoody, to random
@glynmoody@mastodon.social avatar

New York City is sinking due to weight of its skyscrapers, new research finds - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/19/new-york-city-sinking-skyscrapers-climate-crisis hardly a surprising, since continents are themselves floating on lower layers of rock

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@glynmoody Little Venice becoming Big Venice?

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@glynmoody my mistake even though I know it well and even live in a boat! 🤦‍♂️

Was confusing with Little Italy, perhaps understandably given recent events in Bologna!

timbray, to random
@timbray@cosocial.ca avatar

I try to admit publicly when it looks like I’ve been wrong. For some years I joined loudly in expressing skepticism that Tether (USDT) was actually backed with real money. Per Matt Levine, today, it looks like whatever their status may have been in the past, USDT is now quite likely $-backed: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-05-18/tether-bought-some-bitcoin

[Doesn’t mean I don’t want to burn the whole cryptocurrency sector to the ground with fire, because it’s environmentally untenable and used to fleece rubes.]

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@timbray so if a token was energy efficient, had real use cases and many other benefits you'd support it?

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@josephholsten @timbray that only applies if you assume a similar technical solution as Eth, BTC.

So I'll add:

  • energy efficient, instant massively scalable transactions
  • no ledger but anonymous 'spend history' (amounts not exposed)
  • verifiable supply and validity of payment
  • ability to earn the token by anyone using ordinary hardware (even Raspberry pi), so without KYC

All open source, being developed transparently for several years, so verifiable history & project values.

markhughes,
@markhughes@mastodon.social avatar

@timbray @josephholsten agreed and both your reactions are understandable for that reason.

I mined bitcoin on an ordinary laptop 2010ish. I didn't anticipate what followed but kept a close eye and spotted this project in 2014, in preference to Ethereum which I did not like.

It was always values driven, eschewed VC offers and remains independent/OS. Tech now coming together.

Joseph, yes DBCs but not encumbered or centralised mint, (no mint in fact).

Predates scams, worth serious watch.

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