I’d say that Apple is way worse than Google in a lot of cases. But this doesn’t mean Google are saints either. Both companies collect huge swaths of data on their users and easily share it with LEA. at least Google doesn’t hide behind a fake “Privacy” curtain like apple does.
Even though Google kept Android opens source for their own personal gains but this still helped get us Graphene OS, and other privacy and security focused Custom Roms. And they could’ve or still can kill entire custom ROM market if they want to (I hope they don’t read this and get any idea). And currently only Google pixel devices allow you to relock the bootloader with custom keys no other phone manufacturer does that. And apple doesn’t even allow you to sideload apps for “security reasons”. When it could be argued that Graphene OS is much more secure than both stock apple and android.
Why would a company hoard up such an enormous pool of money? That couldn’t have been more prudently spent on R+D or whatever Apple does nowadays?
The only reason to horde wealth like that is to threaten nation(s). Apple can decide to sell off its trillion dollars and tank the entire global economy, great depression style.
They’re commiting economic terrorism and I won’t shed any tears if Tim Cook, the rest of the CSuite or any board members just end up disappearing. In my eyes thatd just make trhe world a better place.
+1, either cull them from the union or cull them from the free trade deals.
What makes no sense is to let them decide to not enforce the EU rules while at the same time treating them as if they are a valid compliant member when it comes to trading with other countries in the union.
It isn’t hard to see why France is taking action to manage visitor numbers. After all, locals and the environment should come first. If they can’t survive, will there eventually be anything actually worth visiting?
Excellent. This about sums it up. Portugal could take a page off France's book while it is not too late, but I won't hold my breath.
I very much enjoy to travel. When I visit I want to be part of the country, culture, life, not put up in a hotel complex that could have been put anywhere in the world because they all look the same. What's the point of visiting a country if all you ever see is the pool and the bar?
The think tank ghouls are the worst. If I had it in my ability to just wipe the Heritage Foundation, Focus on The Family, and all those other consortiums of reaction from the earth…
I imagine the fact that all nationalists around the West suddenly felt that hating each other on nationalist grounds and instead just attacking the liberal democracy and the welfare states that created the societies that are worth living in is just a coincidence. It has certainly nothing to do with the Russian and Chinese spy networks constantly being unearthed and linked to these groups.
beyond parody. an article outlining how the US supports fascists, but you gotta somehow make it about russia/china bad.
but yeah, it’s gotta be external funding from somewhere, because 1) europeans do not think at all so all ideas are just suggested to them from outside and 2) the complete failure of neoliberalism, combined with decades of anticommunist brainwashing certainly cant explain why people dissatisfied with the failing system are choosing fascism.
Russia is and has been funding Trump, and has and is using proxies to influence other nations as well. Tell me otherwise, why the everloving fuck is Hungary standing up a military intelligence base in Chad for example? Or who is Deutsche Bank getting their money back from if not Trump? Or what was GOP leadership doing in Moscow on the 4th of July?
By the way, it’s not “Russia/China bad”, it’s authoritarian Russian Putin supports authoritarian American Trump supports authoritarian Slovakian Fico supports authoritarian Hungarian Orbán supports authoritarian Chinese Xi. No problem with the Russian or Chinese or the American people at large. It’s just the psychopathic swindlers “leading” the world.
yeah, definitely nothing to do with living standards falling in the west due decades of psychopatic neoliberal policies. deffo not what’s making mask off fascism popular again. the always thriving domestic fascist industry also has nothing to do with it.
hungary is doing its own weird shit as usual, being fascist and trying to ride two horses at once. this isnt because of russian funding, it’s because hungary is predisposed to this type of idiocy. and also the failure of post-counterrevolution neoliberal politics.
as for authoritarianism, that’s a funny thing to say in the middle mass arrests of people who protest a genocide that biden is actively supporting and running interference for. but i guess that’s not authoritarianism to you. out of interest, what do you think authoritarianism is?
There is nuance and there are more than two sides. Biden being a corporate-beholden asshat does not mean Trump is not a wannabe American dictator funded by a Russian dictator.
hungary is predisposed to this type of idiocy. and also the failure of post-counterrevolution neoliberal politics.
What counterrevolution? Hungary’s Minister of Interior, widely regarded to be one of the most powerful people in current Hungarian politics, is the ex-communist head of Budapest Police. Orbán was a highly placed Young Communist. And don’t even get me started on the other parties that were founded before 2010. Every government since 1990 had strong ties to the original Hungarian Socialist Worker’s Party.
Hungary didn’t change one bit, it’s just the “vanguard” realized they can steal more from European coffers.
If anything, the last real revolution in Hungary since 1848 was in 1956, when the Russian imperialist conquerors didn’t like that Hungary wanted to be an independent communist country not submitting to Russian imperialism, and Russian soldiers came in to massacre the communist revolutionaries. I heard that happened in other places as well. But of course Nagy Imre was a Western plant, at least according to the Russians.
are you familiar with the concept of time? all our so called democratic opposition grew out of communist families. what else would they be? the country was communist. doesnt change the fact that they did a counterrevolution.
also, orban a highly placed young communist? what? he was part of the “democratic” (read counterrevolutionary, liberal) opposition from early on, kept in contact with polish anticommunists, etc. or do you mean that he joined the young communist league at his high school when he was 14? highly placed indeed.
and yes, because it was a counterrevolution at a special time in history, it wasnt visibly violent and so many of our politicians got to keep their jobs in the new system. all they had to do was betray the people, which they did. some happily, some because they believed western propaganda.
1956 was a much more complex affair than you paint it here. some of the revolt wanted independent communism (how they imagined that’d work with the west coming for them, i have no idea). some were rabid fascists out for blood. either way, the soviets didnt trust them, likely because this is a country that was enthusiastically supporting the nazis just a few short years before. having seen where the country’s gone since the counterrevolution, i dont blame them.
Orbán was the local secretary (eg. head) of his chapter of the KISZ in his high school. Young Communists are schoolkids, and he was a local leader. He always sucked up where he could. He went to Soros when he paid, then the EU when that paid, then Putin when he needed a local bitch for money, and we got Xi’s “wisdom” broadcasting on national television right now, with Chinese policemen patrolling in Budapest’s streets, and Chinese battery factories poisoning the countryside.
The big lie of Russia and China is that they are some “underdogs” and not oppressed countries whose leadership is solely in it for the money and power. No, the Western system is not perfect, it has big, glaring issues, especially in the US. But Biden does not own a superyacht that is worth more than the largest ship in the US fleet. Putin’s yacht was more expensive than the Moskva, late flagship of the Black Sea fleet. Point is, it is true that some things our elected leaders are doing are a fucking travesty. But Putin and Xi are not going to save us from them, as they are just the same as our worst, except with more power and less accountability.
Just ask yourself, why is a supposed communist country led by a billionaire? And why is it funding fascists?
what on earth are you talking about, every high school had a KISZ secretary, this doesnt make orban a highly placed young communist. but, yes, he was always an ambitious man who believed in nothing. i dont know why you’re telling me this, i know.
No, the Western system is not perfect, it has big, glaring issues,
the western system has committed the most genocides of any power in history. it’s not even close, it’s like an order of magnitude more at least. this is the system you’re calling flawed but ultimately good.
and bringing up china (which lifted hundreds of millions of out poverty in the last few decades alone, but sure, the leaders are only in it for money) in the same breath as modern russia… deeply unserious.
Don’t you think that those influence and disinformation campaigns have always been around? In the past, they really only had to think about other nation-state agencies discovering them. These days, it seems as likely to be an academic conducting research or a hobbyist saying “Now that’s weird…”
Google develops ChromeOS which embeds Debian, and it has already been forked with fydeos. And is based on the open source ChromiumOS. Do not compare it with MS.
German Bundestag have therefore repeatedly called for state IT systems to be converted to open source software that can be tested by Europe’s own security authorities.
The idea of all the governing bodies of an entire continent doing this and collectively giving Microsoft the middle finger pleases me.
It would also probably boost open source development in general like crazy, all that budget and legitimisation, hell maybe the governments would even put staff to work on it.
Europe has forced USBC and multiple app repositories on some apple products, has forced WhatsApp to interoperate with other chat clients like telegram and signal. It could force windows to be open source
For new plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) first registered in 2021, the real-world CO2 emissions were on average 3.5 times (4 l/100km or 100 g CO2/km) higher than the type-approval values, which confirms that these vehicles are currently not realising their potential, largely because they are not being charged and driven fully electrically as frequently as assumed.
I don’t think, you can hotfix this. Microsoft is a US company and therefore by US law (PATRIOT & CLOUD act) required to violate EU data protection laws (unless they retract from the EU market, of course).
I mean, that it took the EU this long to react to something that’s clearly been amiss since the GDPR went into force, that certainly doesn’t have my hopes high, but I don’t think Microsoft needs to be involved to filibuster the enforcememt of this.
The EDPS has therefore decided to order the Commission, effective on 9 December 2024, to suspend all data flows resulting from its use of Microsoft 365 to Microsoft and to its affiliates and sub-processors located in countries outside the EU/EEA not covered by an adequacy decision. The EDPS has also decided to order the Commission to bring the processing operations resulting from its use of Microsoft 365 into compliance with Regulation (EU) 2018/1725. The Commission must demonstrate compliance with both orders by 9 December 2024.
They should ditch them for so many other reasons too. Also Public Money, Public Code. Al public institutions should only use libre and opensurce software. The only way to preserve privacy, freedom, and digital sovereignty.
Some European entities have already jumped to LibreOffice. It’s a European-made drop-in replacement. I’m surprised at them not simply ordering the Commission to switch immediately.
Your assessment is all fun and games until you realizasse they don’t have another option right now than using Microsoft 365. They’ll simply pressure Microsoft into implementing a few changes to comply with the legislation and move on. Microsoft also doesn’t want their large governmental customers so they’ll do it.
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