People living in Belgium are sometimes legally obligated to perform an administrative task. At the same time, sometimes the only mechanism to do so imposes some technology that’s actually exclusive....
Thanks for pointing that out. It works for me too. I just happened to select a different instance where it actually works. Here’s the instance where it’s broken:
That’s is how I got around it in the past. For some reason that was not an option where I needed it (perhaps the browser I was using was locked down in some way). In any case, I’m wondering why the variation in behavior. Is this a bug in Invidious?
Ungoogled Chromium indeed reproduces the issue. But so does the public library, which likely was Firefox in Windows. So i guess it might be hasty to conclude that it’s browser specific, particularly when other videos on the same instance behave differently in the same browser.
I don’t get why my fellow pirates try so hard to justify what they’re doing. We want something and we don’t want to pay the price for it because it’s either too expensive or too difficult, so we go the cheaper, easier route. And because these are large corporations trying to fuck everyone out of every last dime, we don’t feel guilt about it.
Justification is important to those who act against unethical systems. You have to separate the opportunists from the rest. An opportunist will loot any defenseless shop without the slightest sense of ethics. That’s not the same group as those who either reject an unjust system or specifically condemn a particular supplier (e.g. Sony, who is an ALEC member and who was caught unlawfully using GPL code in their DRM tools). Some would say it’s our ethical duty to do everything possible to boycott, divest, and punish Sony until they are buried.
We have a language problem that needs sorting. While it may almost¹ be fair enough to call an opportunist a “pirate” who engages in “piracy”, these words are chosen abusively as a weapon against even those who practice civil disobedience against a bad system.
I say /almost/ because even in the simple case of an opportunistic media grab, equating them with those who rape and pillage is still a bit off (as RMS likes to mention).
I think you see the same problem with the thread title that I do - it’s clever but doesn’t really give a solid grounds for ethically driven actions. But it still helps to capture the idea that paying consumers are getting underhandedly deceptively stiffed by crippled purchases, which indeed rationalizes civil disobedience to some extent.
The difference is that grabbing it pre-FTA is also grabbing a perfect copy. The quality may not matter to many of us, but to some it does. And because it matters to some, major copyright holders have started to treat unlicensed exchanges as “competition” from a business PoV (which is a concession from strictly seeing it as crime). So their business strategy is to compete with the unlicensed channels by offering perfect quality media at a price (they hope) people are willing to pay (also in part to avoid the inconvenience and dodgyness of the black market).
FWiW, that’s their take and it’s why they get extra aggressive when the unlicensed version is perfect.
It’s like saying “you’re a bad company. . .but damn do I like your product and will consume it anyway!” it doesn’t make much sense, logically or morally.
Sony is a dispensible broker/manager who no one likely assigns credit to for a work. I didn’t even know who Sony pimped -- just had to look it up. The Karate Kid, Spider-man, Pink Floyd.. Do you really think that when someone experiences those works, they walk away saying “what a great job Sony did”?
I don’t praise Sony for the quality of the works they market any more than I would credit a movie theater for a great movie that I experience. Roger Waters will create his works whether Sony is involved or not.
You also seem to be implying they have good metrics on black market activity and useful feedback from that. This is likely insignificant compared to rating platforms like Netflix and the copious metrics Netflix collects.
Can you explain further why grabbing an unlicensed work helps Sony? Are you assuming the consumer would recommend the work to others who then go buy it legitimately?
If it becomes a trend to shoplift Sony headphones, the merchant takes a hit and has to decide whether to spend more money on security, or to simply quit selling Sony headphones due to reduced profitability. I don’t see how that helps Sony. I don’t shoplift myself but if I did I would target brands I most object to.
When you register an “ebox” box #Belgium for official correspondence, they warn you that correspondence has been “received” merely by landing in your inbox, even if you do not login....
More fun to mention 11 “states” at a 5.1% uninsured cutoff, because number 11 is Peurto Rico -- a US territory that you might expect to be less developed. Since people are forced to run javascript to see the list, I’ll copy it here up to the 6% point:
Massachusetts
District of Columbia
Hawaii
Vermont
Iowa (what’s a red state doing here?)
Rhode Island
Minnesota
New Hampshire
Michigan
New York
Puerto Rico
Connecticut
Pennsylvania
Wisconsin
Kentucky (what’s a red state doing here?)
Delaware
Ohio (what’s a red state doing here? OH will worsen over time; to be fair they only recently became solidly red)
West Virginia
…
(22) California (6.5%.. worse than we might expect for CA)
…
(52) Texas ← ha! Of course Texass is last. 16.6% uninsured in the most notable red state showing us how to take care of people
The general pattern is expected.. the bottom of the list is mostly red states.
The Schaerbeek newsletter (vol. 390) page 14 says American start-ups will be considered to write software for the digital transformation that’s being forced on us....
Vivaqua removed their cash machine and now refuses cash. So indeed: being able to get access to water service in #Brussels is now contingent on being accepted by the bank and agreeing to use banking services....
Not sure what Grafana is but I can’t even visit the site because they block Tor (403). Gotta love how easy it is to see-and-avoid some privacy-hostile venues. If you were using Tor you might not have wasted 1 minute with that site.
Hello /m/cybersecurity folks! Wanted to get a pulse check on those who use this particular community. I mod both here at Fedia as well as at infosec.pub for /cybersecurity. I run a few weekly threads (e.g. Mentorship Monday) at infosec.pub and have tried to run those same weekly threads here but they get barely any traction,...
It’s revolting & sad to see cybersecurity communities on instances that are antithetical to infosec, such as:
cybersecurity@lemmy.world ← Cloudflare site (thus disrespects confidentiality, deliberately configured as tor-hostile “CF Threat Score BLOCK”)
cybersecurity@sh.itjust.works ← Cloudflare site (thus disrespects confidentiality, incompetently configured with defaults)
cybersecurity@lemmy.ml ← too big… not necessarily antithetical to cybersec but antithetical to the fedi concept of decentralization
fedia.io is an infosec-centric instance which actually respects the privacy of participants. And the admin of fedia.io is the most competent I’ve seen in the fedi. So this mag should be getting all the cybersec traffic. The only solution I can think of is a movement to get people to first post on !cybersecurity and cross-post some content to the above groups in a way that ensures !cybersecurity is seen as the origin of the post to increase awareness.
I figured you were trolling but gave you the benefit of the doubt right up until you mentioned “all credit reporting agencies”, in Belgium. There are no credit bureaus in Belgium, only a central bank which (unlike US credit bureaus) is public sector and not interested in grabbing data for profit, or in obtaining any data it’s not legally required to obtain.
Nice try though.
But FYI, your assumption would be wrong even in the US as well. Request your credit report from whichever credit bureau you believe is buying location data from your mobile phone provider. Notice the realtime location data is not on that report. Then go to your local small claims court and spend ~$100 to open a lawsuit against them for $1k (+~100 in court costs). Bring to court proof that they acquired your realtime CDMA/GSM location data, a copy of your credit report showing it’s not there, and a copy of the federal law requiring that consumer credit reports are complete when sent to the subject of the report (yourself). It might be the easiest $1k you’ve earned. You don’t have to prove actual damages either because the statute specifies $1k per violation. If you can catch all three credit bureaus doing what you claim, that’s an easy $3k. You can even hit all 3 in one case. Good luck!
BTW, I don’t put much stock into what you’re saying at this point but I am curious about the claim that phone providers are sharing sensitive personal info with Visa and Mastercard. Cardholders are just a number to visa & mc. Visa & MC do not even typically know the names of card holders. Exceptionally, if you buy airfare using a credit card, then the airline reveals the name of the passenger to the credit card company. Though to store that name as the account holder is ad hoc because they would have to make the assumption that the passenger and the buyer are the same person.
oh, that’s interesting. I wonder if card-issuing banks are blocking balance inquiries even if ATMs offer it. I don’t think I saw Ing ATMs in Netherlands, only the conglomerate they are partnered with (geldmaat). The Geldmaat ATMs print “credit limit” on the receipt.
If you search, you’ll learn several privacy-abusing ways to do that via enshitified exclusive walled gardens which share the site you’re asking about with US tech giants and treat users of VPNs, Tor, and CGNAT with hostility.
❌https://downdetector.com/ ← avoid (Cloudflare)
❌https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/ ← avoid (Cloudflare); I think #downforeveryoneorjustme was one of the 1st of this kind but then it got greedy and became exclusive
🤷https://www.isitdownrightnow.com/ ← meh (inclusive of everyone for the moment, but uses CF DNS so could spontaneously proxy through CF; broken on lynx because 1st party js req’d)
✓#downinspector ← decent, lesser of evils (CF-free & always inclusive of everyone, but does not work on lynx and requires JS; it pushes CF JS but still works if you only run 1st party js)
I only listed 2 bad ones (the 1st two) but when you search the first dozen results are shit. What could be more shitty than being directed to CAPTCHAs and other exclusive bullshit in the course of trying to troubleshoot a problem?
Also, the community we’re in here is “nostupidquestions”.
I spent an incredible amount of time over the past few days unf*cking the fedia.io database. It should be clean now and that should both dramatically improve performance and fix all or most all of the remaining error 500’s
Was there any data loss? The comments tab of my profile only shows 11 comments which only go back 1 week (perhaps to around this “we’re back” thread). I should have much more than that.
I don’t really see the point of this. It’s just adding complexity for the sake of it. As far as I can tell when you change gear it just changes some software parameters, there are no physical gears. Yet there’s a clutch and the ability to stall?
I can see a practical use for this if the simulation is as genuine as claimed. If a driver wants to learn how to drive stick it seems these cars can be used for teaching it without risking damage like that of gears grinding. They could learn how to use a clutch before starting to learn to drive a sports bike, for example.
Both stamp prices and registered letter prices have been taking giant leaps. A charge of €9.85 for confirmed registered letters is not #inflation, it’s crazy....
One option if the destination is close to you, you can deliver letters yourself and simply ask the recipient to sign for it. Companies and orgs have no issue with this.
What happens in Belgium when you have a legal obligation to do some administrative task & you can’t b/c of bad tech? (fedia.io)
People living in Belgium are sometimes legally obligated to perform an administrative task. At the same time, sometimes the only mechanism to do so imposes some technology that’s actually exclusive....
Seeing lots of posts from centralized instances (e.g. lemmy.world) (fedia.io)
I have ensured that I am not subscribed to any mags on centralized instances. E.g....
SNCB still dead to me. Privacy-hostile enshitified protectionist website and yet very high prices (winner: the bus) (fedia.io)
I quit using the trains a couple years ago because SNCB started blocking Tor, which is a form of privacy abuse....
When /some/ YT videos get special download-resistent treatment but not others (fedia.io)
For example, this invidious instance offers a download option for a YoutTube video, as that instance does for all YT videos:...
If purchasing isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t stealing (fosstodon.org)
I am ashamed that I hadn’t reasoned this through given all the rubbish digital services have pulled with “purchases” being lies.
Belgian eBox service assumes recipients have received their correspondence even if they do not login -- really?? (fedia.io)
When you register an “ebox” box #Belgium for official correspondence, they warn you that correspondence has been “received” merely by landing in your inbox, even if you do not login....
The US doesn’t have universal health care — but these states (almost) do (www.vox.com)
Ten states have uninsured rates below 5 percent. What are they doing right?...
American start-ups are being brought in to produce public services software (yikes!) (issuu.com)
The Schaerbeek newsletter (vol. 390) page 14 says American start-ups will be considered to write software for the digital transformation that’s being forced on us....
Vivaqua has quit accepting cash payments (fedia.io)
Vivaqua removed their cash machine and now refuses cash. So indeed: being able to get access to water service in #Brussels is now contingent on being accepted by the bank and agreeing to use banking services....
Grafana GDPR fail?
When I look at Grafana here: grafana.com/legal/privacy-policy/...
/m/cybersecurity community feedback request (fedia.io)
Hello /m/cybersecurity folks! Wanted to get a pulse check on those who use this particular community. I mod both here at Fedia as well as at infosec.pub for /cybersecurity. I run a few weekly threads (e.g. Mentorship Monday) at infosec.pub and have tried to run those same weekly threads here but they get barely any traction,...
Do any ATMs in Belgium support balance inquiries? (fedia.io)
ATMs I’ve checked:...
Is mander.xyz down?
I don’t know how else to check :)
We’re back (fedia.io)
I spent an incredible amount of time over the past few days unf*cking the fedia.io database. It should be clean now and that should both dramatically improve performance and fix all or most all of the remaining error 500’s
Toyota to offer manual gearbox in next-generation electric cars (www.autocar.co.uk)
I don’t really see the point of this. It’s just adding complexity for the sake of it. As far as I can tell when you change gear it just changes some software parameters, there are no physical gears. Yet there’s a clutch and the ability to stall?
bPost now charges €9.90 for registered letters. Any competition? (fedia.io)
Both stamp prices and registered letter prices have been taking giant leaps. A charge of €9.85 for confirmed registered letters is not #inflation, it’s crazy....