cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
I sense a good band name
Bi-Partisan Senate report calls for sweeping effort to stop Russian trolls on social media platforms.
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
If you haven’t read Neal Stephenson’s Anathem, you’re in for a treat. Imagine a world that’s been cycling in and out of advanced society for millennia, with the wardens of technology stabilized into something monastic, and the IT subclass even more withdrawn.
As a result, their version of the internet has turned into an odd ecology dominated by pathogens and requiring users to develop unique skills. Coupla excerpts about a discussion between a nerd and a geek, whom extraordinary events have combined in violation of a core taboo.
Excerpts and comments from a Ycombinator link. Syndev = network computer/server.
I'm reminded of a throwaway line from the book Anathem by Neal Stephenson (well worth reading by the way)
“If you must know, they probably ran an asamocra on me.” “Asamocra?” “Asynchronous, symmetrically anonymized, moderated open-cry repute auction."
I'll bet that Stephenson was probably inspired by the way auctions for Google AdWords work. In any case, the idea of conducting an auction to determine reputation of a data source is intriguing.
—
For those who have not read Anathen, some context may be interesting.
> “Early in the Reticulum-thousands of years ago-it became almost useless because it was cluttered with faulty, obsolete, or downright misleading information,” Sammann said.
> “Crap, you once called it,” I reminded him.
> “Yes-a technical term. So crap filtering became important. Businesses were built around it. Some of those businesses came up with a clever plan to make more money: they poisoned the well. They began to put crap on the Reticulum deliberately, forcing people to use their products to filter that crap back out. They created syndevs whose sole purpose was to spew crap into the Reticulum. But it had to be good crap.”
> “What is good crap?” Arsibalt asked in a politely incredulous tone.
> “Well, bad crap would be an unformatted document consisting of random letters. Good crap would be a beautifully typeset, well-written document that contained a hundred correct, verifiable sentences and one that was subtly false. It’s a lot harder to generate good crap. At first they had to hire humans to churn it out. They mostly did it by taking legitimate documents and inserting errors-swapping one name for another, say. But it didn’t really take off until the military got interested.”
> “As a tactic for planting misinformation in the enemy’s reticules, you mean,” Osa said. “This I know about. You are referring to the Artificial Inanity programs of the mid-First Millennium A.R.”
> “Exactly!” Sammann said. “Artificial Inanity systems of enormous sophistication and power were built for exactly the purpose Fraa Osa has mentioned. In no time at all, the praxis leaked to the commercial sector and spread to the Rampant Orphan Botnet Ecologies. Never mind. The point is that there was a sort of Dark Age on the Reticulum that lasted until my Ita forerunners were able to bring matters in hand.”
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
True, but the FBI is also part of the executive branch, which is why something dealing with the internet IMO would be best left to a quasi-government system like the Fed is. Appointing people, senate confirming them, term limits that last longer than the current POTUS and then also have checks inside the institutions that they are working within so that they are not beholden to the person who is appointing them, and allows the American public time to get a different POTUS into office to offset any trolls that may be appointed.
This is a bit muddy, because the POTUS would have to actually have cause to do it, and then may face a court challenge if they disagreed and have to prove it wasn't just a policy difference. But let's say they pulled a DeSantis and just came up with some bullshit reason and had stuffed the courts with people they have enough dirt on to get them to find the cases in the way that they want and it held up. The other board members would have been voted in and approved by the senate would still be in control over the policy, and could even outvote a troll appointment if the senate allowed that POTUS to appoint them.
And again, with the Fed system, they still have banks that are buying into the system in place, so assuming that there was some real nazi shit going on, there is another check on the decisions being made. And even on top of that, 'we the people', still have another check with our money being in those banks, and could just withdraw it if shit was going down.
Those are things that the POTUS are able to actually do by themselves though (I do think they should be taken back a bit since he proved that it is dangerous to have it in one person's hands when he burned our (albeit a struggling one) relationship with China and Iran and tried with all of our other trading partners (EU/NAFTA).
But again the Fed, being outside of his control, held up against his pressure and was a big reason why we were able to move out of the recession Trump's shit handling of the pandemic deepened.
I'd argue that this is already the case, except it is foreign governments downloading spyware and everything having cookies that is tracking everything we are doing, and only our own government/us users are blind to what is going on when we log into anything.
As for having (in my bullshit example) Google given the ability to make the internet safer/less sketchy for us citizens with 'safe zones' for schools/people to know that they are looking at actual people's accounts, and not foreign propaganda trolls, and have a way to hold Google's chair accountable if they were messing up the mission or suppressing people (not that it is not already occurring too but in this case by anyone who is hosting the sites, which we really have no clue about) with our votes/ability to use other sites not being monitored by google.
The SCOTUS is a pretty good example though. Because as screwed as it is atm, it has taken about what 50 years of Republican fuckery to get it to where it is now. The Democrats have been too busy trying to legislate with next to nothing on their side (white flight/gerrymandering/defunding cities kept power out of Dem's hands on the local/state level) while building up the very first actual political party to truly be represented by the entirety of the people they govern.
It has been a slow long lift, because at every turn there have been left trolls in the Democratic Party helping to pull-up the ladder after the white men were able to take advantage of it and writing in laws to hurt the ability for others to gain power in our system, and the Republicans have taken advantage of the lag by doing things like stacking the courts for decades.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_appointment_history_for_United_States_federal_courts
I don't think I can agree with the way you worded this. Political interference is kind of vague, sure they will try, Trump did, but it was very limited in its impact.
Can it happen over a longer term, sure. But in the shorter term, with the Fed still having all the other board members, and the American people being the ones that ultimately will or will not be putting Trump's dumbass back into power along with the senators (who are also gerrymandered by our current state makeup) voting for them having the people investing their money in those banks up their asses, I do.
People catfishing others, scams trying to download malware, attacking things like our power grids or hospital computers to hold those patents hostage, and being nimble enough to help mitigate their impacts are things that if labeled a bad actor get you, then there should be a way to do it.
People getting a warning label slapped on them because they are pushing death cult troll information is not hurting their free speech, nor would it stop their ability to just log into a different website that is not under control of a quasi-governemnt backed site. Just like I could turn around and stupidly dump all my money into some cryptocurrency scam and avoid the Federal Reserve system.
There is no reason why I would disagree with you, and no reason to think that would happen.
This is why I have my bullshit Schrödinger's cat theory of the internet. I just assume everything has two states when online, it is either a troll or real and unless I know, which is impossible, I try to keep in mind that I don't know, and should always keep that in mind when I start to feel one way or another about whatever it is that I am feeling.
It is really scary how crisp this is all starting to get.
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
It’s easy to deep-fake audio.
Unfortunately, in this day and age where the intellectually lazy consider themselves anointed graduates of Youtube University (!) —
crap like this can have political consequences.
I point to Republican voters for the last 15+ years as a particularly detrimental example.
Nugnewbie
Well-Known Member
Spate of Mock News Sites With Russian Ties Pop Up in U.S.
The fake news organizations, experts say, represent a technological leap in the Kremlin’s efforts to spread false and misleading narratives.
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
The good news is it seems that someone with the ability to do something about it is paying attention and exposing it.Spate of Mock News Sites With Russian Ties Pop Up in U.S.
The fake news organizations, experts say, represent a technological leap in the Kremlin’s efforts to spread false and misleading narratives.www.nytimes.com
I hope they do some very very deep digging on it and expose the scam that has been building for a long time.
https://www.rollitup.org/t/michigans-new-local-news-website-scam-1000s-more-coming-to-other-states.998898/
The issue will be that the Republicans are Americans doing it are likely not very different at all.
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
Spate of Mock News Sites With Russian Ties Pop Up in U.S.
The fake news organizations, experts say, represent a technological leap in the Kremlin’s efforts to spread false and misleading narratives.
Maddow did a piece on this last night where she shows the catfishing troll to Republicans senator chain that these troll news sites are used that was pretty good. The professor she had on after has the same overwhelming dread I have about the overwhelming nature of this attack.
Again though the only thing that I wish they would do, is point out that this is not a 'one-side' thing, and that it is happening to everyone from every political angle, nudging people into not voting if they can't get them to vote for their fascist of choice.
Nugnewbie
Well-Known Member
I missed her show unfortunately, and can't open the video you posted.
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
All the other clips I can find on it (that are not the full show from last night), cut out the lead up on the catfishing account and the professor who wrote it.
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
I know China, not Russia, but still.... My other thread against online disinformation got locked.....
https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-ban-house-vote-china-national-security-8fa7258fae1a4902d344c9d978d58a37
*every bit of data on who they are, who they know that is watching them, how their repossess/viewing of news/triggereed enough to 'like'/how much time is spent on /website or story/etc are being given, and then used with basic data analuysis software to score them into some estimated radicalization scale to use another program/rl trolls to have the most impact on our society (from small scale (say 5 family memebers friends that give a shit what they have to say to whatever number of actual human beings it is that actual celebrities have following what they decide is important) have posted/reposted to other actual humans) to try to get some outcome that they are looking to do. So by having any sort of possible 'input' into someone like Tur's ear would make them a cheap (since social media is free outside of the couple cents /per period of time ((after whatever it was for them to build the platform they are on))) it is to pay a troll to attempt to brainwash that mark ((ass bitch)) would cost the dictators of our planet, it really is a virtual certainty that she is right to call them out on air.
https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-ban-house-vote-china-national-security-8fa7258fae1a4902d344c9d978d58a37
Lol got to give it up to Katy Tur, she just called out her staff on having Tik Tok on their phones, because every single thing they are doing is being 'tracked'*. Which considering that she is a famous tv personality with respect to cable news would make all her employees marks, is almost a certainty that they are being targeted to radicalization is a very very good idea.WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Wednesday passed a bill that would lead to a nationwide ban of the popular video app TikTok if its China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake, as lawmakers acted on concerns that the company’s current ownership structure is a national security threat.
The bill, passed by a vote of 352-65, now goes to the Senate, where its prospects are unclear.
TikTok, which has more than 150 million American users, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese technology firm ByteDance Ltd.
The lawmakers contend that ByteDance is beholden to the Chinese government, which could demand access to the data of TikTok’s consumers in the U.S. any time it wants. The worry stems from a set of Chinese national security laws that compel organizations to assist with intelligence gathering.
“We have given TikTok a clear choice,” said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. “Separate from your parent company ByteDance, which is beholden to the CCP (the Chinese Communist Party), and remain operational in the United States, or side with the CCP and face the consequences. The choice is TikTok’s.”
House passage of the bill is only the first step. The Senate would also need to pass the measure for it to become law, and lawmakers in that chamber indicated it would undergo a thorough review. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he’ll have to consult with relevant committee chairs to determine the bill’s path.
House passes a bill that could lead to a TikTok ban if Chinese owner refuses to sell
AP Washington correspondent Sagar Meghani reports a bill that could lead to a TikTok ban in the U.S. has easily passed the House -- but its path forward is unclear.
President Joe Biden has said if Congress passes the measure, he will sign it.
The House vote is the latest example of increased tensions between China and the U.S. By targeting TikTok, lawmakers are tackling what they see as a grave threat to America’s national security — but also singling out a platform popular with millions of people, many of whom skew younger, just months before an election.
A TikTok spokesperson, Alex Haurek, said in a statement after the vote that the bill was jammed through as part of a secretive process.
“We are hopeful that the Senate will consider the facts, listen to their constituents, and realize the impact on the economy, 7 million small businesses, and the 170 million Americans who use our service,” Haurek said.
In anticipation of the vote, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, accused Washington of resorting to political tools when U.S. businesses fail to compete. He said the effort would disrupt normal business operations and undermine investor confidence “and will eventually backfire on the U.S. itself.”
Overall, 197 Republican lawmakers voted for the measure and 15 against. On the Democratic side, 155 voted for the bill and 50 against.
Some Republican opponents of the bill said the U.S. should warn consumers if there are data privacy and propaganda concerns, but the final choice should be left with consumers.
“The answer to authoritarianism is not more authoritarianism,” said Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif. “The answer to CCP-style propaganda is not CCP-style oppression. Let us slow down before we blunder down this very steep and slippery slope.”
Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y.
Democrats also warned of the impact a ban would have on users in the U.S., including entrepreneurs and business owners. One of the no votes came from Rep. Jim Himes, the ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee.
“One of the key differences between us and those adversaries is the fact that they shut down newspapers, broadcast stations, and social media platforms. We do not,” Himes said. “We trust our citizens to be worthy of their democracy. We do not trust our government to decide what information they may or may not see.”
The day before the House vote, top national security officials in the Biden administration held a closed-door briefing with lawmakers to discuss TikTok and the national security implications. Lawmakers are balancing those security concerns against a desire not to limit free speech online.
“What we’ve tried to do here is be very thoughtful and deliberate about the need to force a divestiture of TikTok without granting any authority to the executive branch to regulate content or go after any American company,” said Rep. Mike Gallagher, the bill’s author, as he emerged from the briefing.
Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif.
TikTok has long denied that it could be used as a tool of the Chinese government. The company has said it has never shared U.S. user data with Chinese authorities and won’t do so if it is asked. To date, the U.S. government also has not provided evidence that shows TikTok shared such information with Chinese authorities.
Republican leaders moved quickly to bring up the bill after its introduction last week by Gallagher and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill. A House committee approved the legislation unanimously, on a 50-0 vote, even after their offices were inundated with calls from TikTok users demanding they drop the effort. Some offices even shut off their phones because of the onslaught. Supporters of the bill said the effort backfired.
“(It) provided members a preview of how the platform could be weaponized to inject disinformation into our system,” Gallagher said.
“I’m actually appalled for many reasons,” Salinger said. “The speed with which they’re pushing this bill through does not give enough time for Americans to voice their concerns and opinions.”
Former President Donald Trump has spoken out against the House effort, but his vice president, Mike Pence, is urging Schumer to bring the House bill to a vote.
“There can be no doubt that this app is Chinese spyware and that a sale to a non-foreign adversary company is in the best interests of the American people,” Pence said in a letter to Schumer.
*every bit of data on who they are, who they know that is watching them, how their repossess/viewing of news/triggereed enough to 'like'/how much time is spent on /website or story/etc are being given, and then used with basic data analuysis software to score them into some estimated radicalization scale to use another program/rl trolls to have the most impact on our society (from small scale (say 5 family memebers friends that give a shit what they have to say to whatever number of actual human beings it is that actual celebrities have following what they decide is important) have posted/reposted to other actual humans) to try to get some outcome that they are looking to do. So by having any sort of possible 'input' into someone like Tur's ear would make them a cheap (since social media is free outside of the couple cents /per period of time ((after whatever it was for them to build the platform they are on))) it is to pay a troll to attempt to brainwash that mark ((ass bitch)) would cost the dictators of our planet, it really is a virtual certainty that she is right to call them out on air.
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
Tiktok or Temu, just no.
Though I find myself wondering just what I’m looking at in some of those ads.
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
Paging Mr. Bezos …
autocorrect decided it was Mr. Benzos
BudmanTX
Well-Known Member
some people are saying this is a Trojan Horse bill
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
Are they accounts originating from China?
BudmanTX
Well-Known Member
the orignal parent company is in China, TikTok itself isn't......the idea of the orginal ban was to seperate the 2 and give full control of TikTok to the US. Now if people are afraid of China tracking you supposedly, what gonna happen when the US gets to track you and presumably be able to kick you off the internet in total......because you are now the adversary....
here is the Bill: