This is my fear. It’s still possible, barely, to buy a dumb TV. When my current fridge/dishwasher/stove/etc dies in a few years, will there even be a dumb version? Will it cost 5x the price of a spyware version? How about my thermostat. HVAC? Car? And will attempting to disable any of this spyware land me in prison?

Right now, uninformed/unaware/stupid people are affected by this. Pretty soon, everyone will be, or they will have to forego things we consider to be necessities now, like refrigeration and cell phones or be rich enough to buy the privacy-focused models.

I can’t immediately find it, but I just saw another post about a new privacy-focused cellphone with a huge price tag. The established manufacturers have a cost advantage. Samsung et al. can easily make a new fridge with fewer consumer rights, but a new company will have to spend tons of capital to make a factory to put out a comparable product; and they won’t have the advantage of selling your data to subsidize the price.

Privacy is and will become more-so a commodity unless we fight for it.

This was an interesting article. I’m not a service provider, nor in the EU, so I have little personal exposure to this change. I like the customer freedom it will probably provide me as splash damage, though.

The thing I really want to call out is the tone of the article: “This thing we relied on is going away. Instead of gnashing your teeth and being mad, here’s how to leverage it to make your offering more attractive than your competition.”

That new hire might eat resources, but they actually learn from their mistakes and gain experience. If you can’t hold on to them once they have experience, that’s a you problem. Be more capitalist and compete for their supply of talent; if you are not willing to pay for the real human, then you can have a shitty AI that will never grow beyond a ‘new hire.’

The future problem, though, is that without the experience of being a junior dev, where do you think senior devs come from? Can’t fix crappy code if all you know how to do is engineer prompts to a new hire.

“For want of a nail,” no one knew how to do anything in 2030. Doctors were AI, Programmers were AI, Artists were AI, Teachers were AI, Students were AI, Politicians were AI. Humanity suffered and the world suffocated under the energy requirements of doing everything poorly.

I fully agree: Companies and their leadership should be held accountable when they cut corners and disregard customer data security. The ideal solution would be that a company is required to not store any information beyond what is required to provide the service, a la GDPR, but with a much stricter limit. I would put “marketing” outside that boundary. As a youtube user, you need literally nothing, maybe a username and password to retain history and inferred preferences, but trying to collect info about me should be punished. If your company can’t survive without targeted content, your company should not survive.

In bygone days, your car’s manufacturer didn’t know anything about you and we still bought cars. Not to start a whole new thread, but this ties in to right-to-repair and subscriptions for features as well. I did not buy a license to the car, I bought the fucking car; a license to use the car is called a lease.

I understand what you are saying, and what you want… but admitting fault publicly is a huge liability, as they have then stated it was their negligence that caused the issue. (bear with me and read this wall of text – or skip to the last paragraph)

I’ve worked in the Sec Ops space, and it’s an arms race all the time. There are tools to help identify issues and breaches quickly, but the attack surface is just not something that can be managed 100%. Even if you know there is a problem, you probably have to send an issue to a developer team to update their dependency and then they might need to change their code as well and get a code review approved and get a window to promote to production. A Zero-Day vulnerability is not something you can anticipate.

You’ve seen the XKCD of the software stack where a tiny peg is propping up the whole thing? The same idea applies to security, but the tiny peg is a supply chain attack where some dependency is either vulnerable, or attacked by malicious actors and through that gain access to your environment.

Maybe your developers leverage WidgetX1Z library for their app, and the WidgetX1Z library just updated with a change-log that looks reasonable, but the new code has a backdoor that allows an attacker to compromise your developers computer. They now have a foothold in your environment even with rigorous controls. I’ve yet to meet a developer who didn’t need, or at least want, full admin rights on their box. You now have an attacker with local admin inside your network. They might trip alarms, but by then the damage might be done and they were able to harvest the dev database of user accounts and send it back home. That dev database was probably a time-delayed copy of prod, so that the developer could be entirely sure there were no negative impacts of their changes.

I’m not saying this is what happened to Plex, but the idea that modern companies even CAN fully control the data they have is crazy. Unless you are doing full code reviews of all third-party libraries and changes or writing everything in-house (which would be insane), with infallible review, you cannot fully protect against a breach. And even then I’m not sure.

The real threat here is what data do companies collect about us? If all they have is a username, password and company-specific data, then the impact of a breach is not that big – you, as a consumer, should not re-use a password. When they collect tons of other information about us such as age, race, location, gender, sex, orientation, habits, preferences, contacts, partners, politics, etc, then those details become available for anyone willing to pay. We should use breach notifications like this to push for stronger data laws that prevent companies from collecting, storing, buying or selling personal data about their customers. It is literally impossible for a company to fully protect that information, so it should not be allowed.

To me, this is one of the largest issues. I don’t know – or historically have needed to know – where my goods actually come from. I buy a thing for a price and it is delivered to me. When I buy common goods, I probably go to a store, but for anything that is uncommon, like a machine part, I’ll find it online.

The internet and internet commerce has done wonders to allow us to buy a type 34 widget from ACME without having to spend hours finding a store that carries it or can custom-order it.

The de minimis exemption revocation does two things in the short term: increase the price of a type 34 widget due to tariffs, and add uncertainly as to whether it will come with unexpected overhead like a flat customs fee (sorry, reddit link), delays, or paperwork. People will choose to not buy items, from anywhere, when the rules are both constantly changing and unclear.

The rest applies to tariffs in general, and not the de minimis exemption.

In the long term, we’re also fucked. Orange-D’s policies have been struck down multiple times. In this case, I think he’s asked the Supreme Court to rule on a tariff appeal in the last few days. Almost regardless of the outcome of that, our goods prices will rise, since the companies that sell them will never reduce the price just because the tariffs are removed.

This is the scam: If you are in on the timing, you can buy-low-sell-high when news hits about tariffs and make a ton of money off stocks. We don’t have that info, so we can’t act on it without guessing. Instead, the regular citizen just has to eat the added price of goods.

Two comments, and I know this is now old news: it’s insane to see someone/somegroup get SO pissy for being hit with a soft, non-lethal projectile; and while I understand how he was likely carrying it, upon further review the clip above seems to show that this man is a sandwich-mancer and can summon subs from thin air.

I don’t normally like to use the AI summary of a search, but this one was funny: Force of rubber bullet vs sandwich

I’m glad they failed to indict him, and I hope he finds success in another place.

HK was that good.

If you are at all a fan of souls-likes, metroidvanias, environmental storytelling, then you need to give the original more than 10 minutes.

Enjoy it as a metroidvania and beat the final boss – then realize you still have places you haven’t fully explored…

This really is a problem, and is why we have so much discord here. This is not the fault of the people using the accurate language, but they do need to be aware of how many politically descriptive words have different meanings to the average person.

Like you, I misused liberal until recently. I considered it the opposite of conservative, as in the US political parties. I was, therefore, often upset when a comment disparaged liberals. I identified with that label, but I am not a Liberal the way it is often used here.

People using these terms correctly need to have patience, instead of scorn, with those of us who are not (yet) as informed.

not a locksmith, but…

One of those candidates for ‘worst memorable phrase in history’ is the old “duct-tape for things that move and shouldn’t and wd-40 for things that should move and don’t”.

WD-40 isn’t a lubricant. It often works to get something un-stuck, but then you need to still clean and lubricate the parts to keep it working.

Full agree. It’s scary. These companies have collected enough data on us all – sometimes (often?) through things we didn’t directly use and thus didn’t need to accept any T&C for, such as surveillance cameras in a business or public street – that they can predict our actions, moods, and make inferences about our lives.

They have been doing this for YEARS, and they are constantly getting better. They don’t even need health data, but I can guarantee they want it. I remember noticing that we had a phase where my wife was being advertised baby products on her streaming service. We were not having another child, but the timing was eerily close to the interval between #1 and #2. I actually just had a hesitation about divulging that I have 2 kids, but then said fuck it, they already know.

Add to all that the ‘for the children’ angle, which I’ve always hated. It’s such a transparent lie that anyone with a lick of common sense can see through it. For anyone even on the fence, this is the foot in the door: Allow them the ability to track you ‘for the children’ and they will track you for the corporation as well, and the government, and your ex-boyfriend who is now a cop.

Fight this shit.

It’s almost like the privacy alarmists, who have been screaming for decades, were on to something.

Some people saw the beginning of Minority Report and thought, ‘that sounds like a good idea.’

We used to be in a world where it was unfeasible to watch everyone, and you could get away with small ‘crimes’ like complaining about the president online because it was impossible to get a warrant for surveillance without any evidence. Now, we have systems like Flock¹ cameras², ChatGPT and others that generate alerts to law enforcement on their own, subverting a need for a warrant in the first place. And more and more frequently, you both can’t opt out and are unable to avoid them.

For now, the crime might be driving a car with a license plate flagged as stolen (or one where OCR mistakes a number), but all it takes is a tiny nudge further towards fascism before you can be auto-SWATted because the sentiment of your draft sms is determined to be negative towards the fuhrer.

Even now, I’m sacrificing myself to warn people. This message is on the internet and federated to multiple instances. There’s no way I can’t be identified by it with enough resources. Once it’s too late, I’ll be already on the list of people to remove.

Which CEO downvoted this?

Upvoting, but also commenting to say that employees are at a disadvantage in almost all cases: a company can almost certainly absorb your loss but most people cannot absorb the loss of their income.

Asking for a raise could get you fired (sorry, “let go”), especially if you’re in a position where there’s an eager new applicant just waiting for a position to open up, such as any service-industry job.

Even niche skilled jobs are not immune. If your cost approaches the value your employer extracts from your labor, then you will be left jobless and you may find it hard to find a comparable position if your skill-set is tightly focused. If you’re the one COBOL programmer at your company, you are underpaid; the moment you demand your actual worth, they will figure out how to pivot that old code-base to something more modern, even if it costs millions of dollars to license and switch to a new ERP platform or similar bullshit.

I’ve turned this WFH rant into a worker protection rant, so back on topic: Wouldn’t it be nice to just … not have to drive to a place to put your butt in a seat when your butt could be at a seat at home and do the exact same thing? I get that some jobs don’t work that way, but many (probably most) do.

In 2020, we witnessed most jobs at company headquarters around the world being done at home and nothing exploded. Almost everything done from a cubicle can be done from home. Wouldn’t it be nice to knock down those buildings and make them green spaces instead?

If anyone figures that one out, please let me know.

I’m so tired of being tired for things that I need or want to be awake for. Work presentation? can’t sleep. Road trip? can’t sleep. Concert? can’t sleep. It’s not even always negative anxiety: That thing I’m excited about tomorrow afternoon? up.all.night.

I can self-medicate to a degree, but even that is hit or miss. I used to caffeinate myself to get through these, but have cut things like coffee since the pandemic and now only very rarely use them.

You are wonderful for bringing attention to this, and citizens of Denmark (all of EU?) should fight back. A difference is that the item you linked above is proposed versus the thread topic being supposedly voted on. I can’t quickly find links to Denmark equivalents of US house/senate websites with voting info, probably due to language, so I can’t prove the above – but other reporting supports that Danish citizens own the copyright to their person by default now by law, but encryption backdoors are not law.

I highly, forcefully recommend that anyone who is able to do so push back against this proposal or any similar ones. For any “good-guy” who can break encryption, there will be thousands of bad-guys who can break it too. A back-door fundamentally breaks encryption. Technically, a service provider who does end-to-end encryption without a back-door simply cannot inspect content, as that is the whole fucking point. A law like this will only ensure that such providers cannot exist.

I’m probably preaching to the choir here, but for anyone even remotely swayed by the ‘but children’ aspect of this. This kind of access to your life is only wanted by people/companies/governments who want to be able to harvest your data for power or profit. They need an excuse to get their foot in the door and will rip it open the second they get a chance and invade your whole life for advertising dollars or to find political dissidents. “Give them an inch and they will take a mile”, by imperial units.

Fight this shit.

“Blue no matter who” is a response to the republicans who just fall in line and vote for any ®. This is a way to suggest that anyone running as a democrat is better than someone running as a republican. Sure, a “DINO” or closet fascist is not a great option, but an out fascist is likely worse.

‘Blue no matter who’ is also an easy way to guide less-informed voters: fill in the circle, check the box, etc, next to the (D).

The real work, though, needs to happen earlier. This is where we address fraudsters. Be involved in primaries and kick these assholes out of office if they don’t live up. Find candidates who will actually work for us and get them on the ballot – and then the ‘blue no matter who’ will get them votes from the people who are not paying as much attention.

Diminishing the impact of the phrase only hurts our cause. If you see democratic politicians who are not living up, then find people to replace them.

^^ This is my take. Behave like an adult.

99% of the time, I don’t have anywhere to be in a hurry, so I let others (who may or may not need to) go first.

I often travel with kids at this time in my life, but we just chill in our row until things get calm. Then we can grab stuff from overhead if needed, even if it’s behind us.

On the occasions where I’ve needed to rush to make a connecting flight, I just say it out loud and get some buy-in from those around me, or it’s already obvious and the whole cabin is probably aware. In those cases, getting non-pressured people to give you priority tends to work if you just ask.

I can imagine a class of passenger who is super dependent on timing – but those people have already failed. PSA: When traveling, assume that you will not depart or arrive at the exact time on your ticket. Give yourself an hour or two to absorb delays and then you can just be chill.

I really like the description of AI coding as ‘custom stack overflow generator’ because it really sells the flaws as well, to an experienced dev. We go to stack overflow for help with some weird quirk of a language or find an obscure library that solves our specific need.

I think vibe coding is cobbling together a project from a bunch of stack overflow posts – and they only use the question part of the post.

I’m a straight male. My wife is bi. The most important part of her orientation, to me, is that it means everyone else was my competition for her love instead of just other men, but I still won.