Olives @olives@qoto.org

"Article 19. Freedom of thought and conscience shall not be violated."

"Article 21. Freedom of assembly and association as well as speech, press and all other forms of expression are guaranteed.
No censorship shall be maintained, nor shall the secrecy of any means of communication be violated."

Don't worry, I am well aware that Article 21 of the Japanese Constitution protects freedom of expression (also that Article 19 protects freedom of thought).

Someone keeps telling me that.

Also, that sounds pretty cool. The world needs more of that.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/apple-and-google-are-introducing-new-ways-defeat-cell-site-simulators-it-enough

"Earlier this year Google announced another new mobile security setting for Android. This new setting allows users to prevent their phone from using a “null cipher” when making a connection with a cell tower. In a well-configured network, every connection with a cell tower is authenticated and encrypted using a symmetric cipher, with a cryptographic key generated by the phone's sim card and the tower it is connecting to.

However, when the null cipher is used, communications are instead sent in the clear and not encrypted.

Null ciphers are useful for tasks like network testing, where an engineer might need to see the content of the packets going over the wire. Null ciphers are also critical for emergency calls where connectivity is the number one priority, even if someone doesn't have a SIM card installed.

Unfortunately fake base stations can also take advantage of null ciphers to intercept traffic from phones, like SMS messages, calls, and non-encrypted internet traffic."

"Apple announced that in iOS 17, out September 18, iPhones will not connect to insecure 2G mobile towers if they are placed in Lockdown Mode."

I never understood why people like Unity.

It would be nice to stop using "obscenity" as a charge to demote more serious charges to.

It is unnecessarily confusing, and could be better solved with real judicial discretion (and just straight-up admitting that not all criminals who do x are the same).

Obscenity is an archaic concept which hasn't really been a thing in over a decade, and frankly, it would be nice to just put an end to it entirely.

Hmm... Well, you should always oppose censorship by writing to elected reps territorial, state, and federal.

https://reclaimthenet.org/senators-curb-deceptive-ai-and-deepfakes
There are some things to consider here:

1) Facial recognition is worst when the government is using it, particularly for law enforcement purposes. It can also be bad when private companies are using it for surveillance purposes.

I don't think there needs to be a new special regulator who issues licenses to boot to deal with this though.

2) I'm not sure anyone is using "deepfakes" in election ads for deceptive purposes. Still, if it is simply for campaign ads, that isn't as bad as exaggerated worries about their political impact more broadly on social media.

I'll leave this for free speech people to dig into though.

3) "The proposed mandate will require government licensing for firms developing AI technologies with a high potential for misuse including large language models like those developed by OpenAI"

Every technology has a "potential for misuse". This is not a compelling argument.

I'm not a fan of the government trying to get involved here, especially as a fair bit of discourse around LLMs and "potential harms" has been abysmal. Also, the government not approving of people engaging in particular forms of speech looks a lot like a violation of the First Amendment.

For politics specifically, while someone could abuse this tool (as they could other tools), it hasn't been shown it is that impactful. Even if it had some impact, it doesn't stand to reason that a heavy-handed regimen which would likely go far beyond that (as is often the case with government) is the right course of action.

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/appeals-court-upholds-publicresourceorgs-right-post-public-laws-and-regulations

"Technical standards like fire and electrical codes developed by private organizations but incorporated into public law can be freely disseminated without any liability for copyright infringement, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday."

"As part of its mission of promoting public access to all kinds of government information, Public Resource acquires and posts online a wide variety of public documents, such as nonprofits’ tax returns, government-produced videos, and standards incorporated into law by reference.

These standards include electrical, fire safety, and consumer safety codes that have been mandated by governments.

But without Public Resource’s work, they are often difficult to access, much less share with others, which means that areas of law that profoundly affect our daily life are obscured from our view.

Even courts have had trouble accessing the laws that they are supposed to apply."

Maybe, if I get pushed to nerd hard enough, I'll invent an android and your child abuse problems will be solved, lol.

https://edri.org/our-work/the-stop-scanning-me-movement-organised-a-mass-protest-in-berlin-against-dangerous-surveillance-law/

"A person armed with an angle grinder stands in front of a yellow mailbox. The crowd looks on tensely as the tool screeches loudly as it hits the metal. Police are also present, but do not intervene.

After a short time, the mailbox gives way. The metal is broken and so is the protection of the letters from prying eyes.

Anne Herpertz, a German politician from the Pirate Party Germany, takes out letter after letter and reads them aloud: “Trade secrets of a start-up, name and address of a whistleblower and other confidential information.”

The brute force of this action is a symbol of what the European Commission is planning to do with its surveillance law on chat control (CSAR): breaking the digital privacy of letters for everyone.

A few meters away, the Interior Ministers’ Conference (IMK) is taking place with a special guest: the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, who is responsible for the CSAR proposal. She has come to promote her unprecedented surveillance plans."

https://reason.com/2023/09/13/brickbat-fashion-police-4/

"The Chinese government has proposed a law that would ban wearing clothing or symbols that "undermine the spirit or hurt the feelings of the Chinese nation.""

"The proposal comes after police in Suzhou detained a woman for wearing a Japanese kimono and after people wearing rainbow-print clothing were barred from attending a concert in Beijing."

https://edri.org/our-work/open-letter-eu-countries-should-say-no-to-the-csar-mass-surveillance-proposal/ Another open letter against this terrible proposal. Yes, the one referred to in the E.U. as chat control.

https://edri.org/our-work/party-cipate-and-celebrateencryption/ Interesting campaign in favor of end-to-end encryption.

Do you remember the Phoenix Wright courtroom, lol (a bunch of video games with an anime).

It was very "Don't waste our time, we know it was you." with like no evidence.

And then, the lawyer, Phoenix Wright, has to really prove his case, even uncovering the identity of the real murderer.

Due process is important.

"Would AI porn reduce child abuse?"

The answer to that would be yes.

I honestly don't think this is an interesting question for a number of reasons.

A better question is whether AI panic would lead to incursions on free expression, privacy, due process, and other human rights. The answer to that is absolutely yes.

Prohibitions or restrictions tend not to be particularly nuanced. This is particularly the case when it involves the State. For a number of reasons, the State is the worst place for that.

The State also tends to be very adversarial, and not particularly co-operative (to advance better ends), whenever they get involved in something. Keeping the State out entirely seems like a good scenario.

Some arguments are very bad.

Someone might deliberately "send porn to a minor". It appears there are already laws to deal with this? Also, they could still bother a minor in different ways, and chances are that a bad actor could still do it, regardless of how someone targets good actors.

There are other ways in which someone could be harassing. However, these are either illegal, and / or don't inherently involve a particular technology. Also, punishing good actors would not stop bad ones.