Olives @olives@qoto.org
Software Engineer. Psy / Tech / Sex Science Enthusiast. Controversial?
Free Expression. Human rights / Civil Liberties. Anime. Liberal.
Joined May 2023
It's an interesting article, although I'm not sure I like that headline.
https://www.wired.com/story/united-nations-igf-saudi-arabia-russia/ "THE UNITED NATIONS’ main internet governance body will host its next internati...
https://www.wired.com/story/united-nations-igf-saudi-arabia-russia/
"THE UNITED NATIONS’ main internet governance body will host its next international forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In 2025, the UN may take its discussions on the future of an open internet to Russia. Holding the Internet Governance Forum (#IGF), back to back, in authoritarian countries notorious for their surveillance and #censorship of the internet risks making “a joke of the whole system,” one advocate says."
Of all the 50 states, there is no state which loves child rape more than Wisconsin, they love it so much, they're pushing clearly unconstitutional laws to make sure there is more of it.
If #IGF 2024 is being held in Saudi Arabia, where is IGF 2025 going to be held? Iran?
When thinking of which country I want to host a human rights conference, the first country which comes to mind is Saudi Arabia. You just can't find a country which cares more about human rights than them. #IGF
Sarcasm, obviously.
https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=27148
Even someone from the (who have shown themselves to be useless when it comes to digital rights) U.N. wrote to the U.K. to tell them the OSB violates human rights.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-freedom-of-opinion-and-expression/comments-legislation-and-policy The U.K. didn't even bother to respond.
Honestly though, these bills themselves are a violation of human rights, and if you're thinking of bills which kill or oppress people, I think these bills could have an equivalent effect, yes.
All these people think about is some nebulous notion of "safety" that some morally bankrupt lobbyist (probably some "white knight") has pushed, not vulnerable people who have to rely on the Internet (and get hit in the name of "safetyism").
@charliejane I suspect he knows exactly what he is doing. He just doesn't care.
He keeps introducing bills which are clearly harmful, and unconstitutional, and has had a long, long time to learn. Even when he was an Attorney General, he seemed to act inconsistently with the constitution.
Olives
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Apparently, the Fifth Circuit has ruled that Texas' book ban law is likely unconstitutional.
Olives
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https://www.wired.com/story/parabon-nanolabs-dna-face-models-police-facial-recognition/
"Leaked records reveal what appears to be the first known instance of a police department attempting to use facial recognition on a face generated from crime-scene DNA. It likely won’t be the last."
"Parabon’s methods have not been peer-reviewed, and scientists are skeptical about how feasible predicting face shape even is."
"“Daisy chaining unreliable or imprecise black-box tools together is simply going to produce unreliable results,” she says."
"In a controversial 2017 decision, the department published the predicted face in an attempt to solicit tips from the public. Then, in 2020, one of the detectives did something civil liberties experts say is even more problematic—and a violation of Parabon NanoLabs’ terms of service: He asked to have the rendering run through facial recognition software."
"For facial recognition experts and privacy advocates, the East Bay detective’s request, while dystopian, was also entirely predictable. It emphasizes the ways that, without oversight, law enforcement is able to mix and match technologies in unintended ways, using untested algorithms to single out suspects based on unknowable criteria."
"“It’s really just junk science to consider something like this,” Jennifer Lynch, general counsel at civil liberties nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation, tells WIRED. Running facial recognition with unreliable inputs, like an algorithmically generated face, is more likely to misidentify a suspect than provide law enforcement with a useful lead, she argues. “There’s no real evidence that Parabon can accurately produce a face in the first place,” Lynch says. “It’s very dangerous, because it puts people at risk of being a suspect for a crime they didn’t commit.”"
Olives
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Oh, cool, an interesting article, I will read it after... Unchecking all these pre-checked "legitimate interest" boxes sending my data to several hundred trackers. #privacy
Olives
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"EFF has joined forces with 110 NGOs today in a joint statement delivered to the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee, clearly outlining civil society non-negotiable redlines for the proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty, and asserting that states should reject the proposed treaty if these essential changes are not implemented.
The last draft published on November 6, 2023 does not adequately ensure adherence to human rights law and standards. Initially focused on cybercrime, the proposed Treaty has alarmingly evolved into an expansive surveillance tool."
"Historically, cybercrime legislation has been exploited to target journalists and security researchers, suppress dissent and whistleblowers, endanger human rights defenders, limit free expression, and justify unnecessary and disproportionate state surveillance measures. We are concerned that the proposed Treaty, as it stands now, will exacerbate these problems."
"San Francisco voters will confront a looming threat to their #privacy and civil liberties on the March 5, 2024 ballot. If Proposition E passes, we can expect the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) will use untested and potentially dangerous technology on the public, any time they want, for a full year without oversight. How do we know this? Because the text of the proposition explicitly permits this, and because a city government proponent of the measure has publicly said as much."
@KazuShuSora For many years, they did the absolute minimum possible, releasing essentially the same game over and over, but with a different map, and slightly improved graphics.
It was to the point that (I think) outsourced spin-offs were regularly far more original.
@glynmoody "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."
The Eighth Amendment.
As there is chatter about "deepfakes":
1) I kind of find the idea of putting, say, the pope in a puffy coat to be funny. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing. I think people making such memes comes with the territory of someone being such a distinctive public figure.
2) As always, I'd like to separate the concepts of "sexual harassment" from "using generative AI to make consensual / non-existent porn". One proposed federal bill seemed to do that, though it seemed to have a weird negligence standard (I think not necessarily the "harm" one), but I also don't know enough about it.
3) https://qoto.org/@olives/111776493875055997 Kitchen sink bills have a much higher risk of impinging on free expression. Elizabeth highlights some of the issues which a bill might run into.
For what it's worth, things like "sexual harassment" are obviously malignant to the point that I don't think you'd particularly need a negligence standard (though, I think there are already laws there).
@charliejane In a way, this is how FOSTA passed. Everyone was against it, then FB's COO, Sheryl Sandberg (who used to be a staffer for Clinton), endorsed it at the last minute to try to weather the Cambridge Analytica scandal, even though they knew very well it was a bad idea to do.
Maybe, corporate short termism (and parasitism, as they take the short term PR "win", while leaving others to continue to push against it). As in FB's case, it won't really save them. You have to remember FB was one of the companies which tried to pitch "safety", even when it clearly meant violating people's rights (and was of quite questionable efficacy and proportionality), and now, they're being hung to dry with another hearing. No one is giving them a "pass". Nor did they get a "pass" in 2018.
We've also seen Snap showing up on an infamous "NGO" with a few governments, trying to pitch themselves as having a halo. Maybe, they think they can get a "pass", and that it'll be mainly for others, particularly rival companies who will have to deal with it. For the most part, they might even well be right, on the rival companies part.
It also seems they've been pushing for years to salvage their reputation for "sexting". At times, it's been pretty over the top (at times, their actions have had negative implications of their own). They also don't seem to be a terribly successful company, to start with, perhaps, this is a marketing ploy for an increasingly irrelevant company.
It's also rich for Snap to talk about "safety" when they were involved in the "speed filter" case...
Olives
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"Harvey Murphy was arrested in October 2022 for the armed burglary of a Huston-area Sunglass Hut store after a facial recognition device identified him as the burglar. The only problem? Murphy was in Sacramento, California at the time of the crime—thousands of miles away.
Making matters worse, Murphy, now 61, says he was brutally sexually assaulted in jail just hours before he was set to be released after the charges against him were dropped. In a lawsuit filed last week, Murphy claims that his arrest was the result of gross negligence from the facial recognition company—and he demands $10 million in damages to compensate for his wrongful imprisonment."
Olives
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"The FBI violated the Fourth Amendment when its agents rifled through the contents of more than 700 safe-deposit boxes in the aftermath of a March 2021 raid, a panel of federal appeals court judges ruled unanimously on Tuesday.
In doing so, the judges at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed what innocent victims of the raid and their attorneys have been arguing for years: that the FBI overstepped the bounds of its warrant issued in the case and failed to follow proper protocol when federal agents cracked open safe-deposit boxes, ran the contents past drug-sniffing dogs, and tried to seize some of the money and other valuables found in the boxes."
Olives
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https://reclaimthenet.org/harvey-eugene-murphy-jr-wrongful-arrest-facial-recognition-technology
"Harvey Eugene Murphy Jr, a 61-year-old man, is launching a legal battle against Macy’s and EssilorLuxottica, Sunglass Hut’s parent company, alleging a misidentification by facial recognition technology led to his unlawful arrest. Murphy’s lawsuit asserts that owing to a flawed criminal identification by a low-quality camera image, he spent days unjustly incarcerated where he underwent horrific physical and sexual violence.
In January 2022, a robbery at a Houston-based Sunglass Hut led to the theft of merchandise worth thousands. However, Murphy’s legal counsel insists that Murphy was living in California, not Texas, during that time frame."
Software Engineer. Psy / Tech / Sex Science Enthusiast. Controversial?
Free Expression. Human rights / Civil Liberties. Anime. Liberal.
Joined May 2023
