As I understand it, the social credit score was never actually put into place. It was mentioned once as an idea, and people took that as a commitment to implement it.
Thank you for the correction! I actually never looked much into it, so it was surprising to see how many misconceptions there are about China’s social credit system. Having said that, after looking more into it, saying it was never put into place wouldn’t be entirely correct either, apparently. Some people have been comparing it to the credit score system in the US and it seems quite apt from what I read. It is there, it simply isn’t a centralized system or an all-encompassing entity.
There’s so many more comparisons to be drawn between the US and China than most in the west think, the credit system is a great example of that since a lot of people don’t realize how fucked it is in the US.
Just the idea of permanently ascribing a number to how profitable someone is for banks and dictating what opportunities they can get based off that number is horribly dystopian in itself, but people are so accustomed to it and have so many misconceptions to its purpose that there’s not nearly as much criticism over it as there should be.
Another part of it is the rigid west-east dichotomy that’s still brought up so often even as it’s become increasingly irrelevant in the past several decades, I’d recommend anyone who’s interested check out There Never Was a West, it’s a short read but I think it can be pretty eye opening and puts a lot of the modern day rhetoric about international politics into a broader historical perspective.
That’s a pretty short-sighted read on the UK. We have serious issues with the Tories trying to undermine encryption, but the fact that there are a lot of 30-year-old non-networked CCTV cameras attached to businesses and residences is not really an issue.
The government isn’t forking out to put cameras everywhere though. There are a few in city centres which I’d imagine local councils have to pay for, most are installed by private businesses just to protect their own property.
I wonder how disastrously bad things will need to get before it finally breaks through into public consciousness that maybe putting surveillance cameras everywhere was a bad idea. I expect we’ll find out in a couple of decades.
I’m really unsure of how this will play out. Gen Z seems to be way more okay with stuff like this and I think it’s just a general mindset shift that I don’t really see changing. Gen Z tends to constantly share their location with every acquaintance, on snapchat, etc all the time.
As much as stuff like this freaks me out and seems many steps too far, younger generations don’t, so I feel this is going to get worse over time, not better.
The real issue is that people have become so soft, so INCREDIBLY dependant on convenience, that they have given up all control. Having autonomy/privacy/ownership over your own environment is just too much work. It’s easier to just let someone else handle the surveillance system for you. What could go wrong?
This issue of complacency plagues just about everything, from cloud computing and banking to transportation and housing.
I think Signal won’t leave unless they have to (have to meaning if the only alternative to leaving is to undermine user privacy/security which they will not do)
And if Signal has no other alternative than I can’t see how every other e2ee messenger wouldn’t also face the same difficult choice.
Edit: also what does exiting the EU actually mean? Like what would prevent you from just continuing to use the app?
I really can’t believe that chat control will come. But also I was wrong before and strange things happen… So there are applications that can’t really be considert providers of chat services. Like: Deltachat, Element, Conversations or Silence. Which use the protocol’s Email, Matrix, XMPP, SMS for which there are numerous providers. Therefore allowing you to simply send E2E messages without the provider having any influence.
Another problem with phone number requirement. EU phone number? Get out of here. Otherwise you’re right. With a vpn, what’s to stop you from continuing to use it.
Why would Signal stop accepting European phone numbers? It’s not like they want to leave the EU, they can just continue offering their services to EU users, but they can’t have servers or offices or any legal entities in the EU if they get banned. That’s not such a problem, you can access Signal over the internet from anywhere in the world, and if EU states start blocking Signal, you can still use Signal TLS proxies, good old VPNs or Tor. Edit: Signal is also banned in Iran, but they of course accept Iranian phone numbers, as they don’t impose the ban, the Iranian government does. You don’t really have to worry about this, I’m sure Signal will do everything in their power to continue to operate, even in jurisdictions in which it’s banned.
I’m not here to have the Fedora Telemetry discussion, but I think it’s not spying If the user has choice and control over what gets through if anything
Agree to disagree. I think it’s not spying if the user have consent and control over what’s get through if anything. Consent is a higher bar to achieve then choice. But im perfectly fine with you having your own opinion on the matter!
Telemetry, even if well intentioned, might end in the wrong hands (by a company acquisition, a data breach or a government request). And the data collected is probably enough to make cross referencing with other sources and identify you.
Wow, what an angry person. Absolutely dripping with seething rage.
His definition of spying is very pragmatic and cares not at all about “why” the spying is done, only that it is done and how much. I still think what Mozilla does is far more benign than Google because Mozilla doesn’t use your data for direct profit. But I don’t necessarily disagree with his definition either, it’s a good one for making objective comparisons.
It’s also worth noting that his tolerance of chromium is rooted in him wanting the current modern web to die in hell fire anyway so he cares little about Googles monopoly of it.
I am though surprised that there aren’t any big Mozilla based projects around. I really would have assumed the Linux and Self hosting communities would be interested in a browser with cross device history etc but where the data is selfhosted and built from the ground up with FOSS principles at heart. Especially now that Mozilla has slowed down their technical development.
Incredibly based.
Come to think of it, it’s sad how we’ve got so accustomed to be suggested Google Authenticator and the other big corp data funnel 2FA apps by the services that support it
Speaking as GenZ (or Millennial, depends who you ask for the definition): fuuuuck that.
Speaking to the article specifically: I don’t trust a surveillance vendor to work honestly when surveying the acceptance of their surveillance tool. The article also fails to mention (if it does, it’s so brief I missed it) that the pressure some parents put on their kids to install and allow these kinds of spyware is immense. The kid having it on does not equate to the kid choosing to have it on.
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