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Memesplanation Shorts – Romans Road 2

by admin memesplanation, Spirituality & Tech

This Week's Memesplanations

Memesplanation Short: Romans 8:10-11

Now Christ lives his life in you! And even though your body may be dead because of the effects of sin, his life-giving Spirit imparts life to you because you are fully accepted by God. Yes, God raised Jesus to life! And since God’s Spirit of Resurrection lives in you, he will also raise your dying body to life by the same Spirit that breathes life into you!

In Christ, you are no longer dead to and in sin. Your body is revitalized by the Holy Spirit in you, because you are in Christ. That makes you fully accepted by God. Let that sink in. You are fully accepted by God. This acceptance brings healing, even to your natural body. It can begin to undo the consequences of your old sin patterns and family baggage and wounds. Let it.

Memesplanation Short

Romans 8:12-13

So then, beloved ones, the flesh has no claims on us at all, and we have no further obligation to live in obedience to it. For when you live controlled by the flesh, you are about to die. But if the life of the Spirit puts to death the corrupt ways of the flesh, we then taste his abundant life.

Because we are in Christ, that old nature which is purely focused on what feels good in the moment, no longer has to control us. You no longer have to follow its dictates, and it is a dictator. Abundant life is yours when you choose to go where the way of the Spirit leads you. When you develop a relationship with the person of the Holy Spirit, He will help, guide, and protect you, if you listen to Him. That is Wisdom, y’all.

Memesplanation Short:

Romans 8:14-16

The mature children of God are those who are moved by the impulses of the Holy Spirit. And you did not receive the “spirit of religious duty,” leading you back into the fear of never being good enough. But you have received the “Spirit of full acceptance,” enfolding you into the family of God. And you will never feel orphaned, for as he rises up within us, our spirits join him in saying the words of tender affection, “Beloved Father!” For the Holy Spirit makes God’s fatherhood real to us as he whispers into our innermost being, “You are God’s beloved child!”

If you are fully accepted by God, as we talked about on Monday, then you are His beloved child, in Christ. If you want to progress in getting closer to our Father, then you must empty yourself of your drive and desires and allow the Holy Spirit to guide you fully. That is far easier said than done. Let’s get on the path, or take another step on the path toward maturity today. Let’s hear the Spirit confirm in us that we are indeed beloved children of God.

Weekend Edition 45

by admin Uncategorized

Weekend Edition 45: Microsoft, AI, and SBF...

Microsoft in Hot Water… Again (EU and Perhaps US)

Tech Regulation? Graham Cracker Partners with Pocahontas

AI News

FOSS Google Maps Alternative? Yes, Please!

SBF Nonsense

RIP Kevin Mitnick

Mastodon is for Free Speech

WE 1 – Euro Commission Investigating MS

Slack complained in 2020 about the fact that Microsoft has decided to bundle Teams with both Office 365 and Microsoft 365. The Commission finally has gotten around to investigating the claim of anti-competitive practices. Wouldn’t be the first time, and won’t be the last time Microsoft has run afoul of regulators in regard to software monopoly behavior. Shoot, I remember the Netscape suit from 25 years ago because Microsoft had been bundling Intermittent Exploder (Internet Explorer, IE) with Windows from 95 SP 2 up into 98, and making it harder for people to adopt the honestly better Netscape Navigator browser. Microsoft narrowly avoided being “trust busted” and split into separate companies in the early 2000s. Here we are again. I’m going to hazard a guess that MS will get slapped by the EC. If they don’t, I’ll be surprised. As always, though, the idealist in me hates that we need to have bloated over-powered governments and agencies in order to keep the big boys in line. There’s so much greed and frankly immoral and unethical practices in the business world because most execs and management types are stuck in a poverty loop in their heads which makes them feel like they need to do anything and everything to get ahead because there is never enough. The reality is that there is enough and more than enough for all of these companies to have pieces of the growth pie. They don’t need to have this scarcity mindset which causes them to do shady shit.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/microsoft-may-regret-bundling-teams-with-365-subscriptions

WE 2 – Microsoft Back in the Crosshairs Here at Home

Senator Wyden, of Oregon, is pushing for Microsoft to be held accountable for what he calls “negligent cybersecurity” due to how two major state-sponsored hacks have been leveraged against Microsoft and its users: SolarWinds (Russia, 2020) and now the Outlook hack which slammed the US Federal government (China, 2023). Sen Wyden wants Microsoft to be forced to change their policies to be more proactive in protecting its customers, perhaps to even change their EULA, which he wisely realizes will take a whole-government effort to make happen. He wrote a letter to the DOJ, FTC, and CISA to apply pressure to Microsoft. We will see what happens here. I can see this going one of three ways, from least likely to most likely:

A) Microsoft kowtows to Wyden and changes their EULA without fines or anything
B) The Gov’t agencies refuse to do anything
C) Microsoft winds up getting fined heavily, fights it, wasting more money, and we get to laugh at them.

As always, we will keep up on this and report as there is more to say about it.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/us-senator-its-time-to-investigate-microsoft-for-negligent-cybersecurity

WE 3 – Senators Graham and Warren Team Up

Wonder twin powers, activate! LMAO. Graham Cracker and Pocahontas agree on something? Oh wait, that’s right, the South Carolinan senator is a RINO extraordinaire. Why wouldn’t he partner with someone like Elizabeth Warren? They are both interested in adding more power to the federal government. It’s like looking at two identical cars with slightly different paint jobs. Anyway, enough denigrating these people, let’s talk about the legislation that the a co-sponsoring. It is called the Digital Consumer Protection Commission Act, and would create something akin to the CMA or the Euro Commission here in the US, but specifically focused on regulating tech, and Big Tech in particular. This regulator will be able to sue companies — or even force them to stop operating — in response to various potential harms to customers, rivals and the general public, including anticompetitive practices, violations of consumer privacy and the spread of harmful online content. Doesn’t that sound just peachy, guys? Another government agency dedicated to invading your privacy and trying to control your thinking through another official layer of forced censorship from the feds.

I just feel so warm & fuzzy inside when the government wants to usurp even more of our constitutionally guaranteed rights by overstepping its constitutional limitations. Oh boy! On the other hand, the primary ostensible reasons for this regulator are to handle privacy and competition issues for these tech giants. Sounds like a mess to me. Since when does the US government care a lick about our privacy? They do handle competition, in the form of anti-trust cases on the part of the DOJ for the last 150 years or so, since Standard Oil and the railroad robber barons were punished by the DOJ at the end of the Gilded Age. However, privacy has hardly been touched in terms of meaningful efforts from the federal level. Individual states, such as California, have passed significant legislation in the last handful of years, but even those have been hard to enforce in the best of times. I don’t have a better solution off of the top of my head, but I know that more centralized power which is a-constitutional is never a good long-term solution for these problems. We need to lobby our senators to express our distaste for this constitutionally ignorant piece of legislation. Tell them to vote against this nonsense.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/27/tech/big-tech-regulation-new-federal-agency/index.html

WE 4 – AI News for the Week

4-1 – OpenAI Loses Head of Trust & Safety

I guess I missed this story last week… The maker of ChatGPT lost its Head of Trust & Safety lat week, not to death, but to attrition, as he decided that he needed to step down “in order to spend more time with his family”. Since the chatbot was released, he found his role expand rapidly to the point where it was taking over his life. This leaves the small company needing to shuffle personnel until it can find a good replacement for him. This is a crucial moment as OpenAI is undergoing allot of well-deserved scrutiny over their viral chatbot. Props to him for knowing when to bow out, though. On the other hand, the cynic in me is questioning the move… Is there something sketchy happening in that department which is about to be revealed? Is he resigning to get ahead of that tidal wave? Time will tell, as always.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/21/tech/open-ai-trust-safety-head-exit/index.html

4-2 – What is Google’s Secretive Genesis Project?

Genesis sounds like a generative AI tool meant to automatically aggregate existing stories into a single, styled piece. It has yet to be announced, but journalists have dug in and prodded people in the “know” and found bits and pieces about the project. Is this a good thing? Have the egg heads at Google managed to tame the specter of hallucination enough to make this thing actually make sense in a newsroom? Think of this as The Drudge Report on steroids, minus a human team doing the info gathering. These things cannot hope to replace the instincts and capabilities of real, human journalists. All they can do is look at things posted online and aggregate and collate them. Could this be helpful? Sometimes, perhaps, but as with the rest of these generative AI tools, it could easily be used to amplify bad information, not misinformation, necessarily, mind you, but just wrong information, repeated many times over. This sounds like a recipe for propaganda. Do we need more mockingbird propaganda? I’m gonna say no… In fact, I’m thinking, “Hell no”. This sounds like a bad idea, across the board, to me. What do you guys think?

https://www.cnet.com/tech/googles-genesis-ai-tool-could-write-the-news-it-should-be-stopped/

WE 5 – Google Maps to Have Another FOSS Competitor?

Looks like the engineers over at the Linux Foundation have spun off a new foundation: Overture Maps Foundation. It is populated with also-rans in the map space: Microsoft, TomTom, Meta, and Amazon. They are pooling their map data in a common, open source database meant to be the seedbed for new map apps. The license allows each contributor to take whatever they want, as long as they continue contributing to the project dataset. If they fork it and don’t feed new data back into Overture, they will have to manage their own data moving forward, and that is costly and time consuming. Google spends upwards of $1 billion per year, either on maintaining its data or purchasing other mapping companies. Is this project ready to be applied to a new app that is even competitive with OSMAND+? No, not yet, though they have sourced much of their data from that project, which has been under development for 18 years. I’ve used it and some of its off-shoots, and steer people in that general direction when they try to break away from big tech map apps as they degoogle their lives. It is certainly a project to keep tabs on, though, and I am excited by it.

https://gizmodo.com/google-maps-alternative-overture-maps-data-linux-1850675768

WE 6 – SBF Nonsense

6-1 – Leaking Diaries from Caroline Ellison

Sounds like SBF is pretty desperate, here. He has leaked his former partner’s Google Docs journal entries, selectively, showing that she didn’t believe that she was equipped or suited to run Alameda Research, so therefore her conviction in her trial is fitting, and when she is believed to testify that they had agreed to defraud the customers of FTX, that her testimony should be disbelieved. Thus the DOJ alleges in their latest accusation. He shared these journal entries, selectively, with the NY Times, such to taint the jury to believe that Ellison’s testimony should be discounted. The fact that he shared these things with the press is flat wrong. Given, if she wanted these things to be private, she never should have written them using a Google product. I have to wonder how he got ahold of these files to begin with. Did she give him her password? Did he appropriate them as the administrator of the company account she used to write these things? Did he hack it in some way? This article doesn’t say how he came by these pieces of information… It seems to me that that is a crucial piece of information, here. Was it moral or even ethical to take the actions he did to share it with the Times? No. Then again, if even a handful of the allegations against him are true, this certainly shouldn’t be beyond him to do. What do you guys think?

https://gizmodo.com/doj-accuses-sbj-of-leaking-caroline-ellison-diary-ftx-1850663571

6-2 – SBF Now Facing Fewer Charges than Before

The list of charges is getting pared down due to one excuse or another… By the end of this, I doubt that this highly connected front man for the establishment will ever really serve time for his numerous crimes. Between connections and contributions, he is very protected from any real fallout from his wrongdoing. The two most recent dropped charges are related, allegedly, to the nature of the extradition permission received from the Bahamian authorities late last year. The first charge to be dropped was related to bribery, but the most recent one had to do with campaign finance regulations. I think these are convenient excuses, personally, if you couldn’t tell. If these charges were actually investigated, it could potentially take down some very powerful DC swamp creatures, and we can’t have that, now can we? Just like how Epstein and Maxwell trafficked children to no one, apparently. All of his former coworkers from FTX have already pled guilty to criminal charges, and are cooperating with investigators to make sure he gets nailed. We’ll see how many of these charges actually exist by the time he faces trial on October 2, 2023, as well as a second trial next March. Prosecutors filed another 5 charges on top of the 8 major ones for which he had originally been extradited last year. It is the latter 5 charges which seem to keep getting dropped out of deference to the Bahamian government. If all of the initial 8 charges stick, and he has the book thrown at him (I doubt that outcome very highly), he would face 100 years in white collar prison. His connections and well placed donations will shield him from from much of that, and he, if my gut serves correctly, will likely get what amounts to a slap on the wrist. I doubt that he will ever see prison, much less for 100 years. We will see in a handful of months, though.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/15/investing/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-charges/index.html

WE 7 – Ever Heard of Kevin Mitnick?

He was one of the best known of the early hackers. He was known, in his early days, for planning and executing some daring attacks on major corporations, such as Pac Bell. His first hack attack was carried out when he was only 16, and he entered the DEC network and stole their OS. He wasn’t convicted for that for another 9 years. He served 12 months in prison for that, then toward the end of his 3 years of supervised release, he broke into the Pac Bell voicemail system, which triggered him going on the lam for 2.5 years. During that time, he attacked dozens of other organizations, always staying one step ahead of the FBI, that was, until February 1995.

He was convicted and served 5 years in prison, to get let out early and to reinvent himself as a public speaker and white hat hacker. He was only 59 when he passed this week, after a 14 month battle with pancreatic cancer. He was so respected in the hacking community that there was a groundswell of support from other hackers, who tend to be very individualistic, culminating in a “Free Kevin” movement. He spent the last 20 years advising numerous Fortune 500 companies as well as government agencies through his firm, Mitnick Security Consulting, as well as his position on the board of KnowBe4. He spent the last 20 years developing and implementing penetration testing methods, tools, and helping companies and organizations to become less vulnerable to black hat attacks. He was known as one of the earliest users of social engineering tactics, such as phishing. I think he might have made up for his shenanigans early in life, what do you think?

https://gizmodo.com/kevin-mitnick-famous-hacker-dies-at-59-1850659160

WE 8 – CSAM on Mastodon? (and everywhere else) Say It Ain’t So…

Ok, let’s cut through the BS in this article, the scare tactics to discourage people from moving over to a freer and decentralized platform for micro-blogging, shall we? This piece is a thinly veiled hit against one of the main competitors to Twitter/ X. I am not a huge fan of any micro-blogging apparatus, but when you write a piece like this, with a headline like this: Mastodon Has a Child Abuse Material Problem, Like Every Other Major Web Platform, then I will take issue with you. They start off the article gatekeeping hard for mainstream platforms, but then are forced to admit that even these centralized platforms have a big problem with this material that has no right existing. The piece starts with a half-hearted explanation of what mastodon and the fediverse are, through clenched teeth, as it were. They call it insecure, not user friendly, and cannot have the kind of “guardrails” which are needed to curb things like CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material… Speaking of bloodless terms, we are talking about child porn related images and videos).

Late last year, there was a survey done by security researchers, who at the time, found a bevy of security vulnerabilities, some stemming from the the architecture of the platform itself (being decentralized and “instance” based, where each instance is operated by anything from a single person to a small organization), and others such as the fact that while it is FOSS, the code base had not been scrutinized very carefully until the massive influx of people fleeing Twitter after Elon bought it and threatened to make it more free speech friendly. There are significant issues in the code base which had not been addressed as of now about 8 months ago, that is an eternity in the world of software. The nature of FOSS is that it will always have vulnerabilities, but generally those issues get fixed quickly after being discovered. So that issue is moot.

As far as it being less than ideal in terms of user-friendliness, I can vouch for that. The instancing system is confusing right now, even for me. Something needs to happen, sort of like with the main servers for Jitsi, where the primary instances get beefed up and easier to sign up for.

In terms of the “guardrails” issue, every platform has an infestation of sick people who use it. Yes, they will go where there are fewer controls, that is human nature, however, even where there are “guardrails”, there are big problems. We need to adopt 0 tolerance policies for those who create and distribute these sorts of materials. They get caught, they get swift justice. No child should ever be subject to the kind of actions which are often depicted in CSAM.

https://gizmodo.com/mastodon-fediverse-child-abuse-material-stanford-resear-1850670857

Romans Road 1 – Chapter 8:1-9

by admin Devotions, Spirituality & Tech

Romans Road Week 1: Chapter 8:1-9

Romans Road Week 1

Father,

as we start down the Romans Road (from the middle), come and guide my heart, mind, and fingers. Help our hearts to be ready to receive your truth, now. Jesus, help us to grasp what it means to be in you so that we can resist sin, guilt, and shame because we can focus elsewhere, such as on Jesus’ face. Holy Spirit, we submit afresh to You today. Help us to live radically empty, so that you can fill us more fully.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen

On Monday, we introduced our new series, which will run until well after Christmas, except for a brief excursus into Isaiah as we observe Advent and Christmas. The series is called Romans Road… Some of you may have just shuddered at that reference. I chose to start with chapter 8 because I love it. The passage we covered briefly stated that we cannot be condemned by anyone, if we are in Christ. Take that to the bank today. Do not allow the enemy to accuse you of anything, silence him by reminding him that it is all under the Blood of Jesus. You are free from guilt and sin, now. I should specify that that applies if and when you confess and repent, not just carte blanche for anyone any old time.

On Wednesday, we continued the thought from Monday’s passage in the next few verses. You are free from domination by sin. Monday, we learned that there is 0 condemnation for any who are in Christ. He is and was perfect, so no condemnation can stick to him. You could say he’s like Teflon Don that way, lol. If that is the case, and we are in Him, and He lives in and through us, then there is now no condemnation for us, either. This grants us access to the Holy Spirit, who guides us into all truth. Are you motivated to pursue spiritual realities? Are you still caught up only in what you think will benefit you here and now? If you want life and peace, seek the ways of the Holy Spirit, not the ways of the world and the flesh. Be careful to not make that distinction too sharply between flesh and spirit… We are mostly talking about moral and ethical living out of response to the love of God, vs living for yourself. Which type of life would you rather lead? A vapid, fun-for-now, pay-the-price-later kind of life, or a more prudent one shaped around the ways in which God designed us to live?

On Friday, I reflected more on what we talked about on Wednesday. Living in the Spirit, though, is more than simply adhering to some ethical code, though. There is so much life when we allow the Holy Spirit to guide us rather than insisting on our way all of the time. As I said the other day, the mind-set bent toward the Spirit is about living oriented towards love and others, along with growing closer to God. The other option is more or less, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” Do whatever feels good, man… That does not end well, most of the time. Let the Spirit guide and move you, you may not understand it in the moment, but looking back, it will make more sense. You will have better relationships by the end of it, and that matters more than most things do.

So, what did we learn as we started this trip down the Romans Road (even though we started in the middle of the letter)? Those who are in Christ need never be subject to the power of sin, guilt, or shame ever again. The life guided by the Holy Spirit will end better than the selfish option that the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh would have us lead. Do you want to keep fighting God? If the answer is no, then surrender. Let the Holy Spirit lead you into all Truth, whether in relation to morals and ethics (holiness), or any other arena of life.

#romansroad #romans8 #Bible #Paul #memesplanation #spiritualityntech #techfreedom

Memesplanation Shorts – Romans Road 1

by admin memesplanation, Spirituality & Tech

This Week's Memesplanations

Memesplanation Short:

Romans 8:1-3

So now the case is closed. There remains no accusing voice of condemnation against those who are joined in life-union with Jesus, the Anointed One. For the “law” of the Spirit of life flowing through the anointing of Jesus has liberated us from the “law” of sin and death. For God achieved what the law was unable to accomplish, because the law was limited by the weakness of human nature.

Yet God sent us his Son in human form to identify with human weakness. Clothed with humanity, God’s Son gave his body to be the sin-offering so that God could once and for all condemn the guilt and power of sin.

Romans Road… Some of you may have just shuddered at that reference, but that’s the name of our new series. It will span from now until after Christmas, with a break for Advent, as we walk through all of Romans. I chose to start with chapter 8 because I love it. We cannot be condemned by anyone, if we are in Christ. Take that to the bank today. Do not allow the enemy to accuse you of anything, silence him by reminding him that it is all under the Blood of Jesus. You are free from guilt and sin, now.

Memesplanation Short

Romans 8:4-6

So now every righteous requirement of the law can be fulfilled through the Anointed One living his life in us. And we are free to live, not according to our flesh, but by the dynamic power of the Holy Spirit!

Those who are motivated by the flesh only pursue what benefits themselves. But those who live by the impulses of the Holy Spirit are motivated to pursue spiritual realities. For the sense and reason of the flesh is death, but the mind-set controlled by the Spirit finds life and peace.

You are free from domination by sin. Yesterday, we learned that there is 0 condemnation for any who are in Christ. He lives in us and through us. This grants us access to the Holy Spirit, who guides us into all truth. Are you motivated to pursue spiritual realities? Are you still caught up only in what you think will benefit you here and now? If you want life and peace, seek the ways of the Holy Spirit, not the ways of the world and the flesh. Be careful to not make that distinction too sharply between flesh and spirit… We are mostly talking about moral and ethical living out of response to the love of God, vs living for yourself.

Memesplanation Short:

Romans 8:7-9

In fact, the mind-set focused on the flesh fights God’s plan and refuses to submit to his direction, because it cannot! For no matter how hard they try, God finds no pleasure with those who are controlled by the flesh. But when the Spirit of Christ empowers your life, you are not dominated by the flesh but by the Spirit. And if you are not joined to the Spirit of the Anointed One, you are not of him.

As I said the other day, the mind-set bent toward the Spirit is about living oriented towards love and others, along with growing closer to God. The other option is more or less, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” Do whatever feels good, man… That does not end well, most of the time. Let the Spirit guide and move you, you may not understand it in the moment, but looking back, it will make more sense. You will have better relationships by the end of it, and that matters more than most things do.

Podcast Intro for The Weekend Edition

by admin Tech Freedom, Weekend Edition

Welcome to my podcast. This show has been a stream on Rumble for some time, but I’ve been encouraged to turn it into a podcast to see how that might go.

What is the Weekend Edition? It is a news commentary show with a decidedly conservative and sarcastic tone. I believe that government should be small, people should be free, and laws should be limited. The real world throws those ideals into disarray on a daily basis as people and companies to horrible things to one another and prove that they cannot handle the responsibility which comes with freedom. I look at the week’s tech news and some current events which are related to tech, break them down, go on rants about related topics, then pose questions to the audience. The stream usually contains about a half hour of classic computer games as well, during which time I talk about the game and rant more, as well as summarizing the week’s stories. Sometimes I cover sensitive topics, and other times I may use some spicy language in my commentary. Tune in and subscribe to the blog, rumble channel, and here on your favorite podcast platform.

Weekend Edition 44: AI Actually Stupid?

by admin Tech Freedom, Weekend Edition

Weekend Edition 44: AI Actually Stupid?

Weekend Edition 44

Apple Troubles

Microsoft and Activision

XRP News

AI News

WE 1 – Apple Troubles

WE 1.1 – TSMC to Postpone Chip Fab in AZ

This plant, which was one of the big stories with the CHIPS act here in the US, now will not be in production for 5-NM process chips until 2025, because we do not have enough skilled labor to make it real sooner than that. How sad is that, y’all? We, who started the silicon revolution, don’t have the skilled technical personnel to staff TSMC’s plant for its most advanced chips. They have to import workers from Taiwan to train us how to make their designs. Ouch. So much for the STEM emphasis, with a large side of wokeness which is more concerned with training people to be offended than it is with giving them real world skills, huh? This is pitiful. I realize that this is the height of tech manufacturing right now, but come on, America. We need to fix this problem, and clearly, throwing more money at it hasn’t worked (hello, corruption, my old friend…). Big shock that more money hasn’t really helped the education sector in the US… It gets eaten by bureaucrats and their corporate partners, rarely affecting the individual students in the classroom. Similar to the homelessness crisis in many parts of America… Whenever an industry evolves around an issue, you can about guarantee that issue will not go away anytime soon. In fact, the issue that these orgs allegedly exist to solve usually gets worse as they pad their own pockets at the expense of the human beings they were supposed to be helping. This goes for education just as much. Individual teachers are usually good people (minus the brainwashed groomers in the younger generations) who really care about their students, but when you funnel huge money into teachers associations and unions, as well as districts and departments of education, it rarely trickles down, and almost never creates better outcomes. This is what led us to where we are today, with a shortage of technicians and engineers who are capable of this kind of work. I do not have a good short-term solution for this, but the best I can do in the medium to long term is to offer that the system needs a drastic overhaul.

How does all this relate to Apple? They are still slated to fabricate their bionic A-series, and M-series silicon there. This pushes back production for their devices for future generations, in terms of that plant, which is key for Apple trying to make more US devices in the US vs China.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/20/tsmc-delays-start-of-arizona-chip-factory-that-will-build-apple-chips.html

WE 1-2 – UK Bill Has Tech Firms On Edge

Apple claims that it will disable FaceTime and iMessage support for UK users if the bill is not changed, and this is only the most recent firm to threaten to remove services from the country if the Online Safety Bill is not amended to remove the requirement to negate encryption for users’ accounts. Others included in this are WhatsApp and Signal, which are each e2e encrypted communication apps, if you are unaware. You may be wondering what e2e encryption is, so here’s a simple explanation: end to end (e2e) encryption is a set of protocols by which one can encrypt, or scramble the contents of a message. This is a useful feature for apps like WhatsApp and Signal, as well as FaceTime and iMessage because it enhances the privacy of the parties involved by not simply sending plain text information back and forth. Really good end to end encryption will not store messages on servers anywhere, and only allows parties with the correct encryption keys to access, or decipher the encoded information. This bill in the UK threatens to undo that privacy by seeking to force these companies and apps to install back doors so that things like child sexual abuse materials can’t be hidden via encryption. On one hand, I see the need to end those destructive things, but is more power for the government a good solution? If you have been around the channel for a while, you’ll know how I feel about that. If not, here’s my answer to that question: “Hell No!”

Apple is protesting (as are the others) and threatening to pull their products from the UK rather than make changes to them which would affect users in other countries as well. The UK probably has a big fight on its hands here, since so many people love their i-devices. I sense much smoke and not as much fire, but we’ll see how things go, here.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66256081

WE 2 – Merger Deal Extended for MS and Activision-Blizzard

Remember how I said that time was running out on this deal? That time has been extended by three months (so that MSFT would not be on the hook for a $3 billion fee for breaking the deal), to give them time to restructure and resubmit the deal to the UK’s CMA. May not have all the time in the world to work with, but both parties are so willing to make this happen that they easily pushed the deadline out so that they’d have a chance to finish the deal. What do you guys think? Should regulators have the power to stop deals like this? Are monopolies bad? Aren’t there ways for Joe & Jane Public to handle monopoly or near monopoly power without resorting to big government? Let me remind you of something… That word, government, when you etymologically break it down, means mind control. Govern = control, ment = mind. So yeah, do you want to give someone you can’t even see more control over your mind when they have not done anything to deserve it? What was the last positive thing the government did for you? Can you remember? I didn’t think so. It has all been geared to make you accept their control, buy more crap, and punch the clock to be “productive”. I digress, though. Get me straight, I don’t like Microsoft or Activision-Blizzard, either. I think that everyone should get as far away from the control structure that is Microsoft as you can, as soon as you can. Activision-Blizzard is a hot mess as well, their whole reason for being is to addict you to entertainment, which is an amusement for your mind. I have no problem with playing a game here and there, but they profit off of people more or less selling their souls to PLAY A GAME. People whose whole lives revolve around gaming… That is unhealthy on a personal and at a societal level as well. So, do you want a company who seeks to control everything in the digital world to pair up with one whose business it is to addict people to meaningless entertainment? Come at me. Again, I do not have a problem with playing games from time to time, but when it becomes your life, that is not good for you or for our country. Same thing goes for youtube, Rumble, Twitch, Prime Video, netflix, EA, Epic Games, etc. All are designed to catch and distract you from things that are better uses of your time, such as bettering yourself, whether by getting in shape, working on your spiritual life, learning a new skill, or any other number of productive things which can benefit you and potentially society as a whole. Wow. That was pretty strongly worded. My point is that we all need balance in our lives, and if they are out of balance, whether too much work, too much play, or too much of any other thing, it is not good for us.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/19/microsoft-activision-agree-to-extend-deal-deadline-to-oct-18.html

WE 3 – Ripple Expects Use By US Banks to Pick up in Q3

After the ruling from Judge Torres last week, Counsel stated that they expect banks to start approaching Ripple about their On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) product for cross-border money transfers (the original purpose for XRP, if you recall). This would replace the aging and allegedly corrupt SWIFT system which has been in place for 50 years now. SWIFT, from what I understand, is slower than would be ideal, and allows certain actors to swipe fractions of pennies on every transaction. XRP, from what I recall, is almost instantaneous, so no need for clearinghouses and the like, because transactions are essentially instantaneous. This makes doing business among other countries much more frictionless. The purpose is to make more or less foreign exchange transactions simpler and faster. Those are, at least, the talking points I’ve heard. I am not a financial expert, nor a crypto/blockchain expert, but if we can grease the wheels and make sure money gets where it is going faster, then that seems like a good thing to me. Does that sound like a good thing in your world as well? Ripple will reevaluate its situation and whether it really needs to register as a US security based on its demand with domestic banks. The only thing that this is likely to change in the short term is price, which for those of us with diamond hands, is a beautiful thing. In the longer term, it may transform the crypto token into something less accessible to the unwashed masses, but who knows.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/17/ripple-hopes-judge-ruling-in-sec-case-will-lead-to-us-banks-using-xrp.html

WE 4 – AI News This Week

WE 4-1 – Nick Clegg Thinks that AI, “Is quite stupid”

Nick, who is the head of global affairs at Meta, threw out this gem while being interviewed on the BBC’s Today Programme. I’ve been saying this all year, guys. These “generative AI’s” are more idiot than savant. They can do some pattern recognition, and copy similar things in novel ways, but do not understand what they are being asked to do when you ask them to “create” something for you, whether an email, an essay, a research paper, or a Bar exam. Current generation AIs are based on huge datasets called Large Language Models (LLMs). Think of them as T9 predictive texting on a massive steroid overdose. These “AIs” are nowhere near being able to take your job, much less take over the world. They cannot think. Meta has decided to officially open source their Llama 2 LLM, which powers all of their AI across their products. One thing to note, though, is that Meta has now partnered with Microsoft to host the open source part of Llama 2. Of course, the writer of the article is concerned about regulation and how it is harder to regulate open source software. Duh. Open Source kind of defies regulation because anyone with the skills can take the source code for a project and run with it to create whatever they want. Ok, so Llama 2 is now open source, but it is still mostly Meta’s work, and now being hosted on Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure. What does that mean for privacy when two of the most egregious privacy rights ignoring tech firms are partnered on something? I still wouldn’t touch it with a 39.5’ pole, Mr. Grinch.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66238004

WE 4-2 – Investing In AI

The CEO of StabilityAI believes that this opportunity will balloon to $1 trillion in valuation between all of the AI development companies, foundations, and the regular tech companies on the periphery. He also warns that it could wind up being the biggest investment bubble of all time. StabilityAI makes Stable Diffusion, the AI image generator. I can believe that this is the beginning phase of a huge bubble with as much hype as there is around it. Honestly, it kind of reminds me of the hype I saw as a kid around the dot com bubble. I’m not convinced that this is that revolutionary. It is a cool thing, don’t get me wrong, but I do not see the hype of it being so earth shattering. Let me repeat my constant refrain: If you choose to use one of these tools, remember that it is just that, a tool. Do not depend on it to do anything mission-critical. Always check whatever it generates for you. Be aware of the privacy concerns inherent in most of these systems because most of them are closed source and operated by Big Tech companies, all except for Llama 2, which has now been open sourced. I’m struggling with that one as well, though, because Meta is still mining data from it, and now Microsoft can, too. That gives me the willies.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/17/ai-will-be-the-biggest-bubble-of-all-time-stability-ai-ceo.html

WE 4-3 – As Counterweight, Another New Group Sings Praises of AI

The British Computer Society has pulled together a group of over 1300 experts to sign an open letter calling AI a “force for good”. They see that it can be very useful tool to enhance human flourishing, and that the dangers of “super-intelligent AI” are far-fetched and not worth worrying so much about right now. That is not to say that they are unconcerned about the very real issues with privacy and intellectual property, among other things which present themselves in the current iterations of the technology. One of the signatories, Richard Carter, has founded an AI-powered cybersecurity company. He thinks that AI is more likely to enhance productivity rather than displace human workers. I think this is overly rosy of him, yet understandable, with the endeavor he just embarked upon. AI as it is now is not really a threat, as, as he says, “It (ChatGPT) is like a very knowledgeable and a very excitable 12 year old”. The doom and gloom, as I have also said, is overkill. There is much work to be done before it can really think at anything like a human level, and we have much to do to curb its abilities through ethical and moral training. We are nowhere near any of this. Do we need to be careful to not become complacent, either? Yes. Does that mean that we need to run around with our hair on fire because the AI-induced end of the world is upon us? No. What do you guys think? How much do you use these tools? How much do you trust them? What stock to YOU put into the hype? Let me know down below.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66218709

Memesplanation Shorts – Ephesians 6

by admin memesplanation, Spirituality & Tech

This Week's Memesplanations

Memesplanation Short – Ephesians 6:5-8

Those who are employed should listen to their employers and obey their instructions with great respect and honor. Serve them with humility in your hearts as though you were working for the Master.

Always do what is right and not only when others are watching, so that you may please Christ as his servants by doing his will. Serve your employers wholeheartedly and with love, as though you were serving Christ and not men. Be assured that anything you do that is beautiful and excellent will be repaid by our Lord, whether you are an employee or an employer.

We are to honor our employers, treat them how we would want to be treated, would you want to receive shoddy work? How does that honor the Lord? Serve your boss well, even if your job is redundant. It is that simple, seek to do your job to the best of your ability, no matter if your boss is undeserving or not. We are quality workpeople in Christ.

Memesplanation Short – Ephesians 6:10-13

Now my beloved ones, I have saved these most important truths for last: Be supernaturally infused with strength through your life-union with the Lord Jesus. Stand victorious with the force of his explosive power flowing in and through you.

Put on God’s complete set of armor provided for us, so that you will be protected as you fight against the evil strategies of the accuser! Your hand-to-hand combat is not with human beings, but with the highest principalities and authorities operating in rebellion under the heavenly realms. For they are a powerful class of demon-gods and evil spirits that hold this dark world in bondage. Because of this, you must wear all the armor that God provides so you’re protected as you confront the slanderer, for you are destined for all things and will rise victorious.

Be aware that you are in a battle. The enemy is coming at you, no matter what. You are unified with Christ, and that is why the enemy has a giant “Kick Me” sign on your back. Remember that fellow humans are not your target, the elemental powers and demonic strongholds are. Protect yourself with the armor of God so it is harder for them to get to you.

Memesplanation Short – Ephesians 6:14-20

Put on truth as a belt to strengthen you to stand in triumph. Put on holiness as the protective armor that covers your heart. Stand on your feet alert, then you’ll always be ready to share the blessings of peace.

In every battle, take faith as your wrap-around shield, for it is able to extinguish the blazing arrows coming at you from the evil one! Embrace the power of salvation’s full deliverance, like a helmet to protect your thoughts from lies. And take the mighty razor-sharp Spirit-sword of the spoken word of God.

Pray passionately in the Spirit, as you constantly intercede with every form of prayer at all times. Pray the blessings of God upon all his believers. And pray also that God’s revelation would be released through me every time I preach the wonderful mystery of the hope-filled gospel. Yes, pray that I may preach the wonderful news of God’s kingdom with bold freedom at every opportunity. Even though I am chained as a prisoner, I am his ambassador.

So, if we are unified with Christ, then what do we have to protect ourselves in this spiritual warfare? The armor of God. Truth, holiness, peace, faith, salvation, and the spoken Word of God. We also need to pray constantly in the Spirit. That is how we use the armor effectively; how we use truth, appropriate holiness, share peace in the Lord, live in faith, walk in full deliverance, and discern which parts of the Word of God ought to be spoken in a given situation. We fight (figuratively) on our knees. God has already done the fighting for us, we need to stand in His victory through prayer, and support one another in love.

Who Are You? Week 6

by admin Featured Devotions, Spirituality & Tech, Tech Freedom

Who Are You? Week 6

On Monday, we learned how we are to relate with our employers. We are to honor them as though they were the Lord Himself. Work hard and go above & beyond what you are required to do, whether they are watching or not. Don’t be George Costanza. It honors the Lord when you do your best, whether you’re being directly supervised or not. Whether they treat you well or not, treat them how you want to be treated. If you were in their shoes, would you want to receive shoddy work? How does that honor the Lord? Serve your boss well, even if your job is redundant. It is that simple, seek to do your job to the best of your ability, no matter if your boss is undeserving or not. We are quality workpeople in Christ.

On Wedensday, we started talking about spiritual warfare. In Christ, you are God’s warrior. Be aware that you are in a battle. The enemy is coming at you, no matter what. You are unified with Christ, and that is why the enemy has a giant “Kick Me” sign on your back. Remember that fellow humans are not your target, the elemental powers and demonic strongholds are. Protect yourself with the armor of God so it is harder for them to get to you. Learn to discern the powers behind each person who presents as an enemy in your life, that way you can pray for them to be set free, seeing that they are pawns or puppets for those dark entities, rather than reacting in a desire for vengeance. It only perpetuates the set of problems which led them to being willing partners with the enemy when you personally seek vengeance.

On Friday, we chatted briefly about the Armor of God to protect us in that battle. So, if we are unified with Christ, then what do we have to protect ourselves in this spiritual warfare? The armor of God. Truth, holiness, peace, faith, salvation, and the spoken Word of God. We also need to pray constantly in the Spirit. That is how we use the armor effectively; how we use truth, appropriate holiness, share peace in the Lord, live in faith, walk in progressively more full deliverance, and discern which parts of the Word of God ought to be spoken in a given situation. We fight (figuratively) on our knees. God has already done the fighting for us, we need to stand in His victory through prayer and support one another in love.

So, who are we in Christ, according to Ephesians 6? We are good workers and warriors in the Kingdom of God. We are to serve our employers well, whether they are watching or not, whether they are good bosses or not. This honors the Lord. How are we warriors? Well, the truth is that if you’re alive, you are a fighter, whether consciously for the Kingdom or unconsciously for the enemy. There is no neutral in this war, no bendu. (Star Wars Rebels reference) The Force, in Star Wars, is said to have two sides, right? The Light and The Dark, and most sentients are drawn to one or the other naturally, or through the way that they were brought up. You wind up, if you are Force-sensitive, falling into one of two camps: Jedi or Sith. The Bendu is a being who inhabited the gray area in the middle. Not particularly drawn to either side of the force. I digress, though. My point is that by merely existing, we are pieces on the cosmic chessboard. We need to be aware of that reality and choose the side of Light, then stand firm in the armor of God.

Weekend Edition 43

by admin Uncategorized

Weekend Edition 43

US Gov Emails Hacked By China

Proton Cloud App Released for Windows

Windows AI: Yikes

Meta & OpenAI Sued for Copyright Infringement

SEC VS Ripple Labs

MSFT-Activision Merger News

Broadcom-VMWare Merger News

WE 1 – Ruh-roh, Raggy, Outlook Hacked By Chinese Gang

Oh boy, this is a real gem, ain’t it? Even some US Federal government (see US Mafia) accounts were accessed by a gang called Storm-0558. 25 organizations were breached through a hole discovered in the Azure cloud platform, which powers Outlook, along with the rest of Office 365 and many other things besides. We don’t know how many or which government organizations were breached, but wow. Microsoft didn’t even pick up on this. The IT goofies at the federal government did. Microsoft has patched the exploit, allegedly. The exploit had to do with forged credentials for the Microsoft account authentication system through Outlook Web Access and Outlook.com. Both the consumer and enterprise systems were affected for user authentication tokenization. After being notified, Microsoft did patch it, but the breach went as high as the US Secretary of Commerce. That’s a big deal. Microsoft shouldn’t have needed to be notified, their cybersecurity professionals should have seen it in progress if they are as good as they claim to be. Come on, this is Microsoft. Then again, this is Microsoft, the very company who popularized the notion of computer viruses with the help of people like McAfee and Peter Norton. The very company which refused to effectively make Windows and its other products more networking and multi-user friendly from the get go, nearly 40 years ago, now. Networking and multi-user features were tacked on in Windows 3.1, and through 9x, until they migrated to the NT kernel for 2k and XP. In contrast, Linux was designed from the ground up with multi-user and networking capabilities. This makes it inherently more secure than Windows and its ilk. If you want to be more resistant to most malware, check out Linux, seriously, guys. It isn’t just for nerds or hackers, regular users can benefit from it just as much. I’m not implying that there is 0 malware for Linux, but even with it basically running the internet (yes the servers that enable you to read this are running on Linux, and I am writing this on a computer which while made by Microsoft, is running Linux, and if you watched the stream above, that was produced on a Linux-based computer as well). Linux runs the internet, including much of the Google, Azure, Oracle, and AWS cloud ecosystems, so if it is stable and performant enough for mega corporations like those, then why would it not be good for you? Join the 3% of desktop users who have made the switch to greater security, performance, longevity, stability, and privacy. Ok, stepping off of my soapbox now.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/chinese-hackers-breach-us-government-email-accounts

https://techfreedom.pro/free-your-pc

WE 2 – Proton Drive Releases Windows App

Google better watch out, there is a privacy-first cloud app for windows now. If you’re not familiar with them and want greater privacy than using the Google ecosystem could ever provide, then you owe it to yourself to check this out. They have a free tier which provides 1GB of end-to-end encrypted, automatically syncing file sharing through their cloud. You may know Proton for their privacy-first email service, or their VPN, but now the Swiss-based privacy company is building out their cloud ecosystem, to eventually include most of the common pieces of Google Workspaces. For now, they have a Windows app, are working on a MacOS one, and after that is done, they’ll work on a Linux client. Good stuff. Perfect? No. Good, absolutely. As always, your best bet is to have a personal nextcloud instance/ server, whether on your own hardware, or in someone’s cloud if privacy is your #1 concern. One great place to host that, if you have about $50/ mo to throw around, and don’t mind paying $3/ month per user, is Altha Tech. I’ll drop a link below.

https://www.techradar.com/computing/computing-security/google-drive-watch-outprivacy-first-proton-drive-lands-on-windows

https://althatech.com

https://proton.me

WE 3 – Windows AI in the Microsoft Store… Hmmmm…

Here’s what’s happening: MS is rolling out an AI Hub in the Store which is AI-curated to push AI-powered apps. Right. Not only that, but soon, they’ll be rolling out AI-summarized review snippets for the Store. I’m reminded of a scene in Star Wars: Episode 2 when C3PO and R2D2 stumble into the droid foundry on Geonosis, and 3PO comments, “Droids building droids, how perverse.” Given, we aren’t quite there, yet, but the potential is there, for a chatbot to actually generate the code to produce an app, if someone asks. It has all the information it needs from GitHub (which is owned by Microsoft, remember) in order to actually build something for you, based on the code of many other programmers and developers who submitted their codebases to the repositories there. That is weird. I don’t like that in the least. Is it all too much at once, anyway? Only time will tell if Microsoft’s zeal for using the tech that it purchased from OpenAI will be good or will ultimately backfire on them. Part of me wants it to backfire and burn windows to the ground, like in the scene in “What About Bob” where Dr. Marvin’s house gets torched, and the elderly couple whom he had snatched it out from under were sitting there saying, “Burn, baby, burn.” Sorry for the sudden burst of dated references, but oh well, here they are. If AI makes you uncomfortable, try Linux to have a computer that will do as you tell it, and nothing more, once you understand it.

https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/windows-11-gets-more-ai-but-is-microsoft-pushing-its-luck

WE 4 – Sarah Silverman & Others File Class Action Against OpenAI & Meta

This case is related to how LLMs (Large Language Models) are trained indiscriminately. These authors claim that their revenue streams have been adversely affected by chatGPT and LLaMa, which have been trained using their materials. This is something that I saw coming from the first time I heard about generative AI. I knew there would be intellectual property (IP) issues because if something exists online, it will be utilized by these models, whether it is behind a paywall or not. The way that these LLMs work is that they need as much content as possible in order to “learn” how language works, so that they can “generate” phrases, sentences, paragraphs, emails, and whole essays. It can also “generate” things in specific styles, such as similar to Ms. Silverman, or Steven King, or Maya Angelou. This is the capability which these plaintiffs are taking issue with. Is this Fair Use? Whose definition of Fair Use are we going by? This is where things get interesting for the AI players, OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and others. We shall see.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66164228

WE 5 – SEC vs Ripple Labs: Good News?

I usually try to hold off for 24 hours, minimum, before I hop on a story, but this JUST happened yesterday afternoon. Judge Torres gave both parties mixed news. On the positive side for us lowly retail investors, she decided that at least as of 2020, XRP was not a security for retail purchasers through exchanges. At the same time, she ruled that the SEC had grounds for believing that industry level investors (banks and the like) who had bought back then as a vehicle for cross border transfers (allegedly quicker and cheaper than SWIFT, if you recall, and this was the primary basis of the token/coin) knew what it was and that for them it is and was a security, as they netted a tangible benefit from it. It will continue to trial at some point in the medium term, and if you have it anywhere but a warm or cold storage wallet, hurry and move it if you plan to hodl for much longer. Do not take this as financial advice, I hold some XRP so am understandably excited by these developments. It is a mixed bag, on the whole, but if your exchange-held XRP has been stuck for the last couple of years, and you want to hodl some more because you believe that it is solid now that it has beaten this case, transfer it. If you want to wash your hands of it, then do so. Beware capital gains taxes, though, spendthrift old uncle Depends wants to take a chunk of your profits when you cash out. So it is up to you, but we’ll be moving ours asap. We will follow this story as it develops.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-says-sec-lawsuit-vs-ripple-labs-can-proceed-trial-some-claims-2023-07-13/

WE 6 – Microsoft/ Activision-Blizzard Merger News

The FTC lost its case to block the merger, after the EU approved it last month. Now the UK’s CMA (Competition & Market Authority) is the last body standing in the way of this merger which would reshape the video game industry. They do not like it, and it is supposed to be finalized in the next month or so. Their chief complaint is the same as it was a few months ago when they blocked the deal. The companies would have to restructure their deal in order to get another round of consideration from the CMA, which means it would not close on time. Then again, deals of this nature rarely go off without a hitch, and the partners have kind of bent over backwards with these regulators over the course of the last 9 months or so (since it was announced) in order to convince them that it wouldn’t destroy the cloud gaming market through monopoly on Microsoft’s part. Sure MSFT isn’t gunning to corner the gaming market…. Riiiight. I believe you, Brad Smith. No, no, no… I really don’t, and I was being about as sarcastic as I could just there. Just to be clear. I trust nothing that Microsoft says, in fact, I suspect them of doublespeak whenever they open their mouths. For that matter, why would Microsoft want the tainted company in the first place, when they know that they’ll need to clean it up like crazy in order to not sacrifice their ESG score? If you guys are unaware, there have been many claims of sexual harassment coming out of the cesspool at Activision-Blizzard for the last 10-15 years. Investigations have started, but either stalled out or resulted in developers and management simply getting slapped on the wrist because they were good at their job and it was bringing in mass amounts of money for the company.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-66099230

WE 7 – Another Merger to Watch…

Broadcom (manufacturer of networking equipment) is looking to purchase the virtualization giant, VMWare. On the surface this expensive move doesn’t make a ton of sense to me. It would make sense, moreso, at any rate. But after thinking about it, the networking adapter maker would make a move deeper into servers with this, as most servers are virtualized. If you didn’t know, virtualization allows people to more or less create computers out of thin air. You see, with something like VirtualBox, or its bigger brothers, you can section off the resources of a single set of hardware into two or more virtual machines, each with its own resources, users, and data. This is a force multiplier, but can also lead to problems if machines are not thoughtfully provisioned. So, why would Broadcom want to branch off into virtualized hardware? They want a bigger piece of the server market pie, so to speak. The EU has approved, but with caveats: Broadcom must make the tools to insure adapter compatibility available to third parties, so that they can’t put an undue squeeze on competitors like Marvell. They also must provide the source code for drivers to insure interoperability for competitors with VMWare. This still has to clear the CMA in the UK and the FTC here in the US. Long road to travel, yet before this one can close. The CMA will probably pick it apart as they have done with the Microsoft/ Acti-Blizz deal. This would be the second or third largest similar deal in history (depending on if the gaming deal goes through or not), at an eye-watering $61 billion.

https://www.engadget.com/broadcom-gets-eu-approval-for-its-61-billion-merger-with-vmware-150140942.html

Weekend Edition 42: No More Fed Social Media Collusion?

by admin FOSS News, Tech Freedom, Weekend Edition

Weekend Edition 42: No More Collusion?

Judge Rules that Feds Need to Back off of Social Media

Twitter to Sue Meta?

French Police Now Officially and Openly Spy on Citizens

Navy Hacks Teams

Cloud Huge Target Still

Chatbots Old News?

OpenAI Gets Sued

AI Ready to Take Your Job?

OpenAI Is Dedicated to Handling the Emergence of “Superintelligent AI”

Weekend Edition, Tech News, Technology, Podcast, Censorship, Twitter, Meta, MS Teams Hacked, AI

#weekendedition #technews #technology #podcast #twitter #meta #threads #msteams #AI

WE 1 – Judge Doughty Smacks Feds Down For Ignoring First Amendment

In his ruling on the case brought by the AGs of Missouri and Louisiana against the Federal Gov’t, the judge stated that, based on the evidence presented by the plaintiffs, the government likely colluded with big tech firms to censor Americans’ social media posting, specifically around the convid plan/scamdemic (not that we didn’t know this, but now a federal judge has said it in a ruling). I can’t wrap my head around the blatant abuse of the constitution from both wings of the establishment bird that is congress. I could get into “conspiracy theories” here, but I don’t want to waste the time when they have essentially been shown true at most turns. Suffice it to say that the social media giants weren’t purely selectively applying their arbitrary “community standards” through the manufactured crisis of the last 3 years or so. Elon kinda showed us that in the “Twitter Files”, but anyone who actually cared and paid attention had that sense early on. After all, the Narrative needed armor and strong protection from the powers that be, because otherwise it would have fallen apart far too quickly to be useful in their Hegelian dialectic (manufactured problem, ginned up fear, provided -almost magical- solution). People were scared to death, and these establishment mafia types just soaked it in, because it equaled unprecedented power over we the people. But I digress… Judge Doughty publicly confirmed what most of us suspected and ordered the Feds to stop contacting social media companies to censor we the people. That is huge, you can guarantee that these jokers will appeal somehow via some crazy loophole, and try to change the venue so that they’ll be dealing with a judge who is more friendly to the notion of shredding the most important of the Bill of Rights, aka more “progressive” in their legal theory. I hope the Judge was thorough enough in his 155 page ruling that any potential loopholes are non-extant. Of course the WH weighed in, saying that “while social media companies should make ‘independent choices’ about the information they present, they ‘have a critical responsibility to ‘take account of the effects their platforms have on the American people’’”. I think that they, and the DOJ, are reeling from this ruling, and We The People should savor this victory and enjoy the potential of a little more freedom of speech as we seek to remedy the larger problems in our country.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66106067

WE 2 – More Noise from the Dirty Blue Bird

Twatter is now claiming that Meta stole industry secrets by snapping up former Twatter engineers after they were fired last Fall/Winter, and that Threads is too close to Twitter to not be a literal copyright infringement issue. They have now threatened to sue a handful of times over the perceived similarities between the extant Twatter app and the new Threads app from Meta. This sounds like more marketing noise, because I think that Elon, like Trump, understands that any PR is good PR. He is keeping both platforms from and center in the public eye, and drawing more attention to both from the normies who would use either. I have no personal interest in either, as if I wanted to micro-blog, I would just jump on Mastodon. If you think about it, that is how I use Truth, Telegram, and Gab anyway, I don’t need another platform to worry about, particularly not one which has already been shown to be censorious and is connected with an outfit like Meta, whose whole raison’d’etre is to gather data about its users for advertising and 5-Eyes spy agencies. No thanks, I conscientiously object to that battlefield. Not worth it. I know, I was somewhat glowing in my discussion of Threads a few weeks ago, but I can’t in good conscience jump onto any platform owned by Meta. I won’t do it. My data is too valuable, my privacy matters too much to me. What do you guys think?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66129215

WE 3 – Well, So Much for the ‘Liberty’ Part of the Slogan from the French Revolution…

France is in the process of pushing legislation through their version of congress which is more or less an omnibus bill to reform their federal police force. Yes, France only has the one police force organization, sure, each municipality has its representatives from the national force, but it is one thing, kind of like if the FBI ran all law enforcement in our country, rather than needing to work with state, county, and city level police departments. That, in itself, is a terrifying enough thought (at least for me). However, the politicians are working to shove this gem through which will allow state-level surveillance of its own people. VPNs can’t protect the French people from this invasion of whatever amount of privacy they thought they had before. Groups on both sides of the political spectrum are vocally opposed to this, as it is. Even people in Macron’s own party are trying to get an amendment done to limit the timeframe and scope of the invasion, including protecting themselves, doctors, lawyers, journalists, and judges from its reach. I’m sorry, you want to give your police a more or less blank check to spy on your people, but you want to be excluded? No, sir, life should not work that way. You don’t get a free pass like our legislators did with Zero Care in 2011-12. If it is good for your people, it is good for you, too. How does one become a suspect in a crime? How is this not just a blatant grab for power and control? They will be able to grab geolocation data from all of the devices of any person suspected of a crime which would net at least a 5 year jail sentence. That is terrifying, but I have to wonder how that fits with the EU’s GDPR, which France is a part of. It seems like the –actual- French are at a loss with these foreign rioters shredding their country, and at least to some extent, this feels like a bit of a kneejerk reaction. Then again, France has had a history of riots before the current flood of un-assimilated refugees from Africa hit as well. I don’t know what to think about this. What do you guys think about the current riots and this portion of the reform bill? Do you think that if it makes it through without alteration that it could, in some form, be exported here?

https://www.techradar.com/computing/cyber-security/france-grants-police-power-to-spy-on-citizens-through-phones

WE 4 – Navy Hacks MS Teams… Ruh roh, raggy…

Ok, so what happened, here? Is Teams actually secure? Big questions… First things first, the US Navy’s Red Team used a known bug within Teams to develop a tool to inject an external file into a company’s business account for Teams. The tool was written in Python and is called TeamsPhisher. It can be used autonomously, once the message is written and payload is attached. In order for it to work, your account organization has to have the accept external messages feature enabled and be linked to a SharePoint instance. The tool will send the payload, bypass the warning message, and link the malicious file to your SharePoint account. MSFT has stated that they are aware of the issue and the tool, but are unconcerned, as to them, it doesn’t pose enough of a threat to them or their users. Wait a minute, I know why they are so cool about this, SharePoint scans all files (even allegedly encrypted ones) which are uploaded to SharePoint, so if an infected file were uploaded there, it would likely be neutralized or deleted before it had a chance to do anything nefarious. (I talked about that last week, if I recall). Needless to say, I think that as long as you have external access turned off, you’re pretty safe from TeamsPhisher. Also, if you receive unexpected messages from someone you don’t know, you should not open them anyway. Even unexpected messages from someone you do know should be confirmed to have actually come from that person, trust, but verify, people.

https://www.techradar.com/pro/the-us-navy-has-hacked-microsoft-teams-to-send-malware

WE 5 – Is Your Cloud Safe?

Well, is it? Do you encrypt all of your files before you transfer them? If not, your cloud is likely vulnerable to attack. You also need to bring in on-premises multi-factor authentication (MFA) to secure your access to your cloud and on-premises data. Anything stored anywhere other than on the physical device/terminal/machine you are using should be protected by MFA and encryption. Ideally, even the data on your physical device should be protected via encryption, that way it takes more than just your user password to access your data. If it is encrypted on your system, there is less likelihood that you’ll transfer it in plain text to begin with. Does this make it less convenient? Yes. Is the pain worth it? If security and privacy matter to you, if your data (whether personal or company/ client data)matters to you, then the answer should be a resounding, “Yes”. Then again, if you transfer encrypted files onto SharePoint, they may as well not be encrypted, as MSFT will scrape your password and or keys and scan the file as soon as you upload it anyway, just in case there is something hinky in it. If it sounds like I am going easy on them for this, I am not. I just mentioned it in the last story anyway. Ultimately, if you are using any cloud, you are storing data on a piece of hardware you do NOT own. That is the definition of “cloud computing”. I’m all about helping you to create your own solutions where feasible at all, away from the prying eyes of ad agencies, Big Tech, and intelligence communities around the world. Take responsibility. Quit outsourcing your thinking because it is easier and more convenient to do so. Can it be costly? Yes. I won’t pretend that it is a free solution, after all, in the words of Robert Heinlein, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” (TANSTAAFL). I have solutions on tap for you, though, and it is certainly doable.

https://www.techradar.com/pro/cloud-remains-the-biggest-target-for-cyberattacks

WE 6 – Are We “Over” Chatbots?

For the first time in the 8 months, since the public release of ChatGPT, there was a slight decline in traffic in the last month. Not merely for the chatGPT direct portal, but even for Bing Search and character.ai, a competitor for the biggest chatbot. Even Bard isn’t seeing growth from May-June. I am actually happy to see this, hopefully the trend continues as people realize that it isn’t as epically awesome as they initially thought. It isn’t. It “hallucinates” entire news stories and even manufactures people from nothing to support its assertions. If you are using it for anything significant, never simply trust its results. Verify them, cross check them… Fact-check them. I have always said that these tools CAN be a good starting point for projects, not that I suggest you use them, but as long as kept in perspective and not fed any sensitive or private information, they can be useful. Also, keep in mind that most of the major ones are directly linked with Big Tech (Microsoft [owns a huge chunk of OpenAI and hosts most of the compute for chatGPT in the Azure cloud] and Google [Bard]). Then there are also major privacy issues (on top of those facts) with these bots, which we will talk about in the next story.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/are-we-sick-of-ai-chatbots-already-chatgpt-site-sees-traffic-dip

WE 7 – OpenAI Gets Sued Over Mishandling Private User Data

Uh oh, is the jig up for Altman and company? Clarkson Law has just served a class action lawsuit to test the theory that the ways in which OpenAI gathers data through web scraping and other means constitute a breach of privacy law for the people and organizations who posted their thoughts and work on the web, because unless the content was explicitly free domain or copyright-free. However, if material is copyrighted, and is used to train these bots, this case seeks recompense for the creators of said content from the company. It also seek a temporary injunction against the company, that it would have to shut down the commercial side of ChatGPT until the case is decided. I think this is a good idea. Only information that is free domain should be free game for AI companies to scrape and train their AI bots with, not just every little thing. Intellectual property matters, at least last I checked, here in the US. This isn’t the CCP yet. I think that this is an interesting case to watch closely, moving forward. I will do so, whenever there is more news on it.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/openai-sued-for-using-stolen-data-violating-your-privacy-with-chatgpt

WE 8 – Is AI Coming for Your Job?

Some industries seem to be more in jeopardy than others, such as healthcare or even automotive. Personally, I could see an AI do well in automotive, as long as it has full diagnostic data available on the vehicles it is tasked with repairing, and has solid databases for determining what that data indicates in terms of problems. As for healthcare, similar, but I don’t trust it with my personal health or data. That is too much information to give to a faceless algorithm, thank you. Then again, I haven’t gone to a doctor’s appointment for myself in close to ten years, so they don’t have any recent data from me, anyway. Let’s say a collective hell no to AI healthcare. There are reports out there from various industries indicating that many business sectors are looking to save money on HR by employing these AI tools. I can understand that impulse, however, I don’t think that it will have long-term effects at this time. Maybe I’m wrong and horribly biased against the technological tools here, but this is my sense right now. It has made a splash, and many large and medium companies have jumped on the bandwagon with it, but I think that the interest is waning, and people want to talk to another flash and blood person, not some soulless AI chatbot.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/ai-is-coming-for-our-jobs-but-which-ones

WE 9 – OpenAI Aims to Stop “Superintelligent AI”

LMAO!!!! Sorry, I think this is a joke, guys, OpenAI is so much more concerned with future developments than they are with your privacy and intellectual property rights. They are devoting 20% of their considerable cloud compute resources to researching how to stymie a possible superintelligent (more intelligent than most humans) general AI that may emerge in 5-10 years. General AIs don’t fully exist yet, as far as we know. I doubt they will be for some time, to be honest. Maybe I need to plead some level of ignorance here, but I don’t see this happening that quickly. The LLMs out there now are anything but intelligent. They don’t understand what they’re spitting out. What OpenAI is signaling here is that they are afraid of general AI’s which at least at unavailable to the public at this point. Why are they magnifying this non-issue? I know that on one hand, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, but if what is there, now is as pathetic as it is, then why are we scared of something that is so far off? Could it be closer than we think? What do you think?

https://www.pcmag.com/news/openais-latest-goal-prevent-superintelligent-ai-from-killing-us-all