[-] debanqued@beehaw.org 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I don’t want to be an enabler of the drivel, so without posting the full URL to that article that’s reachable in the open free world, I will just say that medium.com links should never be publicly shared outside of Cloudflare’s walled garden. I realise aussie.zone is also in Cloudflare’s walled garden, but please be aware that it’s federated and reaches audiences who are excluded by Cloudflare.

The medium.com portion of the URL should be replaced by scribe.rip to make a medium article reachable to everyone. Though I must say this particular article doesn’t need any more reach than it has.

Anyone who just wants the answer: see @souperk@reddthat.com’s comment in this thread.

28
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by debanqued@beehaw.org to c/politics@beehaw.org

BBC World Service was covering the US elections and gave a brief blurb to inform non-US listeners on the basic differences between republicans and democrats. They essentially said something like:

Democrats prefer a big government with a tax-and-spend culture while republicans favor minimal governance with running on a lean budget, less spending¹

That’s technically accurate enough but it seemed to reflect a right-wing bias that seems inconsistent with BBC World Service. I wouldn’t be listening to BBC if they were anything like Fox News (read: faux news). The BBC could have just as well phrased it this way:

“Democrats prefer a government that is financed well enough to ensure protection of human rights…”

It’s the same narrative but expressed with dignity. When they are speaking on behalf of a political party it’s an attack on their dignity and character to fixate on a side-effect rather than the goal and intent. A big tax-and-spend gov is not a goal of dems, it’s a means to achieve protection of human rights. It’s a means that has no effective alternative.

① Paraphrasing from what I heard over the air -- it’s not an exact quote

#BBC #BBCWorldService

[-] debanqued@beehaw.org 21 points 3 months ago

This is why I’m so disgusted every time someone says “republicans and democrats are basically the same”, which I most often hear from Europeans.

[-] debanqued@beehaw.org 7 points 3 months ago
[-] debanqued@beehaw.org 33 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

from the article:

Subject to the terms of this Agreement, You hereby grant to HP a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free right to use, copy, store, transmit, modify, create derivative works of and display Your non-personal data for its business purposes.

Holy shit. I wonder if HP is feeding customers’ data to an #AI machine to exploit in some way. It doesn’t even seem to be limited to what people print. HP’s software package is probably not just a printer driver. But even if it is, a driver runs in the kernel space, so IIUC there’s no limit to what data it can mine.

[-] debanqued@beehaw.org 16 points 4 months ago

First and foremost, #HP is not an option for anyone who boycotts #Israel. And even neglecting that, HP is still the least ethical of all ink suppliers.

from the article:

Prices range from $6.99 per month for a plan that includes an HP Envy printer (the current model is the 6020e) and 20 printed pages. The priciest plan includes an HP OfficeJet Pro rental and 700 printed pages for $35.99 per month.

So the 20 page deal probably reflects the consumption of most households that print. That means the cost ranges from $7—35¢ per page. You must print 20 pages to reach 35¢ pp. A library would likely charge ~5—10¢ pp flat. Print shops tend to be cheaper than libraries.

The 700 page deal amounts to $36—5¢ pp. So you have to print exactly 700 pages to get a good price. Everyone who does not print exactly 700 pages every month for a span of 2 years will get screwed.

One of the most perturbing aspects of the subscription plan is that it requires subscribers to keep their printers connected to the Internet.

Bingo. It’s not a “smart” printer, it’s a dependent printer.

20
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by debanqued@beehaw.org to c/finance@beehaw.org

For the past ~15 years I have tried for the most part to boycott:

  • American Express for being an #ALEC member (which supports #climateDenial and obstructs public healthcare, public education, immigration, gun control, etc), and for participating in the #Wikileaks donation blockade
  • Visa for pushing the #warOnCash (member of #betterThanCashAlliance.org and offering huge rewards to merchants who refuse cash), for participating in the #Wikileaks donation blockade, and for blocking Tor users from anonymously opting out of data sharing on their credit cards
  • Mastercard for pushing the #warOnCash (member of betterThanCashAlliance.org), for participating in the #Wikileaks donation blockade, and for blocking Tor users from anonymously opting out of data sharing on their credit cards

Discovercard has always been a clear lesser of evils. So Discovercard has earned the majority of my business whenever cash is not possible. But now I hear chatter that #Discovercard might merge with a shitty bank that had an embarrassing data leak by an Amazon contractor: #CapitalOne. I was disappointed when Samual Jackson promoted #CapOne. Capital One supported Trump’s Jan.6 insurrection attempt among other things.

So what’s left? JCB (Japanese) and UnionPay (China). JCB pulled out of the US like 10 years ago. People outside the US can get a #JCB card but then IIRC it uses the Discovercard network in the US and the #AmEx network in Canada.

I already favor cash whenever possible. In other cases it will be hard to choose the lesser of evils between CapOne and Mastercard.

update


Found an insightful article detailing a loophole that the fed gave to Discovercard which is why Capital One intends to buy it.

[-] debanqued@beehaw.org 13 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Glad to see CFPB might be growing their balls back after Trump neutered them. When Trump was in power the CFPB took no action on complaints of unlawful conduct and seemed quite inactive.. as if to just be managing their own office (like the EPA).

[-] debanqued@beehaw.org 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Indeed as someone who straddles two places of living I can attest to that. When living in a relatively flat city I’m cycling everywhere (on e-bike until it was stolen, then on cheap muscle bike thereafter). My other place of living is extremely hilly. Used a muscle bike and quickly said “fuck this, I’m done”. Just like the article said about hills on the trails. And since I cannot justify the cost of an e-bike in that particular place/situation, I do not cycle at all when living there. But if an e-bike had been cost effective I would be getting more exercise in that area.

[-] debanqued@beehaw.org 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

That’s a great move. Instead of trying to regulate the baddies just offer a more honest, transparent consumer-respecting option from a public service that respects people’s privacy (CFPB does not block Tor, unlike #CreditKarma and #LendingTree).

I would love it even more if they would also enable people to deselect banks they want to avoid, such as the shit banks on this list:

https://git.disroot.org/cyberMonk/liberethos_paradigm/src/branch/master/usa_banks.md

1
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by debanqued@beehaw.org to c/gdpr@sopuli.xyz

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/12170575

The GDPR has some rules that require data controllers to be fair and transparent. EDPB guidelines further clarify in detail what fairness and transparency entails. As far as I can tell, what I am reading strongly implies a need for source code to be released in situations where an application is directly executed by a data subject and the application also processes personal data.

I might expand on this more but I’m looking for information about whether this legal theory has been analyzed or tested. If anyone knows of related court opinions rulings, or even some NGO’s analysis on this topic I would greatly appreciate a reference.

#askFedi

[-] debanqued@beehaw.org 7 points 4 months ago

You’re referring to anonymity, not privacy.

Anonymity is part of privacy; not a dichotomy.

9
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by debanqued@beehaw.org to c/support@beehaw.org

I posted an apparently off-topic post to !foss@beehaw.org. The moderator removed it from the timeline because discussion about software that should be FOSS was considered irrelevant to FOSS. Perhaps fair enough, but it’s an injustice that people in a discussion were cut off. The thread should continue even if it’s not linked in the community timeline. I received a reply that I could not reply to. What’s the point in blocking a discussion that’s no longer visible from the timeline?

It’s more than just an unwanted behavior because the UI is broken enough to render a dysfunctional reply mechanism. That is, I can click the reply button to a comment in an orphaned thread (via notifications) and the UI serves me with a blank form where I can then waste human time writing a msg, only to find that clicking submit causes it to go to lunch in an endless spinner loop. So time is wasted on the composition then time is wasted wondering what’s wrong with the network. When in fact the reply should simply go through.

(edit) this is similar to this issue. Slight difference though: @jarfil@beehaw.org merely expects to be able to reply to lingering notifications after a mod action. That’s good but I would go further and propose that the thread should still be reachable and functional (just not linked in the timeline where it was problematic).

6
submitted 4 months ago by debanqued@beehaw.org to c/support@beehaw.org

This series of single word spam has 1 vote each:

https://beehaw.org/comment/2351412

Yet there are responses to the same comment with many more upvotes. Why don’t the higher valued comments rise above the comments with a score of 1?

6
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by debanqued@beehaw.org to c/support@beehaw.org

When trying to access https://beehaw.org/c/finance it gives a 502 bad gateway -- “Worker Bees are busy updating the website”.

[-] debanqued@beehaw.org 23 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

We can make some headway by pushing govs to adopt OSS. The Italians have a law “public money → public code”. The whole public sector including public schools should be switching to open source. And part of that would compel contributions of some form. Whether it’s code contributions or payment for support. People should be demanding that their tax revenue is not wasted on software that does not enrich the commons. With profit-driven corporations it’s always a game where a number of variables have to be just right for the company. But the public sector is very much overlooked.

I recently looked at a Danish university and was disgusted with what I saw. They used MS Office and Google docs, and students were pushed to use those tools. They used Matlab not GNU Octave, because that’s what they saw industry using. Schools should be leading industry, not following it.

[-] debanqued@beehaw.org 23 points 7 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I’ve not been tracking them because I tend to only collect dirt on the greatest of evils. What comes to mind:

  • default search engine: Google (this is what that Google money is for officially)
  • Mozilla gave the boot to a lot of plugins and imposed some kind of control-freakish trust mechanism. Plugins/extensions were evicted from the plugin repository and they made it hard for plugin creators to distribute their plugins. I lost several very useful plugins when Mozilla took this controlling protectionist stance.
  • MAFF ditched. Mozilla abandoned a good format for archiving websites. I had a lot of content saved in *.maff files which Mozilla dropped direct support for and at the same time they blocked MAFF plugins.
  • Without Firefox, Google would be easily targeted with anti-trust actions. Google props up Mozilla just enough to be able to claim they have “competition”. Google can be most dominant when it has a crippled competitor under its influence.
  • Google killed the free world JPEG XL format. When a browser as dominant as Chrome withholds support JPEG XL, there is then no reason for web devs to use that format. Google did this because JPEG XL competes with a proprietary Google format. Firefox does not support it out of the box either, likely because of Google’s influence. Firefox users can enable it by going through some config hoops, so if Chrome alone did not kill it, that certainly would.

I vaguely recall a slew of Mozilla actions that were anti-thetical to privacy and user interests which caused me to move them from “a decent browser” to a “lesser of evils”. Hopefully others have better records of Mozilla’s history.

update May 2024


  • Mozilla uses data abuser Cloudflare for their exclusive access-restricted blog
  • Mozilla has decided to add more tracking to their browser to collect people’s search activity.
80
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by debanqued@beehaw.org to c/foss@beehaw.org

Mozilla is ~83% funded by Google. That’s right- the maker of the dominant Chrome browser is mostly behind its own noteworthy “competitor”. When Google holds that much influence over Mozilla, I call it a false duopoly because consumers are duped into thinking the two are strongly competing with each other. In Mozilla’s effort to please Google and to a lesser extent the end users, it often gets caught pulling anti-user shenanigans. Users accept it because they see Firefox as the lesser of evils.

Even if it were a true duopoly, it would be insufficient anyway. For a tool that is so central to the UX of billions of people, there should be many more competitors.

public option

Every notable government has an online presence where they distribute information to the public. Yet they leave it to the public to come up with their own browser which may or may not be compatible with the public web service. In principle, if a government is going to distribute content to the public, they also have a duty to equip the public to be able to consume the content. Telling people to come up with their own private sector tools to reach the public sector is a bit off. It would be like telling citizens they can receive information about legislation that passes if they buy a private subscription to the Washington Post. The government should produce their own open source browser which adheres to open public standards and which all the gov websites are tested with.

I propose Italy

Italy is perhaps the only country in the world to have a “public money → public code” law, whereby any software development effort that is financed by the gov must be open source. So IMO Italy should develop a browser to be used to access websites of the Italian gov. Italy can save us from the false duopoly from Google.

69
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by debanqued@beehaw.org to c/foss@beehaw.org

Since last year, republicans have launched a campaign to get conservatives on school boards. This is the political party in the US who favors privatization of everything. They are sympathetic to giant corporations and champion #citizensUnited (which elevates corporations above humans). #Ohio has a large number of extremists intending to take school board positions.

I don’t get the impression #FOSS orgs like #FSF are paying attention. The FOSS movement stands to lose some ground here. #FreeSoftware in education is important and FSF does not even have a campaign for it on their website.

1
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by debanqued@beehaw.org to c/philosophy@mander.xyz

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/8984968

When the FSF Free Software Directory directs people to freedom-lacking places

The #FSD purpose is to help people “find freedom-respecting programs”. Browsing the directory reveals copious freedom-disrespecting resources. For example:

FSF has no tags for these anti-features. It suggests a problem with integrity and credibility. People expect to be able to trust FSF as an org that prioritizes user freedom. Presenting this directory with unmarked freedom pitfalls sends the wrong message & risks compromising trust and transparency. Transparency is critical to the FOSS ideology. Why not clearly mark the freedom pitfalls?

The idea of having exclusive clubs with gatekeepers is inconsistent with FSF’s most basic principles, specifically:

  • All important site functionality that's enabled for use with that package works correctly (though it need not look as nice) in free browsers, including IceCat, without running any nonfree software sent by the site. (C0)
  • Does not discriminate against classes of users, or against any country. (C2)
  • Permits access via Tor (we consider this an important site function). (C3)

Failing any of those earns an “F” grade (Github & gitlab·com both fail).

If Cloudflare links in the #FSF FSD are replaced with archive.org mirrors, that avoids a bulk of the exclusivity. #InternetArchive’s #ALA membership automatically invokes the Library Bill of Rights (LBR), which includes:

  • V. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
  • VI. Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.
  • VII. All people, regardless of origin, age, background, or views, possess a right to privacy and confidentiality in their library use. Libraries should advocate for, educate about, and protect people’s privacy, safeguarding all library use data, including personally identifiable information.

The LBR is consistent with FSF’s principles so this is a naturally fitting solution. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is also noteworthy. Even if the FSD is technically not a public service, the public uses it and FSF is an IRS-qualified 501(c)(3) public charity, making it public enough to observe these UDHR clauses:

  • art.21 ¶2. Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
  • art.27 ¶1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

These fundamental egalitarian principles & rights are a minimum low bar to set that cannot be construed as “unreasonable” or “purist” or “extremist”.

Some groups of people who are excluded when resources are inside Cloudflare’s walled-garden include:

  • public library users
  • Tor users
  • CGNAT users (often poor people in impoverished regions whose ISPs have fewer IPv4 addresses to allocate than the number of users)
  • people who use scripts to access web resources (and interactive users who merely appear to be bots by using non-graphical FOSS tools, blind people IIRC as they are not loading images)
  • all people with a moral objection to exposing ~20—30% of their web traffic (metadata & payloads both) to one single centralized tech giant in a country without privacy safeguards. (29% of the 200 most popular Github projects also make use of Cloudflare)
[-] debanqued@beehaw.org 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

First of all Cloudflare does not disclose to excluded communities why they are excluded. This non-transparency keeps the marginalized in the dark about both the technical criteria for exclusion and also the business reason for exclusion.

Why I personally have been excluded is irrelevant trivia. The full extent of CF’s exclusion is unknown but it’s evident that at a minimum these groups of people are excluded:

  • public libraries
  • Tor users
  • VPN users
  • CGNAT users (often poor people in impoverished regions whose ISPs have fewer IPv4 addresses to allocate than the number of users)
  • people who use scripts to access web resources (and interactive users who merely appear to be bots by using non-graphical FOSS tools, blind people IIRC as they are not loading images)
  • all people with a moral objection to exposing ~20—30% of their web traffic (metadata & payloads both) to one single centralized tech giant in a country without privacy safeguards.

I personally experience exclusion by all of the above except CGNAT.

1
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by debanqued@beehaw.org to c/freesoftware@lemmy.zip

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/8984968

The #FSD purpose is to help people “find freedom-respecting programs”. Browsing the directory reveals copious freedom-disrespecting resources. For example:

FSF has no tags for these anti-features. It suggests a problem with integrity and credibility. People expect to be able to trust FSF as an org that prioritizes user freedom. Presenting this directory with unmarked freedom pitfalls sends the wrong message & risks compromising trust and transparency. Transparency is critical to the FOSS ideology. Why not clearly mark the freedom pitfalls?

UPDATE

The idea of having exclusive clubs with gatekeepers is inconsistent with FSF’s most basic principles, specifically:

  • All important site functionality that's enabled for use with that package works correctly (though it need not look as nice) in free browsers, including IceCat, without running any nonfree software sent by the site. (C0)
  • Does not discriminate against classes of users, or against any country. (C2)
  • Permits access via Tor (we consider this an important site function). (C3)

If Cloudflare links in the #FSF FSD are replaced with archive.org mirrors, that avoids a bulk of the exclusivity. It also automatically invokes the Library Bill of Rights (LBR) because #InternetArchive is an #ALA member:

  • V. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
  • VI. Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.
  • VII. All people, regardless of origin, age, background, or views, possess a right to privacy and confidentiality in their library use. Libraries should advocate for, educate about, and protect people’s privacy, safeguarding all library use data, including personally identifiable information.

The LBR is consistent with FSF’s principles so this is naturally a good solution. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights are also noteworthy. Even if the FSD is technically not a public service, the public uses it and FSF is an IRS-qualified 501(c)(3) public charity, likely making it public enough to observe these UDHR clauses:

  • art.21 ¶2. Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
  • art.27 ¶1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

These fundamental principles & rights are a minimum low bar to set that cannot be construed as “not reasonable” or “purist” or “extremist”.

25
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by debanqued@beehaw.org to c/foss@beehaw.org

The #FSD purpose is to help people “find freedom-respecting programs”. Browsing the directory reveals copious freedom-disrespecting resources. For example:

FSF has no tags for these anti-features. It suggests a problem with integrity and credibility. People expect to be able to trust FSF as an org that prioritizes user freedom. Presenting this directory with unmarked freedom pitfalls sends the wrong message & risks compromising trust and transparency. Transparency is critical to the FOSS ideology. Why not clearly mark the freedom pitfalls?

UPDATE

The idea of having exclusive clubs with gatekeepers is inconsistent with FSF’s most basic principles, specifically:

  • All important site functionality that's enabled for use with that package works correctly (though it need not look as nice) in free browsers, including IceCat, without running any nonfree software sent by the site. (C0)
  • Does not discriminate against classes of users, or against any country. (C2)
  • Permits access via Tor (we consider this an important site function). (C3)

Failing any of those earns an “F” grade (Github & gitlab·com both fail).

If Cloudflare links in the #FSF FSD are replaced with archive.org mirrors, that avoids a bulk of the exclusivity. #InternetArchive’s #ALA membership automatically invokes the Library Bill of Rights (LBR), which includes:

  • V. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
  • VI. Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.
  • VII. All people, regardless of origin, age, background, or views, possess a right to privacy and confidentiality in their library use. Libraries should advocate for, educate about, and protect people’s privacy, safeguarding all library use data, including personally identifiable information.

The LBR is consistent with FSF’s principles so this is a naturally fitting solution. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is also noteworthy. Even if the FSD is technically not a public service, the public uses it and FSF is an IRS-qualified 501(c)(3) public charity, making it public enough to observe these UDHR clauses:

  • art.21 ¶2. Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
  • art.27 ¶1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

These fundamental egalitarian principles & rights are a minimum low bar to set that cannot be construed as “unreasonable” or “purist” or “extremist”.

6
submitted 8 months ago by debanqued@beehaw.org to c/finance@beehaw.org

cross-posted from: https://fedia.io/m/privacy/t/346211

I need to check the balance of my bank card. It’s apparently becoming quite rare for ATMs to support balance inquiries. So as I try many different ATMs to check the balance, some ATMs demand PIN entry before you even see the service offers. So I enter my PIN and then it only gives a cash withdrawal option, at which point I eject.

Couple problems here:

  • anti-fraud AI sensors can be very fragile & trigger happy. If my card is inserted into several different ATMs with & no transaction is initiated, I am of course concerned that my account will be frozen due to fraud false positive.

  • some ATMs automatically print out your balance on the receipt if you ask for a receipt. Some show it on the screen Some ATMs will only print the balance on the receipt if you specifically requested the balance in your session. Some ATMs are completely incapable of balance inquiries (at least for cards from other banks). Consumers seem to have no way of knowing what kind of ATM they are dealing with in advance, which forces us to experiment.

Questions:

  • when an ATM demands PIN in advance, does that mean the transaction will signal the bank even if the session is terminated when the menu shows no balance inquiry option? IIUC, the PIN can be verified using the cards EMV chip without using the network - but is that necessarily the case?

  • when an ATM shows the menu options before asking for a PIN, can we count on no signal being sent to the bank?

One of my accounts got frozen for fraud. I called the bank, complained, demanded answers. The bankers themselves are kept in the dark and left guessing about what happened. One banker said “you asked for more than the daily limit 2 or 3 times, which failed, then you went to a different ATM and tried again. Since you went to a different machine, that likely looked like fraud”. (of course I tried a different machine -- why would a legit user keep trying the same machine?)

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debanqued

joined 2 years ago