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Boosted by soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker"):
canacar@ioc.exchange ("Can Acar") wrote:

@soatok 100% agree that "No" is a great answer for both security and privacy related problems. It is good to always question what problem they are trying to solve. If nothing else, it is one less thing to worry about if you manage to shut it down. It is not always an acceptable answer, however, if they are already (committed to) doing it. Then you would have to go into damage reduction mode.

Sometimes, "if I don't get involved they will ship it anyway" realization leads to proposing such alternatives.

dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

i've got a knackered old combine harvester and you can hotwire it for free

Boosted by soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker"):
cliffle@hachyderm.io wrote:

@soatok respecting privacy is the ultimate privacy-enhancing technology

soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker") wrote:

Last thing: When I said "No" is a Privacy-Enhancing Technology, I didn't just mean an opt-out.

I mean the engineers growing a fucking spine and telling their boss, "No, we shouldn't collect this data in the first place."

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
Rasta@mstdn.ca wrote:

"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people" - Howard Zinn.

#Quote #USA #Murderers #War #TrumpWar #Epstein

soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker") wrote:

During the coffee breaks and dinner conversations, everyone I talked to about these things echoed my frustrations.

In 2024, a speaker from Intuit spoke about their distributed key generation protocol. It involved multiplying a number by a hash. They did not elaborate on whether that's just a bigint operation or an elliptic curve group operation. @sophieschmieg was like, "Why would they do that? What if they set it to zero?" and the backchatter was full of "Why are the tax people rolling their own crypto?"

So, like, I'm not super worried about adtech rotting the RWC community.

Boosted by soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker"):
r0k wrote:

@soatok most of the problems in this area stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of consent

soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker") wrote:

At an earlier track, one of the invited speakers suggested using Fully Homomorphic Encryption to allow folks to have private conversations with an AI chatbot for therapy.

My mind was instantly filled with news stories of OpenAI and self-harm. Lawsuits from grieving families.

Are they deeply out of touch?

Or was it just "hmm, what do people want privacy for? I'll just throw a bunch of hypothetical examples of things FHE would be good for without interrogating them deeply"?

Boosted by soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker"):
S-Config@core.s-config.com wrote:

@soatok "No" is also Ecologically friendly. as it take maybe 1 packet to say "No." and not an endless CPU cryptographic reach-around to tickle the users balls because you refuse to accept "No." and instead put a "Maybe later." increasing energy usage for everyone.

See, this is why I can't be a speaker at these events.

soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker") wrote:

I'm not sharing this to shit on anyone at #RWC2026. My favorite people in tech are often found there, and the organizers put a lot of thought, effort, and care into making the vibe good.

I also don't ascribe any malice to the speakers. They probably didn't think to ask these questions, and didn't think to put them in their slide deck. Maybe they've self-selected into an environment that doesn't foster that kind of inquiry. Maybe they considered it but cut it out for time.

But if we're going to talk about this sort of thing,, we need to actually address these questions, even if there isn't a comfortable answer.

Boosted by fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷"):
existentialcomics ("Existential Comics") wrote:

If Iran blows up Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos I promise you here and now that I WILL convert to Islam and join the Butlerian Jihad.

soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker") wrote:

"No" is a better privacy-enhancing technology than the state-of-the-art differential privacy techniques.

It's efficient! Not collecting data requires at most O(1) bandwidth, O(1) storage, and O(1) compute.

"No" is not "Maybe later".

"No" is not "Ask me again in 3 days".

"No" is not "Maybe after a few more beers", since many of the people that need to hear the first part of his message likely also needs the second.

Boosted by soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker"):
S-Config@core.s-config.com wrote:

@soatok They seem to forgot why Tor is popular in the first place.. and why the majority of users of Tor like it.. They don't want to be cataloged. They want to be left alone.

soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker") wrote:

Here's a privacy-enhancing technology for you to consider:

"No."

You don't need to know. You don't need to measure. The efficacy of advertising campaigns, market segmentation, and relevance targeting should be minimized for the good of humanity.

soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker") wrote:

At #RealWorldCrypto this year, there was a session on "privacy-enhancing technologies".

The first talk in the session was about a new encryption method for Tor.

The next two were painful examples of "a person cannot be convinced of something when their salary depends on them not knowing it".

Advertisers wants to collect signals about populations without being individually identifying. So let's talk about differential privacy techniques to let them do that.

One example was "Meta wants to know what percentage of its teneage users blocked a contact today".

At no point did they address the elephants in the room.

• Why do they want this data in the first place?
• What are they even doing with this signal?
• Have you considered telling them to fuck off and not collect it in the first place?

As tempting as it might be to hand wave it, and say "well yes but their business model depends on it", I say to advertisers, "then perish".

dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

i don't recommend actually watching it since he is clearly brainwormed in multiple ways but i am feeling waves of curiosity from people https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbMXi9q78Tk

dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

incidentally it's quite hilarious hearing someone talk about security in the same breath as AI

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

One more thought about Connor before I move on.

The irony of Conner funding his girlfriend's play. Connor, who believes free market capitalism is the answer to everything, invested hundreds of thousands in *live theatre* lmao.

He's seems completely oblivious to the fact that capitalism continues to kill the arts, and what exists must accept donations, grants, and other government handouts to survive.

dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

holy crap this video has everything

• self confessed non-expert
• that uses AI extensively by choice
• and hates it
• but is going to be relentlessly positive
• prayer for the listener at the end of the video

Boosted by NfNitLoop ("Cody Casterline 🏳️‍🌈"):
chillybot@infosec.exchange ("Chilly :donor: 🛡️ :fedora:") wrote:

#DS9 #StarTrek

dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

let's talk about how this tool does tons of stuff and i hate it

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
samlitzinger@journa.host ("Sam Litzinger") wrote:

“Pentagon Tells Congress First Week of Iran War Cost More Than $11.3 Billion
In a Capitol Hill briefing, officials gave their most comprehensive assessment of the cost of the first six days of the war, but the number omitted several aspects of the operation.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/world/middleeast/iran-war-costs-pentagon.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
wizzy@noc.social ("Andy Rabagliati") wrote:

So no, we don't trust the U.S. or Israel. Not because we support our regime—but because we know how imperial powers treat ‘liberated’ nations in the Middle East.
Freedom, in their language, often means vacuum, fire, and permanent instability. Right now, many Iranians live with three truths at once: The Islamic Republic is morally and politically bankrupt. The alternatives offered by foreign actors are not liberation—they’re collapse. 3/

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
bourgwick@heads.social ("jesse jarnow") wrote:

50 years ago tonight, crazy horse trippin' at the budokan. https://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/185911293867/neil-young-crazy-horse-budokan-hall-tokyo

![The show at the Nippon Budokan Hall Tokyo on March 11 was being filmed for a documentary and recorded for a live album, and-without telling their bandmates-Billy and Poncho dropped acid before going on. "We did 'Cowgirl in the Sand' and Billy and Ralph went up to sing the backgrounds," Poncho continues. "I opened my eyes and saw big manda- las comin' out of the back of both their heads, all these colors 'n shit. I couldn't even look up, I was so high. I'd hit the strings of my guitar-they were like eighty different colors and they bounced off the floors and hit the ceiling. At the end of the second song Neil came runnin' over, stuck his head between me and Billy and goes, 'Man, we're psychedelic tonight!' ] just looked at Billy, thinkin', 'He told him, he told him.' The whole rest of the night I don't even think we made a mistake. It was unbelievable."]4

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

One more thought about Connor before I move on.

The irony of Conner funding his girlfriend's play. Connor, who believes free market capitalism is the answer to everything, invested hundreds of thousands in *live theatre* lmao.

He's seems completely oblivious to the fact that capitalism continues to kill the arts, and what exists must accept donations, grants, and other government handouts to survive.

adam@social.lol ("Adam") wrote:

(Aaaand I’m back on Pokopia.)

https://tv.neatnik.net/?pokemon-pokopia

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

first try at getting a "player character" UI up for my seekrit project. it is crude, it needs lots of work, and still... it ain't how high the elephant flies the first try, it is the fact that it flies at all.

[decision layer] (human w GUI or s/w)
[AI/XO layer]
[operations layer]

[sol system server]

(at this point, the NPCs are murderous and the PC is half-wired)

https://boris.arghstudios.com/images/firstTryAtChar.mp4

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
vicfroh ("Victator") wrote:

Gargron ("Eugen Rochko") wrote:

Has anyone received their "I write alt text" t-shirt yet? I'd love to see some pictures / hear some feedback 🙂

adam@social.lol ("Adam") wrote:

The human.json thing was big news a couple of days ago, but I finally put down Pokémon Pokopia for long enough to make one myself. I also finally made the /ai slash page that I’ve been putting off publishing for too long.

https://www.neatnik.net/ai/

https://www.neatnik.net/.well-known/human.json