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Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
hollie@social.coop ("Hollie") wrote:

Seen today on my bike ride up to the market.

Boosted by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
Z@jorts.horse ("zeevacation@gmail.com") wrote:

logging in like

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

Turned out I had a (unpaid) Grammarly account.

Emphasis on "had".

jscalzi@threads.net ("John Scalzi") wrote:

Look, I strongly believe we will get through this and we will be better than whatever the fuck this is right now, and I will work to get us there and so will lots of you, but I resent that we will still have to live through all the time between here and there and I wish we were all there already.

kevinevans@hachyderm.io ("Kevin") wrote:

Did a code review today where somebody who obv used AI created a button styled like a link to open a page with window.open... instead of, ya know, creating a regular link. 🫠

It bugs me that this person didn't seem to review the generated code AT ALL and instead pushed that shit to me to review. What's worse is half the team rubber stamps PRs, so I know there's some nasty code making it to prod.

#software #javascript

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

left pack

gagging to be made into an npm library

jwz wrote:

RE: https://sfba.social/@MLNow/116213005270150379

So Danny Bluejeans is now driving around town, hopping out of the car, and having his non-uniformed security detail assault random people.

And then they get their asses kicked.

Normal mayor. Normal city.

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

Artificial German Insertion (AGI)

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

Marcia Roy

I suspect some of you may say this is where I'm stretching this theory. But Marcia is where I think the theory is the strongest. Or, at least, she's what made me want to explore the theory more.

Marcia represents Israel. She has Logan's ear in a way that none of the kids have it, and they're suspicious of her influence.

Even more interesting, I think the show hints at the possibility that Marcia might've been an Israeli spy...

Boosted by soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker"):
wordshaper@weatherishappening.network ("Dan Sugalski") wrote:

@soatok and you can even pronounce that “no” like “the ROI on collecting that data is negative” because it is for basically everyone. The suits often need you to speak with an accent that way so they can hear you clearly.

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

RE: https://furry.engineer/@soatok/116212999782522947

People: You need a union for representation and collective bargaining.
SWE: No! We are special. We are powerful. Hear us roar! RAWR!
People: Great, tell your boss no.
SWE: Oh no, we could never do that, we'd lose our jobs.

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