I am at https://t.co/0U1Ki0Ihet
Senior Fellow at @FilFoundationā® / @ffdwebā¢
Special Advisor for @EFF
THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION
NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK
Feb 15, 2022 ā¢ 30 tweets ā¢ 7 min read
So FAR BE IT FROM ME TO AVOID ADDING MY HOT TAKE but here is my hot take on the crypto takedown du jour 1/n
I hope regular readers are rn clutching their opera glasses, dying to know whether I agree with their predilections or have switched sides and turncoated with the devilish monsters of Web(2|3). Fools of such limited desires! I am more contrarian than you can possibly imagine!
Jan 4, 2022 ā¢ 15 tweets ā¢ 3 min read
So this is a compact but substantive note by Evgeny on the bit of this crypto/web3ish space that is particularly of interest to me: public good provision. I usually have to spend 20 minutes explaining how they even interact, so it's nice to get some knowledgeable critique.
First: ofc states don't have the monopoly on public good provision, but it *is* kind of their modern justification; the degree to which the internet enabled a wider palette of co-operation in the public interest, from linux to wikipedia to blah blah blah, was one of its surprises
Aug 5, 2021 ā¢ 22 tweets ā¢ 4 min read
Okay, I have skimmed the Apple press release, and the tech paper, but not in detail, because I have another dayjob these days, and am more YOLO on Twitter nowadays. Preliminary hot takes, divided by human rights implications, political/public consequences, and technical notes.
1. Apple is now doing nudity-detection on device for pictures sent or received by accounts flagged as children in Family accounts. Human rights implications: this dodges the "end-user control?" question, by hiding behind the even-more heated "do children have rights/autonomy?" q.
Aug 5, 2021 ā¢ 16 tweets ā¢ 5 min read
This is bad. Really bad. And Apple was embargoing the news, so journalist may not be talking to experts, like @ohemorange and @joncallas at @EFF, about the consequences for innocent users -- not just Apple users, but anyone who stores data on their devices.
So for the last few years, intelligence agency experts, like @GCHQ, have been pushing for tech companies to put remotely-controlled software to scan for unlawful content in people's devices, rather than surveil on the network. eff.org/deeplinks/2019ā¦
Aug 5, 2021 ā¢ 8 tweets ā¢ 2 min read
People do not quite get how much librarians continue to be in the frontline of the shutting down, DRMing, and market-slicing of knowledge and art.
When many of us sort of lost our way in this fight about 10 years ago, they were the people whose job it still was to defend readers.
And by "us", I mean "me". A lot of issues -- economic, social, technical -- got very pressing at the same time.The great recession, Arab Spring, Aaron's death, Ed Snowden, Facebook, media, racism, Trump, polarization, inequality, climate change, culture wars.
Jul 20, 2021 ā¢ 20 tweets ā¢ 6 min read
News! Iāve joined the Filecoin Foundation @filfoundation, and Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web @ffdweb! Iāll be helping technologists, archivists and teachers building the #dweb. We aim to restore the netās superpower: distributing knowledge and autonomy to all. 1/19
My work at the Filecoin Foundation will concentrate on stewarding the governance of the Filecoin ecosystem, funding critical projects around it and advocating for the future of Filecoin and its stack of decentralizing tools: IPFS, libp2p, etc. 2/19 fil.org
Jan 10, 2021 ā¢ 10 tweets ā¢ 2 min read
Some thoughts on this: there are alternatives to AWS that you can switch to relatively easily. But not many, and I imagine most of the decent ones will also reject Parler.
There are also *technical* alternatives to AWS-like systems. You can buy a bunch of servers and stick 'em in a rack somewhere. It's what everyone did in the old days. But that takes time, and is fragile. Unless they've already planned for this, I imagine they'll be downtime.
Jan 9, 2021 ā¢ 5 tweets ā¢ 1 min read
I wish I could untangle Twitter, Facebook, Apple, and Google's actions today and whether they're related to a sudden escalation in the seriousness of Trump's rhetoric, or whether they're related to the fact that they'll face a Democratic congress and executive in the U.S. shortly
I've argued that those in power should be treated with the same standards as anyone else on social media, because otherwise you just end up with arbitrary and inequitable decisions. And arbitrary actions can be used as a political (or popularist) weapon
Jun 5, 2020 ā¢ 13 tweets ā¢ 3 min read
So, in light of ESR warning he'll shoot "Antifa Communist [rioters]" like the wolves they are, esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8708 some anecdotal advice with suggestions on combat strategies when going mano a mano with Eric S Raymond.
Back in the early 2000s, I wrote a piece noting Raymond's increasing Eric-centric management of the Jargon File: which prompted him, when we finally met, to get into a verbal confrontation with me over what he angrily told me was "character assassination" ntk.net/2003/06/06/?l=ā¦
Apr 27, 2020 ā¢ 16 tweets ā¢ 5 min read
I had a San Francisco city drive-thru COVID test. It was negative!
What was it like to do?
Let me explain in the form of a thread: (Content warning for descriptions of sickness, things getting stuck right up noses.)
First: I've been ill the last week with symptoms that weren't like scary lung COVID, but annoyingly close to the alternative COVID symptoms: No cough, but high temperature fever, stomach cramps, vomiting, and diarrhea.
