jarjar2_

Likely installed the Battle.net client as a non-steam game and launched it from there. It’s what I’ve done with Battle.net

This is very much my worry with AI in government. Those systems mass hallucinating fraud or some other punishable crime, and then the justice system doing what it does by threatening absurd sentences to compel plea deals and the evidence takes years to be properly challenged.

We are implementing AI in places it shouldn't be used and this whole thing is going to spin out of control at some point.

Which they're fully aware of. They will eventually at some point pass a law requiring you to identify yourself to the VPN and/or government.

This decision is ultimately about the end of the last vestiges of anonymity on the internet, unfortunately.

This is a good thing. What nations and governments, along with individuals have been to do with OSINT is pretty stunning.

https://www.wired.com/story/strava-heat-map-military-bases-f...

That was just data Strava was releasing publicly.

The raw data collection from TikTok contains much more than that. Think in terms of all branches of military and government messaging each other perfectly blackmailable things and then automating analysis of that.

Byte Dance says that China doesn't have access to the data and that it hasn't been accessed, but from what I've read they have a party office at the company in China. I simply don't trust a foreign adversary with the amount of data that one of these social platforms generates. Neither does China which is why a large number of services operated in China are hosted on Chinese servers run by local subsidiaries, with vastly different and far more permissive laws when it comes to government/intelligence/law enforcement (all one and the same there) accessing that data.

Hopefully that critical thinking can transfer to what's being done by American companies and intelligence agencies with user data and we can get some actual data privacy legislation at some point and enshrine a law preventing from inserting backdoors in everything that moves.

Link

https://asteroidsathome.net/boinc/

They don't need it, which was my point. They have all the tools the need right now to get what they want. Why should anyone grant them more?

One of my favorite comics about cryptography. https://xkcd.com/538/

Government routinely posits a desperate need for backdoors in crypto and crypto secured products, but almost universally they get the data they want without needing a manufacturer provided backdoor. So why they insist on continuing to do that is beyond me. It's almost security theater.

If they really want your protected information they will be able to get it. Either through a wrench or a legal wrench. In lieu of that they can use practically unlimited resources at their disposal from who they employ (or contract out to) to the long axis to which most secured devices succumb from, time.

My personal threat model isn't to defeat the government. They will get the data eventually. My personal threat model is corporations that want to know literally everything about me and bad faith private actors (scammers, cybercrime and thieves) that do too.

Ultimately it will take strict legislation and compliance measurement along with penalties to protect the government from overstepping the bounds they promise not to step over already, let alone new ones. It will take even stricter legislation to stop corporations from doing it. There are significant financial and political incentives for our ruling bodies to not do that, unfortunately.

I mean honestly, when you have this kind of ability at your disposal...

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/08/1004332551/drug-rings-platfor...

Hrm. I've never ordered anything from them beyond books. I'm at 58 books so far this year from them, and they've always arrived as I've ordered them. I've had a couple of books listed as new come in boxed packaging instead of the plastic envelope. Nothing ripped or crushed so far.

I wish they did ship a little faster. As it's usually 10-12 days from when I order it before I get it. Then again I'm usually getting free shipping and if I'm not I'm only paying $1.60 for media rate, which is a hell of a deal.

I rarely buy new books anymore. I just use ThriftBooks. Haven’t had a problem with any of the books they’ve sent me.

I would continue discussing this with you, but if you object to people buying a bag of chips, I can draw a relatively easy conclusion to your overall opinion on the social safety net and probably tax policy.

It's not worth my time.

The max benefit for EBT in ND is $250-ish for a single person essentially making nothing.

The whole point of EBT is to keep people fed. If they are eating junk food and not maximizing their nutritional value to your satisfaction that’s fine because they’re still eating.

All prepared food is banned in ND for EBT. Meaning you can’t order Taco Bell through door dash.

If you’re really worried about your tax expenditures look at defense contracting and spending. EBT fraud is a rounding error for some of those program overruns. Also at tax policy when it comes to revenue offshoring, inheritance and millionaires to billionaire tax evasion.

The poors aren’t the ones screwing you.

I think they've found their sweet spot as a publisher rather than a development house.

It's hard to make successful games, and just throwing large sums of money and people at a problem doesn't guarantee success.

Or it can be is as simple as saying a caste system is dumb, Americans and I assume other nationalities find it fascinatingly backward. The idea that there are “upper” and “lower” castes is inherently discriminatory that seem abundantly obvious and there’s no real nuance to it.