Maybe Facebook will just go the way of myspace, and just fade away. I know it's not likely, at least not without a replacement, which may be even worse, but I try to stay positive.
Before anyone says "Whoa! 0.3% sounds pretty good! And 5% ain't too shabby either," let's remember the base rate fallacy involved in these numbers. Example 3 has the least math. A 0.3% failure rate is seriously bad, 5% is way worse, and the rest, 20% to 50% failure rate are in the "you can't be serious" category.
From Glyn's earlier article about far better ways to gain access to encrypted communications:
access plaintext while the device is in use
Without the cooperation of the subject of the investigation, which is unlikely, this could well involve requiring the installation malware on end devices. Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are in a position to do this, although some would argue these companies' products are malware themselves. Old jokes aside, of all of the presented "workarounds to encryption," this one is most most reminiscent of an all-seeing, authoritarian Big Brother dystopia. I think the root of the problem is lack of good government. Good government wouldn't be suggesting these things to begin with. How to get from here to there is a good question.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Well, it tells you a lot...
A civil rights lawsuit? Can you say "Qualified immunity?" Civil rights lawsuits against law enforcement are unicorns. That is a huge part of what the whole protest movement is about in the first place.
So it was odd to see Pai take to Twitter this week to first profess his breathless support for prison telco monopoly price gouging reform (clearly not true), and then state the fact his hands are tied in terms of actually doing something about it (something he's largely responsible for):
This is standard operating procedure all aspects of politics, whether spoken loudly, quietly, or just implied. They teach it in Political Theater 101.
It was also during the '90s when the Kia motor company began to expand and sell cars in the US. I couldn't help conflating the two things (small, cheap, useless?) and thinking that Kia should use the same jingle: K - K - K - Kia Car!
About "deliberately calculating" versus "acting impulsively and not knowing what you are doing."
I, too, do not think these things are mutually exclusive. They can both exist in the same person, maybe at different times, or maybe at different levels, but they can definitely both exist.
I have also known a few people, both good and bad, who I felt were not calculating at all, who often acted quickly and impulsively, without time to think or calculate. However, these people's actions seemed to be very consistent in their effects, either good or bad. Maybe they did not calculate and there was some innate "knack" involved, or maybe the calculating was just invisible to me.
Yes, as long as bad people get in power, all the best systems and checks and balances are meaningless. How to keep the bad, evil, corrupt power freaks out? Good question. It appears no one has found a good answer so far. All we can do is keep trying. Trying = hope. Quit trying = all is lost.
With that very helpful bit of information I can now do it in LibreOffice Writer without the web-based converter. I had tried the strike-through button on the toolbar long ago, and that did not work. With the Unicode information that you provided, I started looking for a local technique, that might be easier than the web converter. Did I find local? Yes. Did I find easier? Nope.
But here are the two ways I did find:
METHOD 1:
Insert → Special Character → Font: Liberation Serif → Subset: Combining Diacritical Marks → select Combining Long Stroke Overlay / Hexadecimal U+336 / Decimal 822.
This worked for Liberation Sans font, too. Not all the fonts have this Unicode character included in the LibreOffice Special Character dialog.
METHOD 2:
Or by typing directly into the text: CTL-SHFT-U, then 336, then ENTER, then the character.
Typing an extra CTL-SHFT-U, then 336, then ENTER after the last character produced this:
s̶̶t̶r̶i̶k̶e̶t̶h̶r̶o̶u̶g̶h̶
Both methods are a nuisance, the web converter is much easier. However, these methods allow the use of characters other than strike-through. Here are a few:
¥ ¼ Σ Ѭ ҉ ₩
As an aside, I think I read there are now about 120,000 Unicode characters, and more can be added. Wow! I had read about look-alike Unicode characters being used in fake, look-alike URLs to malicious web sites, but I did not realize the character set was so extensive.
This problem has surfaced again recently with the back-and-forth editing of the Kamala Harris Wikipedia page for clearly political reasons, as rumors spread that she may become Biden's running mate. Apparently, what you see on that page may depend on which side of the net the ping pong ball is on when you happen view the page.
There have apparently been several other instances of this problem over the years. I seem to remember Hillary Clinton's Wikipedia page being the target of some politically motivated edits at some point.
And, as was pointed out in the article, it may be something of a self-fixing problem, maybe due some some corollary of the Streisand Effect.
In general, though, Wikipedia seems to be one of the big success stories, to at least some small extent fulfilling the early visions of the open Internet becoming a grand repository of all human knowledge.
I have tried every option I could find for strike-through - Markdown, HTML, deprecated HTML, HTML5 etc - and it just does not seem to be implemented here.
When the domestic police look, act, and are equipped much like an occupying army, you might be splitting nits, here, or making a distinction where there is no meaningful difference.
If Trump wants to help, she said, he could boost federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives resources and fully fund prosecutors.
Another case of Gell-Mann Amnesia. This stuff is epidemic. Lightfoot needs to remember that BATFE and fully funded prosecutors are both parts of the problem that all the protests are about.
The department issued a statement saying it is "critical" that federal law enforcement officers "coordinate" with the PD to "fight violent crime."
Yesterday I heard Daryl Turner, president of the Portland (OR) Police Association, say that he wished the Federal agents going Gestapo in Portland had [paraphrased] 'coordinated with local police so they were on the same page about rules of engagement.' He then tried to say he was opposed to their techniques, but it is disgusting to hear domestic civilian police talk about "rules of engagement" in the context of interacting with us, the people they are supposed to "serve and protect."
If this is the blueprint for the future, it's goddamn frightening.
It looks to me like we are not talking about a blueprint, but about a project well into the construction phase. A lot of people have been saying for a long time that since authoritarian politicians didn't think they could get the actual military to participate in a full-on police state (at least not yet), then the alternative was to convert the civilian police into a standing domestic army. We have been seeing that process happening for quite a while, but it looks like, with the election approaching, the progress curve on this project is taking a serious upswing.
Let's see what the "ground rules," are.
Let's see how "clear" the ground rules are.
Let's see how transparent the system is.
Let's see what sort of accountability is put in place.
Let's see how the accountability is enforced.
And let's see how effective the resulting system is in actually reducing the incidence of no-knock warrants, which really should be extremely rare.
Then let's remember this is South Carolina we're talking about, so the end result, when the battering rams hit the doors, is likely to be something like "Ain't none o' that gonna make a bit o' diff'rence! Not in this county! No suh!"
But the agency does know how to disrupt elections, participate in coups, and otherwise wreak havoc in "enemy" lands.
This has been the CIA's stock-in-trade for decades. Please note that a fairly significant election may happen in November, and the current administration views everyone except themselves as an "enemy."
No, quite the contrary. Federal courthouses have become symbols of injustice and authoritarian over-reach. Some might even say tyranny. Acts of grafitti and minor vandalism may not be the right way to protest, but they certainly do not warrant being "disappeared" by anonymous government goons, even if temporarily. The protests are all about the lack of accountability of out-of-control "law enforcement" systems. These tactics are indeed an escalation of the situation, and in a seriously bad way.
We may all be witnessing the beginnings of the last phase of an attempt at a literal coup. Phase one may have started around June 16, 2015. At some point early in his presidency, Trump said something about " If I run for re-election." Some people paid attention to what that might mean. Many did not.
Re: Re: Corruption means every interaction with that cop is inva
Unfortunately, the courts are very slow to accept what is painfully clear to anyone else willing to look: that the "pattern and practice" of corruption in law enforcement is rampant, and has been for a very long time. Anyone who trusts anyone in law enforcement about anything is making a very grave error. Yet the courts still largely treat a cop's word as unassailable gospel truth. There have been a few exceptions, with a few State / District Attorney's offices reviewing some old cases that had hinged largely on a newly discredited cop's testimony, but they are the rare exception. And most of them have been largely for PR purposes, with instances of large-scale dismissal of charges being even more rare.
We can hope this becomes one of those rarest of rare instances, but don't hold your breath.
Recently (7-15-20) I was listening to the local public radio station and I heard a story on The Takeaway (wnycstudios.org). The story was called 'The Future of Policing in America'. One of the people involved in the discussion was Art Acevedo. When I heard Art Acevedo make noise about having had to fire some bad cops, painting himself as some sort of paragon of accountability, I began to get physically ill.
It is a short listen at the link above, but keep the barf-bag handy.
On the post: Facebook Employee Revolt Shows, Yet Again, That There Are Other Incentives Beyond Section 230
Maybe Facebook will just go the way of myspace, and just fade away. I know it's not likely, at least not without a replacement, which may be even worse, but I try to stay positive.
On the post: NIST Study Confirms The Obvious: Face Masks Make Facial Recognition Tech Less Useful, More Inaccurate
Before anyone says "Whoa! 0.3% sounds pretty good! And 5% ain't too shabby either," let's remember the base rate fallacy involved in these numbers. Example 3 has the least math. A 0.3% failure rate is seriously bad, 5% is way worse, and the rest, 20% to 50% failure rate are in the "you can't be serious" category.
On the post: EU Plans To Use Supercomputers To Break Encryption, But Also Wants Platforms To 'Create Opportunities' To Snoop On End-To-End Communications
Encryption workarounds
From Glyn's earlier article about far better ways to gain access to encrypted communications:
Without the cooperation of the subject of the investigation, which is unlikely, this could well involve requiring the installation malware on end devices. Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are in a position to do this, although some would argue these companies' products are malware themselves. Old jokes aside, of all of the presented "workarounds to encryption," this one is most most reminiscent of an all-seeing, authoritarian Big Brother dystopia. I think the root of the problem is lack of good government. Good government wouldn't be suggesting these things to begin with. How to get from here to there is a good question.
On the post: DHS's Anti-Protest Gestapo Tactics Headed To Other Major Cities, Starting With Chicago
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Well, it tells you a lot...
A civil rights lawsuit? Can you say "Qualified immunity?" Civil rights lawsuits against law enforcement are unicorns. That is a huge part of what the whole protest movement is about in the first place.
On the post: FCC Boss Ajit Pai Pretends To Care About A Prison Telco Monopoly Problem He Helped Protect
I want to, but my hands are tied!
This is standard operating procedure all aspects of politics, whether spoken loudly, quietly, or just implied. They teach it in Political Theater 101.
On the post: Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia Pet Just Applied For Trademark On Jingle For Some R-R-R-Reason
Now it's stuck in my head. Aarrggh.
It was also during the '90s when the Kia motor company began to expand and sell cars in the US. I couldn't help conflating the two things (small, cheap, useless?) and thinking that Kia should use the same jingle: K - K - K - Kia Car!
On the post: DHS's Anti-Protest Gestapo Tactics Headed To Other Major Cities, Starting With Chicago
Re: Re: Re: Re: Calculated
About "deliberately calculating" versus "acting impulsively and not knowing what you are doing."
I, too, do not think these things are mutually exclusive. They can both exist in the same person, maybe at different times, or maybe at different levels, but they can definitely both exist.
I have also known a few people, both good and bad, who I felt were not calculating at all, who often acted quickly and impulsively, without time to think or calculate. However, these people's actions seemed to be very consistent in their effects, either good or bad. Maybe they did not calculate and there was some innate "knack" involved, or maybe the calculating was just invisible to me.
On the post: Judge Says The Bureau Of Prisons Violated Michael Cohen's 1st Amendment Rights In Sending Him Back To Prison
Re: But what about the corruption?
No one. Move along, nothing to see here.
Normalization of deviance is everywhere, and that is not a good thing, at least not in this context.
On the post: DHS Goes Full Gestapo In Response To Ongoing Protests In Oregon
Re: Broken by Human Nature
Yes, as long as bad people get in power, all the best systems and checks and balances are meaningless. How to keep the bad, evil, corrupt power freaks out? Good question. It appears no one has found a good answer so far. All we can do is keep trying. Trying = hope. Quit trying = all is lost.
On the post: DHS's Anti-Protest Gestapo Tactics Headed To Other Major Cities, Starting With Chicago
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Thanks, ryuugami!
With that very helpful bit of information I can now do it in LibreOffice Writer without the web-based converter. I had tried the strike-through button on the toolbar long ago, and that did not work. With the Unicode information that you provided, I started looking for a local technique, that might be easier than the web converter. Did I find local? Yes. Did I find easier? Nope.
But here are the two ways I did find:
METHOD 1:
Insert → Special Character → Font: Liberation Serif → Subset: Combining Diacritical Marks → select Combining Long Stroke Overlay / Hexadecimal U+336 / Decimal 822.
This worked for Liberation Sans font, too. Not all the fonts have this Unicode character included in the LibreOffice Special Character dialog.
METHOD 2:
Or by typing directly into the text: CTL-SHFT-U, then 336, then ENTER, then the character.
Typing an extra CTL-SHFT-U, then 336, then ENTER after the last character produced this:
s̶̶t̶r̶i̶k̶e̶t̶h̶r̶o̶u̶g̶h̶
Both methods are a nuisance, the web converter is much easier. However, these methods allow the use of characters other than strike-through. Here are a few:
¥ ¼ Σ Ѭ ҉ ₩
As an aside, I think I read there are now about 120,000 Unicode characters, and more can be added. Wow! I had read about look-alike Unicode characters being used in fake, look-alike URLs to malicious web sites, but I did not realize the character set was so extensive.
On the post: Content Moderation Case Study: Can An Open Encyclopedia Handle Disinformation? (2005)
Timely topic
This problem has surfaced again recently with the back-and-forth editing of the Kamala Harris Wikipedia page for clearly political reasons, as rumors spread that she may become Biden's running mate. Apparently, what you see on that page may depend on which side of the net the ping pong ball is on when you happen view the page.
There have apparently been several other instances of this problem over the years. I seem to remember Hillary Clinton's Wikipedia page being the target of some politically motivated edits at some point.
And, as was pointed out in the article, it may be something of a self-fixing problem, maybe due some some corollary of the Streisand Effect.
In general, though, Wikipedia seems to be one of the big success stories, to at least some small extent fulfilling the early visions of the open Internet becoming a grand repository of all human knowledge.
On the post: DHS's Anti-Protest Gestapo Tactics Headed To Other Major Cities, Starting With Chicago
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I have tried every option I could find for strike-through - Markdown, HTML, deprecated HTML, HTML5 etc - and it just does not seem to be implemented here.
On the post: DHS's Anti-Protest Gestapo Tactics Headed To Other Major Cities, Starting With Chicago
Re:
When the domestic police look, act, and are equipped much like an occupying army, you might be splitting nits, here, or making a distinction where there is no meaningful difference.
On the post: DHS's Anti-Protest Gestapo Tactics Headed To Other Major Cities, Starting With Chicago
Another case of Gell-Mann Amnesia. This stuff is epidemic. Lightfoot needs to remember that BATFE and fully funded prosecutors are both parts of the problem that all the protests are about.
Yesterday I heard Daryl Turner, president of the Portland (OR) Police Association, say that he wished the Federal agents going Gestapo in Portland had [paraphrased] 'coordinated with local police so they were on the same page about rules of engagement.' He then tried to say he was opposed to their techniques, but it is disgusting to hear domestic civilian police talk about "rules of engagement" in the context of interacting with us, the people they are supposed to "serve and protect."
It looks to me like we are not talking about a blueprint, but about a project well into the construction phase. A lot of people have been saying for a long time that since authoritarian politicians didn't think they could get the actual military to participate in a full-on police state (at least not yet), then the alternative was to convert the civilian police into a standing domestic army. We have been seeing that process happening for quite a while, but it looks like, with the election approaching, the progress curve on this project is taking a serious upswing.
On the post: South Carolina Supreme Court Says Cops Aren't Getting Any No-Knock Warrants Anytime Soon
It's a start, but . . .
Let's see what the "ground rules," are.
Let's see how "clear" the ground rules are.
Let's see how transparent the system is.
Let's see what sort of accountability is put in place.
Let's see how the accountability is enforced.
And let's see how effective the resulting system is in actually reducing the incidence of no-knock warrants, which really should be extremely rare.
Then let's remember this is South Carolina we're talking about, so the end result, when the battering rams hit the doors, is likely to be something like "Ain't none o' that gonna make a bit o' diff'rence! Not in this county! No suh!"
On the post: The Trump Administration Has Given The CIA Free Rein To Engage In A Cyberwar
Cyber war against whom?
This has been the CIA's stock-in-trade for decades. Please note that a fairly significant election may happen in November, and the current administration views everyone except themselves as an "enemy."
On the post: Holy Hell Were We Lucky That Twitter's Big Breach Was Just A Bunch Of SIM Swapping Kids; Can We Please Encrypt DMs Now?
Government's campaign against encryption
is just another front in the broader war on all our rights.
On the post: DHS Goes Full Gestapo In Response To Ongoing Protests In Oregon
Coup, anyone?
No, quite the contrary. Federal courthouses have become symbols of injustice and authoritarian over-reach. Some might even say tyranny. Acts of grafitti and minor vandalism may not be the right way to protest, but they certainly do not warrant being "disappeared" by anonymous government goons, even if temporarily. The protests are all about the lack of accountability of out-of-control "law enforcement" systems. These tactics are indeed an escalation of the situation, and in a seriously bad way.
We may all be witnessing the beginnings of the last phase of an attempt at a literal coup. Phase one may have started around June 16, 2015. At some point early in his presidency, Trump said something about " If I run for re-election." Some people paid attention to what that might mean. Many did not.
On the post: Internal Investigation Shows The Houston PD's Narcotics Units Was An Unsupervised Mess
Re: Re: Corruption means every interaction with that cop is inva
Unfortunately, the courts are very slow to accept what is painfully clear to anyone else willing to look: that the "pattern and practice" of corruption in law enforcement is rampant, and has been for a very long time. Anyone who trusts anyone in law enforcement about anything is making a very grave error. Yet the courts still largely treat a cop's word as unassailable gospel truth. There have been a few exceptions, with a few State / District Attorney's offices reviewing some old cases that had hinged largely on a newly discredited cop's testimony, but they are the rare exception. And most of them have been largely for PR purposes, with instances of large-scale dismissal of charges being even more rare.
We can hope this becomes one of those rarest of rare instances, but don't hold your breath.
On the post: Internal Investigation Shows The Houston PD's Narcotics Units Was An Unsupervised Mess
Art Acevedo
Recently (7-15-20) I was listening to the local public radio station and I heard a story on The Takeaway (wnycstudios.org). The story was called 'The Future of Policing in America'. One of the people involved in the discussion was Art Acevedo. When I heard Art Acevedo make noise about having had to fire some bad cops, painting himself as some sort of paragon of accountability, I began to get physically ill.
It is a short listen at the link above, but keep the barf-bag handy.
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