FBI paying attention to online slang; it "might be Extremism."

Other slang that may draw FBI scrutiny includes "Looksmaxxing" and "LARPing". Read more at:

NY Post: FBI documents associate internet slang like "based" and "red pill" with "extremism".

New documents released Monday warned that common internet lingo is being associated with “Violent Extremism” by the FBI.
[.]
Many of the terms mentioned in the FBI’s list of incel terminology are either widely used across the internet or innocuous in nature.

"Lingo"? 🤣 Groovy Baybee. Very Hip.

"It was just like those incels Chad and Stacey, who are based and red pilled, to say, 'Hey, it's over. Just be first.' They both are Looksmaxxing. Their LARPing is tedious." 

^ This is how the FBI, under AG Merrick Garland's DOJ and, Biden and his Handlers, spends its time...¯\_(ツ)_/¯...

37 Senators that voted to let the FBI seize your internet history without a warrant. The bill failed by one vote.

Privacy News Online: These are the 37 Senators that voted to let the FBI seize your internet history without a warrant.

A key amendment to the USA Freedom Reauthorization Act of 2020 that would have required authorities to obtain a warrant before gaining access to American internet browsing and search history just failed on the Senate floor by a single vote. For those that are unaware, key parts of the Patriot Act – namely the mass surveillance section – is currently unauthorized and needs to be reauthorized by Congress to stay in effect. The current bill under consideration to do that is called the US FREEDOM Reauthorization Act of 2020 and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has snuck in an amendment that would allow the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Justice (DOJ) to seize internet search and browsing history if they claim it is tied to an active investigation.
[.]
27 Republicans and 10 Democrats voted against the amendment and 4 senators were no-shows.
[.]
[The 37 senators were:]

Barrasso, John (R-WY)

Blackburn, Marsha (R-TN)

Blunt, Roy (R-MO)

Boozman, John (R-AR)

Burr, Richard (R-NC)

Capito, Shelley Moore (R-WV)

Collins, Susan M. (R-ME)

Cornyn, John (R-TX)

Cotton, Tom (R-AR)

Fischer, Deb (R-NE)

Graham, Lindsey (R-SC)

Hyde-Smith, Cindy (R-MS)

Inhofe, James M. (R-OK)

Johnson, Ron (R-WI)

Lankford, James (R-OK)

McConnell, Mitch (R-KY)

Perdue, David (R-GA)

Portman, Rob (R-OH)

Roberts, Pat (R-KS)

Romney, Mitt (R-UT)

Rubio, Marco (R-FL)

Shelby, Richard C. (R-AL)

Thune, John (R-SD)

Tillis, Thom (R-NC)

Toomey, Patrick J. (R-PA)

Wicker, Roger F. (R-MS)

Young, Todd (R-IN)

Carper, Thomas R. (D-DE)

Casey, Robert P., Jr. (D-PA)

Feinstein, Dianne (D-CA)

Hassan, Margaret Wood (D-NH)

Jones, Doug (D-AL)

Kaine, Tim (D-VA)

Manchin, Joe, III (D-WV)

Shaheen, Jeanne (D-NH)

Warner, Mark R. (D-VA)

Whitehouse, Sheldon (D-RI)

@ Bernard Kerik Twitter:

What about BERNIE SANDERS ? He was too busy to show up for work and vote on a matter of such little importance.

Daily Beast: Senate Proposal Against Warrantless Internet Spying Died by One Vote. Bernie Sat It Out Entirely.

A bipartisan proposal to protect citizens’ internet search and browsing history from warrantless government surveillance died in the Senate on Wednesday. It lost by just one vote.
[.]
Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), who is quarantining from the coronavirus, Patty Murray (D-WA), Ben Sasse (R-NE) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) did not vote, according to the roll call.

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Privacy News Archived

Adam Schiff wants Big Tech to snitch on you and censor you.

Washington Times: Schiff suggests Google, YouTube and Twitter notify users who engaged with coronavirus misinformation.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff has asked Google, YouTube and Twitter to consider following Facebook protocol in alerting users who interacted on their platforms with misinformation involving the coronavirus pandemic.

The congressman’s office released letters Thursday that Mr. Schiff, the chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote to the heads of the companies this week.

Citing the presence of coronavirus-related misinformation on their platforms, Mr. Schiff suggested the companies adopt a practice similar to Facebook and proactively notify users who engaged on their platforms with harmful medical content involving the continuing outbreak.
[.]
“Though the best protection is removing or downgrading harmful content before users engage with it, that is not always possible,” Mr. Schiff wrote in the letters.
[.]
“I recognize the complex challenges that misinformation presents to online platforms,” Mr. Schiff added. “As we all grapple with this unprecedented health situation, I hope you will consider this suggestion for keeping users better informed.”

The letters were dated Wednesday and sent to Sundar Pichai, the chief executive officer of Google’s parent company Alphabet, as well as YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and Twitter CEO Jason Dorsey.

When I read the LARGE lettered sentence from Schiff, am I the only one who pictures a WWII High-Ranking, Overachieving German Officer puffing away at a cigarette he is tightly holding between his thumb and forefinger, saying:

"I hope you vill conzider theez suggestion for keeping uz better invormed !"

Social Media has been censoring users for years. Soon, Social Media will experience the very same from the likes of Adam Schiff.

Big Tech...still think Liberals are your best friend? You silly soy-boy-girl-ettes.

"WE" (aka the Media, but it won't) should be demanding answers from Adam Schiff, and his relationship with DEM donor-alleged meth injector Ed Buck.

Maybe we should demand answers from Schiff and his knowledge about Jeffrey Epstein. They look comfortable, don't they?

Time for Schiff to answer questions instead of asking them.

 State of The Nation

Tech News

New Atlas: Your air taxi is waiting.

Alaka'i Technologies' Skai machine has a range of up to four hours/400 mi (640 km) and a five-passenger capacity [...] using a hydrogen fuel cell powertrain that neatly sidesteps the energy density issue that's holding back battery-powered aircraft.

 - - -

IEEE: How to Build a Moral Robot. 

So how can we build a robot that can figure out which norms to follow, and when?
[.]
"Our hypothesis is that in any particular context, a subset of norms is activated—a particular set of rules related to that situation. That subset of norms is then available to guide action, to recognize violations, and allow us to make decisions."

It's a very good article. Hit the link.
- - -
Packt>: House Oversight and Reform Committee labels Facial Recognition as racist, biased and abusive to civil rights.

At the hearing, Joy Buolamwini, founder of Algorithmic Justice League highlighted one of [her] studies at MIT, on facial recognition systems, it was found that for the task of guessing a gender of a face, IBM, Microsoft and Amazon had error rates which rose to over 30% for darker skin and women. On evaluating benchmark datasets from organizations like NIST (National Institute for Standards and Technology), a striking imbalance was found. The dataset contained 75 percent male and 80 percent lighter skin data, which she addressed as “pale male datasets”. She added that our faces may well be the final frontier of privacy and Congress must act now to uphold American freedom and rights at minimum. 

The Algorithmic Justice League. Aren't they the nemesis of THE Justice League?
- - -
AI News: Amazon patent envisions Alexa listening to everything 24/7.

A patent filed by Amazon envisions a future where Alexa listens to users 24/7 without the need for a wakeword.
[.]
For example, say you were discussing booking a seat at your favourite restaurant next Tuesday. After asking, “Alexa, do I have anything on my schedule next Tuesday?” it could respond: “No, would you like me to book a seat at the restaurant you were discussing and add it to your calendar?”

Today, such a task would require three separate requests.

Three separate requests? WTFITS? We ask so much from ourselves, don't we? When will the heavy-lifting end?
- - -
The Guardian: World's first raspberry-picking robot set to work.

Yeah, it's slow. However, the story states, "[the] machine [is] expected to pick more than 25,000 raspberries a day, outpacing human workers." Kind of  reminds me of the autonomous dry-waller at Bustednuckles.

- - -

Seattle Times: Judge orders Facebook to turn over records on data privacy.

A Delaware judge is ordering Facebook to turn over internal records regarding data privacy and access to user data.
[.]
The lawsuit followed reports that the data of more than 50 million Facebook users had been misappropriated without their knowledge by British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica in 2015.

- - -
Engadget: Cadillac's hands-free SuperCruise.

Plenty of images of the new Caddy at the link and the engineering seems as solid as autonomous driving can be. Until...something goes wrong.
- - -
Pocket Lint: Lego worked with NASA to release this 1,087-piece Apollo 11 Luna Lander set.

Pelosi's Gift-giving takeback, Section 230 - Communications Decency Act

Digital Music News: [DEM Nancy] Pelosi threatens to take back "gift" of free speech online.

In a new interview, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has issued a stern warning to major tech firms.

Pelosi has prepared to do away with Section 230.

Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, [CDA] the most important law protecting freedom of expression and innovation on the internet, states:

    “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

In short, this law protects online intermediaries – i.e., Facebook, Google, Twitter, Amazon, etc. – from being held legally responsible for what users say and do.  Section 230 also protects ISPs and online services that publish third-party content, including bloggers that host comments on their sites.

Calling the law “a gift” to tech firms, Pelosi hinted that House Democrats will likely remove the immunity provided by Section 230.

    “It’s a gift to them and I don’t think that they’re treating it with the respect that they should, and so I think that that could be a question mark and in jeopardy…

    “I do think that for the privilege of 230, there has to be a bigger sense of responsibility on it.  And, it’s not out of the question that that could be removed," [said Pelosi].

Read more at the EFF: CDA 230 The Most Important Law Protecting the Internet.

Dear Big Tech...The Dems are not your friends.

Section 230...more crumbs Pelosi wants back.

"I don’t think that they’re treating it with the respect that they should."  Is it me, or does that reek with Liberal Elitism?

Tech News

Non-high-tech voting; circa 1994...

ArsTechnia: High-speed voting tabulator vulnerable to hacking.

One vulnerability they discovered—in a high-speed vote-tabulating system used to count votes for entire counties in 23 states—could allow an attacker to remotely hijack the system over a network and alter the vote count, changing results for large blocks of voters. "Hacking just one of these machines could enable an attacker to flip the Electoral College and determine the outcome of a presidential election," the authors of the report warned.

- - -
SEC Sues Elon Musk. From C|Net:

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking to bar Elon Musk from serving as an executive or director of any publicly traded company.

More on Elon Musk.  From Gizmodo:

[Elon Musk is]  accused of tweeting on LSD, sued for defamation by a cave diver he called “pedo guy,” given a “weepy” interview to the New York Times, and admitted that this whole going private thing just isn’t going to work out.

Among other things, the SEC wants Musk to pay civil penalties and be “prohibited from acting as an officer or director of any issuer that has a class of securities registered pursuant to Section 12 of the Exchange Act.”

 I dunno...seems like the SEC is overreacting and over-reaching.
- - -
ZD Net: New AI can identify guns in crowds and alert authorities about an active shooter.

The trick during development was to create a computer vision algorithm that continuously monitors cameras without reporting too many false positives, a weakness of past attempts at AI gun detection technology.

- - -
And "they" say there's no way to meet new people these days. More than you care to know about fecal transplants. Geek:

The process involves collecting feces from a healthy donor, processing it, and delivering it into the colon of the recipient.

What a fun way to meet new people.

Image credit: Alexas_Fotos/Pixabay

So this is the one time in life when, if it comes to it, you can actually say to the donor person, "Hey, thanks for the shit,"...and mean it literally.
- - -
Any gamer on top of their game already knows this, but Gamer Alert anyway. From BetaNews:

- - the new season of Fortnite has arrived! With the arrival of Fortnite Season 6: Darkness Rises and the V6.00 patch, Epic Games put its servers into maintenance mode in preparation.

- - -
And in that good-ole, reliable, stable, high-standard, secure platform of MS Win 10 (snicker, snicker), a Fourth set of Win 10 cumulative updates patches issued in two weeks. Computer World:

In the past 15 days, we’ve had four cumulative updates for Win10 version 1803[:]
[.]
Apparently, KB 4458469 v2 is a Wednesday fix for a botched Thursday kitchen-sink cumulative update, which followed a Monday cumulative update that specifically fixed a bug introduced in the Patch Tuesday patch. Got that?
[.]
But wait. The weirdities don’t end there.

- - -
Tech News World - Poorly designed websites no excuse for Terms of Agreement "fine print".

...legally valid sales agreements need to demonstrate clearly that both vendors and consumers are aware of -- and consent to -- the terms of the agreements. It is especially important for vendors to ward off expensive class action suits by including contract terms that prohibit such suits and instead rely on arbitration to resolve any issues with consumers.

Yet recent federal court cases indicate that poorly presented Internet contracts can result in the nullification of arbitration provisions and class action prohibitions -- thus giving consumers greater leverage in legal disputes with vendors.

Image: Damon Day

 - - -

Extreme Tech - NASA determines why earth wobbles on Axis:

NASA says it has now pinned down three causes for this shift. As expected, the loss of polar ice is a major contributor.

The other two "wobbly Axis" contributing factors are, oddly, the same: The Lard Lad Michael Moore's  spatial relationship at any moment and point on the earth in relation to the specific location to the rest of the world's 99% human population.

朋友; 伙伴; 同志 (Comrade) Cooks helps China Gov Censor Citizens

Apple  友; 伙伴; 同志 CEO Tim Cook  makes no apologies for promoting and buckling under to the Chinese government in censoring its internet. Quartz:

Apple removed dozens of virtual private network (VPN) apps from its Chinese app store, depriving many users of tools that are critical to jumping the country’s Great Firewall. The move marked a major capitulation to China’s censorship regime, and follows similar requests to block various apps and content in the country.

[.]

Mark Zuckerberg, meanwhile, has defended his company’s compliance with censorship requests in countries like Pakistan and Thailand by arguing that it serves citizens’ best interests to “continue operating” rather than risk getting shut down for not blocking content.

Is this part of the reason they own $52.6 Billion in U.S. Treasuries?

And with Zuckerberg and Pakistan and Thailand, this is nothing new.

Remember Google, the "Do No Evil" company and how they promised, in 2007, to fight global internet censorship?

Then, January 2010, Google threatened to yank their business out of China if they couldn't resolve their censorship restrictions with the Chinese Government.

Come March 2010, Google shut down their China service, redirecting to its server in Hong Kong.

Eventually, Google gave up in January, 2013.

Even CNN  couldn't put a positive spin on Google in January, 2015. Same link, Google also kowtowed to censorship by the Turkish government.

By December of 2014, the Chinese Government pulled the plug  on Google Gmail, Google Drive and many other Google services.

Besides, Google is not evil, are they?

Or are they?

Well, they dropped the "Don't be Evil" motto, so maybe they are?

Dotcom companies certainly aren't the only industries that play ball with repressive governments.

Then again, dotcom companies, especially the search engine and social media platforms, are companies that exist in a special area, unlike companies in manufacturing or other industries that work within the confines of a country like China or Turkey who control unfiltered information available in their country.

Email and social media companies are specifically in the business of communication(s), speech and information. Ideally, yes, everyone om earth would have the freedom to have unfiltered access to the information available on the web. What are the ethical obligations, if any, of communication companies agreeing with governments who censor the information available to its citizens?

I'm not sure I have any answers right now. Do you?