Notices by funnymonkey (funnymonkey@freeradical.zone)

That escalated quickly.

https://www.404media.co/the-signal-clone-the-trump-admin-uses-was-hacked/

The way the feds apparently cut off the wireless prior to intimidating this lawyer is next level.

We are dedicating significant resources into our slide into fascism.

https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-courage-to-be-decent

Yeah. We are in the absolute middle of our constitutional crisis.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/04/25/us/trump-news#fbi-arrest-judge

The line between "we only surveil criminals" and "everyone we surveil is a potential criminal" doesn't exist.

When people say the first, they mean the second.

This only gets more true over time, and as surveillance data are stored and maintained.

This functionality is incredibly powerful, and I can already imagine the rich and powerful working to erase or obfuscate locations from the results.

https://flausch.social/@piegames/114352447253793517

Go to protests.

Do not sign up or RSVP to protests.

The cruelty is the point, and what appears from the outside as disorganization is a feature, not a bug.

For-profit prisons profit from our fascist immigration policies, and they profit more when they hold people for longer.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/canadian-detained-us-immigration-jasmine-mooney

PSA: Do NOT, under any circumstances, trust a journalist sharing a QR code for what they claim is "secure" communication.

Run, fast, away from that.

Remember when the fascists running our government told us they would only go after "dangerous" people?

This 10 year old recovering from brain cancer, on their way to a medical appointment, wants a word.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/us-citizen-child-recovering-brain-cancer-deported-mexico-undocumented-rcna196049

The US is giving a multifaceted master class in how to become a pariah state. Keeping America "safe" by imprisoning comic book authors at the border.

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/british-comic-creator-r-e-burke-detained-by-ice-after-crossing-border/

Some thoughts on Mozilla's new terms of service and updated privacy policy:

https://www.funnymonkey.com/2025/02/mozillas-new-terms-of-service-and-updated-privacy-policy/

Mozilla continues to erode trust with actions that appear hostile to the people who have used and loved what they do.

Their latest update continues this trend.

What's pretty amazing here is the consistency of their bad decisions.

Their terms are bad.
Their justifications are disingenuous.
They way they make updates is overtly hostile.

1/x

Mozilla could regain trust by supporting a clean version of Firefox that doesn't include the AI and adtech they are currently trying to push.

Mozilla's core misdirection is an attempt to redefine the core features of the browser.

Many of us want a browser that we use to access the web -- ie, a browser that browses.

Mozilla appears to want a browser that delivers ads and connects to AI services.

That's their right, but it's a dead end.

And their new terms lead directly to the dead end

2/2

I love it when defenders of AI claim that automated decision making will take human inaccuracies out of the decision making process.

pEoPLE hAvE b33N roNg aLL th3 TiME!!

AI provides the foundational tools for more people to be more wrong at a higher speed with less transparency at a significantly higher carbon footprint, using tools created by abusing and underpaying workers.

A 25 year old with no government experience has admin rights to top secret systems that control payments from the US government.

Co-presidents Musk and Trump are creating multiple single points of failure to allow sensitive and classified information to leak.

https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-associate-bfs-federal-payment-system/

EDIT: to specify the amount of money involved

@tek Anytime a site confesses they use Admiral, they can fuck right off.

This is exactly what Microsoft did!

No one wants this crap, they need to justify their investment (and get access to more data) so they increase their userbase by forcing it on people as a "feature"

The tech industry continues to fail -- utterly, miserably -- at consent.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/15/google-raises-the-price-of-workspace-plans-making-its-ai-features-included-for-free/

Can anyone point me to any good, reasonably current writing on the relationship between industry and academia in AI research?

Reminder (largely to myself, but to anyone else who needs to hear it):

Pace yourself.

The despicable, the disgusting, the hateful, the criminal, will be coming at us from all corners.

It is, and will be, exhausting. Choose your battles. Choose your friends wisely. Save energy. Love those who deserve it.

But yeah - there is a difference from knowing "it will be bad" to seeing the specific shapes and forms bad will take.

Pace yourself.

Striking down net neutrality isn't a "blow to Democrats", as the Washington Post headline reads.

It's a blow to anyone who wants the internet to stay accessible.

Killing net neutrality is a gift to people and companies that want to limit, restrict, throttle, and otherwise shape our access.

It's not a Democrat versus Republican thing - it's about maintaining access to core services.

Apple takes privacy very seriously lol sure.

And 95 million to Apple in a year isn't much, and spread over ten years is nothing.

Violating our privacy, getting caught, and paying fines is the cost of doing business.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/apple-agrees-to-pay-95m-delete-private-conversations-siri-recorded/