Notices by David (defractal@infosec.exchange)

@Paulatics That's a start for day 1, and let's not act alone: Let's partner with other countries to respond with coordinated reprisals, such that a trade attack on one is a trade attack on all, for which all will answer in unison. The US, and especially Trump and his oligarchs personally and their companies, must be assured to always lose more for every trade attack, so long as it persists, than anyone they attack. The way to do this is in close and *rapid* cooperation with all other trade partners.
#cdnpoli

@Paulatics Day 2 is coming and going with too little additional action against the US oligarchs backing the US tariffs. On day 3, Justin and Pierre and Jagmeet and Paul should agree to have the GG reconvene Parliament explicitly to drop the DRM laws Canada enacted in exchange for the free trade treaty the US is now violating. This would harm the financial interests of US oligarchs like Musk and Bezos (as by letting Canadians legally jailbreak Teslas and Audible books), and it would create a lot of much-needed high-value work for Canadians, and a new set of products and services to distribute globally (except to the US, where those would remain illegal).

Even if we're not going to heed @pluralistic regarding tariffs, we should enact his recommended anti-DRM reprisal, and we should do it tomorrow if not today. Don't give them time to hedge against it. Every day US oligarch's net wealth is not declining, so long as tariffs or other US trade aggression against Canada is in effect, is a day the Government of Canada is derelicting their duty to Canadians.
#cdnpoli

@thriveth @pluralistic Just for fun, Cory, could you use “slopware” in an article? I think it’s a fine dysphemism for today’s “generative” (read: plagiarative) AI.

@cbcnews @politics-cbcnews Hey Justin, and whomever you pass the torch to: Here’s how to retaliate while hitting American oligarchs and benefiting Canadians. Donald is more likely to change his tune when his owners are losing billions. Read what @pluralistic wrote. (Hey CBC folks: Some of you know Cory. You’d be doing Canada a service by amplifying his work.)
#cdnpoli #tariffs #drm
https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/15/beauty-eh/#its-the-only-war-the-yankees-lost-except-for-vietnam-and-also-the-alamo-and-the-bay-of-ham

@deivudesu @markhurst @pluralistic The first time a person or company demonstrates an active contempt for consent or for the absence thereof should be the last time they're ever trusted with anything.

@patrickcmiller Of course. China wants to destroy the US economy and democracy, and Elon is a very effective weapon for them to do so.

@patrickcmiller What could possibly go wrong.

@mashapotempa @AdminKirsty @pluralistic Luckily for us, there's Libro.fm, with DRM-free ebooks and the option to donate a small portion of each purchase to your choice of indie bookstore.
https://libro.fm/

@molly0xfff I particularly respect inclusion of "alt text cont'd."

@dalias @writeblankspace @nixCraft It also can't replace the blocked pieces, so scripts don't crash at the first broken assumption, and it can't make it seem that blocked ads aren't (so sites don't try to prevent you from accessing them with ads blocked). It can't automatically select only "strictly necessary" cookies in response to GDPR prompts. It can't rewrite links to remove the tracking information. And it definitely can't remove the ads and all the "suggested" garbage from a Facebook news feed (everything that's not from a friend, a page you followed, or a group you joined), which, once you see happen, you can't tolerate not happening.

Using a browser from a surveillance and advertising company and expecting to have privacy and control of your browsing experience was always trusting the fox to guard the hen house. If you do prefer Chrome's UI, though, you can always install Brave and spend a few minutes turning off the "sponsored" new tab page pictures and all the cryptocurrency and "AI" garbage. It supports the same ad blocking capabilities as Firefox, and though it comes with some misfeatures, unlike Chrome, it gives you the choice to turn them off.

@pluralistic Great piece, as ever. If I could suggest one trivial edit:
s/exiting/existing/

@patrickcmiller Was any AI used to generate that report?

@patrickcmiller From what I can tell, the evidence of what results from his choices, as opposed to those of Tesla workers, shows his departure would improve the company.

@patrickcmiller They should’ve done that before releasing the first unit, but better late than never, suppose.

@patrickcmiller Quelle surprise.

@patrickcmiller This strikes me as a fertile ground for legislation, like the rule against perpetuities in wills, but for one-sided non-liability in non-negotiated agreements.

@patrickcmiller Signed GPS, Galileo, QZSS, and INRSS signals are becoming necessities. (Entities outside the jurisdictions controlling GLONASS and BeiDou are best not to rely only any signature which might be added to those constellations’ signals, and those governments are about the most likely to spoof GNSS signals maliciously in conflict.)

@patrickcmiller Yet the default or only option in almost every app or OS feature shock scans QR codes is to navigate directly to any link in the code. I’ve yet to see one which defaults to displaying the link, highlighting the most significant part (public suffix + 1), and asking whether to “go to link,” “copy link,” or “disregard link.”

@patrickcmiller Digitally signed GPS, Galileo, NavIC, and QZSS signals. It would take a major retrofit to a lot of hardware and a lot of copies of some software, but that would address the matter of spoofing. Far from cheap, but probably important before certain tensions escalate.

(Given the current state of geopolitics, it's not advisable for to rely GLONASS or BeiDou outside their respective countries of control if one is not part of the same country's government.)

@patrickcmiller I don’t get why they don’t explicitly mandate having a second call centre worker simultaneously call the customer on the phone the caller claims to have lost or replaced. While that’s not entirely foolproof, as sometimes the call will go unanswered, any answered call while the scammer is on the line disproves the scammer’s claim. Rules and guidelines are often useful, but sometimes it’s necessary to spell things out.