Notices by David (defractal@infosec.exchange)

An important article from @SonsOfLibertyOfficial: “The Empty Garage: Young Men Are Waiting For A Better Deal”

A few excerpts:

The left does not need to imitate bro culture. It needs to stop abandoning masculinity to grifters. Trucks, beer, guns, work, family, and responsibility are not the problem. Cruelty is.

…

But here is the problem for Democrats and the broader left: being right about Trump failing is not the same thing as offering men somewhere to go.

The left does not need better bro cosplay. It needs a serious answer to male drift.

…

Start with honesty. A lot of young men feel useless.

That is not an excuse for cruelty. It is not an excuse for misogyny. It is not an excuse for treating women like vending machines for sex, comfort, status, or unpaid therapy. It is not an excuse for racism, authoritarian politics, or hiding inside some podcast guru's idea of strength.

But the wound is real.

A man who cannot see a path to stable work, a decent home, a family if he wants one, and some basic social respect is not going to be inspired by a policy memo written in conference-room English. He is also not going to be rescued by being told that his desire to provide, protect, build, compete, marry, father, lead, or be taken seriously is automatically suspect.

That is where the grifters enter.

Read the article here:

https://whiskeyleaks.org/the-empty-garage-young-men-are-waiting-for-a-better-deal/

#bluePill #nontoxicMasculinity #leftist #uspol #cdnpoli

What are more accurate and emotionally resonant names for the propagandically misnamed proposed laws which would compel all operating systems to force users to present their ID to attain permission from the US government and its designated corporations to use any computer (including a cellphone)? It is not #ageVerification, despite the Orwellian misnomer. #idVerification gets closer, but still doesn’t communicate the fact that it would let the the worst people in the world decide which individual is allowed to use a personal computer (including a smartphone), and to tie everything you do or say on any computer to your legal identity.

“Please, #PeterThiel, may I use my phone?”

What would be more honest and effective branding? (Any ideas, @pluralistic?)

Anyone with better ideas, please reply here, and if you’re willing, in the comments of Louis’ video too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa3-TkHBh90

@privacyint @eff

#privacy #surveillance #censorship #authoritarianism #totalitarianism

The #USA already has within its legal system everything it needs to end the war and reopen the #StraitOfHormuz. Here's how:

1. Return to the House, vacate the Speakership, and elect a new Speaker who'd be willing to do what's necessary (perhaps #ThomasMassie, who's one of the only Republicans apparently not controlled by the Epstein class).
2. Impeach, convict, and remove every #SCOTUS judge who committed perjury in their confirmation hearing or who's ever taken a bribe.
3. Impeach, convict, and remove Donald Trump and his criminal cabinet (including the criminal AG: replace her with #JackSmith).
4. Arrest, charge, and convict #DonaldTrump, #PeteHegseth, and other perpetrators under 18 USC §241, §242, §1111, and other applicable offences, and seek the maximum penalty for every offence. (For military officer perpetrators, analogous #UCMJ charges may be necessary.)
5. Commit to carrying out applicable sentences for all convictions.

If a new slate of #US diplomats can promise #Iran the results of step 5, for enough of the perpetrators, they could restore the peace and the flow of fertilizer.

One more step may also be necessary: Seize all profits of every entity—corporate or individual—who profited from those crimes, forfeit as proceeds of crime, to deter future corporate complicity. Disperse those funds to victims' families as reparations.

In the end, considering how the Iranian government seems to think, a comparable number of American perpetrators—starting with those with the most power, thus the most responsibility—may need receive the due sentence for the (at least) 260 counts of murder of children to date.

That would be more than fair: What's a small bunch of Nazi politicians and oligarchs in exchange for food for hundreds of millions of innocent American citizens, such as all those patriots opposing the war?

@heidilifeldman Huh. I didn't know one could simultaneously quote and reply here, but apparently I accidentally just did so. 🤷

RE: https://mastodon.social/@heidilifeldman/116319275301770100

@heidilifeldman Next up for white activists, especially those with acting, in-person SE, or undercover experience:

1. Dress up as apolitical or conservative travellers. Pack a suitcase even if you don't have a ticket. Act the part.
2. Visit airports with a camera recording from your lapel pocket.
3. Covertly record video of ICE faces, non-uniform privately-bought FLARP gear, gait, posture, and voices.
4. Extract only the parts with brownshirts.
5. Compile those videos and submit them to @Bellingcat, the ICE Accountability Project, and others.
6. Repeat as other brownshirts are rotated in and out of airports.

@BrentD On a possible upside, this might become the last straw to start getting #TikTok users to start migrating to @loops.

#Loops

@tuban_muzuru @GeePawHill Oh, that’s a funny story. He was a comedian who played a teacher who was accidentally elected president after his students recorded his rant about the corruption of the presidency, nominated him, and published the video online, which spread virally in lieu of a campaign.

But for the teacher part, his own comedy film became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The people of Ukraine seem to have elected him because of that film, which mocked the corruption his character ranted about. The through line of the humour was the very idea of having a non-corrupt government.

It was either accidentally or absolutely brilliantly the best presidential campaign the country could have had.

@patrickcmiller Any #StarCraft2 pros—perhaps from #SouthKorea—up to visiting #Ukraine or hosting DFU guests?

@MediaActivist Ah, yes, and leave to which Bluesky instance, Jay? Oh, right.

Good thing there's an existing already-federated (not merely theoretically federatable) replacement. Is there a means to migrate (posts, followers, followees, lists, etc.) from #Bluesky to a #Mastodon instance, or is Jay offering essentially the same option as Twitter?

The only way for #Canada to maintain sovereignty without shifting entirely away from the #Microsoft stack, given the CLOUD Act, is for Canada to require Microsoft to spin off all Canadian operations into a non-subsidiary Canadian company—a Canadian-headquartered Microsoft Canada, with solely Canadian officers and controlling shareholders—bound to (US) Microsoft by contract, irrevocable licenses, and API keys, but with cryptographic keys for Canadian data retained solely within Canada. Otherwise, the #CloudAct can be used to make us a de-facto subsidiary of the USA.

The same goes (but with other countries substituted for Canada) the #EU, the #UK, #Australia, and every other non-US jurisdiction, and much the same for #Google, #AWS, and other US cloud providers. Multinational online service providers will need to become legally federated.

https://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-science/microsoft-says-u-s-law-takes-precedence-over-canadian-data-sovereignty/article

#cdnpoli

@patrickcmiller Hey #IceOut organizers: want to unmask some neo-SS storm-troopers? Get some SDRs.

(Or you could try FLIR cameras.)

@ryanc It's a unit of power (a redundant way of writing kW), not energy, but do people use it as a unit of energy?

@jargoggles @Uair @Em0nM4stodon It’s not a misunderstanding, but it is deliberate. Their executives don’t believe we should be allowed to refuse them and have our “no” matter. They understand consent fully, and either they don’t care, or they take perverse gratification in deliberately violating and depriving others of the means to enforce boundaries.

@cdarwin IANAL, but from what I've seen of US case law, when police fail to self-identify as such and, while not recognizably police, impose imminent risk death or grievous bodily harm (which is generally presumed in cases of kidnapping), if the attacked person survives police-gang revenge, the trial outcome usually depends on the race of the person asserting self-defence to excuse use of lethal force against an assailant.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/texas-no-knock-swat-raid/

However, there was one at least one exception case: that of Cory Maye.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Maye

@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.