Notices by Meredith Whittaker (mer__edith@mastodon.world), page 2

@dalias @echo_pbreyer Yes. TLDR we would not comply. Then they'd take whichever action they'd take in response to remove us from the market.

@svitvojimilioni @echo_pbreyer We would not comply. Then what would happen would happen, which per the law would amount to somehow being prevented from operating in the EU. Likely through app store deplatforming but who knows.

Signal strongly opposes the newest #ChatControl proposal in Europe.

Let there be no doubt: we will leave the EU market rather than undermine our privacy guarantees.

This proposal--if passed and enforced against us--would require us to make this choice.

It's surveillance wine in safety bottles.

See more: https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/majority-for-chat-control-possible-users-who-refuse-scanning-to-be-prevented-from-sharing-photos-and-links/ @echo_pbreyer

IMO we need to dismantle the surveillance advertising biz model & the surveillance and centralized control at its heart.

But this doesn't do that. Instead, it advocates for 'transparency' w/o accountability + inexplicably ONLY names e2ee encryption as a "risk" to children.

What's clear here, broadly, are the sharp limits of shareholder-driven activism when it comes to curtailing a toxic-yet-profitable business model.

Ignoring expert consensus, feeling no shame following exposés showing tech lobbyists shaping these EU surveillance proposals, EU politicians are at it again

So, we'll reiterate: Signal would rather leave the EU market than subject our users to mass gov surveillance. FULL STOP

https://netzpolitik.org/2024/internes-protokoll-belgien-will-nutzer-verpflichten-chatkontrolle-zuzustimmen/

Last week I had the honor of accepting the 2024 Helmut Schmidt Future Prize

Instead of a traditional speech, I gave this talk on the history of AI, the business of surveillance, & why the use of AI "ad targeting for killing" in Gaza should be illegal👇

https://www.helmut-schmidt.de/aktuelles/detail/die-rede-der-zukunftspreistraegerin

Telegram is notoriously insecure and routinely cooperates with govs behind the scenes while talking a big game about speech and privacy. Even their limited opt-in (roll their own) encryption is sus. The more you know 🌈

Extremely important research.

It's not possible to understand the state of BigTech, or its pathologies at the moment, without understanding these companies' transformation into defense contractors, in addition to their central role as surveillance providers to the state. 👇

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2024/SiliconValley

(Yes, gentlemen, I know about ARPA and the US-military origins of networked computation. But I'm sure there's someone else out there who'd love an explanation.)

This is a historic tech action in a long proud tradition.

From Polaroid workers rejecting their work contributing to S Africa's passbooks, to the MIT research strike where scientists refused to work for warfare; to Geoff Hinton relocating to Canada to avoid building US weapons.

https://www.wired.com/story/google-no-tech-for-apartheid-project-nimbus-israel-gaza-protest/

There is almost no way the large cloud companies providing massive compute services, AI surveillance & data processing APIs aren't implicated in the system of 'ad targeting for death' being used to facilitate mass murder in Gaza.

This is a nightmare. And it's going to take significant pressure to prevent this from becoming business as usual--a selling point for oppressive regimes, as opposed to a cautionary tale.

https://time.com/6966102/google-contract-israel-defense-ministry-gaza-war/

"AI startups" are just three cloud companies in a trench coat pass it on

I have a lot more to say, but I'll hold it for now and simply wonder aloud...

Which BigTech clouds are the "Lavender" & "Where's Daddy?" AI systems running on? What APIs are they using? Which libraries are they calling?

What work did my former colleagues, did I, did *you* contribute to that may now be enabling this automated slaughter?

(Also, content warning. This is some of the sickest shit I've ever read.)

https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/

📢 My @NDSSSymposium keynote is up!

On how we lost the crypto wars, why surveillance advertising must be understood as the foundation of "AI", & why the tactics of the past won't serve us in defending privacy today.

Text: https://signal.org/blog/pdfs/ndss-keynote.pdf
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA2fRRO4qug&t=2s

I keep brooding on the way the xz backdoor was enabled in significant part via weaponizing the FOSS culture of shitty behavior and abuse.

Yes, there're other pathologies at work here (the big tech capitalist pillaging of the commons, etc).

But what is striking is that the uncool, mean standards of FOSS conduct that many of us have decried for years, & that many defended as authentic, tough, etc., ended up not just being exclusionary loser behavior, but a significant attack surface.

Most lives could be much shorter, too, if we insisted on measuring their worth against brutal, joyless utilitarian metrics.

📢NEW FROM ME!

On the TikTok ban, the danger of abandoning defense of speech to extremists, & how the liberal tendency to assume a just state "outside the scope of this paper" leads to confused law/policy that can exacerbate the problems platforms pose.

https://lpeproject.org/blog/social-media-authoritarianism-and-the-world-as-it-is/

There's no such thing as an AI startup, just guys with models competing to be absorbed by one of the three actual AI companies 😇

@alexhammy @researchfairy @signalapp We are aware, and working on new features to help address. In the meantime, we provide information in groups and profile details that enable you to see whether you have groups in common w/someone, whether you've ever chatted 1:1, etc. This will work to distinguish a new "Mike" from the "Mike" you speak with frequently. See more here, in the "How do I know this person is who they say they are?" section https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/6712070553754-Phone-Number-Privacy-and-Usernames

This's me!

About 2yrs post-COVID I still get an instant headache from a tiny amount of alcohol. A full drink makes me violently ill for ~3 days. Posting b/c this's the first media I've seen on this symptom, and it would've been helpful to me 2 yrs ago.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/long-covid-drink-alcohol-18889985.php