Mandatory age verification online in the EU - Amendment 186
EU parliament accepted a last minute amendment, mandating age verification for pornographic (whatever that is) content online, punishable with up to one year prison sentence.
This was rolled into a directive concerning CSAM. Because adults accessing porn need to be de-anonymised to avoid child exploitation?
Some press releases: (1), (2), (3)
PRESS RELEASE I European Parliament votes to force pornographic websites to use effective age-verification tools to protect minors - FAFCE
Strasbourg, 18 June 2025 The Federation of Catholic Family Association in Europe (FAFCE) welcomes the decision of the European Parliament to force pornographic websites to put in place "robust and effective age verification tools to effectively prev…admin (FAFCE)
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It Looks Like a School Bathroom Smoke Detector. A Teen Hacker Showed It Could Be an Audio Bug
(Above link with skipped Paywall)
Summary by Andi:
A teenage hacker named Reynaldo Vasquez-Garcia discovered that the Halo 3C vape detector, which looks like a standard smoke detector in school bathrooms, contained hidden microphones and security flaws that allowed it to be turned into a secret listening device1.
Working with another hacker known as "Nyx," Vasquez-Garcia found the device could be hacked by exploiting weak password controls and firmware update vulnerabilities. Once compromised, attackers could use it to eavesdrop on conversations in real-time, disable its detection capabilities, create fake alerts, or play audio through its speaker1.
The researchers revealed these findings at the 2025 Defcon hacker conference, demonstrating how any hacker on the same network could hijack a Halo 3C by brute-forcing passwords at 3,000 attempts per minute. The device's firmware could also be modified since its encryption key was publicly available in updates on the manufacturer's website1.
Motorola, which owns the Halo 3C's manufacturer IPVideo Corporation, said it developed a firmware update to address the security flaws. However, the researchers argue this doesn't solve the fundamental privacy concern of having microphone-equipped devices installed in sensitive locations like school bathrooms and public housing1.
- Wired - It Looks Like a School Bathroom Smoke Detector. A Teen Hacker Showed It Could Be an Audio Bug ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Smry | AI Summarizer and Free Paywall Remover
Remove paywalls and summarize articles for free, covering NYT, Washington Post & more. Instant access to content without login for faster insights.smry.ai
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What Does Palantir Actually Do?
Palantir is often called a data broker, a data miner, or a giant database of personal information. In reality, it’s none of these—but even former employees struggle to explain it.Palantir sends its employees to work inside client organizations essentially as consultants, helping to customize their data pipelines, troubleshoot problems, and fix bugs. It calls these workers “forward deployed software engineers,” a term that appears to be inspired by the concept of forward-deployed troops, who are stationed in adversarial regions to deter nearby enemies from attacking.
Crucially, Palantir doesn’t reorganize a company's bins and pipes, so to speak, meaning it doesn’t change how data is collected or how it moves through the guts of an organization. Instead, its software sits on top of a customer’s messy systems and allows them to integrate and analyze data without needing to fix the underlying architecture. In some ways, it’s a technical band-aid. In theory, this makes Palantir particularly well suited for government agencies that may use state-of-the-art software cobbled together with programming languages dating back to the 1960s.
Palantir’s software is designed with nontechnical users in mind. Rather than relying on specialized technical teams to parse and analyze data, Palantir allows people across an organization to get insights, sometimes without writing a single line of code. All they need to do is log into one of Palantir’s two primary platforms: Foundry, for commercial users, or Gotham, for law enforcement and government users.
Foundry focuses on helping businesses use data to do things like manage inventory, monitor factory lines, and track orders. Gotham, meanwhile, is an investigative tool specifically for police and government clients, designed to connect people, places, and events of interest to law enforcement. There’s also Apollo, which is like a control panel for shipping automatic software updates to Foundry or Gotham, and the Artificial Intelligence Platform, a suite of AI-powered tools that can be integrated into Gotham or Foundry.
Foundry and Gotham are similar: Both ingest data and give people a neat platform to work with it. The main difference between them is what data they’re ingesting. Gotham takes any data that government or law enforcement customers may have, including things like crime reports, booking logs, or information they collected by subpoenaing a social media company. Gotham then extracts every person, place, and detail that might be relevant. Customers need to already have the data they want to work with—Palantir itself does not provide any.
Foundry and Gotham are similar: Both ingest data and give people a neat platform to work with it. The main difference between them is what data they’re ingesting. Gotham takes any data that government or law enforcement customers may have, including things like crime reports, booking logs, or information they collected by subpoenaing a social media company. Gotham then extracts every person, place, and detail that might be relevant. Customers need to already have the data they want to work with—Palantir itself does not provide any.
Since leaving Palantir, Pinto says he’s spent a lot of time reflecting on the company’s ability to parse and connect vast amounts of data. He’s now deeply worried that an authoritarian state could use this power to “tell any narrative they want” about, say, immigrants or dissidents it may be seeking to arrest or deport. He says that software like Palantir’s doesn’t eliminate human bias.
People are the ones that choose how to work with data, what questions to ask about it, and what conclusions to draw. Their choices could have positive outcomes, like ensuring enough Covid-19 vaccines are delivered to vulnerable areas. They could also have devastating ones, like launching a deadly airstrike, or deporting someone.
In some ways, Palantir can be seen as an amplifier of people’s intentions and biases. It helps them make evermore precise and intentional decisions, for better or for worse. But this may not always be obvious to Palantir’s users. They may only experience a sophisticated platform, sold to them using the vocabulary of warfare and hegemony. It may feel as if objective conclusions are flowing naturally from the data. When Gotham users connect disparate pieces of information about a person, it could seem like they are reading their whole life story, rather than just a slice of it.
Fear Peter Thiel and his gangbuster crew of excel homies and consultants 😂
Don't get me wrong, they're enablers of authoritarianists, but let's not give them too much credit. Magic? 🫧🧐🪠
AGI is not coming! - Yanick Kilcher
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Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.www.youtube.com
recensione alberghiaca con sorprese megapazzurde e stasi ottimalizzata!
A grandissimissima richiesta (…di ben 1 persona), quasi urgeva una recensione dell’albergo dove sono stata per poco più di metà della settimana scorsa… utile a non si sa chi o cosa, data la solita mia necessaria precauzionale omissione di dettagli altrimenti fondamentali, ma il piacere della storiella (o, come dice il caro Piero Angela, il […]
octospacc.altervista.org/2025/…
recensione alberghiaca con sorprese megapazzurde e stasi ottimalizzata!
A grandissimissima richiesta (…di ben 1 persona), quasi urgeva una recensione dell’albergo dove sono stata per poco più di metà della settimana scorsa… utile a non si sa chi o cosa, data la solita mia necessaria precauzionale omissione di dettagli altrimenti fondamentali, ma il piacere della storiella (o, come dice il caro Piero Angela, il piacere della scop..ta) è sempre altamente importante e necessario a non sprofondare ogni giorno sempre di più in quello stato dell’essere che ci (mi) vede... vabbè, scusate, basta cazzate. 🙁Vediamo prima le cose strane, così togliamo il dente bizzarro e via il dolore causato dalla morbosa curiosità. A parte il non proprio spassoso incidente dell’ultima sera, che fa testo a sé, di cose curiose ce n’erano un bel po’ in questo hotel; queste altre, per fortuna, non avvilenti. La cosa che forse più colpiva, complessivamente e continuamente, è che… proprio all’ingresso, affianco alla reception, aveva un bar… che operava da normale bar, essendo in centro. In 4 giorni non ho visto nessuno andarci, però oh: per chi ha interesse, ci sta il bar. Anzi, ci sono due bar: c’era una sala interrata, che fungeva da sala colazione (e solo colazione, il resto del tempo era chiusa), e aveva un altro bancone/postazione bar. Addirittura, le pareti di questa erano affrescate con un tema apposta per l’hotel… ma non ho fotine mie ora, quindi ops. 👻
Passando alla camera… Altre cose strane sono che il rubinetto del lavandino si chiamava Cristina(e si, le marche delle robe idrauliche sono sempre stranamente assurde, maCristina non l’avevo mai vista)… mentre, la marca dell’area lavandino proprio, è un altro nome mai sentito, TECHNOVA, ma la cosa che mi ha lasciata confusa è che il font sembra uscito tipo da un anime… queste lettere un po’ rotonde con la O che è una stellina, insomma… E poi ancora, nell’armadio appendiabiti (non in bagno ovviamente), c’era il quadro elettrico della stanza, con un cartello che diceva tipo di non aprire se non autorizzati… ma la porticina di plastica era di suo mezza aperta, quindi il cartello nel contesto sembra una presa in giro. Boh, roba proprio strana si trova, mi sa, andando in giro con l’occhio clinico ben aperto. 👁️
Temo di non essere proprio bbona a fare le recensioni dei posti, però, perché i tratti positivi di forte impatto che riesco a dire solo solo 2… però oh, son roba tosta. Come già detto, con la stanza solo per me le faville sono state sensibili: anzitutto perché il letto era a due posti, ma c’ero appunto soltanto io, quindi ho dormito alla grande, senza sentire i rumori molesti dei miei genitori — altrimenti succede puntualmente che loro fanno il roleplay della Russia (russano e invadono il mio sonno) e io quindi dell’Ucraina (sigh) — e perdendomi ampiamente in questo letto, gigante per i miei standard (0.5 posti più grande del mio solito, wow), stabilendo insomma per bene anche in trasferta il mio stato da principessa femcel marcia… ma poi, perché avevo il bagno solo per me… 😈E il bagno, anche se era più piccolo di quello dei miei genitori — che, al contrario, avevano la parte principale della stanza più piccola di me, ops — era stellare… da gaming, oserei dire. E il gaming è infatti avvenuto alla grande, la sera che avevo un po’ di tempo (si, proprio quella dell’incidente) e ho quindi deciso di provare la doccia che c’era. Il design era molto strano a prima vista, e certamente mi aspettavo qualcosa di insolito nel suo uso… ma non immaginavo che avesse letteralmente i LED blu (primo colore del gaming!!!) e dei display numerici per indicare la temperatura corrente dell’acqua e il tempo trascorso con essa accesa!!! In confronto alla roba normalissima che posso permettermi io a casa, questa doccia è stata super premium… tanto che, trasportata dal gaming, ho deciso di farmi anche lo shampoo, nonostante inizialmente volessi solo sciacquarmi. (Poi vabbè, lo shampoo ha causato altri problemi, ma quella è una condanna mia personale.) 😻
Ecco, del bagno in realtà non mi è assolutamente piaciuto che il sapone per le mani fosse in un dispenser automatico (non solo da me, anche dai miei era così)… A parte che si mimetizzava col muro, quindi inizialmente non lo notavo e mi chiedevo dove straminchia fosse il sapone per le mani, non essendoci saponette in giro, ma solo il flaconcino per la doccia… è semplicemente terribile il fatto che si attivi con un sensore di prossimità: se si appoggia qualcosa lì sotto per sbaglio, ecco che questa verrà sburrata immediatamente dal macchinario, senza se e senza ma… e anche banalmente per prendere il sapone, è scomodo, non si capisce mai come bisogna mettere e togliere la mano, e quindi ogni tanto va a cadere, sporcando la superficie attorno al lavandino. 😭Però… in un certo senso, questo contrasto tra elementi di lusso e oggetti che vanno bene solo in un bagno pubblico ha una sua personalità… E quindi, comunque, tutto sommato, nice albergo da 3 stelle in provincia di Roma; non costato troppissimissimo, considerato che il totale con le due stanze è stato 800€ per 4 notti. Ci sarebbero ora foto da salvare riguardo il viaggio, ma, tra questo blog, il sito delle foto, Pixelfed, la BBS, ora anche Sharkey, oltre pure al semplice Pignio, non so manco dove mettere cosa, e allora zzz, circolare, non c’è null’altro da vedere qui… 🥴
#albergo #curiosità #hotel #recensione #stranezze #vacanza
China state media says Nvidia H20 GPUs are unsafe and outdated, urges Chinese companies to avoid them — says chip is ‘neither environmentally friendly, nor advanced, nor safe’
China state media says Nvidia H20 GPUs are unsafe and outdated, urges Chinese companies to avoid them — says chip is ‘neither environmentally friendly, nor advanced, nor safe’
State media wants Chinese companies to avoid Nvidia chips.Jowi Morales (Tom's Hardware)
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Huawei's brute force AI tactic seems to be working — CloudMatrix 384 claimed to outperform Nvidia processors running DeepSeek R1
It turns out that using four times the energy solves a lot of problems for Huawei.Sunny Grimm (Tom's Hardware)
BCC supports Israels blockade of international journalists into Gaza
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The only valid question is "Why isn't Israel letting in international journalists".
To even entertain this ridiculous narrative as if it's a credibly question is completely insane.
"Adolf Hitler says the Jews are all terrorists. What do you have to say about that?"
Disproven
[old scientist, pointing at some data]
After decades of research, thousands of experiments, a massive amount of peer reviewing, we can finally confidently conclude...
[smug dude with a ridiculous hairstyle]
Uh yeah, but this TikTok by PatriotEagle1776 says your research is wrong
thebad.website/comic/disproven
bsky.app/profile/thebad.websit…
I feel like a large reason for the distrust is because Governments have given every incentive to the population to distrust Big Pharma.
For example the recent Pfizergate corruption scandal with EU head Ursula Von Der Leyen
politico.eu/article/commission…
EU executive reviewed von der Leyen’s Pfizergate texts — then let them disappear
Document sheds new light on controversies over a multibillion deal to obtain Covid-19 vaccines.Mari Eccles (POLITICO)
EXPOSING The Billion Dollar SECRET VPN Companies Are Hiding
Just found this amazing girl Addie LaMarr who is super knowledgeable on cybersecurity. She said the forbidden 'i' word and got the video shadowbanned (obvious from the 1k comments, 7k likes but 84k views)
Her vids/shorts are a must-watch. Similar content to Laurie Wired
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Your post was removed: Posting Videos are against this community rules.
Kindly check the sidebar.
, Thank you.
Edited (somebody dm me if there's a way to add a description to the image for the visually impaired, I'm on Sync for Lemmy)
somebody dm me if there’s a way to add a description to the image for the visually impaired, I’m on Sync for Lemmy
You can add it between the square brackets.
Fight Chat Control: The EU (still) wants to scan your private messages and photos
Fight Chat Control - Protect Digital Privacy in the EU
Learn about the EU Chat Control proposal and contact your representatives to protect digital privacy and encryption.fightchatcontrol.eu
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Yeah, you have to be braindead trust a game developer with any kernel level software.
I think a more secure solution would be some kind of virtualized environment to run the game within, which the developer could have full control over, but I doubt that will ever come about.
A more secure solution would be to implement proper security server side, use simple (and cheap!) heuristics to weed out impossible movements and actions, not offload critical gameplay processing client side, and only send relevant data. Some, if not most of that, was how things were done before. No way to teleport wherever, no way to see people across the whole map, and so on. It would not be perfect, but no solution is. It, however, would be very easy to upgrade, and not be a privacy shit-show. But that requires a bit more work from the devs, so I guess the only solution is to give absolute total control over our devices to them.
I can't wait to see the moment we get cheap devices good enough to process in realtime video input and produce adequates outputs. Get that enclosed in a device that acts as a passthrough KVM for the display, but auto-correct user aim, movement, toggles, etc. As long as there's a market, I'm sure people will think about it.
Good luck detecting that with any kind of client-side anti-cheat.
Democratic Socialists of America pass resolution to fight for anti-Zionist DSA
Resolution Text:
DSA members – regardless of endorsement status – who are credibly shown to
1. have consistently and publicly opposed BDS and the Palestinian cause (e.g. by denouncing the BDS movement in public interviews; writing public op-eds denouncing the BDS movement; drafting and voting in favor of legislation that suppresses BDS, such as legislation that suppresses speech rights around the right to freely criticize Zionism/Israel and/or the right to boycott; making statements that “Israel has a right to defend itself”; making or endorsing statements or legislation equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism), even after receiving fair and ample opportunity for education about the Palestinian struggle for liberation,
2. be currently affiliated with the Israeli government or any Zionist lobby group(s) such as, but not limited to, AIPAC, J Street, or Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI), or
3. have knowingly provided material aid to Israel (e.g., voted to provide Israel with material aid; gave direct financial donations of any kind to Israel and/or settler NGOs who carry out the mission of Israeli settlement and Palestinian dispossession/displacement, such as the Jewish National Fund, the Israel Land Fund, the Hebron Fund, and Regavim)
shall be considered in substantial disagreement with DSA’s principles and policies, thereby committing an expellable offense as outlined in Article 3, Section 4 of the DSA Constitution, which states that a member credibly shown to have engaged in any of the above shall “be expelled [by] a two-thirds (⅔) vote of all members of the National Political Committee.”
I can't find any articles about this online. The resolution to align with BDS was opposed :
Full list of resolutions here dsa-lsc.org/2025/08/06/lsc-off…
LSC - Official 2025 DSA Convention Recommendations
The Libertarian Socialist Caucus makes the following recommendations to delegates for the 2025 DSA National Convention.Caucus Statement (Democratic Socialists of America's Libertarian Socialist Caucus)
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Democratic Socialists of America pass resolution to fight for anti-Zionist DSA
Resolution Text:
DSA members – regardless of endorsement status – who are credibly shown to
1. have consistently and publicly opposed BDS and the Palestinian cause (e.g. by denouncing the BDS movement in public interviews; writing public op-eds denouncing the BDS movement; drafting and voting in favor of legislation that suppresses BDS, such as legislation that suppresses speech rights around the right to freely criticize Zionism/Israel and/or the right to boycott; making statements that “Israel has a right to defend itself”; making or endorsing statements or legislation equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism), even after receiving fair and ample opportunity for education about the Palestinian struggle for liberation,
2. be currently affiliated with the Israeli government or any Zionist lobby group(s) such as, but not limited to, AIPAC, J Street, or Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI), or
3. have knowingly provided material aid to Israel (e.g., voted to provide Israel with material aid; gave direct financial donations of any kind to Israel and/or settler NGOs who carry out the mission of Israeli settlement and Palestinian dispossession/displacement, such as the Jewish National Fund, the Israel Land Fund, the Hebron Fund, and Regavim)
shall be considered in substantial disagreement with DSA’s principles and policies, thereby committing an expellable offense as outlined in Article 3, Section 4 of the DSA Constitution, which states that a member credibly shown to have engaged in any of the above shall “be expelled [by] a two-thirds (⅔) vote of all members of the National Political Committee.”
I can't find any articles about this online. The resolution to align with BDS was opposed :
Full list of resolutions here dsa-lsc.org/2025/08/06/lsc-off…
LSC - Official 2025 DSA Convention Recommendations
The Libertarian Socialist Caucus makes the following recommendations to delegates for the 2025 DSA National Convention.Caucus Statement (Democratic Socialists of America's Libertarian Socialist Caucus)
Personalized Healthcare Tech
We are a team of physicians and engineers thinking about communicating public health messaging at a personalized scale.
We have created the “personalize for me” tool to help people understand how science and papers apply to them specifically. We posted the Lancet’s 7000 steps paper. Click personalize for me and it guides you through risk calculations based on your step count.
my-openhealth.com/insights/5-7…
We also built it to help answer questions around general health and supplements based on science and user experience. Try both the Chat mode and the Health Agent mode on the home page to get answers about supplement stacks.
Really appreciate any feedback or even if you think it’s useless! If you like it, sign up for future very cool features that we are building.
OpenHealth - Daily Medical Insights
Get daily medical insights, research findings, and AI-powered medical assistancewww.my-openhealth.com
Audio reencoder for Android?
(I can already do it on desktop, I specifically need mobile)
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I use this minimal ffmpeg wrapper app for all my media encoding needs:
play.google.com/store/apps/det…
I don't know if the GUI has any support for audio, but you can just give it a plain ffmpeg command if needed.
FFmpeg Media Encoder - Apps on Google Play
Convert audio and video directly to your device using FFmpegplay.google.com
In India, Trump's tariffs spark calls to boycott American goods
NEW DELHI, Aug 11 (Reuters) - From McDonald's and Coca-Cola to Amazon and Apple, U.S.-based multinationals are facing calls for a boycott in India as business executives and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's supporters stoke anti-American sentiment to protest against U.S. tariffs.
India, the world's most populous nation, is a key market for American brands that have rapidly expanded to target a growing base of affluent consumers, many of whom remain infatuated with international labels seen as symbols of moving up in life.
In India, Trump's tariffs spark calls to boycott American goods
NEW DELHI, Aug 11 (Reuters) - From McDonald's and Coca-Cola to Amazon and Apple, U.S.-based multinationals are facing calls for a boycott in India as business executives and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's supporters stoke anti-American sentiment to protest against U.S. tariffs.
India, the world's most populous nation, is a key market for American brands that have rapidly expanded to target a growing base of affluent consumers, many of whom remain infatuated with international labels seen as symbols of moving up in life.
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Wikipedia’s ‘neutrality’ has always been complicated. New rules will make questioning it harder
Wikipedia’s ‘neutrality’ has always been complicated. New rules will make questioning it harder
Wikipedia is built on a “neutral point of view”. But who decides what neutral means?The Conversation
‘I end up buying less food’: Indigenous people should not have to go hungry to use the internet
‘I end up buying less food’: Indigenous people should not have to go hungry to use the internet
New research shows internet access can be sorely lacking for First Nations people because of cost, poor infrastructure and little training.The Conversation
TikTok to replace trust and safety team in Germany with AI and outsourced labor
TikTok to replace trust and safety team in Germany with AI and outsourced labor
TikTok workers in Berlin are striking over mass layoffs amid company’s global push to replace moderators with AIDara Kerr (The Guardian)
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TikTok to replace trust and safety team in Germany with AI and outsourced labor
TikTok to replace trust and safety team in Germany with AI and outsourced labor
TikTok workers in Berlin are striking over mass layoffs amid company’s global push to replace moderators with AIDara Kerr (The Guardian)
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GitHub - winapps-org/winapps: Run Windows apps such as Microsoft Office/Adobe in Linux (Ubuntu/Fedora) and GNOME/KDE as if they were a part of the native OS, including Nautilus integration.
GitHub - winapps-org/winapps: Run Windows apps such as Microsoft Office/Adobe in Linux (Ubuntu/Fedora) and GNOME/KDE as if they were a part of the native OS, including Nautilus integration. Hard fork of github.com/Fmstrat/winapps/
Run Windows apps such as Microsoft Office/Adobe in Linux (Ubuntu/Fedora) and GNOME/KDE as if they were a part of the native OS, including Nautilus integration. Hard fork of https://github.com/Fmst...GitHub
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I’m just gonna run it solo either with multilaunch, or I’ll do separate vm instances for the different game instances. I don’t need Steam for anything as of yet.
Thanks for the info about the front-ends.
Why would God be responsible for knowing what will happen? The human ultimately chooses whether or not to do the thing.
For example if God can go forward in time and see something happening then he could go back in time and not make the thing happen.
But that would would contradict the whole principle of giving humans autonomy to let things happen.
Unless you're talking natural disasters the entire responsibility here lies on the ones perpetrating the actions rather than God.
Omnipotence does not require doing something. Billionaires have the capability to end world hunger. Yet they're piling up more stacks of money. And Billionaires definitely exist.
I think the crux of your issue is viewing it from exclusively the Christian world view where everyone goes to heaven anyways because Jesus died for our sins. The Palestinians world view is that suffering being done to someone will be rewarded in the afterlife. And the person causing the suffering will be punished.
I never said omnipotence required doing something. You asked how God would know what would happen, and the answer is that God is omnipotent.
Besides, the Old testament, which all 3 abrahamic religions share, is full of stories of God directly interfering in the free will of man. If their God does exist, he is fully capable of stopping what's happening.
By not interfering, he's cool with babies being starved to death, and therefore a cunt.
But it's all a moot point because God doesn't exist and religion is just a tool for power and control.
Surah Ya-Sin - 47-57 - Quran.com
(47) And when it is said to them, “Donate from what Allah has provided for you,” the disbelievers say to the believers, “Why should we feed those whom...Quran.com
It's strange how you're trying to shove the blame on everything humans do onto God.
Consider reading and responding to the link.
It is on God. All of the suffering in the world is because the first humans he created didn't use their "free will" exactly how he wanted them to.
That's a pretty cunty thing to do.
geneva_convenience doesn't like this.
It's almost like free will by definition means that God doesn't control the actions. Did God bomb those Palestinian kids or are humans choosing to do so?
Or are those humans forced to do so by deterministic nature, thus making their action morally neutral and not evil at all?
geneva_convenience doesn't like this.
Unless you believe that you hold no agency over the choices you make in life you believe in free will. You can observe yourself making choices.
You have stated you believe in the existence of free will already by proclaiming the act of killing children to be wrong. Without free will it would simply be a predetermined event and good and evil would not exist.
Taking it a step further, if it's impossible for humans to receive free will because of determinism, then you must also say that God has no free will. Which then absolves God of anything you deem "evil".
Omnipotence does not require doing something. Billionaires have the capability to end world hunger. Yet they’re piling up more stacks of money. And Billionaires definitely exist.
Yes, and we are all agreeing they are fuckers because of it. Why it is a problem to consider omnipotent god fucker because of the same logic?
If God created the universe then God would have given humanity more than any billionaire ever can let alone will.
It's not possible to understand the Abrahamic religions which the Palestinians adhere to by cutting out the concept of an afterlife where good deeds and suffering will be rewarded and malice will be punished. That is the whole concept of a test.
Imagine if God said "I didn't let you perform the test because I know the results, therefore you don't need to undergo the test". Then God sent people to heaven for their righteousness, or hell for sinning without them ever committing the good deeds or sins. Would that be fair?
We will certainly test you with a touch of fear and famine and loss of property, life, and crops. Give good news to those who patiently endure— who say, when struck by a disaster, “Surely to Allah we belong and to Him we will ˹all˺ return.” They are the ones who will receive Allah’s blessings and mercy. And it is they who are ˹rightly˺ guided.
Verse 156 is what you will hear quoted very frequently by Palestinians in videos after a disastrous moment.
Surah Al-Baqarah - 1-286 - Quran.com
Read and listen to Surah Al-Baqarah. The Surah was revealed in Medina, ordered 2 in the Quran. The Surah title means "The Cow" in English and consists...Quran.com
The entire "free will" argument is nothing more than the Omnipotence paradox wrapped into a different jacket.
Omnipotence requires being able to do anything including, defying the concept of logic itself. The entire concept of God is by itself not logical, using arguments like "If there is an infinite past then we can never reach the present".
Still the universe exists, so the concept of the beginning of time breaks all of logic.
I more meant the problem of evil than paradox of ominipotence.
Yes, all evidence points to god not existing. Abrahamic god just strikes me as particulary cruel in most denominations, definitely not something i would like to worship even if i had.
Abrahamic faiths provide a reason for suffering existing, namely as a test with a reward (heaven) for the good or punishment(hell) for the evil.
I'd argue faiths which state that everyone goes to heaven after dying even if they were literally Hitler are true cruelty, because that'd mean there is no point to the suffering.
Abrahamic faiths provide a reason for suffering existing, namely as a test with a reward (heaven) for the good or punishment(hell) for the evil.
Except for quite a lot of them the reward have nothing in common with good or evil, some believe in predestination, some just require faith. And it's even before we get to their praxis. Heaven and hell itself are even arguable concepts. For me the concept of vague, mutable, contradictory and unverifable "test" is incredibly cruel.
I’d argue faiths which state that everyone goes to heaven after dying even if they were literally Hitler are true cruelty, because that’d mean there is no point to the suffering.
Which ones do you mean?
Except for quite a lot of them the reward have nothing in common with good or evil, some believe in predestination, some just require faith. And it’s even before we get to their praxis
Most Christian and Islamic branches. Traditional Judaism as well though watered down.
For me the concept of vague, mutable, contradictory and unverifable “test” is incredibly cruel.
It's mostly praying to god, and if you're rich give your money to the poor. Not the most complex material
Which ones do you mean?
Branches like Christian universalism.
It’s mostly praying to god, and if you’re rich give your money to the poor. Not the most complex material
Up and including suffering genocide.
Branches like Christian universalism.
Isn't that just a collection of tiny sects?
Up and including suffering genocide.
Everything is relative to reward.
One amongst the denizens of Hell who had led a life of ease and plenty amongst the people of the world would be made to dip in Fire only once on the Day of Resurrection and then it would be said to him: O, son of Adam, did you find any comfort, did you happen to get any material blessing? He would say: By Allah, no, my Lord.And then that person from amongst the persons of the world be brought who had led the most miserable life (in the world) from amongst the inmates of Paradise. and he would be made to dip once in Paradise and it would be said to him. 0, son of Adam, did you face, any hardship? Or had any distress fallen to your lot? And he would say: By Allah, no, 0 my Lord, never did I face any hardship or experience any distress.
Isn’t that just a collection of tiny sects?
Of the major Arbrahamic faiths yes. There's also different religions such as the Druze which believe that instead of hell there's reincarnation which is more of an in-between path.
Sahih Muslim 2807 - Characteristics of the Day of Judgment, Paradise, and Hell - كتاب صفة القيامة والجنة والنار - Sunnah.com - Sayings and Teachings of Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه و سلم)
Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad (saws) in English and Arabicsunnah.com
Judaism as a religion believes that they will be led to the promised land by the return of their messiah. Zionists decided to cut that part out, defy their scripture and do the return part by themselves. Zionism sees Jews as purely a race.
Zionism at its very essence is completely Atheistic. Its father Theodor Herzl was an Atheist.
Zionism as a national movement that rebelled against historical Judaism was mainly atheistic. Most of its leaders and activists ceased believing in redemption through the coming of the Messiah, the long-standing essence of Jewish belief, and took their fate into their own hands. The power of the human subject replaced the power of the omnipotent God.The rabbis knew that, and were terrified – and, therefore, almost all of them became avowed anti-Zionists. From Hasidic rebbes Sholom Dovber Schneersohn, the Admor of Lubavitch (Chabad) and Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter (the Admor of Gur) to leading U.S. Reform Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, founder of the Reform Central Conference, mitnagdim and Hasidim, Orthodox, Reform and Conservative, all saw the rise of Zionism as the end of Judaism. Due to the sweeping opposition of the rabbis of Germany, Theodor Herzl was forced to transfer the First Zionist Congress from Munich to the Swiss city of Basel.
geneva_convenience doesn't like this.
Knowing things does not require adhering to them. Also I forgot to link the article with my previous post here it is
Atheism 100% caused Zionism. It was 0% religious Judaism 100% Atheism. As you can read the German Jews fully opposed Zionism in its early days.
The most influential ideology for early Zionism was Socialism en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Zi…
It was mostly by Jabotinsky who pushed Zionist Revisionism as a way to increase the amount of colonists that it turned into the weird incoherent mix of religious and Atheist Jews that you see today. And the Israeli-British pogroms committed around the Middle East to push Jews to go to Israel.
Atheism 100% caused Zionism.
What a ridiculous statement. Being founded by an atheist (if Herzl even actually was one - he was clearly non-religious, but many non-religious people are not atheists) is quite different than being caused by atheism.
"We followed a Coke bottle and this is what we found"
Minutes later:
"Coca cola is doing great at keeping our environment clean"
Vanishing from Hyundai’s data network
Kona EV: no more Bluelink
Finding and disabling the cellular modem for BlueLink in the Kona EVtechno-fandom.org
Roku launches Howdy, a $2.99 ad-free streaming service
Roku launches Howdy, a $2.99 ad-free streaming service | TechCrunch
The service features a library of nearly 10,000 hours of content from Lionsgate, Warner Bros. Discovery, and FilmRise, alongside select Roku Original titles.Aisha Malik (TechCrunch)
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Police arrest 474 at Palestine Action ban protest
Palestine Action protesters arrested by police at London demo
The Metropolitan Police said the number of arrests was the largest made by the force on a single day in the last decade.Emma Rossiter and Adam Hale (BBC News)
I'd like to see a serious answer to this, please?
Why, indeed, is it that you can't criticize Israel, even though it's clearly committing genocide. you can't say "Innocent Palestinians are being murdered" or anything like it because that's "antisemitic", even though this is litert using both your eyes to see what is happening.
I'm guessing pressure from Israel? But what pressure? How do they pressure so many counties that their governments go with "can't say anything realistic about Israel!". Do they have pee tapes of all prime ministers or something?
Gotta phrase it as "military aged males 'died' during a defensive/peacekeeping operation".
Or just straight up call babies terrorists. Dealer's choice.
Australia to recognise Palestinian state in September
Australia to recognise Palestinian state in September
It follows similar moves by the UK, France and Canada.Lana Lam (BBC News)
like this
Actually, it's pretty important they are recognised.
Right now, Israel is de jure attacking 'nobody', obviously from a de facto pov, they are attacking the two 'states/cantons/provinces' of Palestine, but that isn't a recognised country.
Recognizing Palestine as a sovereign nation is incredibly important.
Sanctions against Israel are a lot easier to legislate when they're attacking a recognised country (and should be effective unlike Russian danctions, as Israel doesn't have Xi to lean on for support, their support base IS the west)
Yeah but they're usually not recognizing any territory with it.
Sanctions against Israel are already incredibly easy to legislate. Western countries simply refuse to do so.
Hack a smart home with a calendar invite! And Google Gemini
- video
Hack a smart home with a calendar invite! And Google Gemini
As an IT guy who knows how computers work, I’ve got a very smart home. My lights are all controlled by physical switches on the wall. Heating and cooling, switches. The oven, switches. Computers an…Pivot to AI
iii
in reply to iii • • •In 2023 I was thinking how stupid puritan the Texan politician were. The EU commission and parliament had different ideas.
Turns out the incumbents in EU are very scared as politicians from outside the traditional political families are getting popular votes. And instead of looking into to mirror as to why that is happening, they blame "the internet" and go authoritarian.
Thus joining in the creation of the machinery for mass surveillance and supression.
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sunzu2
in reply to iii • • •That's just how power works. It is up to the working people to keep the regime in check but it seems boomers abdicated their duty and we are now facing consequences of it.
We don't have any infrastructure to fight back in any meaningful pay. The best tool left is direct action but the normie is too docile to change his consumption habits. God forbid he has to do something
Greazer
in reply to iii • • •like this
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iii
in reply to Greazer • • •I think the overarching theme is that the EU wants more and more power and control.
In the case you describe: it's by taking away freedom from software providers. In the case of this law, it's by taking away freedom from their citizens.
Less agency and freedom for others, more control for and subjugation to them, is what motivates both - Fun when they do it to others, less fun now they're doing it to you too.
Especially considering the backhanded way this amendmend was last-minute shoehorned onto unrelated legislation. They know it's against general will and good.
"Do you want children to be exploited? No? Then do as I say"
Korkki
in reply to iii • • •Ofc. People who push this are in composition 10% moral crusaders and 90% those afraid for their own power and status quo in the coming years. With these pushes toward age verification and message scanning; It's not just they want to scan everything and watch everybody, they want to test the waters and people to to think they are always being watched and self censor and not do anything against powers that be. They know better than anybody how shaky things have gotten in Europe and how unpopular they really are. It's pure attempt at population control.
The only problem is that with current people in power they really can't help themselves, but to make things worse for the average people. So the fire will rise anyway.
cookie019
in reply to Greazer • • •.Donuts
in reply to iii • • •Are there any issues with a system where the website in question (let's say, a porn site) doesn't get your ID, but just a confirmation from your government that yes, you are of age?
~~It has a name but I can't find it right now.~~ But it would protect your privacy from their website you're visiting, and the website can uphold the rules.
It's called double blind: biometricupdate.com/202504/dou…
Double blind age assurance requirement for porn sites takes effect in France
Joel R. McConvey (BiometricUpdate.com)iii
in reply to .Donuts • • •Yes. Anyone that can request both the logs of this third party and the website fully deanonymises the users.
Who could have this access? The same people that last minute added this amendment to unrelated legislation. It's even easier this way: they have to strongarm only a few "age verification providers", then follow the tokens.
Additionally, the amendment is a stepping stone to outlaw other privacy techniques such as VPNs.
Foreign websites still don't comply? We have no choice but to build the great firewall of EU. For the children.
onoira [they/them]
in reply to .Donuts • • •the problem is that people are being verifiably linked to their 'adult' preferences. this is data that is being generated, in bad faith, and handled by multiple parties. your legal identity should not need to be tied to this information. this information can be used against you both now and in the future.
we've already seen in the US where there is a push for information about gender and basic sexual education being labelled as 'adult'. when i was in school, information about countries like Cuba, Afghanistan or China was considered 'too mature' (or marked as 'terrorism-related' by the school firewall) for children; i could see this thus extending to require age verification before you can access 'subversive' information, on the basis of 'protecting children' from 'political extremism'.
.Donuts
in reply to onoira [they/them] • • •Double blind means that the age provider doesn't know why your age is requested, and the service (website) doesn't know you, they only know that the age provider says "yes" or "no".
cc @iii@mander.xyz
How does one "follow the tokens" then?
onoira [they/them]
in reply to .Donuts • • •the provider knows who's asking because of the IP address and API key of the requester. if it uses a form with a redirect, they even know your IP and what page you were on, tied to your legal identity. if the provider makes any API requests to a government registry, now that knows the when, the how, and (categorically) the what. short of a statement of 'no logs' and an audit to confirm as such, there is definitely logs. hackers love this information. data brokers love this information.
the problem is not the service knowing. it's anyone knowing. the provider deänonymised you the moment you gave your id. the precise implementation details are important here.
iii
in reply to .Donuts • • •We don't know what they do with the information, as it's closed source.
Assuming it's based on this EU prototype:
They don't know why it was requested, but do know who, where and when.
So they gather the logs of A, the token provider. Is the target present? They have his token. They also see where and when the token was used. Did you have a fun time yesterday evening, on your phone at home, on websites B, C and D?
Next up, if they want even more detail, gather the logs of B, look for the token. That way they can pinpoint the exact search terms, categories, watch time, etc
In summary: centralizing the de-anonymisation this way makes mass surveillance easier than if it were decentralized, in sometimes foreign jurisdictions.
It also shifts the conversation away from the best solution: don't deanonymise in the first place.
av-doc-technical-specification/docs/architecture-and-technical-specifications.md at main · eu-digital-identity-wallet/av-doc-technical-specification
GitHubJamesBoeing737MAX
in reply to .Donuts • • •like this
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.Donuts
in reply to JamesBoeing737MAX • • •I believe the idea (in an ideal world) is that Website A requests data from Service B, which then asks about you to government C. So Government C doesn't know what you're asking about, and the Website A doesn't know who you are. That does mean Service B would have to be trusted / vetted, which might relocate the problem but it would be easier to verify (FOSS for example) than trusting your government to not put you on a list.
balsoft
in reply to .Donuts • • •There's no need for the middleman in this scheme. Instead, a much simpler solution would be:
$TOKENThe person with $TOKEN is of legal age. You have to provide your ID or whatever here, but the government doesn't know who made the token.This can be automated in some way; maybe with a browser extension or some referrer-less redirect sort of thing.
It's still fundamentally shitty though, because now the government pretty much knows that you want to watch adult stuff, it just doesn't know which adult stuff exactly.
A better (but almost impossible to implement) solution would be for the government to issue everyone a smartcard as an identity document (many countries already do, but without the following features). On that smartcard is a private key, with the corresponding public key signed by the government. The smartcard can then sign any
$TOKENwith true statements about you, e.g.The person with $TOKEN is of legal age, orThe person with $TOKEN is called $NAME, orThe person with $TOKEN has a driving license, etc. You have to connect it to your computer in some way so the website can talk to it, but it should be trivially doable with almost any modern smartphone. This way, everyone has the ability to attest stuff about them without the government being directly involved.The reason this won't work is because it would be quite expensive to do and would take a long while to implement.
ExcessShiv
in reply to JamesBoeing737MAX • • •providing validity without revealing any other data
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)onoira [they/them]
in reply to ExcessShiv • • •a digital wallet with ZKP could resolve 'are you old enough?' without the query ever needing to leave your device.
without a digital wallet, it could be done with fully homomorphic encryption.
both of these would be innovations which i feel require guided development. innovation counter to the goal of the legislation, which is surveillance. innovation driven by the self-proclaimed purpose of 'protecting children'; innovation driven by the impetus to make it harder for people to masturbate.
since the general attitude right now has been 'require agegates and just leave it up to The Market™', then the solution in practise will probably be a private third party that brokers this information, probably with a natural monopoly, that will charge exorbitantly for their API, have Google Analytics running on every page, leaks like a sieve, leaves logs everywhere, and will probably get caught selling data, which will incur a one-time fee equal to 80% the size of the company's rainy day fund, and maybe the CEO will be asked to step down, shielding the rest of the C-suite from consequences (and allowing them to just do it again). they'll work closely with law enforcement, they'll be breached in the first year, and probably have a huge leak 4 years later.
in that time, due to real changes in the law or jurisprudence, or companies just 'playing it safe', age verification will come to encompass queer identity, sexual education and health, war coverage, counterculture and even history. more online regulation just means more barriers to entry which means a larger monopoly for multinational corporations.
i think there are better uses for this technology than controlling pornography.
Americans, Be Warned: Lessons From Reddit’s Chaotic UK Age Verification Rollout
Electronic Frontier FoundationTenderizer78
in reply to .Donuts • • •PastafARRian
in reply to .Donuts • • •😏
nocteb
in reply to iii • • •like this
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iii
in reply to nocteb • • •like this
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Tenderizer78
in reply to iii • • •So basically a Swiss (PrivadoVPN, ProtonVPN), American (Hotspot Shield, IPVanish), Canadian (Tunnelbear, Windscribe), British (PureVPN), Israeli (ExpressVPN, PIA) one.
Not a lot of great options outside the EU. Canada and Britain have age verification laws, America and Israel cannot be trusted, and the Swiss government is constantly threatening to take steps against privacy.
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iii
in reply to Tenderizer78 • • •like this
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Tenderizer78
in reply to iii • • •iii
in reply to Tenderizer78 • • •Tenderizer78
in reply to iii • • •iii
in reply to Tenderizer78 • • •youmaynotknow
in reply to iii • • •JamesBoeing737MAX
in reply to iii • • •"The Federation of Catholic Family Association in Europe (FAFCE) welcomes the decision of the European Parliament"
Of course, it's the Catholics, protecting the children from sexual exploitation. HM
☂️-
in reply to JamesBoeing737MAX • • •JamesBoeing737MAX
in reply to ☂️- • • •☂️-
in reply to JamesBoeing737MAX • • •iii
in reply to JamesBoeing737MAX • • •sunzu2
in reply to JamesBoeing737MAX • • •They are mocking us.
Catholic churcu is the largest and most well known pedophile organization in history. They got caught and they got away. They raped children and likely still doinngit.
Now they can make these snide comments to adults trying to jerk off and feel morally superior about it.
I guess peasants accept it, why shouldn't elites rape children and reduce your freedoms and privacy.
Randomgal
in reply to JamesBoeing737MAX • • •like this
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Mugita Sokio
in reply to JamesBoeing737MAX • • •☂️-
in reply to iii • • •like this
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Armand1
in reply to iii • • •Reading the attached article, this seems to be a directive, rather than a law. We don't know what shape the law will take, or whether it will actually be implemented... No?
Please correct me if I'm wrong. Not too familiar with this stuff.
There's still time to push back, I would guess.
iii
in reply to Armand1 • • •Yes it's a directive. Currently it passed the EU commission (it's their proposal) and parliament. It still needs to pass council.
After that, each member country of the EU must implement it in their respective country laws.
Matt
in reply to iii • • •RepleteLocum
in reply to iii • • •PastafARRian
in reply to iii • • •Zerush
in reply to PastafARRian • • •youmaynotknow
in reply to Zerush • • •PastafARRian
in reply to Zerush • • •Zerush
in reply to iii • • •It's already questionable if it becomes a law, due to several security and privacy concerns. It will be a search of tecnical solutions which respect the EU privacy law, which isn't so easy, wil say, it will not be in near dates until it is generally implrmented, depending also on each country. We'll see. I asked Andi:
The European Commission is developing an age verification app, set to launch in July 2025, that will allow EU users to prove they are old enough to access age-restricted online content without revealing personal information12. The app, known as the "mini-wallet," is built on the same technical specifications as the European Digital Identity Wallets planned for 20263.
Key features of the age verification solution include:
However, critics highlight potential accessibility issues, noting that marginalized groups like refugees, unhoused people, and those without government IDs may be excluded1. The Electronic Frontier Foundation also warns about privacy risks and the need for stronger regulations on which services can request age verification1.
The initiative supports compliance with the Digital Services Act, which requires online platforms to implement robust age verification policies2. The Commission has already begun enforcement, launching investigations into four adult content websites in May 2025 over inadequate age verification measures5.
EU to Launch Age Verification App for Online Use in July
PYMNTS (PYMNTS.com)surph_ninja
in reply to Zerush • • •This is misleading. It will keep your information private from the website you’re accessing (supposedly), but the EU authorities will know full well which websites you’re visiting and surveilling.
And of course, they will apply the non-compliance claims to absolutely anything they want to censor.
Zerush
in reply to surph_ninja • • •I know very well that it is known which pages I visit, when authorities pretend it.
I'm normally not a friend of AI, but despite of this I use Andisearch as my main search engine since almost 3 years, because with it, I don't have even the need to access most of the pages, I can read these in the own reader mode in the search results and summarize the content, sandboxed and with random proxie. The search concepts don't even appears in the browser history only that I searched with Andi, but not what, I can watch YT videos also direct in the search results. It's one of the most private search engine which I know, and I know almost all also thanks to an user. Free, no limits, no logs, no ads, no cookies, anonymous, own independent LLM.
Andi - AI Search for the Next Generation
andisearch.com