Statistics Canada numbers say wealth gap getting bigger
Statistics Canada numbers say wealth gap getting bigger
Bottom 40 per cent of Canadians combined for 17.2 per cent of national incomeIsaac Phan Nay, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Tyee (The Chilliwack Progress)
Kiev loses 1,220 troops along engagement line in past day — Russia’s top brass
Kiev loses 1,220 troops along engagement line in past day — Russia’s top brass
Russia’s Battlegroup Center inflicted roughly 400 casualties on Ukrainian troops and destroyed seven enemy armored combat vehicles in its area of responsibility over the past dayTASS
like this
Israel Wants U.S. Greenlight To Attack Iran Again ‘Pre-Emptively’
Israel Wants U.S. Greenlight To Attack Iran Again 'Pre-Emptively’
Israeli Colonel Jacques Neriah, a former intelligence official and a special analyst for the Middle East, warned on August 24...Anonymous1199 (South Front)
Horrifying testimonies seek to lift shroud of silence around ritual sex abuse claims in Israel
Several women alleged that religious and community leaders had participated in the abuse. One woman named Yael Ariel testified that she had heard accounts from several women alleging that “doctors, educators, police officers, and both former and current Knesset members” took part.
“I was around 15, tied to a torture bed in basements in the Tel Aviv area,” said one women, recalling an incident in which her abusers — including family members — slaughtered a snake, mixed its blood with hers and drank it, while raping her and calling her a “holy vessel.”
“They tied me up in every possible way, using whips and electric shocks, raping me,” said another survivor, who testified that she was 5 years old when she began suffering “unbearable abuse,” including by religious leaders and educators who told her that she was “defective” and needed to be “fixed.”
like this
Ritual abuse is prevalent in most countries.
There is still an aversion to talking about it, even when the abusers hold little influence in society.
Everything is many times worse when the perpetrators hold real power
Want to sign up to Facebook/Meta Messenger, how can I mitigate the privacy invasion as much as possible?
I only plan to use it for messaging in a couple of sports teams and event invitations.
I'm willing to take a lot of measures as long as they don't get the account blocked - no phone app, dedicated virtual machine+VPN to isolate from other internet activity, purchased fake phone number in signup, adding fake interests and life details. However, I won't provide any real ID/photos, are these needed for signup?
Update: registered with a well-known VPN and an online purchased fake number. Added a couple of friends and made a few junk posts. Asked to confirm with selfie after 4 days, didn't have any activity whatsoever during the last two days so it wasn't as if I did any action which immediately triggered the check.
Stop children using VPNs to watch porn, ministers told
Stop children using VPNs to watch porn, ministers told
The children's commissioner for England tells the BBC virtual private networks are a "loophole that needs closing.Ottilie Mitchell (BBC News)
Russia orders state-backed Max messenger app to be pre-installed on new phones
A Russian state-backed messenger application called Max, a rival to WhatsApp that critics say could be used to track users, must be pre-installed on all mobile phones and tablets bought in the country starting next month, the Russian government said on Thursday.The decision to promote Max comes as Moscow, locked in a standoff with the west over Ukraine, is seeking greater control over the internet. The Kremlin said in a statement that Max, which will be integrated with government services, would be on a list of mandatory pre-installed apps on all “gadgets”, including mobile phones and tablets, sold in Russia from 1 September.
Russia orders state-backed Max messenger app to be pre-installed on new phones
Critics say Max, a WhatsApp rival, could be used to track users, though state media says it is not a spying appGuardian staff reporter (The Guardian)
There's no russophobia when that country would want you killed for opposing authoritarianism. Or when that country routinely invades Europe. Or when it shoots down a plane and doesn't apologise nor extradite the criminals who did it (Girkin and Putler).
Or when it opposes your very existence as a person. Or when it infects your people with the disease of far-right hatred. And I could go on. Fuck Putler's Russia.
routinely invades Europeshoots down a plane and doesn’t apologise
Citations needed
Putler
Love to see nato propaganda language on leftist platform ( ﾟーﾟ)
Alarming Report Finds US Bird Populations Are Still Crashing
Alarming Report Finds US Bird Populations Are Still Crashing
Alarming Report Finds US Bird Populations Are Still Crashing About one-third of all American bird species are of high or moderate conservation concern due to low populations, declining population …𝐆𝐫𝐫𝐥𝐒𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭, scientist & journalist (The Academic)
Here is the video’s thumbnail.
I use an Extension called vidIQ to find and use the video thumbnail easily. The current thumbnail will be shown just below the video view count.
Thousands of Grok chats are now searchable on Google | TechCrunch
Grok, Elon Musk's AI chatbot, has exposed hundreds of thousands of private user conversations through Google search indexing. When users click the "share" button to create a URL for sharing their chat, the conversation becomes publicly searchable - often without users realizing it12.
Google has indexed over 370,000 Grok conversations, including sensitive content like medical questions, personal information, and at least one password2. Unlike OpenAI's ChatGPT, which quickly removed a similar feature after backlash, Grok's share function does not include any warning that conversations will become public3.
According to Forbes, some marketers are already exploiting this feature by intentionally creating Grok conversations to manipulate search engine rankings for their businesses2.
- TechCrunch - Thousands of Grok chats are now searchable on Google ↩︎
- Forbes - Elon Musk's xAI Published Hundreds Of Thousands Of Grok Chatbot Conversations ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
- Fortune - Thousands of private user conversations with Elon Musk's Grok AI chatbot have exposed on Google Search ↩︎
Thousands of private user conversations with Elon Musk’s Grok AI chatbot have been exposed on Google Search
More than 370,000 Grok chats have been indexed by search engines, exposing hundreds of sensitive queries.Beatrice Nolan (Fortune)
Why do Waymos keep loitering in front of my house?
Why do Waymos keep loitering in front of my house?
Waymo vehicles have been loitering outside some houses in LA, leaving residents confused as to why their streets have become informal hangouts for the robotaxis.Rachel Kraus (The Verge)
For those of us with ADHD, if you are thinking about a task every second you're not doing it and desperately want to do the task more than anything else and are devastated that you can't do it so much that you use all your energy just on trying to make yourself do the thing that you want to do but can't, that is NOT procrastination. That is executive dysfunction. It only seems like procrastination to people who have never experienced executive dysfunction and those who have only ever experienced executive dysfunction.
Procrastination is when you fully have the ability to do something and choose not to do it but to do the thing you prefer doing instead. I hadn't experienced this until very recently, after a lot of therapy and medication.
Rozaŭtuno likes this.
reshared this
Israeli soldiers said to have shelled hospital after fearing camera being used to track them
Military officials tell Hebrew-language media outlets that an Israeli army tank team shelled a camera stationed at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis earlier today after believing the device was being used to track troops.
Two shells were fired by the tank, with the first targeting the camera and the second hitting rescuers who were operating at the scene. The strike killed 20, including five journalists, according to media reports and Hamas health officials.
Reuters and other news providers often deliver live video feeds to media outlets worldwide during major news events to show the scene from the ground in real time. A review of Masri’s live feed from before the strike did not appear to show any soldiers.
like this
The camera was very menacingly recording their war crimes.
Remember when Israel said they would never bomb a hospital?
Trial of Brazil’s Bolsonaro enters verdict phase over alleged coup plot
Trial of Brazil’s Bolsonaro enters verdict phase over alleged coup plot
The former president is charged with five counts, including plotting the assassination of senior officials.Al Jazeera
With the new Russian combat system, the end of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is only a matter of time
With the new Russian combat system, the end of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is only a matter of time: EADaily
EADaily, August 26th, 2025. The Russian army has established a systematic approach to many issues of tactical warfare. And as you know, individual, even well-trained specialists always lose to the system, the observer points out Pravda.EADaily
Russia Urges Israel to Prevent Deterioration of Situation in Gaza Strip
Russia Urges Israel to Prevent Deterioration of Situation in Gaza Strip
Russia calls on Israel to take urgent measures to prevent the deterioration of the situation in the Gaza Strip and restore unhindered humanitarian access, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.Sputnik International
Ukraine Loses Up to 400 Soldiers in Battles With Russian Armed Forces
Ukraine Loses Up to 400 Soldiers in Battles With Russian Armed Forces
Russia's Tsentr group of forces has eliminated up to 400 Ukrainian soldiers over the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.Sputnik International
NATO states to send Kiev another $50bn in military aid – official
NATO states to send Kiev another $50bn in military aid – official
NATO plans to match last year’s military aid to Ukraine despite Russia’s warnings that it only prolongs the conflictRT
I do wonder when the communists here will learn that Russia isn't communist any more and is instead a capitalist...empire! You don't need to suck their dick all the time
Even if you're right about Russia being imperialist, the so-called "Russian empire" is objectively less evil than the US empire.
Why don't you support the lesser evil?
Russia is clearly imperialist, just ask chechnya, georgia, and indeed Ukraine. There was/is also the Wagner group which represented Russian presence in Africa.
Also the war crimes committed by Russia in the Kharkiv Region says everything I need to know about them.
In terms of holding preference towards Russia or America, I am tempted to choose neither. Clearly America has engaged in pretty blatantly evil shit over the decades its been a super power. However, I would argue the only reason why Russia could be viewed as not as "evil" as America is because Russia is simply unable to engage in the same levels of imperialism.
So given this, I do not support either America or Russia. I support Ukraine's independence, and the way to do that is to send military aid, which I fully support
just ask chechnya
States never tolerate separatist movements, so what you are saying is that your state is imperialist as well. Considering that you are fine with that, we can conclude that you are also fine with Russia.
But also, the part of the Russian government that did support the Chechen separatists was literally shelled with tanks by the NATO-backed forces.
georgia
Georgia literally attacked the South Ossetian separatists and the peacekeepers.
It's extremely silly to be both pro-Georgia and pro-Chechnya in this context. By your own logic, one should condemn Georgia as imperialist.
and indeed Ukraine
Ukraine tried to join the gang of torturers and genocidaires that is NATO, and to bring their personnel and weaponry close to the most populated areas of its designated enemy. That is an act of aggression and the rest of the world has every right to defend against that.
Furthermore, Ukraine has invaded at least Iraq and Syria, which you are completely fine with.
Furthermore, Ukraine has been fighting its own separatists, whom Russia has been helping. By your logic, you should support them.
There was/is also the Wagner group which represented Russian presence in Africa.
Were they attacking African countries the way your empire has been doing?
Also the war crimes committed by Russia in the Kharkiv Region says everything I need to know about them.
You are fine with war crimes when Ukraine commits them, so you are fine with the Russian war crimes as well.
So given this, I do not support either America or Russia. I support Ukraine's independence,
Currently, the Ukrainian government is a USian puppet.
and the way to do that is to send military aid, which I fully support
Military aid to the separatists and Russia, that is. Surely you don't support states that try to join NATO, the most prolific invader in the world, do you?
I'm not going to try to convince you that Russia isn't imperialist, you wouldn't listen anyway.
Instead, I'm going to point out the obvious.
So given this, I do not support either America or Russia. I support Ukraine’s independence, and the way to do that is to send military aid, which I fully support
And so you support the US/NATO bloc.
The military "aid" isn't free by the way. Ukraine is indebting itself to the US/NATO bloc in order to buy equipment, and however the war ends the debt collectors are going to come to ravage Ukraine and strip mine it for whatever is left. Ukraine will be a colony in all but name. Flag independence, but no sovereignty.
Yeah I'm a trans gender bisexual nazi.
I see that Ernst Rohm is back.
I do wonder when the communists here will learn that Russia isn't communist any more and is instead a capitalist...empire!
This 'argument' is bizarre. You do realise that NATO is not communist, either, right? And that NATO is orders of magnitude worse than every other polity on the planet, by virtue of being the most prolific invader in the world, engaging in at least one high-profile genocide, engaging in colonialism, etc., right?
When serfs stood up in Tibet is one of the most harrowing books I've ever read, and every time the corporate-evangelical government here (
I can't find the link for the full book right now, so here are two selections from the essay Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth by Micheal Parenti. CW slavery, sexual violence
Selection one, long:
Drepung monastery was one of the biggest landowners in the world, with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. The wealth of the monasteries rested in the hands of small numbers of high-ranking lamas. Most ordinary monks lived modestly and had no direct access to great wealth. The Dalai Lama himself “lived richly in the 1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace.”[12]Secular leaders also did well. A notable example was the commander-in-chief of the Tibetan army, a member of the Dalai Lama’s lay Cabinet, who owned 4,000 square kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs. [13] Old Tibet has been misrepresented by some Western admirers as “a nation that required no police force because its people voluntarily observed the laws of karma.” [14] In fact it had a professional army, albeit a small one, that served mainly as a gendarmerie for the landlords to keep order, protect their property, and hunt down runaway serfs.
Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of repeatedremoved, beginning at age nine. [15] The monastic estates also conscripted children for lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers.
In old Tibet there were small numbers of farmers who subsisted as a kind of free peasantry, and perhaps an additional 10,000 people who composed the “middle-class” families of merchants, shopkeepers, and small traders. Thousands of others were beggars. There also were slaves, usually domestic servants, who owned nothing. Their offspring were born into slavery. [16] The majority of the rural population were serfs. Treated little better than slaves, the serfs went without schooling or medical care. They were under a lifetime bond to work the lord’s land — or the monastery’s land — without pay, to repair the lord’s houses, transport his crops, and collect his firewood. They were also expected to provide carrying animals and transportation on demand. [17] Their masters told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or lama. And they might easily be separated from their families should their owners lease them out to work in a distant location.
[18]As in a free labor system and unlike slavery, the overlords had no responsibility for the serf’s maintenance and no direct interest in his or her survival as an expensive piece of property. The serfs had to support themselves. Yet as in a slave system, they were bound to their masters, guaranteeing a fixed and permanent workforce that could neither organize nor strike nor freely depart as might laborers in a market context. The overlords had the best of both worlds.
One 22-year old woman, herself a runaway serf, reports: “Pretty serf girls were usually taken by the owner as house servants and used as he wished”; they “were just slaves without rights.” [19] Serfs needed permission to go anywhere. Landowners had legal authority to capture those who tried to flee. One 24-year old runaway welcomed the Chinese intervention as a “liberation.” He testified that under serfdom he was subjected to incessant toil, hunger, and cold. After his third failed escape, he was merciless beaten by the landlord’s men until blood poured from his nose and mouth. They then poured alcohol and caustic soda on his wounds to increase the pain, he claimed.
[20]The serfs were taxed upon getting married, taxed for the birth of each child and for every death in the family. They were taxed for planting a tree in their yard and for keeping animals. They were taxed for religious festivals and for public dancing and drumming, for being sent to prison and upon being released. Those who could not find work were taxed for being unemployed, and if they traveled to another village in search of work, they paid a passage tax. When people could not pay, the monasteries lent them money at 20 to 50 percent interest. Some debts were handed down from father to son to grandson. Debtors who could not meet their obligations risked being cast into slavery.
[21]The theocracy’s religious teachings buttressed its class order. The poor and afflicted were taught that they had brought their troubles upon themselves because of their wicked ways in previous lives. Hence they had to accept the misery of their present existence as a karmic atonement and in anticipation that their lot would improve in their next lifetime. The rich and powerful treated their good fortune as a reward for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives.
Selection two, shorter: (CW sexual violence and mutilation)
The Tibetan serfs were something more than superstitious victims, blind to their own oppression. As we have seen, some ran away; others openly resisted, sometimes suffering dire consequences. In feudal Tibet, torture and mutilation — including eye gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and amputation — were favored punishments inflicted upon thieves, and runaway or resistant serfs.[22]Journeying through Tibet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had stolen two sheep belonging to a monastery. For this he had both his eyes gouged out and his hand mutilated beyond use. He explains that he no longer is a Buddhist: “When a holy lama told them to blind me I thought there was no good in religion.” [23] Since it was against Buddhist teachings to take human life, some offenders were severely lashed and then “left to God” in the freezing night to die. “The parallels between Tibet and medieval Europe are striking,” concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet.
[24]In 1959, Anna Louise Strong visited an exhibition of torture equipment that had been used by the Tibetan overlords. There were handcuffs of all sizes, including small ones for children, and instruments for cutting off noses and ears, gouging out eyes, breaking off hands, and hamstringing legs. There were hot brands, whips, and special implements for disemboweling. The exhibition presented photographs and testimonies of victims who had been blinded or crippled or suffered amputations for thievery. There was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement in yuan and wheat but refused to pay. So he took one of the master’s cows; for this he had his hands severed. Another herdsman, who opposed having his wife taken from him by his lord, had his hands broken off. There were pictures of Communist activists with noses and upper lips cut off, and a woman who wasremovedd and then had her nose sliced away.
[25]Earlier visitors to Tibet commented on the theocratic despotism. In 1895, an Englishman, Dr. A. L. Waddell, wrote that the populace was under the “intolerable tyranny of monks” and the devil superstitions they had fashioned to terrorize the people. In 1904 Perceval Landon described the Dalai Lama’s rule as “an engine of oppression.” At about that time, another English traveler, Captain W. F. T. O’Connor, observed that “the great landowners and the priests… exercise each in their own dominion a despotic power from which there is no appeal,” while the people are “oppressed by the most monstrous growth of monasticism and priest-craft.” Tibetan rulers “invented degrading legends and stimulated a spirit of superstition” among the common people. In 1937, another visitor, Spencer Chapman, wrote, “The Lamaist monk does not spend his time in ministering to the people or educating them. […] The beggar beside the road is nothing to the monk. Knowledge is the jealously guarded prerogative of the monasteries and is used to increase their influence and wealth.” [26] As much as we might wish otherwise, feudal theocratic Tibet was a far cry from the romanticized Shangri-La so enthusiastically nurtured by Buddhism’s western proselytes.
This is what the "Free Tibet wholesome 100 CIA-backed Dalai Llama fuck the CCP" crowd is supporting. Old Tibet wasn't the Holy Land of popular boomer imagination, it was the fucking Holy Nation from Kenshi.
Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth
Along with the blood drenched landscape of religious conflict there is the experience of inner peace and solace that every religion promises, none more so than Buddhism.redsails.org
marxists.org/reference/archive…
And there are some PDFs annas-archive, this one looks like it might be the best
When Serfs Stood Up in Tibet: From Serfdom to Socialism - Anna’s Archive
Anna Louise Strong « When Serfs Stood Up in Tibet » by Anna Louise Strong, first published in 1959, tells the dramatic Foreign Languages Pressannas-archive.org
The Peace That Isn't: NATO Flags Next Door
The Peace That Isn't: NATO Flags Next Door
Any peace plan that allows NATO or Western troops to remain in Ukraine will be seen in Moscow not as compromise but as outright defeat—ensuring escalationФил Батлер (New Eastern Outlook)
Regarding this “news” site as it’s the first time I am seeing this (the .su domain is for Soviet Union by the way):
Ownership information is not transparent; however, according to the NEO about page, its address is “12, Rozhdestvenka Street, office 111, Moscow.” The exact address is also used by “The Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.” Typically, the Putin government gives the Research Institutes’ control to the Ministry of Education; therefore, the Russian government funds and owns this journal through the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Scientific studies[25] using its ratings note that ratings from Media Bias/Fact Check show high agreement with an independent fact checking dataset from 2017,[8] with NewsGuard[9] and with BuzzFeed journalists.[10] When MBFC factualness ratings of ‘mostly factual’ or higher were compared to an independent fact checking dataset's ‘verified’ and ‘suspicious’ news sources, the two datasets showed "almost perfect" inter-rater reliability.[8][20][26] A 2022 study that evaluated sharing of URLs on Twitter and Facebook in March and April 2020 and 2019, to compare the prevalence of misinformation, reports that scores from Media Bias/Fact Check correlate strongly with those from NewsGuard (r = 0.81).[9]
Yandex this one then
MBFC is ROFL, even when everything is clear, they publish some slop bordering on conspiracy theories.
If we click on the first link, we'll see that New Eastern Outlook is listed as a periodical of The Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences on the website of said institution.
It looks like:
The Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences: New Eastern Outlook is our periodical.
MBFC: Ownership information is not transparent!! You share the same adress!! That must mean something!!
pure western chauvanism
well said.
Scientists Have Translated the Inner Monologue. The Implications Are Incredible.
Scientists Have Translated the Inner Monologue. The Implications Are Incredible.
This could be a game-changer for patients suffering from mobility issues, neurodegenerative diseases, or other speech related disabilities.Darren Orf (Popular Mechanics)
What is the best Android browser for privacy?
PrivacyBrowser is a really good browser in my opinion. But I cant do an analysis on its privacy.
I will add that I love how they handle bookmarks.
CBP Had Access to More than 80,000 Flock AI Cameras Nationwide
CBP Had Access to More than 80,000 Flock AI Cameras Nationwide
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) regularly searched more than 80,000 Flock automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras, according to data released by three police departments. The data shows that CBP’s access to Flock’s network is far more robust and widespread than has been previously reported. One of the police departments 404 Media spoke to said it did not know or understand that it was sharing data with CBP, and Flock told 404 Media Monday that it has “paused all federal pilots.”In May, 404 Media reported that local police were performing lookups across Flock on behalf of ICE, because that part of the Department of Homeland Security did not have its own direct access. Now, the newly obtained data and local media reporting reveals that CBP had the ability to perform Flock lookups by itself.
Last week, 9 News in Colorado reported that CBP has direct access to Flock’s ALPR backend “through a pilot program.” In that article, 9 News revealed that the Loveland, Colorado police department was sharing access to its Flock cameras directly with CBP. At the time, Flock said that this was through what 9 News described as a “one-to-one” data sharing agreement through that pilot program, making it sound like these agreements were rare and limited:
“The company now acknowledges the connection exists through a previously publicly undisclosed program that allows Border Patrol access to a Flock account to send invitations to police departments nationwide for one-to-one data sharing, and that Loveland accepted the invitation,” 9 News wrote. “A spokesperson for Flock said agencies across the country have been approached and have agreed to the invitation. The spokesperson added that U.S. Border Patrol is not on the nationwide Flock sharing network, comprised of local law enforcement agencies across the country. Loveland Police says it is on the national network.”
New data obtained using three separate public records requests from three different police departments gives some insight into how widespread these “one-to-one” data sharing agreements actually are. The data shows that in most cases, CBP had access to more Flock cameras than the average police department, that it is regularly using that access, and that, functionally, there is no difference between Flock’s “nationwide network” and the network of cameras that CBP has access to.
According to data obtained from the Boulder, Colorado Police Department by William Freeman, the creator of a crowdsourced map of Flock devices called DeFlock, CBP ran at least 118 Flock network searches between May 13 and June 13 of this year. Each of these searches encompassed at least 6,315 individual Flock networks (a “network” is a specific police department or city’s cameras) and at least 82,000 individual Flock devices. Data obtained in separate requests from the Prosser Police Department and Chehalis Police Department, both in Washington state, also show CBP searching a huge number of networks and devices.
A spokesperson for the Boulder Police Department told 404 Media that “Boulder Police Department does not have any agreement with U.S. Border Patrol for Flock searches. We were not aware of these specific searches at the time they occurred. Prior to June 2025, the Boulder Police Department had Flock's national look-up feature enabled, which allowed other agencies from across the U.S. who also had contracts with Flock to search our data if they could articulate a legitimate law enforcement purpose. We do not currently share data with U.S. Border Patrol. In June 2025, we deactivated the national look-up feature specifically to maintain tighter control over Boulder Police Department data access. You can learn more about how we share Flock information on our FAQ page.”
A Flock spokesperson told 404 Media Monday that it sent an email to all of its customers clarifying how information is shared from agencies to other agencies. It said this is an excerpt from that email about its sharing options:
“The Flock platform provides flexible options for sharing:
National sharing
- Opt into Flock’s national sharing network. Access via the national lookup tool is limited—users can only see results if they perform a full plate search and a positive match exists within the network of participating, opt-in agencies. This ensures data privacy while enabling broader collaboration when needed.
- Share with agencies in specific states only
- Share with agencies with similar laws (for example, regarding immigration enforcement and data)
- Share within your state only or within a certain distance
- You can share information with communities within a specified mile radius, with the entire state, or a combination of both—for example, sharing with cities within 150 miles of Kansas City (which would include cities in Missouri and neighboring states) and / or all communities statewide simultaneously.
- Share 1:1
- Share only with specific agencies you have selected
- Don’t share at all”
In a blog post Monday, Flock CEO Garrett Langley said Flock has paused all federal pilots.
“While it is true that Flock does not presently have a contractual relationship with any U.S. Department of Homeland Security agencies, we have engaged in limited pilots with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), to assist those agencies in combatting human trafficking and fentanyl distribution,” Langley wrote. “We clearly communicated poorly. We also didn’t create distinct permissions and protocols in the Flock system to ensure local compliance for federal agency users […] All federal customers will be designated within Flock as a distinct ‘Federal’ user category in the system. This distinction will give local agencies better information to determine their sharing settings.”
A Flock employee who does not agree with the way Flock allows for widespread data sharing told 404 Media that Flock has defended itself internally by saying it tries to follow the law. 404 Media granted the source anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press.
“They will defend it as they have been by saying Flock follows the law and if these officials are doing law abiding official work then Flock will allow it,” they said. “However Flock will also say that they advise customers to ensure they have their sharing settings set appropriately to prevent them from sharing data they didn’t intend to. The question more in my mind is the fact that law in America is arguably changing, so will Flock just go along with whatever the customers want?”
The data shows that CBP has tapped directly into Flock’s huge network of license plate reading cameras, which passively scan the license plate, color, and model of vehicles that drive by them, then make a timestamped record of where that car was spotted. These cameras were marketed to cities and towns as a way of finding stolen cars or solving property crime locally, but over time, individual cities’ cameras have been connected to Flock’s national network to create a huge surveillance apparatus spanning the entire country that is being used to investigate all sorts of crimes and is now being used for immigration enforcement. As we reported in May, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been gaining access to this network through a side door, by asking local police who have access to the cameras to run searches for them.
9 News’s reporting and the newly released audit reports shared with 404 Media show that CBP now has direct access to much of Flock’s system and does not have to ask local police to run searches. It also shows that CBP had access to at least one other police department system in Colorado, in this case Boulder, which is a state whose laws forbid sharing license plate reader data with the federal government for immigration enforcement. Boulder’s Flock settings also state that it is not supposed to be used for immigration enforcement.
This story and our earlier stories, including another about a Texas official who searched nationwide for a woman who self-administered an abortion, were reported using Flock “Network Audits” released by police departments who have bought Flock cameras and have access to Flock’s network. They are essentially a huge spreadsheet of every time that the department’s camera data was searched; it shows which officer searched the data, what law enforcement department ran the search, the number of networks and cameras included in the search, the time and date of the search, the license plate, and a “reason” for the search. These audit logs allow us to see who has access to Flock’s systems, how wide their access is, how often they are searching the system, and what they are searching for.
The audit logs show that whatever system Flock is using to enroll local police departments’ cameras into the network that CBP is searching does not have any meaningful pushback, because the data shows that CBP has access to as many or more cameras as any other police department. Freeman analyzed the searches done by CBP on June 13 compared to searches done by other police departments on that same day, and found that CBP had a higher number of average cameras searched than local police departments.“The average number of organizations searched by any agency per query is 6,049, with a max of 7,090,” Freeman told 404 Media. “That average includes small numbers like statewide searches. When I filter by searches by Border Patrol for the same date, their average number of networks searched is 6,429, with a max of 6,438. The reason for the maximum being larger than the national network is likely because some agencies have access to more cameras than just the national network (in-state cameras). Despite this, we still see that the count of networks searched by Border Patrol outnumbers that of all agencies, so if it’s not the national network, then this ‘pilot program’ must have opted everyone in the nation in by default.”
CBP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A Texas Cop Searched License Plate Cameras Nationwide for a Woman Who Got an Abortion
The sheriff said the woman self-administered the abortion and her family were concerned for her safety, so authorities searched through Flock cameras.Joseph Cox (404 Media)
They're advertised to the public as "license plate readers" but can do way more than that. Fingerprinting cars based on bumper stickers, colors, dents, scratches, etc.
And if the ability to do all of that is baked into these cameras, it would be trivial to do the same for humans.
You will likely need some form of support structure. L Angle welded as a pitched frame is my plan. A d some seal between each panals.
But for a single story shed structure yes.
Also rent but social so I have a bit more stability and flexibility. Sorry an advantage of being old and disabled. Was able to get a place while it was still possible.
I fully understand how fucked over a high % over my age voters left your age group.
nvidia 470 on debian trixie (kernel 6.12). any ideas?
the context is: the 470 legacy driver doesn't compile on the linux 6.12 kernel. because of that, debian decided to officially drop support to that driver. i tried installing the driver myself using nvidia's official installer, but the installation indeed fails during the module compilation stage.
this means i am stuck with nouveau. it got better since i last tested it on bookworm, but one major pain in the ass is that nouveau has no support for performance levels for my card and it runs at the lowest clock bc of that (~400 megahertz instead of its max ~900 mhz).
this causes a noticeable performance hit, even for desktop usage, but it's good enough for work. waching full hd 60 fps video is a bit painful, but it's possible. but gaming, which was possible, got way worse. even a lightweight game like celeste got frustrating to play due to stuttering.
i guess i'll have to deal with it and maybe this is the cue to buy another graphics card and never buy nvidia again, but i'm thinking about what my options would be here:
- downgrade to bookworm. not easy to do, would only delay the problem.
- install an older kernel and use only that. not sure how, the official repos only have the 6.12 kernel. i could get the older kernel from the bookworm backports and pin it to prevent any updates, but mixing repos from different versions makes me uneasy.
- patch the driver. there are a few patches floating around that make nvidia's driver compile on the 6.12 kernel. applying the patch by hand is annoying and i would have to re-apply it at every kernel update.
- cope.
any ideas?
edit
and it runs at the lowest clock bc of that (~400 megahertz instead of its max ~900 mhz).
that was a mistake. i was reading the clock off of my onboard video chip, which also happens to be nvidia. the onboard chip is at .../dri/0; my graphics card is at .../dri/1. nouveau seems to support reclocking for my card, but i'm trying to change the clock and the video signal goes crazy when i do it
GitHub - polhdez/nouveau-reclocking-guide: How to reclock nvidia cards at boot on Linux using nouveau.
How to reclock nvidia cards at boot on Linux using nouveau. - polhdez/nouveau-reclocking-guideGitHub
you're right. i thought my card didn't support it because i might have misread the feature matrix. adding to the confusion, /dri/0 is my onboard video (which also happens to be nvidia) and that's where i got the 400 mhz number from
still, i just tried it reclocking seems to drive the video signal crazy
edit: yeah it's definitely unsupported, the display turns completely into scrambled eggs. i'll try a newer kernel just in case
edit 2: tried it on the 6.16 kernel (i have an opensuse tumbleweed installation laying around) just in case it had some development on that front compares to 6.12 (debian's version) and it's still a mess. so reclocking for my card is definitely a no-no on nouveau
I gave it some thought, I think that you are getting slowdowns because of some kind of a bug and not due to slow speed of the GPU.
I have actually daily-driven a MacBook Pro 15-inch 2009 with a GeForce 9600M GT and even at 279 Mhz core, it was usable on Manjaro KDE, animations were a bit laggy, but nothing compared to what you are describing.
I still remember trying kernel 6.7 or 6.8 and immediately seeing MUCH worse performance with constant lags. I have only consistently used kernels 6.1, 6.6 and 6.12 on Manjaro on that machine, all of them with decent experience. I would try some other kernel if that's possible, but considering that you have tried 6.12 and 6.16 at this point, I am not too hopeful.
I'm sorry if I'm dismissive but I gotta tell you, last time we talked felt an awful lot like being lectured. You didn't really engage with anything I said but rather regurgitated endless theories and facts.
And you are a self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist, is that not true? Subscribing to a particular narrative is IMO exactly what "dogmatic" means. I'm not saying it's wrong, it's truer than most dogmas. But still a dogma.
I don't remember you at all, if I'm being honest. I apologize if I was acting obnoxious, but I talk to many people and don't remember them all.
Secondly, I am a Marxist-Leninist, yes, but not a dogmatist. Dogma necessarily implies a rigid and inflexible understanding, not simply an agreement with a frame of analysis. Otherwise, nearly everyone would be a "dogmatist" for saying the Earth is round against the Flat Earthers.
Using phrasing such as "necessarily implies" is exactly what makes me call your conversation style "lecturing".
Is it normal to talk like this in your circles? In my culture it's a certain way to antagonize anyone who doesn't already agree with you.
At a really general level - you do know that you're posting this to a forum, right? Are you posting here to engage with other people, or are you just posting to fulfill your vanity?
I don't mean this in a snide sort of way. I hope that you can consider opportunities in future to be more charitable to people who are spending their time reading what you've posted and writing responses. It's genuinely feels better to engage that way than to assume the worst of people, and to treat them like they are purposefully antagonizing you.
Journalist quits Reuters over 'role in Israel's assassination of Gaza journalists'
She made particular reference to Reuters' reporting on Israel's killing of prominent Al-Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif and six other media workers on August 10, saying the agency had "perpetuate[d] Israel's propaganda". She said it had been "wilfully abandoning the most basic responsibility of journalism" by publishing the "baseless claim" from the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) that Al-Sharif was an operative for Hamas.
An initial report published by Reuters received backlash after running with the headline: "Israel kills Al Jazeera journalist it says was Hamas leader".
Zink said she could no longer wear her press pass without feeling "shame and grief", as she shared an image of her press card snapped in half alongside her statement.
Journalist quits Reuters over coverage of Gaza media killed by Israel
A REUTERS journalist has quit the news agency alleging it had a "role in justifying and enabling" Israel's "assassination" of…Lucy Jackson (The National)
like this
You should know then that this has been happening ever since the terrorist state was created, and it’s terrible because every time there’s an exodus of decent human beings, be it just one person or dozens, at Reuters or NYT or anywhere else, the void is instantly filled by someone happy to oblige in propaganda.
Her resignation is a tragedy, just like the hundreds that came before hers, and it all helped get the world in this state.
the void is instantly filled by someone happy to oblige in propaganda.
That’s the part which makes this so hard. The position will get filled with some empty bootlicker eager to carry their water and curry favor.
“Add initial support for preinstalling flatpaks” merged
Add initial support for preinstalling flatpaks, v2 by swick · Pull Request #6116 · flatpak/flatpak
This is based on work by Kalev, taking over the PR: #5832 The configuration format and priority has been changed. Tests have been added. This version is already in use in RHEL. This adds new Flatp...GitHub
Selhosted P2P File Transfer & Messaging
IMPORTANT NOTES (PLEASE READ!):
* These are NOT products. They are for testing and demonstration purposes only.
* They have NOT been reviewed or audited. Do NOT use for sensitive data.
* All functionality demonstrated is experimental.
* These are NOT meant to replace robust solutions like VeraCrypt, Simplexchat, Signal, Whatsapp, wetransfer. It's a proof-of-concept to show what's possible with browser APIs.
* Cyber security is full of caveats, so reach out for clarity on any details if they can't be found in the docs.
Aiming to create the worlds most secure messaging app.
positive-intentions.com/docs/p…
- Open Source
- Cross Platform
- PWA
- iOS, Android, Desktop (self compile)
- App store, Play store (coming soon)
- Desktop
- Windows, MacOS, Linux (self compile)
- Run
index.htmlon any modern #browser
- Decentralized
- Secure
- No Cookies
- P2P E2EE encrypted
- Forward secrecy
- No registration
- No installing
- Messaging
- Group Messaging (coming soon)
- Text Messaging
- Multimedia Messaging
- Screensharing (on desktop browsers)
- Offline Messaging (in research phase)
- File Transfer
- Video Calls
- Data Ownership
- SelfHosted
- GitHub pages Hosting
- Local-only storage
For more information on "how it works", check out:
positive-intentions.com/blog/d…
(Degoogled links to the apps)
- P2P Chat: chat.positive-intentions.com/
- P2P File: file.positive-intentions.com/
- Encrypted drive storage: dim.positive-intentions.com/?p…
More:
- GitHub: github.com/positive-intentions
- Mastodon: infosec.exchange/@xoron
- Reddit: reddit.com/r/positive_intentio…
Decentralized Microfrontend Architecture
In the ever-evolving landscape of digital communication, decentralization has emerged as a powerful concept with diverse interpretations and applications.xoron (positive-intentions)
“private and secure chat app”
I don't think it's a solved problem. There are countless nuances to it. So it's good to have various approaches.
Google will require developer verification to install Android apps, including sideloading
Google will require developer verification to install Android apps, including sideloading
Google has announced that only apps from developers that have undergone verification can be installed on certified Android devices in 2026...Abner Li (9to5Google)
RFC 9839 and Bad Unicode
Unicode is good. If you’re designing a data structure or protocol that has text fields, they should contain Unicode characters encoded in UTF-8. There’s another question, though: “Which Unicode characters?” The answer is “Not all of them, please exclude some.”This issue keeps coming up, so Paul Hoffman and I put together an individual-submission draft to the IETF and now (where by “now” I mean “two years later”) it’s been published as RFC 9839. It explains which characters are bad, and why, then offers three plausible less-bad subsets that you might want to use. Herewith a bit of background, but…
Please · If you’re actually working on something new that will have text fields, please read the RFC. It’s only ten pages long, and that’s with all the IETF boilerplate. It’s written specifically for software and networking people.
Source code · I’ve written a little Go-language library to validate incoming text fields against each of the three subsets that 9839 specifies, here. I don’t claim it’s optimal, but it is well-tested.
Details · Here’s a compact summary of the world of problematic Unicode code points and data formats and standards.
Notes:
[1] XML allows C1 controls.
[2] XML and YAML don’t exclude the noncharacters outside the Basic Multilingual Pane.
[3] YAML excludes all the legacy controls except for the mostly-harmlessU+0085, another version of\nused in IBM mainframe documents.
RFC 9839: Unicode Character Repertoire Subsets
This document discusses subsets of the Unicode character repertoire for use in protocols and data formats and specifies three subsets recommended for use in IETF specifications.www.rfc-editor.org
Recommendations on a home alarm system
I am in the process of purchasing a home, and the house that it’s looking like I am likely to buy has a Ring alarm system and camera installed. I like the idea of having burglar alarms on the windows and doors, but I do not want to use Ring. Between their ownership from Amazon and sharing data with the cops, I don’t trust them.
Are there privacy-friendly home security systems out there that don’t require an ongoing subscription? Bonus points if the devices are HomeAssistant compatible.
For cameras look for NVRs that let you hook up wired cameras to. I have yet to try it but have heards that installing Frigate lets you have complete control over the recordings. Riolink and Lorex both offer systems that dont require subscriptions and supposedly let you keep your data local.
So you mean to tell me these camera companies usually do not allow you to keep you data local? And you put them in or around your house?
Many home camera companies use subscriptions as an excuse to store your recordings in the cloud and allow you to view or access them remotely on a phone app. I havent put up any that do that, but a shitload of other people have.
Frigate is a custom OS for NVRs. The NVR stores the recordings, and the OS ideally puts you in complete control of the cameras and associated data. I am working on getting hardware that will let me install it, so I am only saying its worth taking a look at but am not endorsing it since I have not successfully uses it yet.
The reason I say to use wired cameras is because they are more secure and can get continuous power instead of worrying about rechargung batteries. You can run them with no internet connection and control your local recordings that way. The drawback is that its only accessible by direct physical means. If someone breaks in and steals that hard drive then the whole system is worthless.
HocEnimVeni
in reply to bubblybubbles • • •geneva_convenience doesn't like this.
Dessalines
in reply to HocEnimVeni • • •geneva_convenience likes this.
HocEnimVeni
in reply to Dessalines • • •Nemo's public admirer
in reply to HocEnimVeni • • •Poland was one annexing Czechoslovakia along with the Nazis, right?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_A…
Soviets opposed it, but Britain and France acted as facilitators and ignored the Soviet call to create a united front against the Nazis.
Well, after seeing how they ganged up on Czechoslovakia like that, it's not surprising that the Soviets chose to not be the odd one out(markes as next target) and signed a non-aggression pact like those other countries.
1938 cession of German-speaking Czechoslovakia to the German Reich
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)like this
geneva_convenience likes this.
mathemachristian[he]
in reply to HocEnimVeni • • •Cowbee [he/they]
in reply to HocEnimVeni • • •A thread. TL;DR no, lol.
The communists spent the decade prior trying to form an anti-Nazi coalition force, such as the Anglo-French-Soviet Alliance which was pitched by the communists and rejected by the British and French. The communists hated the Nazis from the beginning, as the Nazi party rose to prominence by killing communists and labor organizers, cemented bourgeois rule, and was violently racist and imperialist, while the communists opposed all of that.
When the many talks of alliances with the west all fell short, the Soviets reluctantly agreed to sign a non-agression pact, in order to delay the coming war that everyone knew was happening soon. Throughout the last decade, Britain, France, and other western countries had formed pacts with Nazi Germany, such as the Four-Power Pact, the German-French-Non-Agression Pact, and more. Molotov-Ribbentrop was unique among the non-agression pacts with Nazi Germany in that it was right on the eve of war, and was the first between the USSR and Nazi Germany. It was a last resort, when the west was content from the beginning with working alongside Hitler.
Harry Truman, in 1941 in front of the Senate, stated:
Not only that, but it was the Soviet Union that was responsible for 4/5ths of total Nazi deaths, and winning the war against the Nazis. The Soviet Union did not agree to invade Poland with the Nazis, it was about spheres of influence and red lines the Nazis should not cross in Poland. When the USSR went into Poland, it stayed mostly to areas Poland had invaded and annexed a few decades prior. Should the Soviets have let Poland get entirely taken over by the Nazis, standing idle? The West made it clear that they were never going to help anyone against the Nazis until it was their turn to be targeted.
1933 treaty among Britain, France, Italy, and Germany
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)zarathustra0
in reply to bubblybubbles • • •I'm not sure whether this is just trolling or whether you sincerely believe what's in the meme, so I'm going to push back on it.
I think pretty much everyone is in agreement that the USSR's economic model had fallen to shit by the 1980s. Why on earth do you think they would even entertain switching to anything approaching capitalism?
Ever heard the phrase "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us" joke? It wasn't for nothing. Centrally directed economies don't tend to work very well.
Cowbee [he/they]
in reply to zarathustra0 • • •Socialism absolutely works. The issues with the soviet economy following WWII were magnified by the immense devastation the war brought, along with huge sanctions and trade embargoes from the west, all while trying to keep up with nuclear arms development so as to not end up completely obliterated by the US. On top of that, the Khruschevite reforms spelled the beginning of contradictions building within the socialist system, introducing elements in the economy working against each other, further magnified by Gorbachev and eventually Yeltsin.
Central planning works astoundingly well when properly implemented, but isn't a perfect panacea. We can look to the immense success it has today in the PRC to see that planned economies do remarkably well, and part of why the PRC is so successful is because they have learned from some of the errors committed by the soviets.
KPRF membership is skyrocketing, as is soviet nostalgia. Trade with socialist countries is pushing the working class in Russia back to socialist sympathies. Capitalism was and is devastating for Russia.