Chat Control: EU Council vote is a Green Light for Indiscriminate Mass Surveillance and the End of Right to Communicate Anonymously
Contrary to headlines suggesting the EU has “backed away” from Chat Control, the negotiating mandate endorsed today by EU ambassadors in a close split vote paves the way for a permanent infrastructure of mass surveillance.While the Council removed the obligation for scanning, the agreed text creates a toxic legal framework that incentivizes US tech giants to scan private communications indiscriminately, introduces mandatory age checks for all internet users, and threatens to exclude teenagers from digital life.
The article is non-paywalled, freely readable on the link --^
Reality Check: EU Council Chat Control Vote is Not a Retreat, But a Green Light for Indiscriminate Mass Surveillance and the End of Right to Communicate Anonymously
Contrary to headlines suggesting the EU has "backed away" from Chat Control, the negotiating mandate endorsed today by EU ambassadors in a close split vote paves the way for a permanent infrastructure of mass surveillance.Patrick Breyer
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Guinea-Bissau’s President Says He Has Been Deposed. The Opposition Says It’s a Trick.
cross-posted from: lemmy.eco.br/post/18616130
The military announced on Wednesday it had taken over the West African nation. Later, the opposition leader accused the incumbent president of staging the coup d’état to try to retain power.Gunfire rang out near the presidential palace and national electoral commission headquarters on Wednesday afternoon, prompting confusion across Bissau, the capital.
Then, in a scene that has become familiar during the spate of coup d’états across West Africa in recent years, a military spokesman went on state television surrounded by heavily armed, uniformed men. He announced that they had deposed President Umaro Sissoco Embaló, closed the country’s borders and airspace and suspended the electoral process. He also announced a curfew and declared a state of emergency.
The statement from Mr. N’Tchama came shortly after the opposition candidate, Fernando Dias, made an impassioned speech claiming to have won Sunday’s election, and saying that he was only waiting for the final announcement of the national electoral commission on Thursday.
“We will go out into the streets to say thank you to all the people of Guinea-Bissau for all that they have done,” he told a crowd of supporters.
Mr. Dias is supported by an opposition coalition that includes the country’s largest party, the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde. That party and its leader, Domingos Simões Pereira, a former prime minister, were barred from running in last week’s election.
After the military takeover on Wednesday, Mr. Pereira’s nephew, Edson Pereira, said that his uncle had been arrested and was being held in a prison in Bissau.
After armed clashes broke out in December 2023 between military forces and the national guard, Mr. Embaló, who was out of the country at the time, declared a coup had been attempted against his presidency. Days later, he dissolved Parliament, in which the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde had held the majority.
Before his campaign, Mr. Embaló repeatedly said that even if he did not win, Mr. Pereira should not be allowed to run the nation. Mr. Dias had promised to restore the government that Mr. Embaló dissolved.
Guinea-Bissau’s President Says He Has Been Deposed. The Opposition Says It’s a Trick.
The military announced on Wednesday it had taken over the West African nation. Later, the opposition leader accused the incumbent president of staging the coup d’état to try to retain power.Gunfire rang out near the presidential palace and national electoral commission headquarters on Wednesday afternoon, prompting confusion across Bissau, the capital.
Then, in a scene that has become familiar during the spate of coup d’états across West Africa in recent years, a military spokesman went on state television surrounded by heavily armed, uniformed men. He announced that they had deposed President Umaro Sissoco Embaló, closed the country’s borders and airspace and suspended the electoral process. He also announced a curfew and declared a state of emergency.
The statement from Mr. N’Tchama came shortly after the opposition candidate, Fernando Dias, made an impassioned speech claiming to have won Sunday’s election, and saying that he was only waiting for the final announcement of the national electoral commission on Thursday.
“We will go out into the streets to say thank you to all the people of Guinea-Bissau for all that they have done,” he told a crowd of supporters.
Mr. Dias is supported by an opposition coalition that includes the country’s largest party, the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde. That party and its leader, Domingos Simões Pereira, a former prime minister, were barred from running in last week’s election.
After the military takeover on Wednesday, Mr. Pereira’s nephew, Edson Pereira, said that his uncle had been arrested and was being held in a prison in Bissau.
After armed clashes broke out in December 2023 between military forces and the national guard, Mr. Embaló, who was out of the country at the time, declared a coup had been attempted against his presidency. Days later, he dissolved Parliament, in which the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde had held the majority.
Before his campaign, Mr. Embaló repeatedly said that even if he did not win, Mr. Pereira should not be allowed to run the nation. Mr. Dias had promised to restore the government that Mr. Embaló dissolved.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/world/africa/guinea-bissau-coup.html
Britain's young communists are ready for revolution
Britain’s young communists are ready for revolution
A teenaged goth and a ponytailed man were smoking outside the Revolution Festival. “I’m outside because someone who is 16 years old and needs to be chaperoned everywhere is being a little dick and neEmily Lawford (New Statesman)
Ok, so I was in the UK a couple years ago, and while I have some pretty stark disagreements with our Trot friends, it was the trot orgs who were most adamantly pro-trans.
Most UK ML parties are still on the "being queer is bourgeois decadence" thing, in 2025.
JKR will be the Lenin of CPGB-ML before anything else
JKR will be the Lenin of CPGB-ML before anything else
funny you should mention that!
::: spoiler CW:Transphobia
:::
[Video] Israel TV airs pity video about how traumatizing it is for their prison guard rapists to be on trial for raping Palestinians
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Trump’s FBI Spent Nearly $1 Million on Redacting Epstein Files
Mexico’s ‘Gen Z Rebellion’ Exposed as Right-Wing Plot
Mexico’s ‘Gen Z Rebellion’ Exposed as Right-Wing Plot
Intent on toppling Mexico's popular president, local oligarchs and an international right-wing network backed a youth-led anti-corruption uprising, Wyatt Reed and Kit Klarenberg report.Consortium News
Overheard a conversation at my college. The one answering was from US.
"Do Europeans celebrate thanksgiving?"
- "Yeah it's in the bible."
How to skirt websites that block known domains of email forwarding services? [SOLVED]
Solved: Thanks to all who commented, especially those who took the time to respond to my follow-up questions. Your responses were enough to convince me of the value of buying a custom domain in order to keep one's true email address private w/ the added benefit of working on websites that block known domains of temp/forwarding service providers.
Key takeaways:
- Forwarding services' shared domains are useful for blending in w/ the crowd. (credit to @Cricket@lemmy.zip)
- Custom domains are handy when you don't care about blending in and you want to use a website that blacklists known domains of disposable/forwarding service providers, including the paid-tier domains.
- Deciding whether to enable catch-all:
- Enabled: You can make up new addresses without having to configure the alias manually each time, but it's also easier for spammers to guess valid addresses.
- Disabled: It's more difficult for spammers to guess valid addresses, but you'll have to configure your aliases manually unless you have regex matching for automatic creation of new aliases. With regex matching for automatic creation of new aliases, disabling catch-all has few if any downsides.
- Regex matching: Seems to provide the best of all worlds by making it harder for spammers to guess valid addresses without having to configure aliases manually each time.
- For aliases, including a string of random characters after the company name makes it harder for spammers to guess your other aliases and/or learn where else you have accounts by spamming emails to every
$companyname@example.comand seeing which ones bounce back. (credit to @erebion@news.erebion.eu)
Original post:
I've recently signed up for an email forwarding service w/ aliases so that I can keep my true email address private when I sign up for new websites and services. I should clarify that I'm less concerned about concealing my identity as I am about protecting my real email address, identifying who leaked my info when my email address is compromised, and being able to stop the spam by turning off that alias.
While updating my existing profiles to point to aliases instead of my real address, I've hit a snag - some sites (Steam, Slack, etc) won't allow me to update my email address to any known domains from my email forwarding service.
On these sites that block email forwarding addresses, for now I'm either updating my existing email address w/ a plus sign if the website allows it, otherwise I'm just leaving my existing email address unchanged. It's not the end of the world, they already have my real email address, and I can probably go a Very Long Time without needing to check those inboxes anyway, but I'm still miffed that I can't completely migrate my existing accounts to my new scheme.
I've read numerous posts about the benefits of custom domains to enable portability of email service providers, and I'm wondering if custom domains are the answer to these sites that disallow forwarding addresses, but I have questions:
- How do other people deal with this situation?
- Do these websites that block known email forwarding domains typically work on a whitelist or blacklist model? If the former (whitelist), then I'm thinking a custom domain will have the same problem, but if the latter (blacklist), then I reckon a custom domain with catchall might work.
- Particularly owners of custom domains, do you find your custom domain is allowed more often than not or do you run into the same problem?
EDIT: Clarified my objectives.
walmart@curious_dolphin.net
☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ likes this.
No, graphene isn't being targeted by the french government.
There's been some posts about Graphene leaving france and accusing the government of targeting them.
This isn't happening. What happened is that le parisien posted an article that presents what french law enforcement think of grapheneOS, which is obviously mostly crap, then present part of graphene's respone, which does in fact include their references to human rights organizations, large tech companies and others using GrapheneOS, unlike what grapheneOS claims. The main flaw with the article is the fact that the author takes what the french law enforcement says at face value, which is not a good move.
If you haven't been following this you may be wondering how this was extrapolated into the government targeting them. Well, it's because government owned news sites also reported on this. This is because le parisien's article got regurgitated by a bunch of other news sites looking for an easy article to get ad revenue from, normal news site behavior. The government news sites are fully editorially independent from the government, which the GrapheneOS lead should know, since that's how the canadian CBC works.
For chat control, that measure isn't supported by the majority of french meps, just the (massively unpopular) head of state and his minority government. No similar law has been passed nationally, in fact, a law that guarantees privacy rights is making it's way through the legislature (tuta article). If chat control passes, it affects several of the countries (germany and belgium, afaik) they moved to as well, anyways.
Graphene's announcement also disparages the other two big privacy roms, both based in france, which is odd and makes me personally think this may have more to do with the visible hatred the project lead has for those projects.
Please tell me what you think, and if I missed anything important, because it really seems like a big nothing-burger to me.
Yes, sorry I was too lazy to provide any sources here are a few (mostly in french sorry). It was called the 8 December case or "L'Affaire du 8 décembre" in french.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_Decemb…
- lundi.am/Affaire-du-8-decembre…
- lemonde.fr/societe/article/202…
- laquadrature.net/2023/10/02/af…
- laquadrature.net/2023/06/05/af…
- web.archive.org/web/2023060713…
Edit:
- archive.is/lemonde.fr/societe/…
Sept militants de l’ultragauche mis en examen pour « association de malfaiteurs terroriste »
Arrêtés mardi, ces militants sont soupçonnés de projets d’actions violentes ciblant des policiers, sans qu’un projet précis de passage à l’acte ait été identifié à ce stade.Samuel Laurent (Le Monde)
Except that for the moment, no decision of the judges shows that they have retained the fact of having Linux, Signal, /e/OS or GrapheneOS installed, even in the case of 8 December. And I'm talking about not the investigating judges here, but the decisions of the judges of the court.
These articles speak only of investigating judges, not of conviction.
Trump bars South Africa from 2026 G20 summit in Miami
Trump bars South Africa from 2026 G20 summit in Miami
Trump cites his claims of "white genocide" against white farmers in South Africa and its refusal to symbolically hand over the G20 presidency as his reason for barring the country from next year's summit.TRT World
- YouTube
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.m.youtube.com
Radeon Software for Linux 25.20.3 Released - "Exclusively Open-Source" With RADV
Radeon Software for Linux 25.20.3 Released - "Exclusively Open-Source" With RADV
With the great upstream support for AMD Radeon graphics in the Linux kernel and Mesa, most desktop users / gamers / enthusiasts are best off just using the latest code shipped by their distributions or via the enthusiast-supported third-party archive…www.phoronix.com
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS - The Roadmap
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS - The Roadmap
The Desktop team has just returned from our engineering sprint in Gothenburg, and as we begin the development cycle for Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, I’m excited to share what’s coming next for Ubuntu Desktop.Ubuntu Community Hub
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KDE Going all-in on a Wayland future
cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/39342270
Well folks, it’s the beginning of a new era: after nearly three decades of KDE desktop environments running on X11, the future KDE Plasma 6.8 release will be Wayland-exclusive! Support for X11 applications will be fully entrusted to Xwayland, and the Plasma X11 session will no longer be included.
Maduro: US Imperialists are After Latin America's Strategic Resources
November 18, 2025
I ask him how he interprets the current context of pressure, slander, and threats against Venezuela. As he drives carefully in the gentle Aragua twilight, he tells me:“They have gone to great lengths to craft a new narrative—that of narco-terrorism—but, at its core, it’s the same thing they’ve always done: create a pretext to kill a hope. Remember, for example, that in 1954, they accused Jacobo Árbenz, the democratically elected President of Guatemala, of being a “communist” because he had implemented a modest agrarian reform. They orchestrated a coup, a military intervention, and overthrew him. Several decades later, they apologized, acknowledging that Árbenz was not a communist and that they had made a mistake…”
“Ten years later, in 1964, in Brazil, they did the same thing to President João Goulart… And they apologized again a few decades later… And in 1965, they did the same thing again in the Dominican Republic with President Juan Bosch. They accused him of being a ‘communist,’ invaded the country with some 20,000 marines and OAS forces. And many years later, they again acknowledged that Juan Bosch was a true democrat and that the invasion was a mistake. And in 1973, the same script in Chile, against President Salvador Allende. And the same belated apologies.
Maduro: US Imperialists are After Latin America's Strategic Resources - Mexico Solidarity Media
The President of Venezuela gives a wide-ranging interview in which he reiterates his commitment to dialogue for peace, but emphasizes Venezuela is prepared should Washington decide to attack.Mexico Solidarity (Mexico Solidarity Media)
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Americans are holding onto devices longer than ever and it's costing the economy
Americans are holding onto devices longer than ever and it's costing the economy
Americans are holding onto devices longer than ever before, and while it may be consumer smart, it comes at a cost to work productivity and the U.S. economy.Kevin Williams (CNBC)
Could VPNs Be 'Banned'?
With the UK apparently floating ideas of a VPN ban it's got me worried about the future of anonymity online. Now people have already pointed out that a VPN ban doesn't make sense because of all the legitimate uses of one and wouldn't even be enforceable anyway, but that got me thinking.
What if governments ordered websites (such as social media sites) to block traffic originating from a VPN node? Lots of sites already do this (or restrict your activity if they detect a VPN) to mitigate spam etc. and technically that wouldn't interfere with "legitimate" (in the eyes of the gov) VPN usage like logging onto corporate networks remotely
It's already a pain with so many sites either blocking you from access or making you jump through a million captchas using VPNs now. I'm worried it's about to get a whole lot worse
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To go a little further, I used the example of heroin and machine guns in my other reply, but there are lots of countries where people licensed to use these (or technology that’s similar like oxycontin) are allowed or there exist analogs (like bump stocks or binary triggers) that avoid the law.
Heck, in the us any knucklehead can get on the good boy list for heroin or machine guns they just need to pass a bunch of checks and submit to a series of audits and inspections.
The point of banning vpn use would be to keep people from using the technology to skirt identity laws, not to prevent the use of the technology altogether, so it’s likely any ban would take the form of legal wording that looks like “use of computer networking technology to conceal ones identity or aid or abet or perpetrate any crime is unlawful under this section.”
So again, yes they absolutely can do it and no it wouldn’t mean corporations would suddenly have to turn in all their edge devices.
I’m really surprised that on this instance no one has replied with the “laws are threats made by the dominant social economic class” copypasta. Fake ahh anarchists…
Can anyone end the Ukraine war if Kiev refuses every compromise?
Can anyone end the Ukraine war if Kiev refuses every compromise?
Why every attempt at a Ukraine deal collapses under pressure from Kiev and BrusselsRT
No, and again, that doesn't apply in any way. Russia isn't going to surrender when they are winning the war, it isn't a real option. Either Ukraine and Russia successfully broker a peace deal, or Russia continues advancing at an increasingly rapid pace. That's the reality of the situation, the war is increasingly unpopular in Ukraine and corruption from the Banderites in charge is causing erosion of support.
There isn't a realistic way for Ukraine to win millitarily.
How to transfer a lot of storage?
I want to transfer 80 TB of data to another locatio . I already have the drives for it. The idea is to copy everything to it, fly it to the target and use or copy the data on/to the server.
What filesystem would you use and would you use a raid configuration? Currently I lean towards 8 single disk filesystems on the 10 TB drives with ext4, because it is simple. I considered ZFS because of the possiblity to scrub at the target destination and/or pool all drives. But ZFS may not be available at the target.
There is btrfs which should be available everywhere because it is in mainline linux and ZFS is not. But from my knowledge btrfs would require lvm to pool disks together like zfs can do natively.
Pooling the drives would also be a problem if one disk gets lost during transit. If I have everything on 8 single disks at least the remaining data can be used at the target and they only have to wait for the missing data.
I like to read about your opinions or practical experience with similar challanges.
I'd use XFS as it's excellent at copying big files of data (7z. img/iso/qcow2, 4K Videos).
For large amounts of smaller files (Like photos, odt, and PDFs), I'd use Ext4.
U.S. Army secretary warned Ukraine of imminent defeat while pushing initial peace plan
U.S. Army secretary warned Ukraine of imminent defeat while pushing initial peace plan
The meeting between Army secretary Dan Driscoll and the Ukrainians was the latest example of the rift inside the Trump administration about how to end the war.Dan De Luce (NBC News)
“The message was basically — you are losing,” one of the sources said, “and you need to accept the deal.”
Are they losing?
For the past three years, the news from Russia has been about young men leaving the country because Putin keeps updating the laws around the draft/conscription to feed his war machine.
I'm sure Ukraine is in a similar position, but it doesn't sound like a clearcut win for Russia, either.
They are very obviously losing right now. Ukraine is suffering from a critical manpower shortage, the west is not able to provide them with weapons, the economic situation in Ukraine is unravelling, and there's a huge political scandal.
Meanwhile, the news from Russia for the past three years has absolutely not been that. Even Ukrainian media admits that kyivindependent.com/bloomberg-…
I guess UK regime propaganda is still trying to pretend otherwise though. Given that Russia isn't gang pressing people into service it's not clear what basis the Brits have for their bombastic claims.
The reality is that Russian economy is stable and growing, it's able to outproduce the west militarily, and its trade is now oriented towards BRICS. Given the stark difference between Russia and Ukraine in terms of available manpower, resources, and economy, it's pretty clear to anybody who can do grade school math that Russia is going to win the war.
Bloomberg: Russians who left abroad increasingly return home, boosting economy
Around 1 million Russians left the country after the start of the all-out war due to their opposition to the invasion or out of fear of mobilization.Martin Fornusek (The Kyiv Independent)
Given that Russia isn't gang pressing people into service
I wouldn't take that as "given".
And with the new law, draftees are immediately banned from leaving the country.Those who fail to show up at a recruitment office promptly will soon face a raft of new restrictions related to banking, selling property and even gaining access to a driver's license.
Already before the reform, people who refused orders to serve in the military have faced a possible prison sentence of up to 10 years. (NPR)
As part of their efforts to combat draft evasion, authorities earlier this year launched an electronic register of conscripts to serve online summonses in some Russian regions. They also introduced a series of legal restrictions for those who ignore the summonses, including banning their bank transactions, suspending their driver’s licenses and blocking foreign travel. (AP)
I quoted the NPR and AP articles, since you seem allergic to reporting from the UK.
I wouldn’t take that as “given”.
There is zero evidence for that being true. Meanwhile, the fact that it's happening in Ukraine is very well documented responsiblestatecraft.org/ukra…
I quoted the NPR and AP articles, since you seem allergic to reporting from the UK.
You're confusing the regular draft for the reserves that Russia has had since the soviet times with the war draft here. There was exactly a single time that there was a call up back in 2022.
Finally, you only have to consider the size difference in overall population. Even if there was the same rate of desertion on both sides, then Ukraine would still lose.
Ukraine's 'Busification' — forced conscription — is tip of the iceberg
Western media is largely ignoring that Kyiv has to rip young men off the streets amid recruitment shortages and desertionsIan Proud (Responsible Statecraft)
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Your responses have nothing to do with the parts of my comment that you're quoting.
In the first quote (I wouldn’t take that as “given”) I was responding to your claim that Russia wasn't press-ganging citizens into service. I then quoted two articles which themselves cited Russian sources (I'm pretty sure the State Duma is Russian) that said the Russian government was changing the draft rules and imposing severe penalties on people attempting to avoid the draft.
The second quote was pretty straightforward (I quoted the NPR and AP articles, since you seem allergic to reporting from the UK.), so I don't know how you went from that to "confusing regular draft for reserves", but I'll respond to that, too.
I'm not confusing the regular draft for reserves. Both sources explicitly use the terms "draft" and "conscript" to describe the people I'm talking about.
And I directly addressed your claim explaining that there is no evidence of gang pressing happening in Russia, and that you were referring to the regular reserves draft that's been happening long before the war.
I’m not confusing the regular draft for reserves. Both sources explicitly use the terms “draft” and “conscript” to describe the people I’m talking about.
Yes, you are absolutely confusing the draft with the call up to the front line. I'm also guessing that you didn't actually read the article you linked because its says the same thing I'm saying:
The bill’s authors say the measure is intended to ease pressure on military conscription offices and streamline their activities, which includes performing the physicals and assigning conscripts to various military branches.Even though the bill will make conscription a year-round process, it stipulates that conscripts will enter military service only during a few spring and summer months as before.
All Russian men aged 18-30 currently are obliged to serve in the military for one year, although many avoid the draft by using deferments granted to students, those with chronic illnesses, and for other reasons.
Even your own source is admitting that there is no increase in conscription happening.
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You keep changing the argument you claim I'm making.
Here's the comment, as a reminder.
I called into question your claim that press ganging (coercion into military service) wasn't happening, by citing sources that the Russian government was changing the rules of the draft and imposing severe penalties on people who tried to avoid it.
The sources you cited literally support what I said:
Even though the bill will make conscription a year-round process, it stipulates that conscripts will enter military service only during a few spring and summer months as before.
Do you even understand what the term press ganging means?
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You've tried to move the goalposts twice now, by:
- Claiming my argument is about a "call up to the front line". (I've said draft/conscription since the beginning.)
- Claiming my argument is that an increase in conscription is happening. (I implied press-ganging was happening, and said nothing about a change in the amount of conscription happening.)
I am and have been ignoring anything you threw out that tried to weasel away from the central argument:
The Russian government is coercing (which is how press-ganging is used to mean in normal conversations; this is not an academic conference) people into military service.
Conscription/the draft already technically meets that definition, but piling on prison sentences, suspending drivers licences, banning leaving the country, and restricting bank transactions all make it clear that Russian men are being coerced into military service.
I have not moved the goalposts. My position has been perfectly consistent. You are misusing a loaded term to fabricate a narrative.
Let's be crystal clear since you are struggling with the definition. Press ganging is not a synonym for conscription. It refers to the illegal and forcible impressment of individuals into military service. What that looks like is kidnapping people from streets or their homes outside of any legal framework. That's what you implied is happening in Russia, and it is a blatant falsehood.
What you are describing in Russia is the legal process of conscription, which includes standard penalties for evasion. These penalties like fines, license suspensions, and travel bans are common consequences for dodging a mandatory draft in many nations, including many US allies. To call this press ganging is deliberate sensationalism.
Meanwhile, in Ukraine, the very phenomenon you mistakenly accuse Russia of is a well documented reality. There have been numerous verified reports of recruiters literally grabbing men off the street and from public transport to forcibly conscript them, often without any paperwork or due process. That is what actual press-ganging looks like. It is happening there, not in Russia.
Your argument tries to blur the line between a legal state run conscription system and outright criminal abduction. They are not the same. The goalposts have not moved. You are just trying to score a point on a field that does not exist in reality. The facts are clear, and your conflation of them is intellectually dishonest.
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That's three times now. We'll add:
- Claiming I'm trying to "fabricate a narrative" as if there's some massive conspiracy.
to the list.
Do you seriously think I'm some part of some government operation to "weave a story"?
I'm a rando on the internet who thinks Russia is coercing men who don't want to be in a war to become soldiers.
Whether they corner them with infrastructural tactics or send armed men in unmarked vans to kidnap them off the street is immaterial.
Whether these tactics are practiced by Russia or by "many nations, including US allies" is immaterial.
It would be press-ganging and coercion if Ukraine did the same thing. It's press-ganging and coercion if the United States does it.
Standing on ceremony behind a dictionary definition and whether government says it's legal is such a weird stance to take when the issue is these people don't want to serve in the military, and the government is coercing them into it.
The only person inventing massive conspiracies in this conversation is you. Now you can add straw man arguments to the growing list of nonsense you are producing.
I think you are nothing more than a troll who argues for the sake of it, without a single honest bone in your body. You are the epitome of a reddit debate bro, substituting sophistry for genuine argument in a pathetic attempt to score imaginary points. You are very transparent.
You keep trying to conflate two entirely separate issues, a sad attempt at an argument I have already dismantled in detail. You have brought forward nothing new and you're just regurgitating the same old drivel here. Take the L and move on.
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I think you are nothing more than a troll who argues for the sake of it, without a single honest bone in your body. You are the epitome of a reddit debate bro
You won't or can't address my argument above, so you switch to personal attacks.
You introduced the word "press-gang" and tried to turn this into an argument about the dictionary definition of the word.
You also tried to retroactively rewrite my argument. (You're not talking about the draft, you're talking about the reserves. You're not talking about the draft, you're talking about "calling up to the front line.")
And you claim that I'm trolling?
My position has been that Russia has been coercing citizens into military service and I've been consistent on that point.
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I’m also guessing that you didn’t actually read the article you linked because its says the same thing I’m saying:
Articles aren't for reading, they're for headline skimming so you can look like you have sources. If they fail, there's always another one to try, you can even pretend that means evidence is overwhelming!
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As part of their efforts to combat draft evasion, authorities earlier this year launched an electronic register of conscripts to serve online summonses in some Russian regions. They also introduced a series of legal restrictions for those who ignore the summonses, including banning their bank transactions, suspending their driver’s licenses and blocking foreign travel. (AP)
dude I've been reading about the ukrainians running kidnapping squads grabbing kids off the streets for like two years straight but uh yeah sure it's russia having manpower issues
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Whether or not Ukraine has kidnapping squads doesn't mean Russia can't also be having manpower issues.
Both can be true at the same time.
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I didn't say either of those things you're saying.
This is what I said :
I'm sure Ukraine is in a similar position, but it doesn't sound like a clearcut win for Russia, either.
If it's mirrored on both sides, then why the fuck would you bring it up as a reason to think Ukraine isn't losing?
What you're doing is actually moving the goal posts, by the way
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why the fuck would you bring it up as a reason to think Ukraine isn't losing?
I was bringing it up as a reason to think the case for Russia winning wasn't a clear slam dunk.
Resorting to conscription to fill your ranks is not something you do when you're "obviously winning".
And before you make a claim about Ukraine resorting to conscription, too, at no point have I claimed Ukraine was "obviously winning" either.
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Why is that a reason, if that particular factor is a wash for both sides?
Resorting to conscription to fill your ranks is not something you do when you’re “obviously winning”.
Uhuh. So when the Soviets were flattening Berlin they weren't obviously winning? When the US had sunken the entire Japanese Navy and were systemically saturation bombing the Japanese mainland, they weren't obviously winning?
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I quoted the NPR and AP articles, since you seem allergic to reporting from the UK.
Lol, "because you don't like these extremely biased sources, I quoted some sources with the exact same extreme bias"
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I usually try to cite multiple sources because one or all may be biased, but it's less likely that multiple sources will misrepresent reality in exactly the same way.
It is possible, but it is less likely.
I quoted all three in my original response, and he only responded negatively to the one based in UK, implying that he considered the other two met some minimum standard of quality.
He also quoted those same sources in his responses to me. If he thought the same way you do, I would have expected him to dismiss them outright, like you are.
but it’s less likely that multiple sources will misrepresent reality in exactly the same way.
Not when you're selecting sources that all have the same bias. Like, how many sources are you citing that aren't Western neo-liberal and Zionist aligned? Zero.
implying
So he didn't say that, you're just assuming.
If he thought the same way you do, I would have expected him to dismiss them outright,
Or he would cite them to demonstrate that even media that shares your bias supports his position
It's possible, but he didn't say that, and our argument continued without your help.
It is weird that you're white-knighting so hard for him.
Why are you here?
don't like this
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The NPR article I linked above was citing a Russian source.
The AP article was citing Russian legislation, which I assume (and I could be wrong) is public record.
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Putin backs US plan for ending Ukraine war as Trump gives Kyiv deadline to accept
President Zelensky says Ukraine faces one of the most difficult moments in its history, as the White House pushes its plan.BBC News
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Taiwan puts $40 billion toward buying US weapons and building a defense dome
Currently, Taiwan has set an increase in its defense budget to 3.3% of its GDP for 2026, allocating $949.5 billion Taiwan dollars ($31.18 billion). U.S. President Donald Trump has demanded Taiwan raise its defense spending to as much as 10% of GDP, a proportion well above what the U.S. or any of its major allies spend.Lai had previewed the announcement in an op-ed for The Washington Post on Wednesday, saying the special budget would be used to purchase arms from the U.S. He told reporters Wednesday, however, that the budget has nothing to do with the government’s tariff negotiations with the U.S.
US empire and wealthy capitalists aren't the same thing, although their interests sometimes align.
All the billionaires in Taiwan are Taiwanese.
Wealthy capitalists, if they're not based in the US, have moved to those places, not to Taiwan.
An intermediary.A native of a colonised country who acts as the agent of the coloniser.
I don't get the point you're trying to make.
I said the wealthy capitalists went to not!Taiwan because the billionaires in Taiwan were already there.
Who is or is not a comprador has nothing to do with where wealthy capitalists relocate.
I don't get the point you're trying to make
Then you're trying very hard not to get it. Try harder, I believe in you👍
I was saying that the billionaires were not moving to the island of Taiwan.
You're talking about US Empire, which, as mentioned in my other responses in this thread, is irrelevant to the physical movements of billionaires.
Even if Taiwan declared itself to be US Empire island #76, it would not change the fact that billionaires did not move to the island of Taiwan.
I was saying that the billionaires were not moving to the island of Taiwan.
Man, you really are a dishonest little troll aren't you: "oh I was just saying this thing completely unrelated to the topic at hand. Oh, you thought I had a point? Nope, just making random statements for no reason."
Fuck off
This was the statement I was responding to:
It’s basically an island that all the wealthy capitalists ran away to after China imposed economic democracy.
Here was my response :
Wealthy capitalists, if they're not based in the US, have moved to [Singapore (or Switzerland, or the UAE)], not to Taiwan.
Where was what I said dishonest or irrelevant?
Edit: reorganized for legibility
They aren’t caught between anything. Taiwan is very much aligned with western imperial countries. It’s basically an island that all the wealthy capitalists ran away to after China imposed economic democracy. They love America and America loves them.
Wealthy capitalists, if they're not based in the US
Are you talking about this part? If so, what I was saying was that billionaires moved to either the US or the three countries I mentioned.
That means the billionaires from China also did not move to Taiwan.
You can also look at the wiki for Taiwan's billionaires. Only one was born in China and not Taiwan (Hong Kong, specifically), and I'm pretty sure he moved to Taiwan way before the events we're taking about in this thread.
Zelenskyy faces the biggest corruption scandal of his presidency
On November 10, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) exposed an alleged $110 million corruption scheme at state-owned nuclear company Energoatom. The charges are supported by a fifteen-month wiretap and over seventy searches carried out as part of a major investigation called Operation Midas.
According to NABU officials, the investigation uncovered a criminal enterprise run by Timur Mindich, a film producer and a former business partner of Zelenskyy. Additional suspects include former Minister of Energy and recently appointed Minister of Justice Herman Halushchenko; former Naftogaz CEO and Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Chernyshov; former Minister of Defense and current National Security and Defense Council member Rustem Umerov; and Ihor Myroniuk, former deputy head of the State Property Fund and former advisor to Halushchenko.
Mindich fled Ukraine the day before his premises were raided and is reportedly now in Israel.
Zelenskyy faces the biggest corruption scandal of his presidency - Atlantic Council
Amid Russia’s ongoing invasion, Ukraine in now facing the largest corruption scandal of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presidency over alleged kickbacks in the graft-prone energy sector, writes Suriya Evans-Pritchard Jayanti.Peter Dickinson (Atlantic Council)
Must've not looked into it very hard. A single search will reveal to you the same thing a much deeper dive into academic works will.
Did you not read or understand this part?
A single search will reveal to you the same thing a much deeper dive into academic works will.
My hard drive keeps clicking like files are being accessed but I'm not doing anything in that filesystem and the indicator light doesn't indicate any usage.
I'm running a NAS on Fedora Server with LUKS encrypted Btrfs hard drives in a USB-C multi-bay enclosure. I noticed that one or both of the hard drives keep making the same sound as when I'm lightly reading or writing files from it (the closest it sounds like to my ear is something like copying to a Wi-Fi connected device where there is a bottleneck somewhere other than the hard drive, so it has bursts of activity a few times a second between idle time). Using iostat -x on my two main hard drives, I do see periodic activity every 10 or so seconds but I'm definitely not accessing anything in them, and the activity indicators on the USB enclosure are still and not blinking to indicate activity.
Should I be worried about this? To my paranoid mind it feels like something is slowly reading my files with some exploit to bypass the indicator light to fly under the radar. But I just did a clean install of Fedora Server 43 (over the previous installation which was 42) and I never installed anything outside of the official package manager and Docker registry. I've also never had this issue on Fedora Server 42 as far as I know, and the NAS is on my desk so I feel like I would have heard it ages ago if it was something frequent. There's also no unexpected network activity on the Cockpit dashboard that would indicate that files are being uploaded, though I feel like if some malware can suppress the indicator light on a USB enclosure it can probably also hide its network traffic.
Is there something standard it's doing that could explain this? Like does Fedora 43 more frequently tell the drive's controller itself to do things like defragmentation or bit rot prevention when it's idle? That's the only explanation I can think of where the drive is clicking but no data is actually being transferred that would trigger the indicator light, since the operation would be entirely within the drive itself.
GitHub - martinpitt/fatrace: report system wide file access events
report system wide file access events. Contribute to martinpitt/fatrace development by creating an account on GitHub.GitHub
What dystopian surveillance things from your country you can't escape?
Or have to go through great lengths to escape.
In my country you can't buy any medicine without showing your ID... I mean, you technically can, but if you are registered they "give" like an 80% discount, so everyone thinks it's a great deal, not realizing that's the normal price, they are just pretending you can still go and buy a simple cold medicine without sharing your ID, phone, email, and street address with the drug store and whoever they decide to sell that information to, you just have to pay absurdly more. Yeah, you can lie about all the other information, but not really about your ID number. Probably soon, to get the "discount", you are going to have to verify your email or phone number as well.
Sidetracked a bit but last week I was in the UK. I tried to visit a website (not porn actually, just private messaging on BlueSky) and it asked to verify my age. Initially I thought "Meh... OK... let's see the process" which then lead to installing an app maybe (I'm not sure tbh as I was in rush). Clearly I didn't want to do it because the DM was potentially urgent (scheduling to meet someone ASAP) ... so what did I do? I switched from my browser to my VPN, connected from Austria, refreshed... no age verification. It took me a grand total of 5s to bypass the system.
TL;DR: maybe you can actually escape even though you are convinced you can't.
(Oh wow. No one replied with this quote yet...)
“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.”
― Buckminster Fuller
By this logic fat shaming is acceptable?
I mean, yeah, in many contexts. For example, when a professional athlete shows up to training camp after putting on a bunch of fat in the off-season, that's fair game. It's literally their job to maintain their bodies and if we're allowed to criticize their job performance then we're certainly allowed to criticize their maintenance of their physical fitness. There's obviously a clear parallel here between that and other public figures where their intelligence may be fair game for criticism.
More broadly, when people are engaged in unhealthy habits of any kind (from smoking to sleep deprivation to overwork/stress to terrible relationship decisions to unhealthy eating/exercise habits), I think it's fair game for loved ones to point that out and encourage steering their lives back towards healthier choices. I'm not advocating that we go and make fun of strangers, the range of acceptable conversation in our day to day relationships is going to be different.
No, that's not OK to mock people's medical conditions, and it's always a good idea to exercise some empathy and humility to know that things might not always be as easy for others as for yourself. But I've never been on board with the idea that fatness is somehow off limits, in large part that I don't believe that most people's fatness is inherently innate. Correlations between moving to or away from high obesity areas (most notably between countries or between significant changes of altitude, but also apparent in moves between city centers and suburban car-based communities) make that obvious that fatness is often environmental.
TLDR: I make fun of Trump's fat ass all the time.
Amazon in discussions with USPS about future relationship
Amazon.com (AMZN.O) said Thursday the e-commerce giant is in discussions with the U.S. Postal Service about its future relationship and considering its options before its current contract expires next year.
The Washington Post reported Thursday new Postmaster General David Steiner plans to hold a reverse auction in early 2026 that might create more competition within the Post Office for Amazon's business by offering access to postal facilities to the highest bidder, rather than directly to Amazon. It would make the company compete with national retail brands and regional shipping firms.
People’s Republic of China (PRC) State-Sponsored Actors Use BRICKSTORM Malware Across Public Sector and Information Technology Systems
In comedy of errors, men accused of wiping gov databases turned to an AI tool
Two sibling contractors convicted a decade ago for hacking into US State Department have once again been charged, this time for a comically hamfisted attempt to steal and destroy government records just minutes after being fired from their contractor jobs.The Department of Justice on Thursday said that Muneeb Akhter and Sohaib Akhter, both 34, of Alexandria, Virginia, deleted databases and documents maintained and belonging to three government agencies. The brothers were federal contractors working for an undisclosed company in Washington, DC, that provides software and services to 45 US agencies. Prosecutors said the men coordinated the crimes and began carrying them out just minutes after being fired.
In comedy of errors, men accused of wiping gov databases turned to an AI tool
Defendants were convicted of similar crimes a decade ago. How were they cleared again?Dan Goodin (Ars Technica)
Why the F is a single contractor able to delete an entire DB without any kind of sign off by a manager for that operation, unless they were and to sign off for each other.
Imagine if a junior messed up the command? Every system I've worked on has had these controls mainly for the latter issue, by the former also shouldn't have been possible.
Why won’t Steam Machine support HDMI 2.1? Digging in on the display standard drama.
Valve tells Ars its “trying to unblock” limits caused by open source driver issues.
Have you looked at the HDMI Forum member list and board of directors?
- hdmiforum.org/members/
- hdmiforum.org/about/hdmi-forum…
It includes pretty much every manufacturer who makes decisions which ports to include on their devices. They have no interest in DisplayPort adoption.
HDMI Forum Board of Directors - HDMI Forum
The HDMI Forum is a non-profit corporation governed by an elected Board of Directors from member companies. The Board approves and directs Working Groups to develop specifications for the HDMI... Read More »HDMI Forum
Jan. 6 Pipe Bomber Finally Arrested Half Decade Later
The FBI sucks at its job but wants you to salute them anyway
EU's Top Court Just Made It Impossible to Run a User-Generated Platform Legally
EU’s Top Court Just Made It Literally Impossible To Run A User-Generated Content Platform Legally
The Court of Justice of the EU—likely without realizing it—just completely shit the bed and made it effectively impossible to run any website in the entirety of the EU that hosts user-generated con…Techdirt
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Pentagon Claims It “Absolutely” Knows Who It Killed in Boat Strikes. Prove It, Lawmaker Says
cross-posted from: news.abolish.capital/post/1160…
Rep. Chrissy Houlahan said, “If there is intelligence to 'absolutely confirm' this, the Congress is ready to receive it.”The post Pentagon Claims It “Absolutely” Knows Who It Killed in Boat Strikes. Prove It, Lawmaker Says appeared first on The Intercept.
From The Intercept via This RSS Feed.
Pentagon Claims It “Absolutely” Knows Who It Killed in Boat Strikes. Prove It, Lawmaker Says.
Rep. Chrissy Houlahan said, “If there is intelligence to ‘absolutely confirm’ this, the Congress is ready to receive it.”Nick Turse (The Intercept)
'A Human Rights Disaster': Report Details Torture and Chaos at 'Alligator Alcatraz'
cross-posted from: news.abolish.capital/post/1159…
Two immigration detention centers in Florida have gained notoriety for inhumane conditions since Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, in close alignment with President Donald Trump's anti-immigrant agenda, has rapidly scaled up mass detention in the state, and a report released Thursday detailed how human rights violations at the two facilities amount to torture in some cases.
Amnesty International published the report, *Torture and Enforced Di**sappearances in the Sunshine State*, with a focus on Krome North Service Processing Center and the Everglades Detention Facility, also known by its nickname, "Alligator Alcatraz."
As Common Dreams has reported, many of the people detained at the facilities have been arbitrarily rounded up by immigration agents, with a majority of the roughly 1,000 people being held at Alligator Alcatraz having been convicted of no criminal offense as of July.
Amnesty's report described unsanitary conditions, with fecal matter overflowing from toilets in detainees' sleeping areas, authorities granting only limited access to showers, and poor quality food and water.
Some of the treatment amounts to torture, the report says, including Alligator Alcatraz's use of "the box"—a 2x2 foot "cage-like structure people are put in as punishment—which inmates have been placed in for hours at a time with their hands and feet attached to restraints on the ground.
— (@)“These despicable and nauseating conditions at Alligator Alcatraz reflect a pattern of deliberate neglect designed to dehumanize and punish those detained there,” said Amy Fischer, director of refugee and migrant rights with Amnesty International USA. “This is unreal—where’s the oversight?”
At Krome, detainees have been arbitrarily placed in prolonged solitary confinement—defined as lasting longer than 15 days—which is prohibited under international law.
"The use of prolonged solitary confinement at Krome and the use of the ‘box’ at 'Alligator Alcatraz' amount to torture or other ill-treatment," said Amnesty.
The report elevates concerns raised in September by immigrant rights advocates regarding the lack of federal oversight at Alligator Alcatraz, with nearly 1,000 men detained at the prison having been "administratively disappeared"—their names absent from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's detainee locator system.
"The absence of registration or tracking mechanisms for those detained at Alligator Alcatraz facilitates incommunicado detention and constitutes enforced disappearances when the whereabouts of a person being detained there is denied to their family, and they are not allowed to contact their lawyer," said Amnesty.
The state of Florida has not publicly confirmed the number of people detained at Alligator Alcatraz.
One man told Amnesty, "My lawyers tried to visit me, but they weren’t let in. They were told that they had to fill out a form, which they did, but nothing happened. I was never able to speak with them confidentially.”
At Krome, detainees described overcrowding, medical neglect, and abuse by guards when Amnesty researchers visited in September. ICE has constructed tents and other semi-permanent structures to hold more people than the facility is designed to detain.
The Amnesty researchers were given a tour of relatively extensive medical facilities at Krome, including a dialysis clinic, dental clinic, and a "state-of-the-art" mental health facility—but despite these resources, detainees described officials' failure to provide medical treatment and delays in health assessments. Four people—Ramesh Amechand, Genry Ruiz Guillen, Maksym Chernyak, and Isidro Pérez—have died this year while detained at Krome.
"It’s a disaster if you want to see the doctor," one man told Amnesty. "I once asked to see the doctor, and it took two weeks for me to finally see him. It’s very slow.”
Researchers with the organization witnessed "a guard violently slam a metal flap of a door to a solitary confinement room against a man’s injured hand," and people reported being "hit and punched" by officials at Krome.
In line with the Trump administration, DeSantis and Republican state lawmakers have sought to make Florida "a testing ground for abusive immigration enforcement policies," said Amnesty, with the state deputizing local law enforcement to make immigration arrests and issuing 34 no-bid contracts totaling more than $360 million for the operation of Alligator Alcatraz—while slashing spending on healthcare, food assistance, and disaster relief. Florida has increased the number of people in immigration detention by more than 50% since Trump took office in January.
The organization called on Florida to redirect detention funding toward healthcare, housing, and other public spending, and to ban "shackling, solitary confinement, and punitive outdoor confinement" in line with international standards.
"At the federal level, the US government must end its cruel mass immigration detention machine, stop the criminalization of migration, and bar the use of state-owned facilities for federal immigration custody," said Amnesty.
Fischer emphasized that the chaotic and abusive conditions Amnesty observed at Alligator Alcatraz and Krome "are not isolated."
"They represent a deliberate system of cruelty designed to punish people seeking to build a new life in the US,” said Fischer. “We must stop detaining our immigrant community members and people seeking safety and instead work toward humane, rights-respecting migration policies.”
From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.
Alligator Alcatraz Is an 'Extrajudicial Black Site,' Immigrant Advocates Say as Detainees Disappear
According to the Miami Herald, over 1,000 detainees in Florida’s immigrant internment camp have effectively “disappeared,” with family and attorneys unable to track their whereabouts.stephen-prager (Common Dreams)
varnia
in reply to vas • • •vas
in reply to varnia • • •Personally, I believe there's a chance for stopping this. EU is not an authoritarian state. I wouldn't give up too early -- instead would rather fight and provide public pressure for the direction of the law that supports mine and everybody's freedom.
raspberriesareyummy
in reply to vas • • •...yet. At this point I wish some aliens had mercy on us and nuked certain parliaments & sniped billinaires on this planet simultaneously, giving us a chance to try & start over.
rnercle
in reply to raspberriesareyummy • • •why would we need aliens to do that? people reclaimed their "chance to try & start over" many times before.
raspberriesareyummy
in reply to rnercle • • •pirateKaiser
in reply to raspberriesareyummy • • •4am
in reply to vas • • •This is like the 15th time they’ve tried to implement this. The fact that it came up, they were told his is a bad idea, it was shot down, and they STILL want to keep pushing and keep pushing it; what it really aught to tell you is that it’s time to re-evaluate your diagnosis of the EU and its tendencies.
Authoritarianism is on the rise everywhere, because opportunists see vectors to power available everywhere in technology, now that it has firmly propagated among everyday people. They can spread lies and misinformation, and a huge swath of people just fucking buy it. Consent can be manufactured at the drop of a hat.
They can’t allow dissenting opinions or pesky truth tellers to get in the way of their petrofortunes, of their pedo rings, their yachts, their security blankets.
quick_snail
in reply to varnia • • •esaru
in reply to varnia • • •Any centralized chat protocol is prone to centralized control. This is why Signal Messenger is also affected.
Opting-out of this threat is only possible by using a decentralized protocoll that can also be easily setup by individuals.
Matrix is practically centralized as the majority of its users is on one server, probably due to the setup being not so easy.
There are decentralized protocols that are also practically decentralized. First coming to my mind: XMPP. Many servers offer sign-up for free. If someone wants to setup their own server instead, it takes an hour with Prosody including all configuration. They made it particularly easy as decentralization is their selling point.
aev_software
in reply to vas • • •Remember that the Council is meant to protect and enable trade. They only care about citizens for submitting them to exploitation.
If you discuss "the EU" you have to distinguish between Council and Parliament. The Council has no obligation to act according to the Parliament's wishes. They are not a democracy.
vas
in reply to aev_software • • •Thanks for your comment. I'm still only learning how legislation in the EU works. However, so far I haven't been able to confirm what you're saying. Could you help if you know? (I assume not only me, but possibly other readers, too)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_…
Here it doesn't say (almost) anything about "trade". Admittedly I've only read 2-3 pages and then used Ctrl+F to search on the rest of the page though.. Is it a de-facto split between the legislative powers of the Council and the Parliament? Where to read about it?
institution of the European Union representing the member states' governments bringing together national ministers from each EU country to adopt laws and coordinate policies
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)Matt
in reply to vas • • •Chat Control: The EU's CSAM scanner proposal
Patrick Breyer