Not really that crazy when you consider that the people in charge could have had a sweetheart deal with manufacturers in China, but they cut off all trade partners and all soft power channels, because they’re drooling buffoons who won’t accept that the US shifted to a global economy decades ago nor do they grasp how global economies work—mainly because they fired every expert under the pretense of “government waste.”

All they know how to do is grift and defraud, and the chance to maintain global hegemony is long past. It’s China’s time, now, and they know it.

Classic abuser language. Take it to the extreme to make the reasonable person sound unreasonable, then make it out that you’re their victim.

Conservatism and DARVO go hand in hand.

That’s nuts. Thanks for the source! I hadn’t heard about that

if you do not comply with court orders of the country you are based in, you can close up shop

This is exactly the case for every VPN and network operator. Some take steps to remediate issues around anonymity, and some even offer ways to pay anonymously, but no company is going to break the law for you.

I have issues with Proton’s head being far too conciliatory to Trump, but the email thing wasn’t something they could do anything about, because it’s an inherent flaw with how email works; it was a court order to which they were compelled to comply, whether they wanted to or not.

I’ve never heard of either of these things. Do you have sources?

It’s hilarious to me that news companies keep interviewing AI companies to ask them if they think AI is all hype. What kind of answer do they expect?

“Yeah, this is just smoke and mirrors, and I’m just trying to make a ton of money before the bubble pops.” Bruh, no CEO is gonna be honest about that.

Agreed, but maybe for different reasons. Could you use Signal for government communication? Probably, but it would take intentional preparation, setup, and training of the end-users (most of whom are likely not security-minded or tech-savvy).

But practically speaking, governments should reasonably be developing an option that uses their own servers as relays, not ones controlled by a third party. Signal is run by a nonprofit (i.e. not driven by moneyed interests) and has survived court subpoenas for user data (because of how the useful data is stored encrypted at the endpoints, not the relays), but they do not have the same interests in nor are they developing a platform to keep government secrets safe.

Also, it’s a central point of failure; even if it remains entirely uncracked throughout its lifetime, if the company goes under, those server relays will go, too.

I feel pretty safe as an end-user nobody, but I would be thinking twice if I was a government official.

“He’s eccentric! A visionary!” —Rich assholes, probably

Digital Oil Rig is such a great analogy for multiple reasons.

“Digg watches what 1,000 of the most thoughtful voices in AI are paying attention to, and ranks the stories they’re pointing at by what’s rising fastest,” Rose said.

…

It also uses AI from services such as xAI, OpenAI, Anthropic and Google Gemini to “classify public accounts, summarize public posts and linked articles, describe public media, generate topic labels, score public content and power search.” That would explain how Digg quantifies user sentiment into a percentage for its posts.

Focus on AI. AI apologists from Xitter. Powered by AI summarizers.

Barf.

That’s bad, but at the same time, there’s public data aggregators that sell your info, and you could go out right now and find your name, phone numbers you’ve had, former and current addresses, people you’ve lived with, former and current jobs, etc. It’s kind of terrifying what’s “public information,” and yet they continue to be allowed to operate with virtual impunity.

I’m not saying we should just accept things, but cutting off this “training data” would be a great start, and if companies can’t, then they should be forced to cease operations (including AI chatbots).

I must have missed that bit in my 15-year Fundigelical Christian indoctrination. Must have been from the book where Peter and Simon the Magus have a wizard fight in the air.

Signal is based in California, but they’re a nonprofit.