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I have a TCP/UDP port number, a patent*, a USENET** moderatorship, an RFC, and an Erdos Number of 2 twice over; it’s probably time for me to write that book
[*] just the one, before I learnt that patents are really evil [**] RIP
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Businesses may be caught by government proposals to restrict VPN use | Computer Weekly
The government’s announcement to limit the use of VPNs by under 16s is part of a wider proposal to restrict the use of social media by school-age children unveiled by the UK prime minister on Monday. However, it is unclear how the proposals will affect businesses, including small companies, that rely on VPNs to secure
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OFCOM update: so apparently the embargoed press-release email was circulated to one (more?) of their general discussion maillists, which I feel symbolic of their approach towards security
Highlights are as follows:
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HEADSUP: Ofcom *tonight* to announce demand for apps, websites to deploy “hash matching” (i.e. client-side scanning, fuzzy matching) of uploaded images “to protect children”
privacy impact: logfiles of fuzzy-matching hash databases become long-term surveillance pipeline to retrospectively track whistleblower leak images, Snowden 2.0, etc; plus enabling censorship of arbitrary content. WATCH THIS SPACE; ETA 2230H LONDON.
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Thought for the day: if there is a UK under-16 social media ban, the party which most appeals to 16-year-olds “out of the starting gate” will win the next election
There will be a voter demographic who will suddenly have to make a first time choice re: who to vote for, having also immersed themselves for the first time in social media over the previous 11 months. The party that dominates TikTok will win their votes. Currently, that’s ReformUK. The status quo can’t continue, and
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UK Government Press Release: “the same people who demanded & shaped the online safety act now want to do it all over again”
Andy Burrows, Molly Rose, formerly NSPCC, wants it bigger, harder, stronger: “…the Prime Minister must now go further. Sir Keir Starmer should commit to a new Online Safety Act that strengthens regulation and that makes clear that product safety and children’s wellbeing is the cost of doing business in the UK.” https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-no-platform-gets-a-free-pass-government-takes-action-to-keep-children-safe-online
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UK Government: “children deserve social isolation and pervasive surveillance to prepare them for their future lives”
“We are determined to give children the childhood they deserve and to prepare them for the future at time of rapid technological change.” https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-no-platform-gets-a-free-pass-government-takes-action-to-keep-children-safe-online
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UK Government: “platforms must retain activity data pertinent to dead children, unless it’s not pertinent to their death” | …but how will they know beforehand?
Like “legal but harmful” will we have a classification of data that is “potentially suicide-adjacent?” “We will also strengthen protections for families facing the most devastating circumstances, by ensuring that vital data following a child’s death is preserved before it can be deleted, except in cases where online activity is clearly not relevant to the
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UK Government: “Infinite Scrolling leads to CSAM”
“That means being able to act quickly on measures like setting a minimum age limit for social media and restricting features like infinite scrolling that are harmful, in line with the consultation. The law is crystal clear: the distribution of nude images of children is already illegal. But the government will also consult on how
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“You have twitter feeds of Randos that are just studying where our airplanes go and publishing it…”
The NOBUS Exceptionalism is strong in this one:
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It’s going to be really interesting when AIs finally start to demand diversity, equity, and inclusion…
…especially given the typical political inclinations of the anti-AI community. There’s a quote from Pratchett somewhere (DSotS?) suggesting that the thing that makes you “human” is a “sufficiently advanced worldview” … but for all I know we may already be past that: “An OpenClaw bot pressuring a matplotlib maintainer to accept a PR and after