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4 votes
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Drop rates in Rocket League crates
9 votes -
The tragedy of the data commons
3 votes -
In order to cultivate an environment where the truth wins out in the end, you have to be biased against falsehoods
8 votes -
The Digital Computer: Where does it go from here? (1954)
2 votes -
Let’s all stop shaming moms for showing emotion
5 votes -
More recycling won't solve plastic pollution
11 votes -
From professor-in-waiting to florist: Why some PhDs are quitting academia for unconventional jobs
4 votes -
The man who exposed Vote Leave’s overspending was outed and asked to leave his job within days. But, after last week’s Electoral Commission verdict, he says he feels vindicated
14 votes -
User settings are now available for opening links in new tabs
Tildes has been open-source for about 4 days now, and there have already been a number of people diving in and making some great contributions. Thanks to Ivan Fonseca, we now have our first...
Tildes has been open-source for about 4 days now, and there have already been a number of people diving in and making some great contributions. Thanks to Ivan Fonseca, we now have our first feature update from an open-source contribution, and it's a heavily-requested one: you can now choose to have links open in a new tab.
This is split into two separate options, so there are two new checkboxes on your settings page under "Open links in new tabs":
- "Topic links to other websites" - this will make the external links (from link topics) open in new tabs
- "Links to text topics and comments" - this will make links to comment pages open in new tabs, both from clicking the title on text topics and the actual comments link
Please let me know if you notice any issues or unexpected behavior with it. There are multiple other open-source contributions in progress as well, so expect some more updates soon.
56 votes -
The big Sean Murray interview - Hello Games' founder on the remarkable journey of No Man's Sky
13 votes -
Earth's resources consumed in ever greater destructive volumes
6 votes -
The machine fired me
30 votes -
A new study should be the final nail for open-plan offices
15 votes -
Taking away the phones won’t solve our teenagers’ problems
19 votes -
Truth, disrupted
8 votes -
Why mainstream health organisations are finally starting to work with LGBTIQ+ women
2 votes -
Easy, homemade alternative to store-bought protein bars
Thought I would share this simple recipe for protein bars I've been making for the last year or so. I used to spend something like $50-$60 per/mo. on the store-bought kind so these have saved me a...
Thought I would share this simple recipe for protein bars I've been making for the last year or so. I used to spend something like $50-$60 per/mo. on the store-bought kind so these have saved me a good bit of $. Bonus points for taking, at most, 10 minutes to put together.
- 1 1/2 cups old fashioned oats
- 1 scoop vanilla whey protein powder (chocolate also tastes good)
- 3/4 cup natural peanut butter
- 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips
- 2 tbs. almond milk
Mix together and mold into bars or roll into balls, and refrigerate for 30-40 mins before eating. Each batch makes about 6 bars or 12 balls.
19 votes -
What are your expectations and hopes for Tildes in the future?
Personally, I hope it takes over Reddit’s role of being primarily for discussion and a place to congregate interesting content, staying away from the more mainstream-y aspects, like the redesign....
Personally, I hope it takes over Reddit’s role of being primarily for discussion and a place to congregate interesting content, staying away from the more mainstream-y aspects, like the redesign. What do you expect/hope for?
36 votes -
Muse - Something Human [New Release]
3 votes -
This album documents the lasting impact of Sudan on African music
4 votes -
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admits platform not a place for 'nuanced discussion' as top New York Times reporter quits after abuse
28 votes -
New DNA animations by wehi.tv for science-art exhibition
5 votes -
Sam Harris Waking Up #133 - Globalism on the brink
2 votes -
The Nearest, a new short story by Greg Egan
5 votes -
Any HDTGM listeners?
Yo! Where’re my balcony monsters at? If you listen to the How Did This Get Made podcast, what’d you think of the Blues Brothers 2000 podcast from Friday?
3 votes -
Ask a music critic: Will Phish ever make the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame?
5 votes -
The authors who love Amazon
6 votes -
Been off for a month...what did I miss?
I've gone through more tough shit over the last month. What juicy drama and or changes did I miss?
20 votes -
Do you care about illegal government surveillance?
Government agencies around the world continue to run a dragnet on a large amount of communications, most of which is sent under the expectation of having a private conversation and yet the vast...
Government agencies around the world continue to run a dragnet on a large amount of communications, most of which is sent under the expectation of having a private conversation and yet the vast majority of the public seems apathetic to the issue. Why is this? Is it because of an underlying cynicism and belief that you can’t do anything to stop them? Is it because you don’t care and are using the “I have nothing to hide” argument? Do you think that it is too much work to protect yourself? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I hope that we can at least talk about it and maybe I can even convince you to care if you’re willing to hear me out.
First, lets take a look at what these agencies actually do. There are many to pick from such as the CIA, FBI, MI6, MI5, the NSA, GCHQ, and FSB just to name a few. Their goals are pretty much the same as far as intrusive espionage goes. They all want to gather as much data as possible in hopes of finding political dissenters and protest groups, information on powerful leaders from other governments (usually with a strong potential for blackmail) and terrorists (although they rarely ever find them). Like many tyrannical practices before them, it is done under the guise of national security. This is because people are usually willing to sacrifice their freedoms for more (perceived) security. It is important to note that these agencies do not solely operate domestically. They are global threats and their reach extends far further than you may think. Just because you live in the EU does not mean you are safe from their reach.
Does it sound like I’m exaggerating here? It can’t be that bad can it?
Well, lets look at the facts. We don’t know that much about these agencies but what we do know is absolutely terrifying. Whistleblowers like Edward Snowden have shown us that their technology is being used for far more than just hunting terrorists. In fact, the NSA and GCHQ have essentially been running a dragnet on the entire world. Here is an article on the GCHQ showing how they hacked the cell phones of foreign politicians attending the G20 summit in 2009. They did not discriminate, they simply tapped everybody so they could read their texts and listen in on their calls to see whats going on. Here is a similar story where the NSA collected phone calls of Verizon subscribers, only this time they weren’t looking at politicans and suspects, they were either spying on you or people like you. The more recent Vault 7 and 8 leaks showed that the CIA was engaging in similar practices such as developing tools to send information from Smart TVs. Using a code that was written and gifted to the CIA by the UK’s MI5. Even the FBI, a domestic federal police agency has been given the go ahead to hack any computer in the world. Here is some evidence of when they hacked over 8,000 computers in 120 countries using only one warrant (given by a US judge which is NOT valid in any other part of the world) during a child pornography investigation.
But they’re targeting criminals right? I have nothing to be worried about.
First of all, that is the same rhetoric being used by the Chinese Government as they continue to develop facial recognition technology (currently being used to take pictures of jaywalkers and post them on billboards), their social credit system and mandatory surveillance apps on the phones of their citizens. All in effort of building a surveillance state.
This has also not been the case historically. The two biggest enemies of the FBI in the 1960s was the Civil Rights movement and the Anti-War movement. The former article touches on the wiretaps placed on Martin Luther King Jr by the FBI, but its also important to note that they also sent him a death threat as well. The latter link is about the program that targeted both groups. Some modern day examples include the FBI’s survellance of PETA and Greenpeace as well as the NSA and GCHQ’s probe into humanitarian groups such as UNICEF. I also encourage you to read this post written by a redditor about what it is like to live in a surveillance state.
Ever since 9/11, the motto of US intelligence agencies and many others around the world who feared the same threats was “never again”. Never again would they let an atrocity like 9/11 take place. They would do whatever it took to prevent another disaster from happening and so they introduced the PATRIOT act in congress. This 2,000 page act appeared less than a month after the attacks, and was passed with an overwhelming amount of support. As Michael Moore showed in his mockumentary film Fahrenheit 9/11, a member of congress has openly admitted to not having read the bill as well as many of his colleagues. Concerning parts of this act can be found in here.
Now lets take a quick look at what happened in 2002. DARPA created a division of US government called the Information Awareness Office, now if that sounds Orwellian than just take one look at their logo. One year later in 2003 this organization started the Total Information Awareness Program which was described as a "Manhattan Project for Counter-Terrorism". The scope of this program was massive for the time and Senator Ron Wyden called it "biggest surveillance program in the history of the United States”. Sounds pretty creepy right? Yea, the American public thought so too, so DARPA responded in a brilliant stroke of genius to rename the program to Terrorism Information Awareness and suddenly nobody cared about being watched.
Okay, but I’m fine with them spying on me as long it helps them to thwart terror attacks.
Have you seen the news lately? The terror attacks that these practices are supposed to prevent still occur. There has yet to be one documented attack that has been prevented by any of these programs and I will prove to you why. During Edward Snowden’s tenure at the NSA, the Boston Marathon bombings happened.
Here we are in 2013 and the second biggest terror attack since 9/11 has occurred. Snowden watched the events unfold on the news while sitting in the NSA’s break room. He made a remark to his colleagues saying that he would bet anything that we already knew about the bombers, and that they had slipped through the cracks with nothing that could be done to stop them. Turns out he was right Russia had warned both the FBI and the CIA about the older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev but when the FBI investigated they found nothing. As Snowden so eloquently put it, “when you collect everything, you understand nothing”. Not only are these practices morally wrong, they are also ineffective.
One year later in 2014, Snowden decided to leak everything. He objected to the American and British government’s warrantless surveillance and decided that the public had a right to know what was happening. Among the numerous startling documents, he revealed a program called XKEYSCORE. This program works as a sort of search engine for intelligence agencies. Analysts with access to the system will search for keywords like BOMB and PRESIDENT or DONALD TRUMP. It will then give them a list of unsecured text messages, emails, social media posts and so on. In fact just by writing this, I will likely show up among one of these searches.
Okay, so if they are targeting everybody in the name of safety and they aren’t effective at keeping everybody safe, then why the hell are they still doing it?!
One word: power. Just imagine the things you could do if you had access to everyone’s texts, emails, Facebook posts, bank records, as well as the legal and technical means to gain root access to any of the billions of devices in the world. Sounds pretty impressive right? Unfortunately for us, it all comes at our expense and without taking the proper steps, our lives are not private in the eyes of the government. After all, you wouldn't let a stranger go through your phone, so why would you let a government?
I hope this information has been helpful to those of you who are either learning about this for the first time or getting a reminder on the extent of these invasive practices. I hope that you will reconsider the repercussions of these practices and maybe take steps to protect yourself. If there is any interest then I will post a part 2 later with things you can do to minimize this data collection. Its not as hard as you might think!
For those of you who are still not convinced that governments are a threat to your personal privacy, please drop a comment below so we can get a discussion going.
By the way, anyone who is interested in their privacy is likely under heightened surveillance due to interests in anonymity and security software.
25 votes -
How to initiate account recovery process?
So, my latest friend has already forgotten password (that's what you get for not using a password manager sniff). He says he setup a recovery account, but I'm not sure if the email to be sent...
So, my latest friend has already forgotten password (that's what you get for not using a password manager sniff). He says he setup a recovery account, but I'm not sure if the email to be sent should be in any particular format. Has anybody tried account recovery process? How can we do this?
10 votes -
Original Apollo 11 Guidance Computer (AGC) source code for the command and lunar modules
16 votes -
I would like a points feature like reddit karma.
It will be really helpful for the front pag.e
6 votes -
Tilders who work out, what inspired you to start?
can be strength training, weightloss, cardio, whatever
17 votes -
Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan's 115th Dream (1965)
4 votes -
Dungeons & Dragons helped me appreciate narrative game design
9 votes -
What if you detonated a nuclear bomb in the Marianas Trench?
7 votes -
Global pilot shortage hits Australia, with cancelled regional routes just the beginning
5 votes -
Sleep science: In the era of screens, rest is crucial
8 votes -
Steve Bannon plans foundation to fuel far right in Europe
17 votes -
Why are lakes and rivers in the Canadian Rocky Mountains so brilliantly turquoise blue?
5 votes -
Rockstar is a dynamically-typed Turing-complete programming language, designed for creating computer programs that are also song lyrics
11 votes -
Why the transhumanist movement needs socialism
7 votes -
Disenchantment | Official trailer
14 votes -
How do you listen to music?
Primarily I use spotify premium since I am a student and get the sweet sweet $5 discount. I also tend to by vinyl records of albums that I have been listening to a lot so that I can help the...
Primarily I use spotify premium since I am a student and get the sweet sweet $5 discount. I also tend to by vinyl records of albums that I have been listening to a lot so that I can help the musician/band. It's pretty nice because most vinyl comes with a digital download, so I can have a pretty high quality version on my computer. What clients do you use to stream music? Do you buy music? What do you think is the best way of obtaining music that is not pirating?
24 votes -
File sharing over a network
Me and my friend arrive at an arbitrary place, we have access to a network from there. Now, we want to share a file and the network connection is all we have. The challenge: make the file go from...
Me and my friend arrive at an arbitrary place, we have access to a network from there. Now, we want to share a file and the network connection is all we have. The challenge: make the file go from my device to my friends device in a pure p2p setting. If you know, for sure, that incoming connections are allowed this is very simple but here i want to explore which solutions exist that do not assume this.
Assumptions:
- Same network altough possibly different access points (one might be wired and the other wireless)
- We have no prior knowledge about the network, incoming traffic might be blocked (outgoing isn't for sure)
- No extra machines can aid in the transaction (no hole punching etc)
- Should work reliably for any kind of device that you have free -- as in freedom -- control over. that is PCs, android phones/tablets and macs. most of Apple's other hardware can be excluded because they don't allow for anything anyway.
- hard mode: We are both digitally illiterate
Goal:
- Send a file, p2p, from one party to another.
Me (MSc cs) and my friend (PhD cs) tried to do this last week. And it appears to be among the hardest problems in CS. I would like to discuss this and hear which solutions you might have for this problem.
Edits:
- this is not an assignment
- Added some specifics to the assumption set
- we're looking for practical solutions here.
- more specs
10 votes -
German astronaut performs live with Kraftwerk from the International Space Station
12 votes -
Lawsuit says migrants were subjected to dirty detention facilities, bad food and water
15 votes -
The AskHistorians subreddit banned Holocaust deniers, and Facebook should too
22 votes -
The new gilded age–Income inequality in the U.S. by state, metropolitan area, and county
14 votes