Grumble4681's recent activity
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Comment on Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month in ~tech
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Comment on Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month in ~tech
Grumble4681 (edited )Link ParentIn the quoted part of the parent comment I was responding to, there is no explicit mention that compressed photos aren't being sent. It says does not permanently store video selfies first. So if...Can you explain what this looks like? Any sufficiently detailed description sounds like a compressed photo to me, and they're explicitly not sending those.
In the quoted part of the parent comment I was responding to, there is no explicit mention that compressed photos aren't being sent.
Privacy-protecting process. Discord and k-ID do not permanently store personal identity documents or users’ video selfies.
It says does not permanently store video selfies first. So if you were to stop here, then it's only ruling out the original video taken. Now let's keep going to see what else is ruled out.
Images of a user's identity documents and ID match selfies are deleted directly after their age group is confirmed
This could be read as "Images of....ID match selfies are deleted directly after" which would include images of the selfie process or it could be read as "ID match selfies are deleted directly after", which the latter could simply only be reinforcing the first sentence that video selfies won't be kept, says nothing about any still images of the selfie process. The images part of this statement is only explicitly clear that its referring to identity documents, not the selfie.
and the video selfie used for facial age estimation never leaves their device
Again, only reinforces that the video itself never leaves the device.
Furthermore, what it looks like even if you completely remove the idea that they may take still frames from the video, it looks a lot like how LLMs reproduce text that they were trained on, but supposedly none of that is copies of the original information. How can an LLM produce images of Will Smith or anyone else, but they don't hold any actual copyrighted data? How can any facial matching system match your face to other images of you? Because they can break your face down into data points and then compare the data points. Or think of the technology that some companies were using to try to assist law enforcement by using genetic material and other factors to generate an image of what a potential suspect or missing person might look like, and while I wouldn't say many of those were accurate, they were working on many assumptions and less specific material. The point of mentioning that is more so that it's something companies have already done, attempt to reconstruct someone's face and what they look like with technology based on various data points.
Fully collecting everyone's personal data isn't something every company does. Discord isn't Facebook. What are the incentives to lie and deal with storing this data?
Discord may not have any incentive, even if you assume they have no incentive, this doesn't account for the other parties they are contracting. Even if you assume none of them have any incentive, mistakes happen, malicious actors exist. If Discord wants to personally back the whole process they can guarantee me a couple million dollar payout and then everyone else each their own million dollar payouts and that is prioritized above all other debt or payments owed by Discord to other entities if it doesn't work the way they say it works, and I'm sure their investors, their insurance company etc. will lose their minds over that type of guarantee because they will be all but assured to lose money. That's how you know it's bullshit, if all the people behind it have to put their money where their mouth is, they would all go running for the hills.
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Comment on Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month in ~tech
Grumble4681 Link ParentI'm saying that LLMs are warping their minds and causing serious harm, up to and including death. Notably when I said billionaires and their toys being the greatest predators to children, I did...I'm saying that LLMs are warping their minds and causing serious harm, up to and including death. Notably when I said billionaires and their toys being the greatest predators to children, I did not say sexual predators.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_linked_to_chatbots
Just as an example and starting point of what I mean, and I think it's going to get much worse. And those are just the known cases enough to put on Wikipedia. There are obviously going to be more than just the known cases. Then expand that to social media platforms and you can't easily quantify the harm caused because often the harm caused through social media has another person on the other end, so you can say it's not the platform it's the person, but the platforms are carefully constructed in ways to create certain forms of contact between people for engagement, so I won't give them that leeway.
That's not to discount the harm caused by protoypical child sexual predators, but the scale at which that harm is happening is completely dwarfed by the scale at which billionaires and their reach extends. Hundreds of millions, possibly billions of people, are impacted by those 3,279 billionaires. Of course I don't actually exclude hundred millionaires or such either, and some billionaires like Bezo's ex-wife aren't the prototypical psychopath billionaire either, so I don't really care about the exact specific number of people, billionaire is more of a stand-in for extremely rich assholes who use their wealth to exert power over others.
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Comment on Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month in ~tech
Grumble4681 Link ParentIt seems to me that possibly the greatest predators to children are billionaires and their toys. The scale of harm done already and that will be done just by LLM alone I can only imagine, social...It seems to me that possibly the greatest predators to children are billionaires and their toys. The scale of harm done already and that will be done just by LLM alone I can only imagine, social media and various content algorithms even ignoring unrestrained communication between prototypical child sexual predators. Societies and cultures growing more distant and ever more dependent on tech billionaires platforms, I can think of no greater threat to children and adults alike.
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Comment on Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month in ~tech
Grumble4681 (edited )Link ParentNotably, that wording also doesn't specify more that no data at all about the 'video selfies' is transmitted, just that the video itself doesn't leave the device. This leaves room for them to...Succinct and direct promise to users that they will delete images of identity documents and ID match selfies. I'll grant you that it specifies "Discord and k-ID", which does leave some leeway to argue they never promised the same of third party vendors. They also don't use the word "immediately" or any language to specify when it would be deleted. Which is arguably just as bad, because that bullet point in their statement implies an explicit promise that they'll secure our privacy while leaving Discord leeway to avoid or minimize accountability precisely in cases like this.
Notably, that wording also doesn't specify more that no data at all about the 'video selfies' is transmitted, just that the video itself doesn't leave the device. This leaves room for them to create data points about your face from the video, send those data points, and then reconstruct your face from those data points. I have seen other wording mentioned in other articles that supposedly is more specific that no data will be transmitted other than the approximate age the on-device detection comes up with, but that requires more time and expertise for people to dive into all the various policies involved to determine what exactly is covered and what is left for interpretation.
Even then, policies are one thing, actualities and consequences are another thing. They can say they won't transmit anything but that doesn't mean it's actually true, and as we've become incredibly familiar with in the past 10 years or so, the consequences for lying and harming others are basically so little as to be none at all.
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Comment on Elon Musk says SpaceX will prioritize a city on the moon instead of a colony on Mars in ~space
Grumble4681 LinkI found this quote at the end to be particularly interesting. Humans haven't needed to exist on another surface other than Earth's for many thousands of years, but now he's essentially saying the...I found this quote at the end to be particularly interesting.
“The overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the Moon is faster,” he wrote.
Humans haven't needed to exist on another surface other than Earth's for many thousands of years, but now he's essentially saying the future is so uncertain (in large part due to the people he and other billionaires have funded to prominent positions throughout the world) that to secure human civilization as fast as possible, he needed to switch gears and go to the Moon instead.
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Comment on Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month in ~tech
Grumble4681 Link ParentDidn't you just say the reason in the prior comment? So if humans are infamously bad at security, and they still have the same system that puts the infamously bad humans in a place to fuck up...Essentially, I don’t see a reason why that would not be a one-off.
Didn't you just say the reason in the prior comment?
But falling back to customer support means customer support needs the documents, and that is an opportunity for data to leak, since humans are infamously bad at security.
So if humans are infamously bad at security, and they still have the same system that puts the infamously bad humans in a place to fuck up their security, then why wouldn't it happen again?
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Comment on Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month in ~tech
Grumble4681 Link ParentI'm concerned it won't stop there. I wonder who is responsible for determining when a server is 'adult' oriented and what the criteria are? What are the consequences for mislabeling a server as...I'm concerned it won't stop there. I wonder who is responsible for determining when a server is 'adult' oriented and what the criteria are? What are the consequences for mislabeling a server as not adult oriented if Discord later determines it is? Point being that I could see this being similar to reddit or any other hierarchy situation where people at the very top dictate the terms and everyone underneath them has to carry them out even if the way of carrying them out is nonsense. It could be every discord server owner just labels their server as 'adult' to avoid onerous rules or consequences, or perhaps Discord will only just tag a server as adult oriented if it finds them not to be, so then no one is pressured to switch their server over because the worst that can happen is what they would have had to do anyhow. But I suspect that Discord may have to do more than that, because then it's an easy way to bombard their system by spinning up servers not tagged as for 'adult' content and so anyone can view them and it's on Discord to tag them all.
When will it be the case that the criteria where something is 'teen' friendly is a server without profanity or certain levels of violent content etc? Think about movies or video game ratings, where someone decides if you're 16 you can't play GTA or watch a certain movie or such. What is going to make Discord immune from the pressure to apply some arbitrary bullshit rules once they have an identity verification system?
I don't expect any servers that I'm part of would qualify under 'adult' content as they've laid out in this post, so I'll possibly keep using Discord, but I surely hope there's a decent alternative because I don't have any intention of letting them store my facial characteristics in their database somewhere or my ID where the information can get leaked out and be used for any other purposes.
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Comment on Voyager Technologies CEO says space data center cooling problem still needs to be solved in ~space
Grumble4681 Link ParentI would think this is not really a move they would do unless it's very serious due to space debris.I would think this is not really a move they would do unless it's very serious due to space debris.
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Comment on SpaceX is acquiring xAI in ~space
Grumble4681 Link ParentIt was very clearly obvious to me already, just to provide some feedback.I was being ironic, and probably should have made my tone a bit more obvious.
It was very clearly obvious to me already, just to provide some feedback.
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Comment on I'm back in ~talk
Grumble4681 Link ParentRight, I think a more developed, more customizable Tildes base that allows others to spin up their own site just like old forums used to be would be excellent. Tildes.net as it is currently has a...Right, I think a more developed, more customizable Tildes base that allows others to spin up their own site just like old forums used to be would be excellent. Tildes.net as it is currently has a great community for a generalist board, while there's probably more of certain types of people than others (like I think there's more techy people here than if you compared to the whole userbase of reddit for example), it's not really geared towards anything specific. Probably in part because the only moderator is Deimos and not actively moderating for a specific subject matter.
I don't think Tildes as it currently exists is adequately developed to handle larger userbases anyhow. Respect and major props to Deimos for getting Tildes where it is already as it's still substantially better than reddit at its base level (comments not bumping posts in reddit is the worst design ever), and then major props to Bauke and talklittle for carrying on the torch in whatever capacity they are, as all of these people are doing so without any significant remuneration.
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Comment on Microsoft has killed widgets six times. Here's why they keep coming back. in ~tech
Grumble4681 Link ParentNow this sounds interesting. In premise, where I could find widgets useful is where I have found them useful on my phone, quick ways to access self-hosted services and automation devices. So...Now this sounds interesting. In premise, where I could find widgets useful is where I have found them useful on my phone, quick ways to access self-hosted services and automation devices. So whether I have Home Assistant set up, or I want to quickly add something to Sonarr/Radarr to download it, those would be things I could imagine widgets on my PC being useful for, maybe. Currently I just have bookmarks to those self-hosted services and I can just log in through a web page and do what I need, if my Sonarr/Radarr setup was better maybe I could trust a widget that just adds the movie/tv show and it auto searches but my setup is garbage and I end up manually selecting files through the web interfaces so the widget wouldn't necessarily be particularly helpful with my current setup.
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Comment on Microsoft has killed widgets six times. Here's why they keep coming back. in ~tech
Grumble4681 Link ParentWhat I read is: Widgets: For when you can't do literally anything else. OR Widgets: Better than twiddling your thumbs.What I read is:
Widgets: For when you can't do literally anything else.
OR
Widgets: Better than twiddling your thumbs.
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Comment on I need a sanity check from security experts (opening ports on the router) in ~tech
Grumble4681 (edited )LinkJust as a disclaimer, I'm not a professional expert in this field. It's worth noting that in Tailscale's own documentation, they advise forwarding ports in certain situations. Tailscale is not...Just as a disclaimer, I'm not a professional expert in this field.
It's worth noting that in Tailscale's own documentation, they advise forwarding ports in certain situations. Tailscale is not guaranteed to be able to overcome all network setups to allow for it to make direct connections without port forwarding.
Generally this forwarding they advise is NAT-PMP or UPnP because it allows the tailscale clients to control the ports needed. That itself isn't necessarily a security issue but one thing many would find to be a security issue in that setup is using NAT-PMP or UPnP often allows for any devices on the network to manage open ports on the firewall appliance. In the event the firewall appliance has more specific controls, like only certain vlans have this ability and you place one device in this privileged vlan, still any software on this device running in this privileged area can take advantage of it. There may be a way on some OSes to limit what applications can control UPnP or such but I'm not sure.
So beyond the issues of NAT-PMP or UPnP allowing anything to manage open ports, in order for Tailscale to make connections, a device in the chain needs open ports. Tailscale's intermediate servers serve this function by default. The way I see it, if their software is secure enough on their server, it's probably secure enough on my device if I needed to open a port for it. Obviously there are some differences, they may have better update practices than what someone running the client software does on their own device for example.
In an ideal setup, I would say fixed port forwarding would not be needed and not optimal. Instead, firewalls would have more adaptable configurations where certain applications can be utilized to configure dynamic firewall rules that only allow certain ports from specific IP addresses or such. So even when a port is opened, only your intended connections can bypass the firewall on that specific port. I believe that I had read before Tailscale was working towards something like this on opnsense but I can't find the source for that now.
However you can see their documentation on this mentions NAT-PMP right now.
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Comment on SpaceX is acquiring xAI in ~space
Grumble4681 Link ParentYeah I find it quite hard to believe running this type of operation in space to be viable. The impression I get more is that Elon wants to monopolize space, like the space in Earth's orbit, and...Yeah I find it quite hard to believe running this type of operation in space to be viable. The impression I get more is that Elon wants to monopolize space, like the space in Earth's orbit, and this is a justification for that. Yes I know the Earth is huge and there's a lot of orbital space around Earth, but because of the nature of wireless signals and managing wireless signals, managing objects in space and managing launches to get into space and so on, the more stuff there is in space, the harder it will be for other people to launch more stuff into space. The early entrants into utilizing space in Earth's orbit will be able to make claims against latecomers that more stuff in orbit is too dangerous, or harms their interests etc.
At that point it doesn't really even matter if the data center idea is a dud, if you want approval to get your stuff into space, you might have to pay Elon for the privilege.
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Comment on SpaceX is acquiring xAI in ~space
Grumble4681 Link ParentWasn't X already private? My understanding was that having xAI acquire X was to give it access to the investment money xAI was getting. It's not like there was much demand from private investors...Twitter was hemmorhaging money and buying it with xAI took Twitter private instead of public.
Wasn't X already private? My understanding was that having xAI acquire X was to give it access to the investment money xAI was getting. It's not like there was much demand from private investors to invest in X, and they didn't have other significant revenue coming in, so that was the easiest way for Musk to keep it going.
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Comment on Wired vs. wireless mouse and keyboard? in ~tech
Grumble4681 (edited )LinkI've used a wireless mouse for probably at least a decade at this point if not more, and I do remember far enough back that it was a concern but by the time I switched it was not a big concern...I've used a wireless mouse for probably at least a decade at this point if not more, and I do remember far enough back that it was a concern but by the time I switched it was not a big concern anymore it seemed. I've had basically no issues with a wireless mouse in any games I've played or any other scenarios.
I have a friend who only more recently switched off a wired mouse to wireless, like in the last 5 years, and he was happy to be rid of the wires and mentioned no issues with the wireless mouse in this time, and he also plays plenty of games.
The differences between the mouse he had and the mouse I was using is that I used a mouse with double A batteries and I'd use rechargeable ones, and my batteries lasted quite a while, on the order of at least a month or longer, and he bought a mouse that had a built in rechargeable battery and required plugging it in to charge, so he found the mouse not to be usable in that interim but he could get a usable enough charge in 5-10 minutes or so, but even at full charge I'm pretty sure his mouse didn't last near as long as mine. I don't know what mouse he was using, I had a G602 originally but I broke it somehow and replaced it with a G305. I also have an M720. Those are all Logitech models. Worth noting that the M720 is a hybrid where it can work with a 2.4ghz usb receiver but also does Bluetooth, and the other models were purely using 2.4ghz usb receivers and I consider the 2.4ghz receiver to be superior. In my experience however, where I placed the USB receiver did seem to impact the performance of the mouse, but my memory is kind of hazy on this. I try to avoid putting the receiver on the back of my desktop PC where there is the most obstructions as it did seem to produce intermittent issues there but that could be a thing of the past or just a coincidence or something too.
I'm guessing I'm probably the outlier on preferring a AA battery, the mouse is heavier which doesn't impact me any but I guess others prefer lighter mice and AA battery management may be more of an inconvenience to some.
As for keyboards, I just don't move my keyboard around much so I generally haven't been bothered enough to need a wireless keyboard. There have been occasions where the wire annoyed me but it's just much rarer where I need to move the keyboard to even notice the wire limiting it or getting in the way. If the prices were equivalent I'd probably do a wireless keyboard just for the sake of convenience in certain occasions, but since wireless keyboards typically cost more I just haven't felt like spending more to buy one. From what I gather, these days it also seems wireless keyboard performance wouldn't be an issue, so that wouldn't be a concern for me.
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Comment on List animals until failure in ~games
Grumble4681 (edited )LinkI got 44 on my first try, but I kinda want to try again. Some specific things I noticed about how it works If you list general types of animals, then list a more specific type, it will sometimes...I got 44 on my first try, but I kinda want to try again.
Some specific things I noticed about how it works
If you list general types of animals, then list a more specific type, it will sometimes strike out the general one and then give you credit for the specific one. For example, I put in monkey, then later i typed chimp and it didn't erase monkey, but then after i put in baboon and it did strike out monkey. I also put in snake, and then put in boa constrictor and rattlesnake, and neither of those got the original snake crossed out.Also, it will take extinct species of animals too.
44 animals listed
🐩😺🦬𓃰🦝𓃱𓃬🐅🐻🐺🦫🐍🦎𓆉🐳🦈🦈𓃻🦓🐎🐦🐦🐦⬛🦜🐦🐀🐁🦅🐦⬛🧑🌾🦖🦕Notably, some don't have emojis and don't use general stand-ins, possibly explains why snake didn't get canceled out, boa constrictor and rattlesnake were guessed after the birds but before mouse/rat and there's not even a general snake emoji for them
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Comment on Winter storm across the US in photos in ~enviro
Grumble4681 (edited )Link ParentCan possibly use adguard DNS (or set up your own adblocking DNS like pihole) to adblock, it won't be nearly as good as ublock origin but it would potentially improve the experience while still...Can possibly use adguard DNS (or set up your own adblocking DNS like pihole) to adblock, it won't be nearly as good as ublock origin but it would potentially improve the experience while still using Chrome, at least for some sites. Could make the experience worse in other scenarios though.
I remember when using pi-hole to block ads, I would get a decent amount of things that would just not work right. I don't remember specific situations, but I would somewhat often have to log into the interface and tell it to stop blocking some domains just to get a web page or app to load. I've not used the adguard DNS so it could be a bit different of an experience but from what I've read it still has some similar problems.
It's personally why I don't bother setting it up for people I know because I think it introduces some technical overhead. For someone who isn't willing to switch browsers, I doubt the complications that could arise from DNS adblocking would be acceptable either.
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Comment on You are being misled about renewable energy technology in ~enviro
Grumble4681 Link ParentWell I don't recall that he dived too deep into the economic comparisons between solar and wind, I think his main argument is that solar paired with batteries is cheaper than anything else, which...Well I don't recall that he dived too deep into the economic comparisons between solar and wind, I think his main argument is that solar paired with batteries is cheaper than anything else, which I assume must mean that it's cheaper than wind-powered electric generation if that claim is to be believed. So while he acknowledged wind, he didn't really do so in a way as though it was a significant factor to complement solar. He did mention that wind can be used in different scenarios, including that it can share the land with crops in a way that solar can't necessarily at the moment, but he didn't seem to make a claim that it was essential to the grid. That is if you believe him that solar and batteries are already at a point where they can cover all grid demands then wind-powered electric generation wouldn't be needed.
I'm sure he would acquiesce that there could be certain areas where solar is far less reliable than wind that it makes sense, but I think he was just talking more big picture generalities than saying it covers 100% of all possible scenarios ever.
I find the distinction to be somewhat meaningless. Whether your data gets leaked in that pipeline because you proactively engaged with it or not, Discord is barring you from using their platform unless you risk your identity being leaked by them or their contracted partners. Even if I agree with the free market notion that they can do what they want and it's their right to bar whoever they want for whatever reason, it doesn't make them immune from criticism. Even if only a small portion of users end up in that scenario, all users who care about their privacy and identity are well within reason to criticize the process even if they're fortunate enough to not be subjected to it.