The only reason aging can’t be reversed is because we don’t know how to do it, but that doesn’t mean that it is inherently impossible to achieve. The only things that are impossible to do are the ones that break the laws of physics.
I’m tired of not having a clear trajectory of where it will be in X amount of time and what industries it will impact, I’m studying CS and thought of it someday becoming an irrelevant degree is really disheartening and what’s worse is I’m not entirely sure what it means to be prepared if my fear is realized.
Well people don’t want to lose their jobs and their livelihood to automation, it is a scary prospect for many in the states where most people live paycheck to paycheck and cost of living keeps rising.
I think eventually we will reach a point where laws like the Online Safety Act become so prevalent that it is basically impossible to comply with all of them simultaneously and still have a unified internet across the globe. I wouldn’t be surprised if in 10 years or so every country has its own version of the internet only intended for their own people.
which might be the end goal - the internet, with freedom of communication, is a way that the plebs can organize and resist authoritarianism. And as countries are growing increasingly authoritarian (and i include UK here), they may be planning on preventing the old free internet that has enabled so much.
So as technologists here at HN, there needs to be a pre-emptive strike to prevent such an outcome from becoming successful. I would have said TOR, but for most people it's a non-starter. What other options are there?
I've said it for years and I'm sticking to it that you can't solve political "problems" (real or otherwise) with technology.
Not for the masses and not sustainabl,
It's always easier to have a paper say "do this" than finding a tech to circumvent it.
Politics is fundamentally people business and involves lots of people who can't or won't understand the details of what is going on but who may still be interested in the end results.
i also want believe the same, but i am increasingly disillusioned that there's a political process that is capable of reforming it - think about the fact that no one asked for these measures of censorship, but they keep creeping in, as though some vested interest has been pushing it through at every opportunity.
So the lack of ability to solve this politically has made technological solution the only out.
You can definitely create political problems with technology. Why can't technology have a role in solving political problems too?
The problem is when tech people try apply tech to political problems crudely, without understanding or without caring about the human aspect of it. You need sociologists and political scientists to study what impact a technology will actually have, and normal people to see how they feel about it, not just programmers who may incorrectly assume that e.g. designing an open and secure protocol will automatically and directly map to creating an open and secure society.
For example, in this case, the blunt approach is "How do we design a protocol that can't be censored/monitored?" The answer is TOR, which as parent comment noted, is socially a non-starter. But maybe a better approach could be, "How do we design a protocol which removes the incentives/makes it politically untenable for people to censor/monitor it?"
One way you might approach this is to create a system that's organically useless for bad actors. Clearly different platforms have different levels of "safe" and "awful", due to their structure. Could we design a platform with such strong prosocial incentives that authoritarians are not able to fearmonger about it?
Another approach could be to chain common citizen rights to authoritarian interests. For example, the US government cannot backdoor AES, because doing so would also compromise their own communciations. Can we make it so authoritarians are forced onto the same boat as us for our other communication technologies too, and therefore disincentivized from weakening our privacy because doing so would damage theirs too?
ActivityPub, ATProto, and blockchain could also be seen as technologies that are designed to create a social structure that incentivizes specific political outcomes, with varying degrees of success.
It's people business. So you design around questions like "Where is this technology going to put different types of people, and how are they going to feel about that?"
> So as technologists here at HN, there needs to be a pre-emptive strike to prevent such an outcome from becoming successful. I would have said TOR, but for most people it's a non-starter. What other options are there?
The option here is to stop trying to solve everything with tech when a lot of the time it's not viable and actively makes things worse. Start putting that time into the non-tech options. Not as fun though, is it?
Applications based on QUIC and/or P2P might be an option. QUIC is designed to not be as easy to filter as TCP + TLS. But then right now it can be blocked by just blocking UDP.
But if majority of the internet would use QUIC then blocking UDP would mean blocking most of the internet so the governments wouldn't be so eager do nationwide firewalls (hopefully).
Encrypted Client Hello is also a puzzle piece towards that - makes it much harder to kill TLS connections that are trying to reach specific websites. Also makes it easier to conceal proxies.
The adoption speed is critical, exactly because of what you're saying. It's easy for a wannabe authoritarian to make a decision to "just block all of ECH and QUIC traffic" if that breaks 0.8% of all traffic - but not if that breaks 80% of all traffic.
QUIC or any other technology still needs domain name and both the domain name ownership and DNS could be blocked by governments. Also IP could be blocked.
There is DNS over QUIC, and in case your current Connection ID or IP is blocked during the connection, QUIC can use multiple IPs and CIDs for single connection, and CIDs are negotiated in encrypted part of packet. It's a mechanism for migrating connection over changing networks. Servers can also take advantage of that.
Server could have multiple QUIC output nodes to migrate connection in case one of them is blocked. The output node network can be shared by many servers and DoQ endpoints so blocking it entirely would scare government.
This solution still needs to connect to some known IP in order to establish connection first. And the same goes for DoQ. To mitigate this we can use Encrypted Client Hello as other commenter mentioned and connect to a pool instead of single IP.
I am not talking man in the middle thing which DNS over QUIC solves, but lawfully telling the domain registrar to forcefully take over the domain. Also multiple IPs doesn't solve anything if all the IPs could be identified.
There is simply cutting all the wires that connect your guys to your enemy's guys. QUIC won't solve that. Protocols which hide routing information might, since then you can't tell where the right wires are.
Reticulum is interesting. It's basically flowing through all network interfaces available on the devices and routing data packets. Making it very easy to connect say lora and bluetooth to the global internet, even using i2p.
Yggdrasil is a decentralized mesh IPv6 network. It automatically forms one big network as more people connect together. It has end-to-end encryption, it's fast (unlike darknets), and it's pretty simple.
In such a "splinternet" scenario, it'd be a matter of setting up PTP links across borders. As long as a few people do so, it becomes one big network again.
Well, it's also what has enabled foreign nations to spread misinformation, what enabled people to disappear into their own bubbles filled with falsehoods, etc. Since these things are now tearing at the fabric of democracy, I wouldn't say it's a clean win for the internet so far.
We do still have limited entry and exit points to other Countries internets. You could end up with Great Firewalls across the globe if it got bad enough. It doesn’t deter VPNs though
> And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.
The actual great firewall deters VPNs. Western internet blocking tends to be weaker for some reason (cheaper?) but there's no reason they can't be just as effective if the political will was there.
> impossible to comply with all of them simultaneously and still have a unified internet
We'll have 2 kinds of apps and websites.
One will be super nice products that only work in your country and you can't use it to communicate with outside people.
The other kind will work worldwide but because they would be spending so much more on compliance their product would be a bare minimum ad riddled crap.
Without justifying the theft, isn't it weird that they get rid of cashiers at registers which would scan your items, and thus prevent theft, put computers in place and then rely on software to shift the burden of solving theft to the public?
How would that work? If they have video from a year ago that looks like a person pocketing some item, what good is that without them showing that the person actually had possession of the item after they left the store?
I've seen a lot of discovery in these criminal cases from Walmart. They do typically wait until the loss reaches a certain point before acting and then they will come with a mountain of photos and videos showing the offender picking up the items all the way to them leaving the store on each visit.
I remember one I saw where the guy was filling two shopping carts with laptops at each Walmart, each one so high he could barely see over them. Then pushing the two carts out through the tire shop area. Did this at multiple stores. Walmart only called the cops once it was over $60K estimated loss.
I don't recall ever seeing a Wally World where the laptop boxes are just out for the taking, not in a locked cabinet.
That being said, Target stores in Washington do something similar, as the threshold for felony theft is $1,000, they'll pull the trigger on LE / LP involvement if you hit that threshold over multiple events, and bring the receipts for the previous.
I _somewhat_ think that's ripe to be challenged on proving intent in the previous instances, but I also know that serial retail thieves are not likely to be the most sympathetic cause there.
I thought the same thing. I saw photos and videos. I couldn't see any security devices on any of the laptops, but they were piled high on both carts. I saw a spreadsheet Walmart provided of each theft (from a single offender) breaking down how many items were taken and what the total was on each theft. It was like $7000, $13000, $6000 etc etc. The offender got an offer of 6 years DOC, which is served at 50% in Illinois for non-violent. They should get an additional 6 months "good time" on top of that, so maximum 2.5 years. Bearing in mind they were selling the laptops for 50 cents on the dollar from what I understand, they probably took in maybe $30K cash for 2.5 years locked up. (also bear in mind their family will have to support them through this process with a lawyer, about $5K, and probably another $5-10K in commissary and phone calls)
It seems like a good lawyer should be able to win. Evidence that shows a person picking something up on camera and then leaving the store without paying for anything doesn't feel all that strong.
Yeah i feel like there are exact same pictures when i buy something, if you happen to leave out the pictures from when i was standing in line and at the checkout. you could totally make it look like i stole stuff.
I mean, you could, but when walmart sees you walking out the door, they'll go trace your entire route and keep the film off of each of the cameras from entrance to exit of the store.
In the end though, unless they stop you and find the merchandise or have you on video with the stuff outside of the store, there's no proof you stole anything. It's circumstantial which is relatively weak.
Plus, Walmart doesn't prosecute anybody. They hand the evidence over to the police and the the district attorney decides if they want to prosecute. Walmart can file a civil suit which I'm wondering if that's what they actually do. There (as I understand it), they only have to show that you likely stole something vs a criminal case where they have to show beyond reasonable doubt that you stole something. It's a much lower bar.
What Walmart can and does you at the time they file with the state is trespass you. Which counts for all Walmart stores and properties. That's where things like facial identification probably come back in so your caught the moment you walk in a store.
From much experience in this, I've never seen Walmart file a civil suit.
They don't technically prosecute anyone, but in the county where I was witness to prosecutions for Walmart shop-lifting they were putting a lot of pressure on the DA office. They would bring a ton of muscle, investigators, attorneys, print outs, DVDs, etc. They would push their prosecutions hard when they wanted to.
>Walmart works with policy makers and public safety officials to ensure we are providing a safe workspace for our associates and a safe, enjoyable shopping experience for our customers. The nature of retail crime varies across our stores and geographies, and includes complex organized retail crime. Walmart works closely with our trade associations to support efforts to pass laws (such as the Combatting Organized Retail Crime Act) that ensure these crimes incur meaningful penalties, and that law enforcement have resources to appropriately prosecute these crimes.
Needless to say the can help sway local elections based on how they push certain political figures.
If you are on video pushing a cart through the parking lot with the items clearly visible, that could be a pretty strong case.
If all they have is a dozen videos where it looks like you are shoving something in your pocket but no other hard evidence, that wouldn't go anywhere in court.
This is another example of the poor being punished harder. A desperate mother who steals repeatedly will reach felony levels and spend years in prison or face deportation, but a rich teen who steals for fun will stay below felony and get away Scott free.
WOW. Look, being in the country without "authorization" isn't even a crime. It's an administrative matter. Don't go implying that actions are somehow worse when someone who took the risk of moving to a new country does them as opposed to someone who won the birth lottery.
The act of entry without inspection is a misdemeanor crime under 8 U.S.C. § 1325. Repeat offenses can be felonies. It is just a civil violation if they have once entered with permission but lost it, e.g. a visa overstay or violation, adjustment denial, status expiration or revocation. So the Biden era catch-and-release rules created millions of such cases.
You missed the bigger point to focus on the technical inaccuracy:
> Don't go implying that actions are somehow worse when someone who took the risk of moving to a new country does them as opposed to someone who won the birth lottery.
ChatGPT is too nice/agreeable. I can’t trust any positive feedback it gives out because I can’t tell whether it is actually genuine feedback or if it’s just following an instruction not to be or seem rude. ChatGPT should be rude or at least unafraid to a challenge a point of view.
Believe me when I say that’s it is equally if not even more stressful to be unemployed and have nothing to lined up. It’ll feel great at first not having to work but you’ll be spending money without bringing anything in and sooner or later you’ll be needing to find a job in an unforgiving job market.
I would listen to your friends, stick it out until you find another job. In the mean time, try to make some changes like not working 10 hour days, maybe take a short leave of absence, etc… but quitting your job and not having another one lined up is almost always a mistake unless you a very large sum of money saved up or some other source of income.
Well there are lots of sites that are basically a compendium of tools like the ones you have and almost all of them are free to use. The one that comes to mind as being the best is CyberChef, but that was developed by a British intelligence agency.
I think the easiest way to increase revenue is to focus on SEO ranking and putting up more non-intrusive ads. You could also turn it into a phone and desktop app and charge people for offline access.
CyberChef has been around for many years now, which definitely helps. It also has no plans for monetization and runs entirely locally, so there's no chance of a 'rug pull'. It was a long journey to the current ~800k monthly users though. I suspect it was just time and place, as opposed to any technical reasons.
reply