Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

"The earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses." –Utah Phillips

Explore the Burning Planet Reading List and get 40% off these books and more with coupon code LIST until 10/1. See them all at https://blog.pmpress.org/2023/09/04/starting-fires-reading-list-titles-for-troublemakers-40-off/

The name of the website is "Big Think." The article is about people being locked up for missing court dates for parking tickets. This causes problems not only for the unfortunate people who get jailed, but also for the municipalities that have to pay for their incarceration. The Big Thinkers say the easy fix is to send reminders to people. What the Big Thinkers don't think to suggest is that maybe we STOP LOCKING PEOPLE UP for missing court dates for parking tickets. 🤦‍♂️

https://bigthink.com/the-present/nudges-failure-to-appear/

with our latest regular contribution from a #CooperativeComputer user member, we've now reached an awesome milestone, where we're covering our hardware costs 🎉

That means our next signups will start going towards the routine maintenance to keep the #OpenSource services running, and from there we'll start being able to afford further work to expand the technology stack, and the democratic processes of the #Cooperative project.

–3wc

Let us never forget how successful our humanitarian interventions have been. Truly, there is no problem in some other country that a little bombing can't fix...humanitarian bombing, mind you.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/africa-niger-coup/

Interesting, according to the Nat'l tax calculator, I'd get about $45/week back from what I currently pay. Under the Green's I'd get $3/wk. But my family'd also get free dental & we'd take tangible action to improve sustainability, protect the environment, honour te Tiriti, improve equity, raise the most desperate, prioritise active travel, invest in rail & renewable energy, & maybe stop prioritising corporations over people. Seems worth $42/week.

In my experience, gov't wants to minimise (what they perceive, myopically, as) risk and always insist on 'COTS' (Commercial Off The Shelf) systems... so vendors like SAP, Oracle, et al. sell "COTS" which requires substantial 'customisation', which is really just code. Lots of it. From a small selection of 'authorized' configurers, who cost a bomb... so it's bespoke, but gov't thinks it's bought COTS. Ugh.

The car industry is even worse for your privacy than the worst tech company -- and that's because the worst behavior of the tech industry is embedded in every car. This report from @mozilla is what Consumer Reports should have done years ago -- and it is infuriating. https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/

@dragestil @lightweight I have never seen local or state governments not get completely fleeced by the SAPs and Oracles of the world.

I assume all the elected officials who sign off have been bribed because there is no other explanation for those contracts getting approved.

But I don’t think I’ve ever seen any in-depth reporting about these situations.

Oklahoma State University's partnership with the right-wing propaganda outfit Prager"U" is disgraceful for the (real) university, and it tarnishes every new graduate. If I was hiring people, I'd regard an OSU degree as a red flag after this. https://kfor.com/news/local/osde-announces-partnership-with-prageru/

Small scoop here: In November 2022, the password manager service LastPass disclosed a breach in which hackers stole password vaults containing both encrypted and plaintext data for more than 25 million users. Since then, a steady trickle of six-figure cryptocurrency heists targeting security-conscious people throughout the tech industry has led some security experts to conclude that crooks likely have succeeded at cracking open some of the stolen LastPass vaults.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2023/09/experts-fear-crooks-are-cracking-keys-stolen-in-lastpass-breach/

From the story:

"...the researchers learned the attackers frequently grouped together victims by sending their cryptocurrencies to the same destination crypto wallet.

By identifying points of overlap in these destination addresses, the researchers were then able to track down and interview new victims. For example, the researchers said their methodology identified a recent multi-million dollar crypto heist victim as an employee at Chainalysis, a blockchain analysis firm that works closely with law enforcement agencies to help track down cybercriminals and money launderers.

Chainalysis confirmed that the employee had suffered a high-dollar cryptocurrency heist late last month, but otherwise declined to comment for this story."

And there it is, the lead sponsor of the Kids Online Safety Act saying the quiet part out loud: she wants to use #KOSA to "protect minor children from the #transgender in this culture" https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/senator-appears-suggest-bipartisan-bill-will-censor-transgender-conten-rcna103479

The best way to disable this is to use a different browser…
https://www.theverge.com/23860050/chrome-ads-topics-sandbox

Apropos of 60 RICO charges…

I recently published a piece on PragerU, an unaccredited school registered as a nonprofit, which is behind controversial right-wing propaganda videos recently approved for Florida schools.

I looked at hundreds of 990s to identify the largest recent funders of PragerU and how they are spending their money (Facebook, Google)

The Oklahoma Dept of Education just announced a partnership with PragerU - they are spreading.

https://kfor.com/news/local/osde-announces-partnership-with-prageru/

#PragerU #PragerUniversity

https://newstracs.com/financial-highlights-of-prageru-the-nonprofit-behind-controversial-right-wing-propaganda-videos-recently-approved-for-florida-schools/2023/08/21/

In the absence of strong political leadership there is growing public momentum to address the elephant in the room of continual growth and profit on a planet with biological limits. Degrowth Aotearoa NZ are holding a conference later this month to bring a diverse range of people into the room. We are stronger together. Come join the conversation! https://www.degrowth.nz

Court (thankfully) rules that anti-vaxxer has no innate right to push his lies on YouTube if Google doesn't want them there. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/09/anti-vaccine-advocate-mercola-loses-lawsuit-over-youtube-channel-removal/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

https://blog.erlend.sh/group-convergence

Stubborn holdouts of the increasingly off-putting Twitter/X and Reddit commonly point out how their open source alternatives don't really offer any cool new features.

You know what will never happen? Twitter and Reddit being in direct, seamless interaction with one another. With groups FEP-1b12, #mastodon #Lemmy & friends are at the precipice of a brand new social networking experience defined by app symbiosis.

Friendship is the “killer feature” of the #fediverse! 👯

Montana has passed one of the nation’s most protective consumer genetic privacy laws—the Genetic Information Privacy Act. Could this law and the state’s bipartisan approach become a model for the rest of the country? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/08/montanas-new-genetic-privacy-law-caps-ten-years-innovative-state-privacy

Although the two RICO cases represent rival factions of the political class, the same grand jury that indicted Donald Trump is responsible for indicting those accused of "racketeering" for protesting Cop City. The court system is the central infrastructure of state violence; however Democrats may endeavor to represent it as a check on the aspirations of autocrats, it naturally lends itself to all forms of repression targeting the oppressed, and that is the chief role that it will always play.

This is not the first time that corporations and police have frivolously used RICO charges to intimidate those who oppose their power grabs. For example, from 2016 to 2019, the company behind the Dakota Access pipeline brought RICO charges against the nonprofit organization Greenpeace. All of those charges were eventually thrown out.

For more background on how the authorities are using the legal system to try to crush environmental protest:

https://crimethinc.com/AtlantaSolidarity2023