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ArmchairAce1944

@ ArmchairAce1944 @lemmy.ca

Posts
5
Comments
247
Joined
4 mo. ago

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • I use DosBox to play MS-DOS games that I played as a kid, those didn't ask you to enter any credentials whatsoever. I guess they're illegal now.

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • Pretty much.

    I don't understand how anyone cannot see that this level of privacy destruction basically invalidates all other freedoms. Anonymity and the ability to be anonymous is absolutely critical in many factors. I didn't realize this as a kid because A: I was autistic, B: people constantly mislead me in many ways (deliberately or accidentally) that made me fail to understand its value until it was too late, and C: In many situations where I grew up they made a point that privacy was not something to be valued... and like point B, I didn't learn how fucked up that was until I was an adult and heard other perspectives.

    I will use this one example to illustrate: grades. You know when you are in school and doing a test everyone is graded on their exams and submissions. As a kid where I grew up there was no privacy or expectation of privacy on what grade you got. They would post people's names and the grades they got quite openly or announce who got what in class. If you were a straight A student, everyone knew it, if you were a struggling student, everyone knew that, too.

    But then I immigrated to Canada and I started university here (not my first degree, BTW), and when I was talking to people in class about their grades after our first paper, many were like 'mind your own fucking business, dweeb!' and I didn't understand why. This wasn't a piece of information anyone kept private. Even when I was watching early online media reviewers (in this case it was AtopTheFourthWall by Linkara, a comic book reviewer on YouTube) who mocked a part of a comic where students had their grades posted and said that he, as a 90s kid, knew that would not happen since lawsuits would have ensued in his school if they made grades that publicly available.

    Then I suddenly started remembering some of the bullying I got as a kid over my grades, with some (much older and not in my class kids) would yell at me and demand to know what my average was... I didn't know what they were talking about, but no matter what answer I gave, they would explode in mocking laughter.

    Shit like that made me realize in retrospect the importance of having a lot of information secret is critical, even if that shit isn't illegal or even particularly embarassing. What you know vs. what other people know is absolutely critical in being able to get ahead in life, stay out of trouble, or just survive.

    To give you another example: I was stalked as a teenager (a teenage boy stalked by 18+ teenage boys... yes, it happens, and it is exactly as weird as you think it is). My stalkers were really, really aggressive in following me around and watching me. While you can make the argument that they all lived fairly close to where I lived and as such the chances of running into one another was higher, you have to understand that a shitload of other kids also lived nearby and none of them bothered me. Meaning these people were actively stalking and actively spending time in paths and places that I went through on a daily basis. This was in the late 90s and the internet was non-existent, so it was 100% offline.

    One of the stalkers had a car and would frequently drive up to me and shout HEY at the top of his voice. As an autistic person I need to tell you that when I hear loud noises like that I immediately turn to look. It is an involuntary reaction on my part, and one that my parents insisted was 100% on me and all I had to do was simply not respond and they would respect that and go away (yeah right). He would also honk his horn and do other shit to get my attention. Sometimes he would insult me, other times he would demand I get in his car, other times he would ask me where I was going and what I was doing. Every time he saw me carrying something, he would offer me a ride.

    He knew EXACTLY where I would be and where I was going at the exact time of day. I was going to college prep classes and I would return by a shuttle taxi thing (not a shuttle bus. The taxi driver drove a regular car, but he drove on a set route at certain times, it got me close enough home so I used it) he would always be waiting at the spot where I get off.

    After a full year of increasingly aggressive stalking. The guy got a gang of his friends and they drove around my apartment building on a weekend just waiting for me to leave, they would drive around the block and throw rocks, bottles, and other crap they found along the way and sometimes drive swerving the car like a maniac and while blaring his horn and hollering insults at me. They just wouldn't let up. They literally spent the entire damn day doing this. The first thing thrown at me (and the only thing that actually hit me) was an empty cassette tape box at around 9 AM that day, and by 10 PM (yes, over 13 hours!) they were STILL in the neighborhood doing this. My parents sent me on a late night errand to the store to get some stuff and it was at this point that those guys just parked their car and walked into a secluded parking lot.

    You might say, surely you knew this was a trap, right? Yes I did, and I willingly walked into it knowing it was a trap. Why? Because I goddamn furious and really, REALLY pissed off. This is someone who I knew nothing about, never initiated a single interaction, never said hello to him, never tried to get his attention first, never bothered to notice him before he noticed me, didn't know his name, didn't know anything about him. The only thing is that the first time I saw him at a gym (or more specifically, the staircase in the building where the gym was. He blocked my path the moment he saw me and didn't let me continue while he was just babbling nonsense loudly and aggressively to his friend behind him who was just glaring at me the whole time... and he would interrupt my workouts in the gym to talk about how tough he was and tell me that I wasn't something that I can fuck with. This is even though I had no fucking clue who this person was) is that it was an endless, relentless tirade of the most aggressive stalking I had ever seen or heard of in my entire life.

    The guy and his gang, total of four people, just stomped me, kicked me, spit on me dragged me by my leg, threatened to kill me, talked about him being 'the head of the mafia' like I believed him (I didn't believe him, but he legit believed I believed him), and it all culminated with him saying 'we're friends right? Give me a hug my brother, give me a hug' and he hugged me in a way creepier than it sounds written here. They had ripped my shirt, broken a necklace my grandmother gave me, and all in all made me never want to leave my home ever again. I was 16 at the time, and I first saw the fucker when I was 14. Given that he was driving a car in a country where you need to be at least 18 to get a learner's permit the guy was an adult the whole time.

    There is even more details to go on with this. But here is the thing. During the entire time, the guy knew who I was, where I was living, my movements and the timing of my movements, where I went to shop, where I went to do any activity I wanted and at what times.

    You might ask... didn't you go to the police after? The answer is I did. I had to throw an all-night temper tantrum to get my parents to take me to a police station, this is because my parents didn't think what was happening was a big deal and I should just forget it and go to bed, telling me 'it is just like in school. He's comfortably in bed, why are you angry?'. To this day my father insists that I was just 'pointlessly angry at a young man driving his car' fully ignoring everything.

    So when I went to the police... well, it was kinda pointless. I told them only about the assault, because I didn't know that everything else he was doing was a crime. I also had no details whatsoever on him other than a vague general description. No name, no precise whereabouts, I didn't even note his car's license plate number. I had NOTHING to give.

    Meanwhile, as I said, the other guy and his gang knew almost everything about me. They knew the apartment building I was living in, but they did not know what floor or what apartment number I was in. If they did know it I guarantee you, they would be waiting at the door next time and probably playing ding dong ditch at 2 AM. I should mention that the building had no locks on the entry and no security cameras and no security whatsoever, meaning there would be nothing to stop them from doing that if they chose.

    The cops did send a car to patrol the area where most of this shit happened, and that was actually enough to scare the fuckers into hiding. But they were never apprehended.

    Shit like this is one of the many reasons why I understand the power of information and why being able to remain hidden is critical. That guy was a chickenshit motherfucker, but what would happen if they were competent? What if any IDs I was forced to give online are leaked and someone used them to fake my identity and do crime? Or worse yet. What if the government decides that the shit I wrote or said when it was legal is not cool when they ban it and they want to send me to jail for it?

    It is not a world I want to live in.

  • Assault charges dropped against Ontario man who confronted home intruder

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  • Ugh! No if that's your basis then no!

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • While they are stupid, they are aware of what they are doing. There is no way all of this is happening without a clear agenda.

    And that agenda is the destruction of all social change and democracy. They basically want to make the internet even more stripmalled than it already is. Barring people from any online service unless it is 100% approved by them and also collect information on everyone and everything around them.

    One thing this is making me realize is just what a good thing we had. I remember people told me in the past (even early-mid 2000s) that anonymity on the internet is a myth. While kinda true even then, I had no fucking idea just how little these people would know about you and your online activities in the past. Even without a VPN and all the cookies and shit it is remarkable how much anonymity you actually had.

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • Selective enforcement. Basically if they want to do shit to you they will prosecute you, otherwise they won't bother.

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • They will make exceptions for themselves. Like how none of the laws passed in the UK apply to the military, politicians, and police. Even for their own personal use.

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • They don't care. They want your face, retina, fingerprints, DNA. All for their LLMs and so they can sell you something else.

    Also to blackmail you later if they think they can or just feel like it... because they will put all that shit on an insecure server and some 13 year old hacker in Turkmenistan will leak it and make a killing (literally and figuratively) with it.

  • An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

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  • France considers grapheneOS to be a sign of illegal activites. I am going to be spending the weekend working my new Pixel 10 on grapheneOS. I realize that some apps won't work and I need to find workarounds for others but like Linux Mint on my desktop and laptop I will get used to it and make it do all I want it to do anyway.

  • The "video game preservation service" Myrient is shutting down in March

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  • I never heard of them now but video game preservation is as important as film or music preservation.

  • PC Gaming @lemmy.ca
    ArmchairAce1944 @lemmy.ca

    An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

    www.pcgamer.com /software/operating-systems/a-new-california-law-says-all-operating-systems-including-linux-need-to-have-some-form-of-age-verification-at-account-setup/
  • Privacy @lemmy.ml
    ArmchairAce1944 @lemmy.ca

    An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

    www.pcgamer.com /software/operating-systems/a-new-california-law-says-all-operating-systems-including-linux-need-to-have-some-form-of-age-verification-at-account-setup/
  • Technology @lemmy.world
    ArmchairAce1944 @lemmy.ca

    An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

    www.pcgamer.com /software/operating-systems/a-new-california-law-says-all-operating-systems-including-linux-need-to-have-some-form-of-age-verification-at-account-setup/
  • Linux @lemmy.ml
    ArmchairAce1944 @lemmy.ca

    An upcoming California law requires operating system providers to enforce basic mandatory age verification

    www.pcgamer.com /software/operating-systems/a-new-california-law-says-all-operating-systems-including-linux-need-to-have-some-form-of-age-verification-at-account-setup/

  • Assault charges dropped against Ontario man who confronted home intruder

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  • Can you elaborate on how that is the case in Mexico?

  • Assault charges dropped against Ontario man who confronted home intruder

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  • Good. Self defense is not a crime nor should it be. And yes I am aware that many people don't understand what self defense means on a legal level, they can fuck off.

  • Officer who shared racist, extremist posts still working with Hamilton police after investigation

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  • I voted for Carney last election. I wish I would have voted NDP or communist just to have a clear conscience. He is a slave to money and those who protect money and nothing else. He does not care for Canadian sovereignty in so far as companies just want Canada to remain nominally independent to maintain their current interests. If it served their interests better for Canada to be annexed by the US He would just be a more articulate PP.

  • ‘We need to act’ on men’s health, minister says as government seeks feedback - National | Globalnews.ca

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  • This.

    Also we need a real way of countering incel propaganda and bullshit. Many young men are going into shit like this for decades without a single program to help them and steer them away from it. The polytechnique shooter in 1989 was a proto-incel before incels were a movement, and since then they have been producing more and more mass murderers and other criminals and all fueled by grifters profiting off this shit.

    So many problems and so far only cuts to vital infrastructure and laws that violate people's privacy and well-being instead of actual help.

  • ‘We need to act’ on men’s health, minister says as government seeks feedback - National | Globalnews.ca

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  • I'd rather them throw money at this than the stupidly failed gun buybacks and bans that have yet to produce a single positive result (and instead have been a money sink for decades).

  • ‘We need to act’ on men’s health, minister says as government seeks feedback - National | Globalnews.ca

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  • The problem is much older than toxic social media.

  • One hundred accounts are behind the majority of conspiracy theory content in Canada

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  • And yet restrictions need to be passed on everyone instead of those obviously responsible for it.

  • New York sues Valve for 'letting children and adults illegally gamble' with loot boxes

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  • Gambling is pointless.

  • Some Grocery Items Have Increased Dramatically In Price Since Last Year. 'This is Unprecedented Inflation,' Experts Say.

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  • What about cocoa beans? The price of chocolate has nearly doubled. At least those of no name chocolate bars.

  • Think of the children

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  • It shouldn't be a Trojan horse... more of a APC at this point given how obvious they are being.

  • Privacy @lemmy.ml
    ArmchairAce1944 @lemmy.ca

    Non-connected MP3/MP4 players