Daily Tech News 1 November 2021

• Constitution? Never heard of it. A closer look at the Department of Homeland Security's ongoing - and completely illegal - attempts to stamp out speech inconvenient to the government. (The Intercept)
  
  And the willing - eager - collaborators in big tech:

  "Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov't. It's really interesting how hesitant they remain," Microsoft executive Matt Masterson, a former DHS official, texted Jen Easterly, a DHS director, in February.

  Out of a cannon, directly into the Sun.

  In a March meeting, Laura Dehmlow, an FBI official, warned that the threat of subversive information on social media could undermine support for the U.S. government.

  Yes. That's the point. That's why you are forbidden to do precisely what you are doing.

  Dehmlow, according to notes of the discussion attended by senior executives from Twitter and JPMorgan Chase, stressed that "we need a media infrastructure that is held accountable."

  Laura is the agent who led the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story two years ago.
  
  

  FBI agent Laura Dehmlow was in communications w Facebook that led to the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020 over the false allegation that it was “disinfo.” This year, she met w/ Twitter/DHS to stress “we need a media infrastructure that is held accountable.” pic.twitter.com/17LqhEyMN0

  — Lee Fang (@lhfang) October 31, 2022

  
  
  

  In June, the same DHS advisory committee of CISA &nsash; which includes [former] Twitter head of legal policy, trust, and safety Vijaya Gadde and University of Washington professor Kate Starbird – drafted a report to the CISA director calling for an expansive role for the agency in shaping the "information ecosystem." The report called on the agency to closely monitor "social media platforms of all sizes, mainstream media, cable news, hyper partisan media, talk radio and other online resources." They argued that the agency needed to take steps to halt the "spread of false and misleading information," with a focus on information that undermines "key democratic institutions, such as the courts, or by other sectors such as the financial system, or public health measures."

  Two things come to mind:
  
  First, every single thing they want to do is illegal.
  
  Second, every one of the snip-happy censors mentioned here are women.
  
  
  
• Time to start properly furnishing the new house. Put some desks and chairs and stuff in my cart on the Ikea online store. Select delivery.
  
  Yeah, no, change of plans. I was going to furnish one room per month, but with a flat $600 delivery charge I think I'm going to do five rooms in one go. And make very sure I remember every minor item I might need. And buy spares.
  
  Have to keep reminding myself that a similar house in Sydney would have cost - well, at current interest rates, the difference in the mortgage payments would cover a weekly delivery from Ikea with money left over.

• Meanwhile in a move that is sure to irk the DHS Twitter has frozen most of its Bureau of Censorship and Intimidation out of the system. (Archive.ph / Bloomberg)
  
  Where normally hundreds of staff have free rein to bully, harass, and cancel users posting simple factual statements, that number has been reduced to... Fifteen.
  
  There's no noticeable difference, but the usual suspects are having a psychotic break.
  
  

  NEW: A wide swath of Twitter's trust & safety team had access to content moderation/enforcement tools frozen last week. Usually, hundreds of people on the team could remove posts w/misinfo, hate speech etc. It's now down to 15 people. Scoop w/@KurtWagner8 @daveyalba @EdLudlow

  — Jackie Davalos (@jackiedavalos1) November 1, 2022

  
  
  Oh no. You might be exposed to a difference of opinion.
  
  
  
• Hey, it worked on the GameCube. Worth a try, right?
  
  

  Ross Chastain hit the NOS button to make it to the championship over Denny @rubbinisracing pic.twitter.com/XyDBXyj5wD

  — Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) October 30, 2022

  
  
  That was literally the reasoning behind this maneuver. And it did in fact work.
  
  
  
• Those power adaptors for Nvidia's $1599 RTX 4090 are supposed to be rated for 300V. Some of them ain't. (WCCFTech)
  
  And the label showing the rating for each cable is neatly covered over by the tape holding the four incoming cables in place. And if you get the wrong one, it could melt the connector on the card.
  
  Don't buy a 4090 just yet. Probably don't buy any video card just yet.
  
  
  
• Crypto finance site Hodlnaut lost $190 million in the Terra stablecoin collapse - and lied about it. (Bloomberg)
  
  They weren't wiped out on the asset - they managed to dump it on the way down - but lying about their exposure has landed them in hot water with Singapore regulators.
  
  
  
• Netflix has bought Spry Fox, creator of neat little games like Triple Town and Alphabear. (VentureBeat)
  
  I don't know why. My bet is so they can ruin everything. We shall see.
  
  
  
• If you already bought an RTX 4090, good news:You can run Genshin Impact at 30fps. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  At a resolution of 13760x5760. Which used to be a lot.

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:15 AM

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