EU referendum are you in or out

[Absolute_Zero]

Vince would be ex-leader by then, which will be a pity as he has the cred and experience. Swinson seems most likely the next LD leader.

[edit] perhaps the roles could be separated.

Meanwhile: Boris, when did you stop beating your mistress?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... nsons-home

[gilesgoat]

… Ending up with Facebook and Google becoming the new Tyrell corp ?

They only need a microchip/tattoo that you'll wear on the hand or on the forehead to let you buy and sell ( via Libra automatic identification login ) and we are done ...

[edit] It was just "a lightly misinterpretation" of the whole story. "The androids" is us, they ( the corporations ) feed on our data and feeds us data, we are the 'new' ( or just plainly very old ) slaves as we always and ever been. "What gives us power" ( some tech ) ultimately enslaves us more than we can imagine, our lives no longer belong fully to us, only partially.

https://theconversation.com/blade-runne ... ture-84973

The book where your TV watches you was 1984. That's the horrifically prescient one, CCTV on the streets is here already, your refridgerator knowing how much food you have left is something that's coming fast if not already here, and the spooks won't allow strong encryption, so privacy is becoming illegal.

- refidgerator that knows your food, what you eat, can even blame/suggest you a better diet/food, can order it for you already exists

- encryption story, already here, 'if NSA can't open it it's ILLEGAL and we come after you'

- question about 'it's privacy about to become illegal' .. some are trying to get there too

- cameras and AIs that watched you all time and does 'predictions' about you, already here

- algorithms that effectively 'tries to do what precrime does in Minority Report', already in place, since quite a while

- predicting / influencing / at all effects 'partially programming' your life .. already in place since quite a while

But the worrying is .. 'all this wants more and more from all of us', it's still not/never enough 'what they already have' we are not slave enough, the richer are still not rich enough, the most powerful still don't have power enough.

At least there's still one power that - for now - nobody seems to have, power over death .. there was an old saying 'if life could be bought all richest would be immortal' .. they are not there yet ..

We'll see if time will come they'll start harvesting in some way 'poorer people' for life .. that will be .. 'the definitive end' .. (*) if we exclude organs trafficking of course I mean literally 'stealing life to make yours longer'.

[KlaxonCow]

The dumb thing is seeing folks like Amber Rudd complaining about end-to-end encryption.

BUT THEY ARE EXACTLY THE REASON WHY IT'S HAPPENING!!

The Internet used to be more than content with plain text protocols and just sticking an SSL certificate over important stuff like providing payment details to online shops.

But then we discover - thank you, Mr. Snowdon - that the NSA and GCHQ and others were just trawling up all the data. All of it. Everywhere.

There are consequences to your actions. If they'd stuck to focused surveillance on actual suspects, under court order, and that sort of thing - proper policing action - then the Internet would still not care for encryption.

And the reason for the moves towards end-to-end encryption are also the fault of governments.

Because they start banging on the doors of folks like Apple: "here, decrypt this phone for us". Here's some more phones. Decrypt them for us. Heck, here's thousands of phones.

We expect you to set up a whole department that does nothing but decrypt phones for us, at your expense. We're effectively recruiting you as an unofficial police force, working for us. We own you. Do this or else.

Well, no. Just no. This is all kinds of wrong.

First of all, these are corporations. Not branches of government.

From Apple's perspective, why the fuck should they be paying out of their own pocket for the world's policing?

Particularly when, for fuck's sake, the actual police force is slowly getting butchered towards non-existence by "austerity" cuts.

They're sacking the actual police, while trying to recruit Apple, Google, Facebook, etc. to effectively become their own little "unofficial police force" for them. At their own expense.

And, second, this is a terrible idea because do you want actual trained police / intelligence officers tracking down terrorists and organised criminals, or do you want Mark Zuckerberg - who has zero fucking training, nor any interest, in any of this - doing it for you?

They're sacking the police and then trying to force, by law, these tech companies - who have no fucking training nor experience in policing matters - to do it all for them, at their own expense, as a private unofficial police force.

And where's the legal oversight? Where's the equivalent of the "police complaints commission" to investigate abuses and mistakes?

By this new order of "policing on the cheap", how do we ensure corruption doesn't get into the system?

Mark Zuckerberg is forced to look through Bill Gates' emails and he finds something dodgy. Ah, Bill's my mate, though. Time to press "delete" there and not tell anyone. Hmm, it'd be nice not to have the HTC Vive as our competition. Oh, look, I've magically found some fake "incriminating evidence" in the emails of the bloke who runs them. Here you are, government. Arrest this guy for me. Thanks.

It's not just on the cheap. It's a dirty little secret on the side. Brown envelopes full of money, folks choosing to look the other way, "special rules" about not examining and flagging up the dodgy little secrets of their rich friends, etc.

This is dodgy as fuck. I think the tech companies are absolutely 100% in the right for their effective refusal to comply with any of this.

And end-to-end encryption is really quite a clever way to do it. The NSA show up with some phones: "Here, decrypt this for us". And Apple can 100% legitimately say "Sorry, not possible. We don't own the keys either. We can't help you, even if we wanted to. Which we don't want to, by the way".

Governments have been acting like twats. Trawling with mass data surveillance.

Well, sorry, you reap what you sow. You fucked this up. You broke the law - because, you know, none of this mass surveillance is actually at all legal, by the way - and destroyed everyone's trust.

And now you're screaming "Waaah, no fair!" that you're facing the consequences of your own actions, which is that EVERYONE wants to encrypt absolutely everything to keep you cunts out of their private affairs.

Fuck you. Behave like decent human beings and folks might want to play ball with you. Focus your efforts on your actual fucking job - dealing with threats like terrorism and crime - and stop mass-trawling to compile "dossiers" on absolutely everyone, because you've got a massive hard-on for all the power and control you wield. Cue manic evil laughter.

Because, come on, we're not entirely stupid. Mass surveillance is pretty fucking useless for detecting terrorists. Because there's so much data involved that there's no possible way to scour it all, but by automation. Only a machine can process that much data. And current AI ain't good enough - it's far too piss easy to fool a machine. Simple "code words" would fool it totally. Just say "ice cream" instead of "bomb" in your terrorist planning. Computers can barely comprehend English sentences as they are, that a simple substitution code would sail right past any automated searching.

Bollocks. This is the worst possible way for "finding terrorists". And as you're the supposed experts then we have to assume that you also know damn well that this is the case.

What's mass surveillance good for? Ah, well, if you reverse the search, then it's perfect for that.

You grab all the data. Then you put everything that comes from my IP address into a little dossier. Right, now I decide to run for election against you. Or I become leader of some political campaign against you. You want to target me to shut me up.

Okay, pull up all the files on this IP address. Ah, right. He was looking at pornography at this time. Oh, there's a text here where he's flirting with a married woman. His wife'll be interested in that one.

That's what mass surveillance is brilliant for. Compiling a nice list of way to threaten and bribe someone into shutting the fuck up. "Back down, or your wife sees this" or "if you don't pull out of this election, then we'll send the press this information".

Mass surveillance on the scale of trawling the entire Internet is perfectly useless for catching terrorists and criminals - not least because, obviously, if it were any good, then the terrorists and criminals would STOP USING THE INTERNET, as they keep getting caught, so even it did work (which it doesn't) then it would very rapidly stop working soon after anyway - but it's absolutely 100% perfect for controlling people. Building "dossiers" on everyone that can be used when required, to knock out an opponent or a thorn in their side.

So, you know, ignore the rhetoric and, instead, look at their actual actions. People can lie with their words, but their actions will always give them away.

They fucked up, got caught with their trousers down and are now complaining that the world is conspiring to not let them continue getting away with their illegal power mad bullshit anymore.

Cry me a fucking river. Woe is you.

It's pointless anyway. Because even if all these companies are forced to comply, then there's no practical way to stop someone simply pre-encrypting their message beforehand anyway.

Let's say I want to send my terrorist plans. I encrypt my message before I even put it on Facebook Messenger or whatever, and then the person on the other end has the decryption keys.

You can do "end-to-end encryption" manually. Encrypt it on your end, decrypt it on the other end. Then it's completely irrelevant what happens in the middle - it cannot be mathematically broken without the key. Indeed, as you're a terrorist / criminal, then you're already intent on breaking the law, so fuck what the government says about strength of encryption - whack it right up to the maximum, making it totally impossible to crack.

Here's an alternative plan. Stop cutting police budgets and actually have properly trained officers that can actually target terrorists / criminals directly, through proper policing methods, under court supervision with proper legal oversight, which actually honours Clause 39 of the Magna Carta:

No free man is to be arrested, or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any other way ruined, nor will we go against him or send against him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

The entire basis of our legal system, basically.

How about doing that, perhaps? You know, doing your job properly, as you're supposed to. Per what officially you've been hired by the people to do in the first place, you twats.

[Harlequin]

At least there's still one power that - for now - nobody seems to have, power over death .. there was an old saying 'if life could be bought all richest would be immortal' .. they are not there yet ..

I think there is considerable evidence that wealth tends to extend life. Just look at the royal family.

We'll see if time will come they'll start harvesting in some way 'poorer people' for life .. that will be .. 'the definitive end' .. (*) if we exclude organs trafficking of course I mean literally 'stealing life to make yours longer'.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... -concludes

[KlaxonCow]

Vince would be ex-leader by then, which will be a pity as he has the cred and experience. Swinson seems most likely the next LD leader.

Yeah, good point, well made.

You're right - by the time any hypothetical General Election eventually happens, it wouldn't be Vince at the top of the Lib Dems anymore, because he's declared his intent to leave already.

[F-ZeroOne]

Only a machine can process that much data. And current AI ain't good enough - it's far too piss easy to fool a machine. Simple "code words" would fool it totally. Just say "ice cream" instead of "bomb" in your terrorist planning.

This isn't really relevant to anything, but I can't resist highlighting your choice of codeword as well as what its actually referring to here, as the original electro-mechanical devices developed by the Polish to help break the Enigma code before World War II were called "bombes" - and one of the possible origins of the name is a type of ice cream dessert... [1]

[1] Like many things in history, theres more than one story about the name - another possibility is that they were named after the clicking sounds they made in operation, supposedly sounding like the workings of a timebombs mechanism.

[KlaxonCow]

Been reading some interesting things recently.

They did a poll of Welsh opinion and independence has never rated so highly - if I recall correctly, it was pushing 40% which is significant as it's never been more than a blip fringe opinion but 40% is only a stone's throw away from soon becoming the majority opinion.

And the fact that, previously, it's never been on the radar was why, in my earlier discussions of how Brexit could well end the UK and dismantle the Union, I mentioned Scotland - as that one now seems, barring unforeseen events, an inevitability and I mentioned Ireland - but with some hesitation because, you know, you must hesitate to make any predictions on a powder keg situation because who knows how and when they could potentially blow - but didn't really say anything about Wales, simply because, historically, there was nothing much to be said.

But this polling changes that, and there has actually been open talk of Welsh independence, even from the Labour First Minister - and Welsh independence has absolutely never been Labour party policy. Not that he's advocating for it himself, but that he can no longer pretend that the elephant is not in the room anymore.

And the hesitation over talk of Irish reunification - just because, historically, one has to rationally hesitate over such a prediction, having past through times where the notion was fully inconceivable - has also proved understatement, because there has been increasing serious talk about such things.

Basically, what I'm getting at was that, it turns out, I was being more optimistic than I thought I was, in making that doom-and-gloom prediction way back, as the numbers and opinions being voiced are greater than expectation. I thought I was delivering the "worst case scenario" and then reality's actually already beginning to exceed my hesitations.

I picked up some of this from reading a Guardian article on the subject, which was a bit of a "call to arms" that we needed to do something to save the Union against all this - but it left off with a statement that one has to historically agree with.

It would be a shame to lose what's arguably the planet's best lasting example of political union.

And for it to be lost for such fundamentally silly reasons - as, even in this 11th hour, the Tories are still fighting this as an internal battle. Hunt, making his pitch to the BBC, talked of bringing in the DUP, the ERG, Welsh and Scottish conservatives into the Brexit discussion.

Wait, what? Only conservatives? Not, like, absolutely everyone? At the 11th hour and it's still, to them, just more Tory in-fighting? When we're already past the original deadline and, realistically, have close to sod all chance of doing anything useful before the new long-extended deadline that the EU granted us to sort our heads out.

Oh, for fuck's sake. And that's the saner of the two remaining candidates, as the other one is Boris.

We're fucked. My earlier tongue-in-cheek "let's decide what the new post-Scotland Union flag will be" joking is rapidly becoming reality - and the observation that if you remove the Scottish Saltire and the Irish Saltire, all you've basically got is the St. George cross is more pertinent. "Little England" will have its new Union flag. And, simply, it's just the English flag.

(And how long until, hey, we're considering compromising even that - as the Cornish and Cumbrians decide to reconnect with their Celtic, rather than English, aspect and the numbers for their Independence start rising to significant serious numbers too?)

The irony must be noted. The full name of the Tories is "the Conservative and Unionist Party" - but, yeah, the often dropped "Unionist" part of their name is to become a big joke, when their in-fighting, and their fear of the mythical "straight banana" that's never existed, seemingly will end up being the death of that Union their name claims they defend.

[zip accident]

The irony must be noted. The full name of the Tories is "the Conservative and Unionist Party"

I strongly suspect the union in that is with Ireland.

[merman]

So we have yet another working group being established to look at the backstop and solutions to the Irish border problem...

And Hunt and Boris, the two candidates for PM who *still* don't understand what's going on.
Hunt doesn't want to break up the Union and claims that the 31st of October is a "fake deadline".
Boris is saying "do or die, Britain will leave on the 31st of October" while continuing to spread myths about GATT and No Deal.
Both say they will get the EU to negotiate again.

THERE IS NO RE-NEGOTIATION.
Either the Withdrawal Agreement AS IT STANDS passes Parliament
Or we revoke Article 50 and try again - but no-one is sane enough to push that as an option

[VNVObit]

The irony must be noted. The full name of the Tories is "the Conservative and Unionist Party"

I strongly suspect the union in that is with Ireland.

Only when it suits them and they need the votes. Tories are aping the Brexit Party or the English Sinn Fein (roughly translates as Ourselves Alone) party (from Fintan O’Toole’s book on brexit )

[zip accident]

The irony must be noted. The full name of the Tories is "the Conservative and Unionist Party"

I strongly suspect the union in that is with Ireland.

Only when it suits them and they need the votes. Tories are aping the Brexit Party or the English Sinn Fein (roughly translates as Ourselves Alone) party (from Fintan O’Toole’s book on brexit )

I checked Wikipedia after posting, it seems it was from a breakaway Liberal group called the Liberal Unionists (against Irish self rule) who then merged with the Tories, in the late 1800s.

[KlaxonCow]

When someone, such as Boris, says "do or die", please remember that the second option they're offering there is "die".

[Dio]

His strategy is now explicitly "May's deal or no deal" because he has no time to do anything else.

[Harlequin]

His strategy is now explicitly "May's deal or no deal" because he has no time to do anything else.

Such a dramatic swerve away from the approach of the current leader.

[rowan]

His strategy is now explicitly "May's deal or no deal" because he has no time to do anything else.

Such a dramatic swerve away from the approach of the current leader.

Looking at the leadership contest, they'll probably all go for it just because it's him & not May.

I'm just so sick of every-bloody-thing to do with their party.