The Data Center Water Crisis Isn’t Real https://alecmuffett.com/article/136738 #AndyMasley #DataCentre #water

The BBC has no choice but to teach Trump a lesson about free speech | …fascinated to wonder if @arusbridger supports @4chan conversely doing similar to @ofcom https://alecmuffett.com/article/136915 #4chan #FreeSpeech #GraniteAct #bbc #censorship #ofcom #trump

maybe it's just my inner anarchist punk but "theft" is just not the thing about AI that pisses me off i'm a thousand times more concerned about, say, face surveillance or the use of machine learning for automated decision making in health care than I am about spicy autocomplete trained on my music

BREAKING: filings in both the US House & Senate to resolve towards disapproving/opposing (e.g.) Ofcom’s demands to differentiate 4Chan’s user base & implement age-walling for Britons/everyone https://alecmuffett.com/article/136614

The coming war against local LLMs will be wrapped, as ever, in a choice between Child Protection and Anti-Terrorism https://alecmuffett.com/article/136530 #ComputerHistory #censorship #llm #surveillance

Mullvad: “The [EU] lost the Chat Control 2.0 battle […in] 2026, they will be back with their next attempt: Going Dark. This time some EU member states want to include VPN services” https://alecmuffett.com/article/136499 #ChatControl #censorship #surveillance #vpns

Whistleblowers raise ‘extreme’ concern about security of government’s Digital ID | ITV News https://alecmuffett.com/article/136503 #DigitalId #IdCards #OneLogin

I look forward to reports of user uptake over time.

This historical document will help with some of your understanding but I did some stuff which is only starting to be more well known in the community nowadays, and I know it's flaky as shit. Such determinations are a signal, not a reliable fact. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...

I am both a network & software engineer, and speaking as someone who did this for Facebook: Beyond IP-address & AS-number reputation databases, automated identification of VPN & proxy users is a subjective black art that frequently risks disconnecting millions of users via false positives.

Not to mention that Louisiana is blowing in the opposite direction: alecmuffett.com/article/136112

Just to observe: it's far far worse than you suggest because vpns are nothing magical. They are literally embedded into every device as a capability and trivial to set up. They're not ban-able, and can be set up by volunteers quite trivially: alecmuffett.com/article/113969

OF COURSE it was going to come to this... Indiana now saying it's not enough for adult websites to block people in response to state age-verification law—since VPNs exist, they're still in violation. That leaves 3 options for porn platforms: check IDs, don't exist, or block all VPNs...

Sigh. This is not how you combat right-wing populism.

Today seems an appropriate occasion to repost this from February 2024. It's probably not what you think: BRILLIANT IDEA: let’s bring about the end of the internet by embedding locally-running LLMs into Web browsers! alecmuffett.com/article/109116

In a move that will surprise nobody except British “safety” activists who are unused to the concept of “positive rights”, Age Verification has been declared unconstitutional in Louisiana https://alecmuffett.com/article/136112

Moral Panic, Regulation, and the Challenge of Undoing Regulation: the Tonka Bean | Watch this if you want to understand the importance of fighting or fixing the Online Safety Act https://alecmuffett.com/article/136053 #OnlineSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #TonkaBean #censorship #fda #surveillance

Reposting for "digital chastity belt":

Meanwhile, over on the other site: > …someone who is developing an end-to-end encrypted messenger platform MAY unwittingly be considered a hostile actor against the UK? To be confirmed: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69411a... x.com/AlecMuffett/... #encryption

I'm pretty sure that you don't use a period at the end of a headline:

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Danish government proposes to ban streaming over VPNs due to risk of circumvention of content controls https://alecmuffett.com/article/135332 #OnlineSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #censorship #denmark #surveillance #vpns

Australian Social Media Ban: we must not let ‘perfect’ be the enemy of ‘incomplete, self-defeating, trivially circumventable & pointless’ | @CameronWilson at Crikey https://alecmuffett.com/article/135326

Australia’s Social Media Ban is a Betrayal of Free Speech and a Safe Internet | NetChoice https://alecmuffett.com/article/135297 #AgeVerification #SocialMediaBan #australia #censorship #surveillance

EU Revives Plan for Year-Long Online Data Retention | Reclaim the Net https://alecmuffett.com/article/135216 #ChatControl #EndToEndEncryption #privacy #surveillance

/me is having a hard time shaking the impression that the Australian government has spent so long attempting to pick a fight with Google & Meta that it has let drift some serious & real world safety and security obligations. Thoughts are with you folk.

When the bot gets snippy:

The American Counter-Offensive Against Foreign Censorship Should Be Bipartisan | Preston Byrne https://alecmuffett.com/article/135200 #4chan #AgeVerification #OnlineSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #censorship #surveillance #vpns

Banning children from online games, and spying on every device: Why we must oppose Baroness Benjamin’s attack on liberty | LibDem Voice https://alecmuffett.com/article/135130 #FloellaBenjamin #LibDem #OnlineSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #anonymity #censorship #surveillance #vpns

Reddit argues it isn’t like other social platforms in case against Australia’s social media ban | TechCrunch https://alecmuffett.com/article/135153 #OnlineSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #SocialMediaBan #australia #censorship #reddit #surveillance

Banning children from online games, and spying on every device: Why we must oppose Baroness Benjamin’s attack on liberty | LibDem Voice https://alecmuffett.com/article/135130 #FloellaBenjamin #LibDem #OnlineSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #anonymity #censorship #surveillance #vpns

Teens are having fun getting around the teen social media ban | Crikey https://alecmuffett.com/article/135117 #HomelandSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #SocialMediaBan #australia #vpns

See, for instance, Facebook walking away from China eventually. Of course that may change one day, but it's going to be really hard for a long time. alecmuffett.com/article/15058

… to accommodate their regulatory whims by making that country a special case. It will be interesting to see how Ireland fares in this globalist world argument.

I agree that it is undesirable but then that is what I think of all age verification and how it abrades anonymous speech. We should take care to point our guns at the correct target. Also, in passing, I should note that each country demands that it is important enough for a global platform to…

If we keep going around screaming about Monopoly we are missing the privacy impact wood for the anti-monopoly trees, which is going to really make life a pain for the next 10 or 20 years.

Google & Apple being age attestation providers IS THE DEGENERATE & DESIRABLE CASE OF BOOTSTRAPPING AGE ATTESTATION - it is literally what we already want because they are already in bed with us so to speak. What we want is Google, Apple, AND AN ECOSYSTEM OF ALTERNATES. But we can't get there yet

This would localise the information flow to a choice of provider and the user is empowered; instead, the burden is on the vendor to age verify and this leads to proliferation of personal data in all kinds of random data and network stacks, which is a nightmare. But where civil society messes up is:

What we should have been pushing for all of these years is an ecosystem of "age attestation" with the burden on the user to pay/whatever an "age assurance provider" who offers a token or service that the platform MUST accept, similar to the ecosystem of "The bearer of this card is over 18" cards.

I think civil society has got it backwards and that this is a fucked-up take - nothing personal - but Meta does not want to have anything to do with identity (expln: link below) Also: having Apple and Google attest to age is less impact than where we are with AV. alecmuffett.com/article/14828

Age Verification Is Coming For the Internet. We Built You a Resource Hub to Fight Back | EFF https://alecmuffett.com/article/135063 #AgeVerification #eff

“The girl in his photo is not backing it. She directly told the PM it’s a bad idea.” https://alecmuffett.com/article/134995 #OnlineSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #SocialMediaBan #albo #australia #censorship #surveillance

January 15th: EFFecting Change: The Human Cost of Online Age Verification | EFF https://alecmuffett.com/article/135071 #AgeVerification #eff

ERRATA: Baroness Benjamin et al. wish to ban children under the age of *18* from using VPNs; that’s better than 16, isn’t it? https://alecmuffett.com/article/135009 #AgeVerification #OnlineSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #censorship #surveillance #vpns

“The girl in his photo is not backing it. She directly told the PM it’s a bad idea.” https://alecmuffett.com/article/134995 #OnlineSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #SocialMediaBan #albo #australia #censorship #surveillance

Crowley: “For my money, the really big one will be all of Us against all of Them” https://alecmuffett.com/article/134978 #censorship #china #pratchett #russia #surveillance #trump

Today has been a bumper day for the UK turning into Orwell's nightmare: U16 Ban from Social Media bsky.app/profile/alec... ID & Age Verification & U16 Ban from VPNs bsky.app/profile/alec... Client-Side Scanning of all Content bsky.app/profile/alec...

AND FINALLY: UK House of Lords demands client-side scanning of content to check for “viewing of CSAM” https://alecmuffett.com/article/134940 #AgeVerification #ClientSideScanning #OnlineSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #censorship #surveillance #vpn

IT GETS WORSE: UK House of Lords attempting to ban use of VPNs by anyone under 16 https://alecmuffett.com/article/134925 #AgeVerification #OnlineSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #censorship #surveillance #torproject #vpn

BREAKING: UK House of Lords Draft Amendment to Ban Social Media for Under-16s in the UK https://alecmuffett.com/article/134876 #OnlineSafety #OnlineSafetyAct #bluey #censorship #ofcom #surveillance