tripu @tripu@social.cleverlibre.org

@gasull
I like the spirit of that. At the same time, I fear that by trying to bend existing law to fix novel problems, we'll be stuck sometimes with bad laws used badly. I guess there's an equilibrium somewhere between those two poles.

The government of #Spain 🇪🇸 is pushing a six-month-long #StateOfEmergency — because, #Covid. Contradictio in terminis. It reminds me of the constant “state of high alarm” under which I lived all my years in the UK and in Japan, a state announced obsessively in the underground, both in London and in Tokyo.
Now that we have smart contracts, we need #SmartLaws: legislation that is passed with programmable checks attached that are objectively evaluated to alter or revoke those laws. eg, a state of emergency ends after one month, or as soon as certain predetermined thresholds are met — whichever happens first.

https://www.reuters.com/article/paypal-cryptocurrency/paypal-to-allow-cryptocurrency-buying-selling-and-shopping-on-its-network-idINL1N2HB14U
#BTC #Bitcoin #crypto

To put #Alphabet's size in perspective:
Its market cap (~$1T) is roughly the same as the GDP of the Netherlands, Mexico, or Indonesia.
It has as much in cash (~$120B) as the whole government budgets of Finland or the United Arab Emirates.
#BigTech #Google

“‘The #Google of today is a #monopoly gatekeeper for the internet.’ […] Conservatives like President Trump and liberals like Senator Elizabeth Warren have called for more restraints over #BigTech. […] #Alphabet, valued at $1.04 trillion and with cash reserves of $120 billion, has fought similar #antitrust lawsuits in Europe. The company spent $12.7 million lobbying in the United States in 2019, making it one of the top corporate spenders in Washington.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/20/technology/google-antitrust.html

#Jazz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfZruW3NI6c

#AltruismoEficaz 🇪🇸 #España + Juan García (Allfed):
«Alternativas alimentarias en caso de catástrofe global»
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twml1x1jXFI
#EffectiveAltruism

“A novel metallic compound of hydrogen, carbon and sulfur exhibited superconductivity at a balmy 59 degrees Fahrenheit when pressurized between a pair of diamond anvils. […] That’s a chilly room, maybe a British Victorian cottage.”

https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-discover-first-room-temperature-superconductor-20201014/
#physics #science

https://tripu.medium.com/fesser-1d5e68141bbc
🇺🇸 #EEUU #política #podcast #Trump 🇪🇸 #Español

@mr @aral

I know that Maths can't be contained, that algorithms are just numbers, that the back door intended for the goodies could fall in the hands of the baddies… as I said, I'm an ally.

That being said: of course there's middle ground with regards to #encryption! — very few issues in life are either black or white. Let's not oversimplify or advocate for the extreme; at least not without examining or trying alternatives.

#E2E isn't all that different from other great powers that societies (try to) control: firearms, natural resources, the press, drugs, etc. In those cases, we seek balances between #freedom and #security. Why not here?

For instance: we trust seven human beings with the private keys to DNSSEC worldwide (even if those keys could fall in the wrong hands); we trust judges in democratic countries to suspend the rights of individuals when it's necessary to prevent harm to others (even at the risk of them abusing that capacity sometimes); we trust the police to use weapons that we ban for ourselves (instead of throwing our hands up in the air, saying “it's futile! criminals will find ways to get those weapons anyway!”, and making any weapon freely available to anyone)… Note the parallelisms with the three arguments most commonly used in favour of unrestricted E2E.

We could restrict strong encryption to people without criminal records (child abusers, terrorists, etc). We could demand that any system or app implementing strong encryption be “licensed” by democratic states (quickly, for free, without purpose limitations) so that in the event of a warrant it'll be easier to inventory exhibits and to spot illegal uses of encryption where the most incriminating evidence might be. In many day-to-day use cases, we could advocate for strong encryption (non-E2E) where the master key is the cryptographic product of three or four secret keys: one held by a representative of the company offering the service; one held by the corresponding Supreme Court, MoJ, or analogous democratic institution; one provided by some special department of the UNHRC. We could legally bundle “free E2E encryption for all” together much tougher laws that would harshly punish any party involved, or any witness to the communication/data, if they don't report “encrypted” crimes, or if they don't disclose any private keys in their possession in the course of investigations.

I'm not saying these ideas are particularly wise, or even feasible. I am no expert. I'm just saying: let's try to empower citizens and protect privacy without gifting all malicious actors in the world with amazing sacrosanct invisibility blankets.

@aral
I'm much more pro- than against-#encryption, so count me on your side. Still, that kind of black-or-white approach isn't helpful here (as with many other issues).
Why alienate fellow defenders of #E2E who might have a more nuanced view? Can't we admit that there will be instances of people, uses, circumstances, and tools, where we might want a well-argumented, good-intentioned warrant to be able to penetrate into secret data or communications — for the common good?
I don't have a solution at hand that could balance the best of both worlds. But to admit that it'll be hard and that in the pursuit of legit concerns sometimes individual rights will be sadly infringed upon (as IRL, all the time) is not the same as not even trying and resorting to the extreme.

This.

I had been very suspicious of #JohnMcAfee's flamboyant bullish assertions about #crypto in the short term. Now it all makes sense.
https://www.whoismcafee.com/u-s-securities-and-exchange-commission-sec-sues-mcafee-for-pumping-initial-coin-offerings-icos/