Pluralistic: End to End (07 Mar 2023)


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Pluralistic: Biden set to appoint mass foreclosure cheerleader to the Fed (06 Mar 2023)


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They’re still trying to ban cryptography

The sales office to data localization pipeline for mass surveillance.

An image of a crocodile with a wide open mouth; the Signal logo is in the mouth; in the background is the Union flag of the UK.
John/CC BY-SA 2.0 (modified)

Some bad ideas never die. Since the late 1980s, spy agencies and cops have argued that the public should not have access to working cryptography, because this would mean that terrorists, mafiosi, drug dealers and pedophiles will be able to communicate in perfect, unbreakable secrecy.

The problem is that working cryptography protects everyone, not just the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse: the same cryptographic tools that protect instant messages and “Darknet” sites also protect your communications with your bank, your Zoom therapy session, and the over-the-air updates for your pacemaker and your car’s anti-lock braking system.

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Pluralistic: Solving the Moderator's Trilemma with Federation (04 Mar 2023)


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Pluralistic: VW wouldn't locate kidnapped child because his mother didn't pay for find-my-car subscription (28 Feb 2023)


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Pluralistic: Podcasting "Twiddler" (27 Feb 2023)


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Pluralistic: Dow promised to turn sneakers into playground surfaces, then dumped them in Indonesia (26 Feb 2023)


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United We Stand

Creation is collective — and so is bargaining.

A giant figure posed against a blue, cloudy sky. On his shoulder perches a tiny Taylor Swift, mid-gesture. She is being menaced by a capitalist ogre in tuxedo and top-hat, chomping a cigar and yanking a lever in the shape of a golden dollar sign. In one white-gloved hand, he holds aloft a gramophone, pointing it at Swift. He stands at a podium emblazoned with the Big Machine Records logo.
Biswarup Ganguly/CC BY 3.0, E Palen/CC BY 2.0, ViewIndiaThroughMyVisionalView/CC BY 4.0; modified

For the second half of the 20th century, artists of all stripes were fed a Big Lie: namely, that when we created, we did so all on our lonesome. Our creative works were solely and wholly ours, sprung from our imagination, like Athena springing from the head of Zeus.

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Pluralistic: This is your brain on fraud apologetics (24 Feb 2023)


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Pluralistic: Fighting the privacy wars, state by state (23 Feb 2023)


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