Pluralistic: 03 Nov 2020

Today's links

Deep Reckonings: Using deepfakes to conjure a contrafactual reality in which monsters confront their legacies.
Past Performance is Not Indicative of Future Results: The limits of theory-free statistical inference.
How Audible robs indie audiobook creators: I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.
Get an extra vote: Reminders from friends and family to vote have a bigger effect on turnout than anything campaigns do.
A hopeful future: Optimism and pessimism are both fatalism.
This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

IDing anonymized cops with facial recognition: Privacy for the powerless, transparency for the powerful.
ENDSARS: Global protests over Nigeria's murdering special police.
Companies target robots in disclosures: Sentiment analysis is finally useful for something.
US border cruelty, powered by Google cloud: IBM at Auschwitz.
Free the law of Wisconsin: Carl Malamud wants you to read Wisconsin's jury instructions.
This day in history: 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

In Search Of A Flat Earth: From Flat Earth to Qanon, the rise of murderous cults.
A cryptographic mystery solved: How a Cuban numbers station's decade-long opsec fail blew Russian spies' cover.
Youtube's war on algorithmic radicalization: Selective rabbit-hole elimination is HARD.
The Hardware Lottery: Chip architecture is the secret legislator of machine learning.
This day in history: 2015
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Hard Wired: Robot rights are human rights.
Calavera masks: John Picacio wants to help you ride out the plague as a sugar-skull.
Classic, hand-lettered electronics textbook: The story of Forrest M Mims, III's "Getting Started in Electronics."
Bayer-Monsanto is in deep trouble: Destructive, reckless mergers are part of the Curse of Bigness.
Recapping Little Brother and Homeland: Nudging a generation of early-stage Oppenheimers.
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Rewarding CEOs for failure: Heads they win, tails we lose.
DIY giant chalk: Tempura paint, plaster of paris, and water.
Fairness and machine learning: Open access computer science textbook.
Facebook overrules its own fact-checkers: The far right works the refs.
This day in history: 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Full Employment, the podcast edition: There's no AI employment crisis, but there IS a climate emergency.
Life as a fake Amazon reviewer: A security economics case-study.
Don't talk about cancer on FB: Facebook greets cancer diagnoses with a torrent of quack remedy ads.
Privacy as a right, not a product: Putting a pricetag on your data makes you less private.
Primary Richie Neal [D-MA]: Meet the powerful "Democrat" who defends surprise billing and zero taxes for private equity.
This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

New Little Brother/Homeland edition is out today!: With an intro by Edward Snowden.
There is no automation employment crisis: But there is a climate emergency.
Cyberpunk Culture: An online conference, Jul 9/10.
Or What You Will: Jo Walton's new, brilliant meta-meta-novel.
#BlackOutDay2020: Pledge not to spend a dime in a store or online, except in Black-owned businesses.
Right wing press duped by state-sponsored influence campaign: Deepfakes and avatars manipulated to defeat reverse image searches.
Coronavirus tests are a taxable benefit: HMRC creates a perverse incentive.
Big 4 accounting firms headed for breakup: When the referee cheats.
Home security cameras are really insecure: Even encrypted video streams can give away sensitive info.
Why covid cases are spiking but deaths aren't: Lead-time bias.
This day in history: 2010, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Surveillance electoralism: Comparing the surveillance of the Biden and Trump apps.
Blueleaks: Dox the police.
Virtual Ignite talks: Weds at 6PM.
Congress wants to read all your DMs: The EARN-IT Act doesn't mention encryption, but it still bans encryption.
Privacy in tracing tokens: Bunnie Huang's parameters for a privacy-respecting contact-tracing system.
A/B Seattle: Design your own urban grid.
Against AI phrenology: Stop publishing machine-learning "race science."
This day in history: 2010, 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Trump wants to dismantle the OTF: Replacing open, auditable tech freedom tools with closed, untrustable ones.
Algonuts: A bottomless, mutated machine learning Peanuts strip.
Trump's covid "test-tubes" are contaminated miniature soda bottles: The Art of the Deal.
Avia, c'est mort: France kills a catastrophic "anti-terror" censorship law.
Austerity in disrepute: Vast majority of Americans favor continued or expanded unemployment benefits.
Microsoft criticizes Apple's monopolism: They're the experts, after all.
This day in history: 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Australia caves on "robodebt": Dialing down the automated performative cruelty by a single notch.
Locus Award shortlist: Some of my 2019 favorites made the cut.
Why I haven't written about CDA 230: Life is too short.
Bus drivers refuse to take arrested protesters to jail: And they're unionized, so they don't have to.
AI has been stagnating for a decade: "The high-water mark was set in 2009."
This day in history: 2015, 2019
Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming appearances, current writing projects, current reading