The key feature I haven't seen any of these opensource projects implement is microphone response coordination: If you have multiple microphones and speakers, which one responds?
My google home's are terrible at this: often one in another room responds, but at least it's only one. When I tried to run Genie (https://genie.stanford.edu/) I had multiple devices responding simultaneously. It was a disaster.
For me, this is the core feature that will enable me to swap out my corporate listening devices for an opensource, cloud-free alternative.
Capitalism is embraced by classical liberalism. Modern day "liberals" / progressivists have especially embraced American version of capitalism by using regulatory capture, basically coming up with 1 million and 1 ways to "make sure the consumer is protected" and then proceeding to capture the hell out of the regulatory framework to make sure anyone who disagrees with the regulation is called out as someone who wants people to get hurt / someone who wants to let industry oppress us. Meanwhile they rake in the profits while locking out competitors.
I would love to hear more from you. This take doesn't gel with anything I know, but it seems as though you and I have at least similar takes on how flawed a concept capitalism is - what I'm curious about is what you believe the connection between liberalism and capitalism is, and whether you also believe that conservatism is the antidote.
I'll pregame such a conversation by saying that I'm disillusioned with both sides of the political spectra. I could most generically be described as a flavor of socialist, but that doesn't really capture what I believe effectively. I wish we had a direct democracy, and I'm off the opinion that unchecked capital markets have effectively coopted our political process.
The number of folks that confuse government censorship with people deciding that their private company shouldn't support abhorrent content is astonishing, especially for a forum with this level of sophistication.
I would draw a line differently. If Alice wants to pass a message to Bob and Bob is refusing to hear it, it's Bob's personal decision. If Alice wants to pass a message to Bob, and Carol decides that Bob shouldn't be able to hear it, it's a form of censorship.
De-facto, the identity politics activists are provided free tools to reach the attention of the public, any any opposing movements that get popular enough get quickly shut down by equating the entire movement or platform with the worst action of their worst members.
There is a valid opinion that this is a coordinated policy aimed at turning the middle class vs. corporations conflict into a race/sexuality conflict that keeps the corporate interests unaffected [0].
So in this analogy, Alice should not relay the message through Carol and instead ask Dave. Or maybe talk to Bob directly?
Carol isn't the only messenger in town, and Carol is not obligated to participate in communication they do not agree with. It's a weird position to insist otherwise.
That is the problem. Carol is allowed to offer the messaging services for free, subsidized by the advertisement and investment money coming from a rather close community with its own political interests. If Dave wanted to compete with Carol and offer an non-opinionated messaging service, he won't be able to do it because Carol is offering services below cost. The network effects make competition even less viable.
In this example, if the anti-DDOS service providers were forced to charge their customers proportionally to the used resources, the market would have 20+ players as opposed to just a handful, and Cloudflare would instantly lose a considerable amount of paying customers by deciding to take sides.
No, the argument is because Carol is engaging in anti-competitive behavior, it should be treated as other tolerated monopolies (i.e. governments) - forced to be neutral.
Otherwise, the group of elites that got on top during the current economic cycle gets a powerful tool for shaping the public opinion and avoiding any criticism, further entrenching themselves on the top. The result is the 3rd-world economy with a bunch of cronies engaging in rent-seeking, and everybody else living in poverty with no way up.
This wasn't either of those things however, this was a company saying 4 days ago quite clearly that they would not act as a gatekeeper of speech(whatever it may be) on their protection services, due to some pretty clear implications that everyone should be protected by default from criminal activity(ddos attacks). Note that this was pretty much the speech made by cloudflare, I'm not saying they as a private company need to act as an utilities company/police/firefighter/etc, that's an entirely different discussion, but then then 3 days later going back on it?
But see this is where I get tripped up. I don't think laws should dictate morality. So barring the fact that it's the way the law is written in the United States. Why is Illinois morally required to protect speech and Cloudflare, who almost certainly has far greater control (theoretically) over speech not?
This is fast approaching the whole, "why is anyone morally required to do anything?" sort of existential discussion.
The US Government has laws in place like this because those were written as founding principles and interpreted in certain ways by our legal system over time. That's only it. But it's all calvinball in the end. Congress could strike the 1A from the constitution, or all our courts could start ruling against the 1A tomorrow. We're just making it up as we go. Now this would likely result in a mass uprising, but that's besides the point.
The only reason why this is a thing right now is because CloudFlare(a) is in a position to stop digital protection of Kiwi Farms (and thus force them to fully own the consequences of their speech), and (b) has explicitly chosen not to do anything about it, much to the chagrin of myself and a whole lot of other people. My belief, as is the belief of others, is that Kiwi Farms are violating their TOS and should be removed. That's it. CloudFlare, like Calvin when playing Calvinball, is deciding to make it up as they go, and we aren't happy about that.
You seem to be pretty active in comments for this post and you have made several arguments around the ideas that:
* CF is not a utility and is not bound by the First Amendment (although you keep saying free speech)
* CF is somehow immoral because they are otherwise compelled to remove content/service protections for stuff you disagree with (however correct you may be that the content is morally reprehensible).
The first point may be technically true but the second doesn't leave room for the possibility that CF might have a more absolutist approach to free speech in which case they find it more immoral to remove content/protections from one of their customers that the content itself. Since neither you nor I work at CF, we probably have to take them at their word in this press release. Trying to adjudicate what violates their TOS, what is immoral for them to do, or what is good/bad for their business from the outside is a foolish exercise.
There was a time the ACLU defended neo-nazis and it wasn't because they agreed with them. Just another aside, if you feel this strongly about CF, then don't patronize them if you are in the position to not have to use their services, but I'd avoid taking a moral stand only when its expedient to do so if you otherwise don't live with that level of conviction (presumably you didn't stay at Microsoft for 6 years because you aligned with them morally).
It's precisely that their leadership (rank-and-file employees I know have different feelings) are taking an absolutist approach. That's pretty evident when their stance is that banning nazi sites was a mistake.
My position is this. That is not a good stance to take. And people should now use their wallet to influence Cloudflare's leadership to reconsider their extreme position. The small part I can play in that today is already underway, so it's not just words on hacker news, no.
You're being intentionally dishonest. Their stance is not as simple as "banning the nazis was wrong. We need to bring back the nazis to our platform." They are pretty explicit in saying no company should be exercising the power that they did - if someone is willing to pay for DDoS protection on their site, they should take a neutral stance on the content of their site. Anything that is blatantly illegal is for the government to act on.
Do you think people should vote with their wallet in regards to the ACLU? What about the idea of public defenders generally? Should society not be footing the bill to be provide legal defense to hate crime offenders/rapists/etc?
Your characterization that their position is extreme is also dishonest. It's been the MO for American citizens/corporations/institutions and ingrained in 20th/21st century American jurisprudence to take a neutral stance when it comes to providing a service or defending rights. It's, frankly, one of the last few admirable things about our society.
You can promote an activist mindset if you'd like, but you should also consider that your opinion is only shared by a vocal minority and the fracturing of commerce into parallel economies won't benefit you or the communities you care about the way you think it will. I'm not sure what I need from CF, but after reading your comments/opinions on the issue, I'm inclined to just order shit from them now.
I don't think discussing the limiting principal behind your stance is waxing philosophical. We live in a liberal society that generally upholds free speech, that society is made up of institutions, corporations, and individuals; arguable, CF is more important because of how information is currently distributed than even the ACLU or public defenders but I'll bite and put the philosophy aside.
Here is a more direct question: why is it a good idea for a company to exercise censorial power if the content is not otherwise illegal? Reminder that we are talking about companies that run infrastructure not something like Twitter that hide behind BS "community guidelines"
I'm genuinely struggling to see how this answers my question. You continually discuss laws when I made it abundantly clear that because laws are, as you put it, Calvinball they are irrelevant to what should be done.
> CloudFlare (a) is in a position to stop digital protection of Kiwi Farms
So too is Illinois to stop police protection of Nazi activists. I ask again, why SHOULD one organization protect speech and another shouldn't, given our agreement that any specific laws/amendments do not dictate what SHOULD happen?
I think you're losing the plot here. Nothing has any moral obligation to do anything in this universe. Morality doesn't exist. And we're all just making it up as we go.
Now that we've established that nothing matters, the reason is because a lot of us feel that Cloudflare should do something about it.
Bloody hell, I am definitely losing the plot. The reason you feel that way is because a lot of other people do? You have absolutely no rationale or thought process for the disparities between organizations x and y except that people are mad at organization y and not organization x?
I'm throwing you a real softball question and you've whiffed it like 5 times in a row.
You personally find it ethical to systemically take a stance on the exact same speech in some situations and not in others for what you yourself describe as arbitrary and meaningless distinctions. Why?
You should entertain the idea that they claim they have a stronger responsibility to the principals of free speech than the communities you claim are harmed by their customers content.
This is pathetic. If this is your rationale for why KF should be denied DDoS protection then I hope you fail. Nothing matters so do what we want. If nothing matters why does it matter if your favourite streamer is killed by a SWAT team, I'm sure a lot of people want it to happen too.
Illinois is not morally required to protect speech. They are prevented from using government powers to restrict or punish speech.
If counter protestors show up and shout over the Nazis, Illinois is not morally required to silence the counter protestors so the Nazis can speak.
And if Nazis want to gather on private land, Illinois is not morally required to force the private landowner to permit that.
The morality of equality is compromised by the practical execution of law. It’s legal for a cop to pull a gun and force you to the ground; it’s not legal for you to do that to me (or vice versa). So we place constraints on when the government can apply those special powers.
Islam is incompatible with tolerance. Women's rights, depictions of Muhammed, etc.
If we accept the paradox of tolerance you must either be anti-Islam or the paradox is broken.
The fix is not new and is older than the paradox of tolerance: your rights end where mine begin. You have a right to write and speak what you will - I have a right to not listen. I do not have a right to stop speech I find offensive. Islam has a right to exist and take offense, but it may not use violence or law to get it's way.
you’re implying the spread of islam is the spread of activists who incite action toward its worst parts, the same goes for christianity of course: I’m ok with prohibiting (and socially over state violence…) speech that incites active participation in applying its worst parts which oppress. btw it’s stinky to use islam as your example and in an american context when it’s as obviously applicable to everything else and not something special to islam over most any other popular religion. the same shit applies with womens rights and christian movements in the US which are in fact taking oppressive political action with wide impact
Women can't drive or have attorneys in Islamic nations and you think my use of them in an example is stinky? You want to argue about abortion rights when women literally can't leave their homes without a male guardian and hiding their face?
Per the existing law, but given the Constitution can be changed, should they have to allow? Arguing they have to because the law currently prevents them from doing otherwise seems a different argument than it being good for government to have such restrictions because the benefits are worth more than the detriments (or vice versa).
You can place ACH blocks on accounts, at some banks anyway. I don’t know if the bank will give you the transaction information if a transfer is attempted. If they will, shouldn’t it be possible to set up a honeypot account in order to get the ACH info? Is that info enough to trace back to the spammers?
This opens up other legal questions though. It’s entirely possible that you could then be on the hook for non payment or something.
Oh yeah, I forgot that some banks allow that. Maybe an even easier thing to try is telling the scammer you need their ACH so you can whitelist it with your bank own bank?
Check my karma: It's not spam. It really is really well built. Should be: took them years to get it built, I bought into their kickstarter early. That said, I learned huge amounts about building hardware from their engineering blog, strongly recommend it.
Their engineering/status update bogs were really interesting. Particularly injection mold issues and RFID/NFC standards.
And I agree, the build quality is really nice - just wish they sold the screen protector during the kickstarter - I have the silicon protector and wifi dev board but my LCD screen is scuffed from carrying it around in my pocket.
