#bigtech
Fortunately, I've never used my mobile phone for 2FA.
Rob is a little hyperbolic, but his message is solid.
2FA is a Big Tech Scam! You Must Resist!
OpenSecrets.org
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New EU law could require iMessage and WhatsApp to work with other, smaller platforms – NOT using proprietary, but hopefully interoperable standards instead
It’s a great idea as WhatsApp, iMessage, and others are creating more and more fragmentation and walled gardens for users who have to install 10+ apps to message their friends elsewhere. But this why open (not insecure) interoperable standards exist in the first place.
Rather than letting each provider now go create their own API, this is the opportunity to ensure open standards exist for each technology so that everyone can reach others. If RCS is to be the open standard for messaging, then let iMessage and WhatsApp adopt that. That way a message from one app can reach users on iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram and more. Each app will still have its own UI and own bells and whistles that differentiate it from the others. As users, it will mean we are no longer locked into an app that prevents us from leaving.
Such data interchange standards do already exist such as XMPP, XML, RCS, and others. XMPP for example can enable encryption between the end-points so that need not be the issue here. Maybe this will also force the bigger players to help improve these interoperability standards.
It is quite clear that Apple, Facebook, and other big players had no intention of opening up interoperability with their competitors, and we can see already how this harmed consumers on both sides. It is therefore only likely that some legislation will achieve what BigTech has failed to do on their own. Clearly the few consumers that exercised their freedoms to leave platforms, had no real effect on the those running the platforms, so market forces were also not achieving any beneficial change for users (the lock-in effect for mainstream users was just too strong).
#technology #BigTech #interoperability #messaging #EU
#Blog, ##bigtech, ##eu, ##interoperability, ##messaging, ##technology
How to design an anti-monopoly interoperability system
"A historical accident made Massachusetts a lab for studying how tech can serve monopolies, and the moves, countermoves and counter-countermoves show how businesses, tinkerers, governments and the public can liberate themselves from seemingly all-powerful monopolists."
How to design an anti-monopoly interoperability system
https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/05/time-for-some-game-theory/#massholes
#monopoly #monopolies #tech #technology #computers #software #internet #BigTech #GAFAM #Google #Apple #Facebook #Amazon #Microsoft #Meta #AntiMonopoly #AntiTrust #interoperability #privacy #competition #policy #law #RightToRepair #DRM #DigitalRestrictionsmanagement #OpenSource #FreeSoftware #standards #protocols #OpenStandards #OpenFormats #DigitalMarketsAct #DMA
Apple Podcasts’s store ratings have little to do with the app – Really consider good 3rd party podcast players instead
That’s right: they’re reviews of the podcasts themselves, not the Apple Podcasts app. And that is an extremely convenient situation for Apple because actual reviews of the Apple Podcasts app most definitely do not trend toward five stars. In fact, they trend toward an abysmal 1.8-star score because the app has been remarkably buggy for months.
This is particular unfair to really excellent podcast players such as Pocket Casts, Player FM, and others that provide all sorts of other useful features, and actually work.
The content remains the same no matter what podcast player you use, but the features and quality of the playback experience depending on what app you choose.
Seriously, these Big Tech companies are not so good at innovating, or staying very long with a product. This is why they often throw money at something, and buy their “competitor” out. Apps such as Pocket Casts and Player FM exist only because of what they do very well…. think about that.
See https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/2/22914612/apple-podcasts-app-rating-user-reviews-problem
#technology #ios #podcasts #bigtech
#Blog, ##bigtech, ##ios, ##podcasts, ##technology
Der neue Kolonialismus und die Enteignung des Lebens – Dr. Vandana Shiva im Gespräch
"We are experiencing a new colonialism," says Vandana Shiva. The scientist speaks of a global exploitation that, via a money machine, a technology machine, and a democracy-destroying data machine, is taking wealth, property, and general freedom away from the (more than) 99% and giving it to the (under) 1% - the elite.
In the KaiserTV interview, Vandana Shiva draws attention to the legal principle of "Terra Nullius" (No Man's Land), by which a country is first defined as deserted and uncultivated in the course of a colonialist process, so that it can then be taken. She observes a transfer of this principle to all areas of life: even the living seed is legally defined as empty - Bio Nullius - so that the patentable gene sequence of a company can colonize the seed and all life processes as Intellectual Property. The same is observed in relation to the immune system, our health, our mind. Say: He who wants to rob, first denies. This denial is the core of all expropriation processes.
In conversation with Gwendolin Walter-Kirchhoff, the physicist and author talks as well about the misuse of the ecological crisis, carbon reductionism, the value of nature and the power of reality behind fiction.
Dr. Vandana Shiva is a physicist, author, activist and a multi-award winning, internationally honored icon of the environmental movement. She is a key organizer of the Monsanto Tribunal, and throughout her life has campaigned against the neocolonialist practices of agrochemicals in India, against genetic engineering, biopiracy and patents on seeds, and for small-scale organic agriculture. Her life's work was honored this year in the documentary film "The Seeds of Vandana." https://vandanashivamovie.com
The interview is in english with german subtitles.
#vandanashiva #colonialism #capitalism #science #globalism #data #bigtech #democracy
Tweet against surveillance ads
This Thursday, 20 January 2022, there will be a vote in the European Parliament to decide whether Big Tech companies should be allowed to target EU citizens with surveillance ads.
This is an amendment to the Digital Rights Act which, if passed, could be a game changer. Big Tech lobbyists are hard at work trying to persuade MEPs to vote against this amendment. We need to make our voices heard and make sure it gets passed.
Please reshare!
#privacy #europe #eu #vote #law #dra #dma #bigtech #facebook #google #microsoft #apple #amazon #lobbying
If you use Firefox browser, you can volunteer to help cast light on Facebook’s pixel tracking network and data collection practices across the web
Mozilla has teamed up with non-profit The Markup, and the pair are recruiting for the Facebook Pixel Hunt study, asking users to download Rally – Mozilla’s privacy-first data-sharing platform, launched last year – and share their own browsing behaviour. Mozilla Rally is an opt-in data contribution platform that shines transparency on Big Tech.
Tools provided by Rally allow monitoring of the Facebook pixel, a piece of Javascript that tracks the actions of users in response to ads. They should allow the companies to examine what data is collected, which sites it’s shared with, what data it reveals about users and how widespread Facebook’s tracking network actually is.
#technology #privacy #facebook #bigtech
#Blog, ##bigtech, ##facebook, ##privacy, ##technology
If you use Firefox browser, you can volunteer to help cast light on Facebook’s pixel tracking network and data collection practices across the web
Mozilla has teamed up with non-profit The Markup, and the pair are recruiting for the Facebook Pixel Hunt study, asking users to download Rally – Mozilla’s privacy-first data-sharing platform, launched last year – and share their own browsing behaviour. Mozilla Rally is an opt-in data contribution platform that shines transparency on Big Tech.
Tools provided by Rally allow monitoring of the Facebook pixel, a piece of Javascript that tracks the actions of users in response to ads. They should allow the companies to examine what data is collected, which sites it’s shared with, what data it reveals about users and how widespread Facebook’s tracking network actually is.
#technology #privacy #facebook #bigtech
#Blog, ##bigtech, ##facebook, ##privacy, ##technology
The internet was designed around principles of openness, simplicity, and decentralization, but Big Tech’s private networks and protocols threaten the ‘net, say internet registries
So says a Study on the Internet’s Technical Success Factors commissioned by APNIC and LACNIC – the regional internet address registries for the Asia–Pacific and Latin America and Caribbean regions respectively – and written by consultancy Analysys Mason.
The document states that “a significant fraction of global IP traffic now consists of data that is moved between the datacentres and edge networks of large internet companies.” Those companies’ needs, and growing networks, lead the analysts to suggest that “over time, we could see the internet transform into a more centralised system with a few global private networks carrying most of the content and services.
Another risk is that when private networks break, many users suffer. Exhibit A: yesterday’s AWS brownout, which hurt Netflix and Disney+, among others.
Yet, if you look at nearly all the alternative social networks springing up, you’ll see decentralisation, openness, interoperability, chronological feeds, no Big Tech…
See Big Tech’s private networks and protocols threaten the ‘net
#technology #interoperability #BigTech #openstandards #decentralisation
APNIC and LACNIC worry about who will set the rules of future internetworking
#2FA is a #BigTech Scam! You Must Resist! ⚓ https://odysee.com/@RobBraxmanTech:6/2fascam:e ䷉ #RobBraxmanTech ought not say “Big Tech” http://techrights.org/2021/06/29/microsoft-behind-big-tech-narrative/
Why we should reject Mark Zuckerberg's dehumanizing vision of a "Metaverse"
"The true path forward is to #reconnect with the #beauty of our #planetary #home and the #natural #world or, in the words of #cultural #historian #MorrisBerman, to “ #re-enchant the world.” We need to somehow, through the seemingly unstoppable momentum of runaway technology, find a way to #return to a way of #living that retains the use of #limited and #intelligent #technology where appropriate without allowing it to run roughshod over the #core #values of #humanity we still #cherish."
#tomvalovic #reject #markzuckerberg's #dehumanizing #vision #metaverse #meta #bigtech #coup #wef #profit #surveillance
CIOs across Europe add their VOICE to chorus of calls to regulate cloud gatekeepers - What do we want? Licences not lock-in! Where do we want to use them? Anywhere!
Industry bodies representing thousands of CIOs and tech leaders across Europe have thrown their weight behind calls to rein in some of the iffier software licensing practices of the cloud giants.
Findings in the report included pricing for Microsoft's Office productivity suite being higher when bought for use on a cloud that wasn't Azure and the disappearance of "Bring Your Own License" deals, making it expensive to migrate on-premises software anywhere but Microsoft's cloud.
Oracle also took heat for its billing practises, which could differ between its own and third-party clouds.
As for the signatories of the letter, VOICE (from Germany) represents over 400 public-sector or corporate CIOs. France's CIGREF accounts for 150 large users, including Airbus and Thales. The Netherlands' CIO Platform represents more than 130 members, and Belgium's BELTUG accounts for over 1800 CIOs and digital tech leaders.
See EU CIOs call for regulation of cloud gatekeepers
#technology #cloudcomputing #Europe #BigTech #Licensing
What do we want? Licences not lock-in! Where do we want to use them? Anywhere!
Facebook’s “Metaverse” Must Be Stopped
' #Facebook founder #MarkZuckerberg's #metaverse is no #utopian #vision — it's another opportunity for #BigTech to #colonize our #lives in the name of #profit. #SiliconValley tends to feel it can do whatever it wants. Its major companies have ignored #regulations with little consequence and shaped how we #communicate to #increase #profits despite causing #social #harm. We should instead imagine how #tech can be developed for the #public #good.'
#virtual #worlds #environment #surveillance #technology #industry #science #video #games #internet #workers #rights
Civil society counters #BigTech in #Massachusetts #privacy debate - Access Now ⚓ https://www.accessnow.org/mipa/ ䷉ #accessnow
Why and how is #BigTech fighting #ePrivacy? To defend a "business model that views people as attention nodes to be data-mined and manipulated for profit." https://chaos.social/@echo_pbreyer/107219395131585224 see http://techrights.org/2021/03/22/epoleaks-report-march-2021-finale/
