hendrik ✅

I see many issues with that / for them.

But I’m not against experimenting and finding out. We maybe need some free and open monetizing options, maybe also ad platforms. That would give people some more options, instead of relying on Google and Apple all the time.

Please just make it respect user privacy, be FLOSS and categorize the Apps, so it’s clear to me what is and what isn’t licensed Free Software.

Well, I’d say take content you yourself like. Maybe something with value. It’s always nice if people who are passionate about something are involved.

Regarding websites: I’m not sure if that’s the correct way. Usually they’re done by a small closed group. And if you want to be a pirate, you have to climb the ladders. There isn’t a simple tutorial that makes you the captain stright away. You start scrubbing the deck, learn how things work, gain knowledge and choose where to get involved. Slowly you’ll learn and someday may be crew or even first mate.

So dive in. Watch. See what you like and see if there’s something at that place that could need your attention. And ask the people there.

1. Download content
2. Share content with other people.

• Use protection

I’m pretty sure most (all?) ISPs in Europe refuse nice requests. We have some data/privacy protection laws (GDPR …) and it’d be illegal for them to just hand out your address. But as a company they have to comply with law, so that’s why they need involve a judge. I think the courts also don’t like to do this kind of work.

In the good old times some of our providers solved the issue by not logging IP addresses. So they’d be ordered by the court to say who did it, and they’d rightully say they don’t have logs and don’t know. But as far as I know that’s a thing of the past. Some politicians regularly push for more surveillance. They start an argument every year or so, claiming online child abuse and pushing for more surveillance. I think as of now most providers keep logs, at least for some time.

The situation depends on the European country, however. Some don’t really pursue copyright violations. And we’re in a similar situation to Australia in that it’s a civil matter and not any crime. I’m not sure how it is in the USA. They famously don’t have any strong privacy protection (in most states), so maybe ISPs just hand out info about their customers. I don’t really know.

Tor has massive issues with torrent traffic. Don’t do torrent over TOR.

Internet service providers don’t directly rat you out. The way it works is: Some (shady) companies watch torrent traffic for the copyright holders, and log the IP addresses. If it’s a residential address and from a country they can pursue in, they file a court case. The judge then decides and sends a letter to the internet service provider. The ISP then is obliged to tell the court. It’s a lawful request by a court. And then they get you.

Sometimes they can also take some shortcuts for a action for injunction(?). (I’m not sure if that’s the correct term.) At least that’s what they commonly do in Germany, where I live.

I’m not sure how law works in Australia. But where I live, it’s pretty uncommon to pirate content via bittorrent without a VPN. There is a good chance you’ll one day get an uncomfortable letter in the mail, if you push it.

KDE Connect? Sounds pretty much like the Windows alternative to that.

It’s probably a map of where VPN servers are located mixed with countries that don’t persue copyright violations. And not necessarily where the users are located.

Uuh. I wouldn’t do it. As far as I know iOS is still pretty locked down and that won’t change.

I think we’re missing half the story. Because I also fail so see a point in doing it like they do.

The issue with that is: Releasing nothing is even worse than releasing something that could be circumvented. I don’t see this as a valid argument.

I’m not an expert on text watermarking and how that degrades output. But if they want some stealthy solution that isn’t known to the public… Maybe they could attach two watermarks. A simple one that is known to everyone, and an additional, secret one only they know about. It’d be similar to what we do with bank notes. There are some characteristics everyone knows and can use to judge if it’s fake money. And they have some additional secret markings in banknotes that only the central bank knows about.

I’m pretty sure a similar thing could be done here. Maybe not for a 280 character tweet. But certainly for other use-cases with longer texts. And in case it has a 0% false positive rate, every match helps someone. Even if it’s circumventable. I think even a non-perfect solution that helps several thousands of people is better than helping no-one.

That’s a bad article. What are they reluctant about? Releasing that detector, or applying watermarks to the generated texts? Do they do that already or doesn’t it apply to text generated until then? And how would that affect anything else?

Whats with the error rate? Shouldn’t that be near 100% for watermarks? And 0 false positives? What’s really holding them back? Is pupils not turning in ChatGPT homework anymore cutting into their business model?

I mean all the major AI companies promised to do AI ethically. Now they don’t want the one thing that would solve half the issues people are having with that technology. Kind of fits with OpenAI 🤔

If you’re having frequent power outages, you might consider buying an UPS. Other than that, I’d just buy a new CMOS battery every few years. Mine seem to last way longer than 4 years. Maybe 8y or so.

you forgot --no-preserve-root or it won’t do anything.

I thought that wasn’t launched yet? Do they backport and enable that per default to compete with the mass of iPhones, or is it going to be a rare occurence that a tracker gets reported?

And what’s the network like? Are there many devices out there reporting the position of those tags? Or is it just Motorola devices with their 5% market share?

I disagree. They used the word “involved”. And that term means sth has a part somewhere in the process. Which applies if you feed it a real picture of a face or even use it as a template. So a real image was “involved”, disregarding if it looks or is real. However it gets processed or becomes part of the final thing, it was involved nonetheless.

The issue with that is that it’s a very annoying form of bullying. And kids are afraid to tell someone because of the nature of it, they’re being blackmailed or whatever and it’s difficult to cope. I think I even read that lead to teens trying to commit suicide. Which isn’t nice, if true.

But I certainly agree that there is too much hysteria, mixing everything together, spreading FUD, and exploiting child abuse to push for mass surveillance or other political agendas.

Ultimately, I think a phrase with “involved” is a good choice. It makes it clear that it’s not okay if a real child is made part of the process. We can argue if it’s alright to do fictional drawings which seem to be okay in California and for example in Japan. But (ab)using real people no matter where in the process would definitely cross the line for me.

I’m not sure if we’re going for the same thing or have different views. I think especially with art there is a difference between mass produced and good things. And it’s the same thing with other topics. You can buy a domestic made brand name electric drill that’ll last you some time or a cheap one from china for $30. Nice clothes or the cheap ones from Primark. You can buy a deep-frozen pizza and eat that or go to the nice italian restaurant…

I don’t think I have any issue with that concept. (At least in general… Sewing t-shirts in horrible conditions somewhere in Bangladesh isn’t moral. But it’s a stretch to apply that analogy to AI.) I mean what’s the issue with that? If I want some super cheap food that is easy to prepare, I’m glad that we have frozen pizza. And if someone invents a way to mass produce frozen pizza even cheaper… I have more options available to decide which quality I like and what I can afford.

And sticking with that crude analogy… I’m not sure if we should ban frozen pizza so the italian restaurant can make more profit… In the end I think it’s supply and demand and how capitalism works. I like original and creative music. There might be a demand for mass produced and cheap music, too.

Being out-competed at producing some low-quality, cheap products isn’t necessarily a bad thing (in my eyes). And it doesn’t really take away from the quality products. Also if someone is doing lots of tedious work and ends up with something low-quality, I’m not sure who is at fault. As far as I know there are a lot of studios and writers who pump out pop song lyrics and melodies en masse. It’s not the same process as what a proper band does. And that’s also something AI can’t do, so I don’t see any issue there.

Their interpretation of California law currently is that it is not specifically illegal, because it doesn’t involve an image of an actual child […]

Though, taking an actual image of a classmate and face-swapping it onto a naked body or “enhancing” it definitely involves an image of an actual child. Hence it should be illegal. And I think the argumentation is bullshit. It just applies to completely fabricated images. Which I think shouldn’t be mixed with deepfakes of actual people which I think is a much more pressing issue. And shouldn’t be slowed down by arguing about everything at the same time. The really bad stuff could be addressed right away. And laws are already in place.

Correct. And the RIAA and Sony Music Entertainment etc have lots of money for expensive lawyers. Small artists, companies and people don’t have that and start with a big disadvantage per default. It’s always like that. I have some limited faith in the judiciary. Sometimes there is a David vs Goliath moment. But we all know in reality there are many stunts available for rich entities to pull, and win against someone, despite being in the wrong.

There is a line somewhere between copying a style (which seems to be fine) and copying a song. I suppose that has to be judged on a case by case basis. And it’s not something new. We’ve had Red Hot Chili Peppers cover bands who need to pay them to use their songs. And bands who play original songs in the style of RHCP. I’ve been to such a concert in some pub like 7 years ago and it was awesome. I don’t think that’s copyright infringement. But they had a very very similar style, a name that was a pun on the original and even the vocalist did a good job of sounding similar to Anthony Kiedis.

I’m not sure what kinds of laws there are. But if that’s okay, I think same should apply to AI.

I’m a bit split on the whole topic. Artists get ripped off anyways. Look at what Spotify pays them, and we can skip arguing about other things. They take 15€ from me and forward next to nothing to smaller artists. And I’ve rarely heard original songs in the radio. I think 99% of music is dull pop songs made for radio and to appease. Always a similar set of instruments, one of the common chord progressions, not too adventurous so it can be played on radio, same small set of topics they sing about. It’s not my music and I don’t feel anything when listening to that kind of music. I don’t mind at all if that gets replaced by AI.

My thinking is: If that’s the level of creativity the artists are able to come up with, they deserve to get replaced by AI. And if the audience wants dull, canned pop made in a factory (as it’s been for some time already), they, too, don’t deserve any better.