Sciencealert has an interesting article on a game to combat misinformation by “microdosing” people [1]. The game seemed overly simplistic to me, but I guess I’m not the target demographic. Research shows it to work.
Vice has an interesting and amusing article about mass walkouts of underpaid staff in the US [2]. The way that corporations are fighting an increase in the minimum wage doesn’t seem financially beneficial for them. An increase in the minimum wage means small companies have to increase salaries too and the ratio of revenue to payroll is probably worse for small companies. It seems that companies like McDonalds make oppressing their workers a higher priority than making a profit.
Interesting article in Vice about how the company Shot Spotter (which determines the locations of gunshots by sound) forges evidence for US police [3]. All convictions based on Shot Spotter evidence should be declared mistrials.
The Daily Dot has a disturbing article anbout the possible future of the QAnon movement [5]. Let’s hope they become too busy fighting each other to hurt many innocent people.
Ben Taylor wrote an interesting blog post suggesting that Web Assembly should be a default binary target [6]. I don’t support that idea but I think that considering it is useful. Web assembly could be used more for non-web things and it would be a better option than Node.js for some things. There are also some interesting corner cases like games, Minecraft was written in Java and there’s no reason that Web Assembly couldn’t do the same things.
Vice has an interesting article about the Phantom encrypted phone service that ran on Blackberry handsets [7]. Australia really needs legislation based on the US RICO law!
Vice has an interesting article about an encrypted phone company run by drug dealers [8]. Apparently after making an encrypted phone system for their own use they decided to sell it to others and made millions of dollars. They could have run a successful legal business.
Salon has an insightful interview with Michael Petersen about his research on fake news and people who share it because they need chaos [9]. Apparently low status people who are status seeking are a main contributor to this, they share fake news knowingly to spread chaos. A society with less inequality would have less problems with fake news.
Salon has another insightful interview with Michael Petersen, about is later research on fake news as an evolutionary strategy [10]. People knowingly share fake news to mobilise their supporters and to signal allegiance to their group. The more bizarre the beliefs are the more strongly they signal allegiance. If an opposing group has a belief then they can show support for their group by having the opposite belief (EG by opposing vaccination if the other political side supports doctors). He also suggests that lying can be a way of establishing dominance, the more honest people are opposed by a lie the more dominant the liar may seem.
Vice has an amusing article about how police took over the Encrochat encrypted phone network that was mostly used by criminals [11]. It’s amusing to read of criminals getting taken down like this. It’s also interesting to note that the authorities messed up by breaking the wipe facility which alerted the criminals that their security was compromised. The investigation could have continued for longer if they hadn’t changed the functionality of compromised phones. A later vice article mentioned that the malware installed on Encrochat devices recorded MAC addresses of Wifi access points which was used to locate the phones even though they had the GPS hardware removed.
Cory Doctorow wrote an insightful article for Locus about the insufficient necessity of interoperability [12]. The problem if monopolies is not just an inability to interoperate with other services or leave it’s losing control over your life. A few cartel participants interoperating will be able to do all the bad things to us tha a single monopolist could do.
- [1] https://tinyurl.com/yhrq5887
- [2] https://tinyurl.com/yhmog5ex
- [3] https://tinyurl.com/ygnmjm9j
- [4] https://www.bitsnbites.eu/three-fundamental-flaws-of-simd/
- [5] https://www.dailydot.com/debug/ghostezra-telegram-fued-qanon/
- [6] https://tinyurl.com/yhvganlc
- [7] https://tinyurl.com/yfljnlq5
- [8] https://tinyurl.com/yft5qwbc
- [9] https://tinyurl.com/yjjnnyfu
- [10] https://tinyurl.com/yjxq8c2v
- [11] https://tinyurl.com/y7hhrxuz
- [12] https://tinyurl.com/yj33txpj