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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 years ago

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In defense of bureaucratic competence

Sure, sometimes it really does make sense to do your own research. There's times when you really do need to take personal responsibility for the way things are going. But there's limits. We live in a highly technical world, in which hundreds of esoteric, potentially lethal factors impinge on your life every day.

You can't "do your own research" to figure out whether all that stuff is safe and sound. Sure, you might be able to figure out whether a contractor's assurances about a new steel joist for your ceiling are credible, but after you do that, are you also going to independently audit the software in your car's antilock brakes?

How about the nutritional claims on your food and the sanitary conditions in the industrial kitchen it came out of? If those turn out to be inadequate, are you going to be able to validate the medical advice you get in the ER when you show up at 3AM with cholera? While you're trying to figure out the #HIPAAWaiver they stuck in your hand on the way in?

40 years ago, Ronald Reagan declared war on "the administrative state," and "government bureaucrats" have been the favored bogeyman of the American right ever since. Even if Steve Bannon hasn't managed to get you to froth about the "Deep State," there's a good chance that you've griped about red tape from time to time.

Not without reason, mind you. The fact that the government can make good rules doesn't mean it will. When we redid our kitchen this year, the city inspector added a bunch of arbitrary electrical outlets to the contractor's plans in places where neither we, nor any future owner, will every need them.

But the answer to bad regulation isn't no regulation. During the same kitchen reno, our contractor discovered that at some earlier time, someone had installed our kitchen windows without the accompanying vapor-barriers. In the decades since, the entire structure of our kitchen walls had rotted out. Not only was the entire front of our house one good earthquake away from collapsing – there were two half rotted verticals supporting the whole thing – but replacing the rotted walls added more than $10k to the project.

In other words, the problem isn't too much regulation, it's the wrong regulation. I want our city inspectors to make sure that contractors install vapor barriers, but to not demand superfluous electrical outlets.

Which raises the question: where do regulations come from? How do we get them right?

Regulation is, first and foremost, a truth-seeking exercise. There will never be one obvious answer to any sufficiently technical question. "Should this window have a vapor barrier?" is actually a complex question, needing to account for different window designs, different kinds of barriers, etc.

To make a regulation, regulators ask experts to weigh in. At the federal level, expert agencies like the DoT or the FCC or HHS will hold a "Notice of Inquiry," which is a way to say, "Hey, should we do something about this? If so, what should we do?"

Anyone can weigh in on these: independent technical experts, academics, large companies, lobbyists, industry associations, members of the public, hobbyist groups, and swivel-eyed loons. This produces a record from which the regulator crafts a draft regulation, which is published in something called a "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking."

The NPRM process looks a lot like the NOI process: the regulator publishes the rule, the public weighs in for a couple of rounds of comments, and the regulator then makes the rule (this is the federal process; state regulation and local ordinances vary, but they follow a similar template of collecting info, making a proposal, collecting feedback and finalizing the proposal).

These truth-seeking exercises need good input. Even very competent regulators won't know everything, and even the strongest theoretical foundation needs some evidence from the field. It's one thing to say, "Here's how your antilock braking software should work," but you also need to hear from mechanics who service cars, manufacturers, infosec specialists and drivers.

These people will disagree with each other, for good reasons and for bad ones. Some will be sincere but wrong. Some will want to make sure that their products or services are required – or that their competitors' products and services are prohibited.

It's the regulator's job to sort through these claims. But they don't have to go it alone: in an ideal world, the wrong people will be corrected by other parties in the docket, who will back up their claims with evidence.

So when the FCC proposes a Net Neutrality rule, the monopoly telcos and cable operators will pile in and insist that this is technically impossible, that there is no way to operate a functional ISP if the network management can't discriminate against traffic that is less profitable to the carrier. Now, this unity of perspective might reflect a bedrock truth ("Net Neutrality can't work") or a monopolists' convenient lie ("Net Neutrality is less profitable for us").

In a competitive market, there'd be lots of counterclaims with evidence from rivals: "Of course Net Neutrality is feasible, and here are our server logs to prove it!" But in a monopolized markets, those counterclaims come from micro-scale ISPs, or academics, or activists, or subscribers. These counterclaims are easy to dismiss ("what do you know about supporting 100 million users?"). That's doubly true when the regulator is motivated to give the monopolists what they want – either because they are hoping for a job in the industry after they quit government service, or because they came out of industry and plan to go back to it.

To make things worse, when an industry is heavily concentrated, it's easy for members of the ruling cartel – and their backers in government – to claim that the only people who truly understand the industry are its top insiders. Seen in that light, putting an industry veteran in charge of the industry's regulator isn't corrupt – it's sensible.

All of this leads to regulatory capture – when a regulator starts defending an industry from the public interest, instead of defending the public from the industry. The term "regulatory capture" has a checkered history. It comes out of a bizarre, far-right Chicago School ideology called "Public Choice Theory," whose goal is to eliminate regulation, not fix it.

In Public Choice Theory, the biggest companies in an industry have the strongest interest in capturing the regulator, and they will work harder – and have more resources – than anyone else, be they members of the public, workers, or smaller rivals. This inevitably leads to capture, where the state becomes an arm of the dominant companies, wielded by them to prevent competition:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/

This is regulatory nihilism. It supposes that the only reason you weren't killed by your dinner, or your antilock brakes, or your collapsing roof, is that you just got lucky – and not because we have actual, good, sound regulations that use evidence to protect us from the endless lethal risks we face. These nihilists suppose that making good regulation is either a myth – like ancient Egyptian sorcery – or a lost art – like the secret to embalming Pharaohs.

But it's clearly possible to make good regulations – especially if you don't allow companies to form monopolies or cartels. What's more, failing to make public regulations isn't the same as getting rid of regulation. In the absence of public regulation, we get private regulation, run by companies themselves.

Think of Amazon. For decades, the DoJ and FTC sat idly by while Amazon assembled and fortified its monopoly. Today, Amazon is the de facto e-commerce regulator. The company charges its independent sellers 45-51% in junk fees to sell on the platform, including $31b/year in "advertising" to determine who gets top billing in your searches. Vendors raise their Amazon prices in order to stay profitable in the face of these massive fees, and if they don't raise their prices at every other store and site, Amazon downranks them to oblivion, putting them out of business.

This is the crux of the FTC's case against Amazon: that they are picking winners and setting prices across the entire economy, including at every other retailer:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

The same is true for Google/Facebook, who decide which news and views you encounter; for Apple/Google, who decide which apps you can use, and so on. The choice is never "government regulation" or "no regulation" – it's always "government regulation" or "corporate regulation." You either live by rules made in public by democratically accountable bureaucrats, or rules made in private by shareholder-accountable executives.

You just can't solve this by "voting with your wallet." Think about the problem of robocalls. Nobody likes these spam calls, and worse, they're a vector for all kinds of fraud. Robocalls are mostly a problem with federation. The phone system is a network-of-networks, and your carrier is interconnected with carriers all over the world, sometimes through intermediaries that make it hard to know which network a call originates on.

Some of these carriers are spam-friendly. They make money by selling access to spammers and scammers. Others don't like spam, but they have lax or inadequate security measures to prevent robocalls. Others will simply be targets of opportunity: so large and well-resourced that they are irresistible to bad actors, who continuously probe their defenses and exploit overlooked flaws, which are quickly patched.

To stem the robocall tide, your phone company will have to block calls from bad actors, put sloppy or lazy carriers on notice to shape up or face blocks, and also tell the difference between good companies and bad ones.

There's no way you can figure this out on your own. How can you know whether your carrier is doing a good job at this? And even if your carrier wants to do this, only the largest, most powerful companies can manage it. Rogue carriers won't give a damn if some tiny micro-phone-company threatens them with a block if they don't shape up.

This is something that a large, powerful government agency is best suited to addressing. And thankfully, we have such an agency. Two years ago, the FCC demanded that phone companies submit plans for "robocall mitigation." Now, it's taking action:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/10/telcos-filed-blank-robocall-plans-with-fcc-and-got-away-with-it-for-2-years/

Specifically, the FCC has identified carriers – in the US and abroad – with deficient plans. Some of these plans are very deficient. National Cloud Communications of Texas sent the FCC a Windows Printer Test Page. Evernex (Pakistan) sent the FCC its "taxpayer profile inquiry" from a Pakistani state website. Viettel (Vietnam) sent in a slide presentation entitled "Making Smart Cities Vision a Reality." Canada's Humbolt VoIP sent an "indiscernible object." DomainerSuite submitted a blank sheet of paper scrawled with the word "NOTHING."

The FCC has now notified these carriers – and others with less egregious but still deficient submissions – that they have 14 days to fix this or they'll be cut off from the US telephone network.

This is a problem you don't fix with your wallet, but with your ballot. Effective, public-interest-motivated FCC regulators are a political choice. Trump appointed the cartoonishly evil Ajit Pai to run the FCC, and he oversaw a program of neglect and malice. Pai – a former Verizon lawyer – dismantled Net Neutrality after receiving millions of obviously fraudulent comments from stolen identities, lying about it, and then obstructing the NY Attorney General's investigation into the matter:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/31/and-drown-it/#starve-the-beast

The Biden administration has a much better FCC – though not as good as it could be, thanks to Biden hanging Gigi Sohn out to dry in the face of a homophobic smear campaign that ultimately led one of the best qualified nominees for FCC commissioner to walk away from the process:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/15/useful-idiotsuseful-idiots/#unrequited-love

Notwithstanding the tragic loss of Sohn's leadership in this vital agency, Biden's FCC – and its action on robocalls – illustrates the value of elections won with ballots, not wallets.

Self-regulation without state regulation inevitably devolves into farce. We're a quarter of a century into the commercial internet and the US still doesn't have a modern federal privacy law. The closest we've come is a disclosure rule, where companies can make up any policy they want, provided they describe it to you.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out how to cheat on this regulation. It's so simple, even a Meta lawyer can figure it out – which is why the Meta Quest VR headset has a privacy policy isn't merely awful, but long.

It will take you five hours to read the whole document and discover how badly you're being screwed. Go ahead, "do your own research":

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/annual-creep-o-meter/

The answer to bad regulation is good regulation, and the answer to incompetent regulators is competent ones. As Michael Lewis's Fifth Risk (published after Trump filled the administrative agencies with bootlickers, sociopaths and crooks) documented, these jobs demand competence:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/11/27/the-fifth-risk-michael-lewis-explains-how-the-deep-state-is-just-nerds-versus-grifters/

For example, Lewis describes how a Washington State nuclear waste facility created as part of the Manhattan Project endangers the Columbia River, the source of 8 million Americans' drinking water. The nuclear waste cleanup is projected to take 100 years and cost 100 billion dollars. With stakes that high, we need competent bureaucrats overseeing the job.

The hacky conservative jokes comparing every government agency to the DMV are not descriptive so much as prescriptive. By slashing funding, imposing miserable working conditions, and demonizing the people who show up for work anyway, neoliberals have chased away many good people, and hamstrung those who stayed.

One of the most inspiring parts of the Biden administration is the large number of extremely competent, extremely principled agency personnel he appointed, and the speed and competence they've brought to their roles, to the great benefit of the American public:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

But leaders can only do so much – they also need staff. 40 years of attacks on US state capacity has left the administrative state in tatters, stretched paper-thin. In an excellent article, Noah Smith describes how a starveling American bureaucracy costs the American public a fortune:

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/america-needs-a-bigger-better-bureaucracy

Even stripped of people and expertise, the US government still needs to get stuff done, so it outsources to nonprofits and consultancies. These are the source of much of the expense and delay in public projects. Take NYC's Second Avenue subway, a notoriously overbudget and late subway extension – "the most expensive mile of subway ever built." Consultants amounted to 20% of its costs, double what France or Italy would have spent. The MTA used to employ 1,600 project managers. Now it has 124 of them, overseeing $20b worth of projects. They hand that money to consultants, and even if they have the expertise to oversee the consultants' spending, they are stretched too thin to do a good job of it:

https://slate.com/business/2023/02/subway-costs-us-europe-public-transit-funds.html

When a public agency lacks competence, it ends up costing the public more. States with highly expert Departments of Transport order better projects, which need fewer changes, which adds up to massive costs savings and superior roads:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4522676

Other gaps in US regulation are plugged by nonprofits and citizen groups. Environmental rules like NEPA rely on the public to identify and object to environmental risks in public projects, from solar plants to new apartment complexes. NEPA and its state equivalents empower private actors to sue developers to block projects, even if they satisfy all environmental regulations, leading to years of expensive delay.

The answer to this isn't to dismantle environmental regulations – it's to create a robust expert bureaucracy that can enforce them instead of relying on NIMBYs. This is called "ministerial approval" – when skilled government workers oversee environmental compliance. Predictably, NIMBYs hate ministerial approval.

Which is not to say that there aren't problems with trusting public enforcers to ensure that big companies are following the law. Regulatory capture is real, and the more concentrated an industry is, the greater the risk of capture. We are living in a moment of shocking market concentration, thanks to 40 years of under-regulation:

https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/learn/monopoly-by-the-numbers

Remember that five-hour privacy policy for a Meta VR headset? One answer to these eye-glazing garbage novellas presented as "privacy policies" is to simply ban certain privacy-invading activities. That way, you can skip the policy, knowing that clicking "I agree" won't expose you to undue risk.

This is the approach that Bennett Cyphers and I argue for in our EFF white-paper, "Privacy Without Monopoly":

https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy

After all, even the companies that claim to be good for privacy aren't actually very good for privacy. Apple blocked Facebook from spying on iPhone owners, then sneakily turned on their own mass surveillance system, and lied about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

But as the European experiment with the GDPR has shown, public administrators can't be trusted to have the final word on privacy, because of regulatory capture. Big Tech companies like Google, Apple and Facebook pretend to be headquartered in corporate crime havens like Ireland and Luxembourg, where the regulators decline to enforce the law:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town

It's only because of the GPDR has a private right of action – the right of individuals to sue to enforce their rights – that we're finally seeing the beginning of the end of commercial surveillance in Europe:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/07/americans-deserve-more-current-american-data-privacy-protection-act

It's true that NIMBYs can abuse private rights of action, bringing bad faith cases to slow or halt good projects. But just as the answer to bad regulations is good ones, so too is the answer to bad private rights of action good ones. SLAPP laws have shown us how to balance vexatious litigation with the public interest:

https://www.rcfp.org/resources/anti-slapp-laws/

We must get over our reflexive cynicism towards public administration. In my book The Internet Con, I lay out a set of public policy proposals for dismantling Big Tech and putting users back in charge of their digital lives:

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con

The most common objection I've heard since publishing the book is, "Sure, Big Tech has enshittified everything great about the internet, but how can we trust the government to fix it?"

We've been conditioned to think that lawmakers are too old, too calcified and too corrupt, to grasp the technical nuances required to regulate the internet. But just because Congress isn't made up of computer scientists, it doesn't mean that they can't pass good laws relating to computers. Congress isn't full of microbiologists, but we still manage to have safe drinking water (most of the time).

You can't just "do the research" or "vote with your wallet" to fix the internet. Bad laws – like the DMCA, which bans most kinds of reverse engineering – can land you in prison just for reconfiguring your own devices to serve you, rather than the shareholders of the companies that made them. You can't fix that yourself – you need a responsive, good, expert, capable government to fix it.

We can have that kind of government. It'll take some doing, because these questions are intrinsically hard to get right even without monopolies trying to capture their regulators. Even a president as flawed as Biden can be pushed into nominating good administrative personnel and taking decisive, progressive action:

https://doctorow.medium.com/joe-biden-is-headed-to-a-uaw-picket-line-in-detroit-f80bd0b372ab?sk=f3abdfd3f26d2f615ad9d2f1839bcc07

Biden may not be doing enough to suit your taste. I'm certainly furious with aspects of his presidency. The point isn't to lionize Biden – it's to point out that even very flawed leaders can be pushed into producing benefit for the American people. Think of how much more we can get if we don't give up on politics but instead demand even better leaders.

My next novel is The Lost Cause, coming out on November 14. It's about a generation of people who've grown up under good government – a historically unprecedented presidency that has passed the laws and made the policies we'll need to save our species and planet from the climate emergency:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865939/the-lost-cause

The action opens after the pendulum has swung back, with a new far-right presidency and an insurgency led by white nationalist militias and their offshore backers – seagoing anarcho-capitalist billionaires.

In the book, these forces figure out how to turn good regulations against the people they were meant to help. They file hundreds of simultaneous environmental challenges to refugee housing projects across the country, blocking the infill building that is providing homes for the people whose homes have been burned up in wildfires, washed away in floods, or rendered uninhabitable by drought.

I don't want to spoil the book here, but it shows how the protagonists pursue a multipronged defense, mixing direct action, civil disobedience, mass protest, court challenges and political pressure to fight back. What they don't do is give up on state capacity. When the state is corrupted by wreckers, they claw back control, rather than giving up on the idea of a competent and benevolent public system.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/23/getting-stuff-done/#praxis

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feminist-space · 1 year ago

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"Just weeks before the implosion of AllHere, an education technology company that had been showered with cash from venture capitalists and featured in glowing profiles by the business press, America’s second-largest school district was warned about problems with AllHere’s product.

As the eight-year-old startup rolled out Los Angeles Unified School District’s flashy new AI-driven chatbot — an animated sun named “Ed” that AllHere was hired to build for $6 million — a former company executive was sending emails to the district and others that Ed’s workings violated bedrock student data privacy principles.

Those emails were sent shortly before The 74 first reported last week that AllHere, with $12 million in investor capital, was in serious straits. A June 14 statement on the company’s website revealed a majority of its employees had been furloughed due to its “current financial position.” Company founder and CEO Joanna Smith-Griffin, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles district said, was no longer on the job.

Smith-Griffin and L.A. Superintendent Alberto Carvalho went on the road together this spring to unveil Ed at a series of high-profile ed tech conferences, with the schools chief dubbing it the nation’s first “personal assistant” for students and leaning hard into LAUSD’s place in the K-12 AI vanguard. He called Ed’s ability to know students “unprecedented in American public education” at the ASU+GSV conference in April.

Through an algorithm that analyzes troves of student information from multiple sources, the chatbot was designed to offer tailored responses to questions like “what grade does my child have in math?” The tool relies on vast amounts of students’ data, including their academic performance and special education accommodations, to function.

Meanwhile, Chris Whiteley, a former senior director of software engineering at AllHere who was laid off in April, had become a whistleblower. He told district officials, its independent inspector general’s office and state education officials that the tool processed student records in ways that likely ran afoul of L.A. Unified’s own data privacy rules and put sensitive information at risk of getting hacked. None of the agencies ever responded, Whiteley told The 74.

...

In order to provide individualized prompts on details like student attendance and demographics, the tool connects to several data sources, according to the contract, including Welligent, an online tool used to track students’ special education services. The document notes that Ed also interfaces with the Whole Child Integrated Data stored on Snowflake, a cloud storage company. Launched in 2019, the Whole Child platform serves as a central repository for LAUSD student data designed to streamline data analysis to help educators monitor students’ progress and personalize instruction.

Whiteley told officials the app included students’ personally identifiable information in all chatbot prompts, even in those where the data weren’t relevant. Prompts containing students’ personal information were also shared with other third-party companies unnecessarily, Whiteley alleges, and were processed on offshore servers. Seven out of eight Ed chatbot requests, he said, are sent to places like Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Australia and Canada.

Taken together, he argued the company’s practices ran afoul of data minimization principles, a standard cybersecurity practice that maintains that apps should collect and process the least amount of personal information necessary to accomplish a specific task. Playing fast and loose with the data, he said, unnecessarily exposed students’ information to potential cyberattacks and data breaches and, in cases where the data were processed overseas, could subject it to foreign governments’ data access and surveillance rules.

Chatbot source code that Whiteley shared with The 74 outlines how prompts are processed on foreign servers by a Microsoft AI service that integrates with ChatGPT. The LAUSD chatbot is directed to serve as a “friendly, concise customer support agent” that replies “using simple language a third grader could understand.” When querying the simple prompt “Hello,” the chatbot provided the student’s grades, progress toward graduation and other personal information.

AllHere’s critical flaw, Whiteley said, is that senior executives “didn’t understand how to protect data.”

...

Earlier in the month, a second threat actor known as Satanic Cloud claimed it had access to tens of thousands of L.A. students’ sensitive information and had posted it for sale on Breach Forums for $1,000. In 2022, the district was victim to a massive ransomware attack that exposed reams of sensitive data, including thousands of students’ psychological evaluations, to the dark web.

With AllHere’s fate uncertain, Whiteley blasted the company’s leadership and protocols.

“Personally identifiable information should be considered acid in a company and you should only touch it if you have to because acid is dangerous,” he told The 74. “The errors that were made were so egregious around PII, you should not be in education if you don’t think PII is acid.”

Read the full article here:

https://www.the74million.org/article/whistleblower-l-a-schools-chatbot-misused-student-data-as-tech-co-crumbled/

#data breach #lausd #la school system #tech bro ai being reckless with personal data as usual #anti ai

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shrinkrants · 4 months ago

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Trump's second term is only three and a half weeks old. The press, politicians, and many Americans seem to have forgotten what happened two weeks ago. Here is a quick refresher of what Trump or his minions have done in 25 days:

Pardoned 1,500 insurrectionists who assisted Trump in his first attempted coup.

Converted the DOJ into his political hit squad by opening investigations into members of the DOJ, FBI, Congress, and state prosecutors’ offices who attempted to hold Trump to account for his crimes.

Fired a dozen inspectors general, whose job it is to identify fraud and corruption and to serve as a check on abuses of power by the president.

Fired dozens of prosecutors and FBI agents who worked on criminal cases relating to Trump

Fired dozens of prosecutors who worked on criminal cases against January 6 insurrectionists

Opened investigations into thousands of FBI agents who worked on cases against January 6 insurrectionists

Disbanded the FBI the group of agents designed to prevent foreign election interference in the US

Disbanded the DOJ group of prosecutors targeting Russian oligarchs’ criminal activity affecting the US

Fired the chairs and members of the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, and the Federal Election Commission and refused to replace them, effectively shutting down those independent boards in violation of statute

Shut down and defunded the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Shut down and defunded USAID by placing virtually the entire staff of the agency on leave

Impounded billions of dollars of grants appropriated by Congress to USAID, National Institutes of Health, Department of Education, and the EPA, all in violation of Article I of the Constitution, which grants Congress the power to make appropriations

Allowed a group of hackers to seize control of large swaths of the federal government’s computer network by attaching unauthorized servers, changing and creating new computer code outside of federal security protocols, creating “backdoors” in secure systems, installing unsanctioned “AI” software to scrape federal data (including personal identification information), and installing “spyware” to monitor email of federal employees

Disobeyed multiple court orders to release frozen federal funds (an ongoing violation; see the NYTimes on Wednesday)

Granted a corrupt pardon to the Mayor of New York in exchange for his promise to cooperate in Trump's immigration crackdown

The above is a partial list, each item of which is illegal (at least) and unconstitutional (at worst). Taken together, they compel the conclusion that Trump has not only violated his oath in every conceivable way but that he is actively working to overthrow the Constitution. That is the very definition of a coup.

#coup #crisis #constitutional crisis #wake up america!

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ghibligrrrl · 5 months ago

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👤Psycho-Pass👤

Ep. 1, 3, 4, & 5

Psycho-Pass is an anime that touches on many themes relevant to our current social climate and digital landscape. The story, which centers on law enforcement in a society of hyper-surveillance, touches on ideas of privacy, dehumanization, isolation, parasocial relationships, and simulation. In conjunction with this anime, we were asked to read Foucault's "Panopticism" and Drew Harwell's 2019 Washington Post article "Colleges are turning students’ phones into surveillance machines, tracking the locations of hundreds of thousands." I think these choices expanded my understanding of the show and were extremely eye opening when applied to our current culture.

Using the language of Foucault, the Sibyl system acts as a constant "supervisor" monitoring the emotional states of every citizen through a psycho-pass that gives a biometric reading of an individual's brain revealing a specific hue and crime score which can relay how likely a person is to commit a crime or act violently. The brain, formerly the one place safe from surveillance, is now on display 24/7, creating a true panoptic effect. In this future dystopian Japan, criminals are dehumanized and some, called enforcers, are used as tools to apprehend other criminals. They are constantly compared to dogs, and inspectors are warned not to get too emotionally invested or close to them to avoid increasing their own crime scores. The show constantly shows criminals as being lost causes, and even victims are cruelly given up on if the stress of the crimes against them increased their own crime score too much. This concept is shown in episode 1 and I think it is meant to present Sibyl as an inherently flawed system from the start.

I think that the Washington Post article was extremely relevant to this anime, and even to my own life as a college student. Harwell writes that oftentimes monitoring begins with good intentions like preventing crime (as in Psycho-Pass) or identifying mental health issues. Universities across the US have started implementing mobile tracking software to monitor where students are, what areas they frequent, and whether or not they come to class. The developer of this software stated that algorithms can generate a risk score based on student location data to flag students who may be struggling with mental health issues. While this sounds helpful in theory, I can't help but notice how eerily similar this software is to the Sybil system. Even high school students are sounding alarm bells after being subjected to increased surveillance in the interest of safety. In another of Harwell's articles published the same year, "Parkland school turns to experimental surveillance software that can flag students as threats," a student raised concerns about the technology's potential for being abused by law enforcement stating, "my fear is that this will become targeted." After beginning Psycho-Pass, I honestly couldn't agree more. Supporters of AI surveillance systems argue that its just another tool for law enforcement and that it's ultimately up to humans to make the right call, but in ep. 1 of Psycho-Pass, we saw just how easy it was for law enforcement to consider taking an innocent woman's life just because the algorithm determined that her crime score increased past the acceptable threshold. And there are plenty of real-world examples of law enforcement making the wrong decisions in high-stress situations. AI has the potential to make more people the targets of police violence either through technical error or built-in bias. As former Purdue University president Mitch Daniels stated in his op-ed "Someone is watching you," we have to ask ourselves "wether our good intentions are carrying us past boundaries where privacy and individual autonomy should still prevail."

I'm interested to see what the next episodes have in store. This is a series that I will probably continue watching outside of class. Finally some good f-ing food.

#psycho pass #classposts

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beardedmrbean · 1 year ago

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The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has completed an extensive investigation into a series of suspected terrorist offences, and passed the case file to prosecutors for further consideration.

The case relates to a series of suspicious packages sent to political party offices last year.

The first incident was reported on 16 February, when suspicious packages arrived at the party office of the Left Alliance in Helsinki and in Tampere. A similar suspect package arrived at the office of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Tampere a week later.

Later, suspicious parcels also arrived at an SDP office in Turku, a Left Alliance office in Pori, and the Green Party and the SDP's offices in Helsinki.

The packages were sent in the run-up to last year's general election, at a time when each of the three parties to receive the parcels — the SDP, the Greens and the Left Alliance — were in government.

A police spokesperson said on Friday that, based on evidence uncovered during the course of the preliminary investigation, the bomb threats were an attempt to influence the democratic process.

"A technical investigation found that the packages sent were very similar in detail. The same suspect is also believed to have posted provocative and threatening material on forums between late 2022 and spring 2023 in connection with the parliamentary elections. In this respect, the person is suspected of public incitement to an offence," Detective Inspector Sanna Springare wrote in an NBI press release.

Yle understands that at least some of the packages contained insulating wool and wires, suggesting that the sender wanted to create the impression that it was an explosive device.

The suspect in the case is a man in his 40's from Pirkanmaa, according to Yle's sources, and was a former member of the Finns Party. He has denied the charges, both to the NBI and to Yle.

NBI also probed plans for "ritual Satanic murder"

In addition to the investigation into the suspect packages, Yle understands that the same suspect was under surveillance by the NBI over plans to potentially carry out a ritual murder.

The suspicions were raised due to evidence uncovered by the NBI during the investigation into the suspect packages.

During a search of the suspect's home, investigating officers found a number of items used in satanic worship rituals as well as a book called 21 polkua pimeyden valtakuntaan — roughly translated as '21 Paths to the Dark Kingdom' — which is a Finnish book describing ways to become a Satan worshipper.

The book's recommendations include becoming a neo-Nazi as a step towards "true Satanism" as well as describing a ritual murder of a young man on the summer solstice. Police believe the suspect had begun the "ritual path" outlined in the book and he was planning to carry out the human sacrifice on 21 June 2023.

However, the NBI did not open a preliminary investigation into this suspected offence and the man denied in an interview with Yle that he practiced Satanic worship.

Finnish court jails British man for online casino fraud

The District Court of Central Finland has found William Anthony Parker guilty of aggravated online casino fraud and sentenced him to two and a half years in prison.

Parker, a British citizen, was detained by police in Central Finland in January on suspicion he had exploited a software flaw to hack into the computer systems of two international online casinos.

The court ordered him to forfeit the proceeds of his crimes — estimated by police to be about 835,000 euros — to the Finnish state.

Parker's assets, which also included more than 9,000 euros in cash as well as 100 gold coins found in his possession, had been frozen during the course of the preliminary investigation.

The prosecution had demanded a prison sentence of more than three years.

The court's verdict in the case is not final, meaning that the ruling is still subject to appeal.

#nunyas news #updates from up north

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mentalisttraceur-software · 2 years ago

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Could you elaborate on how software is applied philosophy?

Software work ends up using and empirically testing a lot of the thinking and conclusions that get serious discussion in philosophy, or that would look like philosophy if generalized beyond software.

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My go-to example of this, probably not the best example but it's simple and accessible, is "Chesterton's Fence", which is basically the idea that we shouldn't change something unless we understand why it is (or was) good/useful.

Outside of software, some philosopher named Chesterton popularized this idea like a hundred years ago with an analogy about a fence, and it has been discussed enough that today it still has an established name from that. People debate and hair-split when it applies and what other values/heuristics should take precedence. You can even find people arguing whether it's a good heuristic at all or always wrong.

In software, getting any real work done depends on already having a practical, working solution to this problem space. When you need to change code but you feel that desire to understand more of it first, or you want to get more testing with a new change before rolling into production, that's your brain already having a whole philosophy paper's worth of ideas expanding on Chesterton's Fence. When is it safe or an acceptable trade-off to proceed without learning more? Precisely what edge cases do you need to look into or rule out? What tests can take the place of needing to know the consequences? What design of my implementation or API can eliminate the need for code guarding against special cases?

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So that's just one example, but I think this generalizes pretty well.

A lot of philosophy boils down to: how think, what's true, what do? The study of correct thinking, what we can know and how, and what we ought to do. (Logic, epistemology, and ethics.)

And in software, we use all those skills. If our logic is bad, we make more mistakes. If our ability to know what we know and how to verify truth of our ideas is bad, we'll make more mistakes. If we have bad ideas about how to make decisions, or bad skills at reviewing ourselves for errors in thinking and knowledge, we'll have more inefficiencies in our processes/workflows and be slower to improve. Very few activities have as tight/short/fast of a feedback loop between how your think and what results you get.

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There is a lot of overlap in the mental skills involved in sound philosophical thought and coming up with good software designs for a given problem. In as little as I can claim to have done both, I seem to need mostly the same mental skills for them.

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A lot of decisions and trade-offs in software have ethics impacts. We get a lot of personal freedom within our code that will have real impacts on other people - edge cases frustratingly unhandled vs handled in an intuitive and helpful way; errors silently swallowed or harmfully ignored or cryptically unadorned vs considerately detected before destructive actions and informatively wrapped before being shown; code left opaque and complected vs helpfully tuned to guide understanding and written so as to minimize what needs to be known or changed to work with any given spot. All that adds up to affect people, sometimes very significantly, wasting hours of work or losing data.

Two examples of that in one. Just the other day I helped someone save a lot of stuff they had typed from a website that got stuck in some state where their text was unclickable+unselectabled and covered by an overlay. Losing all that text and having to retype it would've been severely unpleasant, mentally+emotionally costly, and probably would've ruined an evening for at least one person. I was only able to help because I am fluent with web browsers' dev tools, so I was able to find the text box in the HTML inspector. I doubt the devs of either the web app or the browser dev tools had this particular situation in mind, but these were predictable ethics impacts on both sides - and besides ethics in general being a subset of philosophy, the thought shapes that enable you to automatically predict entire categories of impacts like those are also a kind of philosophy.

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When you design a class hierarchy in code, or a database schemas, or a REST API, or just come up with a way to factor some logic into separate functions... you're doing ontology. And while the philosopher ontologist sees no real consequences if they get it wrong, you will feel the difference between getting it right and getting it wrong as the difference between a force-multiplier and an awkward hindrance - edge-cases and boilerplate elegantly become naturally unnecessary and more things Just Work "for free" when the abstractions and factoring and data shape are right for the problem. You're decomposing things into concepts and identifying relationships between them, and you're testing if the thinking you use to do that is actually good at distilling what's functionally important to the problem space. (This is why "naming things" is one of the "truly hard problems in computer science" - naming things well sometimes entails all the work of coming up with an ontology that's good for thinking about what you're doing, which also must map concisely and intuitively to a language like English.)

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Sorry for the lack of cohesion/connectedness, this is just what I could think of / remember off the top of my head today.

#software #software is applied philosophy #philosophy

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artgirlstation-6789 · 2 days ago

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💡 Kenzie Lux ♀️

Supporting Character in Artoronpa: The Colors of Concept

(A Danganronpa fangame by Artgirlstation Artserpaintment Company)

Character Introduction

Title: The Ultimate Lighting Technician

Color Theme: Sunny Yellow (bright, radiant yellow like a warm sunbeam)

Nationality: American (West Coast, theatrical and concert scene background)

Sexuality: Bisexual

Backstory

Kenzie grew up backstage in theater halls and concert venues, where her parents worked as stagehands and lighting designers. Fascinated by how light shapes mood and storytelling, she immersed herself in the technical and artistic sides of lighting from an early age.

By her teens, she was already designing complex lighting setups for local productions and indie concerts. Her signature style blends vibrant warmth with dynamic effects that heighten emotional impact. Recognized for her cheerful professionalism and innovative techniques, Hope’s Peak Academy named her The Ultimate Lighting Technician.

Personality

Sunny, optimistic, and energetic — a true ray of light in any room

Friendly and approachable, with a natural talent for teamwork

Creative and always experimenting with new lighting effects

Highly technical but balances precision with artistic vision

Empathetic and intuitive about others’ moods and needs

Sometimes overly enthusiastic, which can be overwhelming

Thrives under pressure and tight deadlines

Enjoys encouraging others and boosting team morale

Occupation

Professional lighting technician and designer for theater, concerts, and events

Works closely with directors, musicians, and stage managers

Specializes in LED, projection mapping, and color theory in lighting

Runs workshops and training sessions for aspiring lighting artists

Likes:

☀️ Bright, warm light and sunny days

🎭 Theater productions and live concerts

🎨 Color theory and light effects

🎧 Upbeat music and positive vibes

☕ Citrus-flavored drinks and snacks

📱 Tech gadgets and lighting control software

📚 Reading about stagecraft and visual design

Dislikes:

❌ Dim or flickering lights

❌ Technical malfunctions during shows

❌ Negative or gloomy attitudes

❌ Being underestimated as “just a technician”

❌ Long hours without breaks

❌ People who ignore safety protocols

Name Etymology:

Kenzie — A lively, modern name implying youthful energy and charm

Lux — Latin for “light,” symbolizing her profession and sunny personality

Business Management Approach:

Manages lighting projects with a focus on creativity, safety, and collaboration

Prioritizes clear communication with clients and team members

Advocates for sustainable, energy-efficient lighting technology

Emphasizes mentoring and uplifting new technicians and artists

Balances client needs with her own artistic vision

Usual Problems:

Struggles with burnout from demanding schedules

Can get frustrated when others don’t appreciate the complexity of lighting design

Sometimes overcommits due to eagerness to help

Battles self-doubt when her creative choices are challenged

Deals with the stress of technical issues during live performances

Specific Traits:

Often wears bright yellow or gold clothing with practical gear like gloves or tool belts

Has a contagious smile and energetic body language

Keeps a small flashlight and multi-tool on her person

Talks quickly and excitedly when discussing lighting or shows

Has a habit of adjusting lighting in any room she enters, even casually

Wears colorful accessories shaped like suns or stars

Cartoon Traits / Influences (American style):

Sunny Starscout (My Little Pony: A New Generation) — optimistic and inspiring

Dipper Pines (Gravity Falls) — curious, enthusiastic, and a problem solver

Penny (Inspector Gadget) — tech-savvy and bright

Joy (Inside Out) — endlessly positive and uplifting

Velma (Scooby-Doo) — intelligent and detail-oriented with a bright personality

Sandy Cheeks (SpongeBob SquarePants) — energetic, skilled, and determined

#artgirlstation #artoronpa: the colors of concept

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handymanrandyseo · 10 days ago

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Top 10 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Construction Company (From a Homeowner Who Learned the Hard Way)

Hey Tumblr fam 👋

Whether you're building your dream home, doing a renovation, or tackling a major remodel—hiring the right construction company is everything. I've been through the wringer with contractors who ghosted me, ran up unexpected costs, or just didn’t know what they were doing.

So here's a list of 10 questions I now ask every construction company before I hire them—plus some lessons learned the hard way.

Let’s get into it. 🛠️💬

1. Are You Licensed, Bonded, and Insured?

This is non-negotiable.

Licensed = legally allowed to do the work

Bonded = you’re protected if they don’t complete the job

Insured = you're not on the hook if something goes wrong

💡 Always ask for proof. Always verify.

2. How Long Have You Been in Business, and What Kinds of Projects Have You Done?

You want experience that matches your needs. Building a custom home? Renovating an old colonial? Finishing a basement?

👉 Ask: “Have you done a project like this before?” 👉 Then say: “Can I see photos?”

3. Can You Provide References or Testimonials?

A solid company should have clients willing to vouch for them. If they can’t give you 2-3 people to talk to, run.

📞 Ask previous clients:

Was the job completed on time?

Were there any budget surprises?

Would you hire them again?

4. Will You Handle Permits and Inspections?

They better. Period.

You do not want to handle building permits or deal with code inspectors. A legit contractor takes care of this start to finish.

🚩 If they ask you to pull permits yourself, big red flag.

5. Who Will Actually Be On Site?

Will it be their own team? Or a bunch of random subcontractors?

You want to know:

Who manages the job day-to-day?

Who do I call with a question?

Is the crew background-checked?

✅ A reliable builder gives you names, roles, and a clear point of contact.

6. What’s the Project Timeline?

You need more than “it’ll take about 3 months.”

Ask for:

Estimated start and finish dates

Timeline broken into phases

What happens if there are weather delays or material shortages?

🗓️ Tip: Set milestones and check-ins so you're never in the dark.

7. How Do You Structure Payments?

🚫 Do NOT pay the full amount up front.

A good payment schedule:

Small deposit to book the job

Payments tied to project milestones

Final payment only after final inspection + walkthrough

📄 Ask for lien waivers to protect yourself from unpaid subs.

8. What Happens If Plans Change or Something Goes Wrong?

Things happen: you want to change a finish, or they find rot in a wall.

Ask how they handle:

Change orders

Extra costs

Rework if something isn’t done right

🧠 Smart contractors have this process in writing.

9. How Will You Keep Me Updated?

You’re not being annoying—you’re being responsible. Ask:

How often do you provide updates?

Do you text, call, email?

Who will update me if something changes?

📲 Great builders use apps or software to keep everything organized (e.g., CoConstruct, Buildertrend).

10. Do You Offer a Warranty?

After all that time and money, you want a guarantee. Ask:

Is there a warranty for labor/workmanship?

How long does it last?

What’s NOT included?

🛠️ Bonus: Ask what past warranty claims they’ve had—see how they handled them.

🧱 Real Talk: Why This Matters

I once hired a guy with good reviews and a slick pitch. No license. No insurance. I was too trusting. It cost me $8,500 in repairs on top of the original job.

So now I ask these 10 questions. Every time. Without exception.

📍 Need a Trusted Construction Company in Your Area?

If you're near [Your City], here’s one I recommend personally: 👉 Check them out on Google Maps They’re licensed, bonded, insured, and communicate like pros.

Final Thoughts

Choosing the right contractor can literally change your life—for better or worse. Ask questions. Take notes. Get things in writing.

And don’t ignore your gut. If something feels off—it probably is.

Thanks for reading 🙏 If you’ve had a good (or nightmare) experience with a builder, share it below. Let's help each other build smarter. 💬👇

#construction #contractors

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meetthesingaporefiresafetym · 22 days ago

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We Thought We Were Compliant—Until Fire Safety Regulation Caught Up with Us

Like all business people, we thought that we had been done everything right. Our licenses were up to date, the firm was functioning as it should, and the premises had been inspected before. So when renew fire safety certificate singapore we thought we were compliant. We weren't, however. A single step in the wrong direction cost us far more than we had anticipated—and it was due to our failure to renew our Fire Safety Certificate in Singapore.

The Shock That Turned Everything Around

It began with what appeared to be a normal inspection visit by the authorities. We received the inspector confidently assuming all was well. But before we knew it, we were requested to produce our current renew fire safety certificate singapore —and trouble started from there. Our certificate had already expired weeks prior to that, and we did not even know.

We had, it transpired, overlooked renewing our renew fire safety certificate singapore assuming it was a once-off. It wasn't. Any change in design of your building, fire equipment, or even tenants can precipitate renewal demands. And disobedience could lead to penalties, operations disrupted for your organization, or worse.

Why Renewal Is More Important Than You Know

renew fire safety certificate singapore certificate guarantees that your building or facility meets the standards set by the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) for fire codes. Obtaining an FSC is a requirement prior to occupancy or utilization, but having its validity maintained through periodic update and renewal is equally essential.

You need to renew fire safety certificate singapore is not paperwork—it's compliance and safety. Particularly in risky areas such as kitchens, warehouses, and working environments within industries, slight modifications in area layout can mark the difference between a working fire safety system and one which fails drakofire.

If your fire protection system, emergency exits, or floor plans are modified in any way, you must inform your Qualified Person (QP) and start the renewal of your fire safety certificate Singapore.

What Went Wrong for Us

During inspection, we read our compliance documents thoroughly and found the following issues:

Expired Certification: Our fire safety certification had expired due to an extended period of minor renovation, which made us legally bound to renew it.

No Scheduled Reminders: We never established internal monitoring to track the renewal schedule.

Assumed Coverage: We assumed once certified, always certified—an costly error.

That failure initiated a chain reaction. Our business operation had to be temporarily closed down, and we had to move quickly in order to re-activate our renew fire safety certificate singapore and continue normal operations without facing legal action.

How We Got Back on Track

The first action was to hire a Singapore-licensed fire protection company with experience in regulatory compliance. They immediately went through our status, pointed out gaps, and assigned us a Qualified Person (QP) to guide us through the renewal process.

What they helped us accomplish:

Enhanced renew fire safety certificate singapore Our setup had been changed slightly, and plans needed to be updated according to these changes.

System Inspection & Testing: The exit routes, sprinklers, fire alarms, and every extinguisher were tested for efficacy and compliance.

Submission to SCDF: Our QP submitted the renewed documents through CORENET e-submission and requested inspection for renewal.

On-Site Inspection: SCDF inspected the site, and we passed—thanks to the advance preparation.

We were able to renew fire safety certificate singapore within weeks and return to full operations.

Lessons Learned

After this experience, we did some adjustments to make sure that we never fall behind on compliance again:

Automated Reminders: We now utilize software to track compliance deadlines, such as fire safety certificate Singapore renewal.

Regular System Reviews: We perform maintenance and inspections on our fire systems quarterly.

Staff Awareness: Our operations team are trained to look out and inform any changes that will impact our fire safety certification.

These measures not only make us compliant, but they also assuage us in the knowledge that our work environment is actually safe.

Final Thoughts: Don't Wait for a Visit to Discover the Truth

If you are in a business complex, store or other building that requires approval to be occupied, do not think that your fire safety responsibilities are done once the certificate has been awarded. Always remember when you need to renew your fire safety certificate Singapore, and do not procrastinate.

#drako fire

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pepminn · 3 months ago

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Where can I find free home design software online?

Constructing your dream house is no longer a matter of engaging a pricey architect or purchasing expensive software. Free home design software available on the internet makes it possible for anyone to see plans, try out interiors, and design remodelling easily. Whether you are a homeowner who wants to redesign or a professional seeking easy-to-use designing tools, there are several high-quality websites to explore.

What is Home Builder Software?

The way residential building is done has been greatly transformed with the provision of free home design software. The technology is an asset to housing professionals who want to make their business easier. With various applications that can be utilized to manage projects, design, quote, and manage customers, the software platforms focus on increasing efficiency and productivity. Construction companies can manage all the activities of their company from a single platform, thus making project planning and project delivery more efficient.

Why Should You Use Free Home Design Software?

Free home design software allows you to create and plot out designs for free. The software allows drag-and-drop, 3D view, and customized design objects that make it easy to experiment with various concepts. From remodelling a single room to designing an entire home, these sites make it easy to do with simple controls and previews based on reality.

Best Free Home Design Software by Zoftware

Build Macro – Build Macro is a simple, home design software with automated capabilities that assist in making it simpler to work with. It has advanced customization, meaning it can be operated by professionals and homeowners alike. The software supports easy collaboration as well as real-time changes.

Hyphen Homefront – Hyphenhomefront is home construction and design management software utilized by remodelers and builders. It provides a blend of design, project tracking, and budgeting tools within a single system. The software improves the efficiency of workflows, minimizing delays and expensive mistakes.

Houzz Pro – Houzz Pro is a free home design software that covers all components of home design, customer maintenance, and business growth. It also includes 3D modelling alongside marketing capability for designers and builders to post work. The software is heavily used by professionals in a bid to reach clients and perform projects successfully.

My Marketplace Builder – My Marketplace Builder is a multipurpose solution for building niche home design marketplaces. It enables users to create sites where designers, homeowners, and vendors can come together. It has a number of integrations and monetization options for successful marketplace operations.

Civil 3D – Civil 3D is a computer-aided design and documentation industry-leading software used in civil engineering and infrastructure design. It offers high-end 3D modelling technologies that allow experts to visualize site plans, land developments, and roadways. The software encourages precision and improved productivity in master home design planning.

HomeInspector Pro – HomeInspector Pro is a robust inspection software that has been created for home inspectors as well as real estate agents. It simplifies report preparation using live data capture and dynamic templates. Using this tool, you can make strong and simple to understand designs with features available to create ideas and personalize your designs. The software is more efficient with thorough and precise home appraisals.

Final Thoughts

Building your dream home has never been simpler with home design software free. Home design software free is the ideal starting point when it comes to dreaming up concepts and testing out floor plans without obligation. If you are designing a new home, redesigning a space, or remodeling, the right software can make your dream a reality in a snap.

With Zoftware, finding the best free home design software is easy and convenient. Surf through top-rated websites, compare software, and select the ideal solution to bring your ideas to life. Zoftware has a trusted list of tools used by professionals worldwide to bring their home design ideas to life. From advanced tools to easy-to-use software, this is the one-stop shop for all.

#free home design Software

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fractalnavel · 4 months ago