Dark Patterns

I felt a little ill that Gmail wouldn't work on my phone without granting access to my phone contacts. I knew it was wrong. 'Gmail needs your contacts to work.' BS.

Decieved By Design

We've always known Google and Facebook are selling data in exchange for a 'free' service. When Facebook makes it hard to leave or Google cripples its software and insinuates that it needs access to work, though... that should tell you how much they 'care about your privacy.' They care so much they will design dark patterns to confuse and beguile you into giving away more than you normally would.

We should all be moving away from this trend. My life is completely tied to Gmail. It is in my long list of things to move to another email provider. I have a handful of BS sites I need to clean up as well from the web 2.0 era (about.me anyone?).

Richard Stallman is an old coot and a bit eccentric. He also isn't wrong about the need for free software. Free, not as in beer, but free as in freedom. The point of GNU is that the end user should completely control the code which runs on the hardware they purchased. I am not against closed source at every point.

Security is one major area that open source shines. Closed source means only the corporation, the attacker, and maybe the NSA know about the exploit. Vulnerabilities in closed source can go unnoticed for years. No Vault7 required, you simply don't know what is running on your machine.

Regardless of your political affiliation, creed or color, this affects you. Vogue magazine is happy to give you fashion tips for protest season. I've actually seen several of these, Salon and others. I like how they call it a uniform.

https://www.vogue.com/article/fashion-designers-womens-march-2018-uniforms

Not a word about best practices in computing, though, you rebel you. You show The Man by posting on Facebook! That 'like' clearly signals that you aren't a racist, or a communist, or whatever. Facebook has an algorithm to detect suicidal thoughts and has admitted to jacking people's emotions. This is more than selling ads.

Would you like to know where cyber comes from? It is of Greek origin, and is related to the word 'government'. Mentes means mind. I'll let you fill in the rest. The word cybernetics was first used by Norbert Weiner, in his 1950 work The Human Use of Human Beings. Cool, right?

Check out this guy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Manuel_Rodriguez_Delgado

Control and systems theory, industrial automation, and management science are all related fields. Even though Delgado did research and develop direct electronic control technologies, they are not required for The Human Use of Human Beings.

Let me give you an example of cybernetic command and control you may have missed. Under Bush, you had the Patriot Act. Under Obama, that was expanded with the NDAA. Then came this:

Sometime in 2015 you check your phone. You have a push notification. An injustice has occurred. You are informed of a location and a time. With your emotions and reality properly augmented, you move to the location at the time your were instructed (I mean informed, you're a free, radical and rebellious individual, of course). Together with your peers who also received the electronic impulse, you move into formation. On cue, you put your hands up. Some of you yell obscenities at the police, who you will later demand remove the people you disagree with.

Under the NDAA the police don't need much to detain you indefinitely without trial.

With relatively low tech electronic methods, you have identified yourself as anti-establishment, lined up for the police and surrendered. Yes, technologies exist to manipulate human limbs; the nervous system is itself electric. Cybernetic command and control doesn't need it though, you will comply when the TV says 'march!'

It is completely lost on me how talk show hosts and major corporations are in any way radical or punk.

Viva la revolucion, it's televised. Sí se puede hacer lo que dicen.