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authorPaul Duncan <pabs@pablotron.org>2022-12-01 19:17:52 -0500
committerPaul Duncan <pabs@pablotron.org>2022-12-01 19:17:52 -0500
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content/posts: add egrep-fb and odroid-n2l drafts
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+---
+slug: social-media
+title: "Social Media"
+date: "2022-11-23T12:03:11-04:00"
+draft: true
+---
+
+I've had these entries in [/etc/hosts][] on my personal laptop for
+years, but they seem germane and prescient in light of the [latest
+social media privacy fiasco][]:
+
+```sh
+> egrep 'fb|face' /etc/hosts
+127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com
+127.0.0.1 facebook.com
+127.0.0.1 m.facebook.com
+127.0.0.1 fbcdn.com
+127.0.0.1 fbcdn.net
+```
+&nbsp;
+
+I realize this isn't a viable option for most people, but it works for
+me because I don't have a Facebook account. At a minimum I recommend
+that everyone install [uBlock Origin][].
+
+I had a Twitter account several years ago, although I haven't touched it
+in a long time. It's unlikely that I will, given the recent change in
+ownership, content moderation deterioriration, user exodus, and [likely
+impending collapse][].
+
+In general I have a fairly dim view of centralized, ad-supported social
+media. Social media is:
+
+* **Predatory**: Social media users' personal data and their
+ relationships are the *product*, not the customer. The actual
+ customers are advertisers, [data brokers][], [oppressive
+ regimes][facebook-abortion], and other [malign interests][].
+* **Inflammatory**: Ad-supported social media algorithms are tuned to
+ prioritize engagement rather than curate interesting content (more
+ eyeballs = more ads). Our brains are [hard-wired to react
+ strongly][tfas] with inflammatory content or when [someone is wrong on
+ the Internet][xkcd-386].
+* **Toxic**: Fertile ground for disinformation, misinformation,
+ harassment, abuse, and fraud.
+
+None of these observations are novel, and they're not limited to social
+media:
+
+> Currently, the predominant business model for commercial search
+> engines is advertising. **The goals of the advertising business model
+> do not always correspond to providing quality search to users.** For
+> example, in our prototype search engine one of the top results for
+> cellular phone is “The Effect of Cellular Phone Use Upon Driver
+> Attention”, a study which explains in great detail the distractions
+> and risk associated with conversing on a cell phone while driving.
+> This search result came up first because of its high importance as
+> judged by the PageRank algorithm, an approximation of citation
+> importance on the web [Page, 98].
+>
+> It is clear that a search engine which was taking money for showing
+> cellular phone ads would have difficulty justifying the page that our
+> system returned to its paying advertisers. **For this type of reason and
+> historical experience with other media [Bagdikian, 83], we expect that
+> advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards
+> the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers. ...
+> Furthermore, advertising income often provides an incentive to provide
+> poor quality search results. … In general, it could be argued from the
+> consumer point of view that the better the search engine is, the fewer
+> advertisements will be needed for the consumer to find what they want.
+> This of course erodes the advertising supported business model of the
+> existing search engines**
+>
+> [The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine, Appendix
+> A: Advertising and Mixed Motives][google], Sergey Brin and Lawrence
+> Page (h/t [The Age of PageRank is Over][]).
+
+So what's the solution? My personal preference would be:
+
+* **Federated**: Distributed, no central authority, and based on open
+ standards (like web, and email).
+* **Non-commercial** or at least, users are the customers rather than
+ advertisers.
+* **Identity Portability**: Users should be able to migrate to a
+ different provider and retain their post history, identity, and social
+ network.
+* **Strong Encryption**: storage, transport ([TLS 1.3][]), and
+ end-to-end for direct messages.
+* **Data Privacy**: The industry has repeatedly demonstrated it's
+ inability to properly handle personal data, so this needs to be
+ regulated by something comparable to [GDPR][], enforced by a strong
+ federal agency with harsh fines for non-compliance.
+
+[Mastadon][] looks promising. I haven't used it, but I have read through
+the [ActivityPub][], [WebFinger][], [Activity Streams][] specifications.
+
+1. scalability
+2. discoverability
+3. weak encryption
+4. complicated specification
+5. no end-to-end encryption
+
+### Further Reading
+
+* [Weapons of Math Destruction][]
+* [Thinking, Fast and Slow][tfas]
+
+[/etc/hosts]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_(file)
+ "Operating system file that maps hostnames to IP addresses."
+[latest social media privacy fiasco]: https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/22/23471842/facebook-hr-block-taxact-taxslayer-info-sharing
+ "Tax sites sharing tax information with Facebook"
+[xkcd-386]: https://xkcd.com/386/
+ "Somebody is wrong on the internet"
+[tfas]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow
+ "Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman"
+[facebook-abortion]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/sneaky-ways-cops-could-access-data-to-widely-prosecute-abortions-in-the-us/
+ "Ars Technica: Sneaky ways cops could access data to widely prosecute abortions in the US"
+[data brokers]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_broker
+ "Company that specializes in collecting personal data."
+[malign interests]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica#Data_scandal
+ "Cambridge Analytica"
+[likely impending collapse]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/22/twitter-advertiser-exodus-musk/
+ "Washington Post: Advertisers are dropping Twitter. Musk can’t afford to lose any more."
+[weapons of math destruction]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons_of_Math_Destruction
+ "Weapons of Math Destruction, by Cathy O'Neil"
+[google]: http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf
+ "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine, by Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page"
+[the age of pagerank is over]: https://blog.kagi.com/age-pagerank-over
+ "The Age of PageRank is Over"
+[ublock origin]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBlock_Origin
+ "uBlock Origin: Browser extension for content filtering, including ad blocking"
+[gdpr]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation
+ "General Data Protection Regulation"
+[tls 1.3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security#TLS_1.3
+ "Transport Layer Security, version 1.3"
+[mastadon]: https://joinmastodon.org/
+ "Federated social media."
+[activitypub]: https://activitypub.rocks/
+ "ActivityPub specification and implementation details."
+[fuck-rsa]: https://blog.trailofbits.com/2019/07/08/fuck-rsa/
+ "Trail of Bits: Seriously, stop using RSA"
+[webfinger]: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7033
+ "RFC7033: WebFinger specification"
+[activity streams]: https://www.w3.org/TR/activitystreams-core/
+ "W3c Activity Streams specification"
diff --git a/content/posts/2022-12-01-odroid-n2l.md b/content/posts/2022-12-01-odroid-n2l.md
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+---
+slug: odroid-n2l
+title: "Odroid N2L"
+date: "2022-12-01T19:11:45-04:00"
+draft: true
+---
+Since [Raspberry Pis][pi] are essentially unobtainable for several more
+months due to supply chain disruptions
+
+got an odroid n2l
+
+setup notes:
+- tried dietpi, won't work at the moment (n2l has different memory
+ than the n2 and n2+, so n2 images won't boot on it. if you try an
+ n2 image the n2l won't even power on; ask me how i know...)
+- installed ubuntu minimal from the odroid wiki.. problems:
+ us west link had tls error and 404
+ us east link was a 404
+ KR link worked
+ no way to set up headless wifi from boot like pi, so i need a keyboard
+ and monitor and it's late
+
+...
+
+- tried to set up wpa_supplicant (ala raspbian), but it wouldn't
+ cooperate
+- followed nmcli instructions at this url:
+ https://wiki.odroid.com/troubleshooting/minimal_image_wifi_setup_nmcli
+- set hostname to "pizza"
+- adduser pabs, added pabs to sudo group
+- set root password to "ohn8uD/ishohha8h"
+ (default is root/odroid)
+- in /etc/ssh/sshd_config
+ - disabled PermitRootLogin
+ - disabled PasswordAuthentication
+pabs@pizza:~$ sudo apt install vim git screen ruby man
+ (ruby installs some buillshit like jquery and fonts-lato)
+- installed bin/{acs,acsno,agi,agr,agdu,agu}
+- noticed that openssl does not seem to take advantage of the
+ crypto acceleration yet
+
+
+