Author: Christopher Burg

Gun Crime is Rising in London

Remember what I said about laws being irrelevant? Here’s a great example of that:

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has been urged to consider a gun crime strategy for the capital, following a steep rise in the number of offences and fears that victims and perpetrators are getting younger.

The Metropolitan police recorded 2,542 gun crime offences in 2017, the highest number in five years and 44% more than the 1,755 recorded in 2014, according to a report by the London assembly’s police and crime committee.

Britain has enacted into law almost every restriction on gun ownership possible without a complete ban. According to the believers in law, this should have dwindled Britain’s gun crime to almost nothing. However, Britain is still experiencing gun crime and it’s increasing in parts of the country. How can this be? Simple, individuals have chosen to violate the country’s gun control laws. Since laws are nothing more than words on pieces of paper, they are entirely incapable of interfering with these individuals’ wills.

A government can pass whatever laws it desires. If people find the laws tolerable, they may obey them. If people find the laws intolerable, they will disobey them.

Embracing the Darknet

Big changes came to the Internet shortly after Congress passed the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA). SESTA, like most legislation, has a name that sounds good on the surface but actually conceals some heinous provisions. One of those major provisions is holding website owners criminally liable for user generated content. This resulted in some drastic changes to sites like Reddit and Craiglist:

So far, four subreddits related to sex have banned: Escorts, Male Escorts, Hookers, and SugarDaddy. None were what could accurately be described as advertising forums, though (to varying degrees) they may have helped connect some people who wound up in “mutually beneficial relationships.” The escort forums were largely used by sex workers to communicate with one another, according to Partridge. Meanwhile, the “hooker” subreddit “was mostly men being disgusting,” according to Roux, “but also was a place that sometimes had people answering educational questions in good faith.”

[…]

Reddit yesterday announced changes to its content policy, now forbidding “transactions for certain goods and services,” including “firearms, ammunition, or explosives” and “paid services involving physical sexual contact.” While some of the prohibited exchanges are illegal, many are not.

Yet they run close enough up against exchanges that could be illegal that it’s hard for a third-party like Reddit to differentiate. And the same goes for forums where sex workers post educational content, news, safety and legal advice. Without broad Section 230 protections, Reddit could be in serious financial and legal trouble if they make the wrong call.

The passage of SESTA set a precedence that will certainly expand. Today Section 230 protections can be revoked for user generated content about sex trafficking. Tomorrow it could be revoked for user generated content involving hate speech, explaining the chemistry and biology behind how prohibited drugs work, showing the mechanics of how a machine gun operates, and so on. User generated content is now a liability and will only become more of a liability as the precedence is expanded.

Will this rid the world of content about sex work, drugs, and guns? Of course not. It will merely push that content to anonymized servers, commonly referred to as the “darkweb.” As laws make hosting content on the non-anonymized Internet a legal hazard, Internet users will find that they need tools like I2P and the Tor Browser to access more and more of the content they desire. The upside to this is that it will lead to a tremendous increase in resources available to developers and operators of “darkweb” technologies. Eventually the laws passed to thwart unapproved behavior will again make restricting unapproved behavior all but impossible.

Let’s See Some Follow Through

It’s fashionable to point out parallels between the collapse of the Roman Republic and the current political situation here in the United States. While history doesn’t repeat itself, it does rhyme. One of the turning points in the Roman Republic was the death of Tiberius Gracchus. Tiberius was a popularis, a politician who appealed to the masses instead of the political elite. He proposed a number of reforms that favored the masses, which resulted in a group of senators grabbing clubs and beating Tiberius to death. This event was the first in what would become a long list of incidents where violence was overtly used to solve political disagreements.

While the United States’ wilder early years saw incidents where politicians used violence against each other to settle disputes, such violence has been entirely absent for a very long time. However, America might be tiptoeing closer to that precipice:

Biden, 75, who was captured making the remarks in a video posted to Facebook, told the audience that Trump, 71, once said, “‘I can grab a woman anywhere and she likes it’ and then said, ‘I made a mistake.'”

“If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him,” Biden said to applause.

Admittedly, I have my doubts that either man has the constitution necessary to take a swing at the other. But I would greatly enjoy seeing some follow through. Imagine the ratings that a Pay Per View politician cage match would bring in! Hell, it might be enough to offset the ballooning national debt increases!

With how device the United States is becoming, I believe that it’s only a matter of time until a politician attempts to prove his convictions by physically assaulting or even outright murdering an opposing politician. When that happens it will create another rhyme with the downfall of the Roman Republic.

Microsoft Is Altering the Deal

Microsoft recently announced some changes to its terms of services:

5. In the Code of Conduct section, we’ve clarified that use of offensive language and fraudulent activity is prohibited. We’ve also clarified that violation of the Code of Conduct through Xbox Services may result in suspensions or bans from participation in Xbox Services, including forfeiture of content licenses, Xbox Gold Membership time, and Microsoft account balances associated with the account.

This is a great example of the pitfalls of the licensing model. When you purchase a game, movie, or other form of digital content from Microsoft, you’re merely acquiring a very one sided license. Effectively the license states that you can continue to use the content so long as Microsoft doesn’t decide to revoke your license. To make matters worse, the license gives Microsoft the option to alter the terms of the license whenever it wants and without even giving prior notice. In this case Microsoft changed the terms to state that your content licenses can be revoked if you use “offensive language” (a term so vague that it covers pretty much anything you say).

But the fun didn’t stop there. In order to enforce the new terms of service, Microsoft has also reserved the right to surveil you:

When investigating alleged violations of these Terms, Microsoft reserves the right to review Your Content in order to resolve the issue.

And this is a great example of the pitfall of not having end-to-end encryption. Microsoft’s services generally lack an end-to-end encryption option, which means a man in the middle, like Microsoft or any entity it authorizes, can view whatever information is being transmitted using its services. Your Skype sessions aren’t as private as you might think.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody. Any agreement that gives one party no power and the other party absolute power, like content licenses, is going to be abused by the party with absolute power. Fortunately, unlike with government, you have an option when Microsoft does something you don’t like; you can cease using its products and services.

Tough Life Lessons

A few kids from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have been propped up as spokespersons for the gun control movement. One of these spokespersons, David Hogg, who have been pushing to punish gun owners for a crime they did not comment is rather upset by the fact that he and his fellow students will be punished for a crime that they did not commit:

After attacking American’s Second Amendment rights for over a month, calling the NRA “child murderers,” Hogg complained about having to use clear backpacks at school.

Hogg claimed that the decision by Democratic Broward County officials violated his “First Amendment rights” as he also cited potential embarrassment for students going through “their menstrual cycle” because of their “tampons and stuff.”

“It’s unnecessary, it’s embarrassing for a lot of the students and it makes them feel isolated and separated from the rest of American school culture where they’re having essentially their First Amendment rights infringed upon because they can’t freely wear whatever backpack they want regardless of what it is,” Hogg said.

I also enjoy Hogg’s selective acknowledgement of the Bill of Rights by citing the First Amendment here but previously demanding that the Second Amendment be burned to the ground. Since the public schools government indoctrination centers aren’t teaching this, here’s a piece of advice for all of you would-be activists out there: be consistent in your arguments. If you’re advocating that one part of the Bill of Rights should be legally ignored, don’t complain when another part of the Bill of Rights is legally ignored. If you want a particular amendment removed, advocate for a constitutional convention to be called so that that amendment can be removed. You will be taken more seriously if you’re consistent in your arguments and you will hand your opposition less rope to hang you with.

There Must Always Be a New Frontier

The early days of the Internet were akin to the myth of the Wild West. There was no rule of law. First tens then hundreds and eventually thousands of little experiments were running simultaneously. Some experiments attracted users and flourished, other experiments failed to attract users and floundered. It didn’t matter much because it didn’t require a lot of capital to put a server online.

Some of the successful experiments became more and more successful. Their success allowed the to push out or buy up their competitors. Overtime they turned into multimillion and even multibillion dollar websites. Slowly but surely much of the Internet was centralized into a handful of silos. Much like the Wild West of mythology, the Internet gradually became domesticated and restricted.

There’s nothing unique about the story of the Internet. New frontiers have a tendency to slowly become “civilized.” The rule of law is established. Restrictions are put into place. The number of experiments continue to approach zero. However, “civilization” is never the end of experimentation. Experimenters simply need to move to a new frontier.

Innovation slows to a crawl and can even stop entirely without frontiers. The Internet is mostly “civilized” at this point. A handful of successful experiments such as Amazon, Facebook, and Google exercise a tremendous amount of control. With a simple statement they can make or break other experiments and amplify or silence voices. Moreover, the rule of law has been established by various national governments and they will only tighten their grips. In order for innovation to continue on the Internet, the next frontier must be explored.

Fortunately, there are several frontiers. The most popular are “darknets,” networks that bake anonymity in by default. If clients and servers are unable to identify each others’ locations, they can’t enforce rules on one another. Other frontiers are mesh networks. While mesh networks are able to access the Internet, they are also able to operate independently. Being decentralized, it’s far more difficult to enact widespread censorship on a mesh network than on the traditional Internet whose users depend on a handful of Internet Service Providers (ISP) for their connection. But the most exciting frontiers are the ones that remain entirely unexplored.

Of course the cycle will repeat itself. The next frontier will become “civilized,” which is why there must always be a new frontier if innovation is to continue.

Preparing Kids for Prison

Approximately 2.3 million Americans are currently sitting behind bars. Public schools are sold, in part, as facilities to prepare children for the real world. With so many individuals behind bars, it makes sense that schools should prepare children for a life in a cage, where everybody is watched by guards and zero privacy is allow:

MIAMI—The Florida high school where a gunman killed 17 people last month will require students to carry only clear backpacks, school administrators announced on Wednesday, after the shooting suspect’s brother was charged with trespassing on campus and two students were arrested on charges of carrying knives.

[…]

Robert Runcie, the superintendent of Broward County Public Schools, sent a letter to the families of Stoneman Douglas High students imposing the new backpack rule, reminiscent of security measures at airports and professional sports venues. He said any student without a clear backpack would be provided one at no cost after spring break, which takes place next week.

Students also will be issued identification badges, which they will be required to wear at all times while in school. Staff members have badges as well.

In addition, Runcie said the district was considering using metal-detecting wands at school entrances and installing permanent metal detectors — a safety measure Runcie recently criticized as ineffective. A person intent on committing an atrocity would find his or her way around them, he said in an interview last month.

I’m glad to finally see some real world applicable education taking place! I also appreciate that the school administrators have finally decided to punish all of the students in this school for the crime of attending the same school as a murderer. Hopefully these students will decide to be reincarnated in a school district without a murderous fellow student.

The real tragedy about this policy is that the students who did nothing wrong are the ones being punished, which is the norm in the United States. When somebody goes on a shooting spree, laws are proposed and passed to punish the gun owners he didn’t perpetrate the shooting spree, students are subjected to new levels of humiliation because of a shooting spree they didn’t perpetrate, and students who didn’t perpetrate the shooting spree are dragged through hell by school administrators who are more concerned about appearing tough than the student’s welfare.

Everybody involved in implementing this decision can fuck right off.

Mark Zuckerberg Is Sorry… That His Products Are Upset

Mark Zuckerberg finally made an official statement about the entire Cambridge Analytica fiasco:

In the interviews, the first difference that jumps out is the presence of an actual apology for… something. As Zuckerberg said to Recode, “We let the community down and I feel really bad and I’m sorry about that.”

But why is he sorry? He can’t be sorry about Cambridge Analytica purchasing data about Facebook’s users since Facebook’s business model is built on exactly that. So he must be sorry that so many of Facebook’s users, his products, are upset. But why are his products upset? I guess it’s because they don’t understand the deal they made with Facebook.

There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch so if you’re getting something for free, there must be a catch. In the case of Facebook, the catch is that any information you post on Facebook can be sold by the company. Facebook isn’t exactly coy about this arrangement either, although it does try to pretend to care about your privacy by giving you a constantly changing smorgasbord of privacy settings to play around with. Perhaps those privacy settings are the source of contention. Perhaps they give users the false belief that they have control over the information they post to Facebook. Perhaps Facebook’s users are a bunch of socialists who believe in the fairy tale that lunches can be free. Either way, I’m going to try to clear up this apparently murky arrangement.

If you use Facebook, you are the product. Facebook’s business model is to collect your personal information and sell it. Nothing you post to Facebook is private. Everything you post to Facebook is for sale.

I hope that clears up any confusion.

Members of Congress Will Continue to Use Your Money to Settle Their Sexual Harassment Cases

Sexual harassment has been a hot button issue since last year. Hollywood and Washington DC has been awash in accusations, apologies, and payoffs. However, when an actor in Hollywood decides to pay off their victims, they use their own money. When a politicians decides to pay off their victims, they use your money:

An overhaul of Capitol Hill’s workplace misconduct system is in jeopardy and likely won’t be attached to a government spending bill this week, diminishing the likelihood of reform before the midterm elections, according to Politico.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), who introduced the bipartisan Congressional Harassment Reform Act last December, said on Monday that House and Senate leadership “stripped” provisions from the language from the spending bill at the eleventh hour.

[…]

Among its provisions, the act requires that members of Congress personally pay for sexual harassment settlements when they are found liable. Currently, lawmakers can tap taxpayer funds to settle with victims. Also, unless the victim opts for privacy, under the act, settlements would automatically be made public, thus lifting the veil of secrecy around the process.

Having access to tax dollars is yet another mechanism that politicians can use to shield themselves from the consequences of their actions. If Congress was composed of angels, this wouldn’t be an issue because the members wouldn’t vote themselves the power to use tax dollars to pay off sexual harassment victims. But Congress isn’t composed of angels, it’s composed of crooked bastards who only care about power.

While many voters will likely claim that they’re outraged by this, members of Congress know that voters will toss aside all of their outrage come election day because most of them will continue to cast their vote for the “lesser evil” incumbent. Members of Congress won’t hold themselves accountable and neither will the voters.