cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/622177

Preview:

Written primarily in the Rust programming language, Warp is a GTK-based file transfer app that uses the 'Magic Wormhole' protocol to make file transfers over the internet/local networks possible.

All file transfers are encrypted, and the receiver must use a word-based code to access the files, preventing any misuse.

“Live facial recognition is a dystopian mass surveillance tool that turns innocent members of the public into walking ID cards,”

Across seven months, thirteen deployments, hundreds of officer hours, and over half a million faces scanned in 2023, police have made just three arrests from their use of this intrusive and expensive mass surveillance tool… Rather than promote its use, the Government should follow other liberal democracies around the world that are legislating to ban this Orwellian technology from public spaces.

Is it time to bring back Bank Transfer Day? I think everyone is pissed off at the major US banks at this point for one reason or another. Only problem is the fifth of November falls on a Sunday this year.

Consumer tech has faced scrutiny over the years around "planned obsolescence": making devices so difficult to repair that shoppers have to buy new products and toss devices sooner than they'd like. Now, one do-it-yourself-er is on a mission to prove that it doesn't have to be this way. And he's starting with the (original) Apple AirPods Pro.

Ken Pillonel is no stranger to tweaking popular designs in the name of user convenience and sensibility. We've covered other projects of his, like a $38 part for making the AirPods Pro case self-serviceable and support USB-C, and adding Apple's Lightning port to a Samsung Galaxy A51. He has also modded the iPhone to use USB-C.

Today, the technologist revealed his latest concoction: an AirPods Pro case with a user-replaceable battery, USB-C port, and open source designs.

The original AirPods Pro received a 0 out of 10 repairability score from iFixit, which at the time said: "While theoretically semi-serviceable, the non-modular, glued-together design and lack of replacement parts makes repair both impractical and uneconomical."

Pillonel's take on the AirPods Pro case, which is detailed on his YouTube channel Exploring Simulation, included him modeling each case component and putting the case together with screws and nuts, "making them easily swappable and repairable," according to Pillonel's press release.

In an email, Pillonel told Ars Technica that his design's most repairable feature is the lack of glue.

"The main difficulty with the original case is removing what I call the 'outer shell,' so the [shiny] white outer plastic. Most people end up permanently deforming it because it's just basically a ball of glue," he said.

There is a small amount of glue in his own design, though, Pillonel told The Verge. It's used to keep some magnets put, but it's "cyanoacrylate glue that can easily be removed by soaking it with acetone, unlike Apple's green glue, which feels like concrete."

By ditching most of the glue, it should be easier to open the case when it needs a new battery instead of wasting money and resources on a new case, which is what Apple has advised.

Pillonel told Ars that he chose the first-gen AirPods Pro, rather than the second-gen AirPods Pro or non-Pro models, for this project because of its popularity and because he had already studied the product to make and sell his aforementioned USB-C kit, which required modeling every single part of the case and "is a lot of work."

"I don't plan to do the same for the other models," he added. "I will just model the outer shell for the other models, which already improves repairability greatly. I do plan to do a similar project for the earbuds themselves."

The Verge quoted Pillonel as saying it's challenging to make repairable earbuds because of how small they are and what tools he currently has access to. He hasn't been able to open the second-gen AirPods Pro case without damage.

In his press release, Pillonel said his goal is to demonstrate how the AirPods Pro "could have been easily made repairable with minimal effort" and to encourage customers "to be more mindful of their choices, and to motivate manufacturers to prioritize sustainability."

As with some of his previous projects, Pillonel's latest work casts a stark spotlight on Apple, a tech conglomerate that has not, or will not, release a set of AirPod earbuds that don't require buying a whole new case when a part of eventually dies (as you knew it would).

For this particular mission, Pillonel shared the parts he used, which included pricier machines, like a 3D printer, laser marking machine, and digital camera, as well as more easily attainable ones, like a $70 PCB holder. Surely, if a YouTuber could scrounge up the funds for the tools, Apple could, too. Of course, Apple would be challenged to find a way to figure out how to make any user-repairable product at a much larger scale than Pillonel.

It's worth remembering that Apple has made some recent progress in making its products more user-repairable, including launching its Self Service Repair program in 2022, but so far, that program only applies to some iPhone and Mac models.

Pillonel has made his files available for ProtonMail users for free through his Patreon. Beware that messing with an official AirPods Pro will void any Apple warranty. And this isn't the type of project you should embark on if you're not handy or haven't engaged in self-repairs like this before.

For everyone else, or anyone just curious about what it takes to make a user-repair-friendly AirPods Pro case, you can view Pillonel's video below:

Mexican cartels have hacked the app's security and found a way to request unlimited appointments for anyone in the world — far beyond the app's "northern Mexico" geofence.

Cartels have been selling immigrants a service that provides them with an Internet connection through a virtual private network (VPN) that is able to override a server so that the app cannot tell if the individual is in Northern Mexico.

Chase told Florida’s Voice that the accounts were closed due to the federal government’s “scrutiny” of the customer for “engaging in illegal activity” related to his products.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration sent a warning letter to Dr. Mercola Feb. 18, 2021 about Mercola Market’s website and social media. The FDA said Mercola selling Liposomal Vitamin C, Liposomal Vitamin D3, Quercetin and Pterostilbene Advanced as a way to mitigate, prevent, treat, diagnose or cure COVID-19 is in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

“We request that you take immediate action to cease the sale of such unapproved and unauthorized products for the mitigation, prevention, treatment, diagnosis, or cure of COVID-19,” the FDA’s letter said.

cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/550448

The party has consistently called for the eradication of all white South Africans, though this fact often goes completely ignored by the western media.

“Sadly, what we're seeing now with NatWest and Barclays isn't surprising,” Justin Haskins, director at the Heartland Institute, told The Epoch Times.

“There is a mountain of evidence that shows many of America's largest and most powerful banks are discriminating against customers because of their ideological, social, cultural, religious, or political views.”

“Through various environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies and frameworks, banks regularly choose to screen out customers who are deemed ‘reputational risks’ or considered part of industries disfavored by elites and their powerful institutions,”

Even the rich and powerful kept the fact they had been victims of the United Kingdom debanking scandal until now, with Brexiteer-turned-bank reform campaigner Nigel Farage saying a combination of shame and fear that going public could destroy their credit rating meant until now many had suffered in silence.

cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/526614

Imagine a world where the government instantly knows whenever you buy or sell something. No transaction would ever be truly private, not even your most personal or embarrassing ones.

In addition, your money would not be truly your own under such a system. Your access to the digital currency system would be a privilege which could potentially be suspended or revoked with the click of a mouse. All of a sudden you would not be able to buy or sell anything and you would become an outcast from society.

Under no circumstances should any government ever be given such power.

I do not think anything good for the average has ever come from anything proposed by either of these politicians.

Read the fine print carefully

Who defines "untrustworthy"?

"While the chronological feeds surfaced more “moderate” content on Facebook, researchers found that it also increased both political (up 15.2 percent) and “untrustworthy” (up 68.8 percent) content more so than the algorithmic feed."

Decentralized networks now make it such that there need not be a trusted intermediary in a digital system, so digital IDs could theoretically cut the government out entirely.

Similarly, advanced cryptographic methods such as zero-knowledge proofs allow information to be verified without the verifier needing access to the information.

Combining these two characteristics, we can create systems that grant us all the benefits of digital IDs and are resistant to surveillance. In fact, several projects already have protocols and products that operate based on these principles.

Governments, by their very nature, resist privacy and are more than willing to exploit new technologies to surveil citizens. Thus, as more states and localities choose to implement digital ID systems, it is up to the citizens to demand that those systems be built in ways that protect their civil liberties.

The technology exists. All that is left is for it to be implemented.

Revealing that he still doesn’t have a new personal and business bank account and that he’s been rejected for an account at ten other UK banks, Mr Farage warned the wider UK banking sector, which he said all shared Natwest’s culture, but simply hadn’t been exposed yet. He said: “I would address my comments to the ten banks who have thus far refused to have me as a customer, think again.

“This has happened to NatWest and unless you change your culture, change your views, get rid of your prejudice over Brexit and other issues”, controversy would also be coming their way, he warned.

Chase does a Disney.

Watch DeSantis hold Chase to account. This will be Epic

"Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation in May to prohibit financial institutions from denying or canceling services based on political or religious beliefs."

In behavior detection, the system learns to detect unusual movements, such as repeatedly looking around, by observing the patterns of suspicious individuals. Detecting suspicious behavior in crowds can be difficult to do with the human eye, and the system could make security forces better able to eliminate security risks.

cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/395129

If the documents obtained from the bank by Mr. Farage are genuine, it proves that the bank closed his account for purely political reasons. As Mr. Farage himself said, these documents read like something from Stasi headquarters. I quote just one or two of the statements in the documents (apart from anything else the English used is a tribute to the appalling state of British secondary and tertiary education):

“Given N[igel] F[arage]’s high profile and the substantial amount of adverse press connected to him, there are significant reputational risks to the bank in being associated with him. While it is accepted that no criminal convictions have resulted, commentary and behaviours that do not align with the bank’s purpose and values have been demonstrated. … The comments/articles [on ESG/diversity and inclusion] are not in line with our views or our purpose.”

X.com was an early online bank, and the company was initially funded by Musk and Greg Kouri, who went on to fund Musk’s later ventures, Tesla and SpaceX.

Musk uses the letter X in several of his business interests, including SpaceX and Tesla car models.

Musk established X Corp. in March as the parent company of Twitter, making way for Twitter’s rebranding. The rebranding is part of Musk’s vision to create a “super app” with multiple functionalities. In April, Twitter introduced a new feature that allowed app users to access the crypto market and other financial market services from within the app.

Musk’s plans to transform Twitter began long before the takeover. In a recent interview, Musk reiterated that the main motive behind rebranding to X was to create an “everything app,” a concept popular in China. Chinese social media applications, such as WeChat, are used for text and video calls, and have provisions to pay bills, book cabs, book restaurants and other financial activities without leaving the app.

cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/395089

According to its team, the World ID will be a global digital passport that users can store on their phones. The project also claims that the World ID will prove they are not robots without needing to provide personal identifying information to websites, such as their phone number.

cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/395008

The FBI is once again before Congress after years of systemic and massive abuses of FISA and only a nation of chumps would give them the same authority. With each renewal, the FBI has pledged that it has learned its lesson and would stop its abuses . . . only to continue to abuse the authority.

Now, a FISA order indicates that the FBI searched the data of a U.S. Senator, a state senator, and a judge.

Our research has shown repeatedly that the manipulations used can make them invisible to people, and can often produce shifts of 40% or more in the voting preferences of undecided voters without anyone having the slightest idea they have been manipulated. They feel free, even while they are being strongly controlled. As one journalist wrote, "It really is the perfect crime."

"We’ve seen in recent days that the banking sector has been overrun by cancel culture," said Ben Bradley, the MP for Mansfield. "It’s deeply worrying that a similar takeover is happening in advertising and that so many household names are being duped by a so-called ‘conscious advertising network’ that we now find out is being run by a bunch of far-Left, politically motivated activists at Stop Funding Hate."

"This is like the Stonewall campaign. Businesses are being duped into signing up to some fuzzy, cuddly-sounding name only later to realise that the thing they signed up to has morphed into a monster and become highly political,"

Name Category Followers Earnings Per Post Cristiano Ronaldo Sport 442,267,575 $2,397,000 Kylie Jenner Celebrity 338,626,294 $1,835,000 Lionel Messi Sport 327,954,875 $1,777,000 Selena Gomez Celebrity 320,082,515 $1,735,000 Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson Celebrity 315,999,932 $1,713,000 Kim Kardashian Celebrity 311,685,198 $1,689,000 Ariana Grande Celebrity 311,302,908 $1,687,000 Beyoncé Knowles-Carter Celebrity 256,957,282 $1,393,000 Khloé Kardashian Celebrity 243,609,638 $1,320,000 Kendall Jenner Celebrity 237,977,121 $1,290,000 Justin Bieber Celebrity 236,391,845 $1,281,000 Taylor Swift Celebrity 210,659,702 $1,142,000 Jennifer Lopez Celebrity 208,469,193 $1,130,000 Virat Kohli Sport 200,703,169 $1,088,000 Nicki Minaj Celebrity 190,264,361 $1,031,000 Kourtney Kardashian Celebrity 177,874,659 $964,000 Neymar da Silva Santos Junior Sport 174,248,989 $945,000 Miley Cyrus Celebrity 171,147,090 $928,000 Katy Perry Celebrity 163,620,880 $1,029,000 Kevin Hart Celebrity 143,895,754 $780,000