math_and_stuff

The censorship was of the Microsoft and Google portions of the report. Removing 100 pages of a 150 page report for political reasons is for sure still censorship.

And if an organization funded a report, it is unethical to hide that information. It is absolutely standard to attach notices of non-endorsement after funding disclosures.

I went through every 990 from the Sergey Brin Family Foundation and see no donations to the EFF in any of them (from 2014-2019).

Happen to know of a source for Yasha's claim?

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/472...

All of the figures from said article add up to EFF receiving a total of $478K from Facebook and Google over four calendar years (2015 through 2018).

Of course I agree that these orgs shouldn't accept money from tech giants, but any critique should be done accurately with citations.

This is an irresponsible claim if not backed up with a citation.

Further, I happen to monitor corporate funding to nonprofits (including the EFF) and public reporting suggests EFF only received $7500 from Google in 2018 and $25K from Facebook.

Whereas Center for Democracy and Technology, which was founded by the former Executive Director of the EFF in 1994, received $430K and $500K, respectively.

See https://news.bloomberglaw.com/privacy-and-data-security/face...

The article was published Nov. 4, days before the infrastructure bill passed. Not yesterday. You can easily find this in the header of the article.

Sounds a lot like the Defense Innovation Board and National Security Commission on AI.

Upgrade this from a linear system solve to a (perhaps Mixed Integer) Linear Program solution and then we're talking!

Is there prior art before alleged sabotage leading to pipeline explosion in 1982? [1]

Zetter's Countdown to Zero Day points to that with skepticism and also talks about Kosovo as one of earliest cases, as does Sandworm.

Do you think this is roughly correct?

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Abyss

Wikipedia on Shaw's admiration of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin:

""" Shaw's admiration for Mussolini and Stalin demonstrated his growing belief that dictatorship was the only viable political arrangement. When the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in January 1933, Shaw described Hitler as "a very remarkable man, a very able man",[1] and professed himself proud to be the only writer in England who was "scrupulously polite and just to Hitler".[2] His principal admiration was for Stalin, whose regime he championed uncritically throughout the decade.[3] Shaw saw the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as a triumph for Stalin who, he said, now had Hitler under his thumb.[4] """

[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/40682385 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw#CITEREFHol... [3] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/theatre-and-performance... [4] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/theatre-and-performance...

The entries of a matrix are eigenvalues of 1x1 minors, and clearly eigenvectors are a function of the entries.

That the result is a function of (n-1) minors is first-order information and would help clarify the default assumption that the result computes eigenvectors from the full Hermitian matrix's eigenvalues.

Aggressively normalize US companies conceding to Chinese Communist Party censorship and surveillance demands.

Turkey's drone program was also led by an MIT graduate.

https://theintercept.com/2019/05/14/turkey-second-drone-age/

Why say 'align with western values' instead of 'respect human rights'? Freedom of speech and assembly are encoded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The bill explicitly prevents that behavior.

  "The 'opt-in' nature...would set it apart from other
  state internet privacy laws...
  
  the proposed Maine law also would prohibit any [ISP] from
  making the sale of customer data part of its mandatory
  [TOS]. It also could not charge higher fees to customers
  who refuse to opt in"

https://www.pressherald.com/2019/05/29/maine-on-track-to-pas...

Both of those are typically referred to as manifolds with boundary. The setting of Stokes Theorem is often manifolds with boundary.

I completely agree with the argument that Google is no worse -- and have publicly campaigned to this effect -- but I was responding to the claim that Google should be proud of its history of standing up against authoritarian pressure. It no longer deserves that honor.

But, yes, Microsoft and Apple are equally, if not more, deserving of shame.

That one company has also completely reversed its stance over the last year and now openly defends censoring human rights and complying with the CCP's surveillance demands.

Google has no reason to hold its head high.

Thank you!

I never saw the blacklist for the KSA. If I had seen something like what I saw for China, I'm sure I would have fought that too. I have spent about a month visiting a university in the KSA (once during the public flogging of Raif Badawi) and care very much about Google's concessions and complicity there.

There are many different fronts to wage this fight on; changing consumer behavior is only one of them. Getting the project halted is important in its own right for the reason that it helps prevent the normalization of American tech companies actively aiding political oppression under the guise of abiding by 'local laws and regulations'.

As I stated in a few comments down below: if we let American tech companies build custom tools to enable authoritarian governments in their political oppression, how could we possibly think they would stand up to protect something actually controversial, like a protester or a labor organizer?

As I stated in a comment questioning what possible impact this project could have: "My primary motivation is fighting these types of capitulations becoming precedents. If an American tech company will willfully aid the CCP in preventing information on human rights from spreading and build tools for a nationwide dragnet, what would they ever stand up for?"

google.com exists and serves Chinese queries. If the Chinese Communist Party wants to continue blocking that because they don't like their citizens learning about human rights or Nobel prizes (yes, that is literally on the blacklist), then that is their option. But, for an American tech company to actively aid them for profit is a bridge too far.

I refuse to help normalize what I now know to be a history of American tech companies committing human rights abuses in exchange for access to foreign funding (with Cisco's creation of a surveilance and torture-management system targeting the Falun Gong being a particularly disturbing example).

My primary motivation is fighting these types of capitulations becoming precedents. If an American tech company will willfully aid the CCP in preventing information on human rights from spreading and build tools for a nationwide dragnet, what would they ever stand up for?

I am not okay with a company headquartered in a democratic country actively building tools to suppress political inquiry and organizing. To be clear, this included Google literally building a blacklist containing the terms 'human rights' and 'student protest' and ensuring that the Chinese Communist Party could track Chinese citizens' queries by their phone number.

I completely agree that a paradigm shift is required. Thankfully, it seems we are in the middle of one. There is sustained momentum, from tech workers, the press, congress, human rights orgs, etc. to work together to hold them accountable.

And we are already making huge impacts.

And, if press over the last six months (especially the NYT Rubin expose) is any indicator, Google's management is no longer viewed as benevolent.

Pushback from employees, human rights groups, and congress has already significantly set back the project. The fight has to continue, but I don't understand your defeatism.

Source: I publicly resigned from Google over dragonfly and dedicated months of my life and income to fighting it.

It's even worse than that. He's implemented Cramer's rule.

What do you recommend instead?

I am upset about Apple's appstore actions. I was responding to a claim about Google.

> Google isn't trying to control or limit what people think.

I think proactive censorship for authoritarian governments (e.g., China) falls into this category.

I fully support the US government regulating every US company that is willfully aiding in the violation of human rights for profit.