Bloody hell, I’ve been digging more into the government definition of 'Crisis' a bit more
So... an unelected regulator is now operating within government where the meaning of “crisis” has become very stretched.
The Cabinet Office Amber Book says an emergency under the Civil Contingencies Act covers serious damage to human welfare, the environment or UK security. (fair enough)
But then it has added ... “For the purposes of this guidance, the terms emergency and crisis are used interchangeably.”... INTERCHANGEABLY?
It also says an emergency/crisis can include situations that have not yet been harmful but have the potential to be (they do not define 'harmful' This guidance has not been voted for or debated
So let me explain why thats so important. it means that almost any situation the government believes could become a problem can now be treated as a 'crisis'. And under that broad language, Ofcom has been able to write to platforms about civil unrest, crisis situations and how they will need to beef up moderation, it isnt just about removing illegal content.
Anything could become a “crisis”, no one voted for the widening of the definition and no one had the opportunity to, because thats how government by guidance works.... hoping you won't even notice.
Here’s one of the most important intelligence reforms, stated as plainly as possible:
No American gets surveilled without a real warrant from a real court.
Not the secret FISA court that currently rubber-stamps over 99% of government requests.
We’re talking about an actual adversarial courtroom: a real judge, and the same probable-cause standard the Fourth Amendment has always required - the one intelligence agencies have spent decades dodging.
All the loopholes get closed, permanently:
-No more buying Americans’ data from brokers to dodge the warrant.
-No more asking a foreign partner to spy on us and hand over the results.
-No more “incidental collection” that vacuums up millions of innocent Americans’ communications and pretends it was an accident.
One simple, ironclad rule with zero exceptions: If the target is an American, get a warrant - or stand down.
The government said the Online Safety Act was about protecting children. We were called conspiracy theorists for saying it wasn’t!
Well er … Ofcom is writing to platforms about “crisis situations”, civil unrest and enhanced moderation measures. (Blocking posts they don’t like)
Children aren’t mentioned once. NOT ONCE.
The problem isn’t removing genuine incitement to violence. The real problem is that unelected regulators will pressure platforms to decide what millions of ADULTS can and cannot see whenever a “crisis” is declared.
many platforms will remove perfectly lawful content rather than risk the punishment of Ofcom.
Read the letter for yourself. Link in the thread.
BREAKING: The UK is drafting a law to scan every photo, video and message on every phone in the country.
Tech CEOs who refuse to implement this could face up to 5 years in prison.
The proposal would force companies to build device level scanners that inspect content before encryption.
That means:
• Every image scanned
• Every message inspected
• Every video analyzed
All directly on your phone.
Governments and companies pushing these safety” systems already have a terrible track record protecting user data.
Last month, Europe’s new age verification app, promoted as a way to "keep children safe," was hacked in under 2 minutes.
In another case, over 70,000 IDs and selfies linked to online verification systems were exposed in a major breach.
Now the UK wants even deeper access directly inside your device.
Once governments force surveillance tools into every phone, they can expand what gets monitored at any time.
NEW: malware developers added nuclear & biological weapons text to to their spyware.
Goal? To trigger LLM safety refusals... so that their spyware wouldn't be analyzed by an AI security scanner.
Cleanest practical example I can think of for why over-indexing on first order safety alignment is risky.
When closed (and open) models ship with aggressive refusals, they will be sprinkled with second-order blindspots that attackers will discover...and exploit.
We are only in the earliest days of attackers leveraging these features, and it wouldn't surprise me if users systems that need to handle complex cybersecurity issues demand that models be less safety-blunted.
In the weeds: @SocketSecurity's post also shows why intention matters in how you design a malware analysis pipeline to avoid prompt manipulation.
H/T to colleagues that shared this with me https://t.co/f3Aj9TYxU4
Australia's Social Media Ban didn't work, over 70k people's ID were stolen from a Discord data breach, Yoti was fined 950k Euros by Spain for breaking GDPR laws. I do NOT trust anyone who pushes age/ID verification to use social media or ANY service, it's more harm than good.
We’re one bad deal away from the era of online government censorship. The White House and Congress are negotiating away your rights as we speak.
FIRE urges lawmakers to reject any deal that includes the Kids Online Safety Act, the NO FAKES Act, and age verification requirements.
The UK is drafting a law to jail tech execs for 5 YEARS if they refuse to build scanners that scan EVERY photo, video & message on your phone.
Refuse the backdoor = go to prison.
All while screaming "think of the children."
UK is going down a very dangerous path on mass surveillance and censorship.
The government is literally demanding that every device sold or used in the country scans all content for “illegal” material. Signal is right to push back hard, this isn’t protection, it’s the end of private communication as we know it.
This is what the UK spyware proposal means.
There must be government spyware on every mobile device. It shall watch everything that happens, including always watching the screen, looking for things the government disapproves of.
When anything is flagged by the software as something the government doesn't like, the software must block it from being sent or displayed (in realtime).
The user of the device must not be able to shut this watching and blocking off. The only way to shut it off would be to ask the government or its proxies to do so for you, at their discretion.
Therefore the whole device must be locked down. Administrator rights and the decision of what software or operating system to run or not to run must be taken from the owner/user and handed to the government and its proxies.
Apple and Google are themselves working hard to lock down the devices they are involved in to shut out competition and establish a duopoly.
The UK government says it is "working closely" with Apple and Google and currently they synchronise and coordinate their communication on this subject.
The UK government is now proposing to mandate what would otherwise be illegal anti-competitive practices.
@GrapheneOS on the Apple and Google duopoly:
https://t.co/rbRmcUDTRu
Statement from @signalapp
https://t.co/vJILcSrs4s
@ReclaimTheNetHQ on the state spyware:
https://t.co/3FCi06bP77
The government announcement:
https://t.co/ynYjR3DIRo
Our statement on the UK government’s demand that all content on all devices sold or used in the country be scanned, on the presumption of nudity, using a dystopian combination of age verification and content scanning. This proposal will not safeguard children. It endangers us all.
https://t.co/VdWe9uhi8p
.@bookingcom A virtual card I’ve literally only ever used with you, have had a manual entry payment attempt this morning, from an authorized party
Have you experienced a security breach you haven’t properly informed us about?
The Vibestarter raise page goes live next week.
Mechanics, allocation, timing, the full picture. Everything we've been building toward for the past 6 months.
🚨This is one of the most disturbing ICE brutality videos I’ve seen in a long time…
Another angle of this incident shows ICE agents suddenly rushing protesters outside the Newark ICE Facility, then continuously shoving U.S. citizens toward the wheels of a MOVING TRUCK…
until an activist’s LEG is run over.
And the most disturbing part?
The protesters are not charging the agents… The agents are the ones creating the escalation.
And not only that, they are forcing civilians backward toward a MOVING VEHICLE, escalating a situation that was not violent until THEY made it violent.
That is reckless, dangerous force.
So, let’s go over the obvious constitutional violations happening in this video…
1. First Amendment violations, because Americans have the constitutional right to peacefully protest the government.
2. Fourth Amendment violations, because federal agents cannot use excessive or objectively unreasonable force against nonviolent civilians.
3. Fifth Amendment due process concerns, because the government cannot arbitrarily target, intimidate, or assault citizens exercising protected rights.
4. Federal officers can also face liability under 18 U.S. Code § 242 for depriving people of constitutional rights “under color of law.”
When armed federal agents create chaos themselves, then use that chaos to justify violence against civilians, that is an abuse of power.
Call your representatives.
Demand accountability.