#louis rossman

[nonenosome2]

Louis Rossmann for FTC chair; I put my hat in the ring. Make it happen!

If it happened, this would be fucking hilarious.

[kazifatagar]

NEW: US Youtuber hits Anwar hard on unrealised reform promises

A YouTuber from the US did not mince his words against PM Anwar Ibrahim, going at the Pakatan Harapan leader very hard on his promises for reforms. Promises not met, he says. He also hit at Information Minister Fahmi Fadzil for the infamous ‘DNS’ block. In the video, he says someone can’t pretend that there is an elite that is blocking reforms when in a country like Malaysia, the person as the…

[kalianos]

Do not Trust Amazon.

[tachyon-at-rest]

we need to be teaching kids that macbooks are shit and dont do anything or else tiktok freelancers will make them think macbooks are good

[magz]

FUTO keyboard is a Local, private source-available digital keyboard for Android devices with Voice to Text feature.

The early full release version of the keyboard application is available.

Uses local transcription machine learning (Whisper AI) for voice to text, without the use of internet or cloud or data collection.

FUTO Keyboard is intended to be an alternative to Google and Samsung Keyboard on Android devices, since the defaults collect user data.

Video by Louis Rossman of FUTO (posted on July 1, 2024):

FUTO Keyboard Website Link

[mrsonvsyoutube]

Reddit CEO learns going to war with the internet is a LOSING battle

[ms-demeanor]

Opinion on Louis Rossman? I ended up following him when I was researching right to repair but as a newbie techie he's said a few things that I don't know if I should trust regarding tech privacy.

Louis Rossman knows a lot about macbook repair and needs to be factchecked on pretty much everything else; he admits this himself in a video called "Don't trust me" where he's issuing a correction because he leapt to conclusions in a previous video.

Rossman has a libertarian approach to tech (and to a lot of things; his channel is deeply invested in rugged individualism and a hustle and grind mentality). He believes that people who own various devices should have ultimate say in what happens to those devices and should have control over what data those devices are collecting and who they are sharing it with. That guides his attitudes about repair and privacy. These are not *incorrect* views but they are views which have made him very reactive in conversations about privacy and data collection, and he has a pretty bad habit of leaping to conclusions and interpreting things as uncharitably as possible with a WORSE habit of not doing any significant research before presenting information to his audience of 2 million people. Anything that looks like Big Brother is something he jumps on immediately, even if what he's looking at is a shadow with the vague outline that resembles an entity that might have a shape similar to Big Brother.

He's got many videos where he examines a privacy policy or a news report about a "startling" violation of privacy where he has to come back later and issue a correction, and of course most of his viewers are going to look at the startling video shit-talking nissan - in which he is worked up and animated and energetic and funny - not the staid correction put out a week later.

But as much as he might be wrong in individual readings of ToSs or legislation or court records, I don't think his overall approach is wrong. He might be incorrect that your Nissan is collecting information about your sexual history (he is incorrect about that) but it's still bad that Nissan is collecting data on you and you shouldn't buy a car that collects a shitload of data on you. He might be incorrect about grapheneOS for security (he is and he isn't and his beef with graphene is legit but personal, it's a fine OS) but he's not wrong that if you don't want google tracking your data you should use a degoogled OS.

One of the things that I've seen him get wrong on multiple occasions is a conflation of privacy and security. Privacy and Security aren't the same thing, and Rossman is a lot more focused on Privacy than he is on Security. I tend to be more on the Security side of that question, though I also think Privacy is important.

For both privacy and security what you need to ask yourself is why you are doing this and what you want to prevent. If you're using firefox because you don't want chrome collecting data on you and refining a profile to serve ads to you, that's a fine reason to move to firefox. If you're using firefox instead of chrome because you're an activist and you don't want the government to know what you're doing, you are missing several steps and possibly putting yourself in danger. If you're using firefox instead of chrome because you don't want your ex to be able to track your online activity you are missing several steps and possibly putting yourself in danger. If you want to use chromebooks instead of windows laptops in a hospital environment so that your administrator has extremely granular control and can implement security policies from an accessible console in order to meet HIPAA requirements more easily, that's a good reason to use chromebooks. It's very secure. But it's not terribly private for the *users* even if it is private for the *patients.*

So, some of what Rossman says is right but it's predicated on a worldview that is steeped in paranoia and an extremely individualistic approach to privacy and security. Some of what Rossman says is wrong because it's wrong, but also some of what Rossman says is wrong because it is wrong *for you and your specific situation* and he's giving general commentary, not advice for individuals.

You can see this really clearly in his video about being "important" enough to require privacy. The whole video is a response to a computer security streamer saying that you don't need a degoogled phone to work in security and that you are likely not important enough to worry about the kind of state-level threats that would require an extremely secure phone because nobody is going to waste resources for a random security goon. And in Rossman's response, he argues that you shouldn't have to be "important" in order to deserve a phone that doesn't have Google tracking your every move. But that's not what the initial clip was about. Rossman spends fifteen minutes arguing with something the initial clip doesn't say and brushing aside the *actually important* discussion about threat modeling that could be had on the subject in order to advocate for more low-level consumer privacy concerns. You SHOULD be able to install an OS that doesn't track you, but also you don't need some 1337h4x0r phone to do red teaming as a pentester, and also most people who get worried about security worry in completely the wrong direction.

Like, a couple weeks ago maia arson crimew got an ask that was like "should you really be posting your name out there on the internet? is that secure?" and its response was "i am wanted by the US government."

And that's like the *perfect* illustration of the distinction happening here. maia is posting online and sharing photos and chatting with people and using an app that gather some data, and that is not at all a concern for its privacy or security because A) if state-level actors are observing you then it does not matter whether or not you're posting selfies or your location for an upcoming talk, they know what you look like and can find out where you are and B) they are going to be able to subpoena data from any entities you've worked with so you're going to be taking precautions to work with encrypted tools for security, not relying on privacy policies.

and like a few years ago i made that post about the drug dealer who got arrested because he'd used his "secure" phone to text someone a photo of cheese and that photo was used to identify him - it is not the *existence* of social media photos or photo messaging that was the problem in his security, nor was it even necessarily that his "secure" phone was compromised (though yeah that wasn't good) it's that he was identified because he crossed the streams and put personally identifiable information in his secure encrypted crime phone for crimes.

Anyway. I need to sit down and actually write something up on this someday but here's a very basic breakdown:

Online privacy is about who has access to the data you generate while operating online; companies gather information about your habits and the websites you visit, what computer you're using and how long you look at item listings, how much you'll watch of a video and the keywords you use in your emails.

Security is about preventing access to information about YOU, not your behavior. It's ensuring that nobody can look into the boxes that you want to lock, and not leaving footprints when you don't want to be seen.

Lax rules about privacy can threaten your security, for instance police don't need a warrant to access data from Ring camera videos in your neighborhood, so the lack of privacy from Ring might make it easier for police to observe you even if you are cautious about your own personal security.

Poor security practices on the part of a business can be a problem for privacy in an individual sense - a hospital that doesn't have good security in place might get hacked and have private patient records leaked, for instance - but most of the data that people talk about when they discuss online privacy is either anonymous or in bulk packages of data that mean very little to your personal risk profile (because the 'privacy' data people are concerned about isn't the same as the 'security' data that gets leaked in big breaches, like passwords and usernames and email addresses - that's less about privacy and more about security but the fact that the businesses want an email address from you is generally a privacy issue - they don't need your email address for the most part and you shouldn't have to give them one to function - not a security issue. You see how this is confusing and intertwined?)

So when a lot of digital privacy activists are talking about digital privacy they're talking about stuff that is, realistically, pretty philosophical in most people's lives. The data profile that Google generates about you is *invasive* but in most circumstances it isn't a *threat* (at the moment, on an individual level), however the data privacy perspective (which i happen to share) is that living in a world where massive data collection is normalized, unquestioned, and constant could easily tip over into something that is dangerous, and which can already be weaponized against individual targets by state actors.

When security activists start talking about stuff it's because oh my god security is a mess everything is full of holes and you have no idea how easy it is to grab access to something that people probably do not want you to have access to please please please just start using strong passwords and passcodes and lock your phone and your computer please, baseline, please just use a password manager bitwarden is free and easy. (but also you need to MAKE AN EFFORT and LEARN A LOT if you're trying to cover your tracks online and no browser plugin or encrypted email service is going to keep you safe).

So when I'm talking about the benefits that most people get out of using Firefox, that's me talking about privacy. When I'm talking about the benefits of using Tor, that's me talking about security. When I'm talking about using Linux and open source software, that's me talking about *autonomy* having direct control over the system that you are using, and THAT is the kind of thing that Rossman knows a lot about and has good opinions about.

I feel like it should go without saying that one of the reasons to be concerned about digital privacy is because the companies that trash your digital privacy are profiting off of the profiles they build on you, and are always attempting to find new ways to violate your privacy in order to profit from you. It doesn't need to be a security risk for it to be wrong, and you don't have to be under active threat from a government to decide that you don't want Youtube deciding to serve you ads for diapers because google decided that you are pregnant based on the websites you've been visiting.

ANYWAY, TL;DR:

Louis Rossman needs to be fact-checked on privacy statements and has a history of visibly making mistakes because he speaks on something before he researches it

Privacy and Security are different.

Privacy is about the data that are shared by the tools you use with the manufacturers of those tools and what those manufacturers do with that information.

Security is about preventing unauthorized access to your personal information and preventing individuals from tracking you online or accessing your private information.

Privacy and security are distinct but intertwined; Rossman is primarily concerned with Privacy and Autonomy, not discussions of security, but may misinterpret discussions of security to be about Privacy.

If you are concerned about privacy, you can look for recommendations from privacyguides.org, which makes recommendations on privacy-focused tools. Cory Doctorow (@mostlysignssomeportents on tumblr) is a great resource for information about the practical and philosophical implications of data privacy.

Fuck google though. Genuinely I think that people should do everything reasonably within their power to deny tech companies access to data on their behavior.

If you are concerned about *security* that is genuinely a more complicated topic with much more significant risks up and down the chain but at the very least please use a password manager (bitwarden is so good and so easy i promise) and lock your phone with something other than your thumbprint or your face. To learn more about security i guess you can start with Troy Hunt and Bruce Schneier. It is like, genuinely a problem that it's difficult to find good, reliable security information for home computer users that isn't trying to sell them something but here's an FTC guide for small businesses that goes a bit more in-depth than "use a password manager" and is only SLIGHT overkill for your mom's 2010 desktop.

everything is a mess i'm sorry i love you please just use firefox and bitwarden.

[steve-the-evets]

insert right to repair copypasta here.

"Washing machines used to live longer" yes. why make something last forever when u can use shitty springs so the whole thing falls apart after 3 years and then u need to buy a new one

This makes me so sad and also I'm trying to remember if any of the Discworld books dealt with late stage capitalism

[the960writers]

Who Really Owns Your E-Books? Switching from Kindle to Kobo

The Nonsense-Free Editor

Aug 19, 2024 I had an eye-opening experience transitioning from an Amazon Kindle to a Kobo e-reader. It became obvious that people like Louis Rossman aren't far off when they warn companies like Amazon are removing the concept of ownership all together.

[netscapenavigator-official]

As Louis Rossman said, once a platform has to start penny pinching, it’s dead in the water.

And I think that’s a key difference of Twitter and Reddit, and Tumblr.

Twitter and Reddit are penny pinching.

Even if Tumblr isn’t good at it, this platform is still at least trying to introduce new things. They aren’t penny pinching because tbh if Tumblr started searching the couch cushions for pennies, all they’d find is more debt.

And I think that’s the key difference. Tumblr isn’t dead because it hasn’t given up. The day Tumblr starts blocking ad blockers or charging to have unlimited data caps will be the day it dies. Until then, as long as staff keeps at least trying, idk if it will.

And if it does, it won’t be as near of a catastrophic and violent end as Twitter is meeting.

[molsno]

I don't understand how louis rossman makes video after video about how companies are anti-consumer but he's still extremely capitalist. like yeah bro no shit companies don't care about making quality products and services, their entire reason for existing is to generate profit for shareholders. not a single company will ever care about the customer experience because it is unprofitable to do so. there's no "nicer" version of capitalism where all companies use only the most honest practices and compete to offer customers the highest quality products and services. if you want that we need to get rid of capitalism

[eretzyisrael]

by Dion J Pierre

The City University of New York (CUNY), a higher-education consortium with 25 campuses across the five boroughs, has hired prominent academic and anti-Israel commentator Marc Lamont Hill as the CUNY Graduate Center’s “presidential professor” of urban education, a university spokesperson confirmed to The Algemeiner.

Hill’s hiring this week has already stirred controversy in light of both his past comments concerning Israel and Zionism and numerous civil rights complaints alleging that CUNY itself fosters a hostile, antisemitic environment in which members of the Jewish community are threatened and harassed.

In 2018, Hill was rebuked by Temple University, his former employer, and fired by CNN after calling for a “free Palestine from the river to the sea,” a slogan widely interpreted as a call for the destruction of Israel.

Recently, Hill posted a photograph of himself holding a sign that said he supported the American Anthropological Association’s endorsement of the the so-called Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward the Jewish state’s eventual elimination. Hill has also publicly associated with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan in the past  and refused for many months to denounce his antisemitism.

During a 2018 interview with The Breakfast Club, a popular urban radio broadcast, Hill called Farrakhan his “brother” and accused Israeli police of training American officers to kill Black people.

“What is happening is a normalization and legitimization of Jew-hatred that has really become part and parcel of the academy,” Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, who founded the AMCHA Initiative nonprofit to research and track antisemitism in American higher education, said of CUNY’s decision to hire Hill in an interview. “And it’s not just that he’s proud of that and proud to tell you that, it’s that this is how he sees himself as an academic. His obsession with the Jewish state is actually the centerpiece of his scholarship, and that is probably why he was hired at CUNY.”

Rossman-Benjamin added that CUNY administrators and faculty have signaled their commitment to anti-Zionism before — including in 2022, when the CUNY Law School faculty endorsed a BDS resolution. She explained that faculty there and throughout the university system place political activism above scholarship, citing as an example the law school’s description of itself as a training ground for “radical lawyering,” a term drawn from far-left literature.

“Hill is a staunch advocate of the BDS movement,” Asaf Romirowsky, executive director of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa, told The Algemeiner. “He ignores the total makeup of Israeli society, buying hook, line, and sinker into the white colonial narrative even though Israel largely comprises Jews of color. He’s a total propagandist in that regard, and he has made those accusations about Israel often to his own detriment. And I think people should be appalled that CUNY is legitimizing him.”

Romirowsky argued that Hill’s hiring is inconsistent with CUNY’s alleged efforts to address antisemitism on campus, a cause that CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez appeared to embrace in several public messages.

“Clearly Rodriguez’s comments have no teeth,” he continued. “Actions have to follow stating one’s commitment to fighting antisemitism. Bringing a known antisemite who has been so vocal and so pronounced about his views sends a contradictory message. I think the faculty fighting antisemitism at CUNY should be deeply concerned about what’s happening there.”

CUNY on Wednesday defended its hiring of Hill as a decision driven by merit, adding that several Jews served on the hiring committee that selected him.

“Professor Hill, a widely respected expert in his field, was unanimously selected by the Urban Education hiring committee for a position that focuses on advancing conversation and research about the role of education in American society,” a spokesperson for the university told The Algemeiner. “The committee reviewed the entirety of his scholarship and public comments, which include a public letter of apology for remarks made half a decade ago and his strong, unequivocal condemnations of antisemitism and antisemitic violence.”

The City University of New York is currently under investigation by the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) for allegedly neglecting to discipline a student, Nerdeen Kiswani, who threatened to set her classmate on fire for wearing an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) hoodie, and for failing to protect another Jewish student from harassment. CUNY is also the subject of a Title VI complaint, which was filed in July 2022 by the American Center for Law and Justice after accusations of antisemitism at CUNY campuses were aired during a New York City Council hearing held the previous month. It alleges that CUNY has intentionally ignored “a sustained pattern of antisemitism.”

Another investigation, launched in February 2022, is reviewing complaints that Jewish students enrolled in CUNY Brooklyn College’s Mental Health Counseling master’s program were browbeaten into denying their heritage and identifying as white. One student allegedly begrudged one of her Jewish classmates so much that she admitted in a WhatsApp group chat to fantasizing about strangling her, an anonymous student told The Algemeiner at the time.

In May, CUNY again came under a shroud of criticism when student Fatima Mohammed alleged that Jewish money influences the university’s Israel policy during a CUNY Law School commencement ceremony. Despite being widely condemned by Jewish groups and local and national lawmakers —including New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) — 40 CUNY Law faculty issued a statement supporting Mohammed’s remarks, describing them as “heartland First Amendment speech.”

In Sept. 2022, CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez acknowledged that “more needs to be done” to fight antisemitism at the university’s 25 campuses.

Neither Rodriguez nor Hill responded to The Algemeiner’s requests for comment about the latter’s hiring.

[youtubeswordsofwisdom2]

"I bought it. I paid for it. I should be allowed to shove it up my ass."

Louis Rossman, 2023

[supersoftly]

Louis Rossman has a lot of good things to say but he also put on a pretty silly clown performance when he did an entire video whining about fighting games selling DLC. He purchased the cheapest option available for SF5, I think he paid like $5 or $10 for it, and was mad that it didn't include all the characters that were added to the game after launch. Then he tried to say that fighting games, of all things, had a better and more consumer-friendly business model before DLC.

Really soured my opinion on him to see him speaking so authoritatively about something he was very obviously clueless about.

Aw, I guess I missed that one. Can't be perfect I guess :/ I don't think this dismisses his advocacy on other subjects, but damn dude, stay in your lane ^^;

[bent-this-tore-that]

Pirating is downloading a high definition version of media from a third party, while buying it gets you a revocable low definition version, even if you paid for the high definition version.

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