arlcode

I never, in all the years of participating in AoC did take a look at the global leaderboard.

Even before LLMs I knew it was filled with with results faster then you can blink.

So some of us, from gut feeling the vast majority, it was always just for fun. Usually I spent at least until March to finish as much as I did in every year.

In theory Amazon could license the stack to a European Operator while having no operative access themselves.

I think this is already done in some cases altough the political reliability has not yet been tested.

We do have a on prem GitLab (ultimate) at work and I'm pretty happy with it all in all with around ~100 active daily users.

Privately Forgejo is fullfilling all my needs with very little maintenance work.

Not all bubbles burst, some deflate quite silently especially if people expect them to burst.

Microsoft didn't care to ask users when they put copilot into everything and they won't ask users when they'll "consolidate the experience" to whatever works.

And just so I can claim that I "knew it all along" in the future I'll say that some form of "agent OS" is here to stay when the dust settles.

Yeah it worked everytime so despite complaints so they have all the reason to believe it will work this time either.

The future is never certain and, as always, there will be unexpected and rapid societal shifts that may change things rapidly, but those may well be 300 years out.

That is indeed a really weird statement from them.

I mostly engage with text based social media or highly technical content so I know that I'm not exactly in the center of the bell curve.

I can see a use case for "AI let's go finding me holiday destination and help me plan my travel and stay". I can also see people wanting to "improve" images and videos etc to remove "blemishes".

But straight up generating random images and videos as content center pieces? That seems like a niche at best unless it's unwittingly done through the "algorithm".

But it won't will it?

They can essentially force users to receive and pay for any of their AI features. It worked so far and there is no reason to believe it will stop working anytime soon.

People are just taking it and this guy knows it. The fact that I and a few others don't, doesn't even register in Microsofts bottom line.

The lesson learned is that you don't really have to care about your users right now. I'm certain there is a breaking point for that as well but until there are any indications that it is reached we probably must be glad that they are not outright insulting their users and/or charging them an additional 5 dollars a month for "disrespecting Microsoft".

Interesting question. Its plausible that there are not many vessels that are UK flagged anymore.

The more interesting question is how many of these are under "control"/influence of domestic operators

If required, a flag can be exchanged in a pinch and tax codes /regulations can be adapted to allow/encourage this.

Of course not. But this is very useful to a) show they are enforcing this shiny new law and b) lay the legal groundwork that blocking it on their side (thruough UK ISPs) is warranted.

I wonder whether by now the botnets moved on to authenticating C2 server and using fallbacks methods if the malware discovers an endpoint to be "compromised"

Ah got it. I've heard about that but apparently were behind how Iris scanners look these days.

What exactly am I looking at?

One of the best present day examples are Saudi Arab mega projects.

They tend to be crazy ideas with fundamental flaws and either don't happen are are silently reshaped to be feasible.

The "clever" interpretation would be that this is primarily done to fleece the states treasury, and I'm certain that still happens, but I firmly believe that the driving force is one ultra rich ultra powerful naive person without any negative feedback from his inner circle.

If they draw something on a piece of paper, believing themselves to be very visionary and order that thing to be built people will just start doing so without a word of warning. Speak up and you might find yourself short of a few limbs.

There's a good chance he was fighting in WWI being in his mid 20s.

If he survived that he lived through economic crisis in the twenties and thirties and ultimately WWII including occupation and terror in France.

And ultimately if he got old enough he could have witnessed the early cold war but also European economic bounce back and begining reconciliation between former enemies.

The launcher is a bit annoying at times but what finally made me commit ot the switch was when I realized that Anno 1800 and the demo for Anno 117 were running flawlessly.

I also recently finished AC Origins for the first time on my Linux machine.

However I don't play multiplayer ever and apparently that's where most issues are.

I (a layman) believe that part of the "global" scope of the law is to enable actions at home (and some pressure).

If they want to order ISPs to block services there needs to be some legal framework to do so. "We contacted them, they didn't respond, now we need to revert to blocking" sounds pretty convincing to me.

For your other argument I'll ask the question I ask anytime this comes up: How would you propose laws/regulations on online services are enforced if not (at least in principle) globally?

The ironic part is that parts of the pro Brexit movement were convinced (from their messaging at least) that it worked the other way around.

It's quite ironic that they would have an easier time enforcing that if they were still part of the EU and could have been the deciding factor towards more regulation faster.

The EU is big and rich enough to force Big Tech into submission under threat of loosing the market.

It's all trade offs.

Even in the most dystopian sci-fi future where a hostile and totalitarian government watches everything everybody does, they would still use the information to investigate boring everyday crimes.

The (non rethoric) question is, are people willing to pay the increasing price of non-crime related surveillance as we see diminished security margins.

I would bet a little bit of money that this is still illegal because you cheated yourself access to a service that is clearly meant to be paid and usually requires agreement (as indicated by the captive portal). Sounds like fraud to me.

As far as I know courts in most jurisdictions are allowed to look at a case in its entirety and that won't look good for you.

A defense like "I thought it was just an config error and couldn't possible imagine that someone would want payment" doesn't sound very plausible to me in particular if it comes from an IT expert who just used sophisticated means to surgically circumvent the block.

In this particular cases of course they confessed the "crime" while bragging about it in their post.

Now what if a random person downloaded an app called "Internet anywhere" from their store and it justed worked? Much muddier because they wouldn't even know it was circumventing anything. For all they know it could be a deal between Air Canada and the app vendor.

The threat model seems to be "there are other email providers beside Google. How can we change that?"

Not necessarily a threat model that benefits you

But that is exactly how it works.

Middle Eastern countries are not able to convince e.g. the US or any of the European Countries to extradite their citizens (or sometimes legal residents) for violating the moral codes of let's say Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan.

Because these countries know that (and becaue of diplomatic consequences) the law and/or government there doesn't even try it. But if the CEO of a porn site travels there he can and most likely will be held accountable. Tha

If it's a crime in both jurisdiction prosecution is certainly a possibility and happens regularily (or both countries cooperate to convict people without extradition)

Ultimately the United States have a lot more diplomatic sway over the world than some random country and that's why they can and do ask for a lot more.

If you ever need an example of everday US soft power that it is.

The US has a huge reach in the western (and global) world and can impact you in a lot of creative and legal ways (e.g. prevent Google / Apple / Microsoft from offering services to you).

As Afghanistan has recently disconnected their Internet they seem to have done exactly that within their sphere of influence (which is limited to their borders).

So you are entirely right any country can do that at any time. Most countries don't have a way to enforce it on you or your users.

You can absolutely take that stance and be fine as long as you never get into the sphere of influence of UK law enforcement for potentially a very long time.

If they get hold of you your interpretation of who sent what doesn't matter but theirs does. They can absolutely hold you until your fine is paid or you spend and equivalent amount of time in prison.

Many people like to vacation in the UK or Europe (one diverted flight away) and they might decide that it's better to just block users and be done with it. Some people may even happily pay a small fine incurred before the block.

Or they simply decide to pay the fine for the short duration they were not in compliance.

I would do that (after appealing) and be done with it.

That is at most temporary. I expect within the next 5 year "partner products" and "LLM-optpmized content" will take the place of SEO.

The economic dynamics did not change and the methods will adapt.

Why wouldn't Google sell advertisers a prominent spot in the AI summary. That's their whole deal. Why wouldn't OpenAI do the same with (free) users.?

The law would probably even allow them certify the vendor, for a reasonable fee, and verify their identity.

All they need to do is implement it in a way that still allows competitors to do their thing. Wha

If they want to offer functionality in Europe they should consider this from the beginning as cost of doing business.

They pride themselves as being privacy and security minded when releasing new products.

They already have mechanisms to trust some accessories and apps ("my watch" vs. "your watch"). Just offer the same to devices not made by them.

If the user then decides to install the (probably illegal) "Meta Spy Master 9000 App" then so be it.

They are adults after all.

The DMA very explicitly disagrees with the notion of "Apple knows best" and until the tech giants come to terms with that, their comments on the laws cannot be trusted.

I would love to see them cooperate because then, over time, their considerable technical knowledge could be used to work out the details.

Microsoft as well and even OpenAI.

They do it quietly offer clear benefits to decision makers (e.g. Palantir with it's promise to reduce crime) and give up control where it doesn't disturb their core business model.

Apple on the other hand is pretty much absolute in its desire control the Hardware and the software. They act like they themselves are beyond any doubt and publicly denounce politicians with their contrarian attitude.

There is some strategy to this madness I'm sure but I don't see it.