elmo2you

I'm not quite sure what you are trying to get at.

It appears you are explaining how the Serbian government wants to tax freelancers as if they would have been regular employees. Which other country does that? Where do self-employed people (freelancers) get taxed as if they are employees?

This assumption appears to be underpinning your whole comparison/explanation. Where did you get this assumption of "freelancer should be treated as employee" (as far as taxing goes) come from?

If it wasn't clear from my original sentence, I meant that this tax rate for freelancers is on par with what employees in OTHER countries often pay (if not higher). But I honestly don't know a single country that taxes freelancers as if they are regular employees.

Could you give me examples of other countries that do this, and what the rational behind such an unusual approach might be?

It all depends on your position, or frame of reference.

No doubt it is self harm, when viewed against the well being and progress of the country as a whole. On the other hand, for the individuals and systems that appear to determine what actually happens in Serbia, having this brain drain might be everything but a problem. In fact, it might be their main source of profit, power and success.

It's a lot easier to convince/coerce uneducated and desperate people, into supporting things that are eventually against their own interests. Just providing short term benefits that make them appear better off than all "other" people is usually enough. It doesn't matter that it's a pyramid construction and that everyone will eventually pay through their nose. The people who support such schemes usually either can't see how they are being played, or just don't have a "luxury" to even care about whatever might happen tomorrow (they just need whatever benefits they can grab now).

Additionally, from what I've figured from the media reports on this, it's not just about this retroactive tax demand.

It's also about the level of tax they will have to pay going forward, which appears to be stupendously height (at least for freelancers). It appears on par with, or even higher than, what people with regular employment often pay, in countries with elaborate and functioning social security/welfare systems. Serbia certainly does not appear to have those.

It does appear as if this government really does not want freelancing to be a viable option. Considering the recent efforts to attract foreign investments into local Serbian (tech) companies, where almost insane return-on-investments figures are being promised (of course flowing back to the foreign investors), with all kind of questionable perks (pretty much destroying any potential competition from local businesses), it's not impossible that there is an orchestrated scheme going on here.

It sadly would not be a new phenomenon if/when in Serbia a small group of shot-callers are manipulating anything and everything to just enrich themselves, by collaborating with questionable (and ultimately abusive/destructive) foreign enterprises, at the expense of Serbia's citizens and in fact the country as a whole.

But, we'll see what happens.

For starters, because it's "might makes right" and double blatant standards all the way down.

Nothing particularly unique, for almost any empire in history has operated worked that way. Just as almost any empire eventually had to resort to increasingly more covert, corrupt and criminal enterprises to support itself. At some point, it inevitably will all come crashing down.

In the case of America, several generation will ask themselves how they could have been so dumb to let it get that far. No entirely fair, because their parents didn't really have the power to influence (let alone stop) any of it. Not without completely destroying the same system that also supported their way of life. Many people in the Soviet Union at some point knew at some point that the system was doomed, but nobody know how to change that reality for the better.

A lot can be learned from reading books written by Russians, about the collapse of the Soviet Union. Or books by Germans, after the end of World War II.

In fairness, it's hard to blame current day Americans for not clearly seeing what's going on, considering the level of cultural, institutionalized and commercial brainwashing (including deliberate division and diversion) that has been part of every aspect of life there, for decades (if not a century).

Still, there will come a day that Americans will have a rude awakening about reality and how those who run their country (be that government or private interests) have ruined their future and well being for a long time to come, just as the Russians and Germans once had.

Yes, it can be (depending on what you do).

Arbitrary doesn't just mean treating individuals differently (discrimination) without a proper legal justification. It also applies to any government or business that overextends their legal mandate, by subjecting people (even if equally) to limitations that have no legal basis.

I'm well aware that this rather quickly conflicts with some almost religious belief that anything can be limited through contracts, EULAs and TOSes (as long as its done voluntarily).

When people have alternatives, without such limitations, one can argue that people still have a freedom to do things differently. When a product or service becomes some kind of necessity, or not using it somehow becomes a personal limitation of its own, then such contractual limitation essentially have just created a new "law" outside of the only official process that is supposed to govern the creation of laws.

Businesses who create rules that essentially function like "private law", and governments who create laws without proper legal mandate/justification, are guilty of arbitrary behavior. Not because they treat individual people differently, but because their treatment all people is itself an arbitrary choice. As in, it lacks legal justification and goes beyond the legal authority that such a government or business has.

I agree with you.

My main reason for not bringing up the internal complications of the UDHR was to not add confusion, but you are completely right about how some of these rights can conflict.

You are equally right about the "arbitrary" part. However, when it comes to today's trade in personal profiles and governments scooping up everything they can get their hands on (legalized or not), I very strongly believe that all of it rather clearly fits the classification of "arbitrary".

I will even agree with that I picked an (extreme) side. But maybe not because I can't see nuance or because I ignore (at least not in private) what conflicts with my position.

It's more about being sick and tired of listening for decades to blatant privacy abusers arrogantly (and incorrectly) claiming that what they do is legal .. and how we just all should accept this new reality. It sure didn't help to see governments either buying that bullshit or simply not deal with it because of how it could harm their own (surveillance) interests.

Considering the now obvious rampant abuse and how far I believe we have veered off from how all this probably should have developed (in an ideal world), I'm convinced that the time for being nice and nuanced about all this has long passed.

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power” ― Benito Mussolini

Note: such a merger does not have to be overtly voluntary. It can also be a government seemingly dictating corporations or corporations covertly running a government. It's all about the two somehow joining forces (even if only because of shared interests and possibly still for different reasons), especially when against the interests of most citizens.

Plenty of countries (if not most) have this or something similar, anchored in either their constitution or at least in regular law.

This should not come as a surprise either, since it's essentially the implementation of Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Where it usually goes wrong, is with the interpretation of the words "privacy" and "communication". Also, governments have a habit of defining exceptional situations in which these laws can be violated in the name of some supposedly higher purpose (e.g. national security).

Strictly speaking, the UDHR is rather clear about one thing: the declared human rights are inalienable (meaning, they can neither be taken away nor be given away freely), so all the exceptions are essentially bullshit excuses. Those should not exist in the first place, at least not according to the "inalienably" part of "inalienable human rights".

Additionally, there is no law/treaty that explains why modern technologies should not be subject to Article 12. While plenty of governments/businesses would like to convince people otherwise, almost everything we do online is strictly speaking telecommunication of some sort or another.

The sad truth is that pretty much all of today's online privacy issues are strictly speaking in violation of the UDHR. There is just way too much at stake for businesses and governments alike for them to ever acknowledge it. It doesn't change that they are blatantly violating a treaty they signed, ratified and should be upholding though.

> The trolls get out-trolled regularly

Maybe in a rare case, here and there. But you better believe this modern moment isn't trolling.

I've met plenty people who strongly identified with this movement and had several lengthy discussions with them. Literally all of them showcased not just a strong belief in a flat earth (and other easy to disprove conspiracy theories), they also clearly suffered from myriad of clearly identifiable psychological pathologies, underpinning all of it. Not the kind of things that someone who's just trolling would be able to fake (easily, or at all). More like the kind and severity that any sane society (both as a social group and as an institution) would provide psychological or even psychiatric assistance with. But that might just be the bigger issue at hand here.

It appears that insanity has increasingly become a somewhat acceptable (or unstoppable) norm rather than an exception in our modern societies. In particularly in the Western ones driven by capitalism, or so it appears. Instead of treating psychological pathologies for what they are, today pretty much "opinion" has become a "valid" opinion.

I guess that taking the concept of freedom of expression (itself no doubt a good thing) to absurd extremes, clearly doesn't help.

It probably doesn't help either that politicians (of all colors) appear to have no issue with exploiting these collective insanities for their own equally insane goals.

All in all, I think all of it are rather indicative sings of a society that is gradually running off its tracks, like a barometer is indicative for weather to come. I don't see this getting any better anytime soon. Particularly not in the US and EU.

> Why would someone "tweak" a key

To make it look, at least to outsiders (be that users or researchers) like you are providing actually strong crypto. Leaking a key might not be as trivial as some people would imagine, with proper security policies in place.

You are indeed right, in that the key is usually the weak point. But there are several ways in which that can be true, with rather different consequences. If a private key of big company show up in a place where should certainly not be, pandemonium would quickly ensue.

On the other hand, a "tweaked" (intentionally weakened) key is a very different story. It will provide easy plausible deniability. It's also much easier to manage breaking larger collections of such keys (with a similar "flaw") without ever any hard evidence linking such keys together.

Is it really that hard to understand/imagine? (sincere question)

> If I'm Evil Social Media Company and I want to leak your secrets to someone ..

Apparently I failed to be clear. The companies in question might not (and probably don't) have evil intentions. They could either be forced (and equally forced to shut up about it), or might not even be aware of it (or not to full extend).

As business PR/politics go, a business would likely present itself safe and promoting how it cares about user privacy (bla, bla, etc). It could even publicly voice opposition to any government's wishes to extend control over them. What happens in PR/politics can be very different (and involve very different people) from what can simultaneously be dictated behind close doors in the name of compliance, national security, or whatever.

You are correct. You are indeed trusting the creator/owner of a private key with your data. It's also true that there are plenty of ways in which this trust can be violated. But to me, neither of those are what I have a gripe with.

What bugs me particularly, is that RSA intrinsically has an ability to put in a backdoor that is just as difficult to detect/determine for an outsider/user, as it is to actually break that key. What bugs me even more, is that I pretty much never hear anyone talk about that, or people countering with how there are easier (but harder to hide) ways to "break" RSA cryptography.

Maybe, in particular after Snowden, the premise of trusting the creators/owners of private keys just isn't good enough anymore (if it ever was in the first place).

The point is not that a bad actor may have six other ways till Sunday to be evil, but that the ability to add an undetectable backdoor is something I don't like for a public key scheme that still underpins the security of a majority part of the Internet today.

I guess time will tell if that was a mistake or not.

> Why would someone backdoor their own key when they could instead just mirror the data or something?

Ever thought about .. let say big commercial companies (e.g. social media platforms), using keys that are either knowingly or unknowingly tweaked? A backdoor might not be trivially simple (one of the primes being fixes), but e.g. one prime be somehow part of any collection that is smaller than the pool of truly random primes. The problem then changes into "just" a list of division on the product of primes, with all potential candidates. A third party with the right information would have the practical ability to circumvent the encryption.

Still, at the same time, the companies can (maybe even sincerely) claim they use strong cryptography that "can't be broken" (when it has no backdoor).

Luckily, no government would ever consider either demanding such things, or covertly implement them through a compromised supply chains (or standard bodies?), even without the knowledge of their targets. [/sarcasm]

To be clear, I'm not saying this actually happens. I honestly don't know. There is also something to say that this would already have leaked if it did happen. Maybe. On the other hand, some rather nasty secrets have successfully been kept for a long time. Sometimes decades, or still denied after as much as a century.

I'm only saying that it is practically impossible to independently determine if such things are happening, while the technically possibility actually exists. Those involved might themselves not even be aware of it, which makes it even more problematic.

Which makes me wonder, why RSA was ever adopted in the first place. I know it all made more sense when it was introduced, in a world with a lot more trust (maybe always naively, considering some historical revelations). But with everything that has happened ever since, the world has changed a lot.

> No matter how secure you make the cryptography, the other party could still just leak the key.

That's a whole different topic and not what I was pointing at.

Yes, that's what I meant with dated. So the linked paper is a work in progress from half a year ago, but presented today on ePrint and with an abstract that has extra text added.

I can not determine if this "discovery" could actually break any practically operating RSA systems. Considering how that is probably true for most people, that could even be the intent here.

The claim that this will destroy RSA cryptosystems, so all of them categorically, just feels like a big red flag to me. If it said it could break RSA under certain circumstances .. then maybe.

Don't get me wrong, I think there are plenty of things wrong with RSA. Not least of all that determining if a key pair has a backdoor (when only having access to a public key), is essentially just as hard as deriving a private key from a public key (both require you to factor the product of two primes). It still puzzles me that apparently only cryptographic strength has been an argument for the adoption of RSA, but not the ability to detect any (trivially simple to add) backdoor. Apparently we are all supposed to trust whoever generated an RSA key pair (and only supplies a public key). Something I'd rather not do in this day and age.

This last sentence of the abstract, "This destroyes the RSA cryptosystem", does not appear on the abstract of the actual PDF (which also appears to be dated).

How does it destroy RSA? Under what conditions? That claim sounds rather broad and definitely bold, to say the least.

I get why they put out a post like this. They also appear to be correct in calling out the misinformation, regardless whether it was caused by a misinterpreted fun meme or intention to fool/misinform.

However, with some of the decisions I've seen the company (or particularly its management) make before, this post still rubs me the wrong way. Rather pedantically sounding like a lecture on what all these people "up in arms" did wrong.

Those people were indeed wrong, at least this time. But their emotional response may very well have been primed and driven by past experiences (with more merit). Which to me makes this blog post sound rather smug and maybe even a bit arrogant. Even when it was likely sincerely written to calm people down.

> I’m curious what’s your opinion on Bitcoin

a Ponzi scheme by any other name .. which primarily works because it exploits the uncertainties which many people feel about yet another system we are all invested in (whether we like it or not), sporting an extremely unfair distribution and being fundamentally broken too (in fact, at this point it pretty much functions like a Ponzi scheme too): The Dollar dominated world economy.

It is a Tulip mania in the making, which is going to make smart/early investors very rich (as long as they act quickly) when an sudden event (unexpected for most people) will trigger a serious crash of the world economy (which at this point appears almost inevitable). I'm pretty sure that plenty of serious investors are cynically gambling on exactly just that.

Sadly, an increasing proportion of primarily the US economy (and plenty of foreign ones, somehow dependent/reliant on it) revolves around stocked-up capital (potential power, but not used for anything useful, just speculation and political influence) on one hand and increasingly desperate fraud and deception, trying to access this piled up capital. The daily news is distracting most people away from this reality, but I think it is getting worse, rapidly. Something will crack, eventually.

Bitcoin isn't the real problem. It's mostly a symptom of a far bigger problem (will only be "solved" with a crash).

Similarly, plenty of technical/science news these days appears to be no more than deceptive marketing campaigns. But that is again, just like bitcoin, more like a symptom of an even bigger problem than the actual problem itself.

Maybe it's just me, but this reads to me is as a big load of cleverly worded (misleading) statements that say little, yet make all kind of vague suggestions.

I don't know any details about this particular tech, but I think the article says this can detect radio waves over a relatively large spectrum (0Hz..20GHz) simultaneously. It doesn't mention anything about focusing on any particular frequency, or even if it can say anything about the frequency of a signal. From the article itself, it sounds more like this tech can just detect if ANY signal within this range is present, not particularly what kind of signal. Maybe the tech can "hone in" on a particular signal, but I don't remember reading anything about that.

All the rest, about all the marvelous new possibilities this tech will provide (once developed further) sounds more like somebody from marketing went all out on it. Just as so many things with "quantum" in their name, it sounds mostly like a nothing-burger blown completely out of proportion and context.

I am tempted to agree with what you say. I do believe that modern technology has lowered (financial) barriers to access art, no doubt.

However, if it's only artists that appear to be mostly suffering from this new reality, while big (record/copyrights/tech) corporations still appear to be doing very well, I'm inclined to argue that this is probably more about unfair distribution (even more than it traditionally already was) than about the argument you put forward.

No matter how you slice that cake, if in the end artists have to struggle to get by while others make a killing from exploiting their creations, then there is something fundamentally wrong. Personally, I think that today it might even be more wrong than it has been for a long time.

Erich Schmidt's audacity is both telling and shocking. This is pretty much the equivalent of an armed robber saying that everyone can still be save from harm, as long as you just stay home and don't go outside. Probably the biggest shame here is how people like Schmidt still have platforms to suggest these kind of things unhindered, without any punishment.

I do not know how this particularly works in the USA, but in most reasonable countries I know of, the ways in which anyone (company/government/etc) can interact with anyone who isn't a legal adult are limited. For good reasons too, I believe. I think it even is dictated by signed/ratified international treaties/declarations, but I don't recall any details right now.

I'm pretty sure that the tracking of minors (or the unborn), essentially surveillance, is actually in violation of the legal protections those are supposed to have. I've heard plenty people argue that this tracking is somehow admissible, if their legal guardians sign off on it. Often based on the assertion that legal guardians are responsible for those under their care. However, the legal protects of minors are a thing on their own. As far as I know, guardians can not "give away" the legal protection of minors. No more than any person can "give away" their inalienable human rights (also not by consent), which is what makes them inalienable.

So here we have an industry that in all likelihood is seriously violating the legal protections that minors (and arguably unborn too) are supposed to have. Instead of demanding that governments address these rogue corporations, which considering the systematic nature of their violations probably even warrant to be classified as criminal organizations, we instead listen to what key people in this industry say in an attempt to justify their actions, or suggest as remedy for their behavior.

I'm not really all that shocked about people like Schmidt saying such things. About as predictable as a politician talking any kind of bullshit that will sell their agenda. However, I am appalled that this industry gets away with what it currently does. To me, that says a hell of a lot about the system, and how it apparently prefers to protects these interests instead of protecting the people it legally is supposed to protect.

> it is still very much the most powerfull country and will probably stay, if not number 1, at least in the top 3 for at least the rest of our lifetime.

That's funny. What do you really know, about where that power/wealth mostly comes from? Because last time I checked, it actually depends in almost every aspect on what the rest of the world thinks of the USA (including, not in the least important part, it's currency).

I'm even pretty sure that you would be surprised (probably even shocked) if you know how much business the USA does mostly covertly (if not clandestine) abroad, and what amounts of money are involved in that.

This is what I can tell you with a pretty good degree of certainty: during the last decade or so, plenty of the less-than-savory project, run by the USA abroad, have either dried up or been exposed/dismantled/destroyed. I have personally seen several of those go bust.

Less clear, and also with ant causation would be hard to prove, it did "miraculously" coincide with the USA ramping up their anti-Russia rhetoric.

Even a bigger step into speculative territory, one might even suspect that at least some of the turmoil at home in the USA, may have something to do with their most criminal elite no longer being as capable of getting their "fix" abroad, having to resort to exploiting the local population.

Either way though, I'm pretty convinced that most Americans overestimate how their economy has much intrinsic value .. if anything, I'd say it's more or less already bankrupt. Which is probably why we see all these wars, in order to prevent some key players from ditching the Dollar as trade/reserve currency. But that's all borrowed time.

“A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” ~ Mahatma Ghandi

I think that says it all. Despite all the propaganda/cultural brainwashing, convincing many Americans that their country/culture is somehow better than others.

> You can use this as a stepping stone to asking other countries to normalize their laws to be similar to yours

You are certainly correct, if maybe only in theory. At the rate things are going, good luck with any country freely harmonizing anything with the USA. The USA is more likely on a steady course of becoming increasingly less relevant to anyone but themselves.

A different president is not going to change that. The country's international policies (current and past), in particular its use of their relative economical and military power imbalance, have been abusive for way longer than just this last president. Ordinary citizens around the globe have become increasingly more aware of this, often from experiencing its unpleasant consequences. It already has become harder for many foreign politicians to keep giving in to US power play, to how it essentially treats the rest of the globe as its own territory. Expect things to get a lot harder for the USA.

Meanwhile, a growing group of people looks at the USA's internal affairs, wondering why on earth anyone would take any guidance or example from such a nation. I guess that plenty of US citizens will blame that all on the last president (certainly in part for very valid reasons), but the problem extends way beyond that. Regretfully, the USA just can't stop itself, for what it does internationally (mostly unknown to its own citizens).

Feel free to shoot the messenger .. it won't matter.

I believe so too.

In addition, I vaguely remember something about the acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook to be only approved under condition that exactly this kind of data sharing would not happen.

Although I have my doubts about it happening soon, because the immediate impact it would have on real everyday life could by rather disastrous initially (something Facebook no doubt is aware of), the EU should probably declare/certify Facebook as a rogue/criminal organization. I just can't see it any other way, with Facebook's blatant disregard for anything but its own greedy interests.

If Facebook keeps pushing their "luck" like this, it should simply have all its assets on EU soil frozen. If eventually rules a criminal organization, confiscated too. It would be very sad and unfortunate for any EU citizens working for the company, who no doubt have no say in Facebook's criminal enterprise. But the current status quo is becoming completely unacceptable.

History has plenty of lessons, about criminal organizations rising to (hard to defeat levels of) power. In many cases more than anything because both societies and governments/authorities failed to respond appropriately in time, when they still had a fair chance containing those (with far less effort).

All that is even without opening the can of worms that is the access US government agencies have to all of Facebook's data.

The US government should do whatever it sees fit for its subjects. That's not the issue.

The issue is that a US company should also be held accountable for whatever they violates abroad. Not by the US government, of course. But by the authorities of whatever foreign market they operate on (the only authority with jurisdiction anyways).

While the tide is gradually changing, so far a substantial part of the problem is that the US government has quite a few nasty ways to shield US companies from being seriously held accountable abroad. Still, the longer that reality exists, the more inevitable it will become that at some point US companies will simply be barred altogether from (some) foreign markets. You can only abuse a dominant position for so long, before the receiving end will no longer put up with it. That is, of course, when (or as soon as) they have the luxury of choice in the matter.

You are correct, on each and every count. However, none of that is related to what I tried to highlight.

Sure, the US is (rightfully so) subjecting every company within its jurisdiction to US law, no matter on which market they operate. Sometimes they go even further and say non-US companies can be held liable, when they somehow interact with the USA or its citizens. That can sometimes become a bit dicey with jurisdictions, but even that is not the point here.

The point is that a US-based company is operating on a market outside the US and (most likely) is operating in a way that is within the law of that market.

To put bluntly: I don't give a #### about how the US treats companies on their territory, regardless where those operate. I care about US-based companies abiding to law wherever they do business. If they can not do that, they should cease to operate there. Whether it's the US government or something else that is to blame for the situation is irrelevant.

The only ones you have to blame for that, are the companies to show you those annoying popups. They have no obligation whatsoever to show that to anyone outside the EU.

Start complaining to those companies and stop pointing your finger in the wrong direction.

Policy set by whom?

That of a commercial company, which does not have a legal mandate (at least not in the EU) to make make rules that violate EU law (including legal protections), or the US government, which does not have legal jurisdiction over the EU market?

Pick your poison

There is no doubt about US companies having to follow US law. But this is an internationally operating company, which means it has to also follow whatever law might apply to whatever market they operate on.

GitHub, as any other US company, has a choice/freedom to stop offering services to customers outside the US market, if the particulars of providing those services causes them to violate laws in at least one of the jurisdictions.

Of course, US companies should be rightfully pissed, if the US government puts them in a situation where they can not (legally) operate abroad. But that's something they should take up with US lawmakers.

At the end of they day, they are still (most likely) operating illegally on a foreign market, even if they are unlikely ever to be substantially punished for that. The thing is, the US has a rather questionable track record of coming to the rescue, whenever a US companies get into trouble for (illegally) doing business abroad. Ironically, whenever another country does that (e.g. China) the US immediately have a long list of choice words an allegations at the ready. Long story short: pure hypocrisy.

It appears that you are pretty much the only one who gets it. At least from anyone who responded.

I find it rather shameful, that apparently everyone who responded to my question, did so by explaining that a US company has to abide by US law. You don't say!

That was never the question, but apparently even reading is even too much to ask from people these days.

Of course US companies have to follow US laws. But if that conflicts with law in wherever their services are offered, they no longer have any business operating there. They should consequently stop offering their services in that territory.

Since that's unlikely going to happen on their own initiative, maybe the EU should simply declare companies like these as illegal on their market.

Actually, that might even help to finally get rid of the stranglehold which many US have had for a long time on any emerging potential competition from EU companies. Something for which US companies have regularly used and abused differences in law and economy (between the US and EU), in order to obtain an (unfair) edge.

Maybe it's about time that comes to and end, so US companies can prove that they can compete on equal grounds. I personally doubt that, because for most of the last century this competition has been dominated by the US exploiting artificially created advantages.

Politics aside, it's rather sad that this aspect of legality is even a discussion topic. It should be a no-brainer that US companies should abide by whatever laws exist on a foreign market they operate on (of course on top of US law).

If they can't, the only (legal) option is to stop operating. Either that, or the company is a criminally operating organization. That is, the violations are systemic and not just a few unintended incidences, of course.

Yes, it actually is illegal to arbitrarily discriminate people based on their ethnicity, political views or nationality (unless there is a specific law that allows that for a particular nationality, e.g. in case of a legal embargo)

As a government, yes. As a commercial company, operating on a market outside of US jurisdiction, please explain me the legal basis for that (if you can).