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by txrx0000·9mo ago·view on hn ↗
If this keeps going, they will ban self-hosting next: only government-approved hosts allowed.

We can't just rely on technological solutions because you can't out-tech the law at scale. People need to actually understand that the government is very close to having the tools needed for a stable technocratic authoritarian regime here in the US and all around the world. It might not happen immediately even if they have the tools, but once the tools are built, that future becomes almost unavoidable.

4 comments
When the ban happens it'll be really easy to implement without requiring only government approved hosts or any such distributed measures requiring enforcement. Certificate Authorities.

There are just a handful of corporations get to decide which websites are visitable every 90 days. Put a bit of legal pressure on the corporate certificate authorities and there's instant centralized control of effectively the entire web thanks to corporate browser HTTPS-only defaults and HTTP/3 not being able to use self-signed certs for public websites.

There’s a handful of commonly used CAs, but the full list of CAs is very long.
The full list of CAs with root certs in corporate browsers is fairly short. That's all that matters. If your CA isn't in $browser/$os cert root store then it's not going to be useful.

    $ ls -lathr /etc/ssl/certs/ | wc -l
    265
And of those far fewer are going to actually be giving out certs to human people. CAs are the chokepoint but I acknowledge that saying 'a handful' was hyperbolic. A few dozen.
If it went this far, the US would no longer be recognizable. Not to say it can’t happen, and the US is fast marching in that direction, but this would be a dramatic shift in the entire underlying fabric of the country.
Like the dramatic shift that has taken place over the last 12 months, you mean?
Some would argue that the US is already unrecognizable in many ways, and that there are clear indications this trend will continue.
For sure. And the US looked very different under McCarthyism too, so there’s even precedent. But my point is that there are other prerequisites that have to happen first.
Why is that important? Sounds like saying "well before winter comes, autumn must come first". Yeah duh, so what? Winter is still coming, if anyone cares about it.
Because if you overreact to an issue, then that can and will be used to dismiss your arguments entirely, and the general public can more easily be swayed against you.
Non sequitur. Pointing out an intermediate step changes nothing about how bad or good the issue is or how appropriate or inappropriate the reaction is.
I feel like that'd take a level of surveillance that's technically unsustainable. But then again, sustainability isn't a consideration when it stands in the way of "better" control.
AI is the perfect low cost tool to enable that. Plantir knows this and has been making strategic moves to build this

Seems quite achievable and sustainable to me

Every human carries dense compute and sensors with them. If they don't they stand out while still surrounded by dense compute and sensors held by others at all times

Not nice to think about but it is the reality we are moving towards – vote accordingly

Voting doesn’t help. You need to win hearts and minds, and the synergy of resources available between the trillion dollar industries like AI and Marketing and you makes that a losing battle too.

People want this stuff. People want ring doorbells, they want age verification, they want government control. Think of the children/criminals/immigrants.

Voting won’t help.

Voting doesn't work because people are not smart enough to think multiple steps ahead of people who are professionals at this.

Voting doesn't work because everybody votes on everything, not just people who understand the subject matter.

Voting doesn't work because it's impossible to express nuanced choice - you vote for a candidate or party as a whole, not on specific policies. The number of parties is much smaller than the number combinations of policies so some opinions can't be expressed at all.

Those are arguments why voting does not produce a perfect outcome. That's different than "voting doesn't work". Using arguments like yours nothing can ever work.

Society is complex and there will always be someone somewhere that can influence an outcome where he/she doesn't understand the subject matter. Hence, nothing works and can ever work.

"Let's just give up" is the only conclusion I can see. Hardly useful.

Can you give an example of something that works by your standards?

It does not work to produce a society where people are actually the ones holding power and where laws side with those in the right - i.e. the current legal system anywhere does not represent a consistent moral system and is not even close.

You're right it's too strong as a general statement but it was in response to a specific issue - those in power wanting to take yet another bit of power from the general population - (this time and in this particular country) by banning VPNs.

People always vote based on the most pressing issues to them - immigration, taxes, abortions, LGBT rights (random list which is different in every country). Minor issues fall between the cracks until they become so bad they become pressing to enough people.

> "Let's just give up" is the only conclusion I can see. Hardly useful.

Then you're reading it wrong. I listed specific issues - the solution is to find solutions to those issues.

Here's a couple suggestions I'd like to see gamed out and tested:

- The right to vote not as a function of age but a test of reasoning ability and general knowledge.

- Limiting the amount of time a person can perform politics (including professional lobbying) to 5-10 years.

- Splitting laws into areas of expertise and potentially requiring tests to prove understanding to gain the right to vote on those areas for both the general population and politicians.

- Replacing FPTP with more nuanced voting systems.

These are just a few random suggestions described briefly. When I do this, people start nitpicking and then I have to reply with obvious solutions to surface issues - I encourage everyone to instead think how to make this work (yes, in an adversarial environment) instead of just trying to shoot it down.

Here's how just one of your proposals has worked out in reality:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_test

Democracy is a complicated difficult thing. If you think you can fix it after a 5 minute reflection, think some more, read more. It's way, way harder than that. A lot of smart people have thought a lot about it, and clearly good ideas are in very short supply. Think more humbly about the subject, please.

China is sustaining it just fine at much higher scale, and advancing technology only makes it easier.
Seems like a raspberry pi hidden at a library, restaurant, or anywhere with wifi would thwart this.
Feels like they'd make that illegal, and enforce it by checking the CCTV footage for the person who planted that mini computer, then arresting that person.