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On May 04 2025 00:42 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2025 23:45 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 03 2025 23:32 Billyboy wrote:
@oblade Is Trump lying about the MS13 being photoshopped? Or is he just so out of touch that he can't tell someone added it poorly with MS paint? To be honest, my initial assumption of this whole MS13/tattoo situation was that I had thought that Trump knew that the letters and numbers M, S, 1, and 3 weren't literally tattoos, but rather that they were decoded labels for the pictures below them ( Marijuana = M, Smile = S, and apparently Cross = 1 and Skull = 3, like some sort of weird numerology or private gang symbolism.). But then after the Trump interview and all follow-up information emerged, I realized that my giving Trump the benefit of the doubt was wrong. He sincerely believes that M, S, 1, and 3 are literally tattooed above the 4 picture tattoos. And that's insane. "The president said, “Don’t do that. M, S, one, three, it says M, S, one, three.” Moran countered, “That was photoshopped.” He tried to move on, but Trump continued. “Terry, do you want me to show you the picture?” Trump said. “He had M, S as clear as you can be. Not interpreted.” ... The letters and figures M, S, 1 and 3 and the words below the symbols do not appear in other recent photographs of Abrego Garcia’s hand, including one that Salvadoran government officials took when he met Senator Chris Van Hollen Jr on April 17. El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele shared it on X. The tattoos also do not appear in a family photo of Abrego Garcia shared by immigration advocates. MS-13 experts told PolitiFact that none of the pictorial tattoos in the photograph is a known signifier of MS-13." https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/30/does-abrego-garcia-have-ms-13-tattooed-on-his-knuckles-as-trump-claims It is very hard to wrap my head around how he can possibly believe it, but I saw the interview and my take was as well that he actually does. I just can't figure out how people are seeing what I'm seeing and thinking he is some super smart guy. Maybe he was? But clearly he is just clueless on so much now.
How he can believe that? He's just stupid and has zero media literacy. Many people who worked with him are of the opinion that he doesn't understand how anything works.
I have family in the US. University professors with PhDs in STEM. My aunt frequently shares some shoddy AI generated videos of animals interacting with humans. Very obviously fake. She thinks they're real. The family votes for Trump. ;-)
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On May 04 2025 00:53 micronesia wrote:
The "why not nuke hurricanes" debacle actually kind of annoys me for a different reason. One the one hand, Trump doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt at all based on his behavior and what he's said over the past decade or so. On the other...
I've studied both weather and nuclear physics. I actually find the question somewhat interesting: What would it really take to disrupt a major weather phenomenon using technology? What would happen to a tornado if you detonated a tsar bomb right above it? What would happen if the USA detonated its entire arsenal in the eye of a hurricane?
We've done enough nuclear testing to understand the environmental/human impacts. We also know how dangerous weather and other natural disasters can be. Is it possible there's some way we could use one or more nuclear weapons, in certain limited circumstances, in some very specific ways, to actually improve overall outcomes for human life? Probably not, but it's not 100% obvious to me that the answer is guaranteed "no".
Still, I feel much better with Trump asking such questions when he doesn't also have the nuclear button and a team of yes-men below him.
I cant remember where I saw this, maybe it was the subreddit where people do real world calculations to test these sorts of things for fun, but if I recall correctly, the energy a nuclear bomb releases isnt nearly enough to disrupt a hurricane because hurricanes are outputting too much energy themselves, I think youd need to not just nuke a hurricune, but nuke the shit out of it, to disrupt it.
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Even a hurricane would think twice about visiting the US today. Trump would just have to fart in its general direction to shoo it away.
Should be interesting to see where his policies take the country and possibly others.
I‘m disappointed that a google bomb doesn‘t exist yet of the kind:
‚how to book a flight to the US‘
‚Did you mean: How to book a flight to El Salvador‘
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The thread is much too fast for me these days, but I'll drop back to the deepfake discussion so it doesn't just hang in the void forever
On May 01 2025 23:21 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 01 2025 21:37 Belisarius wrote:
I guess it's about how hard we collectively want it to be, and what we're willing to stump up to achieve that. A watermark on the big AI vendors is just locking your house, that's common sense. C2CA etc are owning some security cameras and a dog. Live verifying the chain is hiring a security guard. It's a lot better, but if Ocean's eleven or the FSB wanted to get into your house, they'd still manage it.
My personal view is that verifiable truth is the bottom plank of any democracy, and since AI is an existential threat to truth, I would be getting the biggest shiniest security system I could buy. With lasers, even. As per the bolded, well yeah 100%. The problem with AI stuff is we’re not even really doing the locking the house part, the regulatory frameworks and enforcement are appalling. Negligent even. It’s less not locking your house and more having a banner out front saying ‘We’re going travelling for 3 months, here are the dates and we forgot to lock up!’ They shall do, but they’ve kind of been always able to. If someone is selling me a security system, no matter how good it is I deep down know that Ocean’s 11 or the KGB or whoever could probably get to me. As long as I’m protected against Tom, Dick and possibly Harry, I’m largely alright with that. I think it’s a realistic aspiration, and a desirable one, to at least get to that level of protection.
This just seems like a casualty of the non-functional US system. And just the regular old non-functional US system, not even the new crazy one. All the tech leaders are American, but the country hasn't been able to legislate its way out of a paper bag for 20 years and it's sure as hell not starting now.
It does surprise me that Europe hasn't done something by now, but it's also very futile without the US on board. You'd get a neutered regional version but there'd still be a flood coming off the trivially accessible OG versions or the open source alternatives. I think it's still worth doing, but it's not even locking your house, it's just taking down the banner.
It's important to realise the scale of the challenge, here. I think it's fair to say that even Europe has failed to effectively regulate social media, and taming AI is way harder than regulating social media. At least with tiktok et al. you have people constantly interacting with the giant in a traceable way - you can go after tiktok for what's posted on tiktok.
Deepfakes are completely different. A deepfake is a one-time interaction with one of dozens of providers. They can be made by a single malicious user on VPN, or from Russia, or completely offline with an OS model, and this only has to happen once before you have an un-watermarked deepfake being shared millions of times. You can't easily tell where it started, you can't tell which provider made it to go after them, and in fact you can't even tell it's a deepfake at all. That's the whole point.
Imo this could be one of the most serious long-term consequences of Trump 2.0. Up there with the collapse of the global order and the global ecosystem. You know, small stuff.
The US is building some of the most reality-warping, society-fracturing tools mankind has ever dreamed of, and it's happening at the same time as the country dives headlong into neofascism. If they don't hit a technical wall in the next couple of years, we are all completely cooked.
+ Show Spoiler +Also the technical note On May 01 2025 23:21 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 01 2025 21:37 Belisarius wrote:
Oh, of course. A watermark on the AI generated images works fine, there's no technical problem. But it will never be more than a speedbump. There will always be an open source option a half step behind that's not watermarked. There will also always be ways to clean the watermarks off images generated by the compliant shops. It's a shady website and a couple of extra clicks at most.
The idea behind Drone's comment is to watermark the real images, not the fake ones. Which is harder, but if you get it to work, it would be much more powerful.
The read-only thing doesn't work. There's no way to make a file read-only once it's out in the wild, except by having someone hold a copy or hash of it and constantly ask them whether it's changed.
Really, though, all these things are speedbumps. Even the full verified chain might be beaten by someone physically jailbreaking a signable camera and tricking it into thinking it took a different image. I'm sure there would be a way to rip out the sensor and inject something else that Canon would then happily sign as real footage. Nothing is foolproof.
I guess it's about how hard we collectively want it to be, and what we're willing to stump up to achieve that. A watermark on the big AI vendors is just locking your house, that's common sense. C2CA etc are owning some security cameras and a dog. Live verifying the chain is hiring a security guard. It's a lot better, but if Ocean's eleven or the FSB wanted to get into your house, they'd still manage it.
My personal view is that verifiable truth is the bottom plank of any democracy, and since AI is an existential threat to truth, I would be getting the biggest shiniest security system I could buy. With lasers, even. Cheers again for the technical insight! Could you not encrypt the ‘this is AI’ flag in such a way that it couldn’t be altered after the fact? I mean a simple screencap gets around that, but hey it can’t be bad to have. Or make the ‘digital noise’ such that it destroys the image if you remove it? It’s been many moons ago but I saw a proof of concept in watermarking audio where trying to scrub it from the file was borderline impossible, because the watermark waveforms intersected with the music/speech. Audio file structures and containers are more in my wheelhouse than that of images, so I don’t know how doable such a thing is on the latter. This still doesn't work, to my knowledge. Memory is pretty simple. If you have the credentials to read an encrypted block and check whether it says "AI generated", the same credentials can be used to make it say "not AI generated". There's no such thing as read only, that's just a flag that a filesystem applies on top. The actual bytes are much dumber: either you know the key to read and write, or you don't. There would be tricks to hide a second structure within the first as tamper protection, but only if this is fully secret. The consumer can't know how to read it or they could just modify that too, so we are back to needing a third party with extra knowledge to validate the image. On the destructive audio noise, no idea. I'm not an audio guy, but this random preprint seems to think none of the audio watermarks they tested are good enough as of 03/25.
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The House is poised to vote on legislation to punish people for boycotting Israel on Monday.
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1st amendment lawyers are gonna eat that one for breakfast
//edit: although here the orange menace is just not sure if he has to follow the constitution. so who knows anymore...
Trump, asked if he has to 'uphold the Constitution,' says, 'I don't know'
It is not disputed that Abrego Garcia entered the U.S. illegally or that the government could potentially deport him.
Trump insisted he was not defying the Supreme Court.
“No. I’m relying on the attorney general of the United States, Pam Bondi, who’s very capable, doing a great job. Because I’m not involved in the legality or the illegality,” he said. “I have lawyers to do that and that’s why I have a great DOJ.”
rofl. masterful yet again. "the buck stops... wherever I point folks" -POTUS
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On May 04 2025 23:59 Doublemint wrote:
1st amendment lawyers are gonna eat that one for breakfast Only the antisemitic ones of course. /s
//edit: although here the orange menace is just not sure if he has to follow the constitution. so who knows anymore... Trump, asked if he has to 'uphold the Constitution,' says, 'I don't know'Show nested quote +It is not disputed that Abrego Garcia entered the U.S. illegally or that the government could potentially deport him.
Trump insisted he was not defying the Supreme Court.
“No. I’m relying on the attorney general of the United States, Pam Bondi, who’s very capable, doing a great job. Because I’m not involved in the legality or the illegality,” he said. “I have lawyers to do that and that’s why I have a great DOJ.” rofl. masterful yet again. "the buck stops... wherever I point folks" -POTUS
He's already violating the Constitution, so he's not wrong about it being unclear if anyone can/will stop him.
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On May 05 2025 01:09 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2025 23:59 Doublemint wrote:
1st amendment lawyers are gonna eat that one for breakfast Only the antisemitic ones of course. /s Show nested quote +//edit: although here the orange menace is just not sure if he has to follow the constitution. so who knows anymore... Trump, asked if he has to 'uphold the Constitution,' says, 'I don't know'It is not disputed that Abrego Garcia entered the U.S. illegally or that the government could potentially deport him.
Trump insisted he was not defying the Supreme Court.
“No. I’m relying on the attorney general of the United States, Pam Bondi, who’s very capable, doing a great job. Because I’m not involved in the legality or the illegality,” he said. “I have lawyers to do that and that’s why I have a great DOJ.” rofl. masterful yet again. "the buck stops... wherever I point folks" -POTUS He's already violating the Constitution, so he's not wrong about it being unclear if anyone can/will stop him.
I get the frustration, I really do. but I am actually rather hopeful for the first time since the election and all the horrible stuff that followed. the resistance is growing. and the courts will stop him. the alternative would be the end of the American experiment, and the end of their careers as judges.
I would like to think they rather like their position and standing. and court battles take time... social media broke our brains with instant barrage of 24/7 noise basically.
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On May 05 2025 01:17 Doublemint wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2025 01:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 04 2025 23:59 Doublemint wrote:
1st amendment lawyers are gonna eat that one for breakfast Only the antisemitic ones of course. /s //edit: although here the orange menace is just not sure if he has to follow the constitution. so who knows anymore... Trump, asked if he has to 'uphold the Constitution,' says, 'I don't know'It is not disputed that Abrego Garcia entered the U.S. illegally or that the government could potentially deport him.
Trump insisted he was not defying the Supreme Court.
“No. I’m relying on the attorney general of the United States, Pam Bondi, who’s very capable, doing a great job. Because I’m not involved in the legality or the illegality,” he said. “I have lawyers to do that and that’s why I have a great DOJ.” rofl. masterful yet again. "the buck stops... wherever I point folks" -POTUS He's already violating the Constitution, so he's not wrong about it being unclear if anyone can/will stop him. I get the frustration, I really do. but I am actually rather hopeful for the first time since the election and all the horrible stuff that followed. the resistance is growing. and the courts will stop him. the alternative would be the end of the American experiment, and the end of their careers as judges. I would like to think they rather like their position and standing. and court battles take time... social media broke our brains with instant barrage of 24/7 noise basically. the courts will stop him? Has the WH stopped ignoring the courts while I wasn't looking?
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On May 05 2025 01:36 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2025 01:17 Doublemint wrote:On May 05 2025 01:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 04 2025 23:59 Doublemint wrote:
1st amendment lawyers are gonna eat that one for breakfast Only the antisemitic ones of course. /s //edit: although here the orange menace is just not sure if he has to follow the constitution. so who knows anymore... Trump, asked if he has to 'uphold the Constitution,' says, 'I don't know'It is not disputed that Abrego Garcia entered the U.S. illegally or that the government could potentially deport him.
Trump insisted he was not defying the Supreme Court.
“No. I’m relying on the attorney general of the United States, Pam Bondi, who’s very capable, doing a great job. Because I’m not involved in the legality or the illegality,” he said. “I have lawyers to do that and that’s why I have a great DOJ.” rofl. masterful yet again. "the buck stops... wherever I point folks" -POTUS He's already violating the Constitution, so he's not wrong about it being unclear if anyone can/will stop him. I get the frustration, I really do. but I am actually rather hopeful for the first time since the election and all the horrible stuff that followed. the resistance is growing. and the courts will stop him. the alternative would be the end of the American experiment, and the end of their careers as judges. I would like to think they rather like their position and standing. and court battles take time... social media broke our brains with instant barrage of 24/7 noise basically. the courts will stop him? Has the WH stopped ignoring the courts while I wasn't looking?
https://apnews.com/projects/trump-executive-order-lawsuit-tracker/
again, it takes time. I would start worrying if the Supreme Court lets him have his way with some "new theory" or alternatively if they - collectively as in with the majority 5 to 4 or higher- rebuke his actions and he still feels the need to keep going.
then you should actually worry in my humble estimation. it would be quite the escalation that would put us into murky waters.
there is bending the law and breaking it, he is dangerously bending it as a politician so far. as a businessman he was exposed as a criminal... so the habit would be there for him to keep going the same direction.
could be wrong of course.
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On May 05 2025 01:45 Doublemint wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2025 01:36 Gorsameth wrote:On May 05 2025 01:17 Doublemint wrote:On May 05 2025 01:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 04 2025 23:59 Doublemint wrote:
1st amendment lawyers are gonna eat that one for breakfast Only the antisemitic ones of course. /s //edit: although here the orange menace is just not sure if he has to follow the constitution. so who knows anymore... Trump, asked if he has to 'uphold the Constitution,' says, 'I don't know'It is not disputed that Abrego Garcia entered the U.S. illegally or that the government could potentially deport him.
Trump insisted he was not defying the Supreme Court.
“No. I’m relying on the attorney general of the United States, Pam Bondi, who’s very capable, doing a great job. Because I’m not involved in the legality or the illegality,” he said. “I have lawyers to do that and that’s why I have a great DOJ.” rofl. masterful yet again. "the buck stops... wherever I point folks" -POTUS He's already violating the Constitution, so he's not wrong about it being unclear if anyone can/will stop him. I get the frustration, I really do. but I am actually rather hopeful for the first time since the election and all the horrible stuff that followed. the resistance is growing. and the courts will stop him. the alternative would be the end of the American experiment, and the end of their careers as judges. I would like to think they rather like their position and standing. and court battles take time... social media broke our brains with instant barrage of 24/7 noise basically. the courts will stop him? Has the WH stopped ignoring the courts while I wasn't looking? https://apnews.com/projects/trump-executive-order-lawsuit-tracker/again, it takes time. I would start worrying if the Supreme Court lets him have his way with some "new theory" or alternatively if they - collectively as in with the majority 5 to 4 or higher- rebuke his actions and he still feels the need to keep going. then you should actually worry in my humble estimation. it would be quite the escalation that would put us into murky waters. there is bending the law and breaking it, he is dangerously bending it as a politician so far. as a businessman he was exposed as a criminal... so the habit would be there for him to keep going the same direction. could be wrong of course. You point to courts saying 'don't' when I ask for for the WH just completely ignoring the courts.
Like how the courts, including the SC, ordered Kilmar Garcia returned. How is that working out.
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On May 04 2025 22:24 Belisarius wrote:
The US is building some of the most reality-warping, society-fracturing tools mankind has ever dreamed of, and it's happening at the same time as the country dives headlong into neofascism.
really? he has all this power? a navy org employing several friends of mine has 5000 people. DOGE clamours about early retirement for everyone. eventually 63/5000 take the retirement offer. DOGE edicts scare the crap out of all 5000 employees. the feds made an edict about zero hiring and not replacing of workers retiring. Top Navy guy goes to the DoD and says if we can't replace 60 of the 63 retired workers then my Org can't complete 3 of the 6 objectives given for 2025 in 2024. DoD backs off. The 60 workers are getting replaced, 3 are getting sunset. This Navy Org will be able to return to hiring for new positions shortly. This is Seinfeld levels of nothing happening. So much big talk and bullshit... and nothing happening. Same thing happened under Reagan. Lots of yap about "small government" and zero action to fulfill that goal. TRump idolizes Reagan and he is following in his footsteps. Lots of Yap about lowering government spending and No action.
You can't have fascism in this environment. There are too many checks and balances.
The next upcoming "check and balance" is the US economy. It shrank by 0.2% last quarter. This tariff BS is over.
Long time California Governor Democrat Gavin Newsom is "very hopeful" about the Carney-Trump meeting.
Trump has already begun pivoting off of tariffs. Trump's big enemy got a reprieve as the US exempted Canadian Auto Parts from tariffs. What happened Donald?
https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/ctv-news-exclusive-im-very-hopeful-california-governor-gavin-newsom-on-carney-trump-meeting/
So ya, Trump has as much power as all previous presidents. So, not much. He has a big mouth though.
On May 04 2025 22:24 Belisarius wrote:
If they don't hit a technical wall in the next couple of years, we are all completely cooked.
ya man, we've been "2 minutes to midnight" and on the verge of nuclear annihilation since 1946. somehow we're still here.
In your defense, the media's future revenue depends upon getting people all worked up.. so the media is great at providing "War of the Worlds" type messaging. It worked in1938... and its still working today.
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United States43959 Posts
Yeah, I literally can't think of any examples of fascism happening in a country that has a lot of bureaucracy. That'd be inconceivable.
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United States24770 Posts
On May 05 2025 03:27 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2025 22:24 Belisarius wrote:
The US is building some of the most reality-warping, society-fracturing tools mankind has ever dreamed of, and it's happening at the same time as the country dives headlong into neofascism.
really? he has all this power? a navy org employing several friends of mine has 5000 people. DOGE clamours about early retirement for everyone. eventually 63/5000 take the retirement offer. DOGE edicts scare the crap out of all 5000 employees. the feds made an edict about zero hiring and not replacing of workers retiring. Top Navy guy goes to the DoD and says if we can't replace 60 of the 63 retired workers then my Org can't complete 3 of the 6 objectives give for 2025 in 2024. DoD backs off. The 60 workers are getting replaced 3 are getting sunset and this Navy Org will be able to return to hiring for new positions shortly. This is Seinfeld levels of nothing happening.
Which Navy organization is this, and what makes you think it is representative of the other 97% of the Navy civilian workforce?
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On May 05 2025 03:30 KwarK wrote:
Yeah, I literally can't think of any examples of fascism happening in a country that has a lot of bureaucracy. That'd be inconceivable.
its not a matter of bureaucracy.. as i stated in my post the US economy is a "check and balance" on power.
The tariffs mess prolly gets 75% cleaned up when Carney meets with Trump.
any projections on your end as to what happens during the Trump-Carney meeting?
Trump has as much power as any other Prez. He starts to colour outside the lines and he is deader than Kennedy.
On May 05 2025 03:31 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2025 03:27 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On May 04 2025 22:24 Belisarius wrote:
The US is building some of the most reality-warping, society-fracturing tools mankind has ever dreamed of, and it's happening at the same time as the country dives headlong into neofascism.
really? he has all this power? a navy org employing several friends of mine has 5000 people. DOGE clamours about early retirement for everyone. eventually 63/5000 take the retirement offer. DOGE edicts scare the crap out of all 5000 employees. the feds made an edict about zero hiring and not replacing of workers retiring. Top Navy guy goes to the DoD and says if we can't replace 60 of the 63 retired workers then my Org can't complete 3 of the 6 objectives give for 2025 in 2024. DoD backs off. The 60 workers are getting replaced 3 are getting sunset and this Navy Org will be able to return to hiring for new positions shortly. This is Seinfeld levels of nothing happening. Which Navy organization is this, and what makes you think it is representative of the other 97% of the Navy civilian workforce?
i'll have to see how specific i can get. when i find that out you'll get a response. When push came to shove the DoD backed off. they are losing 3 positions out of 5000.
How many people have been RIF-ed around you? 0? Departments in the FDIC are getting gutted. and i think HR type departments are also getting crushed. civil liberties depts are getting gutted. so there are layoffs happening. No where near the level the scared everyone about at the start though.
So we'll have 10,000 employees and an HR department of 4 people. So this is in effect what can go on. Obviously, this is simplified and extreme to make a point.
EMPLOYEE: "my boss punched me in the face yesterday"
HR Employee #3: "ok sir, add it to the pile. there are only 349883 claims ahead of you. The 4 poeple in here are processing them as fast as they can. We'll get to your claim in 4 years."
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On May 02 2025 00:13 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2025 00:02 oBlade wrote:On May 01 2025 23:19 Doublemint wrote:U.S.-citizen family 'traumatized' after ICE raided their Oklahoma home in search of someone elseFederal immigration agents searched the home of a family in Oklahoma and seized their belongings when conducting a search warrant issued for someone else.
The U.S. citizen mother of three daughters said the family has been "traumatized" since they were wrongly subjected to a search and seizure warrant that had the names of the residents who previously lived in her Oklahoma City home.
“We’re citizens. That’s what I kept saying. We’re citizens,” the woman told KFOR, an NBC-affiliated local TV news station. “They were very dismissive, very rough, very careless."
According to KFOR, which first reported the story, the immigration agents raided the home last week. They had a search warrant for the home, but the suspects listed on the warrant were not living in the house anymore.
About 20 armed agents busted through the door in the middle of the night, KFOR reported.
At first, the mother didn't know who they were. “It was dark. All the lights were off,” she said. "My initial thought was we were being robbed — that my daughters, being females, were being kidnapped."
The mother, whose identity was not revealed and who KFOR referred to by the pseudonym "Marisa" in its reporting, told the TV station the men who entered her home identified themselves as federal agents with the U.S. Marshals Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigations and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"The U.S. Marshal Service was not involved in the incident," Brady McCarron, deputy chief of public affairs at the United States Marshals Service, told NBC News in an email Tuesday.
'We didn't do anything'
A spokesperson for the FBI referred NBC News' request for comment to Homeland Security Investigations, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security that investigates criminal cases.
A senior DHS official confirmed to NBC News on Wednesday that ICE carried out "a court-authorized search warrant for a large-scale human smuggling investigation," involving eight Guatemalan nationals indicted in a federal case in the Northern District of Oklahoma.
“The search warrants included the location of an address where U.S. citizens recently moved. The previous residents were the intended targets," the official said.
...
The mother and her daughters wrongly targeted had recently moved from Maryland, settling in the rented home in Oklahoma City just a couple of weeks ago — hoping for a slower, more affordable lifestyle, KFOR reported. The father was set to join the family in their new home this weekend.
Though none of the family members were the subjects of the warrant, federal agents raided their home and confiscated their belongings. They took their phones, laptops and all their cash savings as "evidence," KFOR reported.
"I said you took my phone. We have no money. I just moved here,” the mother said. “I have to feed my children. I’m going to need gas money. I need to be able to get around. Like, how do you just leave me like this? Like an abandoned dog.”
“I kept pleading. I kept telling them we weren’t criminals. They were treating us like criminals. We were here by ourselves. We didn’t do anything," the mother added.
She said the agents ordered her and her daughters to step outside, even though it was raining and they barely were given time to put on clothes.
“They wanted me to change in front of all of them, in between all of them,” she said. “My husband has not even seen my daughter in her undergarments — her own dad, because it’s respectful. You have her out there, a minor, in her underwear,” the woman told KFOR.
“One of them said, ‘I know it was a little rough this morning,’” she said. “It was so denigrating. That you do all of this to a family, to women, your fellow citizens. And it was a little rough? You literally traumatized me and my daughters for life. We’re going to have to go get help or get over this somehow.”
Before the agents left, the mother asked when could the family get their belongings back and they said it could be days or even months, KFOR reported.
DHS did not comment on how the mother described and characterized the actions of the agents. nothing to see here. just another happy little accident during the best 100 days of any presidency ever. golden era guys, why don't you smile? and say thank you to dear leader. The government should go through the full process of a complete investigation with getting warrants to respect due process and the rights of everyone involved. However, if that process takes so long that the criminals who were originally living in the house moved out resulting in the victimization of the innocent people who took their place, that's also the President's fault. Agreed, they're responsible for designing the process and ensuring that the process they design has sufficient resources to work as intended. The buck stops with them. They can't just say "we're not competent enough to follow the constitution so we shouldn't have to". Nice to see you on the side of civil liberties and the constitution for once.
Oh, spare me. How did you feel about the unvaccinated again? You (liberals and leftists in general) prosecute your policy preferences as though we're at war with each other. Don't complain when you're met on the field you've chosen.
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Northern Ireland26727 Posts
On May 04 2025 22:24 Belisarius wrote:The thread is much too fast for me these days, but I'll drop back to the deepfake discussion so it doesn't just hang in the void forever Show nested quote +On May 01 2025 23:21 WombaT wrote:On May 01 2025 21:37 Belisarius wrote:
I guess it's about how hard we collectively want it to be, and what we're willing to stump up to achieve that. A watermark on the big AI vendors is just locking your house, that's common sense. C2CA etc are owning some security cameras and a dog. Live verifying the chain is hiring a security guard. It's a lot better, but if Ocean's eleven or the FSB wanted to get into your house, they'd still manage it.
My personal view is that verifiable truth is the bottom plank of any democracy, and since AI is an existential threat to truth, I would be getting the biggest shiniest security system I could buy. With lasers, even. As per the bolded, well yeah 100%. The problem with AI stuff is we’re not even really doing the locking the house part, the regulatory frameworks and enforcement are appalling. Negligent even. It’s less not locking your house and more having a banner out front saying ‘We’re going travelling for 3 months, here are the dates and we forgot to lock up!’ They shall do, but they’ve kind of been always able to. If someone is selling me a security system, no matter how good it is I deep down know that Ocean’s 11 or the KGB or whoever could probably get to me. As long as I’m protected against Tom, Dick and possibly Harry, I’m largely alright with that. I think it’s a realistic aspiration, and a desirable one, to at least get to that level of protection. This just seems like a casualty of the non-functional US system. And just the regular old non-functional US system, not even the new crazy one. All the tech leaders are American, but the country hasn't been able to legislate its way out of a paper bag for 20 years and it's sure as hell not starting now. It does surprise me that Europe hasn't done something by now, but it's also very futile without the US on board. You'd get a neutered regional version but there'd still be a flood coming off the trivially accessible OG versions or the open source alternatives. I think it's still worth doing, but it's not even locking your house, it's just taking down the banner. It's important to realise the scale of the challenge, here. I think it's fair to say that even Europe has failed to effectively regulate social media, and taming AI is way harder than regulating social media. At least with tiktok et al. you have people constantly interacting with the giant in a traceable way - you can go after tiktok for what's posted on tiktok. Deepfakes are completely different. A deepfake is a one-time interaction with one of dozens of providers. They can be made by a single malicious user on VPN, or from Russia, or completely offline with an OS model, and this only has to happen once before you have an un-watermarked deepfake being shared millions of times. You can't easily tell where it started, you can't tell which provider made it to go after them, and in fact you can't even tell it's a deepfake at all. That's the whole point. Imo this could be one of the most serious long-term consequences of Trump 2.0. Up there with the collapse of the global order and the global ecosystem. You know, small stuff. The US is building some of the most reality-warping, society-fracturing tools mankind has ever dreamed of, and it's happening at the same time as the country dives headlong into neofascism. If they don't hit a technical wall in the next couple of years, we are all completely cooked. + Show Spoiler +Also the technical note On May 01 2025 23:21 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 01 2025 21:37 Belisarius wrote:
Oh, of course. A watermark on the AI generated images works fine, there's no technical problem. But it will never be more than a speedbump. There will always be an open source option a half step behind that's not watermarked. There will also always be ways to clean the watermarks off images generated by the compliant shops. It's a shady website and a couple of extra clicks at most.
The idea behind Drone's comment is to watermark the real images, not the fake ones. Which is harder, but if you get it to work, it would be much more powerful.
The read-only thing doesn't work. There's no way to make a file read-only once it's out in the wild, except by having someone hold a copy or hash of it and constantly ask them whether it's changed.
Really, though, all these things are speedbumps. Even the full verified chain might be beaten by someone physically jailbreaking a signable camera and tricking it into thinking it took a different image. I'm sure there would be a way to rip out the sensor and inject something else that Canon would then happily sign as real footage. Nothing is foolproof.
I guess it's about how hard we collectively want it to be, and what we're willing to stump up to achieve that. A watermark on the big AI vendors is just locking your house, that's common sense. C2CA etc are owning some security cameras and a dog. Live verifying the chain is hiring a security guard. It's a lot better, but if Ocean's eleven or the FSB wanted to get into your house, they'd still manage it.
My personal view is that verifiable truth is the bottom plank of any democracy, and since AI is an existential threat to truth, I would be getting the biggest shiniest security system I could buy. With lasers, even. Cheers again for the technical insight! Could you not encrypt the ‘this is AI’ flag in such a way that it couldn’t be altered after the fact? I mean a simple screencap gets around that, but hey it can’t be bad to have. Or make the ‘digital noise’ such that it destroys the image if you remove it? It’s been many moons ago but I saw a proof of concept in watermarking audio where trying to scrub it from the file was borderline impossible, because the watermark waveforms intersected with the music/speech. Audio file structures and containers are more in my wheelhouse than that of images, so I don’t know how doable such a thing is on the latter. This still doesn't work, to my knowledge. Memory is pretty simple. If you have the credentials to read an encrypted block and check whether it says "AI generated", the same credentials can be used to make it say "not AI generated". There's no such thing as read only, that's just a flag that a filesystem applies on top. The actual bytes are much dumber: either you know the key to read and write, or you don't. There would be tricks to hide a second structure within the first as tamper protection, but only if this is fully secret. The consumer can't know how to read it or they could just modify that too, so we are back to needing a third party with extra knowledge to validate the image. On the destructive audio noise, no idea. I'm not an audio guy, but this random preprint seems to think none of the audio watermarks they tested are good enough as of 03/25.
Interesting, I’ll need to do some proper reading up on it, it seems. Cheers for popping in again to expand
Definitely in the same boat as yourself in feeling quite pessimistic on the will even being there.
Rather bleak in prospect
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On May 05 2025 03:35 sevencck wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2025 00:13 KwarK wrote:On May 02 2025 00:02 oBlade wrote:On May 01 2025 23:19 Doublemint wrote:U.S.-citizen family 'traumatized' after ICE raided their Oklahoma home in search of someone elseFederal immigration agents searched the home of a family in Oklahoma and seized their belongings when conducting a search warrant issued for someone else.
The U.S. citizen mother of three daughters said the family has been "traumatized" since they were wrongly subjected to a search and seizure warrant that had the names of the residents who previously lived in her Oklahoma City home.
“We’re citizens. That’s what I kept saying. We’re citizens,” the woman told KFOR, an NBC-affiliated local TV news station. “They were very dismissive, very rough, very careless."
According to KFOR, which first reported the story, the immigration agents raided the home last week. They had a search warrant for the home, but the suspects listed on the warrant were not living in the house anymore.
About 20 armed agents busted through the door in the middle of the night, KFOR reported.
At first, the mother didn't know who they were. “It was dark. All the lights were off,” she said. "My initial thought was we were being robbed — that my daughters, being females, were being kidnapped."
The mother, whose identity was not revealed and who KFOR referred to by the pseudonym "Marisa" in its reporting, told the TV station the men who entered her home identified themselves as federal agents with the U.S. Marshals Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigations and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"The U.S. Marshal Service was not involved in the incident," Brady McCarron, deputy chief of public affairs at the United States Marshals Service, told NBC News in an email Tuesday.
'We didn't do anything'
A spokesperson for the FBI referred NBC News' request for comment to Homeland Security Investigations, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security that investigates criminal cases.
A senior DHS official confirmed to NBC News on Wednesday that ICE carried out "a court-authorized search warrant for a large-scale human smuggling investigation," involving eight Guatemalan nationals indicted in a federal case in the Northern District of Oklahoma.
“The search warrants included the location of an address where U.S. citizens recently moved. The previous residents were the intended targets," the official said.
...
The mother and her daughters wrongly targeted had recently moved from Maryland, settling in the rented home in Oklahoma City just a couple of weeks ago — hoping for a slower, more affordable lifestyle, KFOR reported. The father was set to join the family in their new home this weekend.
Though none of the family members were the subjects of the warrant, federal agents raided their home and confiscated their belongings. They took their phones, laptops and all their cash savings as "evidence," KFOR reported.
"I said you took my phone. We have no money. I just moved here,” the mother said. “I have to feed my children. I’m going to need gas money. I need to be able to get around. Like, how do you just leave me like this? Like an abandoned dog.”
“I kept pleading. I kept telling them we weren’t criminals. They were treating us like criminals. We were here by ourselves. We didn’t do anything," the mother added.
She said the agents ordered her and her daughters to step outside, even though it was raining and they barely were given time to put on clothes.
“They wanted me to change in front of all of them, in between all of them,” she said. “My husband has not even seen my daughter in her undergarments — her own dad, because it’s respectful. You have her out there, a minor, in her underwear,” the woman told KFOR.
“One of them said, ‘I know it was a little rough this morning,’” she said. “It was so denigrating. That you do all of this to a family, to women, your fellow citizens. And it was a little rough? You literally traumatized me and my daughters for life. We’re going to have to go get help or get over this somehow.”
Before the agents left, the mother asked when could the family get their belongings back and they said it could be days or even months, KFOR reported.
DHS did not comment on how the mother described and characterized the actions of the agents. nothing to see here. just another happy little accident during the best 100 days of any presidency ever. golden era guys, why don't you smile? and say thank you to dear leader. The government should go through the full process of a complete investigation with getting warrants to respect due process and the rights of everyone involved. However, if that process takes so long that the criminals who were originally living in the house moved out resulting in the victimization of the innocent people who took their place, that's also the President's fault. Agreed, they're responsible for designing the process and ensuring that the process they design has sufficient resources to work as intended. The buck stops with them. They can't just say "we're not competent enough to follow the constitution so we shouldn't have to". Nice to see you on the side of civil liberties and the constitution for once. Oh, spare me. How did you feel about the unvaccinated again? You (liberals and leftists in general) prosecute your policy preferences as though we're at war with each other. Don't complain when you're met on the field you've chosen.
So the position of you (right wingers) in general is that people should die of small pox because my body my choice or what? Oh wait, my body my choice is not applicable because the decision kills another human being, right. Guess vaccines don't prevent other people dying because of my decision over my body, so the argument does not count then.
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United States24770 Posts
On May 05 2025 03:33 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2025 03:30 KwarK wrote:
Yeah, I literally can't think of any examples of fascism happening in a country that has a lot of bureaucracy. That'd be inconceivable. its not a matter of bureaucracy.. as i stated in my post the US economy is a "check and balance" on power. The tariffs mess prolly gets 75% cleaned up when Carney meets with Trump. any projections on your end as to what happens during the Trump-Carney meeting? Trump has as much power as any other Prez. He starts to colour outside the lines and he is deader than Kennedy. Show nested quote +On May 05 2025 03:31 micronesia wrote:On May 05 2025 03:27 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On May 04 2025 22:24 Belisarius wrote:
The US is building some of the most reality-warping, society-fracturing tools mankind has ever dreamed of, and it's happening at the same time as the country dives headlong into neofascism.
really? he has all this power? a navy org employing several friends of mine has 5000 people. DOGE clamours about early retirement for everyone. eventually 63/5000 take the retirement offer. DOGE edicts scare the crap out of all 5000 employees. the feds made an edict about zero hiring and not replacing of workers retiring. Top Navy guy goes to the DoD and says if we can't replace 60 of the 63 retired workers then my Org can't complete 3 of the 6 objectives give for 2025 in 2024. DoD backs off. The 60 workers are getting replaced 3 are getting sunset and this Navy Org will be able to return to hiring for new positions shortly. This is Seinfeld levels of nothing happening. Which Navy organization is this, and what makes you think it is representative of the other 97% of the Navy civilian workforce? i'll have to see how specific i can get. when i find that out you'll get a response. When push came to shove the DoD backed off. they are losing 3 positions out of 5000. How many people have been RIF-ed around you? 0? Departments in the FDIC are getting gutted. and i think HR type departments are also getting crushed. civil liberties depts are getting gutted. so there are layoffs happening. No where near the level the scared everyone about at the start though. So we'll have 10,000 employees and an HR department of 4 people. So this is in effect what can go on. Obviously, this is simplified and extreme to make a point. EMPLOYEE: "my boss punched me in the face yesterday" HR Employee #3: "ok sir, add it to the pile. there are only 349883 claims ahead of you. The 4 poeple in here are processing them as fast as they can. We'll get to your claim in 4 years."
I don't specifically need to know the portion of the Navy your friends work at, since my point was their situation may just be very different than the rest of the Department of the Navy, the DoD as a whole, or even other Departments. Defense is some of the least-hit across government so it's not a good litmus test for how much damage the administration is doing, even though there definitely is at least some across the DoD. You also only addressed retirement incentives—not the "fork in the road" delayed resignation program impacts and replacement/hiring success/limitations/failures or other attrition which my be encountering freezes to replace people. And none of that is actually RIF, which you've brought up also.
For me, I'd say don't go by my organization as it's extremely unique. We haven't been able to hire other than within-department transfers in and out, but we may also escape RIFs mostly unscathed.
I keep an eye on r/Fednews where other feds and former feds are explaining impacts to their departments. As you said, some departments are getting absolutely decimated, and not just HR related or FDIC though. It will take some time to understand the true impact of the ongoing cuts, downsizing, hiring freezes, etc.
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On May 05 2025 04:17 Broetchenholer wrote:Show nested quote +On May 05 2025 03:35 sevencck wrote:On May 02 2025 00:13 KwarK wrote:On May 02 2025 00:02 oBlade wrote:On May 01 2025 23:19 Doublemint wrote:U.S.-citizen family 'traumatized' after ICE raided their Oklahoma home in search of someone elseFederal immigration agents searched the home of a family in Oklahoma and seized their belongings when conducting a search warrant issued for someone else.
The U.S. citizen mother of three daughters said the family has been "traumatized" since they were wrongly subjected to a search and seizure warrant that had the names of the residents who previously lived in her Oklahoma City home.
“We’re citizens. That’s what I kept saying. We’re citizens,” the woman told KFOR, an NBC-affiliated local TV news station. “They were very dismissive, very rough, very careless."
According to KFOR, which first reported the story, the immigration agents raided the home last week. They had a search warrant for the home, but the suspects listed on the warrant were not living in the house anymore.
About 20 armed agents busted through the door in the middle of the night, KFOR reported.
At first, the mother didn't know who they were. “It was dark. All the lights were off,” she said. "My initial thought was we were being robbed — that my daughters, being females, were being kidnapped."
The mother, whose identity was not revealed and who KFOR referred to by the pseudonym "Marisa" in its reporting, told the TV station the men who entered her home identified themselves as federal agents with the U.S. Marshals Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigations and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"The U.S. Marshal Service was not involved in the incident," Brady McCarron, deputy chief of public affairs at the United States Marshals Service, told NBC News in an email Tuesday.
'We didn't do anything'
A spokesperson for the FBI referred NBC News' request for comment to Homeland Security Investigations, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security that investigates criminal cases.
A senior DHS official confirmed to NBC News on Wednesday that ICE carried out "a court-authorized search warrant for a large-scale human smuggling investigation," involving eight Guatemalan nationals indicted in a federal case in the Northern District of Oklahoma.
“The search warrants included the location of an address where U.S. citizens recently moved. The previous residents were the intended targets," the official said.
...
The mother and her daughters wrongly targeted had recently moved from Maryland, settling in the rented home in Oklahoma City just a couple of weeks ago — hoping for a slower, more affordable lifestyle, KFOR reported. The father was set to join the family in their new home this weekend.
Though none of the family members were the subjects of the warrant, federal agents raided their home and confiscated their belongings. They took their phones, laptops and all their cash savings as "evidence," KFOR reported.
"I said you took my phone. We have no money. I just moved here,” the mother said. “I have to feed my children. I’m going to need gas money. I need to be able to get around. Like, how do you just leave me like this? Like an abandoned dog.”
“I kept pleading. I kept telling them we weren’t criminals. They were treating us like criminals. We were here by ourselves. We didn’t do anything," the mother added.
She said the agents ordered her and her daughters to step outside, even though it was raining and they barely were given time to put on clothes.
“They wanted me to change in front of all of them, in between all of them,” she said. “My husband has not even seen my daughter in her undergarments — her own dad, because it’s respectful. You have her out there, a minor, in her underwear,” the woman told KFOR.
“One of them said, ‘I know it was a little rough this morning,’” she said. “It was so denigrating. That you do all of this to a family, to women, your fellow citizens. And it was a little rough? You literally traumatized me and my daughters for life. We’re going to have to go get help or get over this somehow.”
Before the agents left, the mother asked when could the family get their belongings back and they said it could be days or even months, KFOR reported.
DHS did not comment on how the mother described and characterized the actions of the agents. nothing to see here. just another happy little accident during the best 100 days of any presidency ever. golden era guys, why don't you smile? and say thank you to dear leader. The government should go through the full process of a complete investigation with getting warrants to respect due process and the rights of everyone involved. However, if that process takes so long that the criminals who were originally living in the house moved out resulting in the victimization of the innocent people who took their place, that's also the President's fault. Agreed, they're responsible for designing the process and ensuring that the process they design has sufficient resources to work as intended. The buck stops with them. They can't just say "we're not competent enough to follow the constitution so we shouldn't have to". Nice to see you on the side of civil liberties and the constitution for once. Oh, spare me. How did you feel about the unvaccinated again? You (liberals and leftists in general) prosecute your policy preferences as though we're at war with each other. Don't complain when you're met on the field you've chosen. So the position of you (right wingers) in general is that people should die of small pox because my body my choice or what? Oh wait, my body my choice is not applicable because the decision kills another human being, right. Guess vaccines don't prevent other people dying because of my decision over my body, so the argument does not count then.
Mandatory vaccination hinges on how infectious the disease is. I can understand it in the case of Covid because of its novelty. There‘s also a cost aspect, it shifts to personal responsibility for other things like hpv which is also widespread and often causes cancer.
I agree with you fundamentally, but the measures in the case of covid did little to prevent its spread, and the vaccines weren‘t as effective as in the case of conventional vaccines for other diseases. Haven‘t read much about the risk/benefit ratio to justify it staying mandatory but it isn‘t any more which should be telling enough.
A lot of people probably got rich through an emergency by exploiting contacts to the government too.
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