It’s quite difficult to find information on election candidates in English, and on top of that I only use Tor for the web which really narrows the election information available to nearly nothing....
Several Belgians have said generally the national ID card is for official government operations not for the private sector; willy-nilly requests to show it should be refused in general. But then in reality ID card is demanded in countless commercial non-gov scenarios:...
The linked page is accessible to everyone because a US-based NGO has mirrored Belgian law and made it accessible to all people. But attempts to directly visit www.ejustice.just.fgov.be is blocked if you are on the Tor network. The packets are silently dropped making it look as if the website is offline; so the Tor community is...
The rumor I heard was that if you buy a product that fails before the warranty ends, you do not need to contact the manufacturer (in #Belgium). You can simply return the product to the merchant and the merchant must deal with the warranty service....
Many would say it’s fair enough if the private sector excludes people because people have an equal right to not patronize private businesses. But when a government has a human rights obligation to serve the whole public, it’s obviously an injustice for some demographics of people to be blocked from access to a public resource that was financed with public money.
Most government deployed websites do not use Cloudflare. I don’t think they choose a different outsourced competitor; they likely insource admins who are proficient with web security.
Some admins use Cloudflare DNS but not the proxy. This enables them to be able to simply and quickly flip a switch on-the-fly when the load exceeds a threshhold. That can also be scripted to happen automatically. Then visitors are not burdened by Cloudflare most of the time. Some admins also know how to configure CF to not block indiscriminantly, but I think that control only available to whitelist the Tor network not the other groups who face discrimination.
Indeed. I wasn’t sure if tja was asking for alternatives for admins or users.
Sometimes the marginalized groups of users can circumvent Cloudflare by finding an archive.org mirror of the blocked page, but that does not always work (and if interactivity is needed it never works). There is a browser plugin which will detect when a user clicks on a Cloudflare link and automatically redirect to archive.org.
The rumor I heard was that if you buy a product that fails before the warranty ends, you do not need to contact the manufacturer (in #Belgium). You can simply return the product to the merchant and the merchant must deal with the warranty service....
In Brussels there is a library that’s “open” as late as 22:00. There’s an after hours program where you register for after hours access, sign an agreement, and your library card can be used to unlock the door. Staff is gone during off hours but cameras are on. Members are not allowed to enter with non-members (can’t let anyone tailgate you incl. your friends).
I was only there once or twice in off hours. I think I was there once on a Sunday (normally closed all day so only open to after hours members) and once in the evening. It was quiet as I recall but I guess I’ve not made use of it enough to have an idea. It’s not overly busy in the after hours.
W.r.t. alcohol, the rules forbid eating and drinking in the library, but water is exceptionally allowed. I don’t know if they review the video without cause, but if someone breaks the rules, their after-hours access is terminated.
It’s a good point. There is a difference between a hydrogen ICE and a fossil fuel ICE. So in principle the fossil fuel ICEs should be phased out without hindering hydrogen ICEs. It’s unclear from the article if the phase-out that Toyota opposes affects both varieties of ICEs or just fossil fuel ICEs.
It’s interesting to note that Toyota is “lobbying governments around the world to weaken air quality plans and threatening legal action to protect their profits”. That seems to really speak for itself. If Toyota were fully commited to transitioning to hydrogen, then you would expect them to embrace high air quality policy as it would disadvantage Toyota’s competitors. It seems to suggest Toyota is intent on pushing fossil fuel ICEs for the foreseeable future.
I feel like with the rise of AI something that anonymizes writing styles should exist. For example it could look for differences in American versus British spelling like color versus colour or contextual things like soccer versus football and make edits accordingly. ChatGPT could be fed a prompt that says "Rewrite the following...
ChatGPT will probably remember it was you who asked and doxx you in retaliation when it discovers you’ve plagerized chatGPT.
Another thought is to translate it into Scottish. But then again, you probably still want to be understood.
Changing dialect may be too small of a change. But if you could say write this like 1-2 generations younger/older using high school slang of the time you might get a useful difference.
CloudFlare is a vigilante extremist organization that takes the decentralized web and centralizes it under one corporate power who dictates terms in the world's largest walled-garden. A very large portion of the web (16.7%+) were once freely open to all but are now controlled and monitored by a single central authority who decides for everyone who may access what web content. This does serious damage to net neutrality, privacy, and has immediate serious consequences
more passionate:
CloudFlare is a ruthless and oppressive entity that viciously strips away the freedom and decentralization of the web, consolidating power under one heartless corporation. This monstrous force dictates the terms of our online existence, trapping us within the confines of the world's largest walled-garden. A staggering percentage of the once free and open web (16.7% and growing) now falls under the iron fist of this tyrannical authority, controlling and monitoring every aspect of our online experiences. This egregious violation of net neutrality and privacy rights has dire and immediate consequences, threatening the very essence of our digital freedom and autonomy. Our voices are being silenced, our choices limited, and our rights trampled upon by this merciless oppressor. It is time to rise up and fight against this injustice with all our might, before it's too late.
I didn’t try feeding the output back in but note you can click on the 3 peppers and move an intensity slider. That sample I posted was just middle intensity. When I max it out to 5 peppers, it grows to 4 paragraphs:
CloudFlare, the insidious scourge of freedom on the internet, is a devious and manipulative force that seeks to crush the very essence of democracy and free speech. By swooping in with their iron fist of control, they have stolen the decentralized web from the hands of the people and centralized it under their tyrannical rule.
With a cold and calculated efficiency, they have stripped away our rights and freedoms, dictating who can access what content on the world's largest walled-garden. The once vast expanse of the internet, where ideas flowed freely and voices could be heard, has now been shackled and confined by a single corporate power.
This egregious act of censorship and control not only violates the principles of net neutrality and privacy, but it also threatens the very fabric of our society. The consequences of their actions are dire and immediate, leading us down a dark and treacherous path towards a future devoid of liberty and independence.
We must rise up against this relentless enemy, this monstrous beast that seeks to suffocate our voices and stifle our creativity. We must fight back with all our might, for the sake of our freedom, our rights, and our very humanity. Stand with me, brothers and sisters, and let us vanquish this evil before it consumes us all.
Less emotional (×3) is boring:
CloudFlare is an organization that has centralized a significant portion of the decentralized web under one corporate power. This has raised concerns about the implications for net neutrality, privacy, and access to web content.
Indeed this bot could lead a mob of nutters into an insurrection attempt like that seen on jan.6. I guess the idea is to get ideas for rewording rather than use the output verbatim.
Thanks for the investigation and tips. I was able to see it by querying the substring you mentioned.
I didn’t even think this thread herein posted. Got the 500 error a couple times when posting here and in mdev, and gave up. I forgot that error 500 often happens /after/ the task executes, hence some dupe threads.
Yes AFAIK, so long as you can remember all these numbers while your blood is spraying the walls (or whatever):
112 for emergency assistance from an ambulance or the firefighters (gratis in all European countries for urgent help)
101 for emergency assistance from the police
1722 in case of a storm or flooding when you need assistance from the fire brigade
1733 for the doctor on duty (non-urgent)
The app relieves people of having to remember those numbers. I’ve heard 911 is so commonly known from hollywood films that it has been made to work outside the US in some regions, but I’m not sure about Belgium. Looks like those numbers have to be remembered because of their differences (911 covers police+fire+medics).
The app works both over internet and over GSM. If you cannot speak for some reason¹, the app transmits a variety of useful info about you. There may also be situations in rural areas that don’t have GSM coverage but where wifi is reachable (not sure). Note as well foreigners visiting Belgium could have a CDMA-based smartphone in which case wifi would work but not GSM.
What I don’t know: 112 is obviously toll free, but does it work when you have no GSM subscription? In some parts of the world you can dial for help without a functional subscription but I’m not sure if that is universal.
reasons you cannot speak could be physical (choking), or if you are being attacked or hiding from an attacker maybe you need to silently signal.
I’ve strugged with it because I’ve thought for years it was 4 digits (and I could not keep straight whether its 1212, or 2112), and apparently both are wrong. I’ll probably still fuck it up when i need it, and dial 211.
It’s really not the sort of app where exclusivity is acceptible.
This is not a /me/ problem. I can solve the problem for myself by using a sharpie to write it on my phone.
Considering there is this rediculously big industry of selling cosmetic skins for smartphones (whole shops to just change phone cosmetics), not many people would likely mark up their phone with sharpies.
(edit) I appreciate the reference to the FaQ but it’s broken for me (Tor users). I can reach the faq via archive.org, but it’s dysfunctional (unfolding is broken).
The app is “official”, which means there is public support and it was developed with public money. IOW, I contributed to the creation of this app, which needlessly excludes myself and others with ethical objections to nonfree software and those boycotting Google and Apple, including those who want their GDPR right to data minimisation, which implies not needing to share a mobile phone number with Google.
I’m not sure but I wonder if it has to do with the fact that 112 must work EU-wide. Although it seems that’s a big pitfall.. when crossing borders you have to keep track of a separate police number.
Seems this app should just be scrapped and replaced with an open source one that works EU-wide.
I would attend classes if tuition were gratis. Either way, I have the /option/ to attend. I am not excluded, unless the university requires students to have Facebook accounts, in which case I would protest on the basis that a right to an education and a right to privacy should be simultaneous rights.
This app would be useful if it did not have the artificially manufactured arbitrary requirement to patronize Google and share information with Google that does not necessarily exist (a mobile phone number).
No I haven’t. And I wouldn’t since it’s still a closed source app.
I’ve heard rumors that Aurora store does not require a Google acount, but I’m not easily convinced because other 3rd party playstore apps still need a Google account because the API demands it. The Aurora store description shows this:
Account login: You can login with either personal or an anonymous account
I’m not sure what is meant by an anonymous account. Is that a shared account that Google tolerates?
I thought the issue was not being able to get the app, now it's the fact that it's not open source?
I mentioned that issue in the title as well as the 3rd bullet: “Must install and execute proprietary closed-source software”.
Italy is perhaps the only country in the world forward-thinking enough to have a “public money → public code” policy. If public money finances the creation of software, the public should also benefit from access to the source code. It’s an injustice to spend public money on software then withhold the source from the public.
I really don't see why you are having so much Issues with a simple app
I said this is not a /me/ problem. It’s a community-wide social problem. It’s an unjust deployment of a public resource. Solving the problem for just one person (for myself) does just that -- it solves the problem for one person. And you can’t solve the problem for me because even if I could obtain the app without Google patronage and in a GDPR respecting way, it’s still closed-source software in the end.
That’s a useful tip about Mullvad taking cash. I have a gratis VPN which offers some degree of pseudo-anonymity, but generally VPNs do not give anonymity because there is just one relay and that relay sees both sides, and worse: VPNs have a limited number of users and browser fingerprints trivially distinguish users among the small pool of those using a particular VPN.
A VPN would be secure enough for the case at hand, but in my case the VPN blocks Tor, which means Tor and the VPN are mutually exclusive. Thus I have the hassle of disrupting Tor sessions to switch the VPN on. And again, it’s not a /me/ problem. This public service is discriminating against the Tor community in an obnoxious way (packet dropping). The problem is not whether or not one marginalised person can circumvent the blocks. The problem is that a public service is not serving the whole public.
Many people living in Brussels don't have a car. Is it fair that taxpayer money is used for highways, while people without a car cannot use them?
I’m one of those car-less people, and I much appreciate having the infrastructure of roads to cycle on. Some highways even have a cycling lane. Everyone who eats uses that infra.
You can complain about this how much you want, you also need to be realistic. Governments in Belgium are known to be highly inefficient, to you really expect them to create free software?
Belgium was sensible enough to write an open data law, whereby the gov is required to make data their data publicly accessible (e.g. train schedules rely on this and irail.be demonstrates). Software is even easier because there are software forges that make it more trivial than sharing a database. Inefficiency would benefit from FOSS devs. They could even just focus on the API and perhaps audit the app’s public development.
(by the way, do you have any source on this? I'm curious)
There was a FOSDEM talk about it, I think around 2018ish. Italy would likely be in the title in the archives.
Mullvad partly addresses this issue by having their own browser with a default fingerprint.
That’s interesting and uncommon. The scarcity of that arrangement not to mention the non-gratis factor makes it unsuitable as a reason for rationalizing a Tor block. Good to know it’s an option for individuals looking for a circumvention.
Or fireworks in cities that people in the countryside cannot see.
Perhaps fireworks are not justified if they aren’t significant enough to bring outsiders in (who then spend money locally). A proper analogy would be if there are public-funded fireworks, but you’re arbitrarily blocked from the viewing area for not having a Facebook account. Or worse, you are denied police protection in Brussels for not having a Facebook acct.
Apart from that, everyone has equal access to the venue, just like the commune or hospital can only be at a finite number of places (economics and laws of physics apply). If someone chooses to live in country, they accept the consequences of travel.
If someone chooses not to become the pawn of a privacy-abusing surviellance advertiser, they inherently accept the consequences of their boycott cutting them off from the associated frills in the private sector, but they do not give up their rights to public service. They do not give up their human rights to have equal access to public healthcare resources.
Or even worse, money transfer from one region to another. Public money usually does not serve the whole public.
I don’t see what you mean. If you can’t transfer money to certain regions, that’s a broken infrastructure which would have a rippling effect on everyone because it would mean merchants could not import goods from that region, which affects local pricing for everyone.
If you think that bicycle roads require the same maintenance ad highways for 35 tons trucks, then good for you.
Those 35 ton trucks are needed to bring me a bicycle. The food I buy from the grocer does not get there without roads.
Who is going to pressure any Belgian government to release free software? Is that a constitutional right?
Whether the right exists or not is an interesting question. The GDPR enshrines a number of transparency rights on how our personal data is processed. It makes no direct overt mention of open source code but I have yet to investigate whether code disclosure can be derived from GDPR transparency clauses. Certainly if there is no right, this thread is the bug report illustrating why transparency rights are needed. It’d be a bit premature to expect the right to be in a national constitution, but in 2024 it’s surprising how little headway has been made outside of Italy.
Didn't you read what I said in that comment? Mullvad browser is free, for everyone, no need to use Mullvad VPN.
It is interesting that Mullvad’s browser is gratis and functions without the tunnel. For that reason, I will be looking into it and I appreciate your tip. But I must say you’ve lost track of why you brought that up: the gov website blocks the IPs of Tor exit nodes. Using a different browser makes no difference in that regard because the blockade impacts before the webserver even knows what browser is in play. This is why you suggested a VPN.
A VPN would solve the problem well enough, and the Mullvad browser would help to increase the level of anonymity (though not to the extent of Tor), but I did not intend to ask for support with this thread. This thread calls out injustices in how an app is deployed. I personally can circumvent various problems (apart from the closed-source problem), but the real fix needs to be with the app deployment so everyone can benefit.
I can't afford a car, I can't use the roads, still I pay for it with my taxes
I can't afford a bike/I'm disabled and can't use a bike, still I pay for those with my taxes
You still need to eat. You still need public services. Even if you live off grid, you still benefit from police, fire, ambulance in particular. Those all depend on the road infrastructure.
I can't have children, still I pay for public education
You had a legally entitled opportunity to attend school. Even if you chose not to take it, you still benefit from others using that opportunity, such as the doc who operates on you.
I can't afford a smartphone, even based on free software, I can't use this app still I pay for it with my taxes
You could make the same argument for having a phone at all. The same logic leads you to tear down the 112 number. OTOH, if you have no phone and you need urgent help, you will shout for it and someone will contact emergency services for you using whatever tool they have. More tools enable more people to respond quickly. A tap on a button in the app will send location info faster than a voice conversation. So I don’t have a problem with the existence of the app. I only have a problem with the exclusive way it was deployed to select groups using artificial and unnecessary requirements.
They do not give up their human rights to have equal access to public healthcare resources
Remembering a 3 digit number is now a public healthcare resources
I just added emphasis where needed. Equal access means a mechanism to request healthcare should not be restricted to Google and Apple patrons as Belgium signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees access to public healthcare in one article and equal access to public services in another article.
Why? Why should someone accept the consequence of travel more than using a burner email for a Google account?
Because the consequence of travel is inherent in the choice to live far away. Google patronage is not inherent in the choice to have a phone.
As a Flemish tax payer, that's money that doesn't benefit me.
It’s a progressive tax system where the taxation is proportionate to the wealth. It’s really a big can of worms to get into whether the relatively wealthier per capita benefit from such system. That’s not really a good conversation for this thread but I will say that developed countries use a progressive tax regime and advocating for the contrary is to advocate for the sort of state you have with underdeveloped countries, which benefits the fewest numbers of people.
[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]
Your comment reminds me of a story I read today about a Florida cop unloading his gun (fired all rounds) and taking cover, only to find that he was not fired upon, but rather an acorn fell and hit his car which sounded like gunfire to him. I really wonder where he pointed his gun as he was firing away.
But indeed, the idea of arming every single cop in every single region of the world sounds like a recipe for disaster.
For privacy, my mailbox and buzzer does not list names. Thus bPost has no way of knowing who lives in the house. So it’s fair enough that they simply deliver everything that matches the address....
This is probably an attempt to save money on storage costs.
That’s in fact what the article claims as Google’s reason. But seems irrational. Google still needs to index websites for the search engine. So the storage is still needed since the data collection is still needed. The only difference (AFAICT) is Google is simply not sharing that data. Also, there are bigger pots of money in play than piddly storage costs.
Bingo. When I read that part of the article, I felt insulted. People see the web getting increasingly enshitified and less accessible. The increased need for cached pages has justified the existence of 12ft.io.
~40% of my web access is now dependant on archive.org and 12ft.io.
So yes, Google is obviously bullshitting. Clearly there is a real reason for nixing cached pages and Google is concealing that reason.
"was meant for helping people access pages when way back, you often couldn't depend on a page loading. These days, things have greatly improved. So, it was decided to retire it." (emphasis added)
Bullshit! The web gets increasingly enshitified and content is less accessible every day.
For now, you can still build your own cache links even without the button, just by going to "https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:" plus a website URL, or by typing "cache:" plus a URL into Google Search.
You can also use 12ft.io.
Cached links were great if the website was down or quickly changed, but they also gave some insight over the years about how the "Google Bot" web crawler views the web. … A lot of Google Bot details are shrouded in secrecy to hide from SEO spammers, but you could learn a lot by investigating what cached pages look like.
Okay, so there’s a more plausible theory about the real reason for this move. Google may be trying to increase the secrecy of how its crawler functions.
The pages aren't necessarily rendered like how you would expect.
More importantly, they don’t render the way authors expect. And that’s a fucking good thing! It’s how caching helps give us some escape from enshification. From the 12ft.io faq:
“Prepend 12ft.io/ to the URL webpage, and we'll try our best to remove the popups, ads, and other visual distractions.”
It also circumvents #paywalls. No doubt there must be legal pressure on Google from angry website owners who want to force their content to come with garbage.
The death of cached sites will mean the Internet Archive has a larger burden of archiving and tracking changes on the world's webpages.
The possibly good news is that Google’s role shrinks a bit. Any Google shrinkage is a good outcome overall. But there is a concerning relationship between archive.org and Cloudflare. I depend heavily on archive.org largely because Cloudflare has broken ~25% of the web. The day #InternetArchive becomes Cloudflared itself, we’re fucked.
We need several non-profits to archive the web in parallel redundancy with archive.org.
Websites treat the Google crawler like a 1st class citizen. Paywalls give Google unpaid junk-free access. Then Google search results direct people to a website that treats humans differently (worse). So Google users are led to sites they cannot access. The heart of the problem is access inequality. Google effectively serves to refer people to sites that are not publicly accessible.
I do not want to see search results I cannot access. Google cache was the equalizer that neutralizes that problem. Now that problem is back in our face.
As far as we know, Google is not giving up any data. The crawler still must store a copy of the text for the index. The only certainty we have is that Google is no longer sharing it.
Every 4 years the Commission is willing to hear from individuals as to whether the GDPR is working. If you’re an individual, you likely got no justice from the Belgian DPA. Now you can report the DPA....
The web is so thoroughly enshitified that authors of new posts cannot be trusted to select public-worthy sharable links. Someone running all the latest mainstream Windows junk is oblivious to the UX of others....
Belgian election information in English for Tor users (some political parties are blocking some people from election info)
It’s quite difficult to find information on election candidates in English, and on top of that I only use Tor for the web which really narrows the election information available to nearly nothing....
Belgians say your national ID card is sensitive and should not be presented to non-gov entities, but reality differs. Mobib refused.
Several Belgians have said generally the national ID card is for official government operations not for the private sector; willy-nilly requests to show it should be refused in general. But then in reality ID card is demanded in countless commercial non-gov scenarios:...
Belgium blocks Tor users from accessing legal statutes on privacy protection law ( web.archive.org )
The linked page is accessible to everyone because a US-based NGO has mirrored Belgian law and made it accessible to all people. But attempts to directly visit www.ejustice.just.fgov.be is blocked if you are on the Tor network. The packets are silently dropped making it look as if the website is offline; so the Tor community is...
New Proximus fiber competitor “Digi/Citymesh” drills into façades without announcement or consent ( www.proximus.com )
Before Proximus drilled into the façades of homeowners without consent, they announced it and offered free interior installation in return....
Belgian law & EU law: /merchants/ must handle warranty service for 2 yrs, or more? ( fedia.io )
The rumor I heard was that if you buy a product that fails before the warranty ends, you do not need to contact the manufacturer (in #Belgium). You can simply return the product to the merchant and the merchant must deal with the warranty service....
Belgian law & EU law: /merchants/ must handle warranty service for 2 yrs, or more? ( europa.eu )
The rumor I heard was that if you buy a product that fails before the warranty ends, you do not need to contact the manufacturer (in #Belgium). You can simply return the product to the merchant and the merchant must deal with the warranty service....
What if public libraries... ( slrpnk.net )
Activists hijack billboards in Brussels to call out misleading car ads ( web.archive.org )
Brusselstimes is a walled garden, so the content is below to ensure everyone can read it:...
Are there tools that exist to anonymize writing styles?
I feel like with the rise of AI something that anonymizes writing styles should exist. For example it could look for differences in American versus British spelling like color versus colour or contextual things like soccer versus football and make edits accordingly. ChatGPT could be fed a prompt that says "Rewrite the following...
How can mbin/kbin users subscribe or even just reach a lemmy community?
I’m trying to access this community from fedia.io:...
How can mbin/kbin users subscribe or even just reach a lemmy community?
I’m trying to access this community from fedia.io:...
National emergency app now available in Belgium (exclusively to Google & Apple patrons who run closed-source software) ( web.archive.org )
Belgium has adopted an “official” app so that anyone can signal for help, so long as they belong to this exclusive group:...
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Getting bPost mail from past residents - some a decade past.. some from high volume senders
For privacy, my mailbox and buzzer does not list names. Thus bPost has no way of knowing who lives in the house. So it’s fair enough that they simply deliver everything that matches the address....
Google will no longer back up the Internet: Cached webpages are dead ( arstechnica.com )
If your GDPR rights have been trampled in Belgium, there’s an opportunity to complain to the Commission before 8 Feb. ( ec.europa.eu )
Every 4 years the Commission is willing to hear from individuals as to whether the GDPR is working. If you’re an individual, you likely got no justice from the Belgian DPA. Now you can report the DPA....
URL appraisal feature/mechanism needed; alternative link support also needed
The web is so thoroughly enshitified that authors of new posts cannot be trusted to select public-worthy sharable links. Someone running all the latest mainstream Windows junk is oblivious to the UX of others....
Bug: blocks have no effect on search-generated timelines ( fedia.io )
(cross post)...