@demi7en@infosec.exchange

· 4mo ago

I fully get all the derision the once-pioneering #Fender guitar conglomerate gets from players for starting to sue makers of Stratocaster-looking instruments. If it was about *exact copies* I'd get their argument but now they're just committing corporate suicide.

And that's fine by me; they haven't really innovated anything since the founder Leo Fender left for greener pastures. (NB. Fender's current copyright actions were predicated by Leo's final design home G&L declaring bankruptcy just late last year due to MAGA tariffs pushing them over the line...)

As an ethical tightwad I haven't considered buying anything from Murica since the re-election of certain member of the trump clan anyhow, but what I do find curious is that many of these now-vocal anti-Fender influencers and regular players are eagerly plugging/buying intruments and gear from a hostile dictatorship (guess which manufacturing behemoth?) that genuinely hates artistic freedoms, with zero reservations. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If it was me (and I am!) I'd just have a fine luthier build fine instruments to my taste (which I've done!)... But if I was looking for a fine factory built instrument — perhaps even a Strat facsimile — I'd probably go for a Japanese Fujigen/FGN one.

infosec.exchange

Infosec Exchange

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demi7en 🎗🇪🇺 @demi7en@infosec.exchange

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@eff@mastodon.social Having spent time in multiple "unfriendly" locations I appreciate privacy/anonymity *more* than the next guy, but we can't allow our kids or ourselves to be subjected to the type of industrial level manipulation now going on. Likewise we shouldn't allow those industrialized manipulators to exist on the platforms we inhabit in the first place If that wasn't enough, many/most platforms are owned, run and manipulated by nefarious/greedy owners sycophantic to a hostile non-democracy (you know which ones). There is a technical fix, but one with a caveat (i.e. 'becoming of age' may reveal the fact). Every citizen in a democracy could be issued with an anonymous digital token (multiple; one spun off the original for each use/platform/purpose so they can't be cross-referenced) that simply verifies this person qualifies to participate on, um, participating platform. Maybe I'm a little naive and willing to trust my own government — left, right or centre — unlike the majority of humanity these days, but this current uncontrolled lab rat experiment is harming all of us and destroying discourse between verifiable human beings. (I know some under-18s are way more mature than many nominal adults will ever be, but a year or few of additional mental peace has never harmed anyone like exposure to the industrialized manipulation would.)

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demi7en 🎗🇪🇺 @demi7en@infosec.exchange

· 12mo ago

Last note before a much-needed sanity vacation.

[Ignorable long post so... TL;DR: Boycott *all* dictators and their enablers like morality-free corporations]

I've tried living by the "Be the change you want to see in the world" advice since my teens. For all my civil and human rights advocacy and e.g. campaigning for Tibetans' freedom from colonial repression virtually everyone around me has been flippantly funding their oppressors, the Chinese Party-state regime'. Oh, and they're also funding the repression of the 1.3 billion Chinese subjects (who are not Party members) and all the other global objectives of the CCP, including their support of russia, Iran, North Korea and virtually all existing and aspiring despots around the world. 🤷🏻‍♂️

That's been going on for *decades* now. Think about it.

I witnessed the CCP crushing Hong Kong's civil society in and after 2019 first hand despite the CCP having 'signed' a treaty (UK-PRC Joint Declaration) guaranteeing Hongkongers continued civil- and political rights and self-determination.

And then Muricans went and *elected* donald fucking trump *again* in Nov last year to do similar fascist takeover in the USA.

Note that in the last partially free elections in Hong Kong (Nov 2019) in *all* 18 districts popular vote supported pro-democrats. The USA and all other democracies did squat to pressure the CCP. It was just business as usual!

Who has stood with the Tibetans? With Hongkongers? With the Burmese? etc. etc.

Mandela said: "Your freedom and mine cannot be separated."

Memorize that quote. It carries countless insights.

I've tried to avoid funding anyone's oppressor since the last century, but equally importantly, and here's a wee request, we should *all* strive to avoid funding all dictators *but also their enablers*.

Not just the trumptards or the techbros the chinese or russian expansionist dictatorships et al but *also their enablers everywhere*.

(If we had done this, as I hoped, when the soviet empire fell and the CCP was on the ropes we would not be in this *global* pickle now. Reversing this sociopathic disaster will be far more difficult, but maybe if enough people — esp. in democracies but also in dictatorships — start "thinking globally, acting locally" we might have a long shot at honouring the founding principles of the original UN. They were never meant to be mere idealistic words to be sacrificed for easy profit and convenience.)

NB. The rise of Murican fascism hasn't only threatened to destroy American civil society, but it has removed the USA as a force for good globally since the 1990s, first as a more voluntary "hands off neo-libertarian approach" and since the turn of the century's even more hedonistic turn inwards while fighting imaginary 'culture wars' with the proto white supremacist MAGA...

How do you come back from deranged grifter-supremacist culture? How??

Ref. My first post after the last US presidential election results in Nov 2024 were confirmed:
@demi7en@infosec.exchange

infosec.exchange

demi7en 🎗🇪🇺: "On #trump 2.0 ― an inconsequential European view:…" - Infosec Exchange

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demi7en 🎗🇪🇺 @demi7en@infosec.exchange

· 13mo ago

Replying to

@josephcox@infosec.exchange Youtube started turning into a cesspool of fakery and disinformation years ago, and the company (Google) clearly had no problem with that. Before this ongoing 'AI' slop flood the key markers were also my key turnoffs: fantastical and invariably blindingly nonfactual banner images with exclamations like "Shock! Insane! Panic! Terrify! Destroy! Secret! Game over!"... Some otherwise previously credible #Youtube channels (incl. science and tech-oriented) went along with that hyperbolic approach and probably lost serious human followers beyond just myself. The absolute quickest way to find some AI-generated propaganda slop is by searching for e.g. "F-35". All kinds of total nonsense incl. imaginary 22th century wunderwaffen will turn up. 🤷‍♂️ Bots will then boost viewership figures and village idiots will contribute their idiotscrolling services. Of course the intentionally rewritten history fakes are even more damaging since very few people even in the Free World have bothered to learn how our history got us here in the first place. 😬 With the WWII *belligerents* celebrating their rewritten history/victory in Beijing just now and practically no news outlet calling them out for that I feel democracies are losing a key battle on every front even before the next one really blows up.

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demi7en 🎗🇪🇺 @demi7en@infosec.exchange

· 20mo ago

Replying to

@velshi@mastodon.world Now try getting this sub-12 minute piece in front of the average maga person... You can't. Their feeds are fully locked in. Instead their influencers, talkshow hosts and channels present the same scene as a plaque created by evil radical far-left democrats. 🤷🏻‍♂️

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demi7en 🎗🇪🇺 @demi7en@infosec.exchange

· 45mo ago

Replying to

@berlinbridge@mastodon.world Reason 1. Third reich and its co-aggression pact with soviet russia. Never forget? Forget what? Reason 2. Being the main facilitator and financier of putin's deranged 21st century imperialist exceptionalism. 2/3

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demi7en 🎗🇪🇺 @demi7en@infosec.exchange

· 45mo ago

Replying to

@berlinbridge@mastodon.world

BONUS REASON: German industrialists are proudly key collaborators of genocidal Chinese dictatorship that incidentally uses Nazi legalism to justify its crimes.

The compromised tankie-generation needs to be 'disempowered' some day. Like today.

3/3

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demi7en 🎗🇪🇺 @demi7en@infosec.exchange

· 2mo ago

Replying to

📜 Related note on modern day genocide narratives. I grew up at a time when the term genocide referred to a deliberate effort to eradicate an entire/unique ethnic group. The concept was needed when the West had to come to grips with the industrial scale muder programme of the Nazi's Holocaust. Before and after Hitler, Stalin's soviet-russia (and russians for all the centuries of their colonial expansionism) also aimed to eradicate "minority ethnicities" and their languages and cultures. The invading Spanish colonizers from 1500s onwards weren't exactly boy scouts in South America. Since invading Tibet in 1950 and taking control of East Turkestan and South Mongolia the Chinese communist (since 2010s ethno-fascist) dictatorship may "only" have killed a significant minority of its newly-captive colonial subjects, but the regime's repressive policies are directly aimed at eradicating those now-occupied "minorities' " ethnic identity, culture, language... their frigging unique written scripts and history (!) while those *lebensraums* are totally dominated by the colonialist Chinese and their settlers. The CCP is dead set on eradicating those colonized peoples. What is that if not genocide as it was initially conceived after WWII? The Arabs of Palestine (a post-WWI concept), particularly the civilian population, have been subjected to post-Oct7 Israeli war crimes and massacres that should result in a trial in the Haque. Yet a little a history in useful: The Western Middle East and the entire Northern Africa (and even much of Spain and Portugal from 700s to late 1400s!) was overrun by Arabs (see: The Arab Conquest) incited by the newly created religion of Islam. All of the medieval cultures, languages and populations of North Africa were eradicated. Most Jews fled their ancestral lands, scattering across Europe and in pockets as early "untermensch" under newly-islamic fiefdoms in the region. Facing repression nearly everywhere, the Nazi Holocaust was the final straw that incentiviced the Jewish people to try and reclaim their ancestral homeland (the idea of nation states had first bloomed in pre-democratic and still partially colonized Europe of 1800s). Now, IMHO, the re-establishment of a Jewish home state (Israel) was a logical objective under the circumstances (which I realize makes me a "zionist"); the Jewish culture/religion has, due to its characteristics, survived countless generations in exile. Countless populations have been genocided for all eternity, but the Jews managed to hang on for a second chance. The Arabs now settled in those previously Jewish ancestral lands had a choice to make when the exiled Jews started returning after mid-1940s. Some took Israeli citizenship (recognized by the constitution), others chose to wage war for their piece of the Arab Conquest... The last Arab-run poll of Gaza population prior to Oct7 attack had 70% of Gazan adults supporting their *islamist* rulers (Hamas cancelled elections after gaining power, quelle surprise). Their specific goal was "from the river to the sea" i.e. total eradication of Israel along the lines of their ancestral Arab Conquest. Ethnically, linguistically and culturally identical to all neighbouring arabicized states they could resume their lives as majority Arabs in any of them (although they're now wary of the militancy!), but it's the principle of the Conquest. Moreover Arabs/islamists have claimed many ancient Jewish holy places as theirs (similar issues irritate the Hindus in India) so owning Israel is a koranic mission to hardline islamists. I'm an agnostic, but I feel that claiming other people's heritage as your religious conquest is a little over the top in modern world. The Western liberals waving "Palestine" flags and calling rightwing Israelis and the ultra-orthodox settlers nazis are indeed *partially* right. They should also understand *what* it is that they are supporting (re-enactment of Arab Conquest) and *why* (for the benefit of the anti-democratic Axis and to divide Western democracies). #genocide #Israel #Palestine #ArabConquest #russia #china #Tibet #uighurs

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demi7en 🎗🇪🇺 @demi7en@infosec.exchange

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@kajakallas It's a good principle based on stated values. If it is applied consistently, based on values. And the largest, most repressive regimes aren't exempt. Like the Chinese dictatorship. Right? Values not upheld consistently aren't really values at all. (Pardon my slight sarcasm; I've been calling for *pro-democracy* trade policy since the days of the Tiananmen massacre... 🤷🏻‍♂️ )

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demi7en 🎗🇪🇺 @demi7en@infosec.exchange

· 2mo ago

Could it be considered ironic that... an internet search for "Cisco china theft" doesn't show any results of the Chinese dictatorship stealing Cisco's hardware designs which gave the CCP regime a leg up to control the "cyberspace" and helped it develop its repressive "Great firewall of China" (and also aided CCP's foreign intrusive "intelligence" gathering...) and instead the search now brings up only lawsuits claiming Cisco aided the dictatorship in "jailing and torturing" its critics... 🤷🏻‍♂️ The wonders of "Free World" internet in this era! And Viva colaboración with hostile dictatorships! #cisco #ccp #china #ironyisntdead

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demi7en 🎗🇪🇺 @demi7en@infosec.exchange

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@agreenberg@infosec.exchange Just don't do any apps (esp. mobile). Unless you really, *really* trust the source, like possibly Mastodon, which you can access via standard browser like the open-source Firefox or its derivatives. Somehow the remaining Free World needs to get the toxic weeds out of the current cesspool we're all inhabiting, and sometime soon, or it is light out. The global internet (already crippled by regional one-way intranets of despots) won't survive this, but a reconfigured intranet of democracies might. 🙄 And who knows where the frigging USA falls in all of this, but its control of internet registries won't be acceptable for a generation or two, for as long as the "magas" represent anywhere near half of voting population...

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demi7en 🎗🇪🇺 @demi7en@infosec.exchange

· 18mo ago

Replying to

@zackwhittaker@mastodon.social The "A" could also stand for "authoritarian". Every despot alive today is dreaming of a pliant workforce without the potential of a *moral compass*. AI + robots would provide them 'security' and production without pesky humans ever getting in their way.

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demi7en 🎗🇪🇺 @demi7en@infosec.exchange

· 45mo ago

Replying to

@berlinbridge@mastodon.world Germany has done a lot... including pulling the breaks when it should have been pulling its weight. Germans have *TWICE* the historical responsibility to help Ukraine fend off russia's genocidal military-expansionism: 1/3

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demi7en 🎗🇪🇺 @demi7en@infosec.exchange

· 20mo ago

Replying to

@velshi@mastodon.world @ThomHartmann@mstdn.social The same on the 'tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PXqRMmiKOk

Welcome to the new American oligarchy: Trump’s rise was decades in the making

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demi7en 🎗🇪🇺 @demi7en@infosec.exchange

· 17mo ago

Replying to

@Strandjunker@mstdn.social 👏

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