Posts Tagged technology

Changing What’s Normal

From Open Source Defense:

To say that the cartoon depiction of a gun is unacceptable to display in-text on any modern tech platform is actually pretty radical. It means that the mere sight of a gun — a cartoon gun — is an inherent obscenity. And purely from a software engineering perspective, disregarding the Unicode standard to enforce that was unprecedented.

For six years, we lived in that world. Today, at least on X, we don’t. But imagine that Elon hadn’t bought X and we were stuck with water pistols for the long haul. Most people using a smartphone today remember when a pistol was a pistol. But after about two decades, the collective memory would have faded and the water pistol would seem utterly normal. The real pistol would seem aberrant, and as a result there’d be no hope of bringing it back. There’d be a new status quo, and going back to the old one would seem radical.

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Chatbots Full Of Anti-Gun Bias

From Bearing Arms:

The CPRC study examined 15 popular AI chatbots, including ChatGPT and Elon Musk’s Grok 2 (Fun Mode), analyzing their responses to a series of questions about crime and gun control. The research highlighted a disturbing shift: almost all chatbots demonstrated liberal views, particularly when it came to gun control issues. This finding is alarming for those who value a balanced perspective, as the chatbots’ influence continues to grow across media and educational platforms.

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The Importance Of Valuing Life

From Open Source Defense:

Guns are valuable because they’re good for self-defense. Self-defense is good because life is valuable, and protecting life is a wonderful thing. But if you have to protect life by taking life, that’s something to be solemnly accepted, not celebrated.

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Polymer80 Lawfared Into Bankruptcy

From Husky Armory:

The Nevada-based company, known for its “ghost gun” kits that allowed law-abiding citizens to build their own firearms, cited overwhelming legal costs as the primary reason for its closure. For many Second Amendment advocates, this marks a troubling development in the ongoing battle for gun rights in America.

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Skeet Shooter Banned By Meta

From The Truth About Guns:

Just last week, NSSF highlighted the Big Tech bias against the USA Shooting, when YouTube and Meta shadow-banned McKenna Geer, a Paralympic shooter who will represent Team USA in Paris for the 2024 Paralympics.

“I have always feared the day the media would censor my sport and speech just because I use firearms,” Greer wrote on Instagram after her account was blocked. “That day has finally come.”

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Censorship Of Guns Includes Olympic Events

From The Truth About Guns:

However, instead of celebrating these triumphs, Meta chose to shadow-ban her for simply sharing sports-related content. Earlier this month, McKenna posted a photo on Instagram of the air rifle she uses to qualify for the Paralympic Games. Meta flagged the photo as violating their guidelines, placing her on a censorship list.

This shadow-banning is not some small speed bump on the road to stardom; it is a deliberate attempt to silence her voice, an attack against her and her sport. She is not just any other athlete. She is a Paralympian who won a bronze medal in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro games. A Big Tech giant that cares more about promoting its antigun agenda than embracing an extraordinary athlete will not permit McKenna to share her journey, engage her fans and attract much-needed sponsors.

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Idaho Credit Union Still Scrambling After User Agreement Debacle

From The Truth About Guns:

There’s a credit union in Idaho that’s been feeling some heat lately, and thanks to feedback, they’re seeing the light. The Idaho Central Credit Union felt the heat of TTAG’s story yesterday about their member agreement that precluded ammo and gun purchases with ICCU accounts as of a few days earlier.

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Car Makers Spying On You And Selling Your Data

From Electronic Frontier Foundation:

In a recent New York Times article, Kashmir Hill reported how everyday moments in your car like these create a data footprint of your driving habits and routine that is, in some cases, being sold to insurance companies. Collection often happens through so-called “safe driving” programs pre-installed in your vehicle through an internet-connected service on your car or a connected car app. Real-time location tracking often starts when you download an app on your phone or tap “agree” on the dash screen before you drive your car away from the dealership lot.

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YouTube To Crackdown On Gun Content, Destroy Livelihoods

From Bearing Arms:

“Restricting access to adults only—for content that depicts wholly legal and constitutionally-protected activity—is wrong, and it aims to push a sinister narrative to minors that firearms are evil,” said Erich Pratt, GOA’s Senior Vice President. “In turn, as younger generations come of age, they will not question or push back on further violations of our Second Amendment rights.”

“Alvin Bragg and his anti-gun friends have been aggressively pressuring YouTube to censor and directly prohibit certain content related to guns for years now, and sadly they just succeeded and free speech has once again become the victim,” said Aidan Johnston, GOA’s Director of Federal Affairs. “Congress must demand answers from YouTube on how influential DA Bragg and gun control groups were in facilitating this change in policy and determine whether the Biden Administration or it’s White House Office of Gun Control was weaponized to force the censorship of Second Amendment content.”

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DHS Colludes With Gaming Companies To Monitor “Extremist” Gamers

From The Intercept:

The exact nature of the cooperation between federal agencies and video game companies, which has not been previously reported, is detailed in a new Government Accountability Office report. The report draws on interviews conducted with five gaming and social media companies including Roblox, an online gaming platform; Discord, a social media app commonly used by gamers; Reddit; as well as a game publisher and social media company that asked the GAO to remain anonymous.

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iMessage Adds Encryption To Protect Against Quantum Computing Attacks

From Ars Technica:

The iMessage changes come five months after the Signal Foundation, maker of the Signal Protocol that encrypts messages sent by more than a billion people, updated the open standard so that it, too, is ready for post-quantum computing (PQC). Just like Apple, Signal added Kyber to X3DH, the algorithm it was using previously. Together, they’re known as PQXDH.

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3D Printing Moves Into Ammunition and Explosives

From The Conversation:

I’m a mechanical engineering professor who studies energetic materials. Making energetic materials isn’t easy, but developments in 3D printing could make customization easier, while allowing for more potential scientific applications.

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Bill Attacks First and Second Amendment By Calling For CAD File Ban

From Ammoland:

The bill reads: “It shall be unlawful for any person to intentionally distribute, over the internet or by means of the World Wide Web, digital instructions in the form of Computer Aided Design files or other code that can automatically program a 3-dimensional printer or similar device to produce a firearm or complete a firearm from an unfinished frame or receiver.”

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Why Won’t Gun “Buybacks” Accept 3D Printed Guns

From The Truth About Guns:

The security theater grifters who put on “buybacks” never bother to defend them as being effective, taking the Fifth whenever they’re challenged by the public. But, unlike a court of actual law, we’re totally free to use their silence as evidence against them.

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Electric Capacitor Revolver

From Plasma Channel:

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