Peter Todd @pete@petertodd.org

AP's 'Fact Checkers' Perform Random Act of Journalism on Biden's Egregious Vax Claims - Headline USA
https://headlineusa.com/ap-fact-check-biden-vax-claim/

"In all likelihood, the reason for its random act of journalism had less to do with the accuracy of the statement and more to do with the fact that it threatened a longstanding narrative that the mainstream media has perpetuated: that nobody should feel safe amidst the coronavirus pandemic."

@nvk They hate MREs just as much as the rest of us.

Finally a lineup at Toronto Pearson Airport. Place has been dead every other time I've been.

@harding @verretor Making excuses for incremental tyranny is a self defeating thing to do. Stop it.

@harding @verretor ...and again, cash exists, and having another layer between government and the data is a big deal.

@harding @verretor Exactly. Data that actually shows your intended location is far better than that.

@harding @verretor And you are very wrong, because the extra data they get out of it is both much higher quality and higher value.

I'm sorry, but you are making a terrible argument that will get people hurt.

@verretor @harding That absolutely would be a selling point for a system with central logging. No doubt about it.

@verretor @harding Thing is to do a privacy protecting version you need two signatures. Which makes the QR code bigger. No one wants to do that as QR code reliability drops quickly with size.

@harding @verretor Well that's a very silly way to look at it. The 1% of the time when you really need the privacy matters.

I leave GPS tracking _on_ in my phone. But the fact I can turn it off is so important.

@harding @verretor Normal people turn their phones off you know... Right there that's a big k-anonymity set.

It's also very helpful to have intermediaries between govt and the data. The fact that government is directly running these tracking databases is a huge problem.

@harding @verretor Again, this gets back to the fact that mandatory surveillance with no way to avoid it is much worse.

And I don't think you realize how bad this gets... Singapore among other places has trace and trace readers at entrances to even outdoor public parks.

@harding @verretor It's a _huge_ difference if there is no way to turn it off. Absolutely massive.

Also, passive phone surveillance based on cell towers is pretty low accuracy. It can't tell what buildings you're actually in in most cases, and is often off by kilometers. Vaccine passports are much more precise.

@dflate Because we have lots of tech to do DNA analysis and not much that does smell analysis.

@harding @verretor I remember telling to some cryptography types a year ago that trying to implement vaccine passports and track and trace with privacy protecting crypto was counterproductive because you'd just end up legitimizing the invasive tech that would inevitably get implemented anyway.

@waxwing "this isn't a comedy, this is a documentary"