If they spend weeks convincing you that you should do it, give you money or other resources to do it, or so on, then it can be entrapment.

Things like that should theoretically help you make an argument for entrapment, but it’s no sure thing

Good question I don’t have the answer to. I could speculate that this is all likely being sourced from some sort of marketing material that ShadowDragon put out where they just flatly say they’re gathering this information from Tesseract, and in reality they’re actually gathering any information they can on users who search for this software and download this software, but like I said I’m speculating.

If you’re really interested, I would say you should email the author of this article, reach out to Tesseract’s development team, or find a way to get a subpoena against ShadowDragon and/or ICE

Sorry to hear that, try this one

https://web.archive.org/web/20250312132300/https://www.404media.co/the-200-sites-an-ice-surveillance-contractor-is-monitoring/

the Fediverse really seems like it could be our response to these fuckers controlling the narrative on social media. It could be more than just an interesting decentralized social media platform. I really think this could be a key step in reclaiming our democracy.

Agreed, and I would add that finding ways to get nonprofit news organizations (e.g. ProPublica) and public media (e.g. NPR, PBS, etc.) to host and administer their own instances and to start directing their readers/listeners to those services would be a great way to advance this goal

Do you think the department of education writes the textbooks, standardized tests (SAT, ACT, etc.), grading and student management software, learning management systems (Google Classroom, Canvas), or manufactures its own classroom tech (Chromebooks, tablets)?

Each one of those has a bunch of particular nuances, but in general - yeah, I think they could and should in a lot of those cases

The education system is full of for-profit businesses that can jack up the prices, and they do.

Yeah, it’s a big problem with a lot of little parts to be tackled

The DOE simply doesn’t have the resources to create these things themselves

Then government should give them the resources (actually, I think a whole separate agency that develops open source software for any government agency or anyone else who wants to use them should be established, but that’s kind of besides the point).

and would cost them far more if they tried

I don’t think that’s true, and even if it were I think we should be willing to pay premium to make sure essential systems that support the public good are being administered in democratic ways (e.g. by public agencies that are required to give public reports to elected lawmakers and be subject to citizens’ FOIA requests).

the business model has existed forever

A lot of stupid ideas hang on for a really long time. Like, we still have monarchies in the 21st century world.

Personally, I’m more concerned with the use of Google products in schools. A company that’s sole business is harvesting user data and selling it to advertisers should have no place in schools or children’s products. But they’ve embedded themselves into everything so people just accept it at the cost of privacy

I 100% agree this is a significant problem too, I just haven’t come across any good articles about it recently

Exactly, they’re a captive audience, and moreover they are legally incompetent to consent to a contracted business relationship like this

If this was a department of education AI or even some kind of transparently administered non-profit organization I’d be fine with this, but the fact that this is being developed for some for profit company that can just jack their rates and cut off public schools whenever they want to is bullshit. Like, I’m not opposed to the technology of LLMs at all, I think they’re actually pretty neat, but our social and economic systems have a lot of exploitative trash in them that cool technologies can inadvertently exacerbate.

An American security contractor and a Chinese embassy employee are at a bar. The American says, “I gotta say, your propaganda is impressive. You sure know how to keep your people in line.”

“Oh, you’re too gracious,” the embassy worker says. “And besides, it’s nothing compared to American propaganda.”

The contractor chokes on his drink and gives his friend a bewildered look.

“What are you talking about? There’s no propaganda in America.”

deleted by creator

Yeah, I’m not a Texan but I also disagree about this. Also, Austin has produced some amazing music over the years (for example, random Austin band I’ve been in love with recently is Being Dead).

Gerrymandered Congress, no campaign finance laws, bought and paid for judiciary - Allow us to introduce ourselves

They’re very good at identifying talented developers /s

“this kind of content,” Why are you making people give reddit traffic to figure out what you’re talking about about?

The devices should be returned to inmates immediately, prison administrators should then slap themselves in the face one time for implementing them poorly to begin with, slap themselves in the face several times for overreacting to a viral story without having any reason to believe there was an active or imminent problem with any of their inmates, and deliver a tooth-loosening punch to their own faces for thinking they could punish these inmates by taking away their education to cover their screw up.

After that, hire a real IT person who knows what they’re doing by paying them decently allowing remote work and not drug testing, and then listen to them.

Not victimizing all of the student inmates because the prison invested in a poorly designed system that could potentially be exploited when none of the students have attempted that exploit or were likely even aware of it

Every prisoner who knew about that password

Meanwhile, back in reality

Wright confirmed no one incarcerated in Washington prisons had attempted to unlock their devices but said the decision was “made out of an abundance of caution.”

They were taken for reasons that inmates had nothing to do with, they have not been replaced, and it’s unclear when they’ll be returned. Inmates who are enrolled in college courses are having to handwrite papers that are due soon.

Also, if something is technically possible but illegal for the CIA/FBI/etc to do, it just means they have to try to hide the fact they’re still doing it

Yeah, and the fact that people basically can’t talk about this game without mentioning it got boycotted because one of the people who makes money from it is a massive piece of transphobic shit is a small step forward all on its own

Eh, people don’t buy for the gameplay mechanics most of the time, they buy for what they see in the trailers and read in the descriptions. Being the only videogame available for this IP, having the WB marketing juggernaut behind it, releasing at a time of the year without much competition, coming out on every single platform - it would have been weird if this game wasn’t the best selling one in 2023.

Maybe this mirror of it will?

https://archive.is/nB7Db

But I’m guessing it talking about the claim only ~9% of the time officers were able to confirm a firearm was present on the scene.

Don’t think that shows up, this article is previously unpublished stuff I believe

For at least nine months, between October 2017 and July 2018, Scott DeDore tracked ShotSpotter’s accuracy in identifying confirmed gunshots. DeDore regularly shared his findings with Chicago police and ShotSpotter, and even attempted to hone the tool’s precision by working alongside the company to install additional sensors, documents obtained through public records requests show. Over the course of those nine months, according to the records, ShotSpotter correctly detected a gunshot in 63 of 135 instances in which a person was struck, an accuracy rate of about 47 percent.

One month after DeDore sent his last available report, then mayor Rahm Emanuel signed a new three-year, $33 million contract with ShotSpotter (the company has since rebranded as SoundThinking). It covered 12 police districts—100 square miles—and made Chicago the company’s largest customer at the time.

These records represent a look into a small corner of Chicago’s southwest side from more than half a decade ago. But they offer a unique window into ShotSpotter and its role in an increasingly surveilled city. And they came at a time when the city was reinventing its policing strategy. Six years later, Chicago is again at a crossroad, as a new mayoral administration “reimagines” public safety and mulls the fate of ShotSpotter when its contract expires in mid-February.