lattrommi

I probably should have used ‘smaller chips’ instead. another idea would be using ‘thinner phones’ or ‘lighter phones’. i was a weird writing headspace when i wrote that and liked the flow of going from ‘bigger’ to ‘smaller’.

Bigger monitors, smaller phones, higher color depth, lower latencies, customizable window decorations, chronal themes, AI, blockchain, more devices, trackers, architectures, platforms, malwares, internet protocols, programming languages, human languages, ads, ads, ads, ads, doom, power saving, content, content moderation and I’m sure there’s plenty more reasons that might contribute to the growth.

Not saying I like or want all those things, simply that they might be contributing to size increases. Part of me wishes we could go back, then i fire up windows xp pro sp3 on an eee pc netbook i have that miraculously still works and i remember why i prefer to stay in the present, at least until AI kills us all.

Not IT though, I’m just a guy.

This was first published in 2021. There are some interesting points made.

https://dessalines.github.io/essays/why_not_signal.html

It has had a few updates since, then but I cannot vouch for its accuracy.

It doesn’t cover audits per sé, but I feel there is important information that is tangentially related, since security audits become kind of moot if some of the items mentioned are true (i.e. CIA funding and US govt. tactics).

Full disclosure, I still use Signal for a family group chat. I have very little economic value, thus my threat model is minimal. It mentions cats several times. I neither have cats, nor interact with them frequently enough to warrant their inclusion in a threat model.

In 1900 on March 14th the Gold Standard Act was ratified in America, forcing the dollar to be redeemable by the Treasury on demand for a fixed value in gold. It was abondoned in 1933 during the Great Depression (which really was not all that great from what I’ve read).

In 1943 Kraków Ghetto ceased to have prisoners. Less great than that depression.

1964 Jack Ruby was convicted of assassinating JFK.

1879 Einstein’s birthday.

1883 Karl Marx’s death.

The person asking the trivia question needed to know the answer, so they could determine who was correct.

Phones, as I understand them, average about 30 pings per second. That’s 30 times per second the phone is checking for signal strength with the nearest tower, among other data.

They also work with any device that has wifi or bluetooth to help with location triangulation. So anyone at trivia that had their phone on them and powered, had their position noted as well as their proximity to others. If the location has smart TV’s on the walls, those were picking up the pings as well. If they have internet available to customers, there’s another point picking up the info.

It’s already been shown that a few companies have listened to microphones. The data being extrapolated is so large, listening to the microphone would be counterproductive and redundant. There are devices everywhere, security cameras, billboards, inside each row of shelves at your grocery store, in every car that has a computer, lights at intersections, smart watches and other IOT devices, even appliances these days have wifi and bluetooth like refridgerators, coffee pots, robot vacuums, treadmills, i could go on.

It’s scary that some company might be listening to your through your phones microphone but the real scary thing is that they don’t need to. They knew people at that trivia game would be searching for that answer before the question was even asked, without needing to listen in.