Agreed. I mean, AppArmor and SELinux exist to control file access, perhaps OSes should put more effort into user-friendly overlays to control processes and have audits to warn users when a piece of software has full system access.
As far as network control... We have open-source blacklists for various malicious websites. Perhaps we should also have "known-good" site whitelists and have OS-level blocking for that by default. Like, OSes running DNS-sinkholing of StevenBlack malware lists, and the option to enable "known-good" whitelists as well. Having a hosts file of 450,000 entries to sinkhole can bog down an interface coming up reliably... that process needs optimized.
There's a lot of money in the enterprise world doing similar things.
I remember talking with my mom about Trump's immigration policies. They were saying they wanted to round up every undocumented immigrant. They were saying they wanted to go out and find them and do what they've done. I told her I had friends who, despite being citizens, were fearful for themselves being identified as "not white enough". My mom said "They're only going to go after the violent ones". Which is not at all what the campaign or his cabinet said. It was wishful thinking and lies said on the right-wing networks, mixed with problematic stories of the occasional undocumented immigrant who was a repeat offender let out by city processes.
It's a lot of things, but one thing this admin does is take a reasonable grievance that requires reasonable change, and amplify anger in order to take drastic measures for their own benefits and ideology.
Both my parents are/were this way for Republicans. They don't care about the sexual assaults, the destruction of the government, or the billions of dollars of corrupt money heading to the president and his cabinet. Or worse, he outright calls me a liar when I inform him of the facts.
He can say billionaires are unethical ipso facto, that the poor shouldn't die from lack of healthcare, and that corruption is bad. But then say he has no choice but to vote Republican because "Democrats are worse" and "they want to turn boys into girls.". He thinks Fox News is too liberal.
They certainly exist, and in great numbers, if there aren't 75 Democratic senators and 300+ Democratic House reps by 2028.
Worker: "I'd like to ask about pay review. The numbers look really strong, and some people are probably wondering if that's going to show up in review."
Exec: "That's a great question. I don't want to say anything I can't promise, but we're going to be looking at all our options and I'm sure we're going to look to reward great performance. Does that help answer your question?"
Sketch comedy writers, look out. This thing is sadly, hilariously, accurate.
I'd appreciate it if the exec said "The turnover rate for our seniors is very high. Does anyone have any ideas?" "Compensation!" Exec: "No, I mean, maybe pizza every Friday, or a team outing or something?"
They missed "AI analysis implemented as an infinite number of authoritarian servants documenting the physical traits, locations, behaviors and associations of all people 24/7" in the "really bad" column.
Also tossing in my anecdote. One year old account, decent karma and able to post to almost all subs I tried to. Email was a proton alias and always accessed old reddit from VPN.
I was mocking a post that was clearly an ad by saying "hello fellow kids, buy our product!". This got deleted by reddit admin tools and I soon discovered my account was shadowbanned, meaning all of my past comments and posts over the past year were removed from the site and I could not message moderators. No notification.
I filed for appeal several times over the last few weeks asking for rationale or update, pointing to the fact my admin-deleted message was clearly facetious and didn't contain any ad.
They haven't responded. I'm sure it's because they're busy helping other people get unbanned.
I was a mod of a city subreddit for a while because there was a real problem with trolls and fake accounts. And the city sub at the time wasn't overrun with AI farming "Hello fellow Citizens of Everytown, where can I buy the Best Mattress?".
Then my account for banned for IDing repost bots on other subs.
I signed up a new account with passmail email alias and VPN, got instant cqs "lowest".
I signed up via Google SSO on a fresh account from a coffee shop, for cqs moderate.
For having such rigorous automated banning and shadowbanning, their control over propaganda, reposts and spam is pitiful. If I were in the tech world I would rather say I work at yahoo search in 2026 than at reddit.
I prefer to keep the contents of my message secure from the panopticon.
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