Once again, Open Source is embarrassed and left behind.

mplayer and mpv still, after all these years, don't have a way to prevent things from working if the content origin happens to be Netflix. It just plays on, stupidly Just Working, instead of breaking the way that Netflix realized their users want it to break.

To be fair your link does say "designed to bypass internet filtering mechanisms or content restrictions", so it sounds like SSH, work VPNs, banking etc. don't count because they aren't designed to get around the porn filters.

You make sense, but there is nothing that is "designed to bypass internet filtering mechanisms or content restrictions" more than SSH and VPNs bypass internet filtering mechanisms or content restrictions, is there? Why would anyone ever design a tool to get around filtering and restrictions, when they can already do that with established mainstream tools such as SSH or VPNs?

I can't believe the bill is intended to never be applied to anything. If we do think it's written in such a way that it never applies, I don't think it'll be litigated that way. Once it's enacted, they're going to say it applies to something, and that something is going to be anything that is secure.

You didn't read the bill very closely.

I think I read it much more closely than you did.

Sec 2(a):

"Circumvention tools" means any software, hardware, or service designed to bypass internet filtering mechanisms or content restrictions including virtual private networks, proxy servers, and encrypted tunneling methods to evade content restrictions.

This is either intended to apply to something or never apply to anything. Do we agree that the text is intended to do something, to somehow cover some possible situation which might realistically come up? You don't think they just put this in there, but with the begrudging admission that it could not ever possibly apply, do you?

Assuming you're still with me there, please give an example of what kind of tool this defines as a circumvention tool. Surely you have something in mind.

The bill is about outlawing the distribution of p0rn, and a VPN is merely listed as an unlawful circumvention tool.

That might have possibly been the original intent several years of editing ago, but I do not see anything in the definition of "circumvention tools" which even tangentially relates to porn. Do you? I think porn is 100% irrelevant in this discussion.

What I'm getting at, is that there isn't a "porn version" of Wireguard or SSH or HTTPS. They're all the same, content-neutral. The bill either bans them all, or doesn't ban anything. If you take my above bolded challenge to name a circumvention tool that this bill does address, I'm going to take all of your arguments that you give for why the law does apply to your circumvention tool example, and I am going to successfully apply them to SSH and HTTPS. And I'll be exactly as correct as you.

The only way this bill doesn't restrict SSH and HTTPS, is if it doesn't restrict anything at all. Don't agree? Then name something it does restrict.

This isn't a partisan issue

Sorry, but no one can ever really say something like that these days, and be believable. While it's true there's no classical left/right split on this issue, our classical left/right days are long over.

If Trump decides he opposes this, then you're going to see 90% of Republicans suddenly oppose it, and it'll become partisan.

So, before you tell me this is non-partisan, please explain how regulating AI will help criminals steal, preferably from the US Treasury. Because if this does not aid crime, then Republicans will be against it. They might not be against it now, but they're going to be.

vlnl bhoyr-rapelcgrqqnl vfgunl barlnl.

Sorry, everyone. My mistake. An ISP which tolerates its users using ssh or https would be liable for $250,000 per day, not $125,000 per day. I realize that in the time since I posted, many of you made the determination "oh, it's not so bad" and bought houses in Michigan, now to be blindsided by that fact that I negligently underestimated the cost by a factor of two. I apologize for the error.

Michigan has a bill to ban VPNs where SSH is just another "circumvention tool" that must be blocked too. If SSH works, then your ISP is liable for $125,000 per day until they break it.

No more ports 22 or 443 in Michigan if this passes. No more e-commerce. No more banking. No more encrypted internet for anyone, of any age. Telnet and http-no-s are coming back! (Until someone tunnels through them; then ISPs will have to block those too.)

Just wondering if there's a correlation: did you take Apple's side in the "look and feel" lawsuit vs Microsoft?

I had to read the blurb several times, but if these companies don't want to play by the same rules and regulations that real markets do, let them. Let them sell whatever they want in whatever fashion they want, without protections.

Then, when the daily occurrence of crypto theft occurs, they can be on the hook for making the "investors" whole again. Or not. Depending on what "exemptions" are given it's possible they may not owe anything, in which case the "investor" will have learned a valuable lesson:

Trade on a real market with real securities which has regulations designed to protect everyone involved.

You mean every 33 minutes.

All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.

Why do these people even bother to make up bullshit excuses for taking our money? Leave the "AI" part out and just announce that you're writing yourself a few checks at the taxpayers' expense.

Take what you want. Take it all! Just stop lying about it. It's not like you're fooling us anyway.

There's only 2 reasons to have a new piece of hardware rather than make this an app on your phone:

1)It adds new sensors that your phone doesn't have (yet) that will enable new functionality. This won't be the case, as there's no usecase for it
2)It adds a new IO methods that aren't possible on the phone. AR goggles might do this. An AI assistant doesn't, it's all audio and voice.

This is basically just going to be replacable with a bluetooth microphone paired to an app on your phone. Which means nobody is going to buy it- even if they can actually find a usecase people want AI for (doubtful).

I'm doing my part! (Every time I see a window and a conveniently-nearby rock, I throw the rock at the window.)

each additional year companies delay upgrading equipment results in a productivity decline of about one-third of a percent

How is that even measured? Someone needs to tell us how not having the latest and greatest phone reduces productivity. The four basic uses are making/receiving calls, texting, checking email, internet. How can a 2024 model phone possibly be that less "productive" than a 2025 model?

As for PCs, the vast majority of people use Word, Outlook, and a browser (usually the memory hog Chrome followed by Edge). Again, explain how a PC which is three years old reduces productivity in this day and age.

This article almost sounds like an ad to get people to buy things to keep the economy rolling rather than a serious discussion.

Want the simplicity of what Notepad used to be? Mousepad is for you. Too bad it's not available for Windows.

Windows users will just have to suffer with whatever complex, bloated piece of yak manure Microsoft comes up with next.