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The conference is in person, right? What technology will solve the police showing up with guns to arrest the participants?

CoastalCoder 3y ago
> The conference is in person, right? What technology will solve the police showing up with guns to arrest the participants? I don't know, but it sounds like a great idea for a SF story!
- __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
  That's good to hear. I am writing that SF story.
- gtirloni 3y ago
  I see what you did there and I approve ;)
__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
I was responding to: > But does anyone have a plan for rectifying the situation with authoritarianism in that part of the world that does not involve hundreds of millions of people trying to kill each other? We're hackers, we solve things with hacks. But to answer your question, you'd let it be known that whatever happened on stage was a sham, and that the actual award goes to whoever was indicated by whatever consensus process was happening between the devices carried by the people at the event. But you'd let it be known after the event, so no arrests, but the signal would propagate widely enough that the state couldn't use disinformation to confuse the situation. A decisive winner, against the state's wishes. The message would be: > we can make aggregate decisions without your interference Which should sound like a bit of a threat coming from people living under the CCP. If you can coordinate an award against the wishes of your oppressor, you can coordinate less innocent things too.
- justinclift 3y ago
  > But you'd let it be known after the event, so no arrests ... That seems like a hole in the concept. For the situation where the authorities are turning up to arrest people, it's most likely they're not being arrested for winning. It's more likely they're being arrested for other things that happened before. So, the award situation is more being used as a useful honeypot to get them physically there. Those people would be arrested anyway, regardless of whether they win.
- gtirloni 3y ago
  I like acts of civil disobedience against an authoritarian regime but this will accomplish nothing other than put the lives of these people at risk. If you want to use technology and asymmetric warfare for that, do so online from a safe place. Or be prepared to buy and operate physical weaponry in enough quantity.

CoastalCoder 3y ago

> The conference is in person, right? What technology will solve the police showing up with guns to arrest the participants? I don't know, but it sounds like a great idea for a SF story!

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
That's good to hear. I am writing that SF story.
gtirloni 3y ago
I see what you did there and I approve ;)

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago

I was responding to: > But does anyone have a plan for rectifying the situation with authoritarianism in that part of the world that does not involve hundreds of millions of people trying to kill each other? We're hackers, we solve things with hacks. But to answer your question, you'd let it be known that whatever happened on stage was a sham, and that the actual award goes to whoever was indicated by whatever consensus process was happening between the devices carried by the people at the event. But you'd let it be known after the event, so no arrests, but the signal would propagate widely enough that the state couldn't use disinformation to confuse the situation. A decisive winner, against the state's wishes. The message would be: > we can make aggregate decisions without your interference Which should sound like a bit of a threat coming from people living under the CCP. If you can coordinate an award against the wishes of your oppressor, you can coordinate less innocent things too.

justinclift 3y ago
> But you'd let it be known after the event, so no arrests ... That seems like a hole in the concept. For the situation where the authorities are turning up to arrest people, it's most likely they're not being arrested for winning. It's more likely they're being arrested for other things that happened before. So, the award situation is more being used as a useful honeypot to get them physically there. Those people would be arrested anyway, regardless of whether they win.
gtirloni 3y ago
I like acts of civil disobedience against an authoritarian regime but this will accomplish nothing other than put the lives of these people at risk. If you want to use technology and asymmetric warfare for that, do so online from a safe place. Or be prepared to buy and operate physical weaponry in enough quantity.