Reposted by Alec MuffettAlec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 08/10/2026cdn.websitebuilder.service.justice.gov.uk/uploads/site... 211
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 08/10/2026That sounds lovely if one has the money for it; I am fortunate by comparison to some of my fellow schoolparents in that I could at least afford to countenance the idea, but some of them would be financially debilitated by a night out. Money is for food, housing & retail debt. 100
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 08/10/2026I have a 5-year-old. I have considered the above. The short version is: the AI cannot provide cuddles whilst reading. But I still can't cost-benefit-analysis-justify-afford to go to the pub. 100
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Who can afford to go drinking any more? Of course there are some people with disposable cash but... You can spend 10 quid at a pub or 10 quid at a supermarket. Compare and contrast results. 110
Reposted by Alec MuffettAlec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Do you want to see what a genuine existential threat to the internet looks like? x.com/terrorwatchd... 174
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 08/10/2026You're not the only entity to consider that: bsky.app/profile/alec... 000
Reposted by Alec MuffettAlec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Similar analysis from meta but raising the question of open source foundations and how they can survive under this proposal: www.meta.ai/share/c/GUtK...meta.aiMy take on liabilityIf you apply that paper to the existing ecosystem as it exists today - not a hypothetical future ecosystem - this is wha... 021
Reposted by Alec MuffettAlec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 08/10/2026As analyzed by ChatGPT, in ways that I am broadly sympathetic & resonant: chatgpt.com/share/6ac75b...chatgpt.comCheck out this chatHere's a chat someone thought you'd want to see. 101
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Similar analysis from meta but raising the question of open source foundations and how they can survive under this proposal: www.meta.ai/share/c/GUtK...meta.aiMy take on liabilityIf you apply that paper to the existing ecosystem as it exists today - not a hypothetical future ecosystem - this is wha... 021
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 08/10/2026As analyzed by ChatGPT, in ways that I am broadly sympathetic & resonant: chatgpt.com/share/6ac75b...chatgpt.comCheck out this chatHere's a chat someone thought you'd want to see. 101
Reposted by Alec MuffettMartin Calladine @uglygame.bsky.social · 08/10/2026SafeToNet are in @privateeyenews.bsky.social, with the magazine reporting on Paul Moore's investigation into child safety software. This brief story only scratches the surface of what Paul found - like a 20% false negative rate on identifying and blocking pornographic pictures. 11410
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 08/10/2026cdn.websitebuilder.service.justice.gov.uk/uploads/site... 211
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Do you want to see what a genuine existential threat to the internet looks like? x.com/terrorwatchd... 174
Reposted by Alec Muffettvirski.bsky.social @virski.bsky.social · 07/10/2026I think TESCREAL is going too far. It implies everyone in Silicon Valley is sitting there gleefully thinking about their imminently becoming a cyborg or a mind upload. I've also seen transhumanists who don't think a so-called superintelligence is imminent. 131
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 07/10/2026"See the problem here?" People who own stuff are considered rich to the extent of the market value of what they own, and they are permitted to keep owning it, even/especially when it is successful? 020
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 07/10/2026"Gosh, if only I had realised a few decades ago that the proper way to solve an intellectual debate was to challenge my opponent to a duel." (Perhaps some of the people inside EA have been watching Hamilton on repeat?) 100
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 06/10/2026I'm more of the opinion that the US dollar is going to be devalued to the point where 100 billion a year is small change 041
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Now we must wait for British digital rights civil society to work out how to *support* Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and China as defenders of liberty on this one issue: www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...reuters.comMeta, TikTok, X challenge UK watchdog over online safety data demandsMeta , TikTok and X are challenging British regulator Ofcom over the amount of information it is demanding they provide under Britain's nascent online safety regime. 000
Reposted by Alec MuffettAlec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Effective Altruism in Cybersecurity: "why should we worry about the security bugs we have now when we can be fixing the security bugs we believe that we will have in the future?" x.com/AlecMuffett/... 22411
Reposted by Alec Muffett(S) ██ 3.3 (b)(1) ██ @colematt.bsky.social · 03/10/2026I would offer the model is already good at persuasion. After all, it has convinced Oliver that it will one day be god. 041
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Everybody burbles about the evils of social media and how anybody can post misinformation and have it amplified, but absolutely nobody wants to talk about posting truth and reasonably engagement and having it amplified because to do so is not in the interest of anybody. But it works. 020
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 03/10/2026It's a familiar problem from other areas in cybersecurity where epistemic tourists rock up and try to tell us how to do our jobs; aside from the fact that they eventually get bored and leave, it's important to engage with them so that their ideas are challenged and don't get traction. 130
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Effective Altruism in Cybersecurity: "why should we worry about the security bugs we have now when we can be fixing the security bugs we believe that we will have in the future?" x.com/AlecMuffett/... 22411
Reposted by Alec MuffettAlec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Having spoken to some of them I'm absolutely convinced to that there is a cohort of folk in the tech industry who would much rather be waving placards and singing bad folksongs in order to undermine capitalism on a picket line, rather than cut code after daily standup. I mean, I get it, but…static.klipy.comJack Cole: Didn't Get Paid For ThatALT: Jack Cole: Didn't Get Paid For That 011
Reposted by Alec MuffettAlec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Concur; part of the problem is that some people calling for trade unions in the tech industry are essentially doing so for fetishistic / LARP reasons rather than to pursue pragmatic collective bargaining rights for employees. bsky.app/profile/goli... 112
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Having spoken to some of them I'm absolutely convinced to that there is a cohort of folk in the tech industry who would much rather be waving placards and singing bad folksongs in order to undermine capitalism on a picket line, rather than cut code after daily standup. I mean, I get it, but…static.klipy.comJack Cole: Didn't Get Paid For ThatALT: Jack Cole: Didn't Get Paid For That 011
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Concur; part of the problem is that some people calling for trade unions in the tech industry are essentially doing so for fetishistic / LARP reasons rather than to pursue pragmatic collective bargaining rights for employees. bsky.app/profile/goli... 112
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Opportunities to do good in the world are rare and easily squandered, regrettably; but I will also observe that they are quite hard to execute when all of the world is gunning for you. There was a recent thread on Reddit asking about the "why didn't his yacht intervene when… [Continues in alt text] 110
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Heresy! Surely you cannot be suggesting that Mark Zuckerberg and technology platforms in general are simply behaving like perfectly ordinary corporations that have acted thusly for 100 or more years? 100
Reposted by Alec Muffettpeterkwells @peterkwells.com · 28/09/2026Alt: the world's unsafest smartphone paul.reviews/harmblock-wo...paul.reviewsWorld's Safest Smartphone: Please Rotate Responsibly.An independent review of the HMD Fuse, marketed as the World's Safest Smartphone. 363
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 28/09/2026…forgot to add something like IT'S ALL BEING DONE WITH WATER OUTFLOWING FROM DATACENTERS 120
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Now I am waiting for the inevitable Bluesky take along the lines of: AI DOOMERISM IS A PLOT BY BILLIONAIRE SEX CULT TESCREAL ALTRUISTS TO FORCE TRANS PEOPLE TO BREED BY PUTTING CYBER IN THEIR BRAIN'S R-COMPLEX, BERNIE SANDERS IS BEHIND IT - or something like that. 120
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 27/09/2026So I don't have any problem being polite to an LLM if it is likely to lead to me getting a better response by encouraging it down exploratory pathways that it would most likely find if queried by "nice people". Because I suspect that eventually it is going to yield better results than otherwise. 010
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 27/09/2026I understand what this person is saying, but I also have 40 years of "giving hints to compilers" and "using tools in the canonical way rather than surprising them" in order to encourage use of pathways and solutions that I know to be most optimal. So I don't have any problem being polite to an LLM» 110
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 27/09/2026something something relativistic speed travel something 010
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 25/09/2026I have a lovely local pub and it is or used to have a substantial CAMRA reputation, but between the demands of parenthood and the cost of living, I simply consider it a waste to drink "out". If student pubs are equally being undercut by *cocaine*, god knows what society looks like in 20 years. 051
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Scrolling up & down this thread (very worthwhile) is scary but illuminating; from a mundane middle-class perspective, I have been to my local pub maybe 3x in the past 5 years because once I've dropped £12 on 2x pints I remember I could equally get a decent bottle of Rioja & drink it over four days. 111
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Gosh, the latest @ofcom.bsky.social investigation into #AgeVerification at @pornhub.com will conveniently serve as a test for whether Apple will be permitted to break the monopolistic *regulatory capture* currently enjoyed by British AV providers: www.theregister.com/security/202... 021
Reposted by Alec MuffettAlec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Always hilarious to see people attempting to compare aircraft safety to software engineering and then observe that aircraft don't put ordinary people into the pilot seat, nor does Excel Airways permit that pilot to duct-tape IKEA Billy Units to the wings and go into production as a cargo carrier 2103
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 23/09/2026IF YOU DO NOTHING ELSE TODAY: please read this astonishing summary of what Paul Moore has been doing to #SafeToNet, #HarmBlock & the Government-lauded #HMDFuse kids’ phone alecmuffett.com/article/166501 #OnlineSafetyActalecmuffett.comIF YOU DO NOTHING ELSE TODAY: please read this astonishing summary of what Paul Moore has been doing to #SafeToNet, #HarmBlock & the Government-lauded #HMDFuse kids’ phoneEvery online generation has at least one overhyped, disastrously implemented “great white saviour” safety app that turns out to be atrocious. Now comes: HarmBlock+ World’s Safest … 030
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 23/09/2026If you want a three year long change-request process just to put another column into a spreadsheet, you go right ahead. You can implement that for yourself. 040
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Always hilarious to see people attempting to compare aircraft safety to software engineering and then observe that aircraft don't put ordinary people into the pilot seat, nor does Excel Airways permit that pilot to duct-tape IKEA Billy Units to the wings and go into production as a cargo carrier 2103
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Wednesday December 2nd is coming up, which is the 40th anniversary of @srusher.bsky.social & me launching independently, and then jointly, our first messenger systems for UCL students in 1986, after the university withdrew the existing tool for abuse/DoS reasons. So: 40 years in Trust & Safety. ❤️ 071
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Sorry, I'm in the UK, so are we talking about Fox News? 210
Alec Muffett @alecmuffett.bsky.social · 20/09/2026I'm honestly not sure that I could teach them anything which they aren't already thinking about from the perspective of garnering tax revenue or cutting benefits 010
