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Blog posts from Touching Grass Since 2001 (touching-grass)


The illusion of Surveillance Capitalism narrative as we knew it.

Exactly one year ago, I made the decision to withdraw myself from those surveillance capitalism narrative where corporations and governments are ambitioning for extracting your data in exchange for all the fun and convenient things of the cyberspace. And you have to take action. As a person who have ever worked with real FLOSS organizations before real technological startups and real government, I too can connect such one narrative to another. To justify my reasons on dropping the surveillance narrative altogether, I need to say that we live in a society where technological ambitions—including Surveillance Capitalism and Artificial Intelligence—often come and go and leave a huge loss of money and effort. Learning from the fall of Big Data Let's say about the old tale of Big Data, which was perceived as "revolutionary towards the rapid globalization and digitalization" as many people including me believed 5 years ago. And today, we can no longer deny that the role models of Big Data—Google and companies alike—are being beaten by the legal forces of European Union, and surprise, the United States' Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice. "Data is the new oil" suddenly posed business threats that are barely different than those dealing with real oil. Huge legal battles about monopoly in the energy sector, workplace practices and ethics, cases of environmental and sustainability are keep coming towards the industry. It is also recently known that ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) initiative, which PwC pitched three years ago to be highly significant for investors, suddenly became nothing but a massive virtue signalling campaign to psychologically stimulate humans to buy and consume their products. It is clearer each day the industries honestly no longer want to establish such goals. Some of you may already relate those "real oil" company issues with those dealing with "digital oil". The people behind such "digital liberation" movements, including the EFF and FSF, writing their own personal book of corporate sins for email companies, your operating system (including Apple and even Linux), your well-known search engine, your smartphone brand, your "smart" printer, and at the end of the day, towards governments with their law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Here's a page taken out from one of their books of corporate sins: The new version of MacOS — and therefore the new generation of Macs — informs Apple of every time the machine launches a program. The Guardian press seems blissfully unaware of this spying. It even repeats Apple's claims to help users protect their privacy — but only some aspects of their privacy. Just as software developers have redefined "security" to mean "security against everyone but us", Apple is redefining "privacy" to mean "privacy from everyone but us." Reasons not to use Apple by Richard Stallman Not to mention the latest incidents in the tech ambition world: the Apple fallacy of privacy, Google finally get convicted for monopoly with DoJ proposing to sell off Chrome. The Big Data and ESG-like "blockchain-first" corporate pledges are going away, and as we know before, those influencers who were hyped with Blockchain jumped ship to AI. To whom it may concern, double the red pill, please. The Cyberspace is never meant for freedom. Some who support the anti-surveillance liberation movement may be proud for being "red-pilled" (as in The Matrix) over this situation. But it's also an irony that they forgot to take another red pill. A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace believes that the Cyberspace itself is independent from the forces of the industrial governments, which they accuse for not being wholeheartedly involved in their conversation, and instead enforces laws by raising issues which the people claiming to be part of the Cyberspace claimed never existed. But is it? It is clear that the early origins of the Internet significantly came from ARPANET, an United States government project. ARPANET was not a regular, political or democratic effort of establishing the computer networks for the public, but it is a military project in the first place. Now what did the military project bring into the design of the modern-world Internet? Yes, the basic TCP/IP network that we still even use as of today. By using the present-day Internet, knowingly and unknowingly, we are using the designs and the arts of the military government to our personal benefits. Like a peanut forgetting their skin. Okay, long story, but some of you cypherpunks wanted to stay away from the government by using a technique named encryption. But think again what made encryption freely available to you, and especially for United States citizens, to people outside of your country. Did you know that the US government has provided a set of encryption algorithm that we blindly use it for day-to-day encryption!? Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) is everywhere, and even it is used for HTTPS and validating your Linux software packages with a checksum. And as the goodness of SHA itself came from the militant nature of the United States government agencies, so are they protected by the cryptographic exports laws. Thanks to such laws, almost everyone can enjoy the benefits of encryption, including your ambitions to lock yourself out from the governments. I would recommend you to thank to your (government) enemy to give the kindness and permission to you, which the government may identify you as an enemy of theirs, to use such algorithms for use inside and outside the countries where such algorithms are developed and respectfully belong to. So, is freedom synonymous to stealing? Reflecting my actions over the past 12 months of not engaging with such ideological narratives, I wonder if I keep supporting defeating surveillance capitalism, either the enterprise or the government side of things, could eventually benefit me in the long term. If I believe that my personal life and data are stolen as part of a social experimentation from those parties, then I and others decided to take them back by stealing their opportunities, then what makes us different from our own enemies if we altogether love to steal? I know that the Holy Bible has all the answers that we are tasked to pray, give ourselves away, and even bless our own enemies. Applying the basic principles from Mark 12:17, and as the Internet partly bears the image of the government ambitions to organize their (military) missions to protect their own country, I am giving back what belong to the Caesar to Caesar, those who are God's to God, and those belong to the governments, to the governments. I will apply the same principles to the other parts of the Internet, too. The images of academic research efforts for academia, the images of enterprise ambitions to enterprises, and organizations for organizations, and my own intentions for myself. And in addition to that, while accounting to the same Bible, I am a product even in your own terms, as I did not pay anything to be born as a boy on this world (I would rather stay happily in the heavens in exchange for that). Being light—wholeheartedly transparent of our identity, existence, and actions—is indeed a great consequence of following Christ. But I would doubt you shall believe the Bible if you stay true to your ethical beliefs, because all the stories I referenced from the Bible, are all the personal information gathered from real people who were recorded before your establishment of modern human rights and digital rights. Remembering that blessings come from privacy invasions. If I truly follow the current modern world definition of digital privacy as a human right, then I would proudly present the Holy Bible as a great written historical record of people that we even read everyday without each of these people’s consent. The process of recording and distributing the events in the Holy Bible should be considered a privacy invasion, as I and we did not even ask for the consent of the descendants of Abraham, Samuel, or so, just to be able to read, modify, and/or reproduce their stories and quotes either for commercial or non-commercial purposes. We did not ask for the legal consent of the parents of Joseph, Jacob, and David in order to do the same with their stories. Unlike the former ones, these people and their guilty sins were recorded since their childhood days, making the Holy Bible a product of the biggest children’s privacy invasion conducted over more than 1,000 years. If you uphold the values of purity and digital privacy against preying companies and governments, but at the same time love the stories of the Bible, it may be an indication of a double standard. Just as I said last year, God did not ask us to be a light of the world except for Facebook, or even having our shine end-to-end encrypted to peers that you can only trust in such a rigorous process. This Bible is why I left my beliefs on surveillance capitalism.

The future of Shift and Shiftine is in the real life.
Cover image for The future of Shift and Shiftine is in the real life.
Menjadi pribadi yang apa adanya.
Cover image for Menjadi pribadi yang apa adanya.
Resolusi Tahun 2023

Masih ingat post yang satu ini? Sebelum saya mengumumkan resolusi 2023, mari kita cek pencapaian resolusi tahun 2022! Pencapaian Resolusi 2022 Masuk LINE TODAY - malah LINE Todaynya tutup 😭😭😭 Lebih dari 2,000 contributions di GitHub - bablas sampai lebih dari 4,000 contributions! 🎉🎉🎉 Bikin 1 aplikasi baru tiap bulan AEP Mobile BINUSMAYA Down BINUS Today Mobile (masih pengembangan) HAM (meski dibikin sebelum resolusi ini ditulis tapi barusan ultah yo!) Info QRIS 2.0 (masih pengembangan) PQRS (masih pengembangan) Reinhart Maps Ga dapat 12 sih, tapi, hasilnya memuaskan Lulus MSJ 1 & 2 - Malah bablas ke MSJ 3 dan CGT 1 Langsung ngegas skripsi (sidang @ Semester 7) - Masih lanjut!!! Ngajakin lebih banyak orang pergi ke CG (Note: bukan restoran Common Grounds) - CG FAAAANNNNN, IS NOT FAN WITHAUT YUUUUUU... Punya Shiftine di kehidupan nyata - Ada Resolusi 2023 Kali ini saya akan lebih singkat dan serius, yaitu: Summa Cum Laude Menjadi pribadi yang apa adanya Setop menyalahkan diri sendiri

How not to be an “AI” virtual girlfriend.
Cover image for How not to be an “AI” virtual girlfriend.
Some notes about personal beliefs, Christianity, Big Tech, and GAFAM.

Yes, I have been on both pro and anti-GAFAM communities before, yet I'm still respecting people from each sides. However, as I celebrate my 10th anniversary of my journey into numerous worldwide tech communities, those ups and downs have led me into one big conclusion: You cannot be selective on whom would you want to act, and don't act, as the salt and light of the world. Yep, that verses from Matthew 5. And in this time, read again verses 14-16. “In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”‭‭Matthew‬ ‭5‬:‭16‬ ‭NIV‬‬https://bible.com/bible/111/mat.5.16.NIV‭‭God wants ourselves to share good deeds to all. There are no verses that implicitly states that you should “shine your light to everyone except Facebook” or “shine your light to everyone except those who practice surveillance capitalism”. No. And you know what? When you decide to judge those greedy governments and companies which you have declared them not respecting to your privacy, how about those people, those who still believe in God and favors Him through their works, but worked or partnered with these companies? Would you judge them as big sinners as well because you have judged the company before them? Look back at the case of Jacob in the kingdom of Egypt, or Daniel and his friends in Babylonia. Both kingdoms were considered big sinners, primarily because of their disbelief in God as well as their disgraceful practices. However, God strategically placed and used His people in the kingdoms of big sinners to make change, to make difference so the people can glorify Him to let Him save, not curse, those kingdoms. This is how we should act in the world of privacy greediness—both in the sides of the privacy-greedy companies as well as privacy-greedy individuals. And speaking of decentralization of control of data, technology, and the Internet, I’ve stated before that decentralization won’t eventually replace centralization, because centralization is indeed a vital key for decentralization to work. I know that’s ironic, but unfortunately, it’s the truth. This world and the universe is primarily modeled after centralization. Sunrises and sunsets won't come without the Earth centralizing itself to its sun while centralizing its rotation on its axis. And if you believe and fear of God, you are alredy centralizing yourself to Him. And lastly, from that simple “salt and light” illustrations, God really favors us who exhibit our saltiness and shine our light to anyone without any exceptions, including the digital worlds. As long as we’ve done our part, please kindly leave the right to Him to avenge those who are greedy.

Pemulihan gambar diri.
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The F, A, R, and how do we get there.
Cover image for The F, A, R, and how do we get there.
Christmas could be over, but we're not (Christmas 2022 Part 3).
Cover image for Christmas could be over, but we're not (Christmas 2022 Part 3).


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