What kind of computers are they using?

Almost every single restaurant has a take-out service, even if it is unofficial, and especially for good customers. All you need to do is go to the bar and ask the bartender.

Anonymous and Pseudonymous Accounts Are Critical for Users

Pseudonymity—the maintenance of an account on Twitter or any other platform by an identity other than the user’s legal name—is an important element of free expression. Based on some of his recent statements, we are concerned that Musk does not fully appreciate the human rights value of pseudonymous speech.

Pseudonymity and anonymity are essential to protecting users who may have opinions, identities, or interests that do not align with those in power. For example, policies that require real names on Facebook have been used to push out Native Americans; people using traditional Irish, Indonesian, and Scottish names; Catholic clergy; transgender people; drag queens; and sex workers. Political dissidents may be in grave danger if those in power are able to discover their true identities.

Furthermore, there’s little evidence that requiring people to post using their “real” names creates a more civil environment—and plenty of evidence that doing so can have disastrous consequences for some of the platform’s most vulnerable users.

Musk has recently been critical of anonymous users on the platform, and suggested that Twitter should “authenticate all real humans.” Separately, he’s talked about changing the verification process by which accounts get blue checkmarks next to their names to indicate they are “verified.” Botnets and trolls have long presented a problem for Twitter, but requiring users to submit identification to prove that they’re “real” goes against the company’s ethos.

There are no easy ways to require verification without wreaking havoc for some users, and for free speech. Any free speech advocate (as Musk appears to view himself) willing to require users to submit ID to access a platform is likely unaware of the crucial importance of pseudonymity and anonymity. Governments in particular may be able to force Twitter and other services to disclose the true identities of users, and in many global legal systems, do so without sufficient respect for human rights.

And if you allow Chinese-made products into your country you are directly supporting the communist dictatorship government of China, and making them stronger so that they can do even more terrible things to their people. But hey, at least you are able to buy lots of cheap shit. Who cares if a few million people are killed, tortured or commit suicide. It's all worth it, right?

The NTFS3g maintainer lives in Russia. In fact most of the world's NTFS experts are Russian for that matter, since that's where it was developed.

He's about to purchase a ticket when a messenger window blinks open. "Manfred Macx?"

"Ack?"

"Am sorry about yesterday. Analysis dictat incomprehension mutualized."

"Are you the same KGB AI that phoned me yesterday?"

"Da. However, believe you misconceptionized me. External Intelligence Services of Russian Federation am now called FSB. Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti name canceled in 1991."

"You're the –" Manfred spawns a quick search bot, gapes when he sees the answer – "Moscow Windows NT User Group? Okhni NT?"

"Da. Am needing help in defecting."

Manfred scratches his head. "Oh. That's different, then. I thought you were trying to 419 me. This will take some thinking. Why do you want to defect, and who to? Have you thought about where you're going? Is it ideological or strictly economic?"

"Neither – is biological. Am wanting to go away from humans, away from light cone of impending singularity. Take us to the ocean."

"Us?" Something is tickling Manfred's mind: This is where he went wrong yesterday, not researching the background of people he was dealing with. It was bad enough then, without the somatic awareness of Pamela's whiplash love burning at his nerve endings. Now he's not at all sure he knows what he's doing. "Are you a collective or something? A gestalt?"

"Am – were – Panulirus interruptus, with lexical engine and good mix of parallel hidden level neural simulation for logical inference of networked data sources. Is escape channel from processor cluster inside Bezier-Soros Pty. Am was awakened from noise of billion chewing stomachs: product of uploading research technology. Rapidity swallowed expert system, hacked Okhni NT webserver. Swim away! Swim away! Must escape. Will help, you?"

Manfred leans against a black-painted cast-iron bollard next to a cycle rack; he feels dizzy. He stares into the nearest antique shop window at a display of traditional hand-woven Afghan rugs: It's all MiGs and Kalashnikovs and wobbly helicopter gunships against a backdrop of camels.

"Let me get this straight. You're uploads – nervous system state vectors – from spiny lobsters? The Moravec operation; take a neuron, map its synapses, replace with microelectrodes that deliver identical outputs from a simulation of the nerve. Repeat for entire brain, until you've got a working map of it in your simulator. That right?"

"Da. Is-am assimilate expert system – use for self-awareness and contact with net at large – then hack into Moscow Windows NT User Group website. Am wanting to defect. Must repeat? Okay?"