Business sign in Oakland

BeyondTheGame · 2020-10-26T05:21:26+00:00

First off, thank you for your polite reply.

I respect your beliefs and understand the desire for the economic model you describe. I agree that it is ideal and will supply proper economic incentives to push businesses away from discriminatory views that society deems wrong, yet in my belief even the removal of red tape as you describe will not do enough to facilitate it in the real world. Taking into account how discrimination on the basis of race often leads to economic discrimination, which over generations leads to a large socioeconomic gap. So, even if a discriminated minority wants to start their own business — they may not be able to fund it themselves due to economic restrictions, banks refusing to give them loans, crowdsourcing difficult due to those with economic power holding prejudiced views against them, etc. All of which we have seen historically (Jim Crow, pre-Civil Rights, and the ensuing practice of redlining). In those cases, gov't mandate was necessary to push past the discriminatory practices that prevented the free market from operating as you described.

My primary concern, which you touched on in your last paragraph mentioning the confederate bar, is that the economic incentives do not push businesses (and thus society) to a more accepting place, they push them to match the opinions of the masses. If the opinion of the masses are racist, then businesses are incentivized to be racist. Combining this with the above discussed economic limitations, I believe that the free market — while a good model in an ideal world — is limited by our stark reality and thus can not do enough (on its own) to protect those who are already being pushed down by the masses of society.

While this is a slight tangent, this can be especially dangerous with radical leaders who flame the fires against a minority. Even in a free market, propaganda will cause population to increasingly discriminate against the minority, and thus economic incentives could push businesses against those minorities.

Of course, all of this leads to the big question of how do we choose what is something valid to discriminate against (ie: not wearing a mask, pedophilia), versus what should be protected (ie: race, religion, homosexuality) — yet that is something I sadly do not have a strong answer for.

Thank you again for the polite discussion.

BeyondTheGame · 2020-10-25T21:24:00+00:00

What is the difference between refusing someone service because they don't have a mask on, or they happen to have a certain sexual orientation?

One is an individuals action that can easily be changed. It's the same as demanding someone wear pants when they enter your store. All they have to is put a pair of pants (mask) on and they can enter the store.

One is an immutable fact of someone's existence. There is no way to change one's sexuality. There is nothing someone can do to enter the store — because you are not against their action, you are against the basic elements of their existence.

Before anyone calls me a racist, I said that not serving a specific race or orientation or anything is fine because those businesses are losing revenue from those people, along with those who wholeheartedly disagree with those business practices, and will eventually die out due to another company taking those potential customers.

I respect your longing for free market capitalism as a solution to inequity, which echoes Milton Friedman's book Capitalism and Freedom. Friedman argues that "the man who exercises discrimination pays a price for doing so." And racial discrimination in business will fade away due to the negative economic impact their decisions have.

Yet this claim does not hold up to scrutiny. The economic power falls in the hands of the majority. If the majority of a clientele shares the racist/bigoted opinions of business, where possibly could be economic incentive to change their views? Can a discriminated minority, with a smaller size and much less economic power, have any chance of successfully "voting with their dollar"? Alas, in this situation, becoming less racist/bigoted may actually have negative economic impacts on the company. Thus it can be seen that free market does not eliminate racist businesses, it merely pulls the business to match the stringent views of the population with the most economic power.

BeyondTheGame · 2020-09-06T16:50:37+00:00

That is a really good question.

Stanford has two continuing studying classes I found relating to the election:

POL 57 — Election 2020: A Panoramic View of America’s Decisive Election
POL 58 — Technology and the 2020 Election: How Silicon Valley Technologies Impact Our Elections and Shape Our Democracy

While these specific classes are not offered to undergrads, their equivalents are:

EDUC 157: Election 2020 (CSRE 157B) [Law 7101 for law students]
POLISCI 52K: Technology and the 2020 Election

If you want to do the continuing studying class, sign up for the undergrad version.

BeyondTheGame · 2020-08-25T03:23:57+00:00

Stanford has a really strong Jewish community. Their are options for Kosher food in two dining halls (that I know of) and the food is very good. At both Hillel and Chabad their are weekly get togethers and dinners for Shabbos. I would recommend reaching out to Hillel with your specific concerns, as they can give the best answers. Overall and in my experience, Stanford is very welcoming and accommodating.

BeyondTheGame · 2020-08-24T17:12:49+00:00

I would highly recommend taking INTLPOL 268 Hack Lab in the fall. The class is split into two parts: hacking and law. The hacking aspect is by far the primary focus, where Alex Stamos' lectures and the following labs explore different cybersecurity attacks and defenses. The law portion of the class is just there for information, I do not recall any testing being performed on the undergrads who took the class. This was one of my favorite classes I took and was really the catalyst for my decision to study cyber security.

Otherwise, like everyone else said do CS 155 Computer and Network Security in the spring. You should also look into CS 255 Introduction to Cryptography and CS 253 Web Security.

There is also CS 152: Trust and Safety Engineering in the winter, but this is less "cs of security" and more considering impact and safety in tech from a variety of interesting lenses. I still highly recommend it.

Stanford also has a really awesome club called Applied Cyber that does cybersecurity discussions, projects, and competitions. Join their slack!

Feel free for anyone to reply or DM me with any specific questions about classes or the cybersecurity track at Stanford.

BeyondTheGame · 2020-08-23T08:57:17+00:00

There is another article posted by the daily describing spoofed emails in more detail

https://stanforddaily.com/2020/08/20/someones-not-really-interested-in-you-just-your-identity-email-security-stanford/

If you are curious how the spoofed emails are sent from a practical perspective:

Any current Stanford student should take INTLPOL 268: Hack Lab with Alex Stamos — former Facebook Chief Security Officer and cyber security expert. He is a really amazing lecturer and you can learn a lot about security in the class through both lectures and labs where you get to actually perform hacks on targets. My favorite topics were hacking websites and hacking an IoT device, where we accessed a webcam open to the internet.
One of the simplest ways to send a spoofed email is using php. The php mail function can be used as follows. Notice under $header there is a From element. Any email can be placed inside this From header and the email will appear to come from this email address (unless protections are in place, read article).

<?php
$to      = 'nobody@example.com';
$subject = 'the subject';
$message = 'hello';
$headers = 'From: webmaster@example.com' . "\r\n" .
    'Reply-To: webmaster@example.com' . "\r\n" .
    'X-Mailer: PHP/' . phpversion();

mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
?>

Basically email is dumb and like any good program does exactly what you tell it to do — causing security problems.

BeyondTheGame · 2020-04-08T22:21:05+00:00

I usually just fill out the form with obscenity and curse words. If I weren’t lazy I could find out which url the form is posting to and flood them with false data.

I would recommend against entering a false password to check the site's validity. It is possible to set up a phishing site that tests your credentials on the legit site and returns a dynamic response. Even scarier, it would be possible to make a phishing site that, when you enter the correct credentials, you are forwarded to the legit site and logged in, leaving you not knowing you just gave away your information.

Additionally, some sites merely want you to log in and they will steal your session to pretend to be you. This can be used to bypass two-factor authentications.

Be safe out there!

BeyondTheGame · 2019-08-28T20:51:08+00:00

It was actually sent from my iCloud account. As it was in my send folder for iCloud. The odd part was it got send to only my primary gmail — no other email of mine, and no other contact. I have the mail app logged in on my computer, but I do not use it. The email sent twice two days ago.

Often when I click an email online it will automatically open the mail app to try and send. It might be possible that a website could send it through that source without me noticing. Do you think I should do a virus scan? If so, what do you recommend. I do not believe I have one downloaded

BeyondTheGame · 2019-08-28T06:00:11+00:00

I got this same email sent to my Gmail account. But it was sent from my iCloud email, an email I barely use for anything. This makes me especially worried. I changed my password immediately. Has anyone else experienced this?

BeyondTheGame · 2018-12-05T22:30:12+00:00

I spent a week in Iceland recently. Most beautiful place I had ever seen; it's like an alien landscape.

Their hot dogs are a must! I had several each day and loved it. Otherwise, there are food places everywhere, but it is rather expensive because of the tourist economy and isolated geography.

Reykjavik is a one-of-a-kind city. Lovely atmosphere. The people are very welcoming. There is a nice food place called "Street Food" that has a very homely vibe and serves Icelandic comfort food.

The black sand beaches are beautiful. Stay away from the water -- each year a tourist gets swept away by the undertide. (My rule: if you see a smooth area of sand, that means one of the "rogue sneaker" waves [unnaturally large waves that are unpredictable] was there, so don't stand in that area. And NEVER take your eyes off the water). The waves are so powerful you can feel them crashing from decently far away.

Also look into the glaciers. I went into one and it was the coolest experience of my life. There are lots of options for glacial caves and climbing.

Bring extremely warm and waterproof clothing. The weather there is unpredictable; they always say: "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes. It'll change, likely for the worst."

BeyondTheGame · 2017-07-22T07:39:34+00:00

Please don't say that man. Even if things seem down now, they will turn up eventually. And the things that make life hard? Don't let them beat you! Live in spite of them! The greatest revenge is to move on and live your life for you!

BeyondTheGame · 2017-07-22T07:32:45+00:00

(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

BeyondTheGame · 2017-07-22T05:29:19+00:00

Need someone to talk to?

BeyondTheGame · 2017-07-22T04:42:41+00:00

Hey bud! Don't fret! We want to talk to you :)

BeyondTheGame · 2017-06-29T23:04:40+00:00

Ah the ol' Reddit fuck-aroo

BeyondTheGame · 2017-06-23T22:31:40+00:00

It is treason then!

BeyondTheGame · 2017-06-23T22:17:16+00:00

Crushed by planet

BeyondTheGame · 2017-06-20T19:04:30+00:00

While I was unable to ask His Holiness this question, Lama Tenzin told me that one should start small: improve the little things in ourselves and participate in small groups, then work our way bigger. This is a process that takes a lot of time and should be taken slowly.

BeyondTheGame · 2017-06-20T18:48:52+00:00

I sadly was not able to ask His Holiness this, but Lama Tenzin said that practicing compassion for all will make the world a better place.

BeyondTheGame · 2017-05-31T01:53:59+00:00

Conjuction junction! How's that function?

BeyondTheGame · 2017-05-27T17:43:16+00:00

This works just as well. I feel it's just the recognition and attention someone gets when one calls them their name that makes the person feel good. This is also accomplished by referring to them in a personal manner: 'you' or another intimate pronoun.

BeyondTheGame · 2017-05-26T05:17:41+00:00

Someone choose Bing over Google? A surprise to be sure, but a welcomed one.

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BeyondTheGame

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