The Mad King's Digital Killswitch
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The article discusses the increasing control tech companies have over devices and services, likening it to a 'digital killswitch', with the discussion revolving around the implications of such control and potential alternatives.
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Oct 25, 2025 at 12:15 PM EDT
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Hmm. Even nukes?
Permissive Action Links were deeply unpopular with the military because they put control of the weapons with the government, rather than with the relevant commanders. Even when finally mandated, the military set the codes to all zeros.
Coincidentally, US Navy's PALs never required "keys".
Yes, and John Lennon even wrote a song about imagining it.
> That would completely defeat MAD.
And that's a bad thing? Besides, it wouldn't. The threat of MAD is what makes it work, not actual MAD itself. Unless <Bad Actor> confidently controlled that kill switch, the threat would remain.
I definitely think MAD led to a strategic stability that was better than the alternative. This is why things like missile shields (pure defense) are seen as dangerously aggressive, and why the submarine leg of the triad is so important. If you could be confident that your opponents couldn't actually hit you, you would feel much more comfortable issuing a first strike. The fact that they might have a nuke boat somewhere off your coast means you can never be confident that a counter-force first strike will be effective, so you never do it and the world lives another day.
There is no Obama or Biden counterpart to Trump's extrajudicial killings in the Venezuelan coast. Nor Trump's coercion over private industry through his tariffs and lawsuits. Even the far-right's fictions about foreign leaders buying access to Biden through Hunter is so incredibly tame to how Trump does this stuff in public with his crypto or like when talking to that Indonesian leader the other day -- that whole weird "I am a good boy" thing from Eric Trump.
Equivocating these things is a derangement syndrome entirely of its own design.
Sadly, this isn't really true. The Obama administration had their Terror Tuesdays:
https://web.archive.org/web/20120530104348/https://www.nytim...
The program was only mildly controversial at thetime. The killing not so much—it was more about the alleged presence of a Democratic campaign strategist in those coordination meetings.
There is no comparable authorization here. There is, to my knowledge, no allegation that these Venezuelans had anything to do with Al Qaida or the Sept. 11 attacks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_III
There are actually valid reasons for BORTAC to be armed to the gills, but they're meant to point all that firepower at organized crime (cartels) in the border zone, not Americans in Chicago.
But fair argument - words matter. I was being glib with "tanks". What I really mean is that anyone backed by the power of the US government to extrajudiciously kidnap people and deport them without due process is not a vulnerable group (by definition) and should not be a protected class (in my opinion).
Yes, and shotguns would be magical boomsticks in the Trojan Wars.
Again, words have meanings. Yours are incorrect, and do not help your cause.
Regardless, the parent poster was right - I cannot find any proof of ICE having modern tanks, just some lighter equipment. And regardless of that, I think my point stands - ICE is emphatically not a vulnerable group, and Google is saying they are because they want Most Favored Company status with our increasingly fascist regime.
More important is whether membership in the group is based on something that harms others. Let's protect people who want to be left alone so they can pursue their passions in peaceful ways. As for those who want to be left alone so they can kidnap and bully--lets ensure they're as vulnerable as possible until they change their ways.
I'm not conflating the two - Google told 404 Media they were a vulnerable group, while Apple applied a guideline that has previously been used on protected classes, which it seems Migrant Insider interpreted as:
>The decision effectively treats federal immigration agents as a protected class — a novel interpretation of Apple’s hate-speech policy that shields one of the most powerful arms of government from public scrutiny.
Google:
https://www.404media.co/google-calls-ice-agents-a-vulnerable...
Apple:
https://migrantinsider.com/p/scoop-apple-quietly-made-ice-ag...
though that link seems dead so archive.org to the rescue:
https://web.archive.org/web/20251010134146/https://migrantin...
Whether they deserve legal protections from such activity is a totally orthogonal issue. I don't think they should--not in excess of any protections that the law offers anyone else. But that assessment has nothing to do with whether they drive a tank when they're at work.
Now, I'm not sure how we get 'open' ecosystems to a tipping point, but have observed the likes of Apple and Microsoft doing a pretty good job of slowly and steadily 'self-owning'... so maybe it's a waiting game?
I was a regular on the BoingBoing BBS for many years. Doctorow has gotten kind of click baity and loose with facts the past ~10 years or so.
Unsaid in this article is that these phones quickly become useless if governments are able to just shut off internet connectivity through cell service and perhaps targeted local outages to reduce wifi alternatives. Without some kind of mesh networking it doesn't really matter that Apple and Google already sold you out.
For free: connect your phone to a computer once then follow instructions online then refresh it over WiFi once per week. It does it automatically. Hacked games, Spotify premium no ads, YouTube no ads, or whatever app you decide to make on your own.
> “If we build this robot army, do I have at least a strong influence over this robot army?” he told investors. “Not control, but a strong influence… I don’t feel comfortable building that robot army unless I have a strong influence.”
https://futurism.com/robots-and-machines/elon-musk-remarks-r...
I can't imagine Jobs (for all his many flaws) rolling over so easily.