On the new good internet, your boss can't use #bossware to turn #WorkFromHome into #LiveAtWork:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#bossware

And on top of that, you have the right to hack that bossware to undetectably disable it (and hackers have the right to sell or give you that hack):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/tech-rights-are-workers-rights-doordash-edition

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We can't (and shouldn't) bring back the old, good internet.

We can (and must!) make a NEW, good internet.

https://doctorow.medium.com/enshitternet-c1d4252e5c6b

#enshittification #interoperability #labor #news #FreedomOfReach #bossware

But the billions that have been thrown at remote attestation over the decades is only incidentally about solving CAPTCHAs or verifying your cloud server. The holy grail here is being able to make sure that you're not running an #AdBlocker. It's being able to remotely verify that you haven't disabled the #bossware your employer requires. It's the power to block someone from opening an #Office365 doc with #LibreOffice.

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And its bad conduct didn't end with the browser wars. You remember how the lockdown turned all our homes into rent-free branch offices for our employers? Microsoft seized on that moment to offer our bosses keystroke-and-click level surveillance of our use of our own computers in our own homes, via its #Office365 #bossware product:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/25/the-peoples-amazon/#clippys-revenge

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Covid is real. The swivel-eyed loons say it was made up or exaggerated, and in any rate, it was a pretext to impose restrictive and extractive policies on everyday people. Covid is real, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a pretext, too.

For example, covid let our bosses declare our homes to be branch offices of their commercial premises, and then use #bossware to spy on us and control us in our own homes, turning "work from home" into "live at work":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#bossware

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"#ReverseCentaurs," because they're the inverse of the #AI theorists' idea of a "#centaur," that is, a computer-assisted human. Instead, they are *human-assisted computers*, with their every last move scripted to the finest degree by #bossware that they have to *pay for*:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/19/the-shakedown/#weird-flex

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Sticking with labor for a moment: the Biden administration is investigating the use of #bossware - the spyware your boss uses to monitor your driving, keystrokes, web usage, location, hand-movements, facial expressions, even your eyeballs:

https://gizmodo.com/remote-work-surveillance-software-workers-rights-1850392911

The #WhiteHouseOfficeForTechnologyAndSciencePolicy's Request for Information solicits your experiences with bossware:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/050123_OSTP_RFI_PREPUBLISH_.pdf

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RT @doctorow
The rise and rise of #bossware - which allows for remote surveillance of workers in their homes and cars - has turned "#WorkFromHome" into "#LiveAtWork."

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The 21st century has seen a return to the #CottageIndustry - a form of production that once saw workers labor far from their bosses and thus beyond their control - but shriven of the autonomy and dignity that working from home once afforded:

https://doctorow.medium.com/gig-work-is-the-opposite-of-steampunk-463e2730ef0d

The rise and rise of #bossware - which allows for remote surveillance of workers in their homes and cars - has turned "#WorkFromHome" into "#LiveAtWork."

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The Growing Spyware Industry Must Be Reined In... From Targeting Journalists To Ever Increasing Workplace Bossware Expansion (how far might that go?)

#Tech #spyware #governance #pegasus #privacy #AI #HumanRights #dignity #autonomy #bossware #malware #infosec #cybersecurity #android #iphone

https://www.cigionline.org/articles/the-growing-global-spyware-industry-must-be-reined-in

"The pandemic lockdowns accelerated this process, as bossware made the leap from the low-waged, precarious Black women who were trapped by Arise’s predatory home call-centers to all kinds of white-collar workers who were told they were working from home, but who were really living at work."

@pluralistic

https://craphound.com/news/2023/03/19/gig-work-is-the-opposite-of-steampunk/

#podcast #CoryDoctorow #BossWare #GigEconomy #PlatformCapitalism

It's not that I'm prescient - fortune-telling is a fatalist's delusion - rather, these phenomena are the most spectacular, most recent examples in a string of ghastly, increasingly dire scandals.

*Red Team Blues* blasted out of my fingertips in six weeks flat, during lockdown, when technology was simultaneously a lifeline, connecting us to one another during our enforced isolation; and a tool of predatory control, as #bossware turned our "work from home" into "live at work."

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The lockdowns saw an explosion in #bossware, technology that monitors your every keystroke, every click, every URL, every file, even the video and audio from the cameras and mics on your devices, whether or not you pay for those devices.

This is the second coming of #Taylorism, the fine-grained, high-handed "scientific" micromanagement of factory workers, transposed to the home, and integrated with sensors that track you down to your eyeballs:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/great-taylors-ghost/#solidarity-or-bust

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This week on my #podcast, I read my recent @medium column, "#GigWork Is the Opposite of #Steampunk," about the worst-of-all-worlds created by #bossware, where an app is your boss, and you live at work because your home and/or car is a branch office of the factory:

https://doctorow.medium.com/gig-work-is-the-opposite-of-steampunk-463e2730ef0d

--

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/19/love-the-machine/#hate-the-factory

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"When gig workers "seize the means of computation" and hack the apps that boss them around, they can turn the tables. That's what's happening in Indonesia, where Tuyul apps are produced by worker co-ops and small software vendors to give drivers direct control over their working conditions"
https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/08/tuyul-apps/#gojek
#bossware #hacking #workersrights

Disturbing, dystopian story: a world in which your boss spies on your brainwaves? That future is near https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/09/boss-spies-brainwaves-dystopian-future?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other #surveillance #bossware #privacy

Your Company's Bossware Could Get You in Legal Trouble

https://www.kolide.com/blog/your-company-s-bossware-could-get-you-in-legal-trouble

#kolide #bossware #privacy #surveillance #RemoteWork #work #keylogger

Ep 278 - 2022 Year in Review
https://edtechsr.com/2023/01/15/edtechsr-ep-278-2022-year-in-review/

@neif & @wfryer close out 2022 with a podcast focusing on big #edtech themes: Schools continue digging out from COVID, AI marches on, the #TechCorrection continues, TikTok's ascendency, Twitter AKA "Dumpster Fire," & the rise of #Bossware. #edtech #MediaLit #BigTech

#EFF Agrees With the #NLRB: #Workers Need Protection Against #Bossware

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/12/eff-agrees-nlrb-workers-need-protection-against-bossware

Hey look at this

* The Butterfly Effect https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-butterfly-effect-2/

* Reimagining Democracy https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/12/reimagining-democracy.html

* @eff Agrees With the NLRB: Workers Need Protection Against #Bossware https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/12/eff-agrees-nlrb-workers-need-protection-against-bossware

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