Quality Sources

The below text was made by using following pre. It attaches a source, Wikipedia-style:

Shoutout to [@[email protected]](https://lemmy.ml/u/yogthos) for his Density Saves Nature^[https://lemmy.ml/post/1093051?scrollToComments=true] post where I figured this out.

Shoutout to @[email protected] for his Density Saves Nature^[https://lemmy.ml/post/1093051?scrollToComments=true] post where I figured this out.

According to the document:

• The project involved, among other tasks, performing gain-of-function on bat coronavirus SARSr-CoV WIV1, with the aim of studying its potential ability to infect humans.
• The researchers believed regulations on gain-of-function research did not apply in this case, since the original virus did not affect humans, despite the desired product virus being able to do so.
• Their risk assessment does not include the possibility of the newly created virus accidentally infecting workers or human research subjects.
• The resulting viruses were to be tested on both human tissues and modified mice with human ACE2 enzyme.
• Human subjects from "high-risk areas" were involved on-site for non-experimental purposes.
• These experiments were performed within facilities of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
• The phase of the project wherein these experiments were first mentioned started on June 2019.

Additionally, this adds:

• The entire project started in June 2014 and initially involved collecting virus samples from different sources, including the wildlife market in Wuhan.

Dumping the sources here because a friend requested them. Thought it would be good to document.

2019 - A recently discovered zero-day vulnerability in the world’s most popular messenger — WhatsApp — allowed hackers to eavesdrop on users, read their encrypted chats, turn on the microphone and camera, and install spyware that allows even further surveillance, such as browsing through the victim’s photos and videos, accessing their contact list, and so on. What’s even worse, to exploit the vulnerability, all the hacker needs to do is call the victim on WhatsApp.. Reported by Kaspersky, highly reputable cyber security company

2020 - NSO Group allegedly connected to hacks of 1,400 people including human rights activists. Reported by TheGuardian, perennial news outlet. Note the (Israeli) NSO Group discussed here was exploiting WhatsApp

2021 - 50 people close to Mexico's president spied on via WhatsApp backdoors. Again reported by TheGuardian. Same (Israeli) NSO group as above

2021 - Revealed: murdered journalist’s number selected by Mexican NSO client. Again reported by TheGuardian (there's lots of sources but I'm sticking with these guys for their good journalism). Mexican journalist was murdered. Was one of the people who was hacked through WhatsApp. Note his murder actually took place in 2017 (this has been going on for some time)

2022 - WhatsApp accidentally had another insanely dangerous vulnurability. This one is a random source, but it links the actual CVE. It's crazy how WhatsApp keeps "accidentally" having perfect government-level backdoors.

*****

My personal take is this - Unless you genuinely want everyone to read the messages you send your friends, you need to use a private messaging app. For an app to be private, it needs to be secure. For an app to be secure, it needs to be open source. WhatsApp is not secure. It is not private. Stop using it.

*****

Apologies for typos/mistakes, it's 4:30am, was just stitching sources together real quick. By the way, the founder(?) of Telegram had a blog where he wrote about this too but I can't find it right now. If anyone has a link, please share :)

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/379379

> ! > > ! > > CDC 2019 > > ! > > CDC 2021

The original CIA document link does not work/content was removed, but fortunately the document is archived.

All the quotes in the article are taken from book "My Song: A Memoir of Art, Race, and Defiance" by Harry Belafonte, which can be purchased here.

“Suddenly, Martin lost his temper. ‘I don’t need to hear from you, Andy,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard enough from you. You’re a capitalist, and I’m not. And so we don’t see eye to eye—on this and a lot of other stuff.’

“The tension peaked. ‘The trouble,’ Martin went on, ‘is that we live in a failed system. Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level…That’s the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we’re going to have to change the system.’

“At heart, Martin was a socialist and a revolutionary thinker. He spoke not just in anger, but in anguish. His voice dropped to a more reflective tone as he continued. ‘We fought hard and long, and I have never doubted that we would prevail in this struggle. Already our rewards have begun to reveal themselves. Desegregation…the Voting Rights Act…’ He paused. ‘But what deeply troubles me now is that for all the steps we’ve taken toward integration, I’ve come to believe that we are integrating into a burning house.’

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/430091

> Starting in 1956, the USSR begun reducing the total hours of labor, which had a deadline to meet by 1968. If this plan was successful, hours of labor would have went from 48 hours a week, to 30 hours a week, and the minimum wage would have went from 250 to more than 600 rubles. > > In 1961, the CIA was worried as how the USSR could be reducing the workday, without reducing its efforts in the cold war. > > CIA originally believed that if the USSR reduced work hours, then it would be harder for the USSR to maintain their defense. However, what they found was that USSR was able to solve many problems by reducing the hours worked. They were able to tap into a large reserve of labor. > > ! > > The soviets forcing managers to reduce labor time in return led to higher automation, introduction of new technology, and more advanced production measures. Increasing output in light and heavy industry was achieved by increasing employment. > > Reduction of labor hours in the USSR actually did what Marx predicted it would in volume 1 of capital. The density of the workday could be increased by reducing the workday. You could produce more by working less. The USSR proved Marx theory to be true. > > !

(Not exhaustive)

Refers to Taiwan independently of China

• World Trade Organization
• Google
• Steam

Explicitly refers to Taiwan as a country

• Twitter
• Reddit
• Arch Linux
• Bloomberg
• Worldometers (Trusted source by UK Government, Johns Hopkins CSSE, the Government of Thailand, the Government of Pakistan, the Government of Sri Lanka, Government of Vietnam, and others)

Alright I'm bored now, should be a decent sized list