Permacomputing

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Computing to support life on Earth

Computing in the age of climate crisis is often wasteful and adds nothing useful to our real life communities. Here we try to find out how to change that.

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schmorpel

Solarpunk ethical work within IT? (self.permacomputing)

submitted 10 months ago by schmorpel to c/permacomputing

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Looking for perspectives about the above. On my meanderings around the web I've found cybersecurity is all the rage now, cybersecurity experts are desperately needed. Looks a bit like a protection scheme to me - first have everyone save their data in the cloud and buy a smart fridge, then flood everything with ethical hacking courses and cybersecurity certifications.

Reminds me of my marketing translation days working on copy where you always were supposed to outpace your competitors by using some [insert software here]-as-a-service solution to 'compete in an increasingly fast-paced business environment'. Yay rat race.

On the other hand, as to cybersecurity experts, we will need smart people who can re-stupidify our smart appliances when they go rogue.

What would you consider ethical work within IT? Now and in a brighter future?

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[–] poVoq 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

For IoT stuff I think graceful degradation software is needed. Linking to the cloud needs to be optional and not a necessary and functionality breaking feature. Same for the dependency on apps to control IoT stuff, that often goes hand in hand with it.

[–] schmorpel 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Graceful degradation sounds nice. Is that the proper term for "re-stupidifying" smart appliances? Where would I start if I wanted to learn how to exorcise a printer and make it accept non-brand cartridges and connect only to LAN? I did some 3d printer stuff years ago, I guess real printers (and possibly other appliances) are somewhat the same?

[–] poVoq 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

No, it is more about keeping partial functionality when things break or become unavailable.

[–] schmorpel 5 points 10 months ago

One could argue that the printer's unavailability due to its unwillingness to eat common cartridge is a sign that it's broken 😅