Irenes (many)

You are all dreams and we are happy to know you, as you are nice dreams. We are an asexual autistic trans-feminine plural system with a label collection.

We compromise with legibility only so far as to say the following: Technology Director at Internet Safety Labs; ex-Google information privacy expert. 🏳️‍⚧️🍁

Key Fingerprint: E864 BDFA AB55 36FD C905 5195 DBF2 52AF FB26 19FD
Key File: https://irenes.space/irenes.asc
Relevant Information: https://pluralpride.org/playbook/
Blog, Code, Thingamajigs: https://irenes.space/

Last Notes

2026-03-22 11:20:03 UTC

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despite the multiple serious critiques of it we have, we're huge fans of it as a technology
it's just every technology is also a community, and, well, we had a very close-up view that whole political debacle there a while back. so our focus is on what comes next. alas.

2026-03-22 11:11:39 UTC

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they're an excellent example of that old thing about the architecture of a software system mirroring the structure of the organization that produced it, is what they are

2026-02-23 19:30:28 UTC

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do you mind if we reshare this?

2026-02-20 22:33:49 UTC

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yeah it's worth pointing out that google web search was viewed with considerable, warranted hostility by people who ran small community sites, back when it was new. scraping for the purpose of search is the status quo today but that doesn't mean it should be accepted without question.

2026-02-13 00:53:07 UTC

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yes. the system of it must end. it is not enough just to defeat this one specific regime.

2026-01-10 02:27:36 UTC

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we've never actually heard a rationale

2025-10-12 23:55:51 UTC

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oh - are you focusing in on the "associated the account" thing?
we think that's kind of a harsh reading to suggest that that's making a technical claim, given that it's, uh... go re-read the original toot

2025-10-12 23:44:55 UTC

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they must access it at the point of verification. what they do with it afterwards is up to governance, trust, and the tooth fairy.

2025-10-12 23:39:04 UTC

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there has already been a major leak of sensitive personal documents from identity verification (the recent Discord leak)

2025-10-12 23:38:27 UTC

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with that said, our first point about identity verification technology would be that the actual companies administering it are profoundly irresponsible. since they basically market themselves to cops in the same way ie. Taser does, nobody should be surprised by that, and they are not likely to become responsible.

2025-10-12 23:37:17 UTC

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yes, it's important to be accurate about what is and isn't possible
we do prefer to just not have the side discussion about the merits of particular proposed technologies, because it misses the point **SO HARD** and it is **SUCH** a shiny, effective distraction

2025-10-12 23:32:24 UTC

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so in our view (hi! this is our field), focusing on this aspect ignores the harm that happens at the moment of enforcement, regardless of where the data goes after
governments do not get to decide **which** people are eligible to engage in speech. we all already know where that goes, let's not fool ourselves

2025-08-16 21:28:36 UTC

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they're good. we recommend them, as a general category.
we're not in a position to recommend a specific manufacturer, but if the device can be reprogrammed to have new features without erasing its key material, it is not secure. there are some purely-experimental devices in that category, and don't mistake them for something you should use "for real".

2025-07-20 01:25:24 UTC

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yeah we had one but it was super expensive (and a very questionable use of household funds, but we were too young to know that)
we remember lots of games would come with two sets of directions, one for using it off the disks and one for people with hard drives