@ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org
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ExtremeDullard

@ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org

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I'm looking for a privacy respecting vacuum robot

I’m looking for a vacuum robot preferably under 500€ and with a cleaning station. My main concern is that most robot vacuum providers seem to need to be connected to the internet. Are there any providers that either don’t need that, where I can block the internet connection or any other way not getting a spy in my home?...

ExtremeDullard, (edited )
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“I’m looking for a privacy respecting vacuum robot” must be one of the most dystopian sentences I’ve read in quite some time.

I mean there is no lack of dystopian stuff going around these days. But if you imagine someone saying that 30 years ago, that someone would have conceivably ended up in a lunatic asylum. In 2024 however, it’s a perfectly valid and apropos question.

What a sad, sad world we live in…

ExtremeDullard,
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…and how six months later, it all amounted to jack squat and Reddit is back to business as usual. Exactly how Reddit correctly figured outraged internet warriors would get all worked up for a while and then lose interest.

ExtremeDullard,
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Missing option that I use:

Free Google Drive mounted with rclone and then eCryptfs filesystem mounted on the Google Drive mountpoint.

I get the free space and Google only sees encrypted files.

ExtremeDullard,
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Aah yes, appimage, flatpak, snaps, progressive web apps, electron apps… The cross-compatibility of the lazy 21st century developer, where a simple IRC-like chat client comes with an entire operating system or an entire browser (which itself is an entire operating system too nowadays), takes up half a gig of disk space, and starts up in over 10 seconds with a multi-gigahertz multicore CPU.

Just perfect…

ExtremeDullard, (edited )
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This is where you clearly see Apple is all about privacy posturing and not much about actual privacy.

If they really cared about their customers’ privacy, they would require notification servers registered with APN to push notifications encrypted with a key that only the recipient apps have the private key to. This would be true end-to-end encryption, and Apple would only relay encrypted notifications across, enabling them to deny all subpoenas and any kind of snooping requests from law enforcement on the simple basis that they plain can’t even decode the notifications in the first place.

The very fact that they do have access to the notifications in clear-text is undeniable evidence that they actively want and do collaborate with law enforcement.

Meaning Apple’s stance on privacy is utter BS - something anybody with a modicum of critical thinking suspected from the start, but now the evidence is crystal-clear.

ExtremeDullard, (edited )
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Powered by open web standards

That’s the state of computing in 2023: a browser disguised as a native app running 15 layers of Javascript is used as a friggin terminal. And nobody bats an eyelids, as if the utter insanity of it made any sense.

And the installer is 117M compressed. That’s MEGABYTES… For a terminal!

The mind boggles…

ExtremeDullard,
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Yeah, don’t: they know more than you.

ExtremeDullard, (edited )
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The fight for privacy is not new, and it predates the internet by far.

The problem is that, in the past, the state was on your side in the fight for privacy. Today, it sides with Big Tech and whoever offers it the most data to conduct its own privacy violations, or pays our elected officials the most.

It’s a bit overwhelming when giant, unchecked and unaccountable monopolies and your own country, both with almost infinite resources and legal ways to do whatever they want with impunity, gang up on you at the same time.

ExtremeDullard,
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/etc/hosts

ExtremeDullard,
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A lot of open source software is made by enthusiasts for free. A lot more of it is made by companies like Microsoft or Google for various reasons - I believe mostly to claim “we’re open source”, but also to entice others to contribute more code that they can leverage for free, which is a valid reason too. One thing is sure: they do pay their engineers’ salaries

Free services however… That’s different: we all know why Microsoft or Google propose free services.

Now this unknown search engine you linked to: they could be funded by idealists who want to promote privacy, like the Calyx institute for example. However, looking at their website, I see no obvious reason why they propose the service they propose: they do have a Donate button that leads to a page with 4 payment links - 3 of which crypto - and their About Us button leads to a page that just says “test”. Kinda sketchy…

Therefore, I assume it’s up to no good, because that’s the reasonable thing to assume with any unknown website that looks sketchy.

ExtremeDullard,
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Open-source isn’t a guarantee that whoever makes the open-source software is privacy-respecting. Android was made by Google for example, and it was made open-source for the express purpose of creating a mobile OS ecosystem that would become so dominant it would allow Google to collect data on as many people as possible. Google invested massive amounts of money developing an entire operating system for a reason: they didn’t do it out of kindness.

Conversely, closed source isn’t a guarantee that whoever makes the software is up to no good. There’s plenty of closed source software out there that’s perfectly legit. But of course it’s harder to verify the code if you have doubts.

ExtremeDullard,
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If it’s free, someone pays the bill and you’re probably the product.

ExtremeDullard, (edited )
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Signal.

Not necessarily because it’s better or because I like it. I actually don’t like it: Signal requiring a phone number really, REALLY doesn’t sit right with me, I hate not being able to back up my messages and having to hold the tiny button on the screen to record an audio or video message really sucks.

But it’s the easiest and most common of the truly private communication apps to get non-technical people to install.

ExtremeDullard,
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It always feels good when you find a new youtuber you like!

And when enough people like that fresh new Youtuber with fresh new content, before you know it, that Youtuber starts shilling NordVPN, Incogni or some electric shaver. Just like all the others…

ExtremeDullard, (edited )
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Hell no, and for two very good reasons:

  • To comment and subscribe, you need a Youtube account. There’s no way on God’s green Earth I’ll ever open any Google account. They track me enough as it is without me helping them.
  • Youtube monetizes your preferences - subscriptions and comments - which helps their business grow. I will never do anything to help Google if I can avoid it. Google needs to die, not grow larger than the cancerous blob they’ve already become.

I do subscribe locally to channels, and I have my personal playlists in FreeTube and NewPipe though, but Google doesn’t get to profit from that information. As for commenting, I’ve never seen any thread compelling enough to respond to. But if I do, I’ll abstain in the name of not helping Google.

ExtremeDullard,
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addons.mozilla.org/en-US/…/freetube-redirect/

Am I running the risk of getting my Google account banned for logging into the Aurora Store or a custom rom like GrapheneOS?

I guess there is no need to introduce what a Degoogled phone is (or a custom ROM without google services, like GrapheneOS is) and the Aurora Store is basically said in a crude way the Google Playstore but without the need to log in to your Google account, quite useful in my opinion....

ExtremeDullard,
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What’s a Google account?

Why Not Store Encrypted Emails in Plaintext Locally?

Clients like Thunderbird are great because you have everything stored locally so you can easily search offline. They also support encrypting and decrypting emails in PGP. However, they seem to have the same limitation as protonmail where you can’t search through encrypted emails....

ExtremeDullard, (edited )
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If you’re in Linux, you can use eCryptfs to setup a private encrypted directory, move the ~/.thunderbird directory into it and just leave a symlink to it in your unencrypted home directory. Then you can store your emails in plain text in the encrypted private directory.

It’s not even complicated to set up: most Linux distributions are setup so that the private directory is automounted upon login: when you’re not logged in, your data at rest is encrypted. It only becomes readable when you’re logged in.

Both my Thunderbird and Firefox directories are stored in my private directory.

ExtremeDullard,
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Troll

ExtremeDullard, (edited )
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From TFA:

lawsuit that claims the company has a misleading menu that promises privacy but fails to provide it.

Really? What a shocker…

Google gave users a placebo button that doesn’t work to make them feel in control. But rest assured Google has no intention of giving anybody control of their privacy if they’re not legally obliged to do so - or if they can get the law rewritten to their advantage.

Fake buttons are a very common psychological trick. You can read more about it here.

ExtremeDullard,
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This is arguably the first generation that grew up with zero privacy. Being watched is normal to them - and absolutely horrifying for this Gen-Xer.

ExtremeDullard,
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Yeah but if you were a parent or if you are one. Would you do it?

I am and I did not. Kids need to grow up without feeling they are being watched all the time. Or rather more accurately: kids need to grow up without being watched so they can sense when they are and take measures. Kids who grow up without any personal space don’t even realize they’re not free, and that’s a perfect recipe to create adults that accept tyrannical governments without question.

My kids grew up doing stuff they didn’t tell me about, and I didn’t know where they were half of the time. And yes, at times, I worried. But it was important to let them be.

the crazy kidnappings nowadays

I’ve heard people of all ages say that all my life. This is a well-know cognitive bias (i.e. “things were better in the past”) and it’s simply not true. I’m fairly certain our society is much safer today than it was in the past.

ExtremeDullard,
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Yes. Strange isn’t it?

Gen-Xers are also guilty of letting corporate surveillance happen, thereby letting their children grow under the watchful eye of big data.

I never said my generation was virtuous. In fact, I blame people my age for not affording the next generation what they themselves got to enjoy. Just like we blamed our boomer parents for enjoying the good life after the war and leaving us the crumbs. Little did we know the ones after us would have it even harder.

ExtremeDullard,
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If you where in the position to need it you might find your decision to not utilize it to be endlessly horrible.

It was a choice. I chose to let them risk life and limb doing whatever stupid shit kids do behind their parents’ backs, risk being run over by a car or kidnapped as they walked to school. The risk was very small, and the benefits of letting them grow up with a normal, non-Orwellian childhood far outweighed them. Hell, my generation and those before me grew up like that and survived just fine.

But I agree: if something really bad had happened, I don’t know how I could have lived with myself. And this always weighed heavily on my mind whenever they were late to come home.

ExtremeDullard,
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I never really understood the “I have nothing to hide” mindset.

This subject is best summed up by the Girl in Andrew Niccol’s vastly underrated movie Anon:

“It’s not that I have something to hide, I have nothing I want you to see”

This is the most intelligent, best articulated commentary on privacy I’ve ever seen and it fits in 17 words.

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