Kindness

Kindness , 3 months ago to Privacy in Thoughts on Cryptocurrency?

Trust me on this. I know what you're thinking, "Blindly trust an internet stranger? No thank you." That's good, but this time, you should listen because you care about your privacy.

It's not different enough to matter... yet.

Identifying users was still trivial as of 2 months ago, which is the last time I brushed up on implementing smart contracts. Bitcoin Lightning came out somewhere around 7 years ago. Unless something fresh and hot hit the market within the past 60 days, and has been implemented, do not, I repeat DO NOT trust your privacy to bitcoin, especially if you're doing something your governing body disapproves of.

Monero's privacy protections are still a generation ahead, but still not a big headache for the good ol' 5-Eyes. Probably not for the 14-Eyes either, but who knows what they know.

Kindness , 3 months ago to Privacy in Thoughts on Cryptocurrency?

mining cryptocurrencies has a high initial energy requirement, but it scales really well in terms of transactions,

Objection. Proof of work negates this. By making rapid block solving intentionally more difficult in order to slow down said solving, energy wasted on solving increases exponentially.

More transactions means a new block is completed faster. Last block was solved too soon, so tack another zero requirement to the next hash. More computation and energy wasted when there are perfectly acceptable hashes almost instantaneously.

Kindness , 3 months ago to Privacy in Thoughts on Cryptocurrency?

bringing back cash anonymity

Most cryptocurrencies do not have this. It is trivial to tie bitcoin to an identity. Given the nature of publicly posting the transactional records, all it takes is tying any given purchase to someone one time, to identify them and view their entire purchase history.

Monero being an exception.

Kindness , 3 months ago to Mildly Infuriating in This website that threatens anyone who right clicks

Probably the source of their problem:

Copyright Infringement – Outing – dasklang.com, isecope.com, headgamesonline.com and technocratsblog.com

As I See It, News, comments & Information

Apr 16, 2019

Recently I have discovered my review work (1) and show reports taken and reproduced without my permission by four websites, one of whom took the material down when asked – they should not have reproduced it in the first place. When approached they said ‘sure that is how the net works, I am helping you by doing this’. No you are not, you are only helping yourself dasklang.com (2), creating traffic to your site off the back of my work not your own. How would you like it if I reproduced the design of your products ? Then told you my doing so was helping you. You wouldn’t.

I was going to let this go, but why should I? I have struggled personally to try and put some content on my site, battled reviwers burn out and other issues. Content that in many cases I have paid for out of my pocket to write about, not items loaned by manufacturers or distributors, but products I had bought, sometimes simply to write about them. However even if I had not parted with my money, my time and effort is worth something surely? Worthy of respect that I would at the very least be offered a chance to give my permission as to how my work is used, and where. None of these websites asked, they took what wasn’t theirs to use, to put content on their sites.

The websites that still have my material up without permission are isecope.com, headgames online and technocratsblog.com, all three I suspect are linked.

As they are watching this site maybe after being named and shamed they will remove the material. I doubt it, I guess I will have to go after them with DMCA’s and report to their web-hosts.

Kindness , 3 months ago to Privacy in Response from Reddit regarding GDPR violation

Long tale short, it depends, but likely yes unless reddit stops what it is doing.

Almost every post will contain experiences that could identify someone, so the wisest move would be to assume yes, or naively try to classify each post as 'bread-crumb' or 'not bread-crumb' for their specific processing then store and sell each separately. Non exhaustive list of personal data criteria:

• If the comments are tied to, or not stored separately from, your identifiers, (email, IP, handle, site ID, location, etc,) then yes
• If your comments are not anonymous or include details about you, then yes.
• If the data will be processed to identify you, then yes.
• If the data will be used to profile you, then yes.

Unique information about you, such as your subscribed sub-reddits, your browsing habits, the time spent on each link, your writing style, etc may also count as personal data if used to identify or target you.

https://gdpr-info.eu/art-4-gdpr/

(1) ‘personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person;

[...]

(4) ‘profiling’ means any form of automated processing of personal data consisting of the use of personal data to evaluate certain personal aspects relating to a natural person, in particular to analyse or predict aspects concerning that natural person’s performance at work, economic situation, health, personal preferences, interests, reliability, behaviour, location or movements;

(5) ‘pseudonymisation’ means the processing of personal data in such a manner that the personal data can no longer be attributed to a specific data subject without the use of additional information, provided that such additional information is kept separately and is subject to technical and organisational measures to ensure that the personal data are not attributed to an identified or identifiable natural person;

[...]

(15) ‘data concerning health’ means personal data related to the physical or mental health of a natural person, including the provision of health care services, which reveal information about his or her health status;--

Kindness , 3 months ago to Privacy in Response from Reddit regarding GDPR violation

By using the Services, you are directing us to share this information publicly and freely.

I'm sure you're aware, but https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-32/ specifically states data collection must be opt-in, emphasis mine:

1 Consent should be given by a clear affirmative act establishing a freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject’s agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her,

[...]

3 Silence, pre-ticked boxes or inactivity should not therefore constitute consent.

4 Consent should cover all processing activities carried out for the same purpose or purposes.

5 When the processing has multiple purposes, consent should be given for all of them.

6 If the data subject’s consent is to be given following a request by electronic means, the request must be clear, concise and not unnecessarily disruptive to the use of the service for which it is provided.

Kindness , 3 months ago to Memes in Now all these f*ing zoomers are telling me that I'm out of touch!?

don’t come crawling back to m- I'm turning 30.

Kindness , 3 months ago to Privacy in Is it unnecessary to cover one's webcam on Linux?

Is it unnecessary to cover one's webcam on Linux?

No. Please cover your webcam.

how vulnerable is the device to having its webcam exploited?

Every bit as much as Windows minus their proprietary spyware.

How vulnerable is a Linux device if you don’t take extra precautions like firewalls.

Depends on what links you like to click.

what makes Windows so much more vulnerable?

Fewer eyes on the source code. Effort to reward ratio, the 80-20 rule. 20% of the effort nets your 80% of the reward. Literally. Develop exploits for one platform, target 80% of average computer users. Or write exploits for hundreds of different distros for *checks notes* ... 4%. Unless you like servers. There there's a coin toss. 50% linux, 50% Windows.

Keep yourself safe, there's malware for Gnu-Linux too. Install your patches when you can. Remove software you don't use. Practice good cyber hygiene.

Kindness OP , 5 months ago to Technology in iFixit Requests FTC Rulemaking on Right to Repair. Public RFC Deadline is February 2nd.

Way to go, you're awesome!