itsmect

itsmect , 8 days ago (edited 8 days ago)

People joke about this all the time, and I here the sarcasm in your comment, but technology has come far since the iphone 6 or 7.

Most high end phones have wireless charging build it. Between the receiver coil and the rest of the phone is a thin sheet of ferrite material to prevent the electromagnetic field from getting to the sensitive electronics. Battery technology has also improved a lot, so much that even relatively cheap phones like the Realme GT Neo 5 charge at 150W!

From the technical perspective the limit is the cable and connector, because there would be too much losses that heat up the cable to dangerous levels and rapidly degrade the contact area in the connectors. Manufacturers don't want to deal with this security risk, not the increased RMA rates within the mandated guarantee period, so they artificially limit the charging rate.

Thing is: You absolutely can charge at higher speeds if you bypass the cable altogether! A microwave outputs usually somewhere between 150W-1000W, so stick to the lower end to be on the safe side. The screen of the phone must face down, because the charging coil is placed on the back. You also must prevent overcharging by setting the timer correctly: If your phone battery has 15Wh capacity, and you are charging with 150W, you must at most charge for 1/10 of an hour, or 6 minutes (less if you are just topping up your phone).

One final note: fast charging does put increased wear on the battery, so I only recommend to use it when you need it, for example when you need to make a flight and are already running late.

itsmect , 8 days ago

A slight heating is perfectly normal and nothing to worry about. A microwave is fine tuned to heat food, or more precisely the water within. Other materials such as the glass on the back of the phone also absorb some energy, but only a tiny fraction.

itsmect , 11 days ago

based monerochan pfp enjoyer

itsmect , 11 days ago

And a deflationary nature is known to cause bubbles.

I mean centuries of inflationary monetary policy also caused bubbles, sooo...

itsmect , 11 days ago

My preferred lemmy instance is funded with xmr.

itsmect , 11 days ago

nothing-to-hide

In most civilized countries the law is "innocent until proven guilty" - and if I (and the vast majority of people) are innocent, why the fuck is tracking a thing?

itsmect , 11 days ago

In most countries it's illegal to purchase or sell non-OTC medicine without a doctors note (buyer) and license (seller). Even if government doesn't care, I'm sure that big pharma would like to keep their profit margins.

itsmect , 11 days ago

Love it for donations. Monero specifically is also super fast: open wallet, scan QR, enter amount, hit send. Easily done in 30s or less.

It's also good for VPNs, because now the VPN provider needs to figure out who owns the IP, rather then looking up the clear name in the payment info. Doesn't make you anonymous, but reduces risk of data brokers buying your personal info.

itsmect , 11 days ago

One time phone numbers are another good thing, to avoid the ever increasing tracking we are all exposed to.

itsmect , 11 days ago

Continuous exponential growth is actually something our financial system was DESIGNED FOR. It it makes no sense our inflationary money makes no sense.

This is the most hilarious part. One system literally has exponential growth, while the other is literally created to combat this.

itsmect , 11 days ago

At least with the government you can vote the bastards out.

In theory. In reality all parties serve the same lobbyists.

itsmect , 11 days ago

I am aware of the basic arguments behind inflation/deflation, and neither is good in excess.

Typically central banks targets inflation of 2% these days, but we all know the real inflation for necessities is far higher (>4%). Inflation disproportionately affects the poorer - rich people have the fast majority of their wealth "stored" in stocks or real estate, which rise in valuation as people rush into these markets to protect the little they have. I'd argue that inflation rates are artificially pushed far higher then is sustainable, simply because those who decide are the same people who benefit the most.

I consider a low but predictable inflation rate about 1% ideal (0-2% is acceptable short term variation) for the following reasons:

• No one has to worry about debasing/devaluing your currency by injecting more supply.
• Nobody "passively" gains wealth by sitting on it.
• If you want to keep your wealth, you have to take some risk and use it.
• Inflation rate is not so high, that you need super high risk investments to keep up, making it more accessible to small players.
• Large player can not as easily game the market by skimming of value from the lower to upper middle class.

Yes, this idea is not without risks. But the way I see it the forced "we have to improve value by 2% every year" exponential grow can only go on so long before we (humanity) hit the finite limits of this planet.

itsmect , 23 days ago

God I wish more artists would support direct donations. Yoink the file from wherever and in exchange sneak 10 bucks into the artists pockets.

itsmect , 25 days ago

USB3 is quite forgiving regarding the layout. The standard +-10% impedance matching is fine, and because there is no dedicated clock line you don't need to do length matching either. Even differential pair length mismatch is not that big of a deal. If 0.1mm is easy to archive, sure go for it, but I'd rather compromise on this in favor of more important parameters.

itsmect , 24 days ago (edited 24 days ago)

The signal does not care about how it gets from the sender to the receiver. The only thing that matters is that at the receivers end 0s and 1s can be separated. One common measurement is the eye pattern. If the eye is "open" enough (=matches the spec), communication is possible.

Impedance mismatch causes reflections (visible as oscillation after rising/falling edge), differential pair line mismatch degrades the slop of the signal transition (rising/falling edge). Geometric features only matter if they are large compared to the signal wavelength. As a rule of thumb features smaller then 1/20th of a wavelength can be safely ignored, often times a ratio as large as 1/5 works just fine. USB3 uses 2.5Ghz (5Gbit/s) or 5Ghz (10Gbit/s), where 1/20th result in 3.4mm and 1.7mm respectively (assuming an effective dialectic of 3.17). This is still grossly simplified, because in many real systems you don't control the entire transmission line (eg. user buys a random cable and expects it to work), so it makes sense that the USB consortium specifies eye patterns and factors in various system uncertainties.

RAM on the other hand uses 16/32/64/128 single ended data lines, with a dedicated clock line. Data does not have to arrive perfectly at the same time, but the margin may be as little as 1/10th of a clock cycle. Here accurate length matching is absolutely required. Its also the reason why the same CPU + RAM combination may archive higher stable clock rates on some mainboards then on others.

itsmect , 24 days ago

Which breakthrough do you mean? Can you rephrase your question?

itsmect , 1 month ago

I don't want to rent the battery in my car.

That is why.

itsmect , 1 month ago

NFTs require arbitrary data storage, which not all blockchains support (or are prohibitively expensive).

itsmect , 2 months ago

You cant remove pocket and telemetry without recompiling. That's why its not just a config file.

itsmect , 2 months ago

Undoubtedly the best naming scheme. The x2 suffix should not be dropped tho, because it shows that USB and the alt-DP mode can be used at the same time.

itsmect , 4 months ago

Droidify is the best! Best performance and UI of all compatible clients, and even handles 3rd repos that wont load on others.

itsmect , 5 months ago

Edit: Crossed out slightly out of date recommendations, see comments.

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Do not confuse privacy with anonymity. Your goal is not to defend against governments or other entities with limitless resourced, but against profit oriented companies. By reducing the amount of data you leak and obfuscating what is left, your data becomes progressively worthless as you improve your setup. This is a good thing, because companies will focus their limited resources on areas with a higher profit margin.

Given your description, I think the network side of IT security is pretty much top notch, firmly in the top 0.1% if not 0.01% of users. However most of the tracking happens at the browser level, so it alone does not protect you that much.

Firefox is a solid base, but it is optimized to not break any websites, rather then providing maximum privacy. You can try to tweak settings manually, but I'd rather recommend you to use LibreWolf on PC and Mull on Android. Both are pre-configure, hardened versions of Firefox, that also have proprietary Mozilla features like "Pocket" and some telemetry removed form the source. A standard install has basically no downsides, 99.9% of sites work normally and privacy is quite good.

Librewolf has ublock origin pre-installed and pre-configured with sane defaults. I'd recommend the following additional addons:

• Decentraleyes: Local CDC cache to reduce third party requests. Improves privacy, performance and doesn't break anything. No configuration needed.
• Privacy Badger: Prevents some interactive features (disqus comment section, embedded youtube player, etc) from loading until explicitly confirmed with a mouse click. Also prevents some tracking in the background, but that might eb covered by ublock already.
• Cookie AutoDelete + I still don't care about cookies: This combo silently suppresses all cookie pop-ups, allows them for the session and cleans up afterwards. This is different then disabling all cookies, and does not brake websites then rely on them while providing all privacy benefits.
• Disable WebRTC: WebRTC can leak your IP address, but disabling it breaks eg. real-time video calls. This plugin is a simple toggle, only turn it on when you need to.

If you are willing to do some fine tuning or accept broken sites, consider also:

• noscript: Most privacy leaks happen because of Javascript, but disabling it basically makes the modern web unusable. noscript offers a middle ground to enable/disable javascript on a domain-by-domain basis. Can be annoying at times, but arguably the best way to defend yourself.
• Canvas Blocker: WebGL powers most of the advanced visuals, and can read out a lot of data that is used for fingerprinting. This plugin can randomized requested data to protect you, but it also brakes sites in weird and unexpected ways. It's powerful, but I rarely use it these days.

And finally consider some obfuscation techniques to throw of the remaining trackers. Right now I only use one, and highly recommend it because of its effectiveness:

• Font Fingerprint Defender: Using javascript, websites can read out the list of installed fonts on your device. Some programs install fonts in the background when opening a document with missing fonts, so this list is highly unique for each user and effective for tracking. The plugin throws is some noise, and causes automatic systems to detect you as a new unique user each time.

All of this throws off the vast majority of trackers, and puts you in the top 0.1% of users. Yes, this also makes you kinda "unique", because websites may notice the effort you put in to defend yourself. Bad idea if you try to hide from the government, you should be using TOR for that anyway, but great to signal companies that you are not worth the squeeze.

Keep your head up bro. The situation is not as terrible as it may seem, but companies want you to believe that, so that you don't even try.

itsmect , 5 months ago

Thanks for the heads up, my setup is indeed 6-12 months old. My thoughts on the linked list:

• uBlock origin is the #1 recommended plugin, and can make some other plugins redundent, see below
• Decentraleyes only helps only for some scripts/sites and may be fingerprintable. Considering that it targets major CDNs and it's widespread use, I still think it's benefits outweigh the possible downside, especially if used in conjunction with a good VPN, so its optional but I'd keep it.
• Privacy Badger used to be unique in that it creates a custom blocking list based on your behavior. There was some security and privacy vulnerability with this method, so it's no longer done. It depends now solely on a pre-trained list just like uBlock origin, offers no additional features and should be removed.
• Cookie extensions may give you a false sense of privacy as they do nothing for IP tracking or other vectors. However they do patch one area, and are useful if used correctly and together with other methods.
• noscript is technically covered by uBlock origin as well, but the UI is far superior and you'll be using that a lot.
• Canvas Blocker was an optional plugin to begin with, and starting Firefox 120 the FPP (Fingerprint Protection) can subtly randomize canvas, hopefully with less problems. You should be using this build in feature instead of the plugin.
• Font Fingerprint Defender is the one plugin that broke tracking on fingerprint.com, combined with VPN IP change, despite javascript being enabled. If you care about privacy, and not anonymity, you should still be using this.