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utopiah

@utopiah@lemmy.ml

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Is it impossible to be private online? (yewtu.be)

In sharing this video here I'm preaching to the choir, but I do think it indirectly raised a valuable point which probably doesn't get spoken about enough in privacy communities. That is, in choosing to use even a single product or service that is more privacy-respecting than the equivalent big tech alternative, you are showing...

utopiah ,

It does not even matter, namely if tomorrow quantum computers were to become a commodity then we would at the same time switch to quantum resistant encryption, e.g https://csrc.nist.gov/projects/post-quantum-cryptography

The name "post quantum encryption" sounds super complicated, and to be fair the math behind it is beyond my understanding (and I won't even claim I would have enough time in my life time to study it and assume I can formally prove all of it to be correct) yet switching is actually relatively trivial, namely your software, say a browser like Firefox or Chrome, and the server it communicates with, e.g lemmy.ml relying on e.g nginx or Apache, "just" have to have at least 1 matching encryption scheme, one way to exchange data that is post-quantum resistant. In practice that means configuration files on both sides that you, as a user, do not even know exist and that can be done through basic updates.

TL;DR: most users will switch to post-quantum encryption without even realizing, and then even if say the NSA were to buy a $1T quantum computer, even your $1K computer and the $10K server it communicates with would be able to handle it no problem, even a $30 Raspberry Pi computer will.

Coming to terms with no longer having privacy and control over my technology

I miss the days of VHS and DVD shelfs in homes, for example. If you bought the tapes and had them in your home, no corporate entity could alter those tapes without your consent, monitor how many times you watch them, sell your data to whomever they please without your knowledge, roll out new mandatory conditions to a 'user...

utopiah ,

Yes it's a pain ... but it's because your are considering a state compared to an ideal state, e.g feeling trapped with devices you don't trust versus running in an empty field. It's simplistic and it's not now versus then. Instead consider where you were, where you are now, and how it is a succession of decisions. Nobody forced you to buy a smartphone. Nobody forced you to install a chat app made by an ad company. Nobody forced you to have a free email.

Instead, for years, you made terrible decisions and now you are "waking up" to it and it sucks.

How do I know? Well, I did the same.

I even felt terrible about it and it felt impossible to change. I also discovered the concept of learned helplessness. How I was convinced that not only it was bad but I could do nothing about it.

Then I changed. I made a ProtonMail account (which I paid for, still am), moved my data from GMail. In fact I downloaded ALL my data from Google, and moved away from it, e.g from YouTube I installed on my own server PeerTube. I warned family, friends and colleagues I wasn't using WhatsApp anymore but they could reach me with email, SMS, phone, Signal, Telegram, Matrix, etc. I then deleted Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, etc.

I could go on but hopefully you get the idea : it sucked, I realized it sucks, I tried to change, it was hard requiring a lot of effort but, step by step, I removed a lot (not all!) of those terrible behaviors from my life.

TL;DR move away from learned helplessness by DOING things, taking a single step in the right direction makes a world of difference.

utopiah ,

PS: something fun I did a while ago, and still repeat whenever I can, is offline holiday. I still take a bunch of devices, e.g phone, RPi, SteamDeck, etc but I do NOT go online. Instead the RPi becomes a hotspot and I can code or enjoy content on any of my devices, but still within the privacy of my own network, without any notification. It's a very fun and empowering experience

utopiah ,

PS2: I also notice you start with content. Well for that at home I have a RPi with minidlna, serving videos to any device on my network.

utopiah ,

Indeed which is why I was honest saying "it was hard requiring a lot of effort but, step by step, I removed a lot (not all!) of those terrible behaviors from my life." (bold added)

Namely I don't even aim for perfection, just pragmatism. I have to use Windows at work (sometimes) and I hate it. Still, I do my very best to compartmentalize, namely I do not install such work related tools on my personal or even professional computers or phones.

In your specific case I would argue that have the free email from Microsoft but not using it for anything else and deleting it as soon as it's not absolutely needed is an acceptable compromise. I would also do my best to understand what "leaks" via this email or how you use it. Anyway my overall point being to be pragmatic because perfection leads to inaction.

utopiah ,

Yes, which is why I bought Baldur's Gate 3 and not other games. It's not "just" because it's an amazing game, it's also because IMHO the way it has been produced respect its content creator but also the way it's been delivered, respect players.

So when I say be pragmatic I also don't mean to imply to accept any kind of behaviors from software publishers and rather when you can, do pick the good ones, obviously.

utopiah ,

PS: I'm also morally perfectly fine with cracking and pirating software trying limit your freedoms assuming you did properly pay for it once, even if it's illegal. I'm wary of enshitification overall.

utopiah ,

Nobody I know refuses to use email or SMS. They might find it odd but usually don't even bother asking. There are equivalent outside of Meta for everything I know, from ads (e.g CraigsList) to events (e.g neighborhood public calendar) so I understand the feeling but I'd argue, just like people who use Amazon for everything, it takes little trying to find viable alternatives and weeks or even days later you'll forgot what Meta even was.

utopiah ,

Kudos, it's indeed a long road but a bright one!

Regarding what's left :

  • I still use Steam, and even have a SteamDeck (running only Linux) but if you want to avoid that itch.io is probably a good option, namely no launcher, only what game developers provide
  • Discord, well you could use the Web page, that's what I do and even calls work. If you want to remove it entirely you will obviously lose your contacts so trickier problem
  • banking, same principle, you can do most of it via the Web. Some convenient options won't work, e.g QR code to login or pay, but overall your bank probably have solutions that don't require anything but a Web browser and your physical cards, do ask them and if it's not up to your standards, check for other banks that might have better terms than the big ones

You don't have to immediately drop the few left but IMHO it's not about being a purist or completionist but rather a journey and you already did a lot!

utopiah ,

I for one don't talk about it... because I don't use Google Maps. I briefly mention OSM or CityMapper when people send me GoogleMaps links but otherwise better to show than tell IMHO.

utopiah ,

Normal people: Gladly give google maps access to location data at all times and never think about it

Yet also same normal people get utterly genuinely shock when they see a map of their past locations for the last 3 months.

utopiah ,

What do you mean non public? One can also hosts Jitsi Meet.

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

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    utopiah ,

    Curious to learn if it's limited to data within Steam itself or more. So far the only thing that I saw that could change my behavior is the start screen on Steam (even if I start games, e.g BG3) straight from my KDE menu. Curious to know if that can be disabled.

    utopiah ,

    Thanks for the clarification but seems I wasn't clear. I know how to start a game without Steam and how .desktop work (made some before). What I meant is rather can I start Steam itself to avoid their welcome screen and go straight to my game library? This way I would avoid their "suggestions" which are, in fine, ads (and thus what I imagine they collect private data for).

    utopiah ,

    Answering my own question here, since nobody actually helped :

    • Steam Settings
    • Interface
    • Start Up Location
    • change "Store" to "Library"
    utopiah ,

    Has been for years already sadly. I recommend https://github.com/user234683/youtube-local to watch directly and https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl to download. They both remove the dark patterns trying to abuse the attention of viewers.

    utopiah ,

    InfiniTime on PineTime, been using it for years

    utopiah ,

    Indeed, waiting for my Watchy

    utopiah ,

    Indeed, waiting for my Watchy

    utopiah ,

    Indeed, waiting for my Watchy

    utopiah ,

    Disabling iCloud doesn't stop most of actual data (not usage meta-data) from being shared?

    utopiah ,

    Why not both? Or train then subway? Or train then electric scooters for the last mine? I imagine in city specifically the coverage from trains alone is pretty poor.

    As the Internet Gets Scarier, More Parents Keep Their Kids’ Photos Offline (getpocket.com)

    Here's a non-paywalled link to an article published in the Washington Post a few days ago. It's great to see this kind of thing getting some mainstream attention. Young children have not made an informed decision about whether they want their photos posted online.

    utopiah ,

    Here in Belgium it's been pretty much the norm, both in friends groups or in institutions like schools that ask more formally, that one does not post photos online without the consent of all participants, including that of kids and their guardians. This is particularly the case for sharing publicly e.g Facebook post but also WhatsApp group.

    It's a mess but habits are changing at scale.

    utopiah ,

    "100MB of note storage" is not the limit, it's what you get for free. If you write more than 100MB of text, can afford it and want to support this kind of work, as opposed to surveillance capitalism supported and fueling alternatives I would suggest considering paying for this kind of services.

    utopiah ,

    Can't say in terms of proportion cash vs. non-cash but one might want to watch the Qatargate recent documentary on Arte which shows that somehow a 700k EUR luggage was found in the house of a MEP. Piles of cash sound outdated yet clearly still exist nowadays.

    utopiah ,

    Video, audio and subtitles via yt-dlp at https://fabien.benetou.fr/pub/home/ytdl/

    I'll leave that for few days.

    Google Allows Creditors to Brick Your Phone (lemmy.world)

    I installed NetGuard about a month ago and blocked all internet to apps, unless they're on a whitelist. No notifications from this particular system app (that can't be disabled) until recently when it started making internet connection requests to google servers. Does anyone know when this became a thing?...

    utopiah ,

    Does it though? Isn't there a risk of creating outrage but leading to increased learned helplessness rather than actual action?

    utopiah ,

    No, learned helplessness is "we own nothing, it sucks, yet we see no alternative and we gave up on looking".

    If you were to imply that's my situation happy to report it's not, cf https://fabien.benetou.fr/Content/SelfHostingArtificialIntelligence or how I, just as an example, deleted my e.g Google and Meta accounts few years ago, and gave a workshops to RightsCon last year, unfortunately not recorded.

    utopiah ,

    Then those people are not citing the experiment properly because the whole point about it is NOT that it's unavoidable. The experiment goes on an the threat is actually removed YET animals, either the same or new ones who get in touch with the others who were subject to the threat, keep on not trying. They LEARNED to become helpless despite the situation being objectively solvable.

    utopiah ,

    seems like everything is moving that direction

    Exactly the kind of learned helplessness that I'm fighting against. Sure a LOT of content is now only streamed and behind DRM ... but it is NOT all content. In fact maybe even quality content exist precisely outside such platform. Even if it's less than 50%, heck even if it's 1%, it might be enough. The whole of my argument is precisely that making shortcuts like "everything" are supporting the narrative that no alternatives exist, while it is simply not true. This is a great example of the problem. Please do not spread such ideas because that's doing the job of the "Corpos" you seem to want to criticize.

    utopiah ,

    I'm for it in theory. I explored it for a while, since at least March 2010, cf https://fabien.benetou.fr/Tools/Bitcoin

    But, sadly, I'm against it in practice. You can see that the same page hasn't been updated since 2016. This is because even though is does work, technically speaking (which is in itself a feat!), socially speaking the impact is IMHO negative. The main use case is speculation about itself and it comes at a huge side effect, namely energy usage (cf IEA's https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/bitcoin-energy-use-estimates ). This isn't even about taking into consideration much worst usages, e.g money laundering. Another difference since the early days is that traditional institutions have started to use or sell them. This is very positive in terms of trust, namely that such institutions do a lot of checks because they are legally required too. This is though quite negative from my own ideological standpoint on the very raise d'etre of cryptocurrency because I was initially seeing it through the lens of anarchy, where participants in a system rely on each other and manage their own structure. Few interesting projects happened along those lines, both physically and digitally, but in practice those are, in terms of volume of transactions (and thus energy consumption) marginal. They are mere demonstrations.

    So yes I was excited by the prospect, both socially and technologically, but since I've became disillusioned. Cool idea, even cool implementation, boring usage, literally life threatening effect to our one single planet. Not worth it.

    I will add this retrospective to my Bitcoin page to reflect that soon.

    PS: I understand that Bitcoin is not all cryptocurrencies. I also dabbled (and by that I mean code, including making my own transactions to explore smart contract before it was in the main blockchain) with other cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum. I also had few assets which I liquidated a little while ago from at least 4 different cryptocurrencies. I'm using Bitcoin as a simplification for others because that's where the value literally is today. I'd also argue, which is just me speculating here, that if Bitcoin falls, all other follows even if they'd be technically viable.

    utopiah ,

    At least they are very clear about what data is at risk here, namely "OneRep receives your

    • first and last name,
    • email address,
    • phone number,
    • physical address and
    • date of birth

    in order to scan data broker sites to find your personal data and request its removal." cf https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/subscription-services/

    It's indeed not a good look anyway to be partnering (without doing much that sharing your brand, and thus trust invested in you) with somebody apparently solving the problem... they themselves help fuel.

    Are there tools that exist to anonymize writing styles?

    I feel like with the rise of AI something that anonymizes writing styles should exist. For example it could look for differences in American versus British spelling like color versus colour or contextual things like soccer versus football and make edits accordingly. ChatGPT could be fed a prompt that says "Rewrite the following...

    utopiah ,

    I wouldn't just trust random Lemmy users (no offense) but instead check for actual fields, e.g stylometry or writeprint, and from there check the state of the art. Not being an expert would make that tricky so I would take a recent published papers, e.g https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.11849 to understand the challenge. As is always the case they'll review the field, e.g section 2 here, and clarify the 2 sides of the arm race, here Obfuscation/Deobfuscation. The former in 3.2 mentions examples of techniques authors estimate to be good starting point, e.g writeprintsRFC. I'd then search for such tools if they don't directly provide link to open-source repository, e.g theirs https://github.com/reginazhai/Authorship-Deobfuscation . I would then try a recent one that I can easily setup, e.g via Docker, and give it a go. I would then read the rest of the paper, see who cites it, and try to get a more up to date version.

    TL;DR: I don't know but there is dedicated research which result I'd trust more than the opinion of strangers who are probably not expert.

    utopiah ,

    Well ThinkPad back in the days weren't cheap either but then even a 2nd hand one could still last a while and one could still get them fixed.

    utopiah ,

    the crashes hurt and people can be killed regardless of the participants

    Not what I recall from accident stats, assuming Belgium is somehow representative. Bike and pedestrian hardly lead to death, same for bike and bike, only bike and cars did.

    I'm obviously not advocating for bikes to go anywhere without respecting others (my own rule of thumb is to be always be more mind of the small or slower people share the space) but I don't think considering risk regardless of participants is realistic either.

    TL;DR: yes I prefer separation whenever possible but there is a big difference between separating car with others.

    utopiah ,

    Doctrow himself is pretty clear about this. Interoperability is the way you fight back against enshitification.

    funny that's not what I just read in his FT piece "There are four constraints that prevent enshittification: competition, regulation, self-help and labour. To reverse enshittification and guard against its re-emergence, we must restore and strengthen each of these." published just yesterday.

    Also FWIW we absolutely are locked into GitHub... because others are too. That's why M$ bought it in the first place, classic strategy from Redmond. I go use Gitlab, have my own Gitea instance, but in practice where do people talk on issues? Github. That's why even entities like Mozilla or KDE that have entire CI and bug system outside of Github still often have mirrors there. Because that's sadly where most of us end up being locked.

    utopiah ,

    Yes, obviously, neither electronic nor self driving cars are the solutions. They STILL are cars that are cluttering the streets of our cities, both while running or while parking.

    Of course they are SOME use cases where one truly needs a car but they are very limited, so limited usually other solutions are much better, e.g cycling but using a car or car sharing when one can't get delivery done.

    We, as citizens, "only" have to be honest with our actual usual. Sure from time to time we go from city A to city B but 95% of the time we go from neighborhood A, our flat, to neighborhood B, our office. That's what most of us do twice a day, 200 days a year. We do NOT use cars for more than that and in such contexts, a bike, electrical or not, is better along most axis, not just price but also convenience.

    Hopefully we'll stop being convinced by ads showing beautiful cars in Corsica, Toscani, French riviera or Iceland while in truth, we are stuck in the boring rings surrounding our capitals.

    utopiah ,

    chromium being poisoned last year

    Can you please expand on that? I don't use chromium except when I have compat tests to run but still curious.

    utopiah ,

    Depends against whom you are protecting yourself. If it's against

    • your younger sibling then it's probably sufficient
    • some script kiddie or scammer running scripts against the most typical setups, might be just obscure enough
    • a proper targeted attack, then it will depend on which zip software you are using. Most likely the stock one that might (I didn't bother checking) relying on something that is far from the state of the art in terms of encryption. In that case it will most likely not be secure.
    • a proper attack but you use something like 7z with encryption that is relatively resilient, then most like if you are not facing state actors with huge amount of resources to try to crack it, most likely secure

    Note I'm NOT a security expert so... don't believe me.

    utopiah ,

    Are you saying Firefox shares data to Alphabet beyond Google as the default search engine? If so and if it applies to Sync (as if the question from OP here) can you please share sources for that?

    utopiah ,

    Indeed, thanks for the mention because I wanted to go back on this. I wouldn't quality any of this as evidence of Sync sharing usage data. Everything else is still correct, i.e defaulting to Google as search engine, some analytics, etc but it's still unrelated to Sync. I don't see how other browsers are relevant. It looks like they and OP are trying to show that Mozilla is not perfect, that they make money and share some private data and thus assume that any data used on any Mozilla product is shared with 3rd parties, including Alphabet, without providing any evidence for that. I'm not sure arguing more will help.

    utopiah ,

    Don't get stuck into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness or perfectionism! So :

    • every step counts
    • even if you are not entirely private in anything you do, you can still be more or less exposed
    • you are not alone in that struggle, we ALL are, from CEOs to politicians to random folks, we are all threatened and must help each other
    • alternatives DO exist (as a personal example, I don't use Google, WhatsApp, TikTok, etc) and enjoyable
    • it's not just technical but also psychological. If you focus on the technology it can be daunting, if you focus on usage it gets easier, ideally you combine both while insuring you don't burn out.

    You can do it, WE can do it! :D

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