Yikes.

In 1997; I was walking about 2 miles to and from school. Unsupervised. I had a house key on my neck and was a latchkey kid in third grade. I obediently walked to and from school directly from home; meeting the crossing guard a half mile from school twice a day; as I had to cross a major 4 lane divided highway.

lol you are so wrong.

Honestly I question the sanity of allowing a child to have an actual clearanced job and not brag about it to his friends. Mentally you’re pretty much a kid until you’re about 25 or so if you’re AMAB.

I’m concerned that higher clearances aren’t checking people for signs of stupid viewpoints before they’re cleared.

TL;DR: I think this video oversimplifies the analysis according to the cards and gives Graphene OS undue weight without going into sufficient detail as to why each scored under each category.

I actually don’t agree with this video; and firmly believe it is more than a little biased.

For example, the Pixel, AOSP and Android are given several undeserved points due to lack of proper information or understanding of how certain features work. I imagine this is the case too for the iPhone; if a bit less so.

The review apparently doesn’t deep dive into settings or attempt to maximize privacy by turning off unwanted ‘features’ when settings switches are available to the user; nor does it assume that you set up accounts in as private of a manner as reasonably possible or toggle off as many default-on consent switches as needed.

While I would support scoring and dinging each case or instance for “Privacy Settings that don’t actually work”…this video really doesn’t do a lot of legwork and leans on the anecdotal evidence of scary news stories too much.

Worse was the fact that the entire video felt like they were shilling for Graphene OS; which is known to have a slightly unfriendly maintainer and community surrounding him to say the least.

No mention of Lineage or other privacy oriented Android ROMs were analyzed. AOSP too, was unfairly lumped in and dinged for specific points of the Default Pixel configuration…and yes there are major differences between AOSP and Pixel Android; even though Google tries to be less in-your-face invasive than the other OEMs. Not enough credit is given for the “On-Device” smart features implemented properly on the Pixels.

Out of personal experience; I’d actually rate a proper Lineage OS install of 4 whole Android versions ago to be more private than stock. Not quite as private as Graphene; but not quite as invasive and much more enforcing of privacy. The debloating provided by a clean AOSP-like ROM, such as Lineage, as opposed to a “Stock Android” configuration from a major OEM is stark.

Most importantly I personally feel that the privacy model chosen for the video is far too thickly detailed for an average person. Most of the privacy concerns listed on each card contained concern points that might only tangentally apply or don’t apply at all to mobile phones. The way that each card was scored and applied felt low effort. None of the points on any of the card(s) were weighted with average users in mind.

I really hope someone goes into a much deeper dive; this video is basically clickbait that parrots the commonly parroted advice in the privacy community; which isn’t even good advice, it’s just ‘One-Size-Fits-All’ style advice which gives the user no room to make necessary ‘Privacy vs Convenience’ tradeoffs that they themselves could have made if they understood proper threat modelling.

I mean, in non technical terms, I basically stated to cosplay as a pirate if you catch my drift. No need to not shun media in the meantime.

I don’t shun media; I practice moderation instead. I find it is better to be aware of my surroundings in all things so I can keep myself safe if needs be.

Media habits are already collected, and targeted. They just aren’t used by fascists yet.

I’m aware of this; but I’m also a pretty savvy Networking / IT person. It’s easy to foil a large portion of their tracking apparatus with DNS level blocking; and even easier to use a rPi or pfSense box to do so.

I clearly don’t share or agree with your fears that the fascists will use them anytime soon. It’s too likely that doing so will galvanize resistance against them swiftly.

You also can’t use uBlock on a smart tv.

I don’t own a “Smart” TV. No TV-like device ever gets networked around here either; and it’s going to be returned as “Defective” if it does refuse to work without a network connection. I watch via a PC with a well configured instance of uBlock Origin in Firefox. (+ several other privacy add-ons to prevent other shenanigans and ensure isolation).

Netflix streams aren’t privacy encrypted. Doesn’t matter how to pay, it can still be very easily linked to you via your internet provider. And Netflix would still have a profile built around that account.

They don’t need to be. TLS is used; so any man-in-the-middle is likely not capable of knowing what you’re watching. Only Netflix knows what you’re watching. If you’re concerned about their terms of service; or how they purport to use your data as outlined in their terms of service; then by all means make your post about that.

Your IP address is known by every website you visit; it is not a magic document number for you or your household. Your ISP isn’t going to provide your data to the government without a valid subpoena; and those typically aren’t issued easily. Any active change in law passed that is affecting trans people, you’d actually hear about.

You seem to have a few misconceptions or fears. Those fears are not invalid; but I am trying to suggest ways you can protect your privacy; while avoiding doing things like throwing all streaming media away and letting fears or misconceptions drive someone to absolute privacy fatigue and depression.

Is Piracy better? Undeniably so! If you have the technical know-how and wherewithal to pirate your media; it’s a solid way to find content usually.

However, not all people choose piracy for their own reasons. That might mean one instead maintains a few low-cost streaming subscriptions on hand. It is possible to still enjoy these services; and pay for them in ways that keep one’s privacy reasonably intact.

I actually disagree that media habits will be collected or targeted. It’s easy to defeat at least the overt tracking at least on Netflix using uMatrix or uBlock Origin; and I’ve done it myself.

Primarily; I just refuse to be intimidated by the extremists. It’s fine to take reasonable steps to protect yourself; but don’t completely force yourself into any kind of isolation because you feel it protects you; that’s exactly what THEY want.

You should be reasonably safe, and fine, using a major streaming service; as the fee to use them can easily be paid by privacy respecting means. (AKA scratch-cards purchased with either cash or crypto currency)

If you are worried about privacy; it’s totally OK to take steps to protect that; but you should be aware that it’s possible to get so wound up in protecting your privacy that you can do more harm for yourself than good. Privacy fatigue is a real issue; and that can be a problem as well. Use your best judgement.

I’ve always hated Crustyroll.

Crustyroll got it’s start by standing on the backs of good noble fansubbers who provided their subs for free; and now they’ve come full circle. They became an enemy rather quickly when it profited them.

Actually; (basically) SIP over (basically) IPSec sounds pretty correct. Wish the dense technical manuals I read had explained it that way; makes a lot more sense to me as a Net Admin type of IT person.

I do remember reading that the protocol was basically encapsulated. Dunno about any encryption; probably there’s not any at the IPSec level. I do know that the SIMs themselves probably contain certs that have some value; I just don’t know if they handle any encryption or if they’re just lightweight little numbers for authentication only.

If I’m understanding how 'WiFi Calling" works; it’s still “identifying you” to the cell provider the same way; via your SIM. The only difference is they don’t get an exact location because you’re not using any cell towers typically.

I do suspect SIMs and eSIMs are still doing all the heavy cryptographic signing done on a typical phone network though…they’re just not screaming your IMEI/IMSI all over open or even encrypted airwaves; nor is a WiFI signal triangulate-able typically due to it’s short range.

The reason things like Alcohol are “considered and generally recognized as safe” has a lot to do with their effect length on the body. It’s possible to isolate someone intoxicated this way for up to 24 hours and see them recover all of their facilities in the short term.

Granted; it still has long-term effects that are bad, just not show-stoppingly so, and it only affects people who actually abuse the stuff long-term for many years.

I do agree we should be a lot tougher on Alcohol use in general. Maybe not Prohibition levels; but some framework to cut off people from acquiring quantities that can intoxicate them so badly that they pose a danger to themselves and others.

They faffed around, and now they’re finding out that, yes, the experts were in fact right! Restricting abortion access does cause more deaths and poor health outcomes!

I am glad to see it when the selfish people at the top fall so far down the hill. They orchestrate their own falling typically, much like Ikarus in his waxen wings, falling when he flew too close to the sun in direct sunlight at the height of a hot summer’s day.

As for Google; I hope the DoJ not only pulls up all of the resultant weeds in the garden, but also makes sure to till and salt the soil thoroughly, so that no part of Google can ever hope to rejoin it’s other pieces to form a monopoly or ‘anything like a monopoly’ on anything, ever, again.

Google must rightfully suffer a most painful and enduring ‘Corporate Death Penalty’ so to speak; in order to ensure that no company ever gets so bold again. We must also repeat this with several other large companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Apple too; as well as a few other companies I’m unable to name because I’m unaware of how ridiculously massive and monopolistic they are.

Legitimately I question that this is even newsworthy.

It appears that these women are harming nobody and are partaking of the drug(s) safely and sensibly in a manner that ensures that no one is being significantly endangered. Yes the residual dangers exist and bad trips can happen to pretty much anyone. I don’t feel as if they’re even posing a danger to their children; if this is in fact being done in such a way that the kids are never being exposed to their parents while they’re in an altered mental state due to hallucinogenic intoxication. If it isn’t; yeah; I could see why a local branch of child services might pay them a visit. However, I’m not going to make that negative assumption.

I don’t particularly commend the women, nor the news outlet, for coming out about this though; it is still very much technically illegal by current law. But, I also do agree that the stigma attached to drug use, even when done so responsibly, is in fact ridiculous and stupid in general. However, I don’t see a better way of achieving what that does…so I couldn’t suggest any better alternatives and I don’t support going back to a previous era in Law where drugs that factually are provably dangerous, for some reason, are not regulated. Reasonable and Sensible Regulations on dangerous Drugs are REQUIRED; it’s just that some people have a different definition of ‘Reasonable and Sensible’ which has to be ironed into a proper consensus for society.

This is exactly the kind of task I’d expect AI to be useful for; it goes through a massive amount of freshly digitized data and it scans for, and flags for human action (and/or) review, things that are specified by a human for the AI to identify in a large batch of data.

Basically AI doing data-processing drudge work that no human could ever hope to achieve with any level of speed approaching that at which the AI can do it.

Do I think the AI should be doing these tasks unsupervised? Absolutely not! But the fact of the matter is; the AIs are being supervised in this task by the human clerks who are, at least in theory, expected to read the deed over and make sure it makes some sort of legal sense and that it didn’t just cut out some harmless turn of phrase written into the covenant that actually has no racist meaning, intention or function. I’m assuming a lot of good faith here, but I’m guessing the human who is guiding the AI making these mass edits can just, by means of physicality, pull out the original document and see which language originally existed if it became an issue.

To be clear; I do think it’s a good thing that the law is mandating and making these kinds of edits to property covenants in general to bring them more in line with modern law.

They certainly make it easier to do so; by making it a switch you can toggle; which allows you to generate an identity; or choose not to and roll with the identity they’ve already seen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem

The effect is real.

Shaving (my face) and putting on some makeup absolutely does help my mental state.

Sometimes I’ll shave other parts of my body; but not as often due to how much prep that takes to do.

Agreed.

Without concepts of privacy; things will soon fall into fascism.

(People can’t DM you)

This is false. However, you must generate an “identifier / group / channel” for them and share that link out-of-band to them." Basically it means nobody can slide into your DMs unless you yourself consent to it and forge a connection with them to do so. It does offer a way to invite other users to chat; but the other user must consent as well…which makes it far safer usually.