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EngineerGaming

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EngineerGaming ,
@EngineerGaming@feddit.nl avatar

As someone who has most of her socialization on IRC now... Eww, mIRC is proprietary and for Windows. Maybe it's just me having learned about IRC only a couple years ago and thus not having a sentimental attachment, but why use it if you have open-source ones like Hexchat, Irssi or Weechat?

EngineerGaming ,
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Just strap them into a stroller tethered to the back of the EV.

Microsoft Account to local account conversion guide erased from official Windows 11 guide — instructions redacted earlier this week ( www.tomshardware.com )

Microsoft has been pushing hard for its users to sign into Windows with a Microsoft Account. The newest Windows 11 installer removed the easy bypass to the requirement that you make an account or login with your existing account. If you didn't install Windows 11 without a Microsoft Account and now want to stop sending the...

EngineerGaming ,
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They need data collected by Windows themselves though.

EngineerGaming ,
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Because this is an excuse to KYC all users.

EngineerGaming ,
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To be fair, this could be an argument. I don't have a car now, and when I do buy it - the usecase would be long road trips to where public transport is bad or carrying cargo to my vacation house. Only half of that would be easily doable with an EV's range. For city commutes, public transport is preferred, and trips to the vacation house without cargo could be made on electric trains faster.

EngineerGaming ,
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I don't think it would be enforceable for everyone hosting servers for themselves. I personally use XMPP, Matrix and recently Simplex.

EngineerGaming ,
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Probably won't even need anonymizers for this! Chances are concealing usage of your own server would not be that hard on the clearnet either.

EngineerGaming ,
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Indeed. Protecting the metadata is already a completely different task from protecting the contents. But how would this law in particular change this aspect? It concerns message contents, surveillance of metadata stays the same (aka full). I was saying this about getting back access to encrypted messaging even with a low threat model.

EngineerGaming ,
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IDK about houses, but this would be the case for people in apartment buildings. What should you do? Not even joke about "lowering a cord from your window" because it's not guaranteed that your street parking is near your windows!

EngineerGaming , (edited )
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I am uncomfortable with this as a permanent solution because new cars of today are old cars of tomorrow. Apparently at least in some vehicles, the telematics module is possible to remove with loss of some functionality - seen some videos and posts on that. I think we need an iFixit-like database comparing vehicles on that front - how easy is the unit to remove and what functions it affects. To be fair, the ones I've seen were on newer gas vehicles, so idk if EVs usually have that integrated tighter.

EngineerGaming ,
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I don't see them getting better either - so at least I, maybe because I am not educated enough, think the solution is also in learning to rip out the privacy invasions rather than waiting for regulation or privacy-conscious models.

EngineerGaming ,
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I mean the cell modem specifically. But yea, the touchscreens are also a problem.

EngineerGaming ,
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What about renting a VPS itself over Tor using Monero, and then letting the VPS do its work normally in the clear?

EngineerGaming ,
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kycnot.me lists a bunch of providers that accept XMR directly.

EngineerGaming ,
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If there is payment, better support crypto too, because this way you wouldn't force people to KYC themselves, as well as wouldn't exclude people from sanctioned regions.

EngineerGaming , (edited )
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"Cryptobros" =/= "people using crypto", because this is a legitimate usecase. You can see it discussed on Lemmy too. This is how I can pay for my VPS while my card doesn't work. This is how I would pay for a service even if my card did work, but I didn't want to attach pretty much my real name to it. But yea, I agree that it might be complicated logistically. Have seen services where you can buy prepaid cards for crypto - at least that should work.

EngineerGaming , (edited )
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There are degrees of trust though. You can trust the developers and people who audited the code if you have no skill/desire to audit it yourself, or you can trust just the developers.

And even closed systems' behavior can be monitored and analyzed.

EngineerGaming ,
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I much prefer physical books, and have quite a big library. But most of my textbooks would be either hard or outright impossible to get in paper, so they go onto my e-reader as DRMless pdf and djvu files.

As for movies and music - I don't see much appeal in physical, since there is no difference in experience between playing from a CD/DVD or from my drive. I still keep my DVDs from childhood, but no longer have any device that can play them (removed the CD drive from the old laptop a while ago). However, I would never rely on streaming like you mentioned either. Only local, DRMless collection. Streaming is just for discovery.

EngineerGaming ,
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Imagine being able to opt into an long term support branch when you feel your phone starting to lag

That's kind of what LineageOS does.

EngineerGaming ,
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I am very anxious even with normal maintenance - heating adhesive up is not something I am capable of now. So was looking at new last-gen Pixels instead, and 7a is $300 :( People I know who have it say it's good hardware, but that's still an insane sum to spend on a phone.

EngineerGaming ,
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Are you prohibited from covering your face in the stores like this?

EngineerGaming ,
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I mean wouldn't the prohibited person just have to wear some mask to avoid triggering? And if this is prohibited - wouldn't that be problematic when it comes to hijabs?

EngineerGaming ,
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Can a school lend you a computer if you don't have one of your own? Or only have a shared stationary one?

EngineerGaming ,
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Oh wow. (cries in the corner with my uni paying me $40 a month)

EngineerGaming ,
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And are books required to be bought? We usually use books that are easy to download for free.

EngineerGaming ,
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Is it so hard to just pay using credit cards?

Credit cards are really dystopian as is. Is it so hard to just pay using cash so that it would be harder to eliminate?

EngineerGaming ,
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Idk about delivery in particular, but my preferred way of paying for online goods is ordering to the online shop's physical storefront, since not only does that allow cash, it is at no extra cost, unlike using mail, delivery services or lockers.

EngineerGaming ,
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Exactly! My usecase is exactly the same as yours.

While massively flawed, for now it is the most viable alternative financial system we have.

EngineerGaming , (edited )
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I used Monero to pay for my domain and VPS while under sanctions and thus failed by the mainstream payment system. And in daily life I use pretty much only cash.

Also the phrasing of this implies some "nothing-to-hide" mentality. Would I be in danger if I paid for my stuff with a KYC method? Not really, I connect to my VPS and request my domain daily from home, their existence is not secret. Do I benefit from the transaction being anonymous? Still yes, the less data you trust the third parties with, the better. Same as to why I encrypt my chats even though they are mundane. Just because they are nobody's business.

EngineerGaming ,
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Another use I can think of is paying for a domain and registering it with fake info. Registrars require pretty sensitive information, and apparently can check if it is real by comparing it to the info tied to a card used to pay, which crypto eliminates.

Wish there were more XMR-accepting registrars though.

EngineerGaming ,
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Jokes aside, but in Russia, when NFC stopped working on Apple phones, some banks made payment stickers like this.

EngineerGaming ,
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Mine is mostly mp3, and the player is MPV. I would not notice higher quality amidst the street noise or listening through laptop's subpar speakers anyway.

EngineerGaming ,
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If you are into collecting, that is. I am kind of triggered by the binary "physical vs. non-owned" because physical is not for everyone, if I was dead set on paying and the media was not available DRMless, I would rather buy a digital copy plus pirate a DRMless one corresponding to it. Buying a disk only to throw it out after ripping is wasteful. If you keep them, they take up too much space and are too inconvenient to use compared to a few external drives.

EngineerGaming ,
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I have bought some games after pirating them - because I loved them. Still kept the pirated copies for the sake of ownership though.

EngineerGaming ,
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I mean, disks take up a ton of space - not everyone is comfortable with that either. If I did that, I would have had to throw out or bother selling the disks.

EngineerGaming ,
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What is the point of storing something you know you will never use then? At this point can just throw out the disk.

EngineerGaming ,
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Once the original media is gone so it the right to watch it.

But who would check that? A raid? This is so pointless. You are not using it, you have paid for it, you are just occupying space with a useless piece of plastic...

‘My whole library is wiped out’: what it means to own movies and TV in the age of streaming services ( www.theguardian.com )

*What rights do you have to the digital movies, TV shows and music you buy online? That question was on the minds of Telstra TV Box Office customers this month after the company announced it would shut down the service in June. Customers were told that unless they moved over to another service, Fetch, they would no longer be...

EngineerGaming ,
@EngineerGaming@feddit.nl avatar

I don't like physical copies. For convenience, I would be ripping it anyway, and then what? CDs and DVDs take up way too much space, then I would have to eiher throw a perfectly working disk away (which just feels bad) or bother selling it (which is not even guaranteed). I understand it if you're into the collecting aspect, but I am personally not. If I was really set on paying for the media, I would rather go for a DRMless purchase. Or if it is not available, do it like with my Steam games - buy a DRMed copy and then pirate a DRMless one corresponding to it.

EngineerGaming ,
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Not just that, it forces to create an account just to view!

EngineerGaming ,
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Unless you mean "accidentally being somewhere in the background of a stranger's photo", yes. I usually opt out of being photographed, was never forced into this.

EngineerGaming ,
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Commercial VPNs are intended to hide your identity across the web and to hide your non-HTTPS web traffic from your ISP.

You're forgetting a demographic that is probably bigger than this - people who don't care and just want to go to blocked sites.

Encrypted services Apple, Proton and Wire helped Spanish police identify activist | TechCrunch ( techcrunch.com )

By the way, the earlier posted article https://restoreprivacy.com/protonmail-discloses-user-data-leading-to-arrest-in-spain had an update starting at the paragraph with title Update: Statement from Proton and additional commentary

EngineerGaming ,
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I do not blame Proton for complying with a request - it is a completely expected action from a company. However, I would blame them for advertising that makes them seem safer than they are for people who don't know better.

EngineerGaming ,
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I would phrase it this way. If there is a noname token, especially if it "can generate profit" seemingly out of nowhere - it is a scam.

EngineerGaming ,
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Would not mind self-checkout if they accepted cash. Although a cashier is not a big deal either, not like they talk with you aside from "do you have a discount card?" or "do you need a bag?"

EngineerGaming ,
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Doesn't Gmail require a phone number upon registration? One of the worst choices for "burner" mails.

EngineerGaming ,
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Oh, nice! Where was the VPN server, if you remember? Also heard of it being possible on a real Android device, but not on an Android VM so even harder to fake.

EngineerGaming ,
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The games I bought were fairly new indies. Didn't think about that though!

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