I’m having some conflicts when it comes to lineage and similar OS. While, yes, they might be better from a privacy perspective (if you put the effort into it) and allow you to keep your phone longer, I simply do not trust that the OS can’t be tampered with. For many devices, there is a single person maintaining that version of lineage. Who guarantees that they don’t pipe important information to some server in a more or less clever way? This should not be misunderstood as an argument for closed source. The problems I’m having with this type of open source is that the code differs from device to device, it is (at least as far as I know) possible to change enough of the code to become malicious while adapting it to another device, I don’t have the capacities to make sure that the code is actually safe, and they are not regularly audited. Hell, in some cases they are even provided without checksums. So you trade the spying eyes against a possible barn door of insecurities.
Therefore, I much rather use audited ROMs like Graphene or Calyx, but they (mostly) require a device from the company that I am trying to avoid. It’s such a weird situation…
Think of it this way. Google pulls in 300 billion USD a year and 80% of that is advertising revenue, not leaving a whole lot of the pie for Pixel phones once you take out subscriptions, Chromebooks, GCP, etc etc.
Sure, they’re probably making some money on every pixel sale but the point of them making mobile phones is to support their advertising business.
I’m not a Graphene user, but that’s the way I see it. At the end of the day if you get the phone secondhand you’re not giving them any money at all.
I got a Pixel specifically to install GrapheneOS on it after going on a huge FOSS/privacy kick last year (coincidentally around the same time I joined Lemmy…)
Will? Will? Think again. Cars are already the worst when it comes to data collection and privacy. Not just Teslas, anything with Android Auto or similar. They can literally tell if you’re banging someone in the back seat. BMW made people pay a yearly subscription to access heated seats. I hate the modern automotive market.
i read it already. i recommend watching techlore’s tesla privacy video. i’m thinking about buying an somewhat drivable vintage car with no tech outside running the car itself. my recent fav is 1988 964 911
It’s just that if “somewhat drivable vintage car” is your criterion, an aircooled Porsche is going to be way in the upper percentiles of what you could get. People who are willing to pay the ridiculous current prices usually do so because they aren’t cross-shopping with anything else. A somewhat drivable vintage car could also be an NA Miata for 1/6th the price.
Steam is bad for your freedom. However I’m sure that you already know that.
I will point out that your “Anti Commercial AI license” is hopefully legally invalid as if it were valid it would mean that people could license comments under whatever license including putting arbitrary restrictions that could be enforced by suing. I get what your trying to do but there is probably a better way.
Well, depends on the platform no? Terms of service usually include the term for user generated content. For big companies, those terms usually include you forfeit or give the company the right to use it however they please. When you use their service the moment you register, you also agree to that term. But yeah, I don’t know how it will work on a federated system.
I also have both. VLC’s UI is good for some strange one-off tasks like playing CD’s and stuff. Sure, mpv can do it too, but I would rather push some buttons in a UI than dive head-first into a manual to figure out how to do it with mpv.
This is something that sneaks up on you as well. And all that started a few years ago when I finally decided to get myself my first smartphone and tried to optimize data usage and battery life. I then realized that not only some apps and “system processes” were using battery and data when not in use, but that there wasn’t even given a way for me to stop it from happening. I also got creeped out when I moved to work in another building and Facebook started giving me friend suggestions of people who worked there. Location wasn’t even enabled on my phone.
And now today I have no mainstream social media account, run GrapheneOS on my phone, Linux on my computer and have migrated to almost entirely FOSS software and apps. I have become the crazy privacy obsessed weirdo.
Not a weirdo. It is the only reasonable thing to do. Unfortunately, many people lack education about the true extent of mass surveillance / profiling and the potential massive repercussions that it can have for society à la Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Facebook started giving me friend suggestions of people who worked there. Location wasn’t even enabled on my phone.
Some devices will still passively check SSIDs, even with WiFi “off”, then they just look for users who have similar nearby wireless networks.
Bluetooth? Maybe even ultrasound to detect nearby devices?
I don’t think you can have privacy online anymore. The best thing you can do is make a lot of noise, so it’s hard to determine what data is real, and who it belongs to.
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