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GadgeteerZA

@GadgeteerZA@beehaw.org

I blog about (ZS1OSS) - see gadgeteer.co.za/blog. I also blog to various other social networks which I list at gadgeteer.co.za/social-networks-i-post-to.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

OpenTracks is an open source sport tracking application for Android that completely respects your privacy: Almost a Strava alternative (beehaw.org)

Value your health by keeping track on your training. It records as you go running or walking, and gives you a bike computer with a bigger screen for cycling. You can even mark interesting locations along your way with pictures. The app keeps recorded statistics in great detail for analysis....

GadgeteerZA,
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They did not mention iOS. I suspect, although they exclude Google Services, it is hooking into some other dependencies. Their Githib project drills into more details on specific Bluetooth LE devices supported.

GadgeteerZA,
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It was actually created in 2022 as Calckey, as a fork of Misskey, so one of the Fediverse social networking sites. It has recently rebranded though to the Firefish name. It is a real breath of fresh air though in terms of features and great UI!

GadgeteerZA,
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Does it not depend on who you follow, is what you see in your feed? Like most networks on Fediverse.

GadgeteerZA,
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The wakeup really is not whether it is the NSA or anyone else buying the data, it’s about the companies providing the data to the data brokers, who on-sell it. I, just this week, reported a company who state don Google Play Store that they don’t send data to 3rd parties, and where in their Privacy Policy on their website state in numerous places where and how they send data to 3rd parties (they actually use the words 3rd parties). I also sent them an e-mail highlighting the contradiction.

The fact is they rely on us not digging any deeper than the superficial statement. Whatsapp and Facebook do really deep level metadata analysis, yet they focus only on actual message content not being harvested. It is smoke and mirrors…

Meta Just Proved People Hate Chronological Feeds (www.wired.com)

Meta conducted an experiment where thousands of users were shown chronological feeds on Facebook and Instagram for three months. Users of the chronological feeds engaged less with the platforms and were more likely to use competitors like YouTube and TikTok. This suggests that users prefer algorithmically ranked feeds that show...

GadgeteerZA,
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I’m sorry, but those “suggestions” sound wrong - a chronological feed exposes users to untrustworthy content. The point is an algorithmic feed is unknown manipulation UNLESS the algorithm is known and published. Engaging less is also NOT a bad thing at all, unless you are the platform itself. The inference is that an algorithm will expose users to less political and untrustworthy content? Well, certainly not if the platform wants to generate continuous engagement through provocation and the creation of outrage.

But OK, it is an experiment by Meta, so let’s just leave it at that.

GadgeteerZA,
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Well universal chat (like universal e-mail) is either going to be a common open protocol (does not seem very likely given Apple and all the other players) or is going to be something like this on the client side. Although its a lot of work, it does seem more possible. The only pity is it can’t solve connecting to services that I don’t use like Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp.

GadgeteerZA,
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Not “everyone” uses Whatsapp though - I deleted mine after the Cambridge Analytica scandal and I know of a few others who also did so. As far as I know Whatsapp has still never changed their T&C to pass metadata upstream to Facebook.

GadgeteerZA,
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No, not regionally, as Whatsapp is probably used most. It is more individuals who decided not to use Facebook related products. Luckily, about 90% of my contacts are on Telegram. It’s a bit sad that a proprietary product that leaks metadata could be so widely used. If there was going to be a single “one product” I’d rather prefer that to be an open standard protocol. Those protocols exist, but are not in broad use. But the W3C standard for social networking, really needs to also cover chat messengers.

GadgeteerZA,
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That is really going to be interesting, yes! It is seriously needed despite what Apple will say. And if implemented correctly it can still be E2EE but with our own client apps.

GadgeteerZA,
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Can run yourmain distro as a stable one, but have an unstable or testing version in a Distrobox container sout does not mess your main install.

If you have non Arch distro, you could run Arch in Distrobox and get to use all the AUR packages.

GadgeteerZA,
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It’s the one I’ve been using for a while now and does everything I’ve needed. I did a video overview about it a while ago just showing the basic stuff I use it for, and gives a feel of what it looks like youtu.be/nwl6RzymZVg

GadgeteerZA,
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Unmanaged is the cause, but lost is the effect. It is quite correct in usage.

GadgeteerZA,
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They did link though to the full report at www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/23/13/6205

HP-1973 is a Python simulator app for the retro HP-45 calculator and 5 other HP ROMs, written by Sarah K. Marr (beehaw.org)

The app was written in Python and started out for the HP-45 (ROM is included) but finally included also the HP-35 and the HP-80, as well as three others. For macOS and Windows you could just run the included executables, or with the Python code, this will run fine on Linux if you have Python installed. Nice thing is that you can...

What's your opinion on telegram from a foss and privacy perspective?

I see i can find a foss version on f-droid, and that’s something not a lot of social networks can have, i don’t really like all the crypto bullshit and ads testing they’ve been up to lately, but still looks better to me compared to what Reddit have done lately or what other platforms have done in these years…...

GadgeteerZA,
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I use Telegram the most, as I have most of my contacts on it. Secret chat is there for those that I want to be sure to be private. I have no issues with them as they have proven not to be sharing their data, or selling it (through the absence of that ever coming to light - unlike WhatsApp metadata passed up to Facebook). They are streets ahead on features, and their broadcast channels are really useful. I also push my blog posts to a channel that I have on Telegram. But like others have said, I also have Signal, Matrix, XMPP, etc as I have different friends on different networks. The only messengers I don’t have are Meta owned ones, as we have clearly seen what happens to our metadata there in repeated occasions.

GadgeteerZA,
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And even choices for icon sets too. My Android tablet shows numerous widget designs to choose from and I’m looking forward to seeing what options there are for my iPad.

GadgeteerZA,
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Not at all as I hear about all of them all the time (daily at least). It’s just that Bluesky and Nostr are both less than a year old so are seen as the new networks, whilst Mastodon and Lemmy (Fediverse) has been around a bit longer. Bluesky and Nostr’s protocols are very new, so many are asking what they are and how they compare. Neither integrate yet (unless you count Nostr’s bridge with Mastodon) with the Fediverse.

Remember BBSes (Bulletin Board Systems)? Here’s How You Can Visit One Today Using A Telnet Connection (www.howtogeek.com)

These days, social media gets all the attention, but the Bulletin Board System (BBS), a relic from a kinder, gentler time in computer communications, persists. Each BBS is its own retro-flavored community with messages, text-based games, and files you can download. And you can still connect to one today....

GadgeteerZA,
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The default for old BBS’ is Telnet usually. So any Telnet client should work.

Keyoxide is a privacy-friendly open source tool to create and verify decentralized online identities using a cryptography-based approach to bidirectional linking (keyoxide.org)

Just like passports for real life identities, Keyoxide can be used to verify the online identity of people to make sure one is interacting with whom they are supposed to be and not imposters. Unlike real life passports, Keyoxide works with online identities or "personas", meaning these identities can be anonymous and one can...

GadgeteerZA,
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KeyOxide has been replacing Keybase for many, so no Keybase is not such a thing any more. To some extent, domain verification on Mastodon for example does do some of this too.

GadgeteerZA,
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It’s a form of self-verified proof of identity.

Your Gmail Account (and other e-mail) Has Unlimited Addresses - Useful For Seeing Who Leaked Your Address to Spammers (lifehacker.com)

You can append to your existing e-mail address in various ways, and this could be pretty useful for seeing who leaked your e-mail address to spammers. For example, for your bank, give them the address myaddress+banking@gamil.com. Then, if spammers send to that address, you can quickly see where they got the e-mail address from!...

GadgeteerZA,
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Yes I must say I’ve only had about two that would not register a plus address. Most others are just sending and then accepting a OTP response. Plus addresses are also working with my own domain e-mail.

GadgeteerZA,
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Now you can tell us who you worked for, so we can be sure to avoid them…

GadgeteerZA,
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Yes, thinking about, I’m also not seeing what is really different. AT protocol is decentralised, but so is ActivityPub. I can see Nostr has done something really different with relays and own identity, but AT is not doing that. They do allow you to set a domain name as a handle and that may move across servers, but we have not actually seen other servers yet.

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