cambionn

cambionn, 1 month ago

Average Joe wants an easy all-in-one solution. That’s what Google, Apple and Microsoft offer. An ecosystem. If you want to fight that, you need to be able to offer that. So that’s what Proton is doing.

Of course it’s better to have it seperated. And the security and privacy nerds will likely keep doing that anyways. But Average Joe doesn’t want to take a hassle and rather looses privacy than do that.

Issue is, things are only as secure as the least secure point. Average Joe using Google and Microsoft means your data also goes there when interacting. When Average Joe is swayed by a place that is privacy-friendly ánd convinient, it makes your weakest link also stronger.

Meanwhile, Average Joe is also more save then when he was using Google or Microsoft services. Even when he would be less save than if he had his stuff seperated.

It helps everyone.

With that in mind, I applaud it. But I won’t use it. I use Proton for mail, Joplin for notes (encrypting them in Joplin and syncing with NextCloud), and my passwords are also elsewhere than ProtonPass.

cambionn, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

For one, USA isn’t actually much better than China when it comes to tracking and privacy. They just have better PR about it. But in reality they equally suck.

That asside. There isn’t some secret tracking chip, but any kind of wireless network will be used to track you by different parties. Cellulair, Wi-Fi (including Wi-Fi signaling when it’s “off”), Bluetooth, etc. This is a fact regardless of OS or where the phone is made, as tracking often already starts to occur by catching the signals you send out.

As such, just degoogling won’t resolve tracking issues in and off itself, it’s just one of many steps to get less tracking.

Phones physically in China, regardless off where it’s made, tend to get tracking software installed. Just take a burner if you ever go there. But that’s not hardware. And most “USA” phones are also made in China anyways…

cambionn, 10 months ago

I think ActivityPup isn’t even integrated into Threads yet? On release they said soon, a week later they said it was long-time planning. Haven’t heard about it since.

cambionn, 10 months ago

Tfw you’re an Dutchy and simple home-prepaired sandwitches (read two slices of bread with some butter and cheese between them, nothing fancy), are the countries national breackfast and lunch. Warm food is for dinner traditionally 🤣.

Either way, sandwitches (no need to limit to peanut butter, a lot can be put on bread!), salads (pasta or normal), fruit, veggie, cheese, and certain type of meat (like smoked or dried sausage, or beef). They all make great parts for cold meals you can keep in your bag till lunch (speaking from experience). Some cheese & meat are even packed per small packages for easy take along as snack usage.

I would suggest you do go to restaurants a few times, just to try the local cuisine (or their variation of other cuisines). But it probably will be expensive for you indeed. Whenever I’m in Asia, I feel rich (and I’m really not). Even Japan, who is often said to be expensive, is cheaper than my country. Especially when it comes to food.

cambionn, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

Article says:

We’re also beginning the beta for our upcoming macOS desktop app for Proton Drive. […] Once the macOS app is released, we’ll also work on our planned Linux version.

Based on Proton’s trackrecord in development times I’ld say a far future, but I must admit they’ve been making meters lately when it comes to releasing stuff. It may be sooner than expected (or it might take years, we’d have to wait and see).

cambionn, 11 months ago

I actually used to have YT Premium because I’m a strong believer that nothing is free, so you either pay with data or money (on anything slightly commercial, not counting FOSS projects made as hobby or under foundations etc. as things get more complex then. But even then I pay/donate for some stuff in the same way of reasoning).

Yet I cancled the YT Premium subscription. Simply for one reason, privacy. I don’t mind paying, but then I don’t want just no adds, I also want no tracking. I pay with money, so I don’t want to pay with data as well having a whole profile made.

Switched to NewPipe with sponsorblock on phone and TV and FreeTube on PC. Got a redirect extension in FireFox automatically sending YT videos to either Invidious or Pipe.

cambionn, 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago)

Small nuance:
"Later this summer, you’ll see the option to participate in our telemetry system and help improve 1Password. You don’t need to take any action right now, and we won’t collect any usage data without your awareness and consent first. Participation will be optional for Individual and Family plan customers. And at this time, our telemetry system won’t be rolled out to any team or business using 1Password."

Aka, it's an opt-in that you can simply not opt-in to and if you don't nothing changes and then it won't be used on you.

cambionn, 11 months ago

Lemmy is not worse than the rest of the internet. But understanding hów it works is important. Lemmy isn't 1 place, it's hostibg software. There a bunch of different servers ran by different people.

I'm gonna write a bunch here, but no worry. I'll get to the part mentioned in that article. It's just all a bit more complex than "Lemmy does X".

Lemmy, as software, doesn't track shit. It's open source and anyone can check this.

Lemmy instances, are bound to whatever law is applicable to them. A US server aimed to US people is not GDPR restricted. A EU server is. An international server aimed at everyone incl. Europe also is.

If a server tracks you, depends on the server. They cóuld run an altered version of Lemmy software. It's up to you to choose a server who you trust and falls under a juristriction you want. If not, you can always host your own.

Also know that even the GDPR's often qouted "right to be forgotten" only covers the place you have your account at + the places that they share data with themselves. This is an important nuance. Furthermore being forgotten means it has to be anonymised, but any non-personal things can stay online. You have no right to ask to have your every word deleted by these laws, just to have any informatjon tracable to you or your account removed.

As I said, they are responsible for deleting data from places théy send data to. But federation works the other way around. Other places grab from each other. They can only grab stuff you put in public. This is comparable to say:

• You post something on Reddit.
• Someone reposts it on 4chan.
• you remove the Reddit post.
• your post is still on 4chan.

You can try to ask 4chan to remove it, but they likely won't. They just took some public stuff and screenshotted it. It wasn't supplied by Reddit (which requires Reddit sending it to them), but taken by 4chan from a public place. Therefor Reddit is not responsible. Since 4chan isn't in Europe and doesn't actively market themselves to Europeans, they aren't bound hy GDPR. At best, you can try to make a copyright claim, which turns it into a whole other issue.

Lemmy instances are like that. They are all different websites grabbing data from each other, not sending them actively to each other. They just run the same software. But that doesn't mean shit. Most websites run on Linux servers, but that doesn't make Linux responsible. Most servers run Apache or Nginx, but neither of those are responsible. NextCloud also isn't responsible to what files people upload yo their self hosted cloud on their NAS.

In that, Lemmy isn't less private than the rest of the internet. You should, at all times, be careful what you post online. Assuming that whatever you post will be public forever isn't a bad habbit, as you cannot block people from copying it and reposting it elsewhere. Even stuff with "friends only" settings can appear otherside like this, let alobe public posted stuff like Lemmy posts.

With that, as far as removing content goes and what admins can see, I dunno. But the way federation works, posting on a federated server already means purposefully posting something to be copied. It's fully compliant with privacy laws, but indeed hard to delete forever. But that can be the casr for anything on the interbet, especially public stuff.

So, td;dr. Lemmy isn't less safe than the rest of the web. Best advice is don't be too stupid and think before you do shit in public.

cambionn, 11 months ago

Meta is making a Mastodon-compatible Twitter-replacement app. The Beta is already done with sone populair influences and it's supposed to go live sometimes soon afaik.

Otherwise, Mozilla has a Mastodon instance. Depending on how commercial/big you need to be to count as a "corperate instance" to you, there are a few more.

cambionn, 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago)

Well, while everything tarketed to Europeans (having EU domains is enough) should follow GDPR including the right to be forgotten, the whole issue is a bit more complex than most people seem to think.

For one, things not marketed to EU citizen don't count. And the owner of a website, this case the hoster of an instance, is responsible for this. Not the software they use (Lemmy). I don't think Lemmy tracks you specifically, as the code is open source and people likely would've noticed that by now. But servers could theoretically. That's why you need to choose a server you trust, or host your own.

An instance aimed at USA people hosted in the USA doesn't need to be GDPR compliant while a German one hosten in Germany would. An instance aimed at the world hosted in the USA also would, but likely breaks GDPR simply by being hosted in the USA. That's part of why big social media need EU servers.

A federated system is not in one place, and another issue is that while deletion requests could be send (and Lemmy supports this accourding to their website), it can't be as easily enforced to be followed by third parties. Of which, there are a lot in a decentral place.

Think of this: If I post something on Reddit, it get's reposted to 4chan, then I remove my original post, then it's still on 4chan. I could ask them to remove it, but that would likely be declined. Since 4chan has little to do with the EU and it's citizen, and doesn't actively market itself, they have little to do with the GDPR. At best you could make a copyright based claim, but that'll change it into a whole other topic.

Federated systems similarily take eachothers content. It's important to note that generally Federated networks don't push their content to other instances. Instead, other instances grab them from each other. How often has federation not gone smoothly causing deleted Mastodon posts to still show up on otger instances because they grabbed the post but not the deletion request (I've seen it happen multiple times already).

The right to be forgotten forces them to make it anonymous and untracable upon request, but not to delete every word you ever typed. Anonymising your account and deleting traceble info only would be enough. That means, if the server you requested to deletes their part + send a request to third parties they deliberatly send info to themselves, they did their job as far as law is concerned.

Any third party that grabbed the info by themselves, would require you to send a new request to them. Considering federation works by grabbing other instances, not by pushing your instance to others, any federated post that still has your old info could still be up if changes or deletion requests haven't been processed.

So is Lemmy bad for privacy by default? Not anymore than the rest of the web, as long as you understand that the whole point of decentral systems mean it's not one place. Best to always keep in mind that everything on the internet is forever and public, even if you delete it or use filters on who can see it, as you can never ensure no one copies it and post it elsewhere.

cambionn, 11 months ago

Most of my intrests are there and have some activity. Mainly the computerstuff and all. But others exist but aren't active. Take for example kpop, japanese music, horses, the elder scrolls. I wouldn't mind a community for western style RPGs as those are nearly the only games I play, with a few exeptions. General gaming ones seem too general for me, too little I care about.

I am trying to post here, but also don't want to spam a community with only my posts and make it looks like some kind of echo chamber. Feels like a delicate balance on the (nearly) inactive ones.

cambionn, 11 months ago

Don't get me wrong, I'd love for them to die and for federated or privacy-conscious alternatives to take their place. But I don't think they're all dying that much.

While it is true that more people complain and leave for alternatives than before, long term it doesn't seem like the masses are really switching yet. I feel like people are becoming more aware of privacy, market-monopoly, and other related issues, but at the same time don't want to hand in convinience, pay money to stop it, nor move somewhere when the rest isn't there yet. We see a spike on alternative SNS like Lemmy and Mastodon around the time news regarding some drama with big SNS releases, but we also see many users leave the alternatives after a time and that they never left the first platform that had drama to start with. They're just used both to eventually return. It's generally only a specific crowd that really leaves for good to go elsewhere, but not the masses.

As for the many lay-offs lately. Don't forget that during COVID the sky was the limit for tech. They all predicted that after the time being locked in our houses doing everything remotely, we'd keep doing that, and they invested accourdingly. However, as the world opened up more that predictioned turned out wrong, causing them to have over-invested and needing to make budget cuts to fix their mistake.