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AlgebraFox

186 karma · joined August 8, 2024

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AlgebraFox··on Show HN: Fast Transition from Firefox to Librewolf
This is a bad idea. I don't know if customization made by LibreWolf to protect your privacy would be undone by using Mozilla's version of the profiles.
AlgebraFox··on GrapheneOS blocked exploitation of 3 Android zero-days used by Cellebrite
Google is afraid of small performance penalty. GrapheneOS offers knobs to control compatibility. You can always turn off individual protections, in case an app could not function under default settings.
AlgebraFox··on GrapheneOS blocked exploitation of 3 Android zero-days used by Cellebrite
GrapheneOS team has done an amazing job building a rock solid OS for mobile. But because it does not have the feature you need, doesn't mean it's useless for rest of us. I use it everyday for it's privacy and security features. Your argument is really weak. What does cloud backup has to do with it protecting from zero days?
AlgebraFox··on Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox
If anything, it just confirms Mozilla is selling data.
AlgebraFox··on Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox
I think it's safe now to call Mozila's management as criminals. They are using old Mozilla's reputation to profit off people's data.
AlgebraFox··on Mozilla owns "information you input through Firefox"
LibreWolf can do it.
AlgebraFox··on Why is no one talking about Mozilla's latest madness?
Sync is end-to-end encrypted. Even if they want to introduce ToS, it should be only for Sync feature, not the whole software. Also why Sync suddenly requires ToS after two decades?
AlgebraFox··on Why is no one talking about Mozilla's latest madness?
Why is Mozilla copying my search? It should only goto the search engine I selected. Mozilla doesn't need that data. Firefox just does the HTTP transfer and display's on my screen. Almost all software does that. Also why Mozilla did not require a ToS for two decades but now?
AlgebraFox··on Why is no one talking about Mozilla's latest madness?
That is your interpretation. It may not be Mozilla's or a Judge's interpretation.
AlgebraFox··on Why is no one talking about Mozilla's latest madness?
How is it reasonable? Firefox is a MPL licensed software. Why would they suddenly need a ToS if it is just a software? The speculation is that they are going to expand their data collection for ads and covering their ass via this new ToS.
AlgebraFox··on Why is no one talking about Mozilla's latest madness?
Please read ToS once again.

"You Are Responsible for the Consequences of Your Use of Firefox

Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy, and you agree that you will not use Firefox to infringe anyone’s rights or violate any applicable laws or regulations."

They can't be more clear than this. Acceptable Use Policy also applies to Firefox.

AlgebraFox··on Why is no one talking about Mozilla's latest madness?
It is very clearly mentioned in ToS that it applies to Firefox as well.

"You Are Responsible for the Consequences of Your Use of Firefox

Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy, and you agree that you will not use Firefox to infringe anyone’s rights or violate any applicable laws or regulations.

You will not do anything that interferes with or disrupts Mozilla’s services or products (or the servers and networks which are connected to Mozilla’s services)."

AlgebraFox··on Why is no one talking about Mozilla's latest madness?
Please check the link in ToS.

It leads to this Acceptable Use Policy

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/legal/acceptable-use/

"Upload, download, transmit, display, or grant access to content that includes graphic depictions of sexuality or violence,"

AlgebraFox··on Tuta Launches Post Quantum Cryptography for Email (2024)
Signal has implemented too. https://signal.org/blog/pqxdh/

"Post quantum" or "quantum resistance" are common terms used to describe crypto that is harder to crack by quantum computers. I don't see any snake oil here.

AlgebraFox··on How the UK Is Weakening Safety Worldwide
Exactly. I have no idea why people trust Apple when they were working with NSA and China for surveillance and censorship. Their software is 100% closed source. You've no idea what it does despite all marketing. They may make great hardware but it's foolish to have trust in their privacy claims.
AlgebraFox··on Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row
That works for nerds like us. But my sister or my non tech friends don't have knowledge to self host. It is like asking a person to do a surgery on themselves when they don't have medical knowledge. E2E services are very crucial for such normal people.

How long do you think for governments to make it illegal to self host or backdoor Linux builds? They have already went too far by just asking backdoor to data of every single person on the planet. We should oppose such unethical laws rather than finding workarounds.

AlgebraFox··on Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row
Nextcloud works great on GrapheneOS if you are willing to self host.
AlgebraFox··on U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
Apple is a hypocrite. They already were a huge partner to NSA's PRISM and China's surveillance programs. Their privacy marketing is solely because they could not tolerate profits made by Google and Meta. Now they also want to become ad company.

Even if you ignore the above points, Apple's software is closed source. You cannot change OS or install any unapproved app on your own phone. Apple phones are Orwellian's wet dream. If people still trust bigtech then society is doomed.

AlgebraFox··on OpenWrt 24.10.0 – First Stable Release
Just upgraded. All customization were automatically applied with no issues so far. Amazing work OpenWrt team.
AlgebraFox··on Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?
I really hate those who ask for GitHub profiles. Mine is psuedo anonymous and I don't want to share it with my employer or anyone I don't want to. Besides privacy, I do not understand why a company would even expect the candidate to have free contribution in the first place. Can't the candidate have other hobbies to enjoy or learn?
AlgebraFox··on Everyone knows your location: tracking myself down through in-app ads
True. But even paid apps have access to these data and can collect it without our knowledge. A genius called Stallman proposed solution decades ago. Free software aka. open source software. But outside of tech community, open source is not a known term. Maybe we should market it wherever possible, if we want true privacy and freedom.
AlgebraFox··on Go Is a Well-Designed Language
No matter how many blog posts try to justify Go, it is a lost ship. Yes it is used by many companies (I still don't understand why), but that does not make it a well designed language.

> But secondly designing errors as explicit values has been a trend-(re)setter. Go, Rust and Zig have all chosen to use this approach.

Just because Go treats errors as values, you can't compare Go's error handling with Rust's. Rust provides clean abstractions with Algebraic Data Types, ? operator over Result type to reduce polluting code with if-else nonsense in every single function. I bet atleast 30% of Go code in a project is error handling for the sake of handling.

Further Go's syntax inconsistency irritates me more. I still don't understand if I should put a comma or semicolon or nothing between members in a struct definition. Also

a := 10

...

a := 20 // error. a is defined.

a, b := 20, 30 // accepted. why ??

AlgebraFox··on Malicious extensions circumvent Google's remote code ban
Android apps can anytime do remote code execution. GrapheneOS even offers controls to restrict Dynamic Code Loading per app. But Google somehow cares only about RCE in browser extensions?
AlgebraFox··on The real motivation behind systemd (2018)
This is why more competition like System76 is important in Linux space. GNOME is pretty much a corporate controlled GUI. It sucks so much if you want to do anything advanced or productive (I use GNOME by the way). That is why I am excited for projects like COSMIC, Nix etc.

Edit: My point is not that systemd is bad. I personally haven't had any issues with systemd. I would just like more competition to companies like RedHat so they don't end up controlling our computing like Microsoft and Google did.

AlgebraFox··on Haskell: A Great Procedural Language
https://github.com/simplex-chat/simplex-chat/blob/stable/fla...

Their flake.nix indicates they use Haskell to generate cross compiled shared library for Android, iOS, Mac, Linux and Windows.

I am not expert in Nix but at high level I can see they are indeed using Haskell.

AlgebraFox··on Haskell: A Great Procedural Language
https://simplex.chat/

Private messenger for desktop and mobile platforms. It's mostly written in Haskell except for UI.

AlgebraFox··on A story on home server security
Tailscale is a great solution for this problem. I too run homeserver with Nextcloud and other stuff, but protected behind Tailscale (Wireguard) VPN. I can't even imagine exposing something like my family's personal data over internet, no matter how convenient it is.

But I sympathize with OP. He is not a developer and it is sad that whatever software engineers produce is vulnerable to script kiddies. Exposing database or any server with a good password should not be exploitable in any way. C and C++ has been failing us for decades yet we continue to use such unsafe stacks.

AlgebraFox··on India fines WhatsApp $25M for forcing 2021 privacy policy update
This was possible due to the hard work of non-profit Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) organization in India. Any Indian people reading this, please donate to them to keep fighting big-tech and govt for the internet freedom.
AlgebraFox··on DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome
I assumed this theory long back and I thought I was alone. Now it's great to see someone else has same theory.
AlgebraFox··on New Apple security feature reboots iPhones after 3 days, researchers confirm
Not OP. But I am using GrapheneOS for almost 4 months now. It is a breath of fresh air. Network Permission, Contact Scope, Duress PIN, Hardened Malloc, JIT tuning, Sandboxed Google Play etc.. are some key privacy and security features in Graphene. Will never go back to Apple's or Google's surveillance platforms.
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