Good resource: https://backgroundchecks.org/justdeleteme/
2,503 karma · joined July 25, 2021
Tor gained a lot of popularity after the Snowden revelations. We would need several Snowden-like leaks over the coming years to ramp Tor usage up substantially. And then there's no way of knowing how Tor would scale to support a new influx of users, year-on-year.
But I agree with Patil, the more people that use it, the better. If we could just shake the stigma that Tor = crimeware then that would be great.
And banks can reverse fraudulent transactions, whereas with crypto there is the 'code is law' thing and once it's set in stone on the blockchain, there is no going back.
Also since modern computing is so leaky and insecure, crypto is being rampantly stolen all over the place. You could say the same about computing for banks, but the rate limiting, KYC, and anti-fraud measures are way ahead of crypto.
I believe it could be 'turtles all the way down' as the phrase goes. Maybe our Universe started by a collision of two or more other Universes and we got this mess called the Big Bang. This doesn't explain how those other Universes started though.
But then as mere humans, we can't conceptually grasp Infinity itself. This is not some failing of ours, it's actually convenient to not imagine infinity, as it would drive us mad. The minute you include the Infinity Symbol (∞) in a math equation, all logic starts to cease and get very wobbly.
> Vanilla OS is an immutable and atomic Ubuntu-based distribution that receives updates at the right time without sacrificing security or functionality.
> Vanilla OS is an immutable operating system. Core parts of the system are locked down to prevent unwanted changes or corruption caused by third-party applications or faulty updates. Some paths such as the home and configuration directories are still writable, allowing the user to keep and modify their files and application data.
> Core components are updated via controlled and atomic transactions, which are only applied when successful and made available on reboot.
Anecdotally I've been running Ubuntu 18 since it came out and updates don't mess with my system. They're not designed to mess with your system. They're mostly security patches for modular pieces of the OS.
But I still think we need more of these 'skeleton key' type sites, not just one. It's great that it's open source and on GitHub[1] and I encourage as many people as possible to host their own instance.
We can't afford another BugMeNot type shutdown. The Internet needs these types of sites badly, even though it's a possible legal grey area (Don't forget pass sharing is forbidden in some ToS).
[0] https://www.standard.co.uk/tech/password-sharing-illegal-gov...
Personally I just use https://yourls.org/
Bitcoin isn't perfect. For one, it's not anonymous, and was never designed for privacy / anonymity. Monero on the other hand is anonymous and more like paying in cash. Of course even that has issues, in that at some point you need to interact with an exchange to cash out your Monero to fiat, and that leaves paper trails.
You could, in theory only transact in Monero and not use fiat at any point. But good luck buying a house in anonymous cryptocurrency where the transaction is set in stone and can't be reversed.
This is why programming is paid so well. You get paid to bang your head against the wall and live in Google and Stack Overflow. The trick is in the delayed gratification premise, in that you only see the fruits of your labor after a long period of headaches.
This is why upon noticing you've been compromised, you log out of all devices. Only gotcha there is a bad actor can still do authenticated actions even after you done a global logout. So if anyone's building apps with login functionality, always check if the user is allowed to do actions even after global logouts.
Which quickly devolved into nickel-and-diming AD placement above all other metrics. Their search engine is basically a giant shop now.
Simple living actually works. I've tried it. Complexity is not your friend. But that doesn't mean I avoid complexity at all costs. After all I'm typing this on a computer which is the most complex possession I have.
The new paradigm is that everything has shifted online. The Internet is the proverbial town square. If you don't participate, that's on you, but all manner of discourse happens online now, and most importantly; that discourse shapes public opinion, and can have real lasting change in the world.