oil25

Get off social media, get to bed early and actually rest, limit caffeine and junk food, take up a meditation routine and inquire about the source of all these "I" thoughts (literally, "where does this thought originate" or even simpler - "who am I?")

> Why would I need a VPN for browsing if all my traffic is https and I use HTTPS DNS?

Until TLS 1.4 is deployed, each HTTPS-protected site you visit will still reveal the domain name in its certificate, giving your ISP a pretty good idea of your browsing patterns, which it will in turn sell or turn over to authorities when asked.

> Tor exit nodes have been caught injecting malware into binaries downloaded over HTTP through them

It's more accurate to say bad actors have been injecting malware into HTTP-downloaded binaries. Some of these bad actors use Tor exit nodes, some use free WiFi hotspots, and some run their own VPN services. Framing this as a Tor problem is like blaming violence on weapons instead of the perpetrators.

The hyperbole is strong in this article. It's no secret nor mystery that the US Government is interested in Tor, but the thesis that it's untrustworthy because it is funded "100%" by them is just ridiculous.

Sure, I do. TLS provides end-to-end encryption and sites which don't support it are not allowed to run Javascript in my browser.

FRS and MURS frequencies would probably be most ubiquitous and useful in an emergency. If you get a second SDR, you can "hop" and listen to trunked frequencies used by emergency services, local and federal channels. Or you could buy a scanner from Uniden for something a little easier. I can highly recommend the SDS-100 - https://uniden.com/products/sds100-true-i-q-x2122-digital-ha...

If true, this doesn't bode well for the recent heat wave in Alaska, which is already the most violent and dangerous state in the US.

HAM Radio or SDR! It's worth picking up something as inexpensive as a Baofeng or RTL2832U transceiver, even just to listen on common frequencies.

Yes, a more secure and practical alternative to "VPN services" is the Tor network, which externalizes the cost of infrastructure to volunteers and thus reduces the risk inherent with centralized control. While Tor is also not without risk, I really wish more privacy oriented services and software had decentralization as a core tenet of their design.

Can someone share the cited research? Twitter appears to be blocking Tor these days - what a disappointment:

> 403 Forbidden: The server understood the request, but is refusing to fulfill it.

I haven't had much success with that, probably because it's difficult for me to disjoin emotion from passionate evangelism. It may even have been counter-productive. What has your experience been? Can you share any strategies for such discussions about personal lifestyle politics?

> So all this trillion-dollar hardware is really at the mercy of those men with the little brass keys?

> That's exactly right. Whose only problem is that they're human beings.

(WarGames)

One way we can begin to address, or at least help recognize, mass surveillance is to use the same tools of surveillance the oppressors use on us. A recent phenomenon I have observed on YouTube is the rise in "First Amendment audit" videos, where somebody stands in the public space and awkwardly films police, politicians and other elected officials (our servants) going about their day and duties. The videos often escalate into a ridiculous display of ego and threat of force, even though no crime is being committed, which I think is a healthy reminder of how uncomfortable it is to be "watched" by someone. It may already be too late - we may be seriously "out-gunned" by state and corporate surveillance for meaningful resistance - but these video reminders may be a gateway into awakening collective consciousness on some level to bring about actual change.

Reading articles like this make me quite sad, not because the described lifestyle is unappealing to me (I'm a vegan who doesn't drive, avoids plastic, and is "off-grid" on solar power), but because on an individual level, these efforts are so pale in comparison to environmental destruction caused by military, industry and large-scale commerce, I consider bragging or evangelizing them to be vain and even a bit egoistic.

Don't get me wrong: avoiding animal products, long-haul flights, plastic shampoo bottles are all worthwhile, but not for the reasons stated. They do not even begin to address the large systemic problem of climate change and ecological harm. They make us feel good, like we're "doing something" - and perhaps that's by design while the real perpetrators of our own extinction go unpunished and even unrecognized. It is "bumper sticker" activism while what's actually needed is a radical shift in collective consciousness. How do we organize such global action for effect?

The great irony is Americans (and most of the Western world) are now living in the safest, lowest-crime periods in history. It's truly double-speak to fear monger about gun violence, terrorism, muggings, etc. when statistically one's odds of dying or becoming sick from bad diet, bad water, air pollution, car accidents, even hospital visits, are an order of magnitude more likely.

OpenBSD disables Intel Hyperthreading by default. If you don't mind the security risk, you can enable it with a kernel flag. The other comment about using apm to adjust performance is spot on, too.

One of the main advantages of Thinkpad is Coreboot/Libreboot support to free yourself from Lenovo BIOS - and even neuter Intel ME. Aesthetics are a personal matter, but ergonomically I also prefer Thinkpad over MacBooks.

> We've been eating heat cooked food for millennia.

"We" have been eating raw food for millions of years, far longer than cooked foods, which are a relatively new phenomenon in our biochemical evolutionary history.

Nice idea, but you're better off accomplishing it with TLD wildcards or AXFR transfers than a hosts list, since new sub-domains are always being created and rotated.

YouTube and Maps are one of the few Google services left which are still available over Tor. You can proxy youtube-dl and retain some of your privacy this way.

This is far from a complete list - I got only 8 netblocks with that command. Try this one instead which queries Merit RADb:

    whois -h whois.radb.net '!gAS15169'

Bill wrote his letter 21 years before this definition materialized and it actually served to inspire the free software/open source concept altogether.

> There is a viable alternative to the problems raised by Bill Gates in his irate letter to computer hobbyists concerning "ripping off" software. When software is free, or so inexpensive that it's easier to pay for it than to duplicate it, then it won't be "stolen".

—Jim Warren, July 1976

Check out NewPipe (https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe) to replace the proprietary YouTube client on Android. For Maps, thankfully it still works in Firefox, which entirely relieves me of Google Play Services and their proprietary apps on my phone.

We've come a long way from Bill Gates' original characterization of open source (long before it was called that) as thievery - https://worldhistoryproject.org/1976/2/bill-gates-writes-ope...

I'm still sure as ever Microsoft is no friend of free (as in Freedom, not price) software and can't help but shake my head at this latest publicity stunt. I wouldn't trust their software any further than I throw it.

Well said. Unfortunately I can't help but feel the Snowden revelations have had such a profound chilling effect on free speech and the press, that we are now afraid to go on record - even with pseudonyms - to denigrate the NSA, CIA and other government agencies. The thought that any idea, written or perhaps even not, is cataloged for eternity and scrutinized under unknown pretenses certainly gives me pause before I write or reply online now. Truly, I am afraid saying the "wrong" thing today may in a few short years turn out quite badly.

GDPR strikes again!

> Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.

The sad and depressing state of the Web in 2019: proprietary third-party JavaScript and cookies are required to view a simple, innocent JPG.

reCAPTCHA on VPN is difficult, but on the Tor network, they are downright impossible. I've never been able to get past it, even after a few dozen painful attempts. That means Google services are entirely off-limits over Tor, even Search, which is a disgrace.

> I could have sworn I'd never signed in to Chrome using my google account, but I guess I must have mistakenly signed in to gmail or something.

Chrome 69 tricked users into signing into the browser, myself included - https://lifehacker.com/how-to-disable-chromes-automatic-sign...

That was the last straw to uninstall Chrome from all my devices and I've been a happy Firefox user ever since. Well, except now reCAPTCHA hardly ever works.

> Norwegian software company Opera

The company was founded in Norway, but has since sold itself to a Chinese group of investors, which is an important consideration.