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throwaway82003

7 karma · joined May 8, 2021

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throwaway82003··on Ursula Le Guin Books
Anyone read a short 133 pages book of her's 'Very Far Away from Anywhere Else'? Heard that it's good.
throwaway82003··on Over 96% of Apple Users Have Blocked Facebook from Tracking Them
In some phones, if you enable 'show system apps', you can see the following fb apps:

Facebook App Installer

Facebook App Manager

Facebook Services

All 3 can be disabled.

Also they usually have Instagram and fb messenger pre-installed.

Also many apps come with fb SDK. On android, the app 'ClassyShark3xodus' can be used to check it. Available on Fdroid.

throwaway82003··on Afraid to Google a thing because I don't want the algorithm to think I like it
On desktop Firefox has Multi Account Containers and Profiles.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-...

throwaway82003··on Little Free Library
There's also the FOSS app Barinsta available on Fdroid.

https://github.com/austinhuang0131/barinsta

throwaway82003··on WhatsApp will progressively kill features until users accept new privacy policy
It's too easy to do and can be done from quite far away. Also you don't need eyes. An innocent pic or video taken in public can capture that info.

I think long ago, Signal used to display phone number just beneath name when you are chatting someone. That always made me a bit uncomfortable. Now they don't do that, only displays name.

throwaway82003··on WhatsApp will progressively kill features until users accept new privacy policy
My understanding is that the coin stuff is still in beta and not available in the regular app.

Also when it lands on stable, it will be opt-in. So one need to deliberately switch it on to enable their cryptocurrency.

Their history tells us they go to great lengths to eliminate metadata. Court requests for signal data only get the account creation time and last access time. Please read about how they implemented their gif functionality in such a way as to preserve privacy. Also read about how they preserve your privacy in group chats. I think they are available in their blog. My understanding is that these things are unique to signal and apps like Element Matrix, WhatsApp, wire, telegram, threema, Conversations XMPP etc don't have it.

IMO it's a good idea to read Signal's blog. It can also be subscribed through RSS so you'll get notified about new articles.

https://signal.org/blog/rss.xml

https://signal.org/bigbrother/

throwaway82003··on WhatsApp will progressively kill features until users accept new privacy policy
But I think the new policy changes allow WhatsApp to read business messages. So be weary. Also I think you gotta accept the new terms to have WhatsApp Business.

There's Watomatic. Author claims it doesn't connect to internet even though it has full network access permission, so idk about it. But the code is FOSS. It's on fdroid too.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26153963

throwaway82003··on WhatsApp will progressively kill features until users accept new privacy policy
Someone shoulder-surfing you can see the phone number of the person you are messaging and might mess with them?
throwaway82003··on The Pinecone Overlay Network
For Android, there is one from Peter Sanford (psanford on HN). He implemented the Go version of magic-wormhole, which I think is used by people like tptacek. So I guess it can be trusted.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.sanford.wor...

https://github.com/psanford/wormhole-william-mobile

One disadvantage is that current magic wormhole doesn't support resume but they plan to implement it.

Another app that you might have heard of is croc, but it doesn't seem to be secure:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27056746

throwaway82003··on WebAIM Screen Reader User Survey #9
Hi I'm not blind but wanna just dump some links here I bookmarked related to accessibility. Might be useful.

[1] The actively developed version of Mozilla TTS, named coqui-TTS. My understanding is that the original team was let go from Mozilla and they formed coqui.

https://github.com/coqui-ai/TTS

They are also on Element Matrix:

https://matrix.to/#/#coqui-ai_TTS:gitter.im

[2] FOSS automated accessibility testing engine for websites and other HTML-based user interfaces:

https://github.com/dequelabs/axe-core

[3] Emacspeak, developed by someone who was blind since childhood:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emacspeak

[4] UK government websites are famous for being accessible. They have design guidelines:

https://design-system.service.gov.uk/

[5] Similar system for the US govt.

https://designsystem.digital.gov/

[6] Mozilla MDN learn accessibility:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility