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De-centralization and open source was always the better way. Technology started on this path and the corporate powers have done everything they can to sabotage and destroy open tech.
Been this way with every new tech I reckon. See also DVD burners and DRM/regional codes.
Yeah, I find it funny that people don’t remember DVD DRM. I guess it wasn’t noticeable to Americans, but you move from Latvia to the UK and suddenly all your movies are duds. You can at least use a VPN today to circumvent this bull shit in many cases, no such luck back then.
P.S. What was even worse for people living in xUSSR countries is that part of DVDs came from Russia (region 5) and part came from Europe (zone 2, because many xUSSR countries were assigned zone 2). The same was true for DVD players. So it was always a puzzle what to buy. Fuck this shit.
The problem you are describing is not malware or viruses. They’re just the tools.
The problem is capitalism, which turns everything free into something on which a profit can be made
No… It’s malware. It’s not a virus, it’s malicious. It’s malware.
Thorsquint.jpg
That’s why Foss will always be better, and we need to support these developers. They also need to protect their software better from capitalist ghouls that will profit from it for free
Protecting FOSS is impossible, there will always be a company that uses your codebase, credits you and includes advertisements to your program.
We need to make using FOSS projects the default and using the corporate options as the backup option.
What I mean is better licenses that make sure you get paid if companies profit from it, and harsher penalties for those that get caught infringing the license
Such a license wouldn’t fit the free software or the open source definitions, but I find it interesting that there has been a small, yet apparently growing, group of people unsatisfied with our current open licensing, for different reasons, and proposing new ideas and concepts that wouldn’t fit these definitions.
Aggressive capitalism coupled with user ignorance is the main issue. The advice still remains don’t install all this shit, but people growing uo with smartphones have bought in to this idea that it’s reasonable for Google to spy on your every move, so why not every other app?
So many users have no idea how their devices work - even an inkling - now what apps do, how to keep devices secure and private, and what happens with their data. Business has taken advantage of that - people want things to “just work” so business use that as a way to abuse users and make every app a trojan horse for data mining.
Even Google, Apple etc privacy settings are bullshit - they’re just figleafs of psuedo privacy that enable them as the platform makers to dictate the terms.
I switched away from Windows to Linux on PC, and I use FOSS alternatives on my Android device (even considering replacing android with FOSS system - difficult with some work essential apps unfortunately). But even if you stay on windows/android there are plenty of things users can do to protect themselves - they just don’t know how or worse can’t be bothered by the whole issue.
If there’s anyone here that cares about their privacy and doesn’t know this already:
If you have a choice between accessing the website through a browser and installing an app, use the browser. Browsers (typically) at least try to protect the types of information that gets sent, whereas there are much fewer restrictions (again, typically) for apps.
Everyone wants you to install apps because apps (typically) get access to much more data.
The worst is many of these apps are just websites repackaged as apps. They just want the elevated access being an app gives them.
I think i read somewhere that the cia said they dont install bugs anymore because now ppl do that themselfs.
Yeah, I’ve read a bunch of articles over the last few years about how a lot of law enforcement agencies are finding that instead of getting a warrant and doing a bunch of surveillance they can just buy people’s private data from a data broker and get more info than they would have been able, or allowed, to gather if they’d gotten the warrant.
It’s also a lot easier to do it in software, since you don’t need to splice wires and leave physical traces like you would have had to do in the day.
A well-configured charger or Flash drive can do that job for you, and can spread itself.
USB charger ?
Yes, since most modern chargers and cables have internal chips to communicate capabilities with for things like fast-charging. It is not difficult to have the chip identify itself as something else, and execute a payload.
A common attack method is to have it show up as a keyboard, and execute a series of key-sequences when connected to a computer (like opening and executing things through a command prompt).
It is also why you should try and avoid plugging random USB cables/chargers into your phone/computer when out and about, since you don’t exactly know if the other end is what it appears to be.
I don’t know enough about the charger thing to comment on how viable that might be for an attack vector.
But you’re definitely right about plugging your mobile device into random ports. Either set your phone to by default only charge and not communicate, use a charge-only cable, or only use your own power bank/charger when away from home and you don’t fully trust where you are…
So I’m pretty averse to getting new apps and giving them location permissions.
Just cause of this comment I went it and looked at the location permissions, holy shit so many apps had it that shouldn’t have. Like Apple home… wtf does it need location for, it uses wifi…
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Whoa. I hope it was my fake Limp Bizkit song because a couple friends and I actually did this around 2000.
What was it really?
A shitty spoof we made about hot pockets. We listed it on Napster or Limewire as a bootleg.
Thank you.
My fellow americans, I would once again like to say I did not have sexual relations with that woman.
Lol I remember this kind of thing happening
Yeah, when I was setting up my first smartphone there was a very weird moment where I had to go against a lifetime of training on laptops and desktop PCs and just immediately invite every single app to fuck me up the arse if I wanted it to function as anything more than an expensive telephone with a fancy screen. But invite them up my arse I did.
I got a new phone for the first time in a decade and Android keeps cheerfully telling me I’m opted-in to new horrifying layers of surveillance. ‘We’re gonna look at the first thing you click every time you install anything! Isn’t that great?’ Fuck off and die. ‘But you’ll get less relevant recommendations…’ Don’t recommend anything. ‘Wow, you’re gonna get such generic ads.’ Where else did you hide ads, Google?!
For context: my previous phone is an LG. LG does not make phones anymore. That’s how long I clung to something I’d largely unfucked. And every time it boots, to this day, it reminds me I need to agree to some licensing horseshit.
Plainly not.
The damn weather app demands to know my location. Asking makes sense. Demanding is a failure to understand why people check the weather. I don’t need it where I am. I need it where I’m going to be. You have no trouble showing me it’s cloudy in the default location, five thousand miles north. Let me enter a city name and mind your damn business.
One counterargument: without your current location, it can’t send any weather alerts that immediately impact your safety.
The network sends those.
Because the cell towers are cemented in place.
Not that Florida’s smart enough to limit Amber Alerts to relevant portions of the state. I’m down in the dick-tip. I’ve been rudely awoken by blaring alarms about a kidnapping up in the grundle.
I hope they send those alerts to people in Nashville, because they’re all closer to Tallahassee than I am.
This isn’t always the case.
Weather apps used location even in fucking Symbian and whatever before android, and my 2011 Android Gingerbread bread phone had that as well
If it’s ONE app that has any legitimate business with my location it’s weather
Weather apps being able to use GPS data is great. Weather apps shitting the bed if you don’t give it permissions, when it fucking knows it has to ask for permissions, are failed products.
I will give it a location. It can tell me the weather there.
In winter I want to know if it’s going to be good enough to go out on the bike or if it’s going to be cold and wet in which case I’ll drive instead (yeah I know better clothing blah blah). There is a case for knowing the weather forecast for my current location.
Yes, of course - some people need very local predictions. But I live in Florida. Snow is not an issue. I want to know if this afternoon’s thunderstorm is going to cross where I’m driving, and I want to know what’s up with cloud formation in the eastern Atlantic. The temperature’s gonna be the same in all three places: Too Damn Hot.
Get a used pixel and install grapheneos
Alternatively, get pretty much any phone and load LineageOS on it, and just live the FOSS-purist Android life.
It’s an incredibly sucky life, but it’s a free one.
pretty much any phone and load LineageOS on it
Have your looked at the officially supported device list recently? Sadly a lot of manufacturers don’t have anything supported for several years.
Reminds me of that Futurama clip from over 20 years ago where Fry is on the internet and a literal mob of advertisements surround him.
My God…it’s full of
starsads!
It was considered best practice to never install anything
In what universe? You might as well never turn on your computer.
Yeah this post makes a good point but sounds a little like the writer did not experience what they claim to. WeatherBug was buggy slow bullshit and everyone installed it anyway. it was only people who noticed details who saw how sluggish it made your PC. To this day I’ve never heard a single person talk about it getting your location being a problem, until now. That’s a good point I guess but I just don’t think it was on many people’s radars.
I installed all kinds of stuff, but the metric was if it slowed down my PC or especially my games. That’d get me to uninstall, run antivirus and/or anti-malware, or even totally reinstall Windows real quick.
Exactly! We weren’t yet used to companies spying on us and computers were on the slow side anyhow
Yeah, I would install anything that just used 0 resources when it’s not running. But that’s not what malware does
It really feels like the OP didn’t have older people in their life with browsers with 3 or more toolbars that you had to service every other month. 😅
People clicked yes to everything. Just like they do now. Nothing has changed.
3? More like 33!
Before clicking yes just meant ruining your sandbox which was your computer. You can’t just have a bad PC today, instead you get your data leaked and become a target for scams.
In this universe. I didnt want to have 10 fucking different toolbars for my browser. You had to see the correct download button, so that you get your wanted download plus malware/viruses. If you got the wrong you got a lot of malware xD
shit like this is why im going to eventually create my own little internet island.
Dw, i’m going to rule over it like a dictator, no democracy here :)
Do it. It’s so nice.
Use Wireguard to access it remotely.
I have a theory that this is the next iteration of Internet. A private internet linked by vpn over the public Internet. Probably already exists in some form over Tor or in dusty Pirate communities. All we need is a no-commercial-entities clause and a Yahoo clone and we could rock like it’s 1994!
i consider i2p to be a form of this ngl.
Most of the Internet is like that already.
oh i’ve already got that part setup. I’m talking about exposing it to the wider world so i can create my own little internet cult.
Be careful
dw, the only rule is that i’m the dictator.
Bonzi buddy
by this logic AAVs equivalent for ads will come into existence in a couple years… maybe its already here.
Very articulate. Appreciate the post.
