Updoots for The 4400. Might be my favorite show of all time. The theme song is still playing in my head.

Do /not/ make the mistake of watching the cw’s 4400 (without a The). I would rather watch Tommy Wiseau’s The Neighbors over it.

Add Tucker and Dale vs Evil to that category.

Hi! Although your post is full of reasonable advice on maintaining privacy online I want to challenge you on the statement that the threat model matters. The contrapositive of the statement “I don’t need privacy if I have nothing to hide” is “I have something to hide, if I need privacy”. This puts those marginalized groups you mentioned in a position where simply by using a privacy tool or technique, they draw suspicion to themselves. It might immediately raise subconscious alarms in internet communities like facebook, where the expectation is that you use your real name.

The only way privacy measures work for anyone, is if they’re implemented for everyone.

Further, I’d like to challenge the concept that a cis white tech bro has nothing to hide. There’s a big invisible “for now” at the end of that statement. The internet, mostly, never forgets. We’ve had waves of comedians get “cancelled” over tweets they made years ago. Times change, people grow, laws regress. Posting statements about abortions is as of this year, suddenly unsafe. Maybe posting about neurodivergence comes next. Who knows with the way the world is going, maybe 5 years from now you’ll regret having posts on /c/atheism associated with you.

I think a good way to be considerate of privacy is to think in terms of identities, what those identities are for, and what links those identities. Does your identity on github need make comments about your political leanings? Should your resume have a link to your github? Does your identity on etsy need to have a link to your onlyfans? Does your dating profile need a link to your reddit account? Your “2nd” reddit account? Not all of these are clear yes or no answers, they’re just things to consider and make decisions about. Also, consider what class identities you only have one of, and what class of identities are for the most part unchangeable, e.g. attaching your phone number to two separate identities functionally links them.

… but cd is a built-in

John Oliver take on it https://youtu.be/gYwqpx6lp_s

I highly recommend installing fzf, and its shell integration. Makes your Ctrl + r magnitudes more pleasant to use!

This is up there with left-pad now!

I really think that’s the secret end game behind all the AI stuff in both Windows and MacOS. MS account required to use it. (anyone know if you need to be signed in to apple ID for apple ai?) “on device” inference that sometimes will reach out to the cloud. when it feels like it. maybe sometimes the cloud will reach out to you and ask your cpu to help out with training.

that, and better local content analysis. “no we aren’t sending everything the microphone picks up to our servers, of course not. just the transcript that your local stt model made of it, you won’t even notice the bandwidth!)”

Not a security scientist, but in my interpretation, it’s the “categories” of the factors that matter. Ideally, you use some two of three of:

• something (only) you know - generally represented by passwords
• something (only) you have - most commonly represented by some device. you prove that you have the device by providing a token only that device can generate.
• something (only) you are - generally represented by biometrics

the goal then is maintaining the "only"s.

if you tell someone your password, or they see you type it in, or they beat it out of you with a wrench, it’s no longer something “only” you know, and it is compromised.

if you use the same password on two websites, and one website is compromised, the password is compromised.

OTPs from a key fob or yubikey or something are similarly compromised if the device that provides them is left out in public/lost/stolen/beaten out of you with a wrench.

biometrics are again, are compromised if it’s not “only” you with access to them - someone scans you face while you’re asleep, or smashes your finger off with their wrench.

having multiple factors in the same category, like having two passwords, or two otp tokens, or two finger prints, doesn’t significantly improve security. if you give up one thing you remember, it’s likely you’ll give up more. if one fob from your keychain is stolen, the second fob on that keychain is of no additional help.

you can start shifting what categories these things represent though.

if you write down your password in a notebook or a spreadsheet, they become thing you have.

OTPs can become something you know if you remember the secret used to generate them.

knowing many different things is hard, so you can put them in a password vault. the password vault is then something you have, which can be protected by something you know. so although your OTPs and passwords are in one place, you still require two factors to get access to them.

you still need to protect your "only"s though. and don’t put yourself in situations where people with wrenches want your secrets.

I use passwordstore.org/ as my password manager, including for my otp codes. It’s backed by a git repo. I get a backup of it on every device it is cloned to.

Further, in terms of safety, having a large display built into your dash showing you navigation is much better than a small device you jerryrig onto a vent or something. It’s easier to see via your peripheral vision, and won’t put you in a situation where you need to go find it off of the floor when it falls off.

The password to my password manager: a few randomly chosen words that will definitely just sound like nonsense dementia-talk probably.

Geocaching is free and usually lots of fun in cities. It’s like a big database of dead drops - people hide small containers with pieces of paper to sign, and post their GPS coordinates online. Frequently they’re hidden near points if interest, as well so you might find some cool shops or bars as a side effect.

I’ll take it over QuickTime

https://youtu.be/KiPQdVC5RHU?si=MUtgNdbiHGCVNHTV

I’ve had it happen on servers where that moderation option is not enabled. My worst experience was trying to join a friend group’s discord via an invite link shared with me. I was prompted to create an account with email, and I did. I was then shown a read-only view of the server: I could see all messages and other folks could see I joined and 👋 to me. I could not send messages myself, however, without verifying with a phone number. Further, I couldn’t use a Google voice number (my primary number) to verify, nor my “real” number which was associated to another account.

Sometimes it depends on discord itself finding you suspicious, for some definition of suspicious. perhaps a user agent whitelist? lack of Google cookie?

it’s awful and I hate it. I generally prefer not to have a shared identity across communities, and there’s no way to create a usable discord identity without a phone number.

I use Firefox on all my devices and couldn’t be happier with it. I especially love how sync works: there’s options to both pull tabs from other devices, and push to them. Quite frequently I’d be just browsing on my phone and send a tab over to my laptop to deal with/read/act on when I’m sitting down at a bigger screen.

You can disable chrome in it’s app settings!