Reminder to be aware of darknet mirrors like I2P sites and Tor .onion services - domains aren’t controlled by a company so they can’t just be taken down by a legal request.
For z-lib, the Wikipedia article lists their .onion and I2P addresses (I haven’t verified them so check before bookmarking): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-Library
It’s less a dogwhistle and more just explicit symbolism, just substituting the swastika so that it’s not a swastika.
This was interesting. I know two of the small communist sites I use are hosted on these services so it’s good to know how stable the ground is.
Thanks for the detailed reply :)
I agree with all your points, it is misleading and potentially harmful to use a strong term like spyware to refer to all of those things, without further context. I guess I'm still used to a couple of tech circles where people would jokingly throw 'spyware' around to describe anything and everything, so I didn't realize how misleading it really is. Especially when it's applied to things like automatic updates, which only the most extreme security models consider more of a risk than a security feature.
That website has a very strict, unusual interpretation of 'spyware'. Even if all the telemetry and unprompted connections made by Mozilla Firefox are in good faith and legitimate features, that website still labels it 'spyware', as it is revealing unnecessary information without your consent.
The same website gives Tor Browser a 'Not Spyware' rating, as it (necessarily!) removed the default features of Firefox that concerned them.
Side note - I think you may have accidentally marked your account as a 'bot account' in the settings.
It's Chromium-based, so I don't understand how it could be "configured in the same way".
That website is […] full of verifiably false information
Could you please provide and example or two? I wish to verify it, since I didn't notice any last time I checked the site.
they act as if any and all [unprompted] connections a browser makes are automatically bad and “spying”.
They're very clear that this is their approach (bold text on the home page). Even if you disagree with their definition, that doesn't make the site bad. And there are many valid situations where a threat model should be this strict, consider anti-government activists in any country.
They even claim that Tor Browser is a “spyware”.
It says "Not Spyware". https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/tor
Firefox gets a high rating on default configuration.
The next line explains that with custom configuration, it becomes Not Spyware.
This is true, politics is not something distinct which can be considered separate from or optionally added to society, culture or economics, although Lemmy is also explicitly political. That might be more what I intended to say.
(The real kicker is realizing that abstaining is not politically neutral.)
Yes. This is a different platform, I’d rather we don’t just transplant all the reddit problems here.
Lemmy is inherently political. It was and is a revolt against reddit’s staff, their business model and the influence of US politics, media and corporations on their platform due to their advertising model. This place wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t political differences.
We’re not here to impress people who were banned for spreading Nazism. Go to all the reddit-clones that started in the early 2010s when reddit got called out for hosting toxic racist-or-fascist hate communities and communities sexualizing minors (e.g. /r/jailbait).
The book Manufacturing Consent has an excellent analysis of how advertising is one of the major filters which affect the content of news. Regardless of whether it is surveillance ads or not, the model of advertising, while lucrative, profoundly compromises the integrity of news.
Of course, I understand (and I believe the book also suggests) most news can’t be expected to self-sustain and compete without having ads in their economic model. So this isn’t a rebuttal to the article’s discussion on “Non-creepy” contextual ads.
It sounds like you’re suggesting Linux phones are more private and secure than GrapheneOS. Given their current state and limitations, it is extremely unlikely that any of them are more secure than GrapheneOS against a typical hacker or malicious app.
with the downside that is limited to one single phone brand
In terms of security, this is also a benefit. It means they aren’t trying to aim at fifty different targets which may behave different or even unexpectedly. The software developers have far far far more confidence that their security features will work on your device if they test it on theirs.
Again, there is no such thing as “full privacy and security”. It is unpragmatic idealism. Not only does it misinterpret privacy and security as concepts, it is an unconstructive attitude for creating an effective security model, and just encourages burnout for no benefit. We don’t limit “full”. There is no full. There is no perfect answer. It’s an undefined and unachievable idea.
“[Someone made] a laptop, encased in foam in a full Faraday cage, wrapped by alternating metal foils, and finally covered by a 1” layer of reinforced concrete."
"It had been billed as the most secure computer ever. Right until two research papers had come out that showed it was possible to decipher processing by the amount of power being consumed and by pulling the slight RF signal being carried by the ground line. "
Now, I’m not saying you can’t effectively secure your device adequately against big-tech and corporate capitalism. I say you can! It’s achievable. But it’s unconstructive to hold the illusion that there is some absolute “full privacy” against them.
Who are you hiding from? “Increasing privacy” means nothing without context.
My adversaries (well, when I’m not at a protest) are not likely to be tracking my phones location, and my phone is set up that no app or website can, so to me personally it’s a large sacrifice for no benefit.
But for someone else, it could be good advice!
Carl and the Aqua Team make their position on piracy very clear.
https://inv.us.projectsegfau.lt/watch?v=MCTlcJMCSpM