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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 19th, 2023

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  • Someone made a mistake here. It’s not getting your IP address. An IP address is assigned by the gateway when you’re connected to an access point. An IP address is not an identity. They are always changing and can be shared. This has already been tested and upheld in court.

    It’s actually collecting your MAC address. Which is exchanged when your phone or tablet scan nearby WiFi points or Bluetooth devices. However, this can already be defeated. By default iOS and Android both have the option to randomise the MAC address in intervals. Making it extremely difficult to prove anything. This feature exists because the devices real MAC address never changes. It is unique. Alternatively, users can disable WiFi and Bluetooth scanning entirely. However, your device no longer participates in the Find My Devices program by Apple and Google, location does take longer to acquire in some scenarios, and accuracy may take longer to triangulate.


  • It’s always been bad practice to just blindly update software. That’s why we have different distros.

    Ubuntu and Mint hold your hand and make it easy for newcomers. Great way to dive into Linux. I completely agree these are great for “it just works” and no fuss. I’ve not had one break on me.

    Arch and Gentoo expect you to have experience and know what you’re doing. You build it up how you want it. That’s what makes these so great. But you need the experience and knowledge.

    I’ve personally tried openSUSE and in my opinion it feels like a good middle ground between both ends. In the past I’ve recommended Mint to get started, openSUSE once you’ve got experience, and then Arch for when you want total control.




  • From their own privacy policy they outline what they do:

    For research and development purposes, we may use datasets such as those that contain images, voices or other data that could be associated with an identifiable person.

    To provide location-based services on Apple products, Apple and our partners and licensees, such as maps data providers, may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device.

    Apple’s websites, online services, interactive applications, email messages, and advertisements may use “cookies” and other technologies such as pixel tags and web beacons.

    We also use personal information to help us create, develop, operate, deliver, and improve our products, services, content and advertising

    At times Apple may provide third parties with certain personal information to provide or improve our products and services, including to deliver products at your request, or to help Apple market to consumers.

    Apple may collect location, IP Address, network information, Bluetooth information, connected devices, accessories, personal demographics, browsing history, browser fingerprint, device fingerprint, search history, app data, usage data, performance, diagnostics, product interaction, transaction information, payment information, purchasing records, contacts, social graph, watch history, listening interests, reading list, call metadata, device information, messaging metadata, email addresses, salary, income, assets, health data, ad interaction, in-app purchases, in-app subscriptions, app downloads, music downloads, movie downloads, TV show downloads, Apple ID, IDFA, Random Unique ID, UUID, IMEI, Hardware serial number, SIM serial number, phone number, telemetry, cookies, Nearby WiFi MAC, Siri request history, Web sign-in, songs played, play and pause times, playlists, engagement and library.

    Literally all of this is what Google does. The only thing Apple does differently is hinder 3rd party apps to a greater degree, whereas Google is more permissive. But to be fair, Google has been improving the Privacy features of Android with each version.

    https://tosdr.org/en/service/158




  • Skin is an elastic organ. If you start putting on fat, your skin stretches. The foreskin can be stretched with regular motion. Retracting it on a daily basis would encourage it to stretch. Infections occur only when the foreskin isn’t cleaned well. I don’t know your circumstances personally. Teaching you how to keep clean and retracting the skin is a viable method. I’m not discrediting your parents. Just sharing the logic behind why circumcision is not absolutely necessary or should be the first choice. If this was the informed decision they made for you, I’m glad it was successful with no complications. That’s the best possible outcome.


  • When a baby is born, the doctor may ask if you’d like to have your baby circumcised. If this is the case, it happens before they leave the hospital. This is where that time frame comes in. Otherwise, circumcision is “recommended” within the first two weeks after birth.

    Here is a medical reason at birth: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/hypospadias.html

    Any medical condition after birth that requires a circumcision, needs to be performed by a doctor who knows exactly what they’re doing. Not every doctor does. So you end up with not-so-great stories shared around.

    Edit: You describe the tight foreskin you experienced which is in the second link I provided. It is a medical condition that doesn’t require circumcision. In fact, you could still have your foreskin right now. The condition usually goes away over time. Believe it or not. Circumcision is an easy way out. But one that may cost. And in the case of that individual, it did.


  • Oh boy. You’re about to learn a lot.

    A circumcision isn’t necessary when there’s nothing medically wrong with you. It’s literally mutilation when it’s done for religious or appearance reasons. Spoiler! These are the two most common reasons why this procedure takes place. You didn’t consent.

    When you’re born, the foreskin is fused to the glans (penis head). A foreskin’s purpose is protecting the glans and keeping it moist. A circumcised penis is scientifically proven to have reduced sensitivity because the glans are exposed all the time.

    This procedure usually happens when the baby is 24 to 48 hours old. There are over ~100 deaths a year from circumcision. If an infection occurs, this can easily get out of hand and cause the loss of all or parts of the penis… on a new born baby mind you. Complications later in life may include, but not limited to: pain or discomfort with an erection, erectile dysfunction, or abnormal shape or size of an erection.

    Because a new born penis is incredibly small, the slightest mistake can lead to disaster. In some cases, can mentally fuck someone up. Unfortunately, I am personally affected by a botched procedure. Too much skin was taken off and the urethral opening was torn.

    It’s an unnecessary procedure that can fuck up your otherwise healthy at birth child for the rest of their life. All for some religious reason or because parents “don’t like it” - every male is born with it. It’s there for a reason.



  • It’s not odd at all. It’s well known this is actually the truth. Ask any video editor in the professional field. You can search the Internet yourself. Better yet, do a test run with ffmpeg, the software that does encoding and decoding. It’s available to download by anyone as it’s open source.

    Hardware accelerated processing is faster because it takes shortcuts. It’s handled by the dedicated hardware found in GPUs. By default, there are parameters out of your control that you cannot change allowing hardware accelerated video to be faster. These are defined at the firmware level of the GPU. This comes at the cost of quality and file size (larger) for faster processing and less power consumption. If quality is your concern, you never use a GPU. No matter which one you use (AMD AMF, Intel QSV or Nvidia NVENC/DEC/CUDA), you’re going to end up with a video that appears more blocky or grainy at the same bitrate. These are called “artifacts” and make videos look bad.

    Software processing uses the CPU entirely. You have granular control over the entire process. There are preset parameters programmed if you don’t define them, but every single one of them can be overridden. Because it’s inherently limited by the power of your CPU, it’s slower and consumes more power.

    I can go a lot more in depth but I’m choosing to stop here because this can comment can get absurdly long.


  • so much for track day, I guess?

    Stuff like this is likely planned in advance with sports and super cars. Since this technology has existed for a while. Assuming you visit a recognized track, wherever it may be, the limiter simply turns off. For example, the 2009 and later Nissan GTR is sold in Japan with a 112 MPH artificial limiter in the software. The limit is there by law. GPS / Sat Nav is standard on this car. If you visit say, Fuji or Laguna Seca, the car knows where it is and turns the limiter off. Allowing you to achieve the ~200 MPH top speed. Examples sold for other markets such as US and EU need not worry. The redline in 6th gear is your physical limiter.

    On a slightly related note, clever people have figured out ways around limiters. Such as tricking the GPS or modifying the ECU. Unfortunately, these days it gets harder to do this as manufacturers like Mercedes, BMW, VW, and a few others, are encrypting the communication network physically located in the car. It’s not the traditional low and high speed CAN Bus. FlexRay is becoming more commonplace unfortunately.



  • You always will. Welcome to the Internet. The difference is whether or not you’ve taken steps to secure your stuff. You need to understand what this malware is looking for. It’s explicitly looking for unsecured services. Such as WordPress, SQL, etc. There are inexperienced users out there that inadvertently expose themselves. I see this type of probing at work and at home. Don’t overly stress it. My home server has been running for a decade without issues. Just keep it updated and read before you make any changes if you don’t fully understand the implications.

    My home based server is behind a pfsense firewall. Runs Arch. Everything is in a non-root docker container. SELinux is enforced. All domains are routed through Cloudflare. Some use Cloudflare Zero Trust.


  • Oh my. You’re doing it wrong. Exposing the unencrypted connection without the proper security measures is putting yourself at risk. Regardless of how strong you set the password, the connection can still be abused in all manner of ways. If you read the jellyfin documentation, you’d see the developers clearly state you should never do this. You need to put Jellyfin behind server software. Specifically a reverse proxy. I use NGINX. You can setup your connection to be secure this way. You can now also use Cloudflare if you have cache turned off. And if you really wanna go the extra mile, route it behind a VPN. Though this makes it harder for those you share it with or some devices that don’t support VPN.

    Please revise your connection. If you need help, feel free to reach out.



  • Jellyfin gives you 100% control. You’re responsible for setting up remote access. Which actually isn’t that hard. Several IT and network admins of the community (myself included) hand out documentation on how to do this. Without completely ruining your security.

    With Plex, some of the application communication is routed through their network. It requires an active internet connection and you must create an account with them. They have third party analytics embedded, use tracking pixels, beacons and device fingerprinting. Whatever personal data you have supplied is used to serve ads. This being their promoted content that isn’t part of your library.



  • Eh. Adobe puts more effort into making it harder or tedious.

    With the introduction of Creative Cloud, the notorious “amtlib.dll” that houses Adobe licensing, was bundled into the respective applications binary (exe). It didn’t stop pirates. In 24 hours they found the licensing mechanism and patched it.

    You could create a CC account, install the desktop manager, install any app(s) you wanted, then crack them. When an update arrived, you could simply update the app(s) and apply the crack again.

    Occasionally the licensing mechanism would update and an updated crack would be needed. As usual, pirates had this worked out the day of or a day later.

    Adobe would later patch the desktop manager and break functionality to update software if it wasn’t genuine. People could still get the latest versions by uninstalling and reinstalling through the desktop manager. Since it would retain user settings by default.

    Later, a mechanism was built into each application that would throw a warning message that the application isn’t genuine. For example, Photoshop would soft lock and the genuine check would display with the only option to close. This too was eventually patched out by pirates.

    The latest attempt from Adobe now forces users to input and have a credit or debit card saved before activating a trial. This removed the ability for users to easily install software anonymously.