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Rambler wrote (edited )

Reply to Trump deletes tweets after being banned from Twitter [Updated] | Ars Technica by awdrifter

Imagine companies that are so powerful that they can force the most powerful man in the world to self censor. Big Tech is flexing their power in this election to force other politicians to fall in line.

It's bizarre. I didn't even see anything remotely inciteful in the tweets I've seen shared in articles.

Furthermore, I believe he's still banned from Facebook? Big Tech has a left/liberal bias and needs to be put in check. While these are private platforms that 'can do whatever they want', I believe things like Twitter and Facebook have replaced the traditional 'soap box' in the town square. The 1st Amendment should, in my opinion, apply to large non-topic specific platforms.

The better option would be for people to just leave these companies and close their accounts.

The same platforms who have to add 'additional context' to certain topics don't seem to see the need to add 'additional context' to content/videos/tweets that incite violence by the left. It's how a second wave of looting/riots happened in Minneapolis after a black man shot himself in the head, captured on video, but photos/videos of cops at the crime scene was shared on social media with captions about how the cops killed him. Within 8-12 hours the police had published CCTV footage showing the man killed himself, yet the tweets/media/claims by ONE SIDE remained up, and it contributed to more stores being robbed/looted and more violent protests. No, "Additional Context" on that content to state that the man was a "murder suspect running from police who took his own life". If they have the ability to put claims and context on other topics, surely they can do the same when a criminal is refusing orders and charging the police with a knife and gets shot.

In short: Fuck big tech. They control the narrative, always.

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Rambler wrote (edited )

Reply to We may Soon have City-Spanning 900 HMz Mesh Networks by HMTg927

I'd recommend everyone who wishes to participate in decentralized communication to obtain their amateur radio license, General class or Amateur Extra. (Though the entry-level technician class is a good point of entry)

With no internet or cellular connection you can literally communicate around the world. You can send packets of information that are decoded to reveal text that you read, and respond to via software.

There are some limited functionality radio based mesh nets in existence too, including email over radio.

I've sent/received basic data packets (FT8) to all 50 states, 70+ countries and all continents. These packets were sent back/forth that just contained my call sign, the recipients call sign, grid square, and things like a signal report but other digital/packet modes allow you to have full blown chat-like conversations. My favorite operating mode that no one ever wanted to use was Hellschreiber / HELL MODE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellschreiber

But, FCC rules state you can't send encrypted radio traffic over the amateur airwaves. And, the FCC is known to swing the hammer of justice on people who violate the rules on the amateur airwaves as well... But I'm not for sure how they'd respond to a LOT of people doing something like this all at once for something like a large scale project. But data at most amateur frequencies is incredibly slow, even for text.

But back on the topic of traditional mesh nets: I believe NYC has a large city wide mesh net and some smaller ones localized in other areas of the country as well.

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Rambler wrote (edited )

Reply to What do you do to increase your privacy? Do you seek anonimity? by dandrews

For privacy, to me, it was a matter of removing myself from social media. Facebook seemed like it'd be hard to 'give up', even though I didn't use it for much more than following some hobby related groups or Messenger to talk to family.

But I downloaded my data from it, deactivated it. Haven't looked back. Seriously, it's so easy to quit. Tell your friends to PM you their numbers and to download the Signal app. Share your email address on your timeline. If someone wants to keep in touch with you, they will keep in touch with you. If they do not, then why care? Deactivate it and don't look back, you'll be happier when you're not fed information that an algorithm has determined will get YOU to click more and spend more time on the site.

Then I did the same for Instagram. IG, though owned by Facebook, made it much more difficult to remove yourself from it. I first deactivated my account, but re-activated it so that I could download my data from it. But then, had to wait a week as IG only allows you to deactivate your account once per week, and all of these actions must take place from their desktop site, not on the mobile app. What a fucking trainwreck of a process that is.

I haven't missed IG, either. For me, I just followed a lot of outdoorsy people and some real life friends. I liked seeing pictures of nature, cabins and all that. And all I posted was the same, since I enjoy landscape photography and nature in general. I can view that stuff anywhere, but haven't found a place (yet) to really share some of the work I do or have done.

Anyway, all of that was just to be a bit more private, mainly from employers who may find me as I search for work. Not that I ever really posted any opinions publicly.

But when reviewing the data I downloaded about myself, I began to want to become more anonymous online, too. These companies collect a metric shit-ton of data about you, and it just felt... concerning.

So that's when I stopped using the same username in more than one place, started to convince my friends/family to use Signal. Well, at least a couple of them do now. And it's my main form of communication with them. Started to De-Google my life. Started to use anonymity networks like I2P and Tor more, and research others. A big reason why this site exists is to encourage others to use and research various networks as well and to encourage them to be more privacy minded.

So to answer you second question: Do you seek anonymity?

Not 100%. At least not as 'Rambler'. I'm working on a commercial project completely unrelated to this site that will eventually be tied to my real identity, and I'm okay with that. I've mentioned it elsewhere on the web but not here (well until now). I've spoken enough about interests in places like IRC that would give a rough profile of me, and have typed enough messages to reveal a writing style that could be analyzed further with the above profile. If someone was determined enough they may be able to plot out my normal times online, my timezone to narrow down a geographical region, paint a profile of me based on comments about events, probably guess an age range with relative accuracy, etc.

But, my goal isn't to be 100% anonymous anyway. It's to simply be more in control with what is available to others and to move away from big tech.

With that said I've been 'somewhat' privacy minded for years, having used Linux primarily for the last 10-15 years, having ran a Pi-Hole to block ads/trackers/other junk at the network level since the project was young 4 or 5 years ago, always used password managers and randomly created passwords/phrases for every site as good security practice, etc, etc. But that is the 'lite' version of how I operate now, so to speak.

Can you be 100% anonymous? I'd say so, if we're talking about public facing identity online. Though I believe that there would be ways for the alphabet agencies to determine the identity of someone online who may have caught their interest, but you'd have to have REALLY caught their interest for that process to even begin, and the amount of resources they'd have to burn through to ID someone who is being very careful would be insane.

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Rambler wrote

Reply to What do you i2p for? by not_bob

IRC and for building tunnels to servers to make content available / publishing content and projects to the network.

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mr4channer wrote

Reply to I spent 2020 replacing all the Google things in my life. Here's what I use now instead. by Rambler

Here's the short version:

GMail → ProtonMail - based

Chrome → Firefox developer edition - unless you are a dev

Google search → DuckDuckGo - searx too, based

Google Drive → Sync and Backblaze - meh, syncthing

Google DNS → Cloudflare DNS - dilate

Maps → Apple maps - based, openstreetmap

YouTube → Netflix, TED talks, conference archives, and still a little YouTube (anonymously in a Firefox container) - netflix dilate, ted talks based

Google Analytics → Fathom - dilate

Everything else (calendar, reminders, photos, docs, video chat, news feeds) Nextcloud, running on my own instance - based
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burnerben wrote

Reply to 1 person shot as pro-Trump protesters breach the Capitol building by Rambler

I live barely outside of DC we had a curfew. Its amazing to see grown men and woman of this country have a tempure tantrum just because their guy didnt win. So much so they stormed the capitol building with weapons, killed someone, injured many many police, and put thousands of lives in danger. I have a close friend who's father works in the capitol and he wasnt answering his phone, she was scared half to death. Thankfully he's ok. And hopefully the united states invested enough in privacy infringing technologies to arrest these fuckers.

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Rambler OP wrote

Reply to comment by Seidoken in 1 person shot as pro-Trump protesters breach the Capitol building by Rambler

I feel that it will only get crazier. The right is realizing that the police and national guard will follow orders regardless if you have a thin blue line flag or not, haha. Lot of, "But we supported you for 8 months" and "What about your oath!?" screams.

Eight months of protests and riots and destruction of private property and businesses from one side of the political scale and not deaths at the hands of law enforcement. Today a female Air Force Veteran was shot and killed by Capitol Police. Will be interesting to see how things go leading up to the inauguration, especially now that there is a death involved. I'd imagine that if Seattle police had shot and killed a CHAZ/CHOP occupant that ti would have fueled a violent response as a reaction, so, we'll see I guess.

I'm just glad I'm far the fuck away from cities. Today I saw some crazy shit in DC, and then later in Washington state when they stormed the Governor's mansion there.

Had to turn the streams off so I could focus on some work I'm trying to get done but still find myself refreshing some sites for some breaking news.

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Wahaha wrote

Reply to comment by Rambler in 1 person shot as pro-Trump protesters breach the Capitol building by Rambler

Multi-party systems ain't better either. There's just even more quarrelling. And backstabbing, since various parties have to work together, but who is working together will change. My country works like that. In the end, there are only two opposing viewpoints, too, but they are spread around a dozen or so parties and half of them will end up participating in the quarrelling. At the end, nothing useful is accomplished, but things get worse every year.

Best approach would be to just split the country apart into components instead of having everyone constantly argue with each other. If you can break it down to two viewpoints, just split the country in two, then everyone can do what they think is best.

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