I just uninstalled the Chrome browser, after many years of use; I use Firefox now. Also, I have been using the DuckDuckGo search engine for months. This is my response to Google persecuting non-leftist political voices and acting as a hostile political force. Also, I consistently use adblock, and will do so for as long as they censor and demonetize my favorite youtubers. It is difficult to stop using them completely, for instance I still sync contacts, notes and calendars through google, but it’s a start.
The problem is, the entire Silicon Valley is a leftist cesspool and to really get away from that, one should slowly stop using American services. This would be quite unpleasant to attempt all at once, but honestly, the sooner the better, since everything American you use is just another thing that holds you hostage. Android and Windows were already used as a weapon against Huawei, x86 CPU architecture is a weapon, ARM is a weapon, Internet and GPS are weapons. I get it, everybody got hooked and it will take time to get out of the trap. However, one thing at a time.
The most worrying thing in all this is how cloud use is a slippery slope that degrades security and privacy to the point where you no longer have any, and your stuff is all either stored or copied on someone else’s computer, in unencrypted form, and you act as if nobody is going to look at that, because you expect there’s too much stuff for humans to go through. The problem is, humans are not going to go through it, but AI is. And humans are going to tell it what to do, and it’s going to synthesize reports. And in the final version, it’s going to be able to act on its own, to impede “politically incorrect” users, political enemies, journalists, and basically anyone with a brain active enough to be of concern.
This comment is written on the ultimate failsafe for cases where Intel kill-switch is triggered. Right now I’m using a Raspberry Pi 3B+ running Raspbian, LXDE, I unlocked the disqus password with keepass2 and I’m using Chromium browser, just because I have it here, but I could as well have used Epiphany, Netsurf or Firefox. This setup, however, feels very much like early 2000s speed-wise, especially on modern javascript-heavy websites. You don’t want to use this as your daily driver, but it’s cheap insurance for some modes of failure, for instance when x86 doesn’t work, and both Google/Android and Apple put your country on a shit list, or, even more worryingly, when some AI puts you personally on a shit list and shuts down CPU/OS on every computer you use to log into online services. In such a case, however, I seriously doubt disqus would work or accept my login.
As for the setup itself, I have the Pi under my desk running mysql, ssh and apache at all times so that I have an always-on machine on my LAN where I can store and retrieve stuff and do automated cron backups of online stuff, so it’s trivial to just connect it to the monitor with hdmi, and to a Logitech K400+ wireless keyboard/touchpad combo. As I said, it’s low cost insurance in case of very bad cases of sabotage.
Even cloud-proofing oneself is a difficult problem, but America-proofing is flat-out impossible, even Russia and China would have great difficulties pulling that off.
For instance, I’m writing this on a machine that is reasonably secure and uses no cloud services whatsoever; it’s that old Mac Air with xubuntu bionic installed, with keepass2 instead of msecure, only my own mail account connected, no skype, no dropbox, and yet I still sync bookmarks over Mozilla cloud service because it would be incredibly impractical to detach the device from that and have it retain any kind of utility. Essentially, I can use this device to write articles, comment things online, browse the web and do everything non-photographic, because the screen is trash, and I am incredibly out of touch with the current Linux photo editing software, if anything worth using exists at all; when I last used it, RawTherapee was the best raw converter around and panoramas were done using Hugin, and I guess that’s still how it’s done, and there are some pathetic attempts at replicating Lightroom (one is called Darkroom) but they were as buggy as a cockroach-infested kitchen when I last tried them, so I’m not exactly thrilled at the prospect of using that crud. I’d rather try C1 on Windows, but that assumes Windows is safe to use, which might not actually be the case. Sooner rather than later Windows will be modified to simply inhibit your ability to use Internet if “Cortana” decides you’re “right wing” or an “extremist”, meaning your political attitudes are the right of Lenin and Mao.
Also, the problems with Intel having all sorts of vulnerabilities and back doors are not really confidence-inspiring, and that is not really a problem I can solve, considering how only my older son has a Ryzen desktop and everybody else has Intel machines, so we’re basically fucked. Buying new computers to fix that problem is out of the question.
Switching from Google to DuckDuckGo is no sweat for me. I could live without Chrome … is Chromium an option?! But switching from using gmail as my main Point of Contact would be a pain in the ass … not sure how to workaround it? Any ideas?!
Well, I use it too, mostly for registering various services, but you do understand that their AI automatically reads everything in order to figure out your interests and offer you adds? I use the pain in the ass option of maintaining my own mail server, which would be the most secure option were it not located on an Amazon virtual machine which they can just copy and analyze on a whim, and Amazon is one of the worst bastards out there.
Did the same about a year ago.
I moved away from most google services (google helped by shutting down some :-)), but I am still stuck with YouTube (can’t find viable alternative) and sometimes Maps (it tends to be most accurate) – and that’s all I actively use from Google.
With syncing stuff I am stuck with Apple out of convenience since most of my devices are Apple now.
Not perfect, but I hope less of my data is sold around 🙂
But given the direction Apple is taking, I can easily see myself going even more offline and find alternatives for necessary stuff only.
What I do find funny though is how people praise Google and then use adblock all-around … tried to explain few times, but I’ve given up since, let them enjoy it 🙂
At this point we can only slightly mitigate our exposure to the worst stuff out there; for instance, not using Facebook, Twitter, Google and all those social media platforms helps somewhat. However, it’s quite a deep rabbit hole, if you take a look at what companies serve as instruments of American “sanctions”. Adobe, Microsoft, Intel, AMD, ARM, I don’t know about Apple but since they were among the first to ban Infowars and are on the very forefront of leftist posturing, I would be very cautious about them. At this point, the only thing I could guarantee with reasonable certainty is safe would be an ARM based computer running Raspbian, and manually hardened. Essentially, that would be the only blackmail-proof computer I can think of. However, using that would be like eating only canned beans. You would do that if the nukes start falling, but then it doesn’t really matter. Still, I will slowly move away from “cloud” services and will give Linux a second look on desktop.
Just today I got a glimpse of a possible leftist future.
I use Atlassian SourceTree for Git related stuff and today I got notification that we are in “Pride month” and fucking app icon changed to rainbow for the time.
It’s fucking developer app for making complex git branching easy and they are pushing down my throat some LGBT bullshit?!
So, today is rainbow app icon, but tomorrow app could lock because I left a comment on their site with negative attitude to such deep throat mind-fuck.
And not only app could lock, I could loose access to entire source code because it just sits in their cloud.
And just like that – I am out of business basically because I can’t do and sync changes to my apps any more.
But, at the end of it – if you do get on the shit list, ISP can block you in a heartbeat, whatever fail-safe you might have. They can block your hard line, your mobile line – and perhaps your only option is some pre-paid mobile card – which could easily become illegal and the only option left is to go underground like a criminal.
This is what I tried to explain a friend in one discussion where he said “I like Google, I get free stuff for few commercials and I don’t mind they collect everything on me, my wife and kids because we do nothing wrong. It’s not like we watch child porn and sell drugs on internet”.
Yea, you do nothing wrong now with presumption that current state will last forever.
Like extreme regimes never happened.
Like people were not killed or imprisoned for life for saying the wrong – politically incorrect – word.
What if someone in 5 or 10 or 15 years decides that everyone who watched particular video on internet is – a criminal – enemy of the state?.
Then suddenly, terabytes of “uninteresting data” becomes a dossier literary over night and you and your kids do not even need a trial – you sentenced yourself 10 years ago by watching a video and not caring that google collected all that info.
Now, all there’s left for you is – execution.
Sounds a bit extreme, but try telling that to 100 million people that died in Gulag …
Well, Snowden and Assange did nothing wrong, and look how that ended up for them. People assume that “doing nothing wrong” will protect them, and they don’t understand that the state’s definition of right and wrong might differ greatly from their own. Jews in Nazi Germany did nothing wrong either. The only ones who can successfully fight state persecution are the ones who act like “criminals”, because being a “criminal” can mean simply being a Jew or being anti-Nazi. In a corrupt state, good people are “criminals”.
It seems people don’t get that. It’s someone else. It was different times. Bad guys were leading country.
I stopped trying, let them have it.
And in the meantime my question was deleted 🙂
So, they can change app icon to rainbows basically forcing LGBT agenda through developer app (?!?), and that seems to be ok – but I do not get to say I do not like it.
Well, kudos for them because I still get to choose which apps I use …
Consider it a useful early warning, so that you can run away in time.
extreme easily becomes everyday life 🙂 Danijel, what do you think about life and death of Arnold Swarz in this context? Advanced soul,like pure angel tbh..i even think he just wanted to go out of Earth at one point.His Manifesto article SOPA fight. And they set u up attorney from hell.Fallout 8 game is out in world.War never changes,on any levels.And this is not economy of any normal kind nor anything kids learn at books. This is just constant war for money and power in order to get more money and power. Nuclear weapon is already fired out in my opinion. They already made a deal wht to nuke. and after nuke,telecomunication can be cut.We can survive,but no telecom stuff maybe.For years. I work with Chinese guy in Sweden in software company,he says how China system is highly independet of all Google n such stuff.Just forbiden. And tht is good. France wants to monetize google and facebook more etc. High tech psycho wars and collective consciousnes. They must take control of all 4 elements and lock up peple in Choronzon’s inorganic dream. Quite funny to watch,since 2011 …
Did the same about a year ago.
I moved away from most google services (google helped as well buy shutting down some :-)), but I am still stuck with YouTube (can’t find viable alternative) and sometimes Maps (it tends to be most accurate) – and that’s all I actively use from Google.
With syncing stuff I am stuck with Apple out of convenience since most of my devices are Apple now.
Not perfect, but I hope less of my data is sold around 🙂
But given the direction Apple is taking, I can easily see myself going even more offline and find alternatives for necessary stuff only.
What I do find funny though is how people praise Google and then use adblock all-around … tried to explain few times, but I’ve given up since, let them enjoy it 🙂