Really looking forward to the C256 Foenix U
I want a computer that I own
521–530 of 668 posts
Re: I want a computer that I own
#522Lost me at “that the NSA won’t intercept...” Sorry, it’s a spy agency, you can’t beat it because it’s sole purpose is to defeat whatever barriers you put up. Furthermore, “no metadata” that is the data required to be public in order to be routed through a publicly accessible network. And, it may be possible to anonymize that data, but... In light of the recent attempted overthrow of the government, I’m now firmly aga…
If you can't beat the NSA then you accept you can't beat any foreign governments spy agencies, right? That's part of the premise of the original article, that you can't have a private conversation.
And your suggestion that mass surveillance is a reasonable solution to domestic terrorism is quiet terrifying to me. Mass surveillance is far too easy to abuse. Sure you can have a 'for the people' government and it not be abused, but a 'for the people' government needs a healthy amount of fear of the people to remain so. Your country already has issues with gerrymandering, do you think that's made better or worse by the government collecting more information about the people?
To follow your overthrow path, would more surveillance have helped? Would less have hindered? I'd say no to both accounts. The government already had information on when/what was going to occur and that was obtained not with mass surveillance but with simply in infiltrating the communities involved.
We should also consider if mass surveillance is the best solution to the issues you mentioned. Perhaps you could get the same thing you wanted by increasing education funding. Perhaps the same could be accomplished by building better cyberspace communities where you can be closer to your neighbours rather than the much more filter-bubble communities we commonly have now.
Re: I want a computer that I own
#523>> Modern smartphones however, seem like walled gardens in which I have no control at all.
By design, I think.
>> I am locked into a single OS on my smartphone, which either spies on you or is locked down even more. Every iteration a bit more control is taken away from the user.
I got so fed up with this, I abandoned the whole mobile infrastructure and built my own phone with a Raspberry Pi 3B+. The Raspberry Pi is pretty open hardware (yes, I'm aware it's not perfect). For software I used Python 3, C and GTK. It does voice and SMS/MMS only, but that is enough for me.
I built it for myself. It's stable enough that I use it as my daily driver.
I am in the process of open sourcing the code and putting it out on github. https://github.com/another2020githubuser/thepyphone
I truly hope an open hardware smart phone becomes available soon. Until then, I'll use my home grown PyPhone to get by.
Re: I want a computer that I own
#524> Except for a handful of very over-priced models that I can't afford to buy. This statement here made me pause for a bit. He wants a computer with specific features, but doesn't want pay for the models that offer those features because they are too expensive? Everyone wants to have their cake and eat it too, but unfortunately, reality has constraints.
Is privacy thar expensive? Isn't each user's data worth 1 or 2 dollar?
From the consumer perspective: I want the 500-2000 euros device I bought not to spy on me. Were it not the status quo, this would sound ridiculous.
Re: I want a computer that I own
#525Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll go further: when have you ever been able to communicate with guaranteed privacy? Telephone? Nope. Ham radio? Nope. Letters sent through the mail? Nope.
Postal mail and telephone were ... relatively secure, inasmuch as that bulk surveillance was expensive . Wiredtapping and postal interception, as well as metadata (pen-trace and postal covers) are possible, but scale poorly when individual lines must be listened to by individual agents, or individual letters carefully opened and resealed. Digital permits surveillance at mass scale. It seems ultimately a fundamental p…
I would argue that postal remailing exposes the remailer to legal risk, and (if done with few remailers) gives the surveillers few points of particularly interesting mail hubs.
If anything, postal remailing would probably only work in a TOR-like manner, with many, distributed, non-for-profit remailers - but that opens a whole set of new problems, like who pays for the service, what prevents the remailer to just take the delivery for themselves (as undoubtedly such a service would be used to remail illicit substances and other valuables), and how would such a network of legitimate, trustworthy remailers know each other to do some tunnelling?
Re: I want a computer that I own
#526Except for a handful of very over-priced models that I can't afford to buy What models are being referred to here? Sounds like the OP’s problem can be solved with more money.
While it might be possible for individuals to solve this problem with money, I feel you may be missing the forest for the trees.
OP could just not connect to the internet, job done, right? The issue isn't so much they want privacy, it's that they want us all to have privacy.
It's not reasonable to expect average-joe to know about coreboot, seek out hardware that specifically supports it, then find a collection of browser extensions and communication tools just to have a private conversation with a friend.
Instead we should have regulations in place that make it possible to buy the computer at the local store and talk to your kids online without being monitored every step of the way.
Re: I want a computer that I own
#527Surprised nobody mentioned The Helm ( https://thehelm.com/ )
Re: I want a computer that I own
#528Under-acknowledged here is the relationship between the networks that make our devices useful and the increased homogenization of the devices themselves.
When I last truly owned my computer, connectivity (if it existed) was via dial-up.
The other thing I'd note is that we have more and better ways to communicate securely today than ever before. In the world I grew up in, we had phones, and Ma Bell knew who you called and how long you talked, and possibly even what you talked about. There was no real privacy or encryption possible; we all just pretended like those calls were private.
Private communication is possible now on Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android, and I assume ChromeOS, right?
Re: I want a computer that I own
#529Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure if it's ironic or intentional, but I find it funny that they talk about these points while not having HTTP redirect to HTTPS on their own site, presumably because it's using a self signed certificate.
It may have something to do with the fact that in another rant the author complains about how HTTPS makes webmasters dependent on certificate-issuing bodies.
And he is not wrong about that. The HTTPS/SSL infrastructure is byzantine and less concerned with actually encrypting information, but establishing trust that whoever you as the browser are communicating with is in fact the server that you expect them to be. This is not an easy problem to solve...
For the longest time, this introduced the ecosystem to professional certification authorities, which are essentially profit-oriented organisations that gauged prices.
Let´s Encrypt made some of the situation slightly better, opening up small websites to encryption, but you are still dependent on an external CA and the goodwill of the browser manufacturer to distribute their root certificate with their browsers.
Re: I want a computer that I own
#530You can have computers that you own today. There is a list here: https://ryf.fsf.org/categories/laptops . If you want something more powerful, there're these: - https://ryf.fsf.org/categories/workstations-and-servers - https://ryf.fsf.org/categories/mainboards Also, Andrius Stikonas achieved a blob-free fully functioning (AFAIK) RockPro64 more than a year ago: https://stikonas.eu/wordpress/2019/09/15/blobless-boot-wi…
Sure, you can own that computer, but then you have to get online which requires another pile of knowledge to even hope at reducing now much you're tracked. This is not a reasonable solution.
> People have to vote with their wallets and pressure vendors.
I disagree. Expected someone with very little knowledge of the topic to make an informed choice here is highly unlikely to work. You could say the same about clothing created by child labour, but most people aren't going to spend a couple hours researching if the shirt they like is okay to buy, nor should they be expected to.
I believe the solution to this problem has to ultimately come from regulation.