Could I not just set up another profile in GOS with this app installed and switch to that profile when it’s needed?

I think you’re missing the point. You say you use FOSS apps for everything. Do you download them from F-Droid?

From the article:

The future of this elegant and proven system was put in jeopardy last month, when Google unilaterally decreed that Android developers everywhere in the world are going to be required to register centrally with Google. In addition to demanding payment of a registration fee and agreement to their (non-negotiable and ever-changing) terms and conditions, Google will also require the uploading of personally identifying documents, including government ID, by the authors of the software, as well as enumerating all the unique “application identifiers” for every app that is to be distributed by the registered developer.

The F-Droid project cannot require that developers register their apps through Google, but at the same time, we cannot “take over” the application identifiers for the open-source apps we distribute, as that would effectively seize exclusive distribution rights to those applications.

If it were to be put into effect, the developer registration decree will end the F-Droid project and other free/open-source app distribution sources as we know them today, and the world will be deprived of the safety and security of the catalog of thousands of apps that can be trusted and verified by any and all. F-Droid’s myriad users will be left adrift, with no means to install — or even update their existing installed — applications. (How many F-Droid users are there, exactly? We don’t know, because we don’t track users or have any registration: “No user accounts, by design”)

PIA was also purchased by the Israeli company, Kape Technologies, which is tied to Unit 8200. If your concern is privacy, I would recommend do against it.

The very first CEO of Crossrider, Koby Menachemi, happened to be once a part of Unit 8200 which is an Israeli Intelligence Unit in their military and has also been dubbed as “Israel’s NSA “.

Isn’t this similar to what Google and the Pentagon are trying to accomplish with Project Maven? I believe Palantir, Amazon and Microsoft are also part of it.

Meredith Whittaker (president of Signal) talks about one aspect of it, Signature Strikes

That’s the point of the original post though. Google is starting to make development of these custom ROMs more difficult. If Google ever decided to lock down the bootloader for new Pixels, Graphene would be in a world of hurt. I also use GrapheneOS and love it, but who knows if it will be alive two or three years from now.

I’m a pretty big generative AI hater when it comes to art and writing. I don’t think generative AI can make meaningful art because it cannot come up with new concepts. Art is something that AI should be freeing up time in our lives for us to do. But that’s not how it’s shaping up.

However, AI is very helpful for understanding codebases and doing things like autocompletion. This is because code is less expressive than human language and it’s easier for AI to approximate what is necessary.

Yep, anyone who assumes that the presence of a .cursor directory automatically means that:

1. Developers are vibe coding
2. The entire team is using cursor

Is either arguing in bad faith or has no idea what they’re talking about.

It could be something as simple as one dev trying out cursor (an editor thats literally just a vscode fork with ai features) and accidentally committing their .cursor directory (really easy to do).

I think they know that most people will eventually give in (or accidentally say yes) if they have to close a notification every time they want to do something.

Like you, I aim not to be “most people.”

I’ve always wondered if this sort of tech could scale to 5g towers for mass surveillance purposes

Manufacturing use-cases to justify spyware.

You said:

“leftists” are as hell- bent on division as rightists

and then cited an example where we cooperated with communists (leftists) to defeat Nazis (right-wing fascists). Seems to me that we should always cooperate with leftists and never cooperate with Nazis. Again, what is your point?

My point is that being saying,

“leftists” are as hell- bent on division as rightists

You are watering down history and making a dangerous false equivalence. We are dealing with Nazis right now, and it seems to me that your point is that we should “settle our differences” and try to work with them. If that is your point of view (I’m hoping it’s not), that is really short-sighted. Nazi ideology does not involve compromise. It involves systematically killing anyone who does not look/think/act like you.

Nothing you’re saying makes sense actually. What are you talking about?

“Division” is good when one side is fucking Nazis who are literally Sieg Hiel saluting each other. You’re not supposed to get along with or cooperate with Nazis. Stop with this bullshit false equivalence. At this point it’s downright dangerous.

Thank you! Didn’t realize it was broken. I’ve updated it.

You could get a raspberry pi and a camera module. MotionEye can be installed as the OS. It requires a network connection to your LAN to set it up, but it can be disconnected afterwards. I believe it can be configured to store all files locally.

Edit: Fixed link

The fact that they allow you to order a physical voucher with a product key, and that product key serves as your only authentication makes it especially anonymous. I love it.

Cloudflare is a CIA front. They offer “free” DDoS protection + static proxy thereby giving Cloudflare the ability to MitM all TLS connections thru their servers.

I just started to learn about privacy in depth this year, and this little fact about Cloudflare has sat with me more than most things that I’ve learned. I feel like very few people think about the implications of Cloudflare’s practices. Even if its not a CIA front (I feel like it is), we should feel uncomfortable giving any private entity such power. Unrelated, but their crazy lava-lamp wall, as cool as it is, kinda gives me bad vibes lol.

Correction, the developers, not the community, are flat out pricks (not “slightly unfriendly”), but this does nothing to remove how amazing the OS is for anyone wanting to remove themselves from all the mainstream garbage in the mobile devices scenario while being able to keep productivity with a few workarounds.

Yep. I’m willing to deal with a prick developer who’s taking this on their shoulders. Theyve really produced something incredible with GrapheneOS. I’m not willing to deal with the pricks who sell my data to anyone and everyone. Especially pricks who have had contracts with various intelligence agencies.

Great recommendations. Just an FYI, your second link is broken because the markdown got messed up.