My thoughts exactly. There’s no real article behind that ad.nl link. Then there’s this loosely related link to the GOS mastodon post. And then there’s the broad claim in the title, which, unless OP can provide proper evidence, is entirely made-up bullshit. I use downvotes very sparingly here on Lemmy, but this disinformation piece deserves all the red it gets.
Just separate the two, e-mail and cloud storage, and you’ll be a lot more flexible.
Posteo e-mail costs 1 EUR/month.
As for cloud storage, either self-host or use a managed Nextcloud instance. IONOS’ offering (500GB) comes in at 6 EUR/month.
In total, that gets you to 7 EUR/month, which is still cheaper than Proton’s unlimited package (clocking in at 10 EUR/month). On the downside, you still haven’t got a VPN at that pricing. But I’d keep that separate from mail and file storage anyway.
Just looked into their AI policy. Looks reasonable to me, so I don’t think the blanket characterisation as “slop” is fair, but you do you.
Define “slop-coded” with regard to Nextcloud. The self-hosted sub has presented a useful terminological framework to pin down what software “made with AI” can entail:
Hint - AI suggested solution, human does the task. Assisted - AI acts on part of a task, but a human handled the bulk. Pair - About a 50/50 split of human made and generated. Generated - Human prompted, AI generated.
Where on this scale do you see Nextcloud?
That’s Apple’s (Watch 18) newest semantic shenanigans to get around privacy laws, and it’s being echoed by Amazon (Bee) and now Samsung, apparently. They argue that, if local AI processes an audio input stream, produces a transcript and does not store the audio as a file, that does not constitute a “recording”. I’m looking forward to the look on the judge’s face once this bullshit reasoning inevitably reaches their court…
This is the way to go.
@OP: You could even print out QR codes with Signal invite links to the group, so people can on-board others in the neighbourhood.
Props for trying to create a more tightly-knit community, btw! It’s the single most important thing to do against the loneliness epidemic and the fallout that comes with it. You’re doing the right thing, and doing it in a privacy-friendly way is even better.
The Tea Party movement and the Trump I admin emerging from it certainly was just a valve (as well as many other right-wing movements). Trump II, I agree, is a much different beast, although what exactly it is and who is in charge of it remains debatable:
- Is it authoritarians and neo-fascists running the show, merely taking large chunks of the billionaire class hostage, as Carole Cadwalladr has said about the CEOs lining up for inauguration and later almost falling over themselves when promising to bring back investments from offshore?
- Is it the moneyed elite who are tired of playing grey eminence, merely buying influence behind the scenes while, by and large, still keeping up the charade of committing to liberal democracy, egalitarianism and the rule of law?
- Is it a Russian or Chinese operation designed to destroy American power throughout the world? A look at the results of < 2 years’ worth of Trumpist foreign policy lends a lot of plausibility to this hypothesis: why else would this admin take the axe to American soft power and alliances throughout the world, threaten and alienate its allies while at the same time cosying up to Russia and other dictatorships, and deplete U.S. high value munitions in yet another senseless war?
Love the idea! It’s a nice reminder to the casual onlooker that, yes, the average person does constantly point a camera at themselves and it can be exploited. It can even be a conversation starter with anyone bothering to ask.
That said, yes, I have a fair amount of trust that the cameras built into my devices are not constantly recording and phoning home. Not due to “privacy settings” though, which are often little more than privacy theatre. The devices in my household all run on GrapheneOS and Linux, and I monitor my network for unwanted traffic. I also do not run any software inherently hostile to privacy (e.g. anything by Meta or Microsoft), unless properly sandboxed and cut off from the internet. There’s a (very) German saying that goes: “Vertrauen ist gut, Kontrolle ist besser” - Trust is good, but control is better.
Neo liberalism needs to fall for this to end.
No disagreement between us on this. The current rise of right-wing populism around the world (which Trumpism is just the most prominent part of) are mere blow-off valves, designed to release some of the pressure of an unjust system and (mis)direct the justified anger of the people away from its main beneficiaries.
Be cautious, but don’t be paranoid. Do not underestimate the enemy, but also do not buy into the propaganda of the all-powerful oligarchs where any resistance is futile. Do not be naïve, but also: Do. Not. Give. Up. Hope. Trumpism is failing, as is the surveillance-powered neo-feudal fantasy that the fascists behind it are pushing for. While the most dangerous days are likely still ahead of us, defeatist rhetoric is not going to get us past them. Resistance is both possible and worth it.
I appreciate you taking the time to do this write-up, OP. Unfortunately, I believe it will not do what you hope it does, i.e.: “make you a it more private”.
Think of this in terms of data points Google gets on you. As per the warning on FDroid, they get:
the apps list and system details
That alone is very likely enough to identify you, particularly if you
- use a custom ROM: this will put you into a tiny pool of users
- use any apps that not everybody has (e.g. apps for your public transport, government or financial institutions)
Let’s say you’re running GrapheneOS on a Pixel 7a and have apps installed for Swiss Rail, Bern public transport, the UBS banking app and Signal. How many people will have this particular setup? I’d wager this would already narrow the pool down to a single-digit number of users, if not “one”, and any additional app off the Play Store will narrow it down even further.
While using your native public IP will give them yet another data point to identify you, so will the use of TOR or a VPN, because, again, only a fraction of Aurora store users will do that.
On the other side of the equation, the only “threat” I can think of is: “Google will know that I use these apps”. Outside of a targeted attack (i.e. Google sending you - specifically you - an update with malicious code injected into the APK), I cannot see any truly harmful scenarios arising from this.
All in all, I don’t think there’s much to be gained here: both the effect (if it works at all) and the threat (if you don’t do anything) seem so miniscule that it’s hardly worth the time to set this up.
Instead, this time is probably spent better on this here:
When possible, use Obtanium or F-Droid instead. F-Droid has built in Tor as well.
The only way not to be tracked by Google is not to get involved with Google. The only way to truly win the game is not to play it.
Since Syncthing and LocalSend were already mentioned - let’s throw in Warpinator: