I got as far as the second paragraph, which consists of the following quote from a Google VP:

“I’m not going to talk about Recall, but I think the reason that some people feel it’s creepy is when it doesn’t feel useful, and it doesn’t feel like something they initiated or that they get a clear benefit from it”

That’s somehow worse than I imagined. I can at least understand being intentionally sinister, or overtly anti-privacy, but that level of delusion is somehow actually more terrifying.

There’s a lot more to sovereign monetary policy than currency exchange rates, such as the capital controls being exercised here

You might want to start with a lease, with the option to buy out, or trade-in, after the original terms are up.

That… actually sounds pretty plausible.

VPNs don’t prevent tracking, especially when you’re logging into services.

They can help obfuscate your identity to varying degrees, but honestly this is a pretty odd decision. I’m guessing it has more to do with malicious activity, or some other type of activities that Reddit is trying to curtail, and they feel blocking VPN IP ranges will help them.

The topic in question here is not about government abuse of data, it’s corporate abuses, but okay, let’s set that aside.

You’ve said that it’s safer to roll your own VPN using a VPS service precisely because you can’t trust any VPN providers, or auditing organizations.

But you’re now saying that you can trust a hosting provider based solely on which jurisdiction they reside in.

You’re just arbitrarily picking which companies to trust with your connection traffic, but with added complexity, and significantly reduced egress locations for your traffic, which itself dramatically impacts any privacy benefits you were looking to achieve.

…so, trust the hosting provider to not log…and that you won’t screw up any config or update, and make sure to use anonymous payments, and…and…etc.

Not really, sort of, but different threat models IMO.

The app this thread was about is asking to become a single pane for external services e.g. cloud, which is why it requires your Hertzner API.

For the following, I’m reaching into my memory hole, so definitely check elsewhere to confirm before doing anything.

FreedomBox, if I recall, is basically Debian Linux with a variety of self-hosted tools that are easily configurable e.g. Media servers, torrents, NextCloud, etc. It’s been around for a while and I don’t recall ever hearing anything bad about the project.

Ultimately, sure, you’re still trusting the maintainers to some degree, like with any distro/spin, but that’s a judgement you’ll have to make for yourself.

If you’re going to use Freedom box for all of your most critical and private parts of your digital life, then you should probably weigh the risks more heavily, than if you’re just going to make it a media and torrent box.

You can do all of that on your own.

OR, you can create a single attack vector that can potentially be exploited and put everything at risk, at the same time.

If you’ve ever worked in, or adjacent to, IT, then you’ve heard the phase “single pane of glass”, meaning you can manage all your infrastructure, or IOT, through a single terminal/UI.

This is basically a single pane of glass that you’re getting through a side loaded repo, to manage your entire digital life. That means it can also become a single pane of glass for anyone able to exploit that application i.e. supply chain attack, phone AND/OR app specific vulnerabilities, etc.

Don’t forget to flick and knock on various fruits and vegetables. Randomize how many flicks/knocks per item, and throw in a few on produce items that normally don’t get that kind of test e.g. grapes or potatoes.

I’m very concerned that people are down voting you, a clearly credible and serious account. They probably all have something to hide.