I’ve found its very common for Europeans to be under the dillusion that the govt is their friend, and has their best intentions in mind…

Honoring a warrant doesn’t mean much, when there’s nothing to turn over than a connection IP and some timestamps, vs all the traffic that could be there otherwise. That’s been proven multiple times with zero knowledge VPN providers.

They can’t make them starting doing things there system isn’t made to do just because they want them to, not how warrants work. Again, been proven many times over at this point. Knowing that you connected at a time, exited from a shared IP, with a bunch of nonsense in the middle keeps you pretty safe. That ignoring that’s even harder when that zero knowledge provider is ina country like Switzerland where it takes VERY direct reasons to have a judge approve a warrant in the first place, dragnets aren’t allowed there, and even then, nothing useful comes back.

A country like Russia wouldn’t kick back info, but their spying is at China level, so you’ve already lost there.

The ol’ True Caller scam! Don’t forget all the people that add email addys to the phones contact list…and then give every app that asks for permissions full roam.

But I’m “paranoid” because 90% of people only get my VoIP number and non important email.

One an occupation or two when I know somebody really sucks I’ll give them a forwarder LOL.

It’s a transfer of trust either way, point being you don’t have physical control over it, and therefore have no idea what’s actually happening on the other end, you’re not hosting it, they are, you’re just administering it.Russia is NO fan of privacy, arguably worse than the US, and now talking about banning all VPN use.

My server is in my house physically. I’d never host my own VPN because I could never compete with what commercial ones in privacy respecting countries can do, let alone needing more outsourced servers for changing my location all over the place, which I do regularly.

If you’re in one of those, yes. There’s tons of websites that list what they are and compare them against others, but basically all of them (that I’ve seen) have all the basics like not sharing your info without consent, right to data deletion, how they can share your data when they do etc.

Nix is awesome for experienced Linux users, AND that want to constantly play with their config file. If you do things and install things at the user level (which way too many do) then you’ve removed the benefit. That said, do it right, and recovering, moving, or duplicating your system could possibly be any faster/smoother.

Not saying it’s hard to learn, but if you’re not used to the CLI and editing config files, I’d start with it in a VM. If you decide you like it after you’ve totally set it up there, then the magic of Nix comes when you install it for real and just redeploy an exact clone thanks to the config file.

The time to ditch DDG came when they started gatekeeping during the first Russia thing, COVID, etc.

CA isn’t the only state with GDPR like privacy laws.

California, Virginia, Connecticut, Colorado, Utah, Iowa, Indiana, Tennessee, Oregon, Montana, and Texas.

I do the same, obviously all bullshit info, email forwarders for the acct, VPN, and it’s cookies containerized so it can’t go snooping, and make sure your browser isn’t successfully being fingerprinted or it’s all pointless.

https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/

Never fuck up and don’t hop on without a VPN, or from it’s proper container. As said, just minimizing, not removing.

What kind of phone do you have? Do you use social media? Do you use the same email address everywhere? They don’t know anything you didn’t willingly give out. It’s not a random website, it’s a website that bought you via your browsing practices.

Gotcha, your own server makes it better clearly, but you originally said it was on a VPS.

To be clear though just because I’m anal, you mean YOUR server? Not a VPS you pay somebody else to use? As in you can physically touch it if you want?

You’re taking something simple and making it complicated. Go with known trusted VPNs that have a history of proving themselves. Mullvad, iVPN, Proton (most of their history is with the email, but that means something) they’re all priced pretty close, no need for insane scrutiny.

Unless you’re buying kilos of fentanyl and automatic weapons off the dark web, don’t overthink it. Absent that, if your goal is simply hiding your IP and appearing in a different city somewhere, just grab a trusted one.

That 100% correct, literally no different than just using your ISP at that point, zero control over the hardware and no ability to control the IP.

And in doing so you have a never ending list of logs that you can’t control. Fine if you only want to hide location, but useless other than that. 1 LE request and every log will be in there hands in 5mins.

The people that just learned about him get screwed with the old episodes not being available, but for those of us listening for a while now, he didn’t have a lot more to cover anymore, the last year has basically been retouching on old stuff.

He made starting up a privacy podcast useless, now, somebody may step up. Although he’d be hard to beat.

And when those addresses wind up on mailing/spam lists and they’re coming from multiple places, you’re screwed. That’s why email forwarders became a thing, catch-alls aren’t new, but you lack the control most want with them.

Plus, Proton does support plus/+ addressing, which does the same thing as a catch-all. You know the email addy it came from.

Exactly, it’s childish cancel culture for completed unrelated nonsense. It’s one thing to be anti Chrome, but being anti Chromium is stupid, let alone that brave did a good job about it.

I’d like to see what peoples personal opinions are on every single Firefox dev, as well as the complete Mozilla corporate hierarchy… Oh ya, they don’t know, so it’s cool. Then of course the completely history and belief system of the devs of every browser addon they use as well. That type of stupidity has no end.

That was addressed above, you ever see “identical” twins? They look exactly the same if you see then once, twice, 3 times, but if you see both of them constantly, you’ll start seeing the small difference in them and then be able to identify who’s who. Same exact thing.

Pixel with GrapheneOS. Only one that will give you the complete control, as well as the privacy (and) security done right. Also the only one that will let you have a fully functional phone, have things like working bank apps, and let you beat the Goog out of the benefits of the play services, while at the same time not allowing them to have privileged access on your phone. They’re just normal apps that you are in control of.

I’m not going to affiliate with any conglomerate like Verizon or AT&T or Sprint or T-Mobile etc, I prefer to go rogue somehow,

Yes, you will. Because that’s who has the mobile networks. There is no such thing as going rogue. Going with an MVNO isn’t avoiding them, that’s a mind game. If you can save money going with one cool, but don’t kid yourself that you’re not on one of the 3 carriers, because you will be.

Pixel w/GrapheneOS. Insane to do anything else when Privacy and Security is something you want, while also having the ability to have a fully functional phone.

No reason not to install them on Graphene if people want a fully functional phone. You can’t compare gapps on other custom ROMs to Graphene’s implementation.

LOL! That’s the lie of the century. I’m thinking you dont pay attention to the last handful of years and the legislation the EU is trying to pass? The EU is NOT privacy respecting. They just have a half descent data policy with GDPR, which many US states also have.

Time to look at the larger picture.

Do you find its sometimes hard as hell to follow replies? I never remember having that issue with Infinity, yet seem to have it all the time with Eternity.

Edit: down voters care to explain why I’m wrong?

You’d think the lesson would have been learned by hive mind drive-by down votes with Reddit. You always know when somebody (actually) can dispute what you say, because they say it!

OK, I never claimed one did. We’re talking the masses here, including the masses of people who still like privacy. Not one off use cases where people are content with F-Droid only phones, most aren’t. Most want the line of Privacy, Security, but also still have smartphones that are smartphones and not a bunch of outdated many times abandoned apps that look like they’re from the KitKat days. If you’re OK with that cool, but the majority typically isn’t.

Same with Graphene, there’s no way around that if you want the phone to work. But I can’t agree with Lineage being better. They’re user debug ROMs, the dev’s are never willing to call a release stable, don’t even remotely have the hardening that Graphene does, and walking around with an unlocked bootloader is a huge security threat both from a physical and remote exploit that would attack the boot partition/space. Add to that you don’t have verified boot working, so you’d never even know it’s happened, or attempted.

Then there’s the microG problem of apps that need the play store verification to work, banking apps that won’t work, even apps that don’t do license checks and simply need to prove they’ve been paid for will be dead most of the time. Plus, Lineage out of the box is still contacting Google, yes, you can undo that, but how many are aware of that and actually finish de-googling it? If I was stuck with a phone that wasn’t a Pixel I (may) use it, but given a bunch of apps I want to work wouldn’t, would probably just sell the phone and get one that’d run Graphene. If you take user bias out of hit and logically compare them, saying Lineage is better than Graphene is basically impossible to do. You can run Graphene and have a phone that in most cases runs 100% normally, most apps that bitch about modified phones are perfectly happy running on it and the user gains the security and privacy upgrades, without the downsides. Clearly they still need to make smart app choices, but they also don’t have a phone that isn’t a constant pain in the ass.

I did no such thing, and they’re not “promoting” anything, you’ve clearly never used Graphene, nor familiar with the definition of the word Promote. The Play Services aren’t installed by default, nor are they even mentioned as an option during the installation. It takes a user intentionally going into the Graphene apps store, and installing them after the fact. They also make it a point to mention that most apps work fine without them. Maybe actually read how they work, because you’re clearly unaware. Some people want them, and microG is shit, which is why they developed that option.

So people without the extension would only see gibberish?

No, its the google dialer and messenger.

Messenger is safe becuase of RCS (assuming Thats what youre using) gets iffy with the dialer though. Robokiller is really good as well, us, it fucks with the scammers, and has challenges for unknown numbers.

Has nothing to do with Pixels, its just the Google dialer and msgs.

They dont actually thanks to VoIP and other countries telcos being shit and pushing through whatever is sent with the call, which is exactly where that disconnect happens. Ive been in Telecom a long time, and the push to fix that problem was very real long before Indian scammers were spoofing calls for IT scams. Once you go to IP, the “real” link isnt there, and CID becomes no more than a data string which is no longer tied to anything physical as far as telecom infrastructure, which they have to accept in the current set up, which is why said the whole thing has to start from scratch.

The other issue is the way non ILECs send the CID is exactly how the scammers spoof, to cut that off, all CLECs would loose the ability to send CID data, businesses wouldn’t be able to send a main phone from their 3000+ extensions etc. Its far from a simple soulution which is why its still an issue.

You can be damn sure that functionality was a top priority from day 1 because (just like for all subscribers) they need to know the spammers’ usage in order to bill them for it.

CID data being injected has absolutely nothing to do with a line being used regardless of what the outbound DID actually is.

Only if your younger and lump every form of communication as “social media”. The rest of the people that have been around know what a message board/forum is.

Examples?

In no way do they “shamelessly promote” proprietary software. Assuming you mean the sandboxed play services, their neutured, have no priveilged access and youre 100% in control of what they can and cant do.

I’d take that above some band-aid workaround like microG, which does need priveilged access, and fails to do what the actual play services do.

There is no way to know what it really is doing and you can’t make changes to it or even see what it is doing.

So what youre saying is that you personally audit the entire code, including when updates happen, and then “make changes” when you see fit? If so, Congrats. Youre the 1%. Most dont code, can’t read it, and sure as shit dont have the ability to change anything, that’s simply a talking point for the blind trust of FOSS apps. Context (and reality) matter.

can’t and wouldn’t.

What point are you claiming Graphene misses? FOSS apps on a system where Google has root access is what misses the point.

Dont be unrealistic, until the entire system is rebuilt from the ground up on all telcos thats literally impossible.

Filen is far from new, been around for years and I’ve never had an issue with them. My only bitch is thier Android app looks like an iOS app.

Are you assuming that Google, which, as far as I’m aware, is an international company providing service to a multilingual userbase, has less than 1% non-native English speaking users?

I’m assuming nothing, nor did I ever say their English speaking data sources are less than 1%. That would be the privacy crowd that would be the ones to take simple marketing using a well known term and go into paranoia about it.

However, if I were to assume anything, it would be that an ad in English, would be geard towards English speakers, not others.

Sorry, I disagree, I don’t make the assumption that they’re considering a statistically insignificant group of people that hate them, or possibly countless other countries when using a well know saying in their marketing.

I highly doubt they’re worried about less than the 1% not seeing the obvious meaning of what they said. They’re marketing to the masses, which would very much know and pick up on the “I spy” thing.