That’s the catch: you can’t not use Google at all if you’re online at all, because Google has managed to insert itself into every little corner of the internet.

And that’s how the surveillance trap has quietly snapped shut on all of us without most of us noticing anything.

George Orwell had it wrong: the surveillance isn’t conducted directly by a tyrannical dictatorship but subtly, indirectly by the private sector in cahoots with the government. And the date he predicted was 40 years off. Other than that, he was right: we live in a full-blown dystopia now.

People coming here to rant about Reddit isn’t activity.

Here’s an interesting video about Zuckerberg’s rebranding:

Why Zuckerberg’s Rebrand Shouldn’t Distract Us

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I use a calyxos device to share VPN, as of a few months ago.

Hotspot & Tethering

• Allow clients to use VPNs

Oh wow I totally missed that. It works great! Genius!

Thank you for that. Suddenly it makes repurposing one of my old cellphones a very simple and viable proposition.

(and I’m posting this from my laptop connected to the hotspot connected to the Calyx VPN 🙂)

get a older cell phone. Put lineage OS on it, or calyxos… share your VPN over hotspot, these are the only two ROMs that I’m aware of that allow you to do that

That’s what I thought too. So I tried it on my CalyxOS phone and… it doesn’t work: the hotspot doesn’t route through the VPN. And from what I read, it’s by design.

I have an old Nokia 4.2 running LineageOS. I might try that one.

end-to-end VPN

Incidentally, do you know if the GL.iNet devices can act as a VPN server too?

At this point, I think China is well known for infiltrating local businesses and forcing them to sell networking gear with trojans.

The US is better known for surveilling people indirectly by exploiting corporate surveillance data collected by big tech monopolies doing their bidding for them and by directly “tapping the line”. I don’t think US officials asking US companies to compromise their products and keep quiet about it would fly in the US. At least not yet. But I wouldn’t put it past them either.

To be honest, of all three, I’d rather purchase something made in Europe, even for a premium.

Hmm… Touché.

There are others that aren’t Chinese but nothing anywhere near the price bracket you’ll get from GL.Inet

Can you give me some pointers to non-Chinese equivalents of those GL.iNet routers? I’m quite ready to suck up the extra cost.

the TikTok of the fediverse

Gee just what the Fediverse needed…

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Wholesome, yes. But the magic and the poetry is immediately spoiled by the poster’s username.

What software do you use to forward the texts automatically?

Actually I kind of had the same idea but for the whole phone - i.e. leave a cellphone with phone features at home (so voice and texts are received on this static phone that never gets used for anything else) and forward calls and texts on another cellphone with data only. But I don’t think there’s anything to set that up easily.

Interesting thanks. I’ll dig into the privacy issue.

Using things like Signal and WhatsApp may reduce your footprint further.

I use Signal with most of my family and friends. The phone things is for random people or companies that need to call me, and the texts are mostly to get notification when I receive a parcel, or confirmations for appointments, that kind of things.

WhatsApp, being owned by Facebook, can fuck right off.

I was planning on using a VPN.

But anyway, even if I’m connected direct from a known fixed WiFi, it’s still less precise than cell triangulation.

EDIT: actually I just did a test with the VPN, and WiFi calling totally bypasses it. Damn 🙁

Well, I know it’s all going through the internet anyway nowadays, so yeah it’s technically always voice-over-IP even if I use the cell network. The only difference between normal calls and WiFi calls is how it connects to the internet really. I just don’t want the extra baggage that comes with staying connected to the cell netowk method of getting on the internet.

And of course what I referred to when I said VoIP is pure VoIP providers that sell you a number and access to a SIP server, independent from your cellphone provider.

Not really. Only shaked my head in disbelief.

Have you ever seen a TikTok video? Why on Earth do we want that on the Fediverse? Not everything that exists deserves to be copied.

That’s remarkable considering Linux is only 33 years old.