Maybe one of these?

https://system76.com/desktops/

https://www.dell.com/en-us/search/linux

https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/

Matrix messaging apps. It’s nice to have modern messaging features, end-to-end encrypted, with no single point of failure, no Google involvement, and no phone numbers. I expect to start recommending it widely when the 2.0 features land in the popular clients.

WireGuard VPN. It’s fast, even on low-power devices.

Self-hosted Mumble. Excellent low-latency voice quality for chatting or gaming with friends.

Radicale, DAVx⁵, and Thunderbird, for calendar and contact sync between mobile and desktop, without handing the data over to Google or anyone else.

Cloudflare is a provider that you can choose to have as a part of your own infrastructure.

Indeed.

man in the middle implies “attack”

That can be a convenient shorthand if the parties in a discussion agree to use it as such in context. For example, in a taxonomy of cryptographic attacks, it would make sense. It is not the general meaning, though, at least not a universally accepted one. Similarly, “counter” does not imply “counter attack”, unless we happen to be discussing attack strategy.

More to the point, nothing that I wrote misrepresents the situation as was claimed by that other person. If I had meant attack, I would have said attack. Rather, they made a leap of logic because I (like most of my colleagues) don’t happen to follow a convention that they like, and picked a fight over it. No thanks.

You’re conflating MitM,

Heh… It’s safe to assume I’m well versed in this topic.

You’re going to have to prove any of your claims, or else I am just going to assume you’re talking out of your ass.

I am not, however, inclined to indulge rudeness. Bye bye.

It bugs me when people say Cloudflare is a MitM, because that is a disingenuous representation the situation.

No, it is a clear description of what is happening: Instead of https keeping the traffic encrypted from user to service, it runs only from user to Cloudflare (and then in some cases from Cloudflare to service, although that’s irrelevant here). The result is that a third party (Cloudflare) is able to read and/or modify the traffic between the two endpoints. This is exactly what we in mean in cryptography discussions by man-in-the-middle.

You can decide that you don’t mind it because it’s not a secret, or because they haven’t been caught abusing it yet, but to say it’s not a man-in-the-middle is utter nonsense.

and you opt into it.

No, the service operator opts in to it, without consulting the user, and usually without informing them. The user has no choice in the matter, and typically no knowledge of it when they send and receive potentially sensitive information. They only way they find out that Cloudflare is involved is if Cloudflare happens to generate an error page, or if they are technically inclined enough to manually resolve the domain name of the service and look up the owner of the net block. The vast majority of users don’t even know how to do this, of course, and so are completely unaware.

All the while, the user’s browser shows “https” and a lock icon, assuring the user that their communication is protected.

And even if they were aware, most users would still have no idea what Cloudflare’s position as a middleman means with respect to their privacy, especially with how many widely used services operate with it.

To be clear, this lack of disclosure is not what makes it a man in the middle. It is an additional problem.

it cannot be a MitM because both sides of the connection are aware of this layer.

This is false. Being aware of a man in the middle and/or willingly accepting it does not mean it ceases to exist. It just means it’s not a man-in-the-middle attack.

music group IFPI complained that while Cloudflare discloses the hosting locations of pirate sites in response to abuse reports, it doesn’t voluntarily share the identity of these pirate customers with rightsholders.

“Where IFPI needs to obtain the customer’s contact information, Cloudflare will only disclose these details following a subpoena or court order – i.e. these disclosures are mandated by law and are not an example of the service’s goodwill or a policy or measures intended to assist IP rights holders,” IFPI wrote.

So the corporations enjoying enormous profits from other people’s work are unhappy that Cloudflare doesn’t make it easy for them to circumvent due process. What a surprise.

(I’m generally not a fan of Cloudflare, because its man-in-the-middle position between users and services has grown to an unhealthy scale, making it ripe for dragnet surveillance and other abuses. But it would be even worse if it was actively helping these greedy, predatory corporations dodge the law.)

Yes.

Example from 2018 in North Carolina:
(Note that the article also mentions another example in that state from 1975.)

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/north-carolina-is-getting-a-do-over-election/

Example from 2023 in Connecticut:
(I don’t know if this one was considered a general election.)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/election-redo-rare-connecticut-mayor-rcna129735

<3

Recounts do not include submitting new votes.

If you read my comment more carefully, you’ll find that I mentioned those two things separately, as example responses to a problem. I did not say or imply that one included the other.

You are gambling on the hope that the problem gets fixed later.

No. I am saying that election interference reports must go to the election authorities. Directing people to a political organization instead undermines the process, and is not sufficient. (Reporting to both is fine, though.)

And local election offices - often under partisan control - have no obligation to assist individuals in getting their ballot cast.

If that is a problem where you live, then I suggest also reporting to the federal authorities. There’s a whole list of contacts on the .gov page I provided.

And maybe making a special post aimed specifically at people in that situation. Not telling everyone, everywhere that a partisan political org is the place to report election interference, as was done in the problematic post.

(Again, reporting to the authorities and also reporting to a non-government org is fine; what’s bad is leading people away from reporting to the officials. The officials need to know when this stuff is happening. We need to get it on the record.)

The misinformation is directing people to report election interference using phone numbers belonging to a political organization, rather than the election authorities. A call to those numbers is not a call to the authorities. The post directs people away from the appropriate channels. It is therefore misleading.

[Edit: I acknowledge that it might have been well-intended. It is still misleading.]

the image clearly states who is behind it.

The presence of a domain name printed at the bottom of the list of phone numbers, which most people will not carefully consider (or in many cases even notice), doesn’t make it okay.

you came at it as “lies”

I said no such thing. Please don’t put words in my mouth.

Of course, if there is immediate danger, calling someone who can show up and help right away is always a good idea. (I wouldn’t think this needs stating, but yes, I agree on this point.)

None of the resources detailed in this post provide any form of immediate assistance to resolve an ongoing threat to your ability to cast your vote.

The local election offices are not substitutes for police departments, but I think they are likely to respond quickly. They have phone numbers.

If your ballot is never cast, it can’t be fixed later. The best the folks in the OP can do is punish the people who committed the crime. They can’t get your vote counted.

This is untrue. It is better to get your vote recorded the first time, of course, but fixing things later is also possible. If regional authorities are made aware of election interference, they can initiate a re-count, refuse to certify the results until a new vote is taken, etc. That’s part of their job.

I agree, but every avenue at our disposal are forms.

This is untrue. A phone number is prominently shown on the very first official link I tried: the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division. There are more phone numbers at the various state election offices.

You assuming that because they are a political org, they will play partisan politics,

No. I have assumed no such thing. I am pointing out that they are not the authorities, and since they are not, a report to them is not a report to the authorities. They might play partisan politics, or they might not. They might remember to pass your report on to the authorities at some point in the future, or they might forget. There’s no way to know, and it doesn’t matter.

Report directly to the authorities. It’s fine to also report to someone else, but they are no substitute. Definitely report to the authorities.

You called a political organization, and reached someone who is trained to tell you the sort of thing you wanted to hear.

The election authorities need to know about vote interference immediately. If you witness it, call the authorities directly.

It’s possible that the political org you called might be helpful as an extra measure, if you have additional free time to contact them as well. It’s also possible that they will reassure you and promptly drop your report in the proverbial trash if the interference you reported aligns with their interests. It’s impossible to know, no matter what they say. Either way, they are no substitute for calling the authorities.

I would report that other post (and it’s source, since it’s a re-post) to the Lemmy mods for spreading misinformation.

I don’t think the phone number image in it is technically fraud, since it identifies its sponsoring organization and doesn’t claim to be from an official government office.

Who is Vote Save America? How are they funded? How can I verify that these phone numbers aren’t controlled by a political interest or foreign adversary?

[Answer: I looked up some of the phone numbers. They route to a politically-aligned organization.]

More importantly, why would I follow the advice of some random web site regarding something this important, rather than looking for an official source?

I wouldn’t. Here’s what I found with a quick search:

https://www.usa.gov/voter-fraud

How to report voter fraud, intimidation, or suppression

If you suspect voter fraud, report it to your state or territorial election office. You can also report it to:

• A local FBI office
• A local U.S. attorney’s office
• The Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division

If you witness or suspect voter intimidation or suppression, there are three ways you can report it:

• Contact your state or territorial election office
• Contact the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice
• Use the Election Complaint Report online form

LAST UPDATED: September 18, 2024

“Welcome to the dark side of cozy.”

Who is Vote Save America? How are they funded? How can I verify that these phone numbers aren’t controlled by a political interest or foreign adversary?

[Edit: I looked up some of the phone numbers. They route to a politically-aligned organization.]

More importantly, why would I follow the advice of some random web site regarding something this important, rather than looking for an official source?

I wouldn’t. Here’s what I found with a quick search:

https://www.usa.gov/voter-fraud

How to report voter fraud, intimidation, or suppression

If you suspect voter fraud, report it to your state or territorial election office. You can also report it to:

• A local FBI office
• A local U.S. attorney’s office
• The Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division

If you witness or suspect voter intimidation or suppression, there are three ways you can report it:

• Contact your state or territorial election office
• Contact the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice
• Use the Election Complaint Report online form

LAST UPDATED: September 18, 2024

When I’m driving, it’s actually unsafe for my car to be operated in that way. It’s hard to generalize and say, buttons are always easy and good, and touchscreens are difficult and bad, or vice versa. Buttons tend to offer you a really limited range of possibilities in terms of what you can do. Maybe that simplicity of limiting our field of choices offers more safety in certain situations.

Or maybe being able to consistently and reliably operate the thing without taking your eyes off the road has something to do with it? Hmm… Yes, this is really hard to generalize.

Apple offered a Ms. Pac-Man port on these devices for a while, and it was surprisingly good.

A quick search for the mentioned product names found their safety data sheets:

https://www.crcindustries.com/media/msdsen/msds_en-1003333.pdf

https://www.tmkpackers.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/FUELITE-TMK-SDS-ISSUE-6.pdf