Cyberwolf

Don’t forget the most important prerequisite: be a psychopath. Something something 12-15% of the world’s top CEOs are clinically psychopaths, so this is the world we get.

Cool, you know who doesn’t have this issue? People who uninstalled the spyware called Windows from their device.

Lucky for them ethical hackers (CCC) found that and did not use the data.

In other words “ethical hackers” wasted a great opportunity to give shithead politicians a taste of their own venom. Very frustrating.

Hope Valve comes up with something eventually

That could be interesting. I want to see how SteamOS goes, but the potential is grand.

In terms of the iPhone being locked down, I’m not sure what you’re looking to do but I personally managed to get ad-free Reddit, YouTube and YouTube music ad-free (+sponsorblock) just using apps from the App Store. All of them free or one-time payment of 3 euros. It was actually easier to do than with Android where I had to “sideload” stuff from GitHub since Android is owned by google and all frontends to their programs are banned.

As long as you get yourself an email that isn’t iCloud you can also take all your contacts and email with you wherever you want. Then you can install KDE Connect as you would on Android and can send files freely between you phone and Pc.

This is all to say, I don’t feel more locked down on the iPhone than on Android, which was a surprise for me.

If android goes the way it’s going, then iPhone is the obvious choice.

And this is why I get increasingly tired of the whole privacy-seeking endeavor. Jumping through hoops to get GrapheneOS+Linux working for me, with the sacrifices that come with it, only to have my government hand out my healthcare and biometric data to the US anyway. It’s all so tiresome.

Okay so, the same industry that is trying to kill video games is now worried that a game from 30 years ago nobody ever heard of has a bug?

Google needs to go back to taking their meds.

What compromise are you doing with GrapheneOS+Google services that you aren’t making with microG? In my experience the sandboxed version of Play Services works much better than MicroG, with the added security of using an android native service developed by Google themselves.

You can argue “MicroG isn’t Google” but it actually is since it’s just a bunch of Google libraries with some FOSS costing on top. And again, you’re more likely to get your phone remotely hacked by a silly exploit that was patched months ago but still got you because instead of GrapheneOS you decided to use some other security-void like Calyx, LineageOS or /e/OS.

What a weak line of argumentation. Hopes and dreams don’t matter on the face of reality.

There is a reason why investigative journalists, activists and whistleblowers use GrapheneOS, and it is the only OS that is recommended for such use cases. It’s the only OS that has the receipts to prove their are resistant to remote penetration breaches from the likes of Pegasus and common evil maidens like Celebrite.

There are no high-risk personas using microG OSes. The ones who did are now dead.

You’re free to use your insecure and outdated OS of choice that allows you to feel good about using the equally insecure MicroG. Just stop pretending it is a viable choice for the majority of consumers, who don’t want to have to throw away their phones because they got infected by a swarm spam bot that also drained their bank account.

You can add Portugal, Spain and (I think) Estonia to that list. But really the tendency will be for more countries to adopt this technology. Whether we like it or not the degoogling/PrivSec community is really niche and most people prefer to use standard phones, and there these apps work perfectly.

Came looking for this comment! It’s my favorite font of all time. So clean and legible.

MicroG is insecure software and there isn’t a single ROM that uses it that passes even basic security checks. Low tier Chinese hardware is more secure than the best ROM using microG, including /e/OS.

My country’s gov has a 2FA app to authenticate logins for public services, check digital IDs and pay taxes. No web version for that. Local banks also use that system to validate your KYC so you need to have it on your phone anyway.

All of my banks are neobanks except my savings account, so also no web banking there. These banks have several “pots” which you can use to divide your money (bills, holidays, use later, etc) so the interactions with these apps are pretty much daily. I also don’t like to have too much money readily available so that in case of my card being cloned, the hackers won’t be able to take more than 100 euros from me.

There are also public bikes that are free to use but require a specific app that for some reason didn’t work at all on my GrapheneOS install (I think due to Google Play Services seeing my Os is not signed by Google). I’ve also had issues in the past in a city where you could clock in and out of the metro station using an app, but I couldn’t use it because of GrapheneOSs strong anti-tracking features. Had to fork out extra money every time because paying for the metro through the machine would force me to charge at least 10€ at a time while the app would take the exact money due from my account if I used it…

So yes, 1 inconvenience at a time is how these alternatives OSes become major PsITA to use. It’s not just the banks, it’s also the obscure local apps that are necessary to live a normal life. If you have free time to search for alternatives or don’t mind the extra work then it’s probably fine, but when you have a job and need things to just work then it becomes really jarring to use. Just my opinion.

Literally the story of Monopoly the board game.

Enchant weapons/armor to +x%. It usually companies Pay2Win items that you can use to have a 100% chance of upgrading, or at least not breaking your armor.

Uh?

All I see is a bureaucratic nightmare. No democracy to be seen, starting from the fact all politicians in the EU are bourgeoisie.

Their servants are all unpaid interns who have a near zero chance of ever staying in Brussels. Those that don’t come from well-off families that can support them will never enter a single EU institution.

Mate that camera is at least anatomically compatible and smooth on the sides.

Try getting a scrub down your peehole in search of any type of pus and pray they find something quickly lest they search deeper.

And don’t ask me how I know.

My disappointment is immesurable and my day is ruined.

People aren’t made that way, but competion incentivizes that.

Why oh why would people be against the very institutions where such behaviours are reinforced?