Evelyn

I'm kind of new to android. F-droid is kind of hard to navigate. some apps doesn't load their thumbnails and some doesn't even have them at all. It's hard to decide which ones are good other than how recent It's updated.

What I need atm:

• Music player
• Writing / Note taking
• Diary app
• VPN?
• Maps
• Messenger app
• Social media / Fediverse frontends (if it exists)
• Peertube client (to upload and manage videos)
• Reminders / To do list app

You can recommend me any android apps that might be useful.

Hanae Natsuki plays Biohazard 8

it feels sort of liberated using nothing but decentralized social networks. knowing that I'm being watched all the time and now I've just given up using them.

I want to contribute the most I can to the fediverse, Do I still have to upload things on corporate social media to do that?

Other than the fact that I hate being watched because it makes me feel uncomfortable. I don't see any other reason to be scared of mass surveillance. until I realize there was a more considerable reason.

The point of mass surveillance, is mass control.

On top of their surveillance technologies, they created a centralized system to feed on people. Before that they were using television, and then now, social media.

The reason is heavily tied to politics. The reason this exists is simple, they do it for money, status, and power. not that they care how you behave or think.

On another note, these "services" that you're using. made by Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk. what do they have in common? Destroy the environment, Exploit workers and take away people's freedom and give only a little donation for the environment in comparison to the damages they made. No justifiable reason can be made here. Not only you're being spied on, you're contributing to evil things by giving them your money and time.

We can't fight for something good without getting affected by these systems. and if not all, most of us is inside that system at this very moment.

For your own well-being and the importance of humanity and the environment. get out as fast as possible.

fediverse.party

PS: I'm a peertube creator now! If you're interested in future uploads you can follow me there.

Searx is a good search engine for privacy. but sometimes people can't run their own searx instance. using randomly chosen instances can help with those who doesn't have it. plus you don't have to trust just one instance!

in this tutorial I'll show you how you can search with random searx instances conveniently.

General question. I mainly want to understand more about it. you can recommend me any interesting reading related to socialism.

Video-games doesn't need to be free because no one needs to use the code. (Unless It's the game engine itself.) but it can invade people's privacy because the code itself is proprietary.

The license conditions:

• Open Source
  • The Author has to disclose the source code of the distributed software.
• Privacy Respecting
  • No telemetry or Spyware or/and malicious code or any of It's kind should be included into the code, with an exception if It's an opt-out feature.
• Non copyable/distributable
  • For reserving the rights of selling or distributing the games to the author themselves. It's prohibited for anyone else to sell or distribute the code with an exception of re-selling or giving away a licensed physical copy of the product.
• Allow distributing video content - Distributing Gameplay (Video of executing and running the software) is allowed to be monetized or sold as it has nothing to do with the code itself.

Surf the internet like a chad with rss.

--

News Flash, Gnome Podcasts, LibreWolf + Privacy Redirect firefox extension.

News Flash

Gnome Podcasts

I think this is a pretty good setup for anti internet addiction without missing out on stuff you like. Avoid wasting time jumping into social media rabbit holes by using alternative frontends for the web browser. the setup is just two RSS applications and Librewolf.

Apps; News Flash, Gnome Podcasts. Librewolf + Privacy Redirect firefox extension. GTK theme; Material-Black-Mango

A few days ago I started using RSS again. I decided to use something other than liferea to suit the look and feel of my desktop environment. ended up using rss for everything; including Youtube, the podcasts I listen to, Twitter (using Nitter RSS), Peertube and Lemmy. Funnily enough I haven't used it for blog articles.

I'm really excited by this. I sold my nintendo switch a while ago and I miss handheld gaming while going on trips. and also the fact that alot of games will probably be ported to linux because of this. what do you all think?

I've explained it in my last post when I pick apart their privacy policy. In short; they tried and It's almost good, but not enough for privacy.

LBRY protocol is open source and safe. while the websites and their services are centralized and probably is already spied on with the goverment. to fix it I've list all things they have to change.

| Changes | Reason | |

| --------- | | Decentralize the website. Make it a p2p client. | they are using their own servers which doesn't make sense since the whole point is decentralization. Don't make it talk to ANY server. | | Remove google adsense | This is obvious but google adsense running on their website is a no go, Google is spied on by the US government | | Remove their "wallet syncing" services. | The passwords and wallets are stored in their server(s). basic opsec tells you the best way to store data is where you have most control over. If It's compromised It's done for everyone who uses their service. this is one way your privacy can be compromised. | | Remove Email Registration | Registering your email means that you will be using LBRY inc. service to login to your account. LBRY inc. is centralized. Your account has the risk be spied on the US government and the 5 eyes. the whole point of decentralization is to avoid these kinds of risks. | | Remove LBRY "Rewards" | This pushes people to register using an email on their centralized service. | | Add Local Wallet Login | You should be able to use your own local wallet to login to the web. make it the only way you can log in for privacy purpose. this should be safe if the website acts like the lbry application. p2p and decentralized. |

You do not need to use an email to do anything. LBRY is a blockchain, not a centralized web service that uses email like youtube.

How the website should work is it shouldn't talk to ANY servers, other than the LBRY blockchain. like the lbry client itself.

I wrote this because of a previous post. I decided to dig deep into this privacy problem that LBRY has.

if you don't wanna waste your time just scroll down to the conclusion

read this post with LBRY's Privacy Policy for context.

How does LBRY handle privacy? What data does LBRY collect? is useful to read too.

First mistake: It's a company based on the US. I don't really mind if it's only used for enforcing laws. However the US is included in the 5 eyes and has a PRISM program** If you want to avoid mass surveillance from the government the only way you can deal with these regions is to "trust but verify". the lbry/odysee website is centralized and you can't tell if the server is safe or not.

They have almost a good privacy policy. but the US government is notorious for mass surveillance. based on the knowledge available, the US is one of the worst offenders of privacy.

When do we collect information?

We collect information from you when you register on our site, place an order, subscribe to a newsletter, respond to a survey, fill out a form, open a support ticket or enter information on our site, or provide us with feedback on our products or services.

This is obvious to some people. they can't collect information for people who is solely using the LBRY protocol with lbry-desktop client.

How do we use your information?

• To personalize your experience and to allow us to deliver the type of content and product offerings in which you are most interested.

this point doesn't matter because in this privacy policy it's illegal for them to sell data. as far as I'm concerned this is just tracking with using their services for video recommendations. although the US government including the 5 eyes still may spy on it but other companies or third parties cannot access their information by law. see California Online Privacy Protection Act section on https://lbry.com/privacypolicy

How do we protect your information?

Your personal information is contained behind secured networks and is only accessible by a limited number of persons who have special access rights to such systems, and are required to keep the information confidential. In addition, all sensitive/credit information you supply is encrypted via Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology.

they claim to have good security practice here. data leaks are always dangerous in centralized systems; all it takes is for one failure. they didn't state how many data-centers they're using or if It uses some kind of encryption(SSL is for encrypting data during transfer and transmission. It's not for encrypting stored files in my knowledge). the worst thing is to put your data somewhere you don't have control over. I don't recommend trusting them to protect your data (or any other type of cloud service).

Do we use "cookies"?

Yes. Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer's hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow) that enables the site's or service provider's systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information. For instance, we use cookies to help us remember and process the items in your shopping cart. They are also used to help us understand your preferences based on previous or current site activity, which enables us to provide you with improved services. We also use cookies to help us compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can offer better site experiences and tools in the future.

In short: they use it for tracking logged sessions and also personalization. Again, It's illegal for them to sell data so It's not a problem. if you want, you can disable cookies in your browser.

Third-party disclosure

However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.

that just means they don't use intrusive ways for advertizing. See Non-PII Data

Third-party links

Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third-party products or services on our website. These third-party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites.

We don't know what third party services are used. It's also cumbersome to read all other privacy policies and most likely It's not a good one. there is a possibility of a privacy policy loophole. because of this, you should avoid the Odysee.com and lbry.tv website at all cost.

Google

We use Google AdSense Advertising on our website.

The NSA have direct access to Google's servers^source^ with the PRISM program.

for me personally I'm skeptical of installing google's opt-out DART cookie. though It's good that they have that option. even though It's really un-intuitive. I don't expect anything from google.

California Online Privacy Protection Act and COPPA (Children Online Privacy Protection Act)

These only protects data-selling to third-parties and also privacy and safety from the mass public. the government isn't affected by these laws.

Does our site allow third-party behavioral tracking?

Nothing wrong here. the website doesn't allow third party behavioral tracking.

Fair Information Practices

They will inform users whenever there is a security breach within 7 days. Let's hope a data breach never happens.

Conclusion

Most of the privacy problems comes from LBRY inc. and the websites which are lbry.tv and odysee.com . the blockchain itself doesn't have privacy problems.

It's heavily unsafe and unprivate to use lbry.tv / odysee.com and LBRY inc. 's services. these websites are centralized which makes it insecure. the security of lbry inc's server is also vague. has possible privacy policy loopholes from third party services. and based on the US which is notorious for It's mass surveillance.

things to do and avoid while using lbry for privacy;

• Use only the lbry client with a VPN. (since It's p2p it'll leak your ip address)
• Do not use the odysee app and Android's lbry client from the playstore.
• Do not use lbry.tv and odysee.com
• Do not use LBRY inc. services. (registering with email, syncing wallets, sending analytics and data to LBRY inc.)

How to become anonymous on lbry.

we'll only use the lbry clients. with p2p our IP address is visible so we have to use a VPN/TOR.

• prepare your VPN
  • one way is to self-host the vpn on an anonymously bought server
  • alternatively you can use TOR instead of the VPN but it can be really slow. you can use an os like whonix or tails.

whenever you use lbry, don't forget to use the VPN or else your ip will be leaked.

• Install the lbry clients from https://lbry.com/get?showall=1

  • disable sharing data and analytics to LBRY Inc. - Go to settings (on desktop, click the gear icon then click settings,), scroll down to "Share usage and diagnostic data". then disable both of them;
  • disable autostart - (so you don't accidentally connect without using VPN/TOR) Go to settings again, scroll down to "Advanced settings, then under that click on 'Manage'. On startup preferences, disable "start minimized";

• Do not use/register with an email. (It's part of LBRY Inc. service, which also means no rewards and wallet/account syncing.)

• If you want to use an account, register using LBC. I suggest buying it with no KYC exchange service with XMR/monero.

feel free to correct things. I don't know all things in the world.

Those points aside Im glad someone is doing deep dives on policies, even if I don’t think this particular site tried to be a bastion of privacy in the first place it’s nice to have a plain language look at things. I’ll consider looking at Peertube when sharing links when possible but am still glad that LBRY is a thing in the meantime.