MTK

I heard a bunch of explanations but most of them seem emotional and aggressive, and while I respect that this is an emotional subject, I can't really understand opinions that boil down to "theft" and are aggressive about it.

while there are plenty of models that were trained on copyrighted material without consent (which is piracy, not theft but close enough when talking about small businesses or individuals) is there an argument against models that were legally trained? And if so, is it something past the saying that AI art is lifeless?

I recently found out that a locked device (aka a carrier lock) is actually locked in two very different ways.

1. the sim lock, which prevents you from using a sim card from a different carrier. This usually has some sort of policy regarding how and when to unlock the device (for Verizon it is if the device goes for 60 days without connecting to the Verizon network, might also need to be fully paid off as well)

2. Bootloader lock, this locks the bootloader and therefore disables any way of flashing anything (rom, root, etc) This is not something that will automatically be unlocked as far as I can tell and only the carrier can modify it. Most carriers seem to have the basic decency to unlock the device if you request it from their support, but be warned that there is no guarantee. What is guaranteed, is that Verizon will tell you to fuck right off and will never unlock your device.

The point of this post is to bring awareness to this issue, it is on me that I didn't properly research this and just assumed that carrier lock means just a sim lock, but this sucked.

I bought a pixel 8 which was sim-unlocked but sadly, as I discovered, its bootloader was locked and the "oem unlock" option was grayed-out. This is because it was a Verizon model that was out of the network but still, a Verizon model...

As of right now there are no known exploits against this device / Android version, and so, there is no known way to bypass this.

I literally argued, begged, and threatened Verizon. And their official stand is that they don't allow bootloader unlocks, they don't have the ability to do them (A lie) and that it will degrade my experience (Idiots)

So I started doing anything I could think of. I tried old exploits that were patched (unsurprisingly they failed), I tried sideloading other versions of stock android (worked but didn't affect the bootloader), I even setup mitm wifi hotspot that has a transparent tls inspection (see PolarProxy) but it seems that the OS does not trust any "user" CAs and so it tries to connect to android.googleapis.com, sees that the CA is not a system CA and aborts the bootloader check, which keeps it grayed-out. My idea was to spoof a valid response but apparently Android has good security practices (who knew)

Short of reversing the OS/Bootloader, it seems there is nothing to do.

So this is my warning to you, don't buy carrier models, but if you do, make sure the oem unlock option works, but if you don't, absolutely never buy a Verizon model.

ETA: I bought second-hand under the impression that it was an unlocked device, I thought that by checking sim compatibility I verified that it was, I was wrong.

Make our brains FOSS! Why can't I just tell my brain that now is sleeping time and it will just sleep?!

Hi, I have a pixel 4a that I love and works great (with CalyxOS) I bought it when it came out and I really don't want a new phone, but...

Security updates from google stopped for the 4a about a year and a bit ago, and for the last year I have been slowly getting more and more anxious while trying to ignore it. I'm still getting the android security updates (software) for another year or so (thanks calyx!) But I'm not getting the firmware security updates anymore.

I'm experienced in the field of cyber security and I feel like I'm in denial because I really really don't want to buy a new phone.

Please tell me if I really should get a new phone or not...

My threat model would be just an average person but with the added paranoia of knowing too much about privacy and security, and my avoidance of getting a new phone is mostly rooted in zero-waste ideology and the pure hate towards google for forcing me to stop using a great phone that would otherwise probably be usable for another few years.

Well, I have a parent that is right on the edge of dislike that I keep them in my life for the sake of family harmony. But I consider them to be a bad person that makes me extremely uncomfortable to be around.

If you had something similar, and they died, how did it make you feel?

I'm purely curious because right now I feel like I would happy that they are out of my life, but sad for my family, but overall happier. And I want to understand if I'm being naive about the hardship of losing a parent, even a disliked one.

Saw a post without noticing the community and commented a genuine comment with good intentions.

Apparently it was against the rules of that community and I was banned.

Original post:

My (removed) comment:

And yeah, the last comment was sarcasm.

I just don't really understand why is there a community for shitting on Linux? Like I can get not liking it, and hating the Linux die hard fans, but it really is an amazing thing that is integral to almost all modern computing... Kind of like hating social media by having a facebook page for it.

I suspect that this is the direct result of AI generated content just overwhelming any real content.

I tried ddg, google, bing, quant, and none of them really help me find information I want these days.

Perplexity seems to work but I don't like the idea of AI giving me "facts" since they are mostly based on other AI posts

ETA: someone suggested SearXNG and after using it a bit it seems to be much better compared to ddg and the rest.

Sent using My Toilet™

I always wondered why did some startup get what seems like a specials symbol, just the letter S.

How is that decision made and why was the symbol S free? Is it really special or was it just some coincidence?

I have a Pixel 4a (with Calyx) for a few years already (start of 2021) and it's still going great. The battery is okay. Everything works nice. It's smooth. It runs everything perfectly fine.

This makes me glad to see that hardware wise this phone was really built to last, I can't even count how many times I dropped it so hard that I was scared to see the damage (which was always either nothing or a broken screen protector)

But software wise I'm screwed as security updates are already gone from Google and I only get the extended support from Calyx which will also end soon.

Now I'm forced to choose between having a phone that is insecure or buying a new one.

So thanks Google for the high quality hardware, but what's up with this software planned obsolescence??

I know this isn't exactly right to repair, but it also kind of is because if Google decided to ditch the 4a, they should be forced to open source the software so that the public can actually repair it.

I'm sure that some of their latest updates can be modified slightly to work for the 4a, but they don't care and for them this is a win-win since they don't have to maintian support and they get new customers who would otherwise be satisfied with an "old" phone.

What happened to the days when an old phone meant a phone that was already crumbling to pieces, and not a fully functional computer that is slightly older then a toddler?

Hi, I think in metric units, so almost everything is some form of a power of 10, like a kilogram is a 1000 grams, etc.

Sometimes I will think of an hour and half as 150 minutes before remembering that it is 90 minutes.

Does something similar happen to imperial units users? Because as far as I understand you don't have obvious patterns that would cause you to make these mistakes, right?

I strongly suspect that I have ADHD, but I can't see the benifit of getting diagnosed.

I know that if I get diagnosed and offically have ADHD I can get some medicine but I don't think I want that in any case.

Can you share your experience and what benifit you got from getting offically diagnosed?