Matrix is defacto centralized around Matrix.org & servers they provide (where the cost of hosting makes it largely inaccessible to low-spec & medium-sized servers causing them to inevitably shut down & recommending users back to Matrix.org). All the metadata gets synced back to the mothership that was funded by Israeli intelligence. Avoid it.

Cloudflare is a CIA front. They offer “free” DDoS protection + static proxy thereby giving Cloudflare the ability to MitM all TLS connections thru their servers. They convinced so many ‘developers’ via ‘influencers’ that every tiny site needs Cloudflare in front of it as a precaution/optimization, but it is an entirely premature optimization that doesn’t need to so widely deployed, but it is. 🤔

Microsoft has always been an enemy but somehow managed to Trojan horse their way into the minds of developers again (neo-EEE) trying to centralize how software is created. Like we avoid Microsoft Windows, the rest of the Microsoft ecosystem should equally be avoided: Copilot, LinkedIn, Outlook, Exchange, Office, Teams, Azure, VSCode, npm, GitHub (Sponsors, Codespaces, Copilot). Literally none of these projects/services can’t be replaced to help protect the privacy of your clients, coworkers, contributors.

Step 1 of installing GrapheneOS for de-googling your life: Buy a Google Pixel phone

Look - I know, I know. I get it. Google allows you to unlock the bootloader while maintaining the phone's unique and excellent hardware security features. The argument makes sense. It is compelling. Other manufacturers do not give you this freedom. I am not arguing about that. I have a Pixel phone running GrapheneOS myself.

However... It is just so very obviously ironic that one needs to trust Google's hardware and purchase a Google product to de-google their life through GrapheneOS. I think that it is a perfectly valid position for someone to raise their eyebrows, laugh, and remain skeptical of the concept either because they do not want to support Google at all, or because they simply will not trust Google's hardware.

The reason why I think that this is "controversial" is because I have seen multiple instances of someone pointing out the irony, followed by someone getting defensive about it and making use of the technical security arguments in an attempt to patch up the irony.

1. Whether phones are listening or not

2. What is the redacted part in the rationale to ban Tik Tok

A note on the latter, it is presented as national security threat. They won't say what it is. I presume because some of the shit they don't want a foreign power doing is sth they very much do themselves.

F-Droid not being trusted. They build and sign a developer's code on their behalf, so there is a chance for injection there.

There are reproducible builds, but I would argue it's not taken seriously enough. Like right now nobody is publicly verifying Signal's supposed reproducible Android builds and they've historically had problems keeping it working.

Also how most (or all?) Play Store apps (including FOSS) contain proprietary code.

Browsing with JS disabled by default and expecting most sites to have basic functionality like "display this text"

VPN: essential or snake oil?

Signal as a centralized meta-data honeypot.

Its not private if it needs a phone number (cough SIGNAL cough)

"Its to protect the kids", "Its to fight terrorism"

That one ~~filthy~~ muslim country banning VPN's with the guise of it being impermissible ("haram")

There is no expectation of privacy in public.

By which I mean that things like blurring a house from Street View are unreasonable.

I've got nothing to hide.

Whether this guy should be forced to turn over his passwords or not:

https://www.theregister.com/2017/03/20/appeals_court_contempt_passwords/

The appeals court found that forcing the defendant to reveal passwords was not testimonial in this instance because the government already had a sense of what it would find.

For me an AI topic is the hottest

Browser extensions aren’t the answer to preventing tracking (as apps and other processes outside the browser aren’t blocked)

JavaScript canvas blocker add-ons (this one specifically comes to mind, because I've recently had to disable it since it makes life harder; is it worth the cost of admission, or is it a lot of effort for not a lot of reward?) Other types of privacy add-ons would be good to explore as well.