DahGangalang
@DahGangalang@infosec.pub
- Comment on Proton launches privacy-first alternative to Excel and Google Sheets 3 days ago:
Well, he took it also to mean payment in the philosophical sense. He was also fond of saying “you can pay with your wallet or you can pay with your clock”. He had some extension of that to the effect of its worse when you have to pay with both, but I forget the wording (it didn’t flow well).
- Comment on Proton launches privacy-first alternative to Excel and Google Sheets 3 days ago:
Yeah, I had a boss once who’s favorite saying was:
“You don’t always get what you pay for But you never get what you don’t pay for”
- Comment on Proton launches privacy-first alternative to Excel and Google Sheets 3 days ago:
Not any authoritative recommendations. I’m at most a casual user of VPNs, and so long as I see the traffic getting encrypted, don’t think about it much more.
I always hear Mullvad is great for maximizing privacy. Never tried them myself though.
Personally, I use Proton. I was prepping to jump ship earlier this year, but ultimately decided it wasn’t worth it. I’ve had a pretty decent experience with them. The only issue was on on a Linux machine…Uh…and it was minor enough and long ago enough that I don’t even remember what it was?
See above for my dissatisfying experience with Surf shark.
I did try to sign up with ExpressVPN many years ago. They’re payment portal was busted (tried every day for a week, emailed support with no response).
That about sums up my experience.
- Comment on Proton launches privacy-first alternative to Excel and Google Sheets 4 days ago:
Not the exact development route I wanted them to take, but def pleased they’re doing something to improve existing services.
Definitely better than the whole (ongoing?) Proton Wallet ordeal.
- Comment on Proton launches privacy-first alternative to Excel and Google Sheets 4 days ago:
Don’t let me ruin your good time, but my experience with Surf shark:
Used surf shark for about 3 years around pandemic timeframe. Had no complaints (other than it drained my phone battery super fast - didn’t test empirically, but seemed somewhat worse than other VPN providers). I was unemployed for a while, so took the opportunity to cut expenses; tried to drop my surf shark subscription. It was a HUGE pain in the butt. I forget the process, but iirc, you had to use their help chat to get the number for cancellations, they kept me on hold for ~10 min, then had a long winded questionnaire (“were required to ask you these questions before proceeding”) asking why I was quitting, then made an offer for discounted months before letting me unsubscribe.
Its my understanding regulations have changed such that that’s not allowed anymore and also that most VPN can elations are about that bad anyway, but still, wanted to share my experience. Lol, suppose so long as you never quit, you won’t have to deal with all that.
- Comment on Comcast is simplifying its Xfinity internet plans and dropping data caps 5 months ago:
As a former customer, I can’t help but wonder what their catch is.
- Comment on Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 will NOT have Denuvo on PC 1 year ago:
Oh.
Welp, my opinion still stands, even if this isn’t the right context for it.
Hmmm, that does seem weird that they wouldnt be putting in DRM. I guess I’m on board with it. They do make super solid games. I hope this showcases what can be achieved by games that do t include DRM at their core.
- Comment on Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 will NOT have Denuvo on PC 1 year ago:
Anti-cheat in single player games never made sense to me. Maybe if it includes microtransactions, then i guess i could see a use case, but like, if I want to cheat at your single player game, what use would there be in stopping me?
- Comment on Steam will let you sue Valve now 1 year ago:
Like, I don’t want to sound like a corporate shill, but Valve has been the most consumer friendly corporation I’ve ever seen. Even if they do meet the criteria for a monopoly, they are the model of what a company that finds itself as The Monopoly should be, in my opinion.
I have no intent to sign up for this “lawsuit”, even though I stand to gain some $500 from it. I hope Steam lives long and prospers.
- Comment on Over 90 malicious Android apps with 5.5M installs found on Google Play 1 year ago:
…so are they going to tell us what the 90+ apps are?
- Comment on To comply with DMA, WhatsApp and Messenger will become interoperable via Signal protocol 1 year ago:
This is a beautiful block of information and I super appreciate you for having drafted it.
- Comment on To comply with DMA, WhatsApp and Messenger will become interoperable via Signal protocol 1 year ago:
Yeah, that’d be the principle.
I’m really not sure how this is all gonna pan out, but I know you’re gonna need to offer me something really good to abandon “real” Signal. Not sure if that’s how the rest of the community feels, but I know that’s NOT the way “normal people” feel. If my sentiment is widely shared, maybe it does have hope in the end.
- Comment on To comply with DMA, WhatsApp and Messenger will become interoperable via Signal protocol 1 year ago:
I’m forgetting the term everyone was throwing around when (Facebook’s) Threads was supposedly going to federate. But the gist of it was that this is an old Big Tech move: small community is created and thrives, big company integrates into the ecosystem, then a couple of years later the big tech company controls that that whole ecosystem.
If Facebook were to completely integrate, I worry they would begin to bring in additional features (maybe like blue chat bubbles for FB users, or bringing back SMS in the app; some feature that you’d only be getting on the FB version of the ecosystem) and use that to begin to strong arm the ecosystem under their control.
There’s probably a Slippery Slope Fallacy in there, but my good will towards Big Tech is minimal after the last decade or so.
- Comment on To comply with DMA, WhatsApp and Messenger will become interoperable via Signal protocol 1 year ago:
I suppose the part I seem to be missing: what’s to stop Facebook from setting up a “Signal Server” that then hosts those users on Whatsapp/Messenger?
From there, what happens if Facebook then attempt to integrate those servers into the existing Signal network?
I’m really not sure how information is shared between servers on Signal and am curious if there’s not something at a purely technical level to stop that from happening. I’d imagine there’s some keys that need to be passed around for handling en/decryption which I think is what you’re alluding to, but I want to be clear that that’s what you mean.
- Comment on To comply with DMA, WhatsApp and Messenger will become interoperable via Signal protocol 1 year ago:
Right, but with Signal being an open source project, it seems that anyone could (pending license-ability) build an app to interact with the main Signal network. It’s my understanding there’s a few apps on F-Droid that let you do that already.
Thus, Facebook should be able to (at least in theory) build compatibility for the Signal network into their existing messengers.
Is there any part of that I’m missing?
- Comment on To comply with DMA, WhatsApp and Messenger will become interoperable via Signal protocol 1 year ago:
Sounds like ~facebook~ Meta isn’t seriously considering interoperation with the existing Signal network, which is a weight off my chest.
- Comment on We need to stop attempts to normalize grind/hustle lifestyle 1 year ago:
Let’s not lose sight of the important part:
That they’re plotting it together