Rastal 🔑 @Rastal@mastodon.social

It's somewhat ironic that #Apple, the company which has always made the unverifiable claim that it protects the #privacy of its users, while simultaneously locking them into an ecosystem of proprietary garbage, has now publicly decided to track every single thing that its users do on #BigSur 😂

Playing around with #nixos. The idea of building an entire operating system from a single config file makes it a pretty exciting #linux distribution.

If you fork the #opensource #Signal app you cannot communicate with other Signal users who are on the official app. It would be a great idea to set up #decentralised Signal servers where users control their data, logs & can communicate with all Signal users. Many #infosec risks would be mitigated b/c it'd be distributed across hundreds of operators, across many countries, across various jurisdictions

A super easy way to disable camera and microphone access on #Android for #privacy. This is built into the system (Android 10+)

settings > developer options > quick setting developer tiles > sensors off

This will place a quick settings tile in the notification shade to enable/disable sensors on the device, allowing you to completely disable camera/microphone access on the device

Sometimes I set up a virtual machine and install #Arch #linux on it for no other reason than I find the Arch installation process therapeutic and relaxing. When I'm done I test then trash the virtual machine. It feels good.

Running #NeoVim with a bunch of plugins through Vim-Plugged in #Termux on #Android 😎

Arguably, the best #TextEditor on Android bar none

Power is always gotten through inducing mass fear, whether by terrorism, pandemics or a rouge cop. Governments are abusing the crises to push a power grab & corporations are abusing the crises to consolidate more wealth. We are all loosing to centralisation of power & wealth. We are all being f*cked by governments & corporations. Yet somehow while the governments & corporations maintain unity, we turn against each other in bipartisanship. Governments & corporations are the real enemy.

End to end encryption in proprietary software (like WhatsApp) makes little to no sense. If it's not 100% FOSS, you cannot inspect the code, you cannot know if there's a backdoor in the encryption, you have to rely on trusting the company / developer. Doesn't matter if it's "mostly" open source (like Chrome/Telegram), all it takes is one line of code to exploit you. Security should never rely on trust.

#foss #opensource #encryption #e2ee #infosec

How I feel every time a #Windows vulnerability is published...

According to #Exodus #privacy:

#Spotify has 8 different trackers https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.spotify.music/latest/

#YouTube music has 1 tracker https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.google.android.apps.youtube.music/latest/

#Tidal has 9 different trackers https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.aspiro.tidal/latest/

Not to mention unnecessary permissions.

Playing your own .mp3 files has 0 trackers.

#Music streaming services are #spyware.

Finally switched to #nnn #linux file manager from #ranger. Just like ranger it has vim keybindings but excels in nav as you type mode. My all time favourite default keybind of nnn is . to show dot-files. Not h or c or other slightly obscure keybind, just . to show dot-files

Bank holiday Monday project: tweaking config files

The universal paradox of documentation: better manuals, more problems.

Notification history is being advertised as a new feature in #AndroidR but it has been part of OS for many previous versions of #Android

Create a widget > Select a Settings widget > Select Notification log > Tap to open it to display your notification history

China - social control, concentration camps and invasive universal surveillance

USA - all personal data belongs to a few conglomerates and there's massive social inequality

Russia - clandestine ops, government backdoors in everything, tons of propaganda and sinister plots

UK - Orwellian state, mass surveillance is 2nd only to China

Dystopia is now.

All metadata in WhatsApp is unencrypted and sent to Facebook. Since you can learn an awful lot from metadata alone, it makes sense for the UN to ban it, given their threat model likely includes governments and Facebook will cower to government requests for data.

https://mastodon.xyz/@nextcloud/103567771989998146

Permanent record by #Snowden is chock-full of gems. On technological tyranny: