I think you can trust the operational side of it. I don’t think they’ve had many detrimental oopsies, the services work. I used them for a year and then jumped ship. One reason is the favorable comments by their CEO about the 47 administration, which I didn’t like. Another reason is the nitty gritty - they don’t clearly advertize what’s part of what package and I felt that was by design to get you to upgrade. And they definitely see themselves as a basket for all of your eggs. If you are moving there because you want to degoogle your life you end up just protonizing it. It’s better to spread around your stuff so you’re not dependent on one provider. If you just want a good VPN and don’t care about the rest of their services and the politics, you could make worse choices.
FriendOfDeSoto
Joined the Mayqueeze.
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FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto Today I Learned@lemmy.world•TIL companies can still discriminate against people born out of wedlock or if their parents divorceEnglish14·2 months agoDiscrimination in hiring happens every day. Be it conscious or subconscious. If there isn’t a hard, unavoidable quota no one can force anyone to hire people they don’t like. The laws may just forbid them from being this forthright.
Never attribute to malice what you can more appropriately attribute to stupidity. The people who coded this may be young and not even on their first divorce yet. To me, that’s what this family plan business falls under. To leap from that to organized discrimination of folks being born out of wedlock seems a tad too conspiratorial from my POV.
This may be a fryable fish. Yet I see much bigger fish elsewhere.
What may also hold back development of functional patchwork family plans is legal hot water. Not every split is amicable. The Googles and Microsofts may simply have decided they don’t want to be put in a situation where they need to adjudicate between two warring ex partners whose bitterness is overriding their child rearing responsibilities with petty disputes. And building a system where maybe new partners can gain access - even just by mistake - to their spouse’s kids accounts also has very bad PR potential when it turns out the step parent is abusive.
Nevertheless you should let them know about your feedback. Patchwork families are quite common and they can probably do more in that area.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto Today I Learned@lemmy.world•TIL men are approximately four times more likely than women to die by suicide in Western countries; whilst in China, roughly as many men as women die by suicide.English10·2 months agoIt does not address the question at the core: who counted what and how? Even if we accepted it as given that men were more effective in the suicide department, which may very well be backed by all individual studies, that would not make international comparisons, the like we see in the title, any more reliable. I did not see a source for this TIL and that’s why I’m throwing heaps of salt on it.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto Today I Learned@lemmy.world•TIL men are approximately four times more likely than women to die by suicide in Western countries; whilst in China, roughly as many men as women die by suicide.English82·2 months agoUnlike other governments who are (more) honest.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto Today I Learned@lemmy.world•TIL men are approximately four times more likely than women to die by suicide in Western countries; whilst in China, roughly as many men as women die by suicide.English233·2 months agoThis has to fall under the category of “never trust a statistic you didn’t forge yourself.” I’m confident without looking that the amorphous Western countries don’t all count suicides and attempts the same way. And for China you would have to trust official numbers or generate your own because the one thing the leadership does not like is looking bad in the international community.
The other question I would have is this ratio based on absolute numbers or per capita. The reason why I ask is that China has a massive gender imbalance, a blast from the past when the one - child policy was in play and millions of female embryos were somehow aborted. And here I would also assume that official population numbers may not be entirely correct to make the generally known problem within the country look less severe.
If there are more men in absolute numbers, there will be more male suicides, some of which one might attribute to the ripples downstream of that very same imbalance.
Whoever concluded this may have accounted for all the pitfalls in their study. And the result may be fantastically accurate. But we oughta be careful and keep more than just a few grains of salt handy when we hear about something like this.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto Today I Learned@lemmy.world•TIL if you funneled the water from Niagara Falls through a straw, it would probably destroy the planet.English33·2 months agoAnd if we have found a way to reinforce a straw, then we will have found a way to reinforce the planet as well. Danger averted.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto Privacy@lemmy.ml•How do you deal with renewing ID/official documentation?English0·2 months agoThe American fear of a proper ID system is puzzling to me. It’s constant fear mongering of overreach by the man and not enough appreciation of the benefits. The first one is a self-updating voter registry that eliminates the process of registering or having to check on your registration to make sure you didn’t get knocked off for no good reason. All people need to update their home addresses when they move. Another benefit is - if implemented well of course - that everybody could have a 2FA-quality chip in their pocket to allow for many services to be done reasonably safely online. The dreaded lines of the DMV come to mind. Another benefit is you could prove very quickly who you are, especially if fingerprints are on the chip, to counter mistaken identity arrests that may or may not have been instigated by a so-called AI.
So the government knows everything about you, sure. But it’s not a one-sided deal. And frankly, even if the government did not have this information on you before it turned tyrannical, it would ID you as a possible malcontent in no time. Your data is already available for sale on various data broker sites.
I realize that me preaching the benefits of a proper ID system to the Americans in times of 47 and ICE raids is a bit wonky. I am not going to speculate if the self-updating voter registry could’ve prevented 47. And ICE under 47 might find its job “easier.” But from what I’ve read and heard they haven’t exactly been detail-oriented public servants. When the rule of law breaks down everybody gets effed. And so-called illegal immigrants also have phones and use the internet so their information was also available for sale before stable genius returned to the orange office.
Of course there are dangers that need to be addressed. Access to the database needs to be tighter than a sphincter and every query needs to be logged. Every system will be abused. Checks and balances need to be there, ideally with a right to find out who looked you up and for what reason for everyone. I’d prefer a system embedded in law over internet data brokers.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto Today I Learned@lemmy.world•TIL Donald Trump, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, and Boy George were all born on 14 June.English9·2 months agoYou’ve discovered the birthday problem.
Some of the technical info flew right over my head in the first article. What I took from the piece is that he has valid points so far as I can see and understand it. I would say nevertheless the author was a bit biased as well. And it’s 3 years old. It may still be accurate, IDK.
I use F-Droid and have been for a while and I’m not aware of any issues this could’ve caused me. But I’m also not using it for essential systems. Not for browsers, VPN, etc. I have downloaded games, a couple of notes apps, that sort of thing. I would never recommend you get all your apps from there. It’s an addition to Google or your usual poison.
Security experts will never be happy; that’s their job. The author is also talking about your threat model. Are you okay with certain risks? The truth is also that somebody could screw you over on Google Play. It may be less likely comparatively but not impossible. So you try to jump from rock to rock hoping no alligator catches you. So far no alligator got me.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto Privacy@lemmy.ml•What can happen if Meta trains its AI with your info and selfies?English0·3 months agoBut you had Facebook. That’s as good as having it. They know you. Their grubby tentacles will never let go!
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto Privacy@lemmy.ml•What can happen if Meta trains its AI with your info and selfies?English0·3 months agoWhether you like it or not, they probably already know who you are too. They’re collecting shadow profiles of people who haven’t signed up through various means.
If others have posted pictures of you on a meta service, there is a good chance it already knows what you look like and they know it’s you even if you’re not tagged.
People who allow them access are just less work for them. And now they have info to train their so-called AI models. Now it’s a question about what are they going to with them. The application is wide. Create fake pictures, create fake profiles, etc. And at some point we will find out about a massive data leak that happened because the company is run by unapologetic sociopaths.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto Privacy@lemmy.ml•UK creating ‘murder prediction’ tool to identify people most likely to killEnglish0·4 months agoWill this drive the first wrongfully accused person to suicide or will it just somehow, magically, target all brown and black people? Stay tuned to see how much taxpayer money gets sunk into this tool.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto Privacy@lemmy.ml•How to reset Instagram search suggestionsEnglish0·5 months agoIs this what you’re looking for?
https://help.instagram.com/354860134605952/?helpref=related_articles
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto Privacy@lemmy.ml•Is Tuta a good alternative to gmail?English0·5 months agoIf you’re on Android, by any chance, have you gone through all the battery optimization, background process killing, and startup settings? Some OEM’s versions of Android are real bad in that way. Giving the app the right settings and permissions may decrease the number of delayed notifications like that.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto Privacy@lemmy.ml•Merz won the German election. Here’s what it means for ~~Europe~~ [privacy].English0·5 months agoTrue. But the social democrats are the only feasible way to a majority for Merz right now without the help of Nazis. There is at least potential strength in that. Plus the SPD know about their past. They’ll have to find a way to strengthen their party’s position in government somehow. They may surprise us with the spontaneous growth of a backbone in this area, under new leadership. All I’m saying is the die is not cast yet.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteto Privacy@lemmy.ml•Merz won the German election. Here’s what it means for ~~Europe~~ [privacy].English0·5 months agoParty manifestos are dreamy wishlists for a parliament, in which they have the absolute majority. Merz’s CDU tories did not win one. He’ll need to form a coalition. Most likely outcome is one with the SPD social democrats. Coalition talks have a way of grinding these wishlists down. And they take time. So keep a watchful eye but it’s too early to despair.
This verification efforts were kicked off earlier this month; this app hasn’t really launched yet, has it? I think proper implementation after a test phase will maybe come next year. I think it is too early to complain that aftermarket OS’s are being excluded. It seems to me that nobody has tackled that problem yet rather than this being a willful exclusion. And while the EU lawmakers thought it was okay to put the Googles of the world in a position where they get to be judge, jury, and executioner for the right to be forgotten, I have a feeling that GDPR and the general vibe within the EU will not allow this to only work with the help of one American corporation on the continent’s most used OS. We need to be watchful but not despairing just yet.