Notices by Joseph Nuthalapati :fbx: (njoseph@social.masto.host)

Jitsi is getting a lot of mentions here.

I wonder if people are aware of GNU Jami, a P2P solution.
https://jami.net/

Jami has end-to-end encryption while Jitsi is only encrypted during transit. The Jitsi server has your packets available in unencrypted form. If you can't trust a Jitsi server and need end-to-end encryption, Jami can be a good alternative.

#Jitsi #Jami #e2ee

FreedomBox 19.19 has a new app for basic Git web hosting using gitweb.

I am shifting all of my personal projects that were still on Microsoft GitHub and GitLab.com to my FreedomBox.

https://njoseph.me/gitweb/

#GitHub #GitLab #FreedomBox #Gitweb

Epicyon is a new Fediverse server being developed by Freedombone developer Bob Mottram

Example:
https://epicyon.freedombone.net/@bob

Code:
https://code.freedombone.net/bashrc/epicyon

#Epicyon #Freedombone

In Android 2.3 Gingerbread, the OS and most of the apps were open-source.

In the new Android 9 Pie Go, every app is a proprietary Google app. The only surveillance "opt out" mechanism I can see right now with this phone is smashing it with a hammer.

This OS is most prevalent in the sub $100 smartphone category.

Tech companies are selling digital privacy as a premium product to the rich. Others have to accept surveillance as the price to pay for digital services. This new normal is dystopian.

Surveillance Capitalists be like,

"I'm going to rob your house tonight. Uncheck these 200 checkboxes representing each item in your house that I am going to take. Any checkbox you fail to check gives us the permission to rob that item. And we can't guarantee the list here is exhaustive, nor that our 1000 partners won't rob your house."

We shouldn't be "opting out" of their violations of our rights. We should be asking what gives them the right to steal our behavioral data in the first place.

@Shamar @Famicoman @ckeen @gcupc @bob @grainloom

Mastodon and PeerTube have some nice explainer videos and artwork. It would be nice to have such explainers for the idea of self-hosting in general.

#selfhosting

I saw 10 peers on a PeerTube video today. Nice to see the WebTorrent idea actually working in practice.

#PeerTube #WebTorrent

The new DNS over HTTPS (DOH) in #Firefox has an anti-feature. It bypasses any ad-blocking entries you might have in your /etc/hosts file.

There's a setting in about:config called "network.trr.mode" which is set to 2 by default. (TRR = Trusted Recursive Resolver).

I set the value to 1, which creates a race between /etc/hosts and the TRR to resolve the domain first and the winner's IP address is picked.

I hope both ad-blocking and #DOH work with this setting.

Ref:
https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2018/06/03/inside-firefoxs-doh-engine/

Next time you want to say things like "hackers broke into this system" or "hackers stole credit card numbers", please replace the word "hacker" with "cyber criminal".

Let's stop exacerbating the mainstream media's misunderstanding of the word "hacker".

In my last presentation, I almost wrote the sentence "Centralized systems are honeypots for hackers" and then replaced "hackers" with "cyber criminals".

#hacker #hacking #CyberCrime

"Human progress isn’t measured by industry. It’s measured by the value you place on a life. An unimportant life. A life without privilege. The boy who died on the river, that boy’s value is your value. That’s what defines an age, that’s… what defines a species. "

#DoctorWho #Quotes

Thunderbird is now using Pretty Easy Privacy (PEP) for encrypted emails. I find the user experience quite seamless. It takes no additional effort to send an encrypted email than a non-encrypted one. I don't even have to check whether I'm encrypting or not. It automatically encrypts emails sent to recipients for which it has keys available.

#Thunderbird #Enigmail #PEP #encryption

Is there an app on F-Droid that can read out loud (TTS) ebooks?

I think LineageOS comes with a built-in TTS engine called Pico TTS. I'd be happy to find an app (like an epub or pdf reader) that can at least leverage Pico TTS and read out text. Really missing the Google Play books TTS after the switch to LineageOS + F-Droid.

#lineageOS #FDroid #TTS #Android #AudioBooks

Using an F-Droid app called Waistline to maintain a calorie deficit.

#fdroid #weightloss

@cwebber I am more excited by the "spare parts" section.

#RightToRepair

TIL about Global Warming's modern cousin Social Cooling (more like chilling).

oil <-> data
global warming <-> social cooling

https://www.socialcooling.com/

#socialcooling #globalwarming

#TIL about a startup called Wikiwand.com which presents Wikipedia with a "modern" UI (a ploy to put ads on the fifth most visited website on the planet).

The Firefox addon called #Stylus on the other hand offers 460 user-created CSS styles for Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiwand#Business_model

#startups #VC #CapitalistInnovation

#Firefox #addons #Wikipedia

All it costs to fulfill the average person's needs for digital services is a $5 per month VPS instance. It's even cheaper if you buy a single board computer and host your services at home.

We've been letting companies steal our personal data and sell it to the highest bidder and destroying democracy in the process all to save what? A coffee a month?

This is one of the worst deals in history.

#privacy #selfhosting

"Mark’s manifesto isn’t about building a global community, it is about building a global colony – with himself as king and with his corporation and the Silicon Valley oligarchy as the court."

"Where Mark asks you to trust him to be a benevolent king, I say let us build a world without kings."

A very well-written article with a lot of quotable sentences.

https://ar.al/notes/encouraging-individual-sovereignty-and-a-healthy-commons/