If anyone actually watched the talk Guido addresses Android at about 2 minutes in, and why it's not a actually what Linux users want.
Readit Newselagost commented on Is there hope for Linux on smartphones? [video] media.ccc.de/v/froscon202... · Posted by u/McSinyx
I am curious (really, not sarcastic) why you want to play around with PC's from that period.
I am facinated by vintage computers. Computers from before that era feel exotic and unique but not so much for PC's.
To me a more modern OC does everything of an old one but more slowly. Not much to discover. Am I wrong or missing something?
They're what I have access to (for free; I don't buy this stuff), and what I grew up with. I used Pentium IIs and Pentium 4s (and some PowerPC Macs) in my early days. Exploring the limitations of older software or trying to cram newer software on to these machines is fun.
I don't get nostalgic feelings from a C64 or Apple 2 or TRS-80 because I've never even seen one IRL before. For my leisure time I want to play with something I'm mostly familiar with, because that's relaxing. I would jump at the chance to score a free Amiga or other hardware older than I've ever used, but just haven't had any presented to me.
This is a fantastic project. I've played around recently with late-90s/early-00s PCs, and have used Plop 5 on CD to boot off the USB disks. If you use older hardware, keep a copy on CD - booting off USB is much faster than CD!
Trisquel is based on Ubuntu like other operating systems (Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, Zorin OS, etc.) but they do something unique - they rebuild the Ubuntu packages from source, instead of just including the Ubuntu repos in their software sources.
Trisquel is quite a usable distro for laptops that are 3-4 years old if you have an appropriate wireless card - Atheros 9xxx series cards tend to work well as the ath9k driver is FOSS. That's really the only blocker most people encounter. Why run this over Debian Stable (without adding "non-free" sources) I couldn't tell you. Debian tends to be more up to date than Trisquel since it's usually based on the previous Ubuntu LTS.
Wait until people see how old the components RedHat ships.
It's important to understand that you can't go by major version numbers in most fixed-release, long term support Linux Operating Systems, like RHEL, Debian, or Ubuntu. There is often deeper investigation needed.
https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/backporting
https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/what-backporting-and-how-does...
elagost commented on ExpressVPN employees complain about ex-spy's top role at company reuters.com/technology/ex... · Posted by u/hassanahmad
> you replace trusting your ISP with trusting a different group of unknown people with similar motivations
I've always seen this argument but it's never made sense to me.
For starters I absolutely don't trust my ISP. I know they are collecting, storing, likely selling my data and that they are 100% going to comply with any government requests from my government (I don't even trust that they would only respond to legal requests).
Years ago I used to use AirVPN. They claimed:
> AirVPN started as a project of a very small group of activists, hacktivists, hackers in 2010, with the invaluable (and totally free) help of two fantastic lawyers and a financing from a company interested in the project and operated by the very same people.
Maybe they're lying but at least there's some chance they actually care about privacy.
But even if they don't care about privacy at all and are lying, at the very least they are based in Italy and have their servers spread throughout Europe. Additionally you can pay via crypto (which gives you more anonymous payment options than your ISP). Simply being in another country then the one I live in makes it much harder for my government to arbitrarily request my data.
Yes if I want to do highly illegal activity that is going to get my government interested in me I absolutely don't think that would be enough. But if I want privacy from routine surveillance this seems like a fantastically better option that 100% giving up.
Use an alternative DNS server, Firefox/Brave/Ungoogled Chromium, uBlock Origin, and disable JavaScript everywhere you can possibly help it. As far as reclaiming some privacy from routine surveillance, this is probably better advice than "Pay Unknown Company X $9/mo to maybe be slightly better than your ISP in terms of privacy".
elagost commented on ExpressVPN employees complain about ex-spy's top role at company reuters.com/technology/ex... · Posted by u/hassanahmad
Just for a moment close your eyes and imagine a world where you have to fill-in a mildly complicated form before you visit a website (or blindly sign away whatever rights you might have had).
A world where every second funny video you might have found on Reddit leaves you with a cryptic message that some "rights holder" doesn't permit you to see it (and denies you from joining the fun everyone else seems to be having in the thread).
A world where you cannot buy half of the cool stuff you want (and everyone else seems to be having) because you cannot even see the online store where it is sold.
A world where you're even denied access to old and seemingly public domain e-books.
Open your eyes. This is the world most of us live in.
We're not on commercial VPNs because we love to, but because often there is no other way. They are in a sense invaluable when it comes to geo-restrictions, even though I agree with you that they are worthless for many of the reasons they claim to exist.
Ok. Use a proxy, or set up your own Proxy/VPN on a VPS? Then you also have a VPS - you can host your own website there, use it to download stuff and rsync it back to your local machine, deploy nextcloud, etc., all for less than the cost of ExpressVPN. And bonus points, you can use unlimited devices.
elagost commented on ExpressVPN employees complain about ex-spy's top role at company reuters.com/technology/ex... · Posted by u/hassanahmad
Honest question: it's still a consensus that they do have value in situations such as airport Wi-Fi, correct?
Separately from that, I still do wonder whether, if you subscribe to a VPN that has well-examined security practices and whose reputation depends on such practices, whether it still may have value over relying on the security over a local ISP which may not have as much expertise or reputation investment with respect to security.
I'm not arguing, just trying to understand the issue better.
Argument is the spice of life! An argument doesn't have to be angry. But nonetheless I appreciate your earnest kindness.
It's less of an issue when every site you connect to uses https, and every app you use employs ssl/tls for its connections. That is common practice these days. Getting man-in-the-middle'd on airport Wi-Fi is less feasible these days than it was 10 years ago. The attacker would have to also install a certificate on the user's device. I welcome corrections if I'm wrong.
VPNs aren't obligated to tell you the truth. They don't have to have good security or even honor what they say on the front page. People trust marketing, not actual policy or actions - just look at Apple. Still waiting on "HMA" VPN to go out of business because they handed over users to the FBI. They're still around and claim No Logs just like everyone else, just like ProtonMail did until this month.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/09/priva...https://hacker10.com/internet-anonymity/hma-vpn-user-arreste...https://www.theregister.com/2011/09/26/hidemyass_lulzsec_con...
elagost commented on ExpressVPN employees complain about ex-spy's top role at company reuters.com/technology/ex... · Posted by u/hassanahmad
>If you think you want a VPN for "privacy", use Tor Browser.
Isn't using Tor browser trusting a group of unknown people as well (nodes)? I hear all the time theories that Tor is a giant honeypot
Diversification. Theoretically most of the nodes are owned by different people, and every connection will randomize your node list route between them, making it difficult to track, unless most of the nodes were owned by one organization. With VPNs, all of your connections are through servers owned by one company, identified by an account ID.