JubilantJaguar @ JubilantJaguar @lemmy.world

European. Contrarian liberal. Insufferable green. History graduate. **I nev

---

Read more

Posts

10

Comments

1,481

Joined

2 yr. ago

Perhaps AI could be used to rewrite this post so that it makes sense.

This is a case where Windows-bashing is hypocritical. Almost no Linux distro has disk encryption turned on by default (PopOS being the major exception).

It's dumb and inexcusable IMO. Whatever the out-of-touch techies around here seem to think, normies do not have lumbering desktop computers any more. They have have mobile devices - at best laptops, mostly not even that.

If an unencrypted computer is now unacceptable on Android, then it should be on Linux too. No excuses.

This is all true. it's something that crosses my mind whenever I spend (i.e. waste, probably) any time at all in debate. In person too, BTW, although text feels even worse because of the way it disembodies your interlocutor.

And yet. Open debate is all we have. The alternatives cannot possibly be better. I tell myself that even if 99% of it is useless, that remaining 1% can make a lot of difference statistically. I can certainly think of occasions when I've changed my mind, or at least seen things in a new light, because of a single comment someone made in debate. But yes, it's rare.

If you do, then also choose full-disk encryption. It doesn't make sense to close a small hole only to leave the big one gaping wide open. And yet on Linux FDE is mostly off by default, even in today's era of encryption, even on laptops. Personally I don't understand it.

Once you're encrypted, then Secure Boot (if you even have the option of it) mitigates against the "evil maid attack". To get access to your encrypted computer, the attacker will need physical access to it twice: first to swap out the bootloader, then to harvest the password you unsuspectingly passed to their freshly installed malware.

For most targets (i.e. you, probably), this would all be far too much trouble. But technically it closes a loophole: it means that you can go to Russia as a spy or a journalist and not have to carry your laptop on your person at all times.

Give it a few years.

I use sway in tabbed monocle mode, i.e. no windows at all, just one thing at a time like on mobile. Never going back to mousey Windowsy 1980s-style computing.

Tiling window manager plus a terminal.

Hmm, say what? No, it looks GREAT.

What's GTK?

Black terminal FTW.

to open PDFs

mupdf

for selecting the text and stuff

This is what is slowing things down.

In 20 years of using Linux my partition scheme has always been to say yes to whatever the OS suggests.

Luigi Mangione.

ITT: lots of generic VPN advice by people who have no experience with the specific problem.

French fries, shorly.

There is nothing inherent about technology that means it must be used for evil.

Sure. In theory. But there are things we know about humans and their weaknesses, and these things are not going to change overnight (except perhaps in the fever dreams of some Marxists, of whom you might be one). Technology of this power did not exist before, and now it does. So technology is indeed the proximate problem.

While this is essentially true, IMO it's become a bit of a distraction. The immediate problem we face today is technology.

In the 90s, people believed technology (i.e. the internet) would protect liberty against power (or "security"). We thought that removing the barriers to information would put our rulers in a goldfish bowl where we could keep an eye on them. It was a reasonable expectation. But it turns out to be us in the goldfish bowl.

It seems those with power simply have more time and resources available for surveillance. And now the technology is reaching a point where rulers will soon have awesome tools at their disposal, and they're sure gonna be tempted to use them.

Our problem is technology. Not sure how to put a positive spin on this. Technology itself will provide some solutions. But IMO it's more important than ever to get involved in politics. In any appropriate way.

Sad if true. I don't see it being practical to tell people to use different apps depending on the number of interlocutors.

Yes, it was called Pidgin. But things become more complex when you add E2E encryption. The ideal destination is a single agreed protocol, just like one exists for things like telephones, the web, and email.

Seems this is the standard response in animals in times of stress and penury, and humans are no exception. The challenge is to find a way to surmount it. Tough times coming.

But possibly not better than 1855, unironically.

Messengers are the archetypal example of software that has to deal with the network effect. IMO we don't have the luxury of trying and using lots of FOSS messengers and never picking a winner. At some point there has to be only one left if we want anyone to use it.

The frontrunner candidate is Matrix.