philpo @ philpo @feddit.org

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1 yr. ago

It's not the only case, it's just the only one getting media attention (which might not be a good thing).

• Proton is not an Email app but mainly an email provider that locks you into its own app.
• Proton does not provide e2e encrypted email outside its own environment (so any mail within proton will be encrypted but not outside - and it's far harder to do the later due to point one)
• Proton is heavily run by US citizens living in the US - and therefore to some extend fall under the homeland security act and similar laws, including pressure by the current administration.
• Proton claims to be based on Swiss privacy laws. One should be aware that Swiss data protection laws are amongst the weakest in Europe, that service providers can (and mostly are) forced to monitor cross border traffic and that Swiss intelligence services have a long history of unlawful overreach and extremely close cooperation with US services. To what extend Proton is affected by this is unclear, unlike other Swiss based service providers they refuse to comment on this(and they would be allowed to comment, don't get me wrong)

Just to be aware. I know there are a lot of fans of proton on Lemmy,but there are far better services available nowadays. If the Swiss privacy law does not bother you Infomaniak is an option, alternativly mailbox.org is an option within the GDPR sphere. (Can be bad or good depending on your own situation)

Neither of them is an app, nevertheless,but they work with any major app,e.g. thunderbird.

SimpleX, XMPP, Matrix: The client is more user friendly, less buggy and less "this is for nerds" UI than the clients of those networks, ArcaneChat is more on the WhatsApp-like UI

How on earth do you think the various Matrix clients are "this is for nerds" like and buggy? How do you come to this statement?

Signal is centralized, depends on phone numbers so can't be used by children in the family that don't have access to SIM card yet etc. Registering in Signal is also more complicated, SMS verification, solving captcha etc. No good multi-account and multi-device as ArcaneChat.

Signal can be based on Useraccounts without phone numbers as well. And the registration process tbh is a pro and non a con - if you don't provide a secured process you will be run over by bots at some time.

ArcaneChat groups are always encrypted and safe against MITM (green checkmark displayed in the group name)

Is that feature audited?

Sorry,but all this sounds more like easy marketing buzzwording and not like actual benefits that have a proven benefit.

BTW: Furthmore your website does not confirm with German legal requirements and makes you an easy target for bad faith lawyers,btw.

Yeah,one of the few drawbacks they have. Most people can live with it, but it's indeed one of the things they should be providing by now but don't

Hetzner

You know that famous twitter post when someone mansplained an author her own book?

I had a heated discussion about a topic that has been my professional center of interest for two decades now and who I often hold lectures about,etc.

The guy basically claimed I was totally wrong by citing a single study - which he grosly misinterpreted and which showed that he was missing a lot of basic knowledge about the topic. (Which is okay,but then don't tell others they are wrong. I actually just jumped into the discussion to defend someone else) So...a definition of an armchair general.

Funny thing is: I was literally sitting in the lecture of the professor who is the main author of this study and who I already had an deal to publish a follow up study together with him as coauthors.

So... I literally asked him after the lecture what he would say. ..and quoted that in my post. (We get along quite well)

The response? "Sometimes a science is not about facts but is about believe and not classical knowledge. And you are definitely a fat fuck who hopefully gets chocked to death by an overweight trans prostitute!"

.... That was...Odly specific, was quite specific and well....was the strongest wrong that one can write about science.

Not arguing again,but technically that's correct. The German SS was split between the "military part" (SS Verfügungsgruppe, later Waffen-SS) that were front line/fighting formations and the "Allgemeine SS" (regular SS) that was more modelled like a "executive branch", having absorbed the German police forces, customs and having tasks like concentration camp guarding, "behind the front line work", etc. (On the other hand this is a matter of definition,the Carabinieri are also military but also executive branch - but the definition mentioned above is the one the SS used for itself)

Von Braun was an (voluntary and quite keen) officer of the later, so one could indeed argue that he was not part of the military (and actually the SS almost executed him for that as he leaned towards the Wehrmacht at some part).

So...one could indeed argue he was not a military officer. Does that make him less of an asshole? Absolutely fucking not. It makes him worse. Because he voluntarily and quite happily joined the far more evil side and had other options all along - and his fellow "Allgemeine-SS" members were actually the ones who were responsible for most of the real fucked up shit the SS did (which does not mean that the Waffen-SS guys were nice, they did almost as horrible shit...comparing evils here...). So...in the end one should probably compromise on "he was a fucking asshole with a lot of blood on his hands. No matter if he was military or not."

Nope, while you are right about the constant conflict with the Wehrmacht (which was very much intended by Hitler), the SS had designated military structures (first called Verfügungstruppe,then Totenkopfverbände,later the infamous Waffen-SS) that were acting as regular military formations and for quite a while were subordinated under the Wehrmacht command.

These military parts were having a fully military structure (that later on was kept within the SS but directly under Hitler's high command nevertheless), service within these SS formations did "count" the same as regular service, people could get drafted into these formations instead of the Wehrmacht(especially when they were Germans who lived in a conquered country as these could not be part of the Wehrmacht). They had tanks, etc.

So from a purely technical standpoint they should probably be more seen as a separate,even more evil,military branch - none would say the US marines are not part of the military because they are not army, neither would someone say something like that to the Carabinieri.

BUUUUTTTTT: The SS also had the "regular" non military SS (Allgemeine SS) which was more based on a executive branch and absorbed the German police forces, customs, etc. in it, but also worked in various other functions, from guarding concentration camps and "behind the front lines work" to wartime economic stuff. (So in terms of crime not even a bit less evil than the Waffen-SS) Von Braun was a (very keen and voluntary) member of this regular SS.

So... Yeah... If one wants to be nitpicky, he was actually not part of the military,but the SS had military parts. What is much more sure: He was an absolute asshole.

As usual Hetzner is always a solid choice - their Object storage is more than solid and comparably cheap - Personally I would not transfer to your VPS though as Immicg can get funky when latencies are too high. Just run the cheapest VM there that can take Immich.

Alternatively IONOS is doing a lot of good things as well these days,but they are slightly more expensive.

As you correctly wrote newborns/very small babies heads need to be supported urgently - the head to body ratio of babies is very different from older kids and sadly the neck muscles are not that developed in utero. (Dark note: One of the reasons it was not uncommon - and still happens extremely rarely with underqualified healthcare providers- that newborns were sometimes decapitated when trying to facilitate a forceps birth 70+x years ago) Failing to do so can lead to various injuries, from muscular overextension (painful,can lead to chronic issues), ligament or nerve damage (can paralyse) or even vascular damage. I have seen a kid who suffered a fatal vascular damage from a sudden "falling back" of the head after insufficient support was provided and two more with rather complicated injuries - while these cases are super rare,they happen. (And kids are not all the same. My own kid came out and lifted its head 2h after birth and tried to roll onto its belly before we left hospital. Others take months just for the first thing)

When they get older this becomes less of an issue, but they are still suspectable to another thing: External force and exhaustion. It's a big difference between a kid sitting in a stroller or being on a flat surface and holding its own head and a kid being forced to stabilise its head against external movement by the carrier moving around, especially over longer periods of time. This can,in some rare cases even lead to the classic "shaken kid" syndrome (where repeated acceleration and deceleration rupture small vessels within babies brain,leading to a often fatal haemorrhage within the skull). I am fairly sure I read a case report once that reported about a case of a kid who suffered this while Mom was jogging with a unsuitable backpack like carrier, but sadly as PubMed is down at the moment (thank you,Orange and Elmo) I can't find it.

The NATO strategy reacted by placing the ARF there + placing some Polish high readiness forces there. Artillery shell production is an issue,but has been massively expanded during the last year, so has been the production of other ammo- the issue with Ukraine is more the fact that they do not use NATO standards and that there are a multitude of systems in use.

But art. ammo also is an issue for the Russian armed forces,so at least in that direction it basically equals out.

40.000 is what is currently part of the reaction force - not the total force strength.

Active service/Reserve forces of the nations with direct borders to either Belarus or Russia:

• Norway: 33.000/60.000
• Finnland: 18.000/ 180.000-280.000 (And we all know how this turned out the last time)/18.000
• Lithuania: 23.000/104.000
• Estonia: 7.700/80.000(but almost half in rapid response readiness)
• Latvia: 17.000/38.000
• Poland: 216.000/670.000

That does not include the countries that are currently heavily investing in the Baltics. Germany plans to have 4.000 soldiers stationed there permanently with 30.000 active personal rotating in and out. Canada has also a brigade stationed there, the UK does the same and hosts the command in the UK.

If you count the other Baltic sea nations that mostly have a very high interest in keeping the Russiand at bay you also have Sweden (24.000+22.000 Homeguard/32.000), Denmark (16.000/12.000+51.000 HomeGuard) and Germany (180.000/930.000) you have even higher numbers.

These are roughly twice as many soldiers as Putin currently can access at the moment - and he is heavily based on conscripts and semi general mobilization which is not part of the equations for most countries here, neither are other key players (e.g. UK 135.000/32.000), France (270.000/63.000), Spain(133.000/264.000), Italy (165.000/35.000), Romania (81.000/55.000) and the smaller but often highly motivated nations, e.g. the Czech Republic (34.000/4000). Even though there are some countries who's motivation may be shaky (Italy, to some extend Germany and some smaller players like Hungary) Europe very likely would be united against a common cause in a situation like that. The most interesting point would be how Erdogan in Türkiye would respond - he has one of the largest armies on this side of the pond (481.000/380.000) and there are quite a lot of people who believe that Erdogan would actually stick with "European NATO" in this case simply he would be too afraid that Putin could either reconsider his "future" border (post Georgia invasion which is far more likely) with Türkiye or simply because he would be afraid of his old military guard.

Would that guarantee victory against a joint Putin-Trump full on attack against Europe? No. Not at all. All sides would loose. Terribly.

In total soldier numbers Europe does actually surpass both the current Russian and all US armed forces combined (narrowly). Of course the US have a huge material advantage,but this is partially based on logistics from Europe (and often stored here). All this facilities would be lost then and Russia would be unable to easily supply similar logistical capacities - they simply don't have them and transport via eastern polar routes(as the western routes are within Norwegian and Finnish reach) or the eastern ports of Russia is bothersome.

While the US navy is mighty,it would be operating very far from home - further away than it has operated from any allied base ever and in very very hostile waters. (Actually the British navy is the last modern navy to have operated that far away from an allied base during a combat mission) So the US would be limited to high flying stealth bombers (don't do that much damage and can absolutely be detected by modern western radar), stuff they drag all the way through Russia, whatever they can ferry through the pond which would be infested by various submarines that, while mainly non nuclear, are still a major treat to their navy (ask the Swedes).It would certainly not be enough for a D-Day like operation.

So the other option is: Well... intercontinental ballistic missiles. While I am absolutely sure that the fascist orange wouldn't hesitate a minute to use this option if someone tells him it makes his golf course worth more as all of Scotland's course are now burned to crisps it would also mean that Putin and Trump himself would be fucked. Because the very next minute he presses the button someone else will press a button - either in London or Paris. France is already offering to place nuclear capabilities in eastern and central Europe for this very reason. In the end Washington would be nuked the same way Moscow, London, Paris and Berlin would be. And while the Orange acts irrational his buddy Putler does not - the mediocre KGB officer understands what happens to him if his puppet in Washington overreacts.

The fact that a nation does fascist shit is never excused by the fact that there might be people who weren't all bad. Or were even good.

Sincerely, A German.

Maybe,just maybe, look up your world politics again.

• All baltic nations(except Russia) are NATO members
• All baltic nations (except Russia) are EU members and therefore covered by the Lisbon accords as well - which are much more far reaching than what NATO accords cover,btw.

So while the Baltics are in a shitty situation it's not like Russia could attack a "non NATO" Baltic nation - as your "including" make it seem.

And currently there are 40.000 Soldiers of the ARF either deployed in the Baltics or ready to deployed within short notice - while the EU battlegroup is also available and gaining speed. The former is - for the first time - not sustained by US troops mainly,the later one of course never was. And as the ARF is a very British corps the UK has made it very clear that the ARF also operates under the British nuclear deterrence - so did France with both battlegroups.

Will that be enough to deter Putin? Who knows. Is it nothing? Definitely not - at the moment it would be, even without US support, enough to cause either the Ukrainian front or the "new front" (wherever that would be) to collapse fast.

Your narrative is either influenced by Russian misinformation or you are Russian misinformation - it is known that Russia tries to "it's not worth it to even fight" narrative heavily into Europe and it has done so in Ukraine before.

Nope. They literally are. See answers below my post and various others here.

Yes. And I am old enough to have attended my first protest without a mobile phone - because I simply didn't have one yet back then. And my first one I organised actually was a failure because it was impossible to communicate a change of venue.

And before my time protesting was suddenly much harder once the other side had the option to mobilise their forces and react to protesters much mor fluidly. (Mainly when handheld police radio became widely available)

The point is: There is always a force, intelligence and information disadvantage between the different sides - a state actor will always be in a better position. This is even more true in times where mass surveillance is very easy to achieve. A developing world country nowadays easily can achieve a level of surveillance of protests that surpases Stasi levels in their best days for 1% of the resources. Proper and secure communications are one of the only ways to level the playing field at least a bit.

Sure,you can go to plain old "we meet there at XY" protests. Have fun doing that. Your chances to be a victim of repression if you do so within repressive circumstances are far higher,but if you like that?

Good point! Please everyone, verify everything I wrote externally for your own security - I really hope I didn't make any mistakes,but it's your security.

There has been a NIH 3D model database,but it has become unreliable already for orange reasons. Besides that there aren't many options beside manifold or plainly hosting your own site (which is not that hard tbh, but makes it hard for others to find,though)

Would have been nice,but sadly we see how the US is handling the UN right now.

At least the EU has decided to get one unified network with Iris2 now. That is at least a step in the right direction.

Proton doing shady proton things again. Who would have guessed that.