Why Lying is Essential for Privacy Herd Immunity

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/11/why-lying-is-essential-for-privacy-herd-immunity/

My date of birth is the 1st of January 1901. My phone number is 0000000000. My gender is decided on a coin flip. My country of residence is Afghanistan. And my Mother's maiden name is a random mix of upper-case, lower-case, numbers, and symbols.

Well, that's what you would believe if you were any website I've registered for. If you're a free WiFi provider, you get random details. Unless you have a legitimate reason for needing my name and address, you'll find that I live in a desirable area of SW1A 1AA.

You have a moral imperative to lie. The people who want your details are going to abuse your data. And that hurts you and the people around you. Targeted adverts are used to make you buy things you don't want and to believe things which aren't true. Deep data collection is used to work out what sort of person you are, the lifestyle you lead, and the risks you take.

Even if you think you are totally immune to advertising (you're not) and that you have nothing to hide (you do) - mass data collection is used to target people like you.

It is vital that you add as much statistical "noise" to the data collection pool as possible. This helps protect everyone.

Giving fake details is a position supported by security professionals.

3. My favourite pet is “the Eiffel Tower”

Enter the minimum amount of authentic information into online registration forms. Do you really need to enter genuine information in every field if there’s no legal reason to do so?

My Digital Footprint - Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure

This isn't a theoretical concern. Earlier this year, Network Rail's WiFi provider exposed the details of people who'd registered for their free WiFi.

As the UK's National Cyber Security Centre says:

You should only fill in the mandatory details on a website

You should use an Ad Blocker as regularly as you'd use a condom - and for much the same reason.

If you have the patience, get a disposable SIM card and use that for receiving calls and texts from businesses or marketing firms. Then replace it after a few months.

To be clear - don't lie to people who have a legal right or legitimate need to know your details. Lying about your address to a delivery company means you won't get your parcel, and lying to your doctor could result in harm. Don't even think of deceiving the taxman.

But if someone you have no reason to trust asks for your data - feed them garbage.

#rant

mildly annoyed that boost-quote can be blocked… like… I can copy the link to your post and send it. I can even screenshot it and include directly ffs…
It gives absolutely NO security or privacy…

#mastodon #rant

#rant
Je sais que de nos jours bouffer des giga-octets de RAM pour afficher un bout de texte paraît normal, mais quand je vois que sur le Raspberry le système d'exploitation + serveur ssh + serveurs DHCP et DNS + interface web de Pi-Hole ne consomment que... 130 Méga-octets de RAM, je trouve ça merveilleux.

Stop calling "OS" to AI vaporware.

#ai #rant

OK, politicians and campaign workers, the #election is over. Please collect your campaign #signs that have been blighting the towns highways and neighborhoods for the past several months. For future reference, candidates whose signs persist well after election day are less likely to get my #vote next time around.

BTW, These stupid signs don't change anyones mind anyway. Especially the obnoxious oversized ones that are gaining popularity lately.

#rant #oldpeopleofmastodon #uspol

#RustRant

Ok, I get it.Rust is cool af.

I'm a programmer who has been programming since around 1980; self taught in just about everything except assembler and TRS-80 BASIC, and at 62 still a productive professional programmer programming in python.

I've just come from PyPI.org, where I find that many packages listed there are drop-in replacements for python packages written in Rust, or new bits of work written in Rust but wrapped in a python binding.

Lets be clear: I am not a Rust hater. I've started taking an online course to learn some Rust, because the products of the toolchain are undeniably amazing.

I'm finding the language to be more than a bit difficult, however, because like most new and effective advances in computers science, its very different, and that makes it challenging.

What I am finding I don't like however, is the behavior of the community. Just because you *can* write rust code that will e.g., fit into the linux kernel, or be easily wrapped into some sort of binding, doesn't mean I want to discover that my python package repository, full of lovely python programs, done pydantically, and all according to the PEPs we know, love, and depend on, to be supplanted with a bunch of python wrapped rust code. Its unfriendly, unnecessary, and most importantly, dilutes the effectiveness and maintainability of the index and the code found there.

By all means, write Rust apps, if you're able.

Just keep them out of my python
reposititory.

Just my 0.02$

To reiterate: I have nothing against any programming language. They're all useful in some respect, yes ALL of them.

I just want my python repository to be pure python, with very few very notable exceptions.

#python #rust #rant

I'm being bombarded with this again today and I've had enough so please forgive me some yelling.

THERE IS NO WAY TO USE AI ETHCALLY.

(Regarding, of course, the most popular uses of the term 'AI' today.) Stop saying you're using it 'ethically' or 'responsibly'. There is no such thing. It is built on massive theft, the undermining of humanity, and the willingness to give up food security, among other major issues. Stop pretending. Stop trying to force others to use it. Just fucking stop! The only way you're using it 'ethically' is if your ethics are bad.

And no, I don't give a shit how you want to reply to this, whine your way out, or excuse yourself as some shining exception.

#rant #AI

I'm being bombarded with this again today and I've had enough so please forgive me some yelling.

THERE IS NO WAY TO USE AI ETHCALLY.

(Regarding, of course, the most popular uses of the term 'AI' today.) Stop saying you're using it 'ethically' or 'responsibly'. There is no such thing. It is built on massive theft, the undermining of humanity, and the willingness to give up food security, among other major issues. Stop pretending. Stop trying to force others to use it. Just fucking stop! The only way you're using it 'ethically' is if your ethics are bad.

And no, I don't give a shit how you want to reply to this, whine your way out, or excuse yourself as some shining exception.

#rant #AI

Once again had to download a stupid app and spend ten minutes by the side of the road faffing with my phone to charge the car. This is such a huge barrier to entry for so many people, I do not know why you cannot just plug your car in and swipe a bank card, it is ridiculous. No wonder people stick to petrol cars, at petrol stations you can just swipe your card and fill up. It's inexcusable that it isn't the same experience for electric, there's no good reason for it. #ev #rant

Once again had to download a stupid app and spend ten minutes by the side of the road faffing with my phone to charge the car. This is such a huge barrier to entry for so many people, I do not know why you cannot just plug your car in and swipe a bank card, it is ridiculous. No wonder people stick to petrol cars, at petrol stations you can just swipe your card and fill up. It's inexcusable that it isn't the same experience for electric, there's no good reason for it. #ev #rant

We really do live in the most objectively vapid and insulting dystopia ever. I looked up, what I thought was an obscure thing, I got a whole entire page of fucking generated answers. I had to go to page 2 of multiple search engines to get away from the crap. I can’t express how much I hate this timeline. Putting aside every unethical thing about AI, I’m just annoyed that I have to be subjected to it. It’s the most obvious way for companies to extract money from you, and it is least complicated algorithm ever. It’s based on tokens and what’s the most plausible next word. Even the grift is fucking stupid. It’s the most obviously low effort grift ever and people using it as a tool? Paying for it? You absolutely deserve to have your money completely wasted I really don’t care anymore. I can’t wait until your tool gets taken away because this shit is ridiculous. #Rant #AI

With this photographic memory I fully understand how someone can become delusional and seem like they have schizophrenia now.

You get so stressed it corrupts your picture and you stop registering logical context because all the information you're working with is corrupted.

Your basic files are wrong and lead you somewhere made of nonsense.

Stress causes this if great enough, and my brain makes whole worlds that never happened if I don't sleep well.

#writing #mentalhealth #neuroscience #rant

If Qualcomm has no chill to screw both MS and Apple with patent BS, what makes you think they'll give two flying f*cks about the hobbyist community around Arduino.

#arduino #rant #opensource

With this photographic memory I fully understand how someone can become delusional and seem like they have schizophrenia now.

You get so stressed it corrupts your picture and you stop registering logical context because all the information you're working with is corrupted.

Your basic files are wrong and lead you somewhere made of nonsense.

Stress causes this if great enough, and my brain makes whole worlds that never happened if I don't sleep well.

#writing #mentalhealth #neuroscience #rant

Of course it does not mean that ActivityPub is bad on itself.

It just necessary to admit these things before even thinking about some software project:
1️⃣ Each tech has limits of applicability
2️⃣ Each design decision would either limit your audience (by demanding some tech knowledge to get started) or make your project more vulnerable to censorship or other treats of forced closure.
3️⃣ IT solutions can't solve political problems

#rant #softwareDev #p2p #ActivityPub

Whoever designed the Avanti West Coast train seats, may your pillow always be warm, your tea cold and your shower never just right

Most unfomfortable shit ever, these things. At least 3/4 of me is in pain. #UK #trains #rant #avanti #ergonomics

Whoever designed the Avanti West Coast train seats, may your pillow always be warm, your tea cold and your shower never just right

Most unfomfortable shit ever, these things. At least 3/4 of me is in pain. #UK #trains #rant #avanti #ergonomics

Spent my morning figuring out why Nginx was dead on a server with many days of uptime. No reboot, no kernel panic. Just... down. Ubuntu 24.04.

The cause? An automatic unattended-upgrade of libc6. This prompted systemd to work its magic, wisely deciding to restart every running service to apply the patch. Fine.

The problem is, in the exact same minute, the systemd timer for certbot decided it was time to renew certificates.

The result:

- systemd stops Nginx.
- Port 80 becomes free.
- certbot, in standalone mode, immediately grabs it for validation.
- systemd tries to restart Nginx, which fails with "Address already in use".

The web server was knocked offline by its own certificate renewal script.

I swear, this is the kind of cascading failure that has never happened to me in years of running *BSD. With a classic cron job, certbot would have failed, logged an error, and tried again the next day. The web server would have remained untouched.

systemd was doing its job, but something failed because of the interactions.

Sometimes, too much automation and too many interconnected parts just create more spectacular ways for things to break.

#SysAdmin #Linux #SystemD #Rant #KISS

Wir schreiben das Jahr 2025. Autos fahren selbstständig, Kühlschränke bestellen eigenständig Milch, und mein Toaster hat wahrscheinlich mehr Rechenleistung als die Apollo 11. Aber wenn ich eine SMS mit Umlauten verschicken möchte, fällt die Nachricht sofort zurück in die Steinzeit mit 70 Zeichen Limit. Also schreibe ich wieder „ue“ wie 2003, als wäre ich auf einer T9-Tastatur gefangen. Fortschritt ist, wenn die Zukunft schneller kommt als die Umlaute.

#rant