• 0 Posts
  • 53 Comments
Joined 4 years ago
Cake day: March 20th, 2022
  • Sonalder@lemmy.mltoPrivacy@lemmy.ml•*Permanently Deleted*
    2·
    3 months ago

    While I agree to avoid using Sandboxed GMS I strongly disagree with do NOT use statement.

    My personal case

    My main profile doesn’t have them, I get some proprietary apps through AuroraStore which grabs the APKs directly from Google Play Store without using my Google account and most of the time it works (Aurora Store is a bit buggy at time).

    There is some apps that I can’t use without Play Services or if they are not installed from Play Store itself (FUCK DRMs!). For them I have setup a user profile with the Sandboxed Play Services, it stopped when I leave the profile and let me use these apps that I NEED more than absolute privacy or anonymity.

    My recommendations

    I strongly recommend to anyone to try using GrapheneOS without them, especially if you’re already into multiple FOSS apps. The Plexus app could help you identify which apps would cause issues for you without the Google shit. Then if needed for some apps with no alternative that suits you, setting up either a seperated user profile or, if it’s too unconveniant for you, a Private Space with the Sansboxed Play Store and Services installed. And if these two are still not conveninant for you just install them on your main profile, that sucks but that’s the sad reality of Android. As stated by the GrapheneOS Team it will still be way better than stock Google OS or any other manufacturer flavour of Android.

    Not everybody have the same threat model and using GrapheneOS will improve your security, privacy and control over your device even with these proprietary background services from Google. Maybe for your threat model (or ideaology) you shouldn’t use them but that doesn’t mean everybody should do the same. Privacy shouldn’t be all or nothing, it’s about power and control over your personal informations, and GrapheneOS is a wonderful tool to take back some of that from your phone, having Sandboxed Play Store is okay even if not desired and you can choose how you want it thus having control and power over them.

  • Sonalder@lemmy.mltoPrivacy@lemmy.ml•SimpleX goes NFT / Shitcoin
    9·
    7 months ago

    I mean you cannot fit Monero in the same bucket as the rest of the cryptocurrencies. No foundation, no company, no VCs, no pre-mined, CPU-based PoW, no major on/off ramp accepting it but still a strong currency with real usage outside speculation made by a community of builders. Can be life saving for some high risks profiles and honestly is the complete opposite of the cryptocurrency market, I’m thankful it exists.

  • Sonalder@lemmy.mltoPrivacy@lemmy.ml•Big Brother is watching Switzerland!
    3·
    8 months ago

    In most Web3 blockchains ZeroKnowledgeProof aren’t proof. They often only have the succinctness of the proof and this is enough for the marketing team.

    Also there is many things valuable in modern cryptography thanks to Bitcoin and other chains, blockchain and crypto are buzzwords for sure but that doesn’t mean that i’s 100% BS.

  • Sonalder@lemmy.mltoPrivacy@lemmy.ml•Payment privacy
    4·
    8 months ago

    You spend that bill at a shop which brings them to the bank at the end of the day where the serial is collected.

    Have you ever been on a cash based society, banknotes don’t do bank - user - seller - bank route, sometimes it might happen okay but it’s not the norm, these are global, not precise tracking.

    This can be crosscorrelated with information from a dozen other sources. That infomation will practically never be used to you advantage.

    I agree on this, but cash have still stronger anonymity and privacy than most electronic payment methods. That’s why they want cash to disapear in favor of CBDCs and banking cards. That’s also why corrupted european deputee have big bags of cash at home lol.

  • Sonalder@lemmy.mltoPrivacy@lemmy.ml•Payment privacy
    1·
    8 months ago

    VPS and email are highly used in professionnal environment not only in hobbies. There is also AI where you can pay per tokens but I don’t really use that. I have even found a local phone carrier that have added Lightning Network and Bitcoin onchain for payment recently.

    I live in a country where the currency holds strong even against US petrodollar. Where bank transfers have no additionnal cost (with the exception of international ones) and where cash is still used, so yes here bitcoin is considered more a store of value investment, despite mutiple merchants accepting it as a medium of exchanges. And crypto is more on the gambling side anyways.

    However in countries like Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Vietnam, India, Venezuela, etc… people understand that the monopole of their government over money is not necesserly a good thing in their current situation. Use adoption is much stronger in the global south than the north. We also saw during recent protest in France people asking other to move out from the banks and store cash and Bitcoin to destabilize their corrupted system.

    I would also like to remind people that without Bitcoin, Sci-Hub and probably WikiLeaks would be dead as both got banned by payment processor. So that is a strong indactor of how useful they can be. Also a non-monetray interesting use is OpenTimeStamps and the guatemala’s election of 2023 that takes benefits from the immuability nature of blocks produced by the consensus. Or also the mining facilities that reduce the price of the electricity bill of nearby citizen, or help renewable energy to sell when there is no demands or simply balanced the electricty grids. But one that I am really excited about is the ones that clear methane from the atmosphere to turn it into bitcoins and make it actual economically viable. It’s not all black or white, we have to see uses outside our comfort zone :D

  • Sonalder@lemmy.mltoPrivacy@lemmy.ml•Anyone have experience with NymVPN?
    1·
    8 months ago

    Yeah I’m not into shitcoins either but the purpose of the NYM token is to create economical incentive for node runners and I don’t think its bad. Maybe the implementation is not perfect but it’s something worth exploring regarding how bad the Tor network is corrupted partially due to a lack of incentive to behave as good nodes.