circuscritic

The inability to relock the bootloader is gigantic security vulnerability. It negates, or entirely voids, a significant amount of a devices physical security, including FDE.

There are other security issues with LineageOS, but that’s part of the trade-off. There’s nothing inherently sinister or incompetent about that, it’s just the nature of the beast.

Regardless, I’m not here to chastise anyone’s choice of OS, or to even imply that there is a right, and wrong ROM, there isn’t.

I was just pointing out that there are pros and cons, and users should be aware of them when making those decisions.

Security and Privacy are not the same thing.

Stock Google is absolutely a hit to ones privacy, but LineageOS is a often big hit to device security.

If you don’t have a Pixel, and therefore can’t use GrapheneOS, check and see if your device is compatible with DivestOS.

However, neither will offer root support for reasons that both devs have decent write-ups explaining within each project’s documentation.

I do realize that not everyone places security above all other factors when deciding on their smartphone OS, but I think they should be aware of the trade-offs so they can make an informed decision.

$849 and $1,649? Those pricetags are so absurd that this post should be removed on principle alone, nevermind that it’s stealth marketing masquerading as an article.

I got as far as the second paragraph, which consists of the following quote from a Google VP:

“I’m not going to talk about Recall, but I think the reason that some people feel it’s creepy is when it doesn’t feel useful, and it doesn’t feel like something they initiated or that they get a clear benefit from it”

That’s somehow worse than I imagined. I can at least understand being intentionally sinister, or overtly anti-privacy, but that level of delusion is somehow actually more terrifying.

There’s a lot more to sovereign monetary policy than currency exchange rates, such as the capital controls being exercised here

Exactly. There’s no way that could ever go tits up.

You might want to start with a lease, with the option to buy out, or trade-in, after the original terms are up.

That… actually sounds pretty plausible.

VPNs don’t prevent tracking, especially when you’re logging into services.

They can help obfuscate your identity to varying degrees, but honestly this is a pretty odd decision. I’m guessing it has more to do with malicious activity, or some other type of activities that Reddit is trying to curtail, and they feel blocking VPN IP ranges will help them.

The topic in question here is not about government abuse of data, it’s corporate abuses, but okay, let’s set that aside.

You’ve said that it’s safer to roll your own VPN using a VPS service precisely because you can’t trust any VPN providers, or auditing organizations.

But you’re now saying that you can trust a hosting provider based solely on which jurisdiction they reside in.

You’re just arbitrarily picking which companies to trust with your connection traffic, but with added complexity, and significantly reduced egress locations for your traffic, which itself dramatically impacts any privacy benefits you were looking to achieve.

…so, trust the hosting provider to not log…and that you won’t screw up any config or update, and make sure to use anonymous payments, and…and…etc.

Depends. Are either of those companies bootstrapping a for-profit startup and trying to dupe people into contributing free labor prior to their inevitable rug pull/switcheroo?

The general inability to manually order Podcasts and playlists is the only real serious drawback to the app.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s fantastic. I’m not a FOSS purist, and it’s still my primary podcast app. Just hoping one day to get that feature.

Because it’s a simple and cheap way to significantly expand a devices capabilities and use cases e.g. cheap offline storage network, or other LAN only services. Or simply to provide your own basic NTP, or backup NTP, as these boards are based off ARM SBCs so perhaps adding 1PPS GPS modules would be possible.

I’ve bought, owned, and used, Pi’s since the original. The Raspberry Pi 5 is the first version that I will not purchase and deploy, so fuck off with your bullshit and go back to shilling for YouTube advertisers, or whatever other corporate interest tickles your fancy, just take it somewhere else.

Completely abandoned their original hobbyist customer base and sent all their inventory to B2B sales channels and scalpers for several years.

And now that they’re finally providing B2C vendors with stock, they’ve jacked up the prices by 100% to 300%.

Don’t forget the Raspberry Pi foundation was supposed to be a nonprofit and the only reason they’re the premier SBC is the community. Other boards have better specs, at a better price, with better features. The community support, the hobbyists, are the primary reason why they are what they are.

That’s just one bad action, but their had been plenty others recently. Some other comments here have provided information you should read, such as hiring police officers who specialized in using Pi’s for surveillance…

The Pi foundation showed their true colors. Don’t continue to support them.

Seriously? This is 2023, we don’t have to pay homage to, or clarify our language regarding implementations and topologies that only a tiny fraction of current users are even aware they exist, and most of those have only read about them in a book, or manual.

Not really, sort of, but different threat models IMO.

The app this thread was about is asking to become a single pane for external services e.g. cloud, which is why it requires your Hertzner API.

For the following, I’m reaching into my memory hole, so definitely check elsewhere to confirm before doing anything.

FreedomBox, if I recall, is basically Debian Linux with a variety of self-hosted tools that are easily configurable e.g. Media servers, torrents, NextCloud, etc. It’s been around for a while and I don’t recall ever hearing anything bad about the project.

Ultimately, sure, you’re still trusting the maintainers to some degree, like with any distro/spin, but that’s a judgement you’ll have to make for yourself.

If you’re going to use Freedom box for all of your most critical and private parts of your digital life, then you should probably weigh the risks more heavily, than if you’re just going to make it a media and torrent box.

You can do all of that on your own.

OR, you can create a single attack vector that can potentially be exploited and put everything at risk, at the same time.

If you’ve ever worked in, or adjacent to, IT, then you’ve heard the phase “single pane of glass”, meaning you can manage all your infrastructure, or IOT, through a single terminal/UI.

This is basically a single pane of glass that you’re getting through a side loaded repo, to manage your entire digital life. That means it can also become a single pane of glass for anyone able to exploit that application i.e. supply chain attack, phone AND/OR app specific vulnerabilities, etc.