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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • Since you opened up to a response; Yeah. A little bit gibberish. But thats okay.

    blockchain is a public ledger. There is no increased anonimity in it. Its core essence is that it is open and public, and everyone can check and validate it. The privacy part comes from not knowing which person is behind which wallet. But hey! You can do that here! Or anywhere.

    Looking at the article:

    According to Kolektiva, the seized database, now in the FBI’s possession, includes personal information such as email addresses, hashed passwords, and IP addresses from three days prior to the date the backup was made. It also includes posts, direct messages, and interactions involving a user on the server. Because of the nature of the fediverse, this also implicates user messages and posts from other instances.

    Focussing on that last part first; Posts, PMs, and other interactions are open and public in the ActivityPub protocol (which lemmy and KBin and Mastodon work on). If the FBI wants that, they can just go to the website and make an account, no raid needed. Blockchain tech wouldnt chance that.

    Focussing on the first part: email addresses, hashed passwords, and IP addresses, those are not all open to the public. And you may want to protect those better. But as I said, you dont need hip blockchain for that!

    • Dont use your primary email directly when making an account, but hide behind an email-alias. SimpleLogin, HideMyEmail, Guerilla Email, 10minute mail, Proton Pass, are all services that let you provide an email that is not your own, but does connect to your actual inbox.

    • Dont reuse passwords. Use a password manager to generate random ones for each website. Bitwarden has a good rep. LastPass is still used, KeePass exists, Proton Pass is new and promising.

    • Dont browse without a VPN.

    • bonus (use a privacy focussed browser with extensions that block un-whitelisted javascripts, block trackers, and block canvassing/fingerprinting).

    Can your private info now still be obtained? The answer ranged somewhere in between possibly and probably. But you’ve made it a lot of work. Work that almost only a governmental agency can perform, in a way that takes manpower time and warrants. You’ll have to have them very interested in you as an individual to go through all of that.

    I compare it to going outside. You wear clothes so that you arent naked, shoes that protect your feet, and if you touch something icky you’ll want to wear gloves. The internet is basically the same. Just remember, like outside, most of the internet is a public space. Information that you volunteer, conversations that you have are public. And differently from the real world, they are recorded forever. Need to discuss sensitive stuff in private, switch to “private places” such as encrypted email, Signal, or Matrix based platforms like Element.

    Now this post probably isnt complete, and flawed. So I welcome anyone who wants to build further from it.



  • I’ve been a mod on a game subReddit. Mostly because there was only one active mod before and they couldn’t handle it all. Game wasn’t particularly universally loved so general internet hate and Reddit hivemind hate often spilled over into it. Why I did it? Because I enjoyed talking about that game in a positive environment.

    In all honesty: the negative vibes on Reddit towards moderators took a lot of the joy out of it. Imagine temp banning someone because they keep calling racist slurs towards other users, then perma banning them because they continue, and then they start making new accounts over and over to send hateful messages towards you. Then you browse some Reddit for your own leisure only to read the general consensus that all mods are powerhungry faggots.

    End result was worth it though, I guess? Sub is in a good place now. Positive vibes, and little bullshit. No longer an active mod though, because without RIF I don’t have to proper tools to keep moderating from phone. Can’t even enjoy it the way I used though. Bitter? Slightly. But I have good hopes about my new online social environment here.





  • as others said the concept of email is already pretty good. But if you’re worried about your data, simplest solution is to stop relying on free email services where you are the product (like google) and start paying for services whose business model is privacy (like proton).

    As an addendum, what about the popular tools we use in our daily lives? The calendar, note tools, etc all are products of companies driven to maximize profits.

    proton offers email, vpn, password manager, file storage, and calendar.
    other companies also offer parts of that if you dont want to rely on the same company for all of it.
    obsidian offers local, secure, and encrypted sync notekeeping.
    For everything you mention there is a company who offers it, and who’s business model is providing a good and secure service for a fee, and not “free”(paid by your ad profile).

    Is there a community movement that can somehow mitigate this? Or is there really no choice for us?

    Im possibly just really cranky from allergies so apologies if Im out of line, but this gives the impression of just wanting free crowdsourced solutions, instead of looking into the viable paid solutions that are already out there.