hendrik

Blocky is another nice AdBlocker and DNS proxy. I’ve been using it for quite a while. Seems to be pretty efficient, too. If you’re looking at community DNS servers, have a look at https://opennic.org/ that’s a democratic DNS root.

And by the way, take care not to expose your DNS server to the public internet, or some people will start using it for DNS amplification attacks. But that shouldn’t be any concern if you run it on a Raspberry Pi at home.

Sure. I think that’s a valid use case. Maybe use one of the community fine-tunes for that… 😆

Instruct it to be your dungeon master and do some roleplay.

Though, the US, British or Canadian government doesn’t collect that much info on their citizens and citizens of other countries in large databases. They have laws that limit the amount of government surveillance. We can argue if they’re strict enough etc, but at least they exist. Which isn’t really the case for China. So it’s fair to treat them differently. And by the way other countries also sometimes cut down on what’s allowed to transfer to the USA in a similar way, since for example the NSA is free to collect lots of data on foreigners. And legislation is just different. But that’s been usually for other services. Cutting down on social media altogether (instead of just have them pay a hefty fine) is a relatively new thing.

By the way, there’s also a Wikipedia article about TikTok with a whole paragraph about privacy and security concerns. Along with references. None of it is refuted. TikTok / ByteDance themselves tell who owns the platform. And they seem to be very clear themselves in that they log your interactions, location, mobile carrier, information about your phone, your biometric face features and so on and so on.

It depends on your exact requirements and your definition of “secure”. Lots of people like software like Tailscale. And it’s relatively secure as it doesn’t expose the services to the public but instead is an VPN. I personally don’t like Cloudflare at all, but that’s also a popular solution to get services exposed to the public internet. What I do is just use NGinx or NginxProxyManager, open up a port in my firewall and be done with it. No extra tunnel providers required and no Cloudflare that could be able to snoop on my connections. It also opens up connections to everyone else, so your software needs to be properly protected with passwords. But yeah, I can see how you get a bazillion different recommendations. I’d say if you prioritize security and it’s just your devices connecting, and they can all install a special client, go for something like Tailscale.

I think that aricle lacks nuance. It’s a bit baity and attends to the usual talking points without contextualizing the numbers or what’s actually happening out there, the consequences or the harm. That makes me believe the author just wants to push some predetermined point across.

But I’ve yet to read a good article on this. Most articles are like this one. But yeah, are a few thousand images much in the context of crime that’s happening online? Where are these numbers from and what’s with the claim that there are more actual pictures out there? I seriously doubt that at this point, if it’s so easy to generate images. And what consequences does all of this have? Does it mean an increase or a decrease in abuse? And lots of services have implemented filters… Are the platforms doing their due diligence? Is this a general societal issue or criminals doing crime?

It’s certainly technically possible. I suspect these AI models just aren’t good at it. So the pedophiles need to train them on actual images.

I can imagine for example AI doesn’t know what puberty is since it has in fact not seen a lot of naked children. It would try to infer from all the internet porn it’s seen, and draw any female with big breasts, disregarding age. And that’s not how children actually look.

I haven’t tried, since it’s illegal where I live. But that’s my suspicion why pedophiles bother with training models.

(Edit: If that’s the case, it would mean the tech companies are more or less innocent. At least at this.

And note a lot of the CSAM talk is FUD (spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt) I usually see this in the context of someone pushing for total surveillance of the people. It’s far less pronounced in my experience than some people make it to be. I’ve been around on the internet, and I haven’t seen any real pictures, yet. I’m glad that I didn’t, but that makes me believe you have to actively look for that kind of stuff, or be targeted somehow.

And I think a bit mure nuance would help. This article also lumps together fictional drawings and real pictures. I think that’s counterproductive, since one is a heinous crime and has real victims. And like, drawing nude anime children or de-aging celebrities isn’t acceptable either (depends on legislation), but I think we need to differentiate here. I think real pictures are entirely on a different level and should have far more severe consequences. If we mix everything together, we kind of take away from that.)

Well, it can draw an astronaut on a horse, and I doubt it had seen lots of astronauts on horses…

That would be an antenna or a coil, if you’re trying to harvest electromagnetic fields.

Yeah, but at that point you’d have to be prepared to fight it to the end. And pay your own lawyer upfront. The final decision on who’s going to pay is settled either in arbitration or by the court. And you need to win. And trademark law isn’t super easy to understand, you definitely need to invest in a lawyer and optimally get that money back. The time and effort is kinda wasted, though. You won’t get that back.

Though, fighting it takes time and effort. And you’d need to make sure to know the exact point when to pay a lawyer, when ignoring it gets you in an unfavourable situation or triggers some default ruling.

Heheh, valid objection. Guess Newton wasn’t the only smart person in history 😆 And drama has always been part of human history… But we still hear those names over 300 years later. Along with a lot of other names of people whose results are taught in university today. But yeah, that hypothetical situation (Newton’s achievements in mathematics being replaced by Leibnitz) would make a good Dr. Who episode.

I think Alibaba and Aliexpress are less tightly connected with the Chinese government. They also ship stuff from China, but they aren’t specialized in the cheapest of the cheapest. Plus as far as I know they’re more a marketplace platform. They handle the money and connect you with an individual seller in China. The platforms are a bit less convenient to use. I think it’s a bit like eBay vs Amazon, if you want to compare it to western companies.

Because people like cheap stuff. Need a phone case? Harry Potter merchandise knockoffs, socks, a brush for your arts project? TEMU has that for $0.61, delivered to your door.

And as far as I know it’s sponsored by the Chinese government. They chip in with forced labor camps. And they also invested massively in advertising and making it a thing.

I wouldn’t buy from them. As far as I know the app is also spying on the users etc. But yeah, enough people seem to buy stuff there. I suppose it’s cheap and convenient and people don’t care. It’s kind of depressing. I agree.

Just read the government is currently also on a VPN banning spree. I guess that list is going to change frequently now, if people continue with watching Youtube, Instagram and Twitter.

My top apps are all shopping apps, discount apps, WhatsApp, ChatGPT, TEMU, video streaming and TikTok is there, too. VPN comes further down along with dating apps and then it gets quite random. Guess in Germany our biggest worry is to save some money when grocery shopping…

Is that because of the political situation? Like repression, internet censorship… Or an unrelated trend?

Possible. But then we’d need somebody else to develop calculus and write a Principia Mathematica and lay the groundworks for the age of enlightenment.

Yes. And mathematics. And a key figure in the scientific revolution. Probably also one of the most intelligent people ever.

Why not a linked list? Or a hash-table?