Posts by bsilva66 17 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Apr 2024
Seems like microsoft weren't entirely successful in their bid to buy CISPE back in January. Or this is just smoke and mirrors to pretend that CISPE didn't get fully compromised, while still letting microsoft get away with it's predatory tactics.
( https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/21/microsoft_joins_cispe/ )
I wonder if I am the only one old enough to remember the Intel PSN controversy, and wonder how we went from a "simple" chip ID that nobody wanted to a "cpu inside your cpu" that everyone accepts, just "because security".
Let's be real, the TPM is a black box. It might allow security, it can enforce full signing of the OS stack and restrict what you can run on a pc. But what else can it do? Who has the keys, what are the backdoors, what is really done inside the black box? Who audits it, and can they fully ensure it isn't phoning home, and will not open everything on your PC to the user with the "right" credentials?
I do find it particularly troubling how microsoft is pushing its use, not only with Windows 11, but with even agent P coming out trying to push signed kernel images (validated by the TPM) as the only way Linux should be allowed to run (or something to the same effect, couldn't be bothered to read that person's ramblings again). All in the name of "security". And still, the security issues pile up every day. So, security for whom?
"Salary of European Commissioner is in €25,910.19 per month area."
But salary of european public servants tops at around half, 12 months/year, and only for those that were lucky to be hired before 2004's reform. In Luxembourg it is below average for jobs requiring the same level of qualifications and experience.
Librewolf has some quirks, as it is set up by default to protect your privacy. One thing I disable is the "delete all site data and cookies at exit" - I get a little tired of having to login everywhere again every time I close the browser. It also doesn't allow setting a global (applied to all sites) dark theme, amongst a few anti-fingerprinting measures.
But I am linking the approach, and even when I risked using my laptop without VPN/PiHole, I didn't see ads, so I'd say it is working.
Ah, and it doesn't show all the dumb "welcome to" screens when you start from fresh! That is for me a huge reason to use librewolf!
I'll wait for librewolf to sanitize the code and remove the spyware, thank you.
I already didn't trust mozilla since the alsa sound debacle, then seeing how hard it was to disable telemetry, as it still tried to contact the mothership even with all documented changes in about:config, and now, since last week's debacle, I'm even more convinced. Until there is a real alternative, librewolf it is.
Now you understand why Google is pushing its "play integrity api" that includes blocking apps from running when sideloaded, and also includes provisions so that apps using it won't run on suspected to be rooted devices, or even devices that don't have all the required backdoors, sorry, TPM chips. And the "play integrity api" will become mandatory from May 2025,
The main difference is that on Brave you can disable telemetry - in fact, it is a very visible opt-out checkbox in one of the first setup screens. On Firefox, you need to muck around with about:config, and it still keeps trying to phone home. telemetry.mozilla.org is often one of the top blocked domains on my pi-hole.
And that site seems terribly windows oriented - Brave can't and won't "update itself" on any linux I know of.
Time to drop chrome for good? I'd say yes, but I have yet to find a perfect alternative that respects my privacy and still lets me browse all sites I want and use the internet without restrictions.
What follows is mostly my experience, and what has shaped my choices, YMMV. I have been doing my best to block ads, spyware, and other privacy invasions for some time now (since Canter and Siegel, but mostly since the middle of the last decade) , and this is what I've seen.
1 - PiHole is a must. I have PiHole and have had it setup for ages. It does block ads, quite well. Unfortunately, it doesn't block "adblock detectors", which is why I still need a browser with uBlock Origin or equivalent. Element blocking is a must or you're unable to access sites with "adblock detection".
2 - Firefox is a "telemetry" spyware monster. Most of it gets stopped by PiHole, most of it can be disabled by arcane about:config settings, but it still makes a lot of network noise trying to phone home. It is a (very much disguised) privacy nightmare.
2a - Firefox developers have pretty much an active anti-user stance. If they can make thinks simpler for themselves while effing up the end user, they'll do it. Case in point - the removal of ALSA sound in Linux. The bug and in particular the comments by Anthony Jones (yes, the DRM guy) are quite telling on how Firefox's devs look at end users, in particular those that want to keep their privacy and their systems working. This one (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1345661#c122) with it's telling statement "Telemetry informs our decisions. Turning it off is not without disadvantage." gives all the position that Firefox devs have on user privacy - and it is the reason I stopped using firefox then.
3 - For now, Brave works, just ignore the crypto nonsense. Unfortunately, being chrome based, it risks becoming less effective in the privacy wars in the middle term.
4 - Anything by microsoft is useless. Phones home a lot more than FF ever does, and pushes crap as badly as google.
So what do I do now that chrome won't block ads and has a (more) enshitified API? I have PiHole, Firefox (thanks to pipewire has sound again), and Brave. On my mobile phones, proton VPN blocks even more ads and malware than PiHole.
And I keep hoping for a decent alternative to all these compromised browsers...
It's not very good. It is, in fact, really bad; that talk is just a repetition, almost word for word, of lennie P's infamous "systemd myths" blog post. Including the stupid, idiotic lie pretending not to understand that "The unix way" is a basic engineering principle, very close to KISS - "do one thing and do it well", and not, as P made up, "all in the same repository". Which apparently P repeated at fosdem and was applauded by all the other wannabe microsoft employees in the audience.
linux.conf.au went really out of their way to first, delete all comments on that video, then forbidding new ones. Seems that whomever was paying them for it didn't like that everyone else was pointing out that all the crap spewed by Benno on that talk had been comprehensively answered way before - by Jude C Nelson in 2014. Here - https://judecnelson.blogspot.com/2014/09/systemd-biggest-fallacies.html. Indeed, Benno was just parroting a bunch of fallacies, and sounding just like another cult member without a clue. I hope he got properly rewarded for his part in the farce.
When someone claims that talk is anything but parroting a bunch of lies, it makes me think that that either they have bought at leat partially into the cult, or are grossly misinformed about anything systemd/lennart.
Not now - he's been lying like that since the beginning. Almost everything is parroting the infamous "systemD's biggest myths" blog post (by P themselves). As I put above, all that crap was answered way back in 2014 by Jude C Nelson, but some people, like apparently Liam, still don't get it.
As someone who has been told a few times too many that the info I need is in our sharepoint server and "easily available and searchable" I feel your pain. Has anyone ever been able to search AND FIND anything relevant in sharepoint?
Never even mind the nightmare that is an update/new version with the migration of the existing collections...
Inkjets, in particular HP ones, have been a terrible waste of money for a long time, at least for anyone printing more than 5 pages a month.
I once got a cheap HP inkjet printer/scanner combo. I printed very little, and liked the promise that I would always have ink when needed, and wouldn't have dry ink and clogged heads whenever I needed to print after a couple of months on the shelf. And the ink subscription worked for me, as we had a low volume of prints every month, I was even accumulating printing credits.
And then... "Suddenly", all the kids were at school, reports and exercise sheets to print, even the kindergarten one needed some exercise pages printed from time to time, and the accumulated credits were enough for two months usage only. So HP turned the screws - proposed a very advantageous (for them) "subscription upgrade", with proportionally higher costs, or a "pay per page" expensive model.
I guess some manager calculated the values they could extract from customers that would be just "low" enough that customers wouldn't investigate a replacement - but they got it wrong with me. I checked the running costs that would bring me, and determined I could buy a multi-function colour laser / scanner and pay it in ~3 years for the difference in running costs and supplies.
So, I got a Brother DCP9022CDW > 8 years ago, and only had to buy toner (generic, cheap) and paper ever since. The only thing it complained about was a future need for a replacement waste toner box, which I stupidly bought one year ago and is sitting gathering dust, as the old one is still not full. I guess I'll have to open and clean it one of these days, but even the fans keep working without an issue. Even if I have to replace the drums it will still be cheaper than an inkjet, in particular one guzzling HP brand ink.
Hopefully with this lawsuit, more people will realize that inkjet printers, in particular those locked down with proprietary ink, are a false bargain. They do have their uses (photo printing) but laser printers pay for themselves in the medium/long run.
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