Yeah, it is, tech wise.

But here’s the thing: Mastodon is not a viable alternative for most people right now because it’s missing the “normies”. Most people don’t even know what FOSS stands for and probably think it’s an STD, nuclear missile, or some form of coronavirus. Most of them are perfectly happy being on Twitter/Reddit/TikTok/FaceBook/Instagram. Without the masses, Mastodon cannot be a Twitter (or X, whatever you call it) replacement.

Knew there would be more! Thanks for telling me!

If DDG doesn’t work, try !g to automatically send you to Google with the same query. Its handy for situations where DDG can’t find something.

There’s also !yt by the way.

Almost every chat platform uses encryption by default, including telegram. If you are talking about E2EE, you have to enable that manually for each chat.

Yes, you still do for E2EE.

Matrix has absolute shit adoption, but is open source and pretty secure. Then there is always Telegram.

Texas is connected to the Eastern (Florida to Canada) grid, the Western (Cali to Canada) grid, and a Mexican grid not part of the US/CA system via tie-ins. It is the only state in the continental US with it’s own grid, which was not a smart decision (cough cough feb 2021). The most outrageous part was that they could have bought power from Mexico, east, or west and import it via those tie-ins during Feb 2021 but chose not to. Power was out for millions for over a week in freezing temperatures. Fuck Texas. Fuck CenterPoint Energy.

Additional Information: Besides Texas, Quebec and Alaska have their own grids as well. Alaska is the only grid without any tie-ins.

Yeah, unfortunately iPhones don’t have a option to ask each time a USB cable is plugged in (has to unlock first), which is a feature I love in macOS. You can turn on a feature disabling USB Data after an hour of not unlocking on iOS though, which I do.

Huh, you have a valid point. I haven’t tried it yet, but it probably doesn’t access/unencrypt too much more than the regular lock screen, given thats its just a glorified alarm clock with notifications. Ironically, some of the most private stuff (photos, notes) don’t have CompleteProtection, so that’s a current gaping vulnerability. And yes, if the FBI really wants your data, there are RAM reading tools for iPhone.

Here is a stackexchange thread about AFU/DFU/CP if you didn’t know.

My guess is the cost of Thunderbolt compatible hardware, which explains why only premium devices (ie Macs) have TB ports. TB cables are also much more expensive than the average USB-C.

Intel and Apple co-developed ThunderBolt, and the tech is free to use for all manufacturers, so why wouldn’t they? One more selling point on the spec sheet is always good.

Linux Phone!

macOS is a desktop OS. It has a terminal, it lets you download that sketchy .app file from a random website, and it allows browsers to use their own engines. So, not too different from Windows or Linux.

You are correct for iOS and iPadOS though. They must use the WebKit rendering engine. All browsers on those are just Safari reskins.

Damn, how old is that MacBook? I think you should ask for a hardware upgrade, because both Chromium based browsers and Firefox don’t use too much resources and run smoothly on the newer models. I can’t say that Chrome isn’t buggy, as I barely use it, but I have never encountered a Firefox bug on any of my devices.

Unfortunately, IP addresses are often MORE traceable on decentralized networks then centralized networks. How so? Lets say Alice and Bob each use their own PCs as nodes on a decentralized messaging network. None of them use a VPN or proxy. If Alice sends Bob a message directly, Bob can just grab her IP since she is using her own PC as a node. However, if they were using a centralized service, that message would’ve been routed through the service’s servers.

If they didn’t bundle safari on a mac or firefox on linux, there are terminal commands to install firefox and chrome on both.

There is a command for windows via their built in package manager apparently, but I can’t confirm that.

The latest version of TLS (used in the latest version of HTTPS), 1.3, is very secure. Most websites these days support 1.3/128 bits, making it quite hard to crack. One major weakness of HTTPS is that, if a certificate authority is compromised, the hackers can issue certificates for ANY website, which browsers will accept as secure until the certificates are revoked/expired/CA removed from trusted list in browser. This loophole can also be exploited by nation states (forcing the CA to issue certificates).

If you are doing something really private, use something like Matrix (E2EE mode), Signal, or Telegram (E2EE DM).

TLDR: Modern HTTPS is incredibly secure, except there is a loophole that nation states and hackers can exploit if they compromise/gain control of an approved certificate authority. If you are doing something you really dont want anyone to find out (top secret files), use an encrypted service that does not rely on the TLS/SSL/HTTPS stack.

Oh, there was an effort to solve above loophole, I’m not sure if it got anywhere though.

Don’t quote me, but I remember someone they were interviewing on NPR say the system wasn’t activated because it was a tsunami warning system, which tells residents to go to higher ground, and in this case going to higher ground would be suicide.

I personally like the system, and it works 99% of the time. But I can see where you are coming from.

Apple’s face recognition system relies on

1. infrared light being blasted on your face
2. infrared camera creates a map of your face based on the 30k dots blasted onto your face and stores it
3. when you try to log in again your iPhone compares your face by repeating step 1 and 2 (but not storing the map this time) and comparing it to the map created in step 2.
4. if the black box “machine learning” program thinks your face is similar to the map, it lets you in.

The IR blaster and camera makes Apple’s system more accurate and secure (requires 3D face) than just taking a photo of your face (2D), but it does take up more room on the notch.