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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • Do you always argue for your own perspective? I subtly indicated that this was not how I act, and I did not try to justify such behaviors. I simply stated a softening perspective of how people are a product of their environment and the perspective benefits of the present information age. It is adding real world abstracted complexity to something phrased in idealized binary simplicity that might make someone with a troubled childhood self-conscious or uncomfortable and instead bending perspective to nostalgia. It is a kindness with empathy for people I know that have changed and turned their life around, and for those with potential because binary labels and oversimplification can be harmful.


  • j4k3@lemmy.worldtomemes@lemmy.worldI was an early adopter of Game Rage (tm)
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    1 month ago

    It was an age without outlets for information. If you wanted to have a chance at figuring out that secret sauce to get to the next level or beat that boss, there was magazine or back issue roulette. There was admitting you suck to your cooler richer friends to beg them to tell you how to beat it. There was the tiny chance that the official guide you had to special order might mention the thing. Then there was the dialup internet where loading to the nipples of a single image took longer than most boys, and by the time the whole image loaded 1 in 3 was holding a self serviced d-pad controller of their very own. Times were different, and so were the frustrations. If you wanted to learn, you went to the library on the other side of town. People read newspapers for information and it had classified-craigslist that was like paying Twitter by the word to try and sell your broken junk. Those of us that didn’t rage, blew on our cartridges like we were making a magical wish to a genie.




  • The reddit moves against 3rd party apps and scraping were for more invasive stalkerware. This is the full scope in abstract simplicity:

    The whole reason why everyone is pushed to install our app is not all that complicated. It boils down to how mobile devices are configured for ignorant users (like myself and most of us) that do not have a clue about how to securely setup, config, and maintain an operating system that is connected to the internet and send/receive connections from anyone (calls/messages/data). The way this is achieved is by removing all packages in the operating system that can modify or add packages to the operating system itself. This also involves removing the administrative (root) account. All of these packages are removed by the device manufacturer when the device is first configured. The remaining locked down OS is effectively in a Read-Only Memory state or “ROM.” Inside any mobile device, there is only one program effectively running on the host system OS. This is the user space application that almost all apps you interact with or download run from. These apps are sandboxed mostly from the base OS system. In Android, the sandbox is the SELinux system from the host OS. This is the application that limits where any app or user can save data and protects the execution path variable in the underlying OS.

    So, the way you can install anything or use a device without understanding these systems and a whole lot more is because, in Android or others, the app developer is a user just like you. There is no effective difference between your access and theirs. You are not some system administrator. They have all the access you do so that they can configure all the things that you do not understand. A side effect is that they are FULL USERS ON YOUR DEVICE 24/7. They can do everything you can do. All the sandboxing, all the configuration is not to serve you or your interests. It is only attempting to prevent ANYONE from screwing up the device including you. Almost all of the sandboxing is only to protect the base OS configuration. Most of the privacy settings are only there to make you feel a little better. The app dev is still a full user exactly like you and with the ability to ignore most of it.

    So what, it only happens when you open the app right? No! In Android the init configured package is called zygote. The device preloads all apps into RAM all the time. All apps are always running. Zygote is supposedly there to improve load times for apps, but the difference is on the order of microseconds and well below human persistence of vision reaction times.

    Apps on mobile are like your most intimate life partners that are far more invasive and persistent than any human mate or sexual partner could ever be.

    So you give up on apps and are smart enough to only use a browser. In steps why google pushes chrome and doesn’t really care if you use one of the chromium derivatives like edge, brave, or anything else. Apple does the exact same things in Safari. Anything about security or privacy in these browsers means from third party competitors to Google/Apple. ‘But I use degoogled chromium!’ It’s the mechanisms for fingerprinting and access to the base OS using JavaScript that is the primary tool being leveraged. A browser has extremely invasive administrate like connectivity to the operating system.

    Security researchers have shown that it only takes 3-4 unique identifiers to correlate any anonymous data to a known individual. On mobile, every device model has a unique orphaned kernel. Most devices have nearly unique screen resolutions and configurations. This is a primary way to identify people as this info is in even the simplest of fingerprints. All the hardware paths present or not like codecs available for video are data points that can infer who you are. Your typing style and keyboard reveal a ton of information, as does your gyroscopic screen rotation sensor. Apps have full access to all of this information. Browsers may limit some sensor access. This is why everyone wants you to use their app, but also how most browsers are scantily better. If you run a whitelist firewall on a third party device, you will see how much junk you’re connecting to constantly by default.

    This is why many of us here left reddit with the move against 3rd party scrapping apps. I know everything I say in this place is data mined for exploitation just like elsewhere else on the public internet. This is neo digital slavery for price fixing scams and echo chamber manipulation through nondeterministic search queries and suggested content. It is not just commercial; it is also political. This is why the best and brightest psych majors are getting high paying jobs in advertising. This is why scrolling media is pushed so heavily and why you find yourself making frivolous purchases if you consume such media. All of it is connected. It was never about annoying pop ups and banner ads no one clicked on. I even went as far as giving away stuff on Facebook when I was the Buyer for a retail store, just to prove that these platforms have no monetary value in advertising directly. If I can’t give away a thousand dollars to a person when I have 10k followers, how the hell am I going to do so by paying to show actual ads to the same people. There is so much more happening, but it is on a deeper and more invasive level.

    This is the real world reason you were likely banned and it was easy to correlate your activity. Even with a VPN, most of us are unlikely to limit ourselves to the kind of opsec that can make us anonymous. If you are not practicing this opsec everywhere, at all times, you can still be tracked easily based on the few unique identifiers present and correlation.



  • This, and lay out the details like ELI5 and as an unemotional objective thing with detail.

    I have received many flags to sort out that take more than a few minutes to figure out the tone and meaning. I strongly believe people have a right to be stupid, wrong, a bit rude, or to have a bad day. I need to know exactly why the comment is more than this in a well laid out fashion. If you think it is a pattern with the individual, prove it. If some subtle phrase carries more meaning than I may realize, say so. I want to make people feel welcome on all fronts with a Hippocratic framework of “first, do no harm.” At the same time, a visible mod is a bad mod. I will read every detail. I will give the benefit of the doubt in every possible case. I won’t be passive to bigotry, but I will allow an asshole that does no harm. I’m but one insignificant mod. I care a whole lot more as a person, but I act conservatively as a mod. When flagging something imagine the person on the other end is working on some big project, stopping their day, and taking a half hour to sort out the details, thinking them through, and taking action. It usually takes me longer to shift gears and do this in practice. I’ll usually send a message explaining why I did or did not do anything as well.


  • (47m/8b) × 100 = 0.5875% of the world. Those numbers are likely total accounts as well and nowhere near the real active users. I bet many of these are also systems with multiple users or users with multiple accounts. Reported numbers are usually unverified and inflating them as much as possible is in the best interest of Sony on may fronts.

    It is neither here nor there. I used to love the first few generations of PS stuff, but I really see no reason for consoles like these any more. I owned everything I played back then. I find it rather pathetic that my right to own has been stolen.

    I’m presently taking a snack break from Cataclysm DDA after tracking down foods with better iron content in the game. Under that I have a bash script and Emacs running with my mods to the game. I’ve been playing all afternoon and making little odds and ends for the game. Sorry if my perspective from a non dystopian space rubs the wrong way. What I’m doing isn’t for everyone, but if everyone had some better self control and the character to stand up for themselves, you will find that you get your rights back from these asshats, or you will get them from the next generation of platforms that rise from the ashes. The only terms that actually matter are the ones you’re willing to put money into. I back up that statement. I’m on a 12th gen Intel with 16 GB GPU. I would be playing AAA titles but there are no game manufacturers. I don’t care if I’m the only person unwilling to adopt feudalism and serve some tyrant overlord on their yacht. So be it.




  • If you run a whitelist firewall, you never see CAPTCHA’s. The vast majority on the internet have nothing to do with the website you’re visiting. When the website cannot redirect you to the CAPTCHA host site, it just continues on to the intended destination. The only way I ever see a CAPTCHA is if it is hosted on the same server as the site I am trying to visit, and that is very nearly never. I bet the vast majority of them are actually some advertiser collecting more data to mine in addition to whatever fingerprinting they can collect. Ads only work by opening a hidden frame that is basically another browser tab where you then visit the ad server’s website. This is no different than visiting them in a browser tab. They can access everything available to fingerprint. If you’re using anything Google controls that means they know everything about you down to how dirty your underwear is right now. /s÷2