Define “people’s”, because not doing so is how we get into a police state and that was some Germany shit. Everyone? A subset at random? A subset at convenience? A subset based on how brown they look?

Note sure to understand your reasoning but here you are: ‘people’ is someone, any person or any group of persons be they a citizen of the country or a foreigner.

In France, for example, the French police has the right to ask for my ID anywhere in the country, it’s part of their job. It doesn’t matter if I’m French or a foreigner, I’m subjected to their legal authority by law (and not giving my ID could get me into some trouble, even if I had a bottle of wine in one pocket, cheese and bread in another and pretty beret on my bald head). That’s also the reason why anyone is expected to always have their ID with them outside of their home… And that is true also when I travel to Germany, or England, or Belgium, or Italy, or anywhere in the EU. ‘No borders’ does not mean no ID and no control anymore. It only means no systematic control in normal situations.

But if you think I am lying and the bus driver is lying, you can easily search for sources you trust.

Keep calm dude, I simply asked for a source. If that makes me suspicious to you, well, that’s too bad.

You struggle to believe

Indeed, I’m not much of a believer.

But you seem confused. You struggle to believe it while at the same time claiming the police are doing their job. Feels like cognitive dissonance.

Wow.

Either you’re really looking to make it a personal issue with me or you have a serious reading issue. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and go for the second option and therefore will encourage you to calmly re-read my comment. If it doesn’t seem clearer to you that I have said nothing of the sort (and presupposed nothing), feel free to quote each problematic passage of my answer and ask specific questions. Otherwise, sorry to disappoint you but I’m not much into personal quarrels.

edit: typos :p

First, sources?

Then, I probably will get downvoted to oblivion but isn’t one of the job of the police supposed to actually check people’s ID? And aren’t all police forces (at least here in the EU) using some computerized data system to check said IDs? Heck, last time they checked mine as much as I was able to tell they used some app on their phone (France, Paris).

Finally, I would also prefer not call ‘Gestapo’ anything we may consider excessive or we disagree with. Gestapo was something else.

9 is WAY too young for sexual content.

But is 9 old enough to watch their family being shredded by bombs or bullets? Note that, following your impressive declaration, you may rejoice about their home being bombed because, like mom and dad, the home TV and computer are also more than probably somewhat out-of-order. Therefore that poor innocent 9 year-old kid will be spared the atrocious temptation to watch a fucking tit (or fucking tits)!

FFS, didn’t you get a handbook telling you how to use that spongy thing that has been hibernating (optimistic version) between your ears all those years?

Thx for the archive link :)

Is it possible to escape the ads?

We have not TV at a home. Smart, or dumb. We got rid of ours decades ago (in the late 90s early 00s) when we realized they expected us to pay good money for a tv set while still expecting us to watch ads, more and more of them, in exchange for meh content.

We have a computer monitor (the computer itself is running GNU/Linux) on which we watch DVDs, or ripped files. No streaming, no services, no nothing. Most of the time it’s not even connected to our network.

I suppose one day not that far in the future, corporations will have lobbied our government to make it illegal (and highly suspicious) to not subscribe to streamed content (what can those suspicious people be doing in their free time if they don’t get their daily netfix?), as well as to actually own content. We will see. Meanwhile, they, their crappy ads, and their spywares can all go fuck themselves.

I imagined myself like a new Dr. Frankenstein, trying to revive democracy from whatever little of it remained. Trying to and, unlike Dr. Frankenstein back in his days, pitifully failing at reviving it.

Those last weeks have been so… painfully filled with this ugly orange hatred and despise for democracy and for its institutions that I’ve not really been feeling like enjoying much hobbies, I must say. My bad, 100%, and I should not let those billionaires oligarchs and their Orange clown reach me like that. I should even be thankful to them! At last, they showed the world who they really are and what they stand for. Maybe that will create an electroshock? Probably not, oligarchs are everywhere and controls already so much of what we need. Now, they also know they don’t have much to worry much about and the can do whatever they want. The orange bully and his billionaire pal, have took hold of the USA. I wonder how Putin celebrated that re-election? Probably a lot more than he celebrated all of his own…

Sorry, I should not have answered like that to your fine question. I wanted to be funny and post something silly. It’s just I feel a little bit depressed or maybe a little more than that, by what’s happening in the USA. And how easily it’s happening.

So much this.

Stallman was and still is right probably on almost every single point he ever made. I’m afraid we will only understand that once it’s too late if it not already is.

that’s why, as a mere user myself, someone that will never be able to write a line of code, let alone develop an app, I still want my apps do be Free/Libre software. I want for those many more competent people all over the world to be able to identify any such a turd and flush them down the drain. I don’t trust any corporation to do a good job at that, even Apple (disclaimer: I use an iPhone…)

I havent switched operating system yet due to fear of losing my data.

If you value any data, you should already have backups (plural), right? So, if you decide to switch OS you don’t need to worry about your data since you have backups (plural). Hint: if you don’t do backups already, start now with or without OS switch.

If i delete google play services, will my phone not work correctly?

Depends what you do with it. What OS you use. My spouse is using /e/OS and she has access to all the apps she needs, but I reckon you probably don’t use the same app as we do (we’re both 50+) ;)

I have been replacing my apps with open source apps, is that helpful?

Depends. It’s probably a good idea but if you use open source apps to access and use non-privacy respecting services, well, they won’t help much.

What vpn should i use? I have malewarebytes.

One you trust. I use Mullvad and Proton. Both are paid for.

I’ve been journaling since the late 70s, I started as a child and I’m an analog journaler. That being said, I’m also curious and always willing to experiment with new tools and I’ve used many. Some I’ve been using them for many years because them and I we worked great together. Tools ranging from the typewriter to the computer, the smartphone and the tablet. I’ve also used tape recorders (be it standard cassettes or the mini ultra portable ones, the MP3 player or, here again, the phone). I still own a mini recorder I use from time to time, it’s a cool device but the sound is so… meh, at best. In the end, I’ve always come back to good old pen and paper. It feels like home to me.

The longest affair I’ve had it’s with DayOne (Mac/iOS/Web). I remember switching to it almost the day it was realized, I can’t recall the year but back then the iPhone was still more or less a new product and the app itself was a one time purchase (no subscription) and was made by a small independent company. It was wo great I purchased the Mac version when it was released. It was groundbreakingly refreshing, and great, and cool, and so effing nice to use. I’m smiling just thinking about it. It felt almost as intuitive as using pen and and paper. I loved DayOne. As a long time user, I never was asked to pay when they switched to the subscription model, which is really nice gesture (I would still be able to use it without paying to this day) but I also realized the company changing hands (it’s now owned by the same that own… WordPress) was not going in the direction I wanted. So I slowly, and hesitantly, quit using Day One. It took me a few years to finally decide I had enough of the app as it was and to decide to fully commit back to pen and paper. I’ve not had any other serious affair since then, just a few flirts ;)

+1 to this. Beside our phones there is no smart device in our home (and when not in use, they’re turned off and stored in a box to limit their ability to spy on us). No TV, no Alexa, no smart light-bulbs, no smart thermostat, no smart doorbell,…

Heck, I even stopped using my Kindle (and completely quit reading DRM-protected ebooks) because I had enough of Amazon ‘monitoring’ my reading habits.

F*ck that, I want privacy. If digital can’t give it to me, I’m going back to good analog ;)

Also, as an ex-lifelong Mac user (started in the early 80s) our PCs have been running Linux for a few years now, and so far I’ve not morphed into some kind of geeky-hairy-creature. I’m still as bald and as neatly shaved as I always have been, and I’m barely any more of a geek :P

There is one Windows machine still running at home, the one my spouse must use for her work. That being being said, seeing how great the USA-EU relationship have been since Putin’s orange angry puppet has started his new show in the oval office, and knowing the rather specific field my spouse is working in I would not be surprised if her bosses suddenly realized using Windows was not the brightest idea ever and decided to switch everyone to a less spyware-filled and a less US-owned OS alternative. We will see. Meanwhile, the webcam and microphone are constantly covered, and the PC itself is unplugged from the network (Ethernet only) and from the wall-plug after hours. Paranoid & excessive? Maybe… I’d rather be paranoid than be sorry I was not enough ;)

I’d wrap it in a towel inside the box. Have you considered making a DIY Faraday cage? I’ve been thinking about it but my physics isn’t very good

I may consider doing that, thx.

Thx a lot for the explanation :)

I’ve heard the name, but don’t know what a docker is used for. Kinda like a vm? Not really a geek, I’m afraid ;)

Either someone randomly downvoted (ok, bye). Or someone thinks downvoting me is punishing me in some way for daring say something they don’t agree with (no idea how that could be punishing me, but hey). Or someone is too lazy to explain their reasoning. In any case, I don’t think it’s worth much consideration.

And, yep, as far as I’m concerned I consider this an OK approach. Not faultless, but usable ;)

Thx

• Out? Water, sometimes coffee (when it’s decent)
• Home? Tea, coffee, and water.

I quit drinking soda entirely. Alcohol too, but that was many, many years ago… back when I was an alcoholic.

Not much

• Full disk encryption on my computers.
• Password manager, for strong & unique passwords everywhere
• Linux as my OS
• Firewall.
• Backups: local (encrypted) and remote (encrypted).
• Computers are all wired to the network.
• Also, I use my phone as a… phone and for little else.
  I mean, there is a 2FA app and the few mandatory apps I must have access to (finance, and banking) and that is it. No social, no games, no nothing. Not even email is configured on that trash piece of corporate spyware. I sincerely consider it a threat to our privacy so I don’t trust it beside what I have no option to trust it with. I also suppose that this device, even though I deactivated the setting, is constantly listening to what we say nearby. So, when I don’t need it, I store it in a thick box to reduce whatever it may be recording.
• I use as little digital tools as I can. I went back to analog (ie, for my agenda and I hardly see any reason to go back to digital). I take all my notes longhand too, and it’s been more than a year I have not read an ebook as I went back to analog there too. Why? No spying, no tracking of what I read and what I write. And no sudden ‘termination’ of services or ‘removal’ of a book from my device for any reason.

Survive our craz… interesting times one WE more. Enjoy quality time with my spouse. Pay a visit to my dentist, too :p

Plus reading, writing, studying. Like every single other day of the week, all year long.

I 100% agree on that, no discussion. I was just pointing out the fact that quite often a ‘I have to’ should be written as ‘I’m used to’ ;)