My beef with them is that they’re either pushed by scammer to empty honest but gullible people’s bank accounts, or they’re used to pay for illegal activities because they’re totally opaque and unregulated.

Scammers also use gift cards, checks, wires, cash, bank accounts, investment funds, and many other means to accomplish this. Several of them are tightly regulated and it does not seem to deter or prevent the scams from occurring.

My other beef is that they’re really securities and they’re not subject to the rules on securities for a reason that totally escapes me.

Admittedly, I am not well versed in this area. Do you foresee a way to properly subject cryptocurrencies to the same/similar regulations as other securities while still providing many/all of cryptocurrencies’ benefits, including anonymity? Are the legitimate cryptocurrency exchanges (eg: Coinbase) not subject to those regulations? How different is this from individuals being taxed on gains/losses from cryptocurrencies?

I don’t do cryptocurrencies both out of self-financial preservation, and also because I refuse to participate - and thus promote - stuff that’s generally bad for society as a whole.

The first part is in relation to investing in cryptocurrency moreso than using cryptocurrency.

What makes cryptocurrency generally bad for society as a whole? While I am not familiar enough with the current estimates, I know there are environmental concerns (eg: water/electricity usage, required hardware, etc.). I concede that the environmental impacts may be (and likely are) worse than traditional fist currencies, I am unaware of other reasons that make cryptocurrency generally bad for society as a whole.

Trump loves em

Many privacy advocates also love cryptocurrency. Two different people or groups of people (no matter how similar or different) can have one or more shared interests, even if the reasons or motivations are drastically different. It is likely best to avoid politics on this topic.

• Edward Snowden Says Use Crypto, Don’t Invest In It
• Edward Snowden Calls Bitcoin Most Significant Monetary Advance Since The Creation Of Coinage

Cryptocurrency

Hard no. I don’t partake in scams, even for the sake of privacy.

Is this in relation to the monetary value of cryptocurrency or the anonymity of cryptocurrency?

The list included cryptocurrency as a channel for anonymous payments, not an investment opportunity. The two cryptocurrencies listed are two of the more well established cryptocurrencies that are more widely accepted than many other cryptocurrencies (granted, one or both of them are still not accepted by a large number of merchants). Additionally, the list also mentions some of the considerations necessary to help ensure the cryptocurrency is obtained anonymously.

If the list only included insert_newly_created_obscure_cryptocurrencies then this would definitely be more concerning.

However, if the cryptocurrency is both obtained and used “properly” where the person is ultimately anonymously exchanging cryptocurrency for a desired good(s) or service(s), is it truly a scam?

Raspberry Pi + PiHole + PiVPN = Network Gateway Drug

Although, PiVPN is winding down so you might want to find something different instead. Setting up a regular Wireguard VPN isn’t so bad, but it may be simpler to setup a Tailscale Tailnet.

the only sites I give permenant cookie exception are my selfhosted services

This is what I was referring to. How are you accomplishing this?

I’m still looking for the switches to block all new requests asking to access microphone, location, notification

I can’t help with this at the moment, but if you’re still struggling with this I can provide the lines required to disable these items. However, I don’t know how to do this with exceptions (ie allowing your self hosted sites to use that functionality, but block all other sites). At minimum though you could require Firefox to ask you every time a site wants to use something. This may get repetitive for things like your self hosted sites if you have everything clearing when you exit Firefox.

Didn’t look at the repo thoroughly, but I can appreciate the work that went into this.

• Is there any reason you went this route instead of just using an user-overrides.js file for the standard arkenfox user.js file?
• Does the automatic dark theme require enabling any fingerprintable settings (beyond just possobly determining the theme of the OS/browser)?
• How are you handling exceptions for sites? I assumed it would be in the user.js file, but didn’t notice anything in particular handling specific URLs differently.

Calls made from speakers and Smart Displays will not show up with a caller ID unless you’re using Duo.

Is it possible to use Duo still? Google knows it discontinued/merged Duo with Google Meet nearly 18 months ago, right?

https://changedetection.io/

Change Detection can be used for several use cases. One of them is monitoring price changes.

Could you explain further? Wouldn’t this just need to be setup once per server that OP wants to connect?

Could you use symlinks? Not sure what the “gotchas” or downside to this approach is though.

tl;dr: A notable marketshare of multiple browser components and browsers must exist in order to properly ensure/maintain truly open web standards.

It is important that Firefox and its components like Gecko and Spidermonkey to exist as well as maintain a notable marketshare. Likewise, it is important for WebKit and its components to exist and maintain a notable marketshare. The same is true for any other browser/rendering/JavaScript engines.

While it is great that we have so many non-Google Chrome alternatives like Chromium, Edge, Vivaldi, etc., they all use the same or very similar engines. This means that they all display and interact with websites nearly identically.

When Google decides certain implementation/interpretation of web standards, formats, behavior, etc. should be included in Google Chrome (and consequently all Chromium based browsers), then the majority marketshare of web browsers will behave that way. If the Chrome/Chromium based browsers reaches a nearly unanimous browser marketshare, then Google can either ignore any/all open web standards, force their will in deciding/implementing new open web standards, or even become the defacto open web standard.

When any one entity has that much control over the open web standards, then the web standards are no longer truly “open” and in this case becomes “Google’s web standards”. In some (or maybe even many) cases, this may be fine. However, we saw with Internet Explorer in the past this is not something that the market should allow. We are seeing evidence that we shouldn’t allow Google to have this much influence with things like the adoption of JPEG XL or implementation of FLoC.

With three or more browser engines, rendering engines, and browsers with notable marketshares, web developers are forced to develop in adherence to the accepted open web standards. With enough marketshare spread across those engines/browsers, the various engines/browsers are incentivized to maintain compatibility with open web standards. As long as the open web standards are designed and maintained without overt influence by a single or few entities and the open standards are actively used, then the best interest of the collective of all internet users is best served.

Otherwise, the best interest of a few entities (in this case Google) is best served.

Alerts, notifications, person recognition, object recognition, motion detection, two way audio, automated lights, event based video storage, 24/7 video storage, automated deletion of stale recorded video, and more can all be accomplished 100% locally.

Granted, much of this functionality is not easily accomplished without some technical knowledge and additional hardware. However, these posts typically are made by people who state to at least have an interest in making that a reality (as this one does).

What security benefits does a cloud service provide?

Your options will depend on how much effort you are willing to put in and what other services you have access to (or are willing to run).

For example, do you have a Network Video Recorder (NVR) or something like Home Assistant that can consume a Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) or Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) video feed? Can you modify your network to block all internet traffic to/from the doorbell? Are you comfortable using a closed source, proprietary app to setup the doorbell? Is creating your own doorbell feasible?

I’m not aware of a doorbell that you can buy which meets all of your requirements without at least one of the items I mentioned above. Additionally, I believe the only doorbell that meets all your requirements is building your own doorbell. However, some other brands that will get close to meeting your requirements are Reolink and Amcrest.

This is a “simple” question, but unfortunately the answer isn’t as simple. Much of this isn’t necessarily Google “individually and directly attacking people”, but instead Google providing others with the (otherwise unavailable) means to do so.

Regardless, is this an example that you were looking for? https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/google-tracked-his-bike-ride-past-burglarized-home-made-him-n1151761

I’m not privy to what is going on, who the users from the screenshot are, or what this is all in reference to, but saying they “actively setup RSS feeds” for this is a bit disingenuous. The ability to consume Reddit users’ RSS feeds has existed for longer than GrapheneOS has been around. Anyone posting on Reddit (especially on public subs) or any other public site should have the expectation that their posts/comments can be monitored/tracked/followed, searched, recorded/copied, etc. This should just be viewed as a reminder of that.