On the strength of Google’s inventions, discoveries, and strategies, it became the mother ship and ideal type of a new economic logic based on fortune- telling and selling—an ancient and eternally lucrative craft that has fed on humanity’s confrontation with uncertainty from the beginning of the human story

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
by Shoshana Zuboff

#SurveillanceCapitalism #privacy

I'm so happy that I never got into the habit of using any of the mentioned platforms.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/27/nuke-first/

@pluralistic@mamot.fr writes in their article

By making platforms responsible for screening the content their users post, we create a system that only the largest tech monopolies can survive, and only then by removing or blocking anything that threatens or displeases the wealthy and powerful.

This certainly is true for central platforms. I'm running a few services for family, friends and neighbours. Some of these are connected to federated systems like mail, matrix, ActivityPub instances.

I do not get stressed over copyright problems: I had personal contact to everybody having an account and I trust that they'll not misuse it.

If I'd get into stress I'd close down open registration in the one service that has it configured and only host accounts that I gave out to people I know and trust.

If someone would claim I'd infringe a right they have to something that is published on one of the services I run I'd probably take it offline, talk to the person using the account and agree on a solution.

If that person would be unhappy with our agreement they could start running the exactly same service being FLOSS and designed to be self-hosted even on a home internet connection.

I would help where I can to help people to take over the legal risks I might not be able to cover for them and be able to make their on decisions by hosting their own instances.

If this ever will happen it'll be a once in 20 years situation that I'm willing to risk getting into.

My guess is that decentralisation helps. It's good for security also: It doesn't make any code more secure, but it does make each of the small nodes in decentralized networks less interesting to attackers and it makes it harder for attackers to gain access to huge amounts of data by breaking into one single system.

Hey #flohmis! For #yunohost I configured #urlwatch for #flohmarkt to monitor the user database and not much later got an email informing me about a change .

My configuration templates can be found here as the three files named urlwatch*.

Reinvestment in user services became the method for attracting behavioral surplus, and users became the unwitting suppliers of raw material for a larger cycle of revenue generation

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
by Shoshana Zuboff

#SurveillanceCapitalism #privacy

If you can read this you're not affected by the following …

This #microblogpub had some load recently and I looked into it. I looked through the logs and counted the connections from each IP. These are the IPs with the highest volume:

     89 192.168.2.20
    385 202.61.242.89
    417 65.21.187.247
    433 141.95.205.35
 275698 34.229.130.24
 287955 44.206.236.255
 297312 54.164.161.50
 304990 3.238.157.198

The last for look suspicious. I looked at the kind of request that added up to those comparative high numbers:

     13 /.well-known/host-meta
     13 /.well-known/webfinger?resource=acct:chrichri@chrichri.ween.de
  22453 /o/350ab61e097f4c89bbe53836f0f5d1f6
  24681 /followers
  24684 /following
  24684 /outbox
 313796 /o/72327fd24abe48bb82564144dcee1ba6
 313803 /featured
 336225 /.well-known/webfinger?resource=acct:me@chrichri.ween.de
 336243 /

All quite common, but one of the highest counts gets one note. All of these accesses from four IPs only within less than a day.

The article that seems to be so interesting is about @midzer@chaos.socials work for flohmarkt and the fact that he can be sponsored via #github.

The four IPs are all at Amazon:

24.130.229.34.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer ec2-34-229-130-24.compute-1.amazonaws.com.
255.236.206.44.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer ec2-44-206-236-255.compute-1.amazonaws.com.
50.161.164.54.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer ec2-54-164-161-50.compute-1.amazonaws.com.
198.157.238.3.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer ec2-3-238-157-198.compute-1.amazonaws.com.

I blocked the four IPs to get the load back down to a value below 1.

If you can't read this or you'd have a clue why those IPs constantly access those few URLs - please let me know!

This symbiosis enabled Google’s algorithms to learn and produce ever-more relevant and comprehensive search results. More queries meant more learning; more learning produced more relevance. More relevance meant more searches and more users

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
by Shoshana Zuboff

#SurveillanceCapitalism #privacy

Just installed the ynh8 #yunohost app integration on my flohmarkt.

I added an hourly check of the user database of #flohmarkt to send out an email notification for changes.

To enable admins through the web gui to change the address I added a configuration panel and while at it I put the setup URL for the initial setup of a new flohmarkt installation on the configuration panel, too.

Now it should be easy to install and initialize a flohmarkt instance by only using yunohosts web gui.

Surveillance capitalism unilaterally claims human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
by Shoshana Zuboff

#SurveillanceCapitalism #privacy

My mind is blown on every page by the depth of Shoshana’s research, the breadth of her knowledge, the rigor of her intellect, and finally by the power of her arguments. I’m not sure we can end the age of surveillance capitalism without her help, and that’s why I believe this is the most important book of our time.”

—Doc Searls, author of The Intention Economy, and editor-in-chief of Linux Journal

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
by Shoshana Zuboff

#SurveillanceCapitalism #privacy

If you can read this you're reading a note created on my #microblogpub instance on my #yunohost.

@t@hexa.ninja the author of microblog.pub created an integration for yunohost in package format version 1.

yunohost moved on and created the packaging format version 2.

Building on the work of Thomas I upgraded the package to the newer packaging format and integrated it into yunohosts app catalogue where it will appear within the next 24h.

If you're using microblog.pub on a yunohost you'll be offered an update of the app once it has been included into the catalog.

Thanks Thomas for that great software!

(This note is my first one written on my updated microblog.pub v2 integration on yunohost.)

So I had that old and broken Sony #Z3c… This is an #interlude to becoming a #WhatsApp user.

I needed a phone with stock rom to install WhatsApp on it. Switching on and off all my old phones I found a Z3 compact - touchscreen without touch working.

I remembered that those supported USB OTG already and looked for an adaptor cable. Nope, not around anymore. Looking for informations I found that in an OTG cable one pin is is shorted to GND.

The first usb micro connector I cut open turned out to be 4 pins only (at least where the cable connects). The second one had two pins on one side and three on the other - perfect.

I spliced an OTG cable made of two old USB cables and tried it: worked, didn't work, worked, didn't work. With some fiddling I found the place where it shorted.

Having OTG working I connected a wireless USB keyboard/mouse receiver and went successfully through the initial configuration. New life to old device .

Story is probably not new: using a #Librem5 (linux mobile) and everybody insists on using WhatsApp. I didn't care. But all activities the kids want to take part: #WhatsApp.

I could try to evangelize all these football trainers, parents representatives at schools, parents of friends to use something that I'm able to use on my linux phone, but I can't: lack of energy, lack of time, lack of alternatives with the same feature set and stability.

Got out an old Sony Z1 running #CarbonROM. Really old software. Got an so far unused SIM. I used Aurora Store from F-Droid to install WhatsApp from the Google Store on that Android. Registered to WhatsApp and it worked fine sending one test message that never arrived, because the other side didn't have my phone number in their contacts (I guess).

I installed #conduit as a #matrix server on my #yunohost and put mautrix-whatsapp #bridge on its own system using the latest docker image following the documentation to get a minimum configuration running.

Yeah, works. Coupled WhatsApp on the Android Z1 with the bridge and send two test messages resulting in This account can no longer use WhatsApp due to spam shown on the #Android device.

Is that most likely because of my 10+ years device + rooted + Magisk + fake google app store #Aurora or is it something others are experiencing when trying to use the bridge with of the shelf devices, too?

My plan has been to run an independent phone number for WhatsApp on a device that only has contacts for WhatsApp in its phone book and make it available to family members through matrix.

Our participation in society relies in many aspects on the goodwill of a few monopolistic companies that we depend on. They write the rules which device (Android or iOS) and which software (only their own doing whatever they program it to do) we're supposed to use. They train the algorithms that can cut you off our participation.

I wouldn't care the least. I'd even smile when reading this thinking that it's exactly what people supporting companies like facebook/whatsapp deserve. But if the participation of my kids in society is at stake (and not my own which I well can organize without any messenger) it makes me sad.

Just uploaded a new version of #flohmarkts integration into yunohost: ynh6.

• improved handling of the couchdb database(s)
  • restore renames an existing database if it has been left over from a previous installation
  • install re-uses an existing database if it has been left over from a previous installation
• --purge is respected
  • removing without purging leaves the database and the data directory on the disc
  • purging deletes them
• install and restore take care of an existing flohmarkt database user

The new version will be available for testing in the app catalogue within a few hours. Feedback is very welcome and much appreciated!

https://forum.yunohost.org/t/ynh-flohmarkt-flohmarkt-as-an-app-for-yunohost/28455/6?u=chrichri

#yunohost apps und #email:

1. yunohost Konto für smtp Zugangsdaten

Nachteile:

• wenn die Verbindung zu localhost konfiguriert wird, stimmt das Zertifikat für tls nicht. In manchen Applikationen mag das nicht übersteuerbar sein.
• Im Konto sammeln sich die Antworten auf ausgegangene E-Mails der Applikation sofern Menschen auf die Idee kommen welche dorthin zu schreiben.

Ansonsten funktioniert das und per Weiterleitung kann man sich die E-Mails eines solchen Kontos auch an ein anderes Konto schicken lassen.

2. /etc/postfix/app_senders_login_maps

Nachteile:

• muss im Manifest der App konfiguriert sein
• benötigt möglicherweise einen Patch der Standard #Postfix Konfiguration

Die App muss diese Integration in ihrem manifest.toml konfiguriert haben und man benötigt evtl. einen Patch.

Wenn im Manifest ein Abschnitt für die Definition einer email domain und eines email Absenders steht (vergleiche flohmarkt, dann trägt yunohost bei der Installation in /etc/postfix/app_senders_login_maps die daraus resultierende E-Mail-Adresse ein.

Im install Skript kann die App dann die festgelegte E-Mail-Adresse in der zu generierenden Konfigurationsdatei eintragen.

Das soll dazu führen, dass die App ohne Passwort und ggf. ohne SSL über localhost eine E-Mail schicken darf, weil postfix erkennt, dass der Linux Benutzer der App berechtigt ist die Absenderadresse zu verwenden.

Das funktioniert nur, wenn der in der Benutzerverwaltung kein gleichnamiges Konto und kein gleichnamiges Alias existieren, weil es in yunohost 11.3 noch ein Problem mit der Postfix Konfiguration in /etc/postfix/main.cf gibt.

Hierzu gibt es einen PR im yunohost repo mit einer verbesserten Konfiguration.

@Codeschubse@ohai.social

For tech-minded people it might be easy to setup an ad blocker, but can you build a #bomb shelter?

In her speech Meredith Whittaker talks about #SurveillanceCapitalism how it made what we call #AI possible and the difference of being targeted with a wrong #advertisement and being put on a #kill list.

https://www.helmut-schmidt.de/aktuelles/detail/die-rede-der-zukunftspreistraegerin