That’s cool. I went in 2017.

I quit smoking when Marlboros went over $2/pack lol. Airports had these awful rooms where all the smokers would cram in and hotbox. Other countries are still like it used to be here in the US. Japan comes to mind as one such bad example. If you ask for a non-smoking table in a restaurant, they just sit you at any random table and put a little “no smoking” sign on it!

I take the same precautions crossing a Chinese border as I do crossing a US one.

Aaaannndd… It is also a kind of subsidy to US agribiz.

This right here is what keeps me from charging for Jellyfin access.

Thanks for the links. There’s some new information in there that I’ll have to look further into. For one, I’ve never heard of security concerns about 5G versus 4G.

I also wasn’t aware of the TMSI at all. I still don’t fully understand some things about it which would be important considerations:

How is this randomized number assigned/correlated to the IMSI? Is it done by the tower?

It seems like the carrier can request the actual IMSI at any time. Can these CSS also do that? TMSI is supposed to protect against ‘eavesdroppers’ but these industrial a grade CSS might have greater capabilities than passive eavesdropping.

I am unsure if or how disabling roaming would protect you from CSS. For one, the spoofing might make your device think it isn’t roaming. Secondly, the CSS might still be aware of your device anyway, even if it doesn’t establish an open connection to it. The phone and the tower need some minimum communication to even determine if you’re roaming or not.

I love the idea of an unaccountable spy agency using alpha technology that hallucinates answers with complete confidence /s

These devices (CSS/Stingray) are going to see both your SIM IMSI number, and your device IMEI number. AFAIK, the MAC randomization that most modern phones do, is with your WiFi modem so that WiFi routers can’t track you.

If you put your SIM card into a new phone, and then login to your cell service provider portal with a computer or other device, you will observe that they know the model of phone you are using. They get this info from the IMEI when your phone talks to the tower. Since the CSS is a rogue tower, they get the same info.

The guy getting raided has a shirt that says DPR. It says Dept of Parks and Recreation underneath, but we know it’s really for Dread Pirate Roberts, given the circumstances of his arrest.

Real shit.

I can’t really afford doctors generally, but I was in another country soon after turning 40 and I decided to get a full checkup on the cheap. I was steeling myself for the prostate exam. Imagine my surprise and relief when they gave me a goddam ultrasound instead! Like they would for a pregnant lady! Cold gel on the belly and all. They gave me the exact volume of my prostate in decilitres. So yeah, that is apparently an option.

Boiling the oceans for deepfake porn, scamcoins and worse web search.

Damn, I wonder if China’s thought of that? Like infiltrators and advance specops to secure high value infrastructure? Probably not.

Just born to break the rules.

Sure there are workarounds, but every one of them erases a bit of convenience or is at odds with the benefits of federation. Again, I think XMPP is great, but I wish it was better. As it is now, it doesn’t fully meet my needs better than Signal does.

That’s great, and I’m happy it’s working out for you. It’s still kind of a bummer that this open protocol ends up fragmented across all those clients and severs. I’ve met other Linux enthusiasts online, connected with them via xmpp only to find we can’t encrypt our chats. Neither of us wants to give up our preferred client for various reasons, so we have a non-working situation.

This is probably just Telegram seeing an opportunity to peel some users away from Signal during a period of heightened paranoia in the West (anti-genocide organizing).

I have used xmpp a lot, but I can’t really recommend it to friends and family as a secure messenger. There are too many compatibility issues between clients and servers. If your friend is on a client or server that doesn’t support the same encryption protocols, then you can’t have a secure chat. Basically there is too much user knowledge and effort required at this time, for xmpp to be a good, secure, general use chat. I very much look forward to this changing. I also really like Matrix, but it is still a bit rough around the edges as of my last check.

Looks like a push to discredit Signal right now. While I know Signal isn’t perfect, I do like it and I haven’t seen anything that is better (on the whole). The 3rd “emoji-point” is quite an accusation, and I would love to see any evidence of this kind of thing, that didn’t result from the cops unlocking a defendants phone, or having infiltrated a chat.

Win for what? What do they want to do with the levers of power? Neoliberalism and conservatism? It’s not just the small group of leftists that they stand to gain with better policies-- there’s a huge pool of potential voters out there who just ignore politics completely. It seems like a chicken/egg problem right? Dems don’t chase left/non voters because they don’t vote Dem, or is it those people don’t vote Dem (or at all) because Dems don’t chase them? I argue it’s the latter, because political parties need leadership more than they need polling nonsenses weathervanes.