Nothing crazy, but it would be cool to be able to build automations in home Assistant off of my Microsoft teams status. (Pause music and whatever I'm casting to Kodi if I get a call, etc)

Maybe even browsing Lemmy? Maybe not though lol

If there's no good options, no worries, I certainly have no problem keeping it in a work sandbox (connected to the same guest network I keep the work computer on and stuff like that)

But I just wanted to see if there's any more value I could squeeze out of it

Thanks in advance!

EDIT I wouldn't be casting shit FROM the iPad or anything, just to be clear

I still use my first ever made email address, at this point it's pushing 28 years old. However I have a major problem. I can rarely log into it anymore. There are so many attempts to login to the account daily from whoever out there that wants to gain access that the login is normally locked out for a period of time. At this point I've moved everything of financial value off of it as someone did get access once, but there are still plenty of random little things I'd like to hang on to it for.

I know I can just make a new one and ditch that one as a quick solution, but I figured i'd ask a wider community if they had any insights I might not have. It's a Microsoft account, and my windows is tied to it, but I'm pretty sure I can just migrate that to something new.

Edit: I may have given too much weight the the Arkenfox dev's assessment. Upon more research and consideration, I think Librewolf could still be a better option compared to straight Firefox, though hopefully the Librewolf team receive more help/contributors in the future to ensure its success long term.

I've been a user of Librewolf for a about a year now, and it's always served me pretty well as a nice easy way to get a hardened Arkenfox Firefox.

However, recently I was curious why Librewolf wasn't recommended on PrivacyGuides, and took a look through their reasoning on their forum. That thread spans multiple years, and for the most part I thought their reasons for not including it were a bit unfair, especially after Librewolf started offering automatic updates.

But towards the end of that thread in October, a Privacy guide team member posted a link to the Arkenfox github issue tracker, where a Librewolf team member reveals how the project appeared to have lost steam after a critical member left, and they are struggling to keep it up to date with the latest Arkenfox updates, despite putting out new releases.

I'm not sure if those problems have been resolved since that time. One of the maintainers did mention they're still short staffed in this topic on taking over maintaining Mull.

After considering the arguments for and against in the PrivacyGuides thread, I think their conclusion for not recommending does have some merit. Using Librewolf adds an additional layer of trust, not only to not be malicious (which I don't suspect they are) but to also be able to adequately fulfill what they set out to do reliably.

Another big part of them not recommending it was the existence of the Mullvad Browser, which I didn't realize was in fact a very well hardened version of Firefox (essentially the Tor browser without the Tor part), and is far more effective for private browsing compared to Librewolf or an Arkenfox'd firefox.

Ultimately you'll have to come to your own conclusion, ~~but personally I'll be switching back to Firefox as my convenient daily browser full of addons, alongside the mullvad browser for (more) private browsing.~~

So, since the recent news of Proton, im kinda thinking to get over off it... my problem however is with simple login. Simple Login belongs to Proton and this service is such a incredibly peace of art for me. This would me allow to create alias for every software i use, and use too for my health care - specific alias create with simplelogin - and bank - same thing.

I create this method to separate things from my inbox and this help me to be prepare if some leak from dark web happens.

The main problem is that Simple Login belongs to Proton. I can switch email provider, and that is easy, but change all my alias now is incredibly a nightmare. Anyone have some suggestions on what to do now?

I remember see people/communitys self host Simple Login ( for example, like private.coffee , tchncs.de or nomagic.uk do but for other services they plan) and im totally fine to donate who do that. I just dont know what im doing now... and SimpleLogin is the one i find, for example, to create a alias for services like discord (for example, i remember discord dont accept anon addy domains).

Thank you in advance

Copied from the reddit post:

Hi all, last night, a post from last year from my personal X account suddenly became a topic of discussion here on Reddit. I want to share a few thoughts on this to provide clarity to the community on what is Proton's policy on politics going forward.

First, while the X post was not intended to be a political statement, I can understand how it can be interpreted as such, and it therefore should not have been made. While we will not prohibit all employees from expressing personal political opinions publicly, it is something I will personally avoid in the future. I lean left on some issues, and right on other issues, but it doesn't serve our mission to publicly debate this. It should be obvious, but I will say that it is a false equivalence to say that agreeing with Republicans on one specific issue (antitrust enforcement to protect small companies) is equal to endorsing the entire Republican party platform.

Second, officially Proton must always be politically neutral, and while we may share facts and analysis, our policy going forward will be to share no opinions of a political nature. The line between facts, analysis, and opinions can be blurry at times, but we will seek to better clarify this over time through your feedback and input.

The exception to these rules is on the topics of privacy, security, and freedom. These are necessarily political topics, where influencing public policy to defend these values, often requires engaging politically.

The operations of Proton have always reflected our neutrality. For example, recently we refused pressure to deplatform both Palestinian student groups and Zionist student groups, not because we necessarily agreed with their views, but because we believe more strongly in their right to have their own views.

It is also a legal guarantee under Swiss law, which explicitly prohibits us from assisting foreign governments or agencies, and allows us no discretion to show favoritism as Swiss law and Swiss courts have the final say.

The promise we make is that no matter your politics, you will always be welcome at Proton (subject of course to adherence to our terms and conditions). When it comes to defending your right to privacy, Proton will show no favoritism or bias, and will unconditionally defend it irrespective of the opinions you may hold.

This is because both Proton as a company, and Proton as a community, is highly diverse, with people that hold a wide range of opinions and perspectives. It's important that we not lose sight of nuance. Agreeing/disagreeing with somebody on one point, rarely means you agree/disagree with them on every other point.

I would like to believe that as a community there is more that unites us than divides us, and that privacy and freedom are universal values that we can all agree upon. This continues to be the mission of the non-profit Proton Foundation, and we will strive to carry it out as neutrally as possible.

Going forward, I will be posting via u/andy1011000. Thank you for your feedback and inputs so far, and we look forward to continuing the conversation.

I need to send a sensitive email anonymously to a VP at work. I was given information I should not have but it's important to get it to this person. I don't have much trust in local management to address the situation. I also need to protect myself because I won't be ready to leave this job for a few more months.

Any recommendations? It can be a simple one and done or one that's good for a limited time/number of emails.

TIA!

EDIT: I appreciate the recommendations! I will start checking them shortly. I'm hoping we can fix the situation locally but knowing that you recommended these helps me feel better about going this route if it becomes necessary.

All of us have made privacy mistakes at some point in our privacy journeys. In an effort to help those earlier on in that journey, please share some of the mistakes you've made, and how you could have prevented it.

I use an RSS reader to curate my Lemmy feed, which means I see every post, including deleted ones. Every so often, posts will crop up with pessimistic content such as "Why try anymore?" etc. Most of the time these are a result of privacy burnout, where the individual has a threat model that is too strict for their own tolerance.

We all wish we have perfect privacy. We all wish the world could be more pro-privacy than anti-privacy. One day, that may be the case. For now, we have to accept that nobody can be completely private. Privacy is a spectrum, and doing what you can to minimize data collection goes a long way. You can't become private overnight, so taking small steps like these means you can grow a strong foundation for future privacy. Privacy takes time, so take it as slow as you need to.

Even if a company already has your data or another means to track you, by minimizing you are making it harder for them to extract that data, and it increases the odds that your data becomes stale. By caring about privacy to begin with, you're showing companies and other people that the data collection is not ok.

I've been a privacy activist for years now, and I will also face periods of privacy burnout. I handle it by stopping, taking a step back, and reevaluating my threat model. It's good to take breaks like those, because it means you don't push yourself past your limits and become burnt out.

It's really easy to get caught up in the "breaking news" of privacy, too. This is more of a personal stance, but getting caught up in politics and news often leads to stress and makes it harder to make real progress. (This is one of the reasons I use an RSS reader, I can curate my information without stressful headlines.) You don't need to use the most private software or jump ship the moment anything goes wrong. If you feel you need to switch, do it when you have time and when it won't cause problems elsewhere.

Take a look at how far you've come, and realize that even if you're not where you want to be yet, you've taken steps to get there. Every person who starts to care about privacy, even you, is one more person to help make the world a more privacy respecting place. It may not seem like you make that much of a difference, but it's not just you. You and everybody else who cares about privacy makes a huge difference.

Don't give up now. Privacy is an uphill battle by design, but the payoff is worth it.

Good luck!

still deciding which i’ll go for but it’s a good list

How can I go back to using Google Drive, Gmail, downloading the WhatsApp application, trusting proprietary software in general?

How can I go back to convenience knowing what I know now? Constantly aware that I'm trading my privacy and my data for convenience? Why must this road be so arduous?

Genuinely struggling with this, how do you all manage? Do you just accept it and use this stuff trying to minimize how much information on yourself you give away? Or have you resigned to self-hosted email and wood cabins (unable to fully interface with payment systems, government bureaucracy, modern technology)?

In an unexpected mask off "secure" email and VPN provider Proton took the stance of siding with the fascist MAGA Reps. Proton's services are no option for me and many others any longer. Let's collect and discuss alternatives (E2E encrypted email and VPN) here 🔐👇

Always try to provide:

-Server location (jurisdiction)

-Governance

-Integrity/trustworthiness/transparency

-User experience/ease of use (grade 1 to 10, lets take Proton as a benchmark with an 8)

-Pricing and links

If you know alternative setups, feel free to share, too.

#ProtonExodus

Background: https://lemmy.ca/comment/13913116

Edit:typo

App: https://chat.positive-intentions.com/

A p2p encrypted file transfer and messaging app. Here are some features below:

• Open Source
• Cross platform
  • PWA
  • iOS, Android, Desktop (self compile)
  • App store, Play store (coming soon)
  • Desktop
    • Windows, Macos, Linux (self compile)
    • run index.html on any modern browser
  • Decentralized
• Secure
  • No cookies
  • P2P encrypted
  • No registration
  • No installing
• Messaging
  • Group Messaging (coming soon)
  • Text Messaging
  • Multimedia Messaging
  • Screensharing (on desktop browsers)
  • Offline Messaging (in research phase)
  • File Transfer
  • Video Calls
• Data Ownership
  • Self Hosting
  • GitHub pages Hosting
  • Local-Only storage

Check it out!

• App: https://chat.positive-intentions.com/
• More info: https://positive-intentions.com/blog/introducing-decentralized-chat
• GitHub: https://github.com/positive-intentions/chat

Unnecessary and deeply concerning bow to the new "king"

Update: position got backed up by an official Proton post on Mastodon, it's an official Proton statement now. https://mastodon.social/@protonprivacy/113833073219145503

Update 2, plot-twist: they removed this response from Mastodon - seems they realize it exploded into their face!

There used to be some application named vigilante that had alert when microphone or camera was activated. Then it's dev stopped updating it and that was that.

I know android should show some small icon when camera or mic is active, but that doesnt help me if i'm not actively looking at the screen at the time.

Do you know of anything that could still do what vigilante did? I'd prefer to know if something was trying to be sneaky. Or is it pointless even trying to do that due to something?

I recently learned that my company prefers closed-source tools for privacy and security.

I don't know whether the person who said that was just confused, but I am trying to come up with reasons to opt to closed-source for privacy.

I didn't liked it because of their proud claims "we are better than Tor" talking about their blockchain-based "incentives", and their venture capital small start-up model. VC always means you're product is doomed to be sold, abandoned or screwed. Apparently they also proudly claimed "we are better than Signal". Good luck.

Now that Mull is no longer being supported, what are some recommendations to tweak fennec so that it matches Mull in terms of privacy and security?

The stock Graphene SMS app sucks, it lacks basic features and customization that standard SMS apps have.

I see no real need to keep it for security and privacy reasons unless someone can share legitimate information about the application for a need to keep it that is note worthy I am all ears to be educated.

I'd like to explore other privacy focused SMS alternative apps. Not services. Just the app. Thanks! I hope this helps others too. I can't be the only one! I chose top 3 because I would rather not try 50 apps. Just the cream of the crop.

Edit: I tried several. Fossify seems to be the best overall, I encourage others interested to try it on F-Droid. Thanks everyone!

As the title says I'm looking for a good alternative for Heliboard. I've tried a few of them and:

• Heliboard is my favorite but the suggestions are a bit meh, sometimes it doesn't suggest correctly or does not auto correct me. Sometimes it does but sometimes it doesn't
• Futo is goat in suggestions compared to Heliboard but it doesn't have an much personalization as Heliboard (even if Heliboard isnt goat on that aspect). I can't change symbols layout based on my taste (or muscle memory tbh), themes are a nothing crazy IMO, I wish I was able to make my own but its currently set to "coming eventually"
• FlorisBoard was my first ever open source keyboard but at that time, it didn't have suggestions but placeholders so I uninstalled it because I need them

I'm looking for a few things (ordered by importance):

1. Multilanguage support for correction. Is it even possible? Before switching from Samsung Keyboard to Pixel + Foss keyboard, I think there was something similar but I could be wrong (Top priority but at the same time is optional if not possible/hard to have)
2. Great correction for multiple languages (IMHO Futo is superior to everything I've tried)
3. Customization: Symbols layout, I want to set my own symbols and "subsymbols" (? The hold to show more)
4. Customization: Themes. I want to be able to change the colors of the keys/background/etc basically how Samsung Keyboard is customizable with the Keyboard plugin in Good Lock (or some nice themes with limited personalization but I would love to set my own colors

Thanks!

Let’s say I live in a police state. How can I publish a blog with complete anonymity? If I am found out, there is a high chance of imprisonment or death. What can I do so that the government cannot discover my identity?

I need a blog or website where I can publish articles, with a mailing list feature so I can send those articles out to subscribers.

What tools should I use? What steps should I take to protect myself?

I would greatly appreciate any information or resources that can help me with this.

In my local community, we have a WhatsApp group for mutual help and services / goods exchange, the rule is no money, so it's mostly populated by leftists more or less open to understand the problematics of internet privacy (for context). There are a bit more than 350 persons.

Today, someone sent a message telling everybody that he's leaving Meta products for good, thus this group. A few other persons complained about meta, then I suggested that we could all leave WhatsApp and go on Signal and I briefly explained the network effect by saying that if no one uses signal because nobody is on it, then no one will ever use it if nobody takes the first step.

And this argument worked because an admin just created a signal group! More than 50 persons already switched!

Obviously the WhatsApp group will not be abandoned right away, but it has been decided that both groups will be used for now, then we'll see at the end of the year which group we abandon.

I really see hope in that kind of events, because if I managed to make more than 50 people switch, a portion of them will do the same for their other groups and family / friends.

I plan on hosting little conferences with this group on the libre culture and the attention economics, so hopefully I'll convince all of them that it's the right thing to do!