For something like a personal flashlight collection, you might try LibreOffice Calc. Esp since you mentioned using your Linux machine. I use librecalc for random things kinda like what you described. It works great, and your files stay local.

I commented before from the summary. Read as much of the 404 story as I can now.

It’s bad. If I didn’t trust 404 Media, I might think this was a hit piece. But 404 does good work and I trust their journalists. I should really subscribe!

Social media is prone to instant lynch mobs, one of its worst aspects. I do not intend to rage quit. But I WILL re-evaluate in 3 months. Just marked my calendar. They need to very publicly reverse course, AND restore my trust. I believe in giving ppl and co’s a chance to learn from mistakes, or nobody ever gets wiser. But I need to see that happen, or me and my $ are out.

I also no longer trust Andy’s judgement. The Proton engineers are saying the right things. Again I trust 404’s homework, or I would be much more skeptical of all of this.

Ugh.

I’ve heard Andy interviewed. Couple times. He came across as personable and likable. But that takes a backseat if he’s gonna steer his company off a cliff and I have to stop trusting their products. Even smart people can make dumb choices. Esp when no one is empowered to push back. It can get pathological, when the CEO starts to believe they walk on water.

Frankly I think the Proton Foundation needs to sit Andy down and have a heart to heart.

BTW about GJs. I never got called up so far. If you are, please do it, and do it honorably. In the US, the point is so we the people are the final check and balance against abusing the justice system. Against cases brought without probable cause. Against “the process is the punishment” and dragging plainly innocent ppl through the muck.

Absolutely indict if warranted. But don’t indict the ham sandwich. GJ’s have recently been refusing to indict high profile bogus cases. That is a critical backstop.

Unfortunately there are ALPRs there too. Mostly big cities. Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, etc. Plus some watching major highways. A few in small or mid sized towns like Kamloops. Or Kelowna.

US has the dubious honor of the #1 spot by far, but Europe’s coming in strong too.

This shit is like a cancer. Once the tech advances to make it possible, it spreads all around and it’s going to be a huge exhausting fight to get rid of it.

Corrected post b/c I am an idiot.

It is very irritating that ppl just accepted that. It wasn’t forced on us by law. We just… bought the stuff. It was so shiny! Now we have a mass surveilance apparatus that would make the Stasi blush.

Lots of us saw the terrible potential. But way more of us didn’t.

RIP anybody in a NYC or Tokyo high rise with a few thousand neighbors in wifi range.

I have OpenSSH on a server (key not pw). But I UFW everything except my own IP into the void on that port.

My IP is semi static from my ISP. It changes, but like once every couple years. My thinking is that an attacker would need some exploit to bypass UFW packet filtering and the OpenSSH vuln. Which would hopefully be enough to keep me safe if/when that ssh vuln hits.

Plot twist: it was only twenty guys, but they really like BK.

Anyway this is a good example of why to never install apps from various chains and co’s. Even if the app doesn’t sell you out on purpose, which it prob also does, the standards are low for these shovelware apps.

Safest data is data you don’t provide.

I get where you are coming from.

Thing is, these are like… a history podcaster. My guy’s not plugged into the privacy community at all. Prob knows nada about any of this. And frankly it wouldn’t even be worth his time. He’d get what, a handful more donations? Wouldn’t even cover his time to figure out a private payment opt.

I want there to be more private methods too. But I gotta balance that against, I also want to support creators I like.

Unless Patreon is selling your data, them having your IP once or twice for logging in isn’t the biggest issue

That is something worth thinking about.

I would probably be OK with that, if I can also avoid using my real name. And maybe I can? I haven’t tried that combo (masked card + real IP + fake name).

The men in black will still know what you do with your money.

Yah I’m sure they could if they want. But I still think it gives me protection from the commercial tier data brokers. The company is putting its own rep on the line as a privacy broker. When it comes to their private emails, I have never seen the slightest sign that they’ve sold me out.

I figure nothing’s ever gonna be perfect. My threat model isn’t the NSA tho. It’s commercial data brokers hoovering up everybody’s purchase and donation history. Plus the constant everyday site hacks that compromise ppl’s activities.

probably gonna be downvoted.

Not by me. It’s a reasonable answer. Couple things come to mind tho.

One, to this very day I can “launder” a $20 bill through a local family run mercantile.

And two, my online donation would not be untraceable when using a virtual card. That card protects my identity from the vendor, but NOT from the company that issued me the card. They know who i am IRL, real name, real addr, etc. If I do something bad with it, the authorities can still come knocking. I only want to be protected from Patreon, not complete inpenetrable Snowden tier privacy. I feel the same about online shopping. I want protection from the e-store. Not from the civil authorities.

No kids here but my understanding is that it’s basically impossible to avoid these systems if you have school age children. Plus other things like google accounts for them etc.

The names, addresses, demographic information and disability status of all 7 million students enrolled in California public schools over the past three school years were exposed in the breach, the CDE said.

It’s one thing if you can opt out. But the entire system funnels you right in. Which makes it feel so much more unfair. Even when you see the oncoming train, you’ve been tied to the tracks.

They’ve been using that 3rd site info to target ads for many years. But this change is to alter what FB’s algorithm shows ppl. Before that, FB’s feed algorithm was driven only by data you generated on their site, not data they buy about you.

So, it isn’t new that they buy data about you. But this is a new thing they will be doing with that data.

Like most things, it’ll default to opt-in.

IDK if it was Persona, but when I tried to sign up last year, they demanded I send a copy o fmy photo ID to a 3rd party identity broker. I refused, and did not sign up. Given the recent huge breaches of photo ID databases, I feel kinda vindicated about that.

What it got right,

• My OS. It’s in the user agent header, which I hate.
• I read the page methodically at a human reading pace.
• I am using a VPN.

What it got wrong,

• Location.
• Screen res.
• Num of CPU cores.

It’s good for ppl to think about fingeprinting. So demo pages like this are good. But I’m sure the identity resolution industry is MUCH better at it. They have capabilities like TLS fingerprinting, outside the browser. For most ppl, not the privacy crowd so mcuh but normal ppl, they fingerprint resource fetches to diff geographic servers. They can run 100’s of scripts on a single page from every identity broker. They employ the best data scientists, to figure out every possible way.

I’m pretty careful. More than 99.999% will ever do. Can commercial fingerprinters still ID me? IDK. But like Skywalker, I have a bad feeling about it.