Escape Big Tech

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/10016343

89,004 local governments existed in the United States in 2012. By extension, there are a shit-ton of public sector websites including schools and libraries. So why can’t there be a public-funded search engine just for indexing all the public service websites?

Citizens who need to access a public service should not have to visit some shitty Google-like search engine by a surveillance advertiser to find a public resource. Google and Microsoft should not be gateways to public access. They can offer their shitty service for private sector searches but governments should have sovereignty from that. If I have to ask tech giants what is the URL for my secretary of state, it’s a fucked up dependency.

It also shouldn’t just be a search engine. There should also be a hierarchical structured directory. A public service directory plus search engine would be inherently ad-free and tracker free, federally funded.

Progress needed.

cross-posted from: https://fedia.io/m/Brussels/t/556987

Belgium has adopted an “official” app so that anyone can signal for help, so long as they belong to this exclusive group:

• Must have a smartphone (presumably recent).

• Must be a trusting patron of #Google or #Apple. Consequently,

  • must needlessly buy a GSM subscription and trust surveillance advertisers with the mobile phone number (which in Belgium must be registered to an ID) — even though the app can make emergency contact without phone service… thus imposing a needless cost on users and also causing a #GDPR minimisation breach.

• Must install and execute proprietary closed-source software. Consequently,

  • must trust closed-source software (by #Nextel or #Telenet?)
  • must be ethically aligned/okay with running #nonfreesoftware (which does not respect your freedom)

• Must be willing to leave Tor to access the access-restricted 112.be website.

cross-posted from: https://links.hackliberty.org/post/1028406

The state of medical privacy has become quite appalling lately. I started using a young doctor in a new office and they are gung ho on modern tech. That’s fine to some extent but they want to send me invoices and all correspondence via e-mail. No PGP of course. I did an MX lookup on their vanity email address & it resolves to an MS Outlook server.

I asked them for my test results. They offered to email them.

My response: I do not want sensitive medical info coming by e-mail via Microsoft’s servers. I did not give you a copy of my email address for that reason. It needs to be snail-mailed to me.

Perhaps of greater concern is that the receptionist acted like I am making a unusual request, and that they do not mail things. Apparently I am the only patient who has a problem with sensitive medical info going to Microsoft. So the receptionist is investigating whether she can get approval to mail me my results by post.

I wonder if someone in that clinic will have to run out and buy stamps because I have a problem with Microsoft.

Microsoft finances #AnyVision to produce facial recognition technology that the Israeli military uses against the Palestinian people.

So if you oppose Israel’s brutality then #Microsoft should be on your boycott list.

If you are undecided, these stories might help with your decision:

• snipers target a red-cross medic for execution (2018) → https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/03/middleeast/razan-al-najjar-gaza-nurse-killed/index.html
• Hind Rajab (6 year old; 2024) → https://www.guardian2zotagl6tmjucg3lrhxdk4dw3lhbqnkvvkywawy3oqfoprid.onion/world/2024/feb/10/im-so-scared-please-come-hind-rajab-six-found-dead-in-gaza-12-days-after-cry-for-help

For Hind Rajab and her mother, my boycott is on until I die.

cross-posted from: https://links.hackliberty.org/post/582272

I have lots of old friends who I only maintained sparse contact with. When I let my personal email address die (the address they would all have records of), I did not bother to update them with a new address.

They are all on the platform of some surveillance capitalist (e.g. Google or Microsoft). Google & Microsoft both refuse connections from self-hosted residential servers. And even if they didn’t, I am not willing to feed those surveillance advertisers who obviously don’t limit their surveillance to their users but also inherently everyone who makes contract with their users. I cannot support that or partake in pawning myself to subsidize someone else’s service.

I just wonder if anyone else has taken this step.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/6251633

LemmyWorld is a terrible place for communities to exist. Rationale:

• Lemmy World is centralized by disproportionately high user count
• Lemmy World is centralized by #Cloudflare
• Lemmy World is exclusive because Cloudflare is exclusive

It’s antithetical to the #decentralized #fediverse for one node to be positioned so centrally & revolting that it all happens on the network of a privacy-offender (CF). If #Lemmy World were to go down, a huge number of communities would go with it.

So what’s the solution? My individual action idea is to avoid posting an original thread to #LemmyWorld. I find a non-Cloudflare decentralized instance to post new threads. I create one if needed. Then I cross-post to the relevant Lemmy World community. This gets some exposure to my content while also tipping off readers of the LW community of alternative venues.

Better ideas? Would this work as a collective movement?

In the realm of Cyberworld, VPNs are akin to knights guarding your privacy. However, they cannot singlehandedly protect you from all the monsters lurking in the Interweb Forest. It's essential to arm yourself with knowledge and the right tools, as your journey through the Cyberworld is filled with threats like Tracker Cookies and DNS Dragons. It's not just about having the right VPN, but also about adopting secure practices to enhance your protection.