this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025

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Privacy

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"You need to try Linux" (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 day ago by digital_alchemist@discuss.tchncs.de to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

225 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Originally this was a reply to this article about a Windows feature called Recall, but there's a good argument the author's concerns resonate far beyond Windows and Meta to proprietary generally.

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[–] TootTootComingThru@lemmy.world 11 points 5 hours ago

If this is the same person I think it is, I would take their comments with a huge pile of salt. Not saying they're wrong, but...

A couple years ago this Linux-Is-Best dipshit somehow got onboarded as a mod of the /r/massachusetts subreddit, started banning a ton of users for pretty unreasonable reasons, brought a few other seemingly random moderators on board and almost nuked it out of existence by being an unhinged little weirdo. They claimed to have worked at Facebook/Meta and I forget which, but they were found out either to have made it up or they were just a bottom tier content moderation employee.

You can go find some posts about it, but this person's not well at all even if you happen to agree with them. If this is the same person. They're not trust worthy. Privacy's important, big companies are creepy, do what you can to protect yourself and use linux if that's what gets you there, but again I would take anything this dipshit says with a grain of salt.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/11wsnla/mod_of_3_months_in_rmassachusetts_purges_members/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Massachusetts_US/comments/11wnjsk/removed_by_reddit/

https://www.reddit.com/r/massachusetts/comments/11xw44r/linux_is_gone/

[–] dogs0n@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 hours ago

I believe in the underlying message (use linux), but doesn't practically every big company change their privacy policy or tos every 10 minutes.

[–] Tapionpoika@lemmy.ml 7 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Funny how much longer my phone's battery lasts now after I flashed /e/ to it. No constant net traffic anymore.

[–] diskmaster23@lemmy.one 5 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

What is /e/?

[–] jaredt@lemmy.ca 4 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

A deGoogled smartphone operating system

[–] untakenusername@sh.itjust.works 8 points 6 hours ago

I thought it was a 4chan board for a moment lol

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 23 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

Do, or do not, there is no try.

[–] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 2 points 6 hours ago

Distrosea would just like to interject for a moment.

[–] Lila_Uraraka@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 7 hours ago

Except there is... live environments

[–] thermal_shock@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I don't try, I do. Wanna try me?

[–] boringbisexual@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I mean....if you're offering

[–] JonEFive@midwest.social 2 points 6 hours ago

username checks out

[–] IvanOverdrive@lemm.ee 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Come the Windowscalypse, I'll probably be moving to Linux Mint. The only problem is ComfyUI. Managing Python packages makes me want to end myself. I might just keep dual booting Windows for SD alone.

[–] Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Use docker

[–] IvanOverdrive@lemm.ee 1 points 5 hours ago

Gonna do just that. Thanks!

[–] gameplayer55055@lemmy.world 4 points 12 hours ago

Let's see what people will do at October 14

[–] index@sh.itjust.works 48 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Protests crack down on the internet has been going on for quite some time, don't just blame it on trump but on the whole government and its infrastructure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 24 points 17 hours ago (6 children)

And Facebook as an integrated part of the international surveillance state has been firmly established since Snowden leaked the PRISM program.

Like, there are a lot of reasons to switch to linux and plenty of them are compelling. But its an absolute fantasy to believe you're somehow immune to surveillance because you're using the same software as Amazon's EC2. Does anyone really believe the NSA hasn't cracked Linux Mint yet?

Or, for that matter, that using a linux desktop is going to insulate you from being spied on via a public facing 3rd party social media forum?

[–] index@sh.itjust.works 6 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Like, there are a lot of reasons to switch to linux and plenty of them are compelling. But its an absolute fantasy to believe you’re somehow immune to surveillance because you’re using the same software as Amazon’s EC2. Does anyone really believe the NSA hasn’t cracked Linux Mint yet?

It's much harder for the government and bad actors to hide backdoors in open source software than making a deal with a private company

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago

For the proprietary software, a lot of it is front-doors. Literally just pay-to-prey. Government agencies pay the big data companies to access their warehouses of scrapped data that come directly off their clients' machines through explicit information harvesting protocols.

That said, it is technically harder to have a covert backdoor in an open source system. But it isn't impossible, or even particularly impractical, so long as the vulnerability remains reasonably obscure. It would be naive to assume your standard array of linux oses are unassailable.

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