Zelensky presses Trump for "clear position" on Ukraine
Zelensky Presses Trump for 'Clear Position' on Ukraine
Ukraine and its allies have been discussing security guarantees to deter Russia.Robert Birsel (Newsweek)
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Channel 4 to mark Trump’s U.K. visit with “longest uninterrupted reel of untruths ever broadcast on television”
'Trump v the Truth' will run for several hours on Sept. 17 and is set to be punctuated by "brief text-based fact-checks."
Channel 4 is welcoming Donald Trump to the U.K. with a special program: an unbroken catalogue of over 100 falsehoods, distortions and inaccuracies he’s come up with since taking office in January.
The U.S. President will come to London for a second state visit this month, and the British channel has vowed to put a spotlight on his “prolific oeuvre of untruths.”
On Sep. 17 from 10 a.m. local time, Channel 4 will broadcast Trump v the Truth, the longest uninterrupted reel of untruths running over several hours. The statements will be punctuated by “brief text-based fact-checks, offering viewers the truth behind the tweets, speeches and soundbites.”
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Channel 4 is as wide an audience as you can get in the Uk as it’s one of the free channels that everybody has access to.
As for the even wider audience of the world I would hope they do put it in their YouTube.
Police hurt during Tommy Robinson's Unite the Kingdom rally in London
Some 24 arrests are made after "unacceptable violence" at demonstrations in central London, police say.Thomas Mackintosh (BBC News)
No they’re not. We have people hanging flags everywhere with racist undertones and I’ve now seen America flags in my town. Like America is a bastion of what we want to become ffs.
I don’t want to say the average person is stupid but they’re easy to lie to and get on side apparently.
No, they said it would be the longest... I'm not sure he has the stamina to beat his record
Maybe they made a Trump supercut?
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Fox News is great at the lie-by-omission thing. In fact, they rarely tell a bald-faced lie.
Remember the Snowden revelations? When that was going down, I was trapped in a house for a week where the people had Fox on 24/7. I mean that literally. They'd smoke weed and fall asleep in their recliners. Headline news, worldwide, and I did not hear a single word from Fox. Not one mention. Which I still haven't figured out as they could have nailed Obama to the wall.
Yes! But they'd have to pause the video to pop up the multi-level rebuttals:
Trump: Mexican people are evil terrible lazy criminals
Pop immigrants are usually the most law-abiding group in America
Pop immigrants are usually the hardest workers, adaptable and versatile. They usually work jobs that go unfilled without them
Pop Latin Americans have a rich culture and history, and happily celebrate with vibrant colour and intricate dance and song
Pop people of Mexico enjoy less crime on average than Americans
Etc
Like, there's only so much time!
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Spain calls for Israel, Russia to be banned from international sports competitions
MADRID, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Monday said Israel and Russia should be banned from international sports competitions until "barbaric acts" end, referring to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
Sanchez said he condemned the violent protests by pro-Palestinian on Sunday in Madrid which disrupted the La Vuelta cycling race and ultimately led to the cancellation of the final leg and the podium ceremony.
entire article☝️
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Teenagers to pay $300,000 for urinating in hotpot in China
Two teenagers who peed into a pot of broth at a hotpot restaurant have been ordered to pay 2.2m yuan ($309,000; £227,000) to two catering companies in China.
The incident, which happened in February at a Shanghai branch of China's biggest hotpot chain Haidilao, sparked widespread criticism after the 17-year-olds posted a video of their drunken act online.
Teenagers to pay $300,000 for urinating in hotpot in China
A court orders their parents to compensate Haidilao for reputational and operational losses.Kelly Ng (BBC News)
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Wtf did I just read...
Virgin boy eggs are widely accepted as a tradition in the city.[3] Boy egg vendors go to elementary schools in the city where they collect urine from young boys, preferably under the age of ten. Children who have been raised in the city are used to the practice, and relieve themselves in basins that the vendors place in the hallways. The teachers often remind the boys not to urinate in the basins if any of them have a fever or feel ill.[3][5] Some vendors wait with containers in parks or public restrooms for a parent who is willing to let their child offer urine.
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Cause of Death: Consumption of Basa Fish
Is it possible that the after-school fish stick snacks you have been feeding your child could possibly be contaminated with deadly metals such as mercury?Vietnam Talking Points
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They cancelled school for the rest of the day and I was one of the few students in my age group who hadn't eaten there so I just went home and had such a good time playing the game and laughing my ass off about the whole situation.
Coca-Cola rebrands products in Germany amid US image crisis – DW – 09/08/2025
Coca-Cola rebrands products in Germany amid US image crisis
As the global reputation of US brands slips, some US firms are turning to unusual marketing strategies. Coca-Cola, for instance, is now promoting itself as a "German product."Dirk Kaufmann (Deutsche Welle)
Linux smartphones are coming, although very slowly
There is also Jolla with Sailfish OS, but the hardware is not really attractive
Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, says UN commission of inquiry
UN commission of inquiry has concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and accused senior Israeli officials including Benjamin Netanyahu of inciting it.
The United Nations independent international commission of inquiry (COI), which does not speak on behalf of the UN and has been criticised strongly by Israel, cited the scale of the killings, aid blockages, forced displacement and the destruction of a fertility clinic in the territory to support its genocide finding.
Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, says UN commission of inquiry
Report cites scale of killings and aid blockages, and calls on member countries to punish those responsibleJon Henley (The Guardian)
I don't think the previous comment was directed at the commission.
The world has been watching the genocide for nearly 2 years now and no meaningful action has been taken to stop it by any country.
I think the point that was being made is that the UN appears to be completely powerless as long as the US continues to back Israel (and still has veto power in the security council).
but it seemed pretty clear to me that the problem is all of the countries who aren’t doing anything.
I agree
For sure, but there are also other UN commissions which completely failed at their job, and this is one of them.
This commission itself should be prosecuted for being complicit in genocide.
For sure, but there are also other UN commissions which completely failed at their job, and this is one of them
What do you mean? They where asked to prove there is a genocide , they concluded there is a genocide so where is the failure?
Israel’s foreign ministry said it categorically rejected the report and called for the COI to be abolished. Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Daniel Meron, called the report a scandalous and fake “libellous rant” that had been authored by “Hamas proxies”. Israel has declined to cooperate with the COI, accusing it of having a political agenda.
Anwar: Malaysia to take firm Gaza stand in Trump meeting, urges decisive action against Israel
He said that while many nations have strongly voiced their positions, mere statements and calls are not sufficient, and must instead be followed up with decisive actions.
Anwar: Malaysia to take firm Gaza stand in Trump meeting, urges decisive action against Israel
DOHA, Sept 16 — Malaysia will use the opportunity of its meeting with United States (US) President Donald Trump at the Asean Summit this October to reiterate the country’s...Malay Mail
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Canadians don’t want to live in America and it shows: The number of Canadians searching for U.S. homes is down 20% year over year
Canadians don’t want to live in America and it shows: The number of Canadians searching for U.S. homes is down 20% year over year
The steepest decline came in April after Trump’s tariff announcements.Sydney Lake (Fortune)
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Economy is going to contract especially come spring. These snowbirds most of the time were more kind than locals. People have no idea how much money they pump into local economies.
Hopefully this is advantageous to midterms but who knows.
Canada ~~will get~~ is getting warmer too you know. From nice and cool to nice and warm. Same as here in Norhern Europe*, and I believe the influx of rich "Southerners" will increase, if it hasn't already.
* I can't believe how far South Canada goes. The most populated area is on a latitude with Central Europe. I live on the same latitude as, say, Anchorage. I can't even find a reasonably-sized town in Canada. But afaiu climate is very different because of the Gulf stream?
Increasing temperatures = less ice on lakes = shorter ice fishing season.
If climate change is impacting Wisconsin, it's already impacting Canada.
Oh sure, I phrased it a little badly.
In other places it shows more during the summer, in the North it shows more during the winter. can't remember the last time we had a proper one here, without several melting and re-freezing phases.
Yup. If and when the gulf Stream shuts down, everything above ~~again~~ Spain is going to be a popsicle.
Day after to tomorrow is my favourite apocalypse movie.
E: autocorrect
If and when the gulf Stream shuts down, everything above again is going to be a popsicle.
You mean in Europe?
Here's hoping for Drake and Bieber being among those 20%.
Do you remember a white Canadian reggae artist called Snow, best known for "Informer", in the early 90s? He pretty much disappeared from the music scene after he stayed in Canada.
1. US house taxes are very high in any place worth living in.
2. This is typical Boomer demographics, they are dying.
3. Older Boomers cannot afford to get sick in the US.
4. This peaked after 2008 when US housing was cheap.
Ahh hello, European. As a Canadian I would like to point out that Canadians have rejected the demonym “American” (when it is applied to us) and have done so far as long as I can remember. We consider it offensive.
If you’re looking to start a fight with a Canadian, calling him an American is an easy way to do that.
I know there's a lot of focus on the US today, even more than usual but I'm getting very concerned about every other countries domestic swing towards conservative populism that's generally intertwined with racism mixed in the current anti-immigration movements.
This is good. I absolutely think it's a problem for every country to have foreign ownership of land/property. It ranges from champagne socialist to hyper-capitalist doing foreign land/property purchases. Screw vacation homes. Screw rental properties. Regardless of all that, don't let anti-Americanism distract you from growing conservative populism that's been growing across the world for I feel like the whole 25 years of this millennium
Can you be sued for defaming virtual K-pop stars? South Korea court says yes
cross-posted from: lemmy.zip/post/49220518
They may be fictional characters, but they are voiced by real people, the court says.
Can you be sued for defaming virtual K-pop stars? South Korea court says yes
They may be fictional characters, but they are voiced by real people, the court says.
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Trump boasts he ordered another lethal strike on a cartel boat in international waters
Trump boasts he ordered another lethal strike on a cartel boat in international waters
Another strike has been carried out on a boat that President Donald Trump claims is an imminent threat to the United States. On Truth Social, Trump announced, "This morning, on my Orders, U.S.Sarah K. Burris (Raw Story)
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Rumsfeld more or less bragged about it too, a lot of that crowd did. We haven't had a serial killer in the White House for a few years, so it's an adjustment back (and of course Trump is such an overtly vicious person that it'll have a new flavor now), but this stuff is not new for Republicans.
(Actually Biden and Bush Sr. are the only two presidents since Carter that I can remember that weren't fans of blowing up random people directly with US forces for no reason. In Afghanistan they did an airstrike on a wedding.)
Okay, and what's your solution supposed to be? To have everyone go, well the United States is a horrible country that is filled to the brim with bigots, but because there is a tiny, tiny margin of people who aren't, we should be kind to the whole country, because we don't want to hurt their feelings? Or do you expect me to add a disclaimer to every one of my comments saying, of course, this does not apply to those in this case or that case or this other case? Because if so, that's also ridiculous. You might have ALSO noticed I said the country is a terrorist state and not every single person is culpable. But there's this thing called the majority....
So no. I will not be adding a disclaimer to every comment saying something both of us are aware of. But way to go on disproving the stereotype of Americans and expecting special treatment.
People from Europe seem to expect to not be lumped in with the latest dumbass bullshit from Hungry, or the UK, or even this latest chat control fiasco. Is it really that troublesome that people from a nation made up of dozens of states, reservations, islands, etc want the same?
Edit for your edit: You said terrorist nation, not state.
Is it really that troublesome that people from a nation made up of dozens of states, reservations, islands, etc want the same?
Yup because you're one country.
What you initially described is one country being annoyed of getting said they're responsible for another country. You're all the same voting block. Moreover, a voting block that overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump. He won in majority of votes and then something like 40% of your eligible electorate decided not to vote at all.
So, once again, I am not adding a disclaimer and caveat to every single comment just to spare the feelings of Americans. You're either capable of going "Well clearly this doesn't apply to people who aren't bigots" or you need it literally spelled out for you. If you need it literally spelled out for you then you're the type of American who the rest of the world is utterly sick of in the first place.
You said terrorist nation, not state.
American.
Here's the definition of State:
a nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government.
Here's the definition of Nation:
a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory.
Glad I could help you with your civics lesson.
The number of native people without some european ancestry in some line of their heritage is drastically small. People have been mixing since a long ass time ago, in good and bad contexts. Far from all of it was under duress of any kind. It doesnt really matter if youre culturally 100% connected, that doesnt negate those lines of heritage. Its quite obnoxious to pretend that just because youre 1/XYZ native that you have no european heritage like most do. Same as it would be obnoxious for someone who has a majority of european heritage, but not entirely, to pretend that they are just european and ignore the rest by affording some sense of supremacy to their preferred lines.
As someone who is related to a little bit of everybody, I dont speak for any of those heritages wholesale. I speak for me, and I guess for other people who are tripartite mixed of the same three “races” of people. To do anything else would be disingenuous at best
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No Other Land director recounts ‘horrific’ raid on his home by Israeli forces
By MEE staff
Published date: 14 September 2025 16:18 BST
Adra said the raid followed an attack by Israeli settlers on his village in Masafer Yatta on Saturday, in which two of his brothers and one cousin were wounded. He accompanied them to hospital, while nine Israeli soldiers stormed his home in his absence.He said he had been unable to return home since, as soldiers had blockaded the village entrance.
Adra, who has long worked as a journalist and filmmaker documenting settler violence in Masafer Yatta, reported that he and his co-director, Hamdan Ballal, had faced intensified attacks and targeting since they won an Oscar for best documentary.
No Other Land director recounts ‘horrific’ raid on his home by Israeli forces
The Palestinian director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land has reported that Israeli soldiers raided his home in the occupied West Bank.MEE staff (Middle East Eye)
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No Other Land director recounts ‘horrific’ raid on his home by Israeli forces
cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/36189837
By MEE staff
Published date: 14 September 2025 16:18 BST
Adra said the raid followed an attack by Israeli settlers on his village in Masafer Yatta on Saturday, in which two of his brothers and one cousin were wounded. He accompanied them to hospital, while nine Israeli soldiers stormed his home in his absence.He said he had been unable to return home since, as soldiers had blockaded the village entrance.
Adra, who has long worked as a journalist and filmmaker documenting settler violence in Masafer Yatta, reported that he and his co-director, Hamdan Ballal, had faced intensified attacks and targeting since they won an Oscar for best documentary.
No Other Land director recounts ‘horrific’ raid on his home by Israeli forces
By MEE staff
Published date: 14 September 2025 16:18 BSTAdra said the raid followed an attack by Israeli settlers on his village in Masafer Yatta on Saturday, in which two of his brothers and one cousin were wounded. He accompanied them to hospital, while nine Israeli soldiers stormed his home in his absence.He said he had been unable to return home since, as soldiers had blockaded the village entrance.
Adra, who has long worked as a journalist and filmmaker documenting settler violence in Masafer Yatta, reported that he and his co-director, Hamdan Ballal, had faced intensified attacks and targeting since they won an Oscar for best documentary.
No Other Land director recounts ‘horrific’ raid on his home by Israeli forces
The Palestinian director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land has reported that Israeli soldiers raided his home in the occupied West Bank.MEE staff (Middle East Eye)
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New details about the development of the SLCM-N sea-based nuclear missile
The United States has decided to return nuclear-tipped cruise missiles to its arsenal of nuclear attack submarines. The new promising sea—based missile will be developed by six companies, of which five are responsible for the rocket itself, and the sixth for the engine. This is reported by Navy Recognition.
The objective of this project is to develop a missile that will be included in the arsenal of nuclear submarines of the Virginia type. According to the Pentagon's plans, the American fleet should receive the first missiles in 2034.
In order not to delay the development too much and not to spend fabulous sums on it, it was decided to create the SLCM-N based on existing missiles, i.e. the same Tomahawk. At least in terms of exterior design and dimensions. This is necessary in order for the new missile to fit the launchers of nuclear submarines.
At the same time, the commissioning of the new missile will be fraught with certain difficulties, since the Virginia-class submarines are not designed to accommodate nuclear weapons on them.
It is assumed that the SLCM-N will receive an adapted modification of the W80-4 nuclear warhead, which is still under development. This warhead is specially designed for long-range missiles.
Timor-Leste students protest government plan to buy new cars for parliamentarians
Timor-Leste police have fired tear gas at protesters who rallied against a plan to buy new official cars for MPs, which triggered anger in one of the poorest nations in South-East Asia.More than 1,000 people, mostly university students, rallied near the National Parliament in Dili to protest against the plan approved last year to procure cars for each of the 65 members of parliament.
The plan was the latest flashpoint in the resource-dependent country, where more than 40 per cent of its population lives below the poverty line, according to the World Bank.
ABC News
ABC News provides the latest news and headlines in Australia and around the world.ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
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Netanyahu and Rubio stick to established Israeli-US narrative on Gaza war
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio recently held a joint press conference in Jerusalem, reiterating their aligned positions on the ongoing Gaza conflict. Netanyahu accepted "full responsibility" for the Israeli strike on Qatar, while Rubio supported Israel’s stance, emphasizing the need for Hamas to be neutralized as an armed entity.
This event highlights the continued strong coordination between Israel and the U.S., even as regional and international criticism grows. Meanwhile, the Arab-Islamic summit in Doha is meeting to discuss the escalating crisis and potential collective responses.
Netanyahu and Rubio stick to established Israeli-US narrative on Gaza war
Netanyahu reiterates Israel takes ‘full responsibility’ for Qatar attack; Rubio says Hamas must ‘cease to exist’.Maziar Motamedi (Al Jazeera)
Huge piles of rusty WWII ammunition are poisoning the Baltic Sea
Approximately 1.6 million tons of old ammunition are lying on the bottom of the North Sea and Baltic Sea, posing a considerable danger: their casings are slowly rusting and emitting toxic substances such as TNT compounds.Most of the ammunition was deliberately sunk in the ocean after the war because the Allies were concerned that Germans would resume hostilities against them again at some point, and ordered that Germany destroy all ordnance. At the time the easiest way to do so seemed to be to simply dump everything into the sea.
Huge piles of rusty WWII ammunition are poisoning the Baltic Sea
While tensions between Russia and NATO are building up in the Baltic Sea, Europeans are still busy cleaning up the mess World War II left behind in the oceanKIRSTEN GRIESHABER Associated Press (ABC News)
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It’s hard to overstate just how systemic “we can fix it later” was in the mid 20th century. Progress had happened quickly since the turn of the century, many centuries old problems were solved overnight by new inventions (like penicillin) and it was assumed that that progress would continue.
For instance, the century date problem, later known as the Y2K problem, was first realized in the 1950s. Then brought to light again in the 1970s. But nobody did anything about it until the mid 90s.
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The first person known to publicly address this issue was Bob Bemer, who had noticed it in 1958 as a result of work on genealogical software.
Old science fiction books are exactly like this. They just assumed we'd have technological solutions to everything.
Also, they weren't living in a largely collapsed ecosystem. Today we view this story in horror, but back then there were 1/4th the people, wildlife and nature was bountiful. It was probably hard to imagine that we humans could substantially alter the world. Hell, people today look into the sky and say global warming is bunk. Yeah, looks huge from down here! Take a look from space, paint on a marble.
Linux security
Hi there,
Win10 is soon not supported. Tbh Linux have been on my radar since I started to break from the US big tech.
But how is security handled in Linux? Linux is pretty open-source, or am I not understanding it correctly.
So how can I as a new user make sure to have the most secure machine as possible?
I've used Linux Mint and other distros daily for more than 10 years. Never had a virus or malware issue and don't even run antivirus software.
During that same time I've had to help friends remove viruses and malware from their Windows machines dozens of times. The latest Windows disaster I've assisted with was a few months ago. A retired friend had her Windows 10 machine hijacked and $8K stolen from her savings account. Making sure the malware was removed required hours of work formatting the drive and reinstalling Windows.
IMO you are far safer with a plain vanilla Linux install that you are with Windows, no matter what steps you take to secure your Windows installation.
At least that's my understanding.
It's hard enough getting legit software in general to work on Linux. Even if a virus was written for Ubuntu, it is likely not going to run on Fedora, or Arch, or even downstream/upstream versions of Ubuntu.
Edit: Although thinking about it, Linux terminal commands are pretty universal, so if you manage to execute a script or terminal command as root or sudo then I guess it could apply to multiple distros.
But even without root access, malware can create a lot of damage.
You sure though?
What do you want? It should go without saying that I am absolutely sure of my own experience.
In probably 15 years total of running Linux I have not had a single problem with malware or viruses. Part of that time was also running Windows regularly and my Windows systems DID become infected with both malware and viruses occasionally, despite my best efforts. And you're not mentioning the fact that Linux runs on 63% of the server market and those systems are under constant attack.
Reports of Linux system infections are truly rare, and considering the nature of the user community would be widely and loudly reported if they were happening.
Do you have any experience in this matter? Have you had your own Linux installations infected, or are you a Windows user questioning what you're reading? (Perfectly reasonable if the 2nd one's the case.) Please fill us in on the details.
I'm still wondering why do you think Linux is more resistant to malware - besides the incompatibility (mentioned in other reply here). Your experience doesn't tell much about why and I wrote my theory.
To have the most secure machine possible, you might need a hardened kernel but you absolutely need to have SELinux (or equivalent) rules set up.
The easiest way to have a go at this would be to install OpenSuSE (any version will do, they all ship with SELinux ootb) and follow guides on how to setup SELinux permissions.
There's a lot of people with the idea that open source can't be secure because people see the source code.
But imagine this. You have 2 locks, one that is completely viewable of the innerworkings, and another that is covered, both have been unbreakable, but could you imagine the balls on the guy that made the clear lock? Imagine feeling so confident that your lock was clearly the best, that you just expose it to any hacker ever and they still can't get in.
Microsoft can barely get things working with their closed source code.
In reality, anything is exploitable and hackable eventually. With the open source community there are so many eyes on it that when someone notices that the program is running 2 seconds slower than it used to, they discover a vulnerability instead of just accepting it and saying "probably MS doing some BS" and dealing with it.
your analogy doesn't quite work here tbh.
It's not a transparent lock, a transparent lock would be easy to pick. It's more of a usual lock, but everyone can see all the blueprints and changes done to them. You can make changes to the blueprints yourself, and if the locksmiths approve of it, the next iteration of the lock will have them included.
Everyone who's in the set of users of OSS software can contribute, therefore the set of people in control of the software that want it to have no backdoors whatsoever is always larger than the set of people who want to let the backdoors in, unlike in closed source, where corporate can singlehandedly decide to include a backdoor on purpose, not to mention, lots of OSS projects have such a large quantities of different people working on them, corpos won't be able to gather so much humanpower under a single project ever.
if you mean the most secure desktop? then linux is not. not by a long shot.
use windows.
madaidans-insecurities.github.…
madaidans-insecurities.github.…
if you mean most most free, linux it is.
personally I use linux.
I think this article is a great analysis of what deep rooted flaws linux desktop distros have, but I think it is a bit disconnected from the average user (obligatory xkcd).
If the average linux user needs a programm they google what they need land on stack overflow telling them to use their package manager to install it.
If the average windows user needs a program/feature, they google it. They klick on the first link and install the first .exe they find. Has anyone you know used the microsoft store?
Or take gaming as another example. The default expirience for online multiplayer games requires kernel level anticheat on windows. This effectively circumvents windows carefully crafted security model for most tripple A online games.
So yes the average linux machine is probably not as secure as a MacOs or windows machine. But the way they are commonly used I highly doubt windows machines are more secure.
About sandboxing, not like the Java-VM helps much in Android security.
The inherent problem why sandboxing should not be on this list:
Just make sure everything's updated.
Microsoft do a good job of updating drivers and their applications, but Windows application updates vary so much.
For Linux - mostly - the distro maintainers handle all updates and just updating is usually enough.
After that it's down to you... if you disable all the built-in protection and visit dodgy websites then any OS is going to struggle.
You can improve the out-of-box security by removing software you don't use, improving default configurations (one size doesn't fit all) and considering if you want additional security software - this applies to any OS.
So, to return to your question, choose a Linux distro which has regular updates and only contains applications that you use.
I think you're agreeing with me then.
My first point is keeping everything updated - which would include the browser(s)
My later point was visiting dodgy sites with protections disabled.
So how can I as a new user make sure to have the most secure machine as possible?
Shut the computer down. That's it; computer as secure as possible.
Otherwise, if you actually want to use your computer, google for "threat model" first.
But generally: use an adblocker in your webbrowser, don't execute random commands/tools from the internet before you know for sure what you're doing, update stuff now and then and make backups.
You don't actually need "perfect" security in the future, any more than you did in the past. Windows was not perfect, right? So stop looking for perfection. Instead, look for "good enough for 99.9% of the world". And you can get that with many of the popular Linux distributions.
Basically, install a popular distro, and keep your software to whatever is in the package manager. Don't install random shit manually. Don't download random software from random websites. Don't fuck with security settings unless you read up on the topic very thoroughly. Then you'll be fine.
So how can I as a new user make sure to have the most secure machine as possible?
- Always use uBlock Origin in a Firefox-based browser (e.g., LibreWolf, Zen).
- Never click on links in communication of any kind that you didn't expect or are too good to be true.
- Never reinstall Windows.
⚜︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.
uBlock Origin - Free, open-source ad content blocker.
uBlock Origin is not just an “ad blocker“, it's a wide-spectrum content blocker with CPU and memory efficiency as a primary feature. Developed by Raymond Hill.uBlock Origin
Wait what? I don't use mint, but with every other distro you just check the box at install and that is it.
Are you saying its hard to configure after you have already installed? I could imagine it might be, but why not export a list of programs you use and back up the home directory. Reinstall and check the box, restore home, and import your package list?
Firstly, LUKS is under "physical disk for encryption" which is a stupid and confusing name.
Secondly, if you want to dual-boot with LUKS you need to manually configure the partitions.
Thirdly, you need to seperately assign root to be installed on the "physical disk for encryption", and they have multiple volumes for that in the list.
Fourthly, as with all LUKS encrypted Linux distros you need a seperate EFI, boot, and root partition.
Fifthly, all of this partitioning is on a really small window that can't be resized.
Is there anything stopping viruses from doing virus things?
Usually that's called sandboxing. AUR packages do not have any, if you install random AUR packages without reading them, you run the risk of installing malware. Using Flatpaks from Flathub while keeping their permissions in check with a tool like Flatseal can help guard against this.
The main difference is that even with the AUR being completely user submitted content, they're centralized repositories, unlike random websites. Malware on the AUR is significantly less common, though not impossible. Using packages that have a better reputation will avoid some malware, simply because other people have looked at the same package.
There is no good FOSS Linux antivirus (that also targets Linux). Clamav "is the closest", though it won't help much.
Security on Linux is lackluster.
Generally as long as you don't install any untrustworthy programs you'll be safe ... but there's a problem. Linux is an amalgamation of thousands of separate programs and most of them are maintained by one guy in Nebraska thanklessly. XZ Utils is a prime example of how vulnerable the Linux software stack is to malware.
My advice: Keep your daily driver separate from your gaming machine, use a debian-based distro like Ubuntu or Mint for your daily driver, and always have a disaster recovery plan. My advice would basically be the same for a Windows user.
EDIT: Also full-disk encryption. Both on Windows and Linux you can just read the contents of a hard drive no questions asked. Windows is going to address this with TPM's but you can just use a password. Secure-boot is good because it can help guard against rootkits.
Keep your user account in user space.
Avoid unnecessary root access.
From a windows perspective Linux does 2 things differently which makes it more secure to Windows.
1) Like MacOS it doesn’t need antivirus software like Norton. Windows needs antivirus because DOS the OS windows is based on, had it where any program had access to anything. This is still sadly true even on Windows 11. Linux is Sandboxed, where instead of giving the program full access to everything, you just give it a sandbox with what it needs.
Unless you deliberately run a program as the admin of Linux (su or sudo), malicious code can just delete system32.
2) Linux’s is open source and while the desktop market share is tiny, there are a massive market in servers. As a result since there are a lot of eyes on the project if/when problems are found they are fixed quickly. I remember a time when a malicious actor was trying to add a backdoor into a library as a blob and it was caught.
Windows on the other hand is closed source, meaning if MS can’t find the issue, the only time it is found is when it’s in the field. To avoid downtime MS offers bug bounty programs for those who can find issues, rather than to let them exploit it.
I don't know where you got your information from, but your mental model on how and why things work the way they do in both linux and windows seems to be really off.
Since you seem someone that is actually interested in understanding this stuff, I strongly suggest to find some better sources as your base
When I was taking cyber security, Sandboxing and Linux was one of the topics which was brought up.
docs.redhat.com/en/documentati…
Not sure when I associated it with the entire OS. It appears that the Host OS can be sandboxed for added security, and some containerized applications like Flatpaks are sandboxed. But not all applications are. Like the OS provided packages in most package managers.
I would argue that Linux is inherently much more secure than windoze, simply because of how it handles user space vs. System (root access vs. User access). Also by how transparent its configuration is and how much information is readily accessible detailing how it works and how to adjust things.
However, when talking security for anything above the average user’s browsing needs, it can get very complicated depending on what you are trying to achieve.
Think of it like building something to keep out honest people vs. to keep out hardened, knowledgeable, clever thieves. Obviously the latter is going to take more time and resources to achieve, while the need to keep out more sophisticated bad actors would probably only be needed if you have something they might want.
Here are some suggestions for searching if actual security is your goal. Others can chime in with more things if they want. This is just some topics/programs you can read about to dip your toes in.
- nftables/Firewalld (common firewalls)
- wireguard/openvpn (vpn protocols)
- rootless containers (podman)
Best of luck!
Others have said it before but basically : what is YOUR (not me, not your best friend, nor your colleague, etc) threat model?
To clarify that means WHO is actually trying to threaten your security?
Typical for most people it would be :
- scammers trying to get pieces of your identity or your local cryptocurrency wallet or resources they can use to repeat that on to others.
For some people, like activists or political journalists it would be :
- national actors, e.g. governments, with their surveillance apparatus, who might end up on a list with a set of conditions that would trigger some automated scan to get e.g. Signal logs
For very very few people, say Edward Snowden, who within the previous group actually did trigger some action :
- actual team of hackers trying to hack into their devices
So as you can imagine if you are part of group 1, 2 or 3 then way you will protect yourself is totally different. What you will also have to protect is also different, e.g. if you have no cryptowallet but are traveling you might have to protect your phone physical phone and its data.
So... if you are serious about this, take a cybersecurity class. There are plenty available but how a computer works, software and hardware alike, is precisely what makes them simultaneously powerful and also dangerous. There are plenty of ways to break security (e.g. return oriented programing), plenty of ways that practically impossible (e.g. encryption) due to the very nature of computers (i.e. computational complexity) which IMHO makes this one of the most fascinating topic. Ask yourself come the credit card in your pocket (costing few bucks to make) can't be cracked by the largest super computers (costing billions) on Earth?
TL;DR: no offense but you don't seem to be ready for the answer without getting the basics first.
So how can I as a new user make sure to have the most secure machine as possible?
That's not what you want. You want a reasonable level of confidence that your system is secure.
The process is similar to Windows - keep it up-to-date, use good passwords, don't run things as root (admin), and don't install things that are questionable.
The package manager under linux is where you should start, and that varys by distro some. But generally speaking things installed from there are "safe" and will be updated by the package manager when you do updates.
- Set a decently good password (password is required frequently on Linux, so do go overboard with a 40-random-characters-long password, you will regret it)
- don't install programs or run scripts from shady sources, prefer to install programs from the Software store (package manager and flatpak)
- setup a backup system to regularly copy all your files to a separate storage device. This is the way to protect yourself from ransomware but also user errors! Having the possibility to format your drive, reinstall and restore backup in a 1 hour time span is going to give you the peace of mine you need for exploring and experimenting with Linux
Microsoft being closed source hides their bugs and vulnerabilities. Even when security researchers have sent in reports MS has sat on them due to profit being motive not security, and not taking vulners seriously until the researchers say screw that and publish it.
Linux being open can have all eyes on it, and if there is an exploit, there is a community willing to help ASAP.
On many distros you may have weekly or even daily updates or patches coming through with fixes.
A distro like OpenSUSE has various patch and list patch commands that show what security patches are avilailable, their status (critical, recommended) and if it's needed on your system or not depending on what you have installed.
You don't get transparency on closed source systems.
If you are paranoid about security you can use AppArmor tools or SELinux.
AppArmor can be set to learn how an app behaves, then you lock it so the app can't do new things.
SELinux you set rules for files and folders, so even with remote access an attacker can't access data if rules don't allow file listing over SSH etc
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He already bullied countries into backing off silicon valley regs and penalties, the eu appeased him so far.
The eu does not need the us they should have held firm, but I guess they are too busy trying to lock down the internet and read everything everyone has done online.
The one silver lining is that if the autocracy succeeds all of these guys will be supplanted, many by being persecuted. I suspect supreme leader will have a Joseph Stalin level of paranoia after the epic fight in the Viper pit for that position in 2028. That is if we do not get our shit together and get a popular muscular reform champion to run against them and overcome the vote rigging they plan on doing.
The rich people supporting him will get it worse than anyone, at some point they will start accusing them and seizing their assets, at first those that crossed the party, later seizing assets will be the end in itself.
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Encryption at rest w.r.t. email
I use mailbox.org. Mailbox.org provides an "encrypted mailbox" feature, which PGP encrypts incoming unencrypted emails. The server can of course intercept incoming messages, but it can't look at the entire backlog unless it was compromised the entire time.
Alternatively, using POP3 instead of IMAP (at least with the default settings) deletes emails from the server after downloading, whenever my laptop is connected. Thus, the server can intercept incoming messages, but not the entire backlog.
Of course, both of these have downsides. The encrypted mailbox is PGP, so it misses important details like the subject lines and source addresses. Meanwhile, POP3 can leave my mail entirely unprotected for as long as I'm offline, and it also means that I can't access it from anything other than my laptop, and means that I have to do manual backups.
Which is more important in terms of security, or should I use both? I'm looking for the legal perspective of law enforcement (In Canada and Germany, home to myself and my email provider respectively), but also that of some hacker who's trying to get into my (and everyone else's) accounts.
Would there be a server software that I could use to download emails from mailbox.org over POP3 and then provide them to all my own devices over IMAP? That might, in some sense be the best of both worlds. Right now, I am using both POP3 and the encrypted mailbox, but convenience is definitely not optimal, so I'd like to change if it can be done safely.
If that's your concern, I would move to a zero-knowledge provider.
Edit: although you should remember that the email in transit is not encrypted, so am attacker could sit in front of your provider and read every message in plain text.
Do you know of any zero-knowledge providers that are both (a) trustworthy for my own purposes, and (b) unlikely to go to spam?
Like you said, the incoming messages aren't encrypted, so "zero-knowledge" is always sort of false advertising. Also, if I have to use some weird client, that isn't good. I do value convenience, especially for email; chasing diminishing returns just isn't worthwhile, and if possible I'd like to not use both, as I am now.
Pro-Palestine actors use Emmy Awards platform to slam Gaza genocide
"it is my obligation as a Jewish person to distinguish Jews from the state of Israel. Our religion and our culture is such an important and long-standing institution that is separate to this sort of ethnonationalist state""I cannot work with somebody who justifies or supports the genocide. I can't. It's as simple as that, and we shouldn't be able to do that. In this industry, and in any other industry,"
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I stopped using pro palestine and use anti occupation , anti genocide, pro palestinian liberation.
God forbid we just generally think that genocide is bad no matter who it's done to or why
Palestine is the only place where there is a war of extemination right now
Palestine is the only place where there is a war of extemination right now
Listen, I am about as active as any non-Israeli or non-Palestinian can be in anti-genocide discourse, but you're smoking crack if you think that Russia's intentions for Ukraine are to simply absorb their government and people. Russians by and by large do not believe Ukrainian culture is a thing, and in fact, have been breaking chunks off from their culture and absorbing it as their own since Moscow was founded by a couple of guys who got lost in the woods.
Russia's goal is absolute cultural annihilation, and their actions have fit the standard definition of genocide since 2022.
Russians by and by large do not believe Ukrainian culture is a thing
Yes Putin don't believe Ukrainian should not exist , he want to assimilate them to become Russians that's why he is kidnapping Ukrainians kids and why during the interview with Carlson he was claiming about how Russians and Ukrainians are historically one people.
As opposed to Israel which considered Palestinians just Arab colonizers and them just the righteous people who is going back to their land so they want them either expulsed to Egypt and other countries or kill them
Both genocides are terrible but the Israeli one is another level of evilness. You are an idiot if you believe otherwise
Of course one genocide is worse than another. Are you dumb?
Is a genocide where you want to kick out all people of the land or kill then similar to a genocide where you simply just kill the culture and assimilate them to your culture? Or a genocide where a small part of the population is genocide as bad as a genocide where the majority of the population is killed?
All genocide should be prevented and called out.
As opposed to Israel which considered Palestinians just Arab colonizers and them just the righteous people who is going back to their land so they want them either expulsed to Egypt and other countries or kill them
??? This is literally the official position of the Russian Federation — they consider Ukrainians colonizers who unjustly rebelled and stole Russian land, assets, and production. Putin does not want to assimilate Ukrainians; the intention is total extermination and replacement with ethnic Russians, and always has been.
I am not here to debate which genocide is worse, because plainly, Palestinians are suffering yawning abuses that would make even Mussolini blush. I am just saying that Palestine is not the only active genocide happening in the world right now. Ukraine can fight back; Palestine cannot. That is plainly on a different level. There's no need to imply I am an idiot just because I pay attention to other stuff happening in parts of the world that don't report in English.
This is literally the official position of the Russian Federation — they consider Ukrainians colonizers who unjustly rebelled and stole Russian land, assets, and production. Putin does not want to assimilate Ukrainians; the intention is total extermination and replacement with ethnic Russians, and always has been
Which Putin statements prove that they think Ukrainians are colonizers and that they want to exterminate the people and kick them out rather than exterminate their culture?
Palestine is not the only active genocide happening in the world right now
And i never denied that but the truth is that the situation in Gaza is a lot more urgent and severe. Ukraine still have an army to defend itself, Ukraine still receive billions to defend itself, Ukraine don't have a famine, Ukraine doesn't have almost all it's school, , hospital destroyed and almost it's agricultural land damaged
I would definitely take it a step further call out the Israel defenders as pro-genocide.
Pro-genocide actor, child-groomer and "comedian" Jerry Seinfeld denounced the “Free Palestine” movement as antisemitic in a surprise appearance at a Tuesday Duke event, likening it to rhetoric from the Ku Klux Klan during his introduction of a former Israeli hostage.
edit: forgot child groomer
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I have long been of the opinion that if you read newspaper headlines like a WWF announcer, it really is indiscernible.
PRO-PALESTINE ACTORS ABSOLUTELY SLAM APARTHEID CLYDE, TAKING A SIXTY FOOT PLUNGE OFF OF HELL IN A CELL AND DIRECTLY ONTO AN ANNOUNCERS' TABLE!!!!! BAWGAWD, THAT'S TRUMP'S THEME MUSIC
Yea this is so stupid. This is not a sport. We're talking about human lives. As with everything in life, I'm pro-whatever brings the greatest good. I want both Israelis and Palestinians to live a good life, in dignity.
I always refer to my position as "against the genocide".
The position "I don't care about factions, group, tribes or whatever other fucked up up of reducing humans to labels, what I care about is innocent people being made to suffer" is surprisingly badly taken at times even around here.
I've had my posts swamped by downvotes at least once by saying "I not pro-Palestine, I'm pro-People" as if I have to favor factions rather than, you know, being against the victimization of people who did nothing to deserve it quite independently of whatever label they're tagged with.
Even people whose heart is in the right place nowadays seem to come at it from a "chose a faction" angle rather than from a Principled Humanist one.
It's way easier to manipulate people who support factions (just look at how the Zionists weaponized the support for the Jewish People) than it is to manipulate people who see things based on principles like "people who do no harm to others shouldn't be harmed" as the latter will judge actions based on their merits alone, not on the labels of the people involved.
I've had my posts swamped by downvotes at least once by saying "I not pro-Palestine, I'm pro-People" as if I have to favor factions rather than, you know, being against the victimization of people who did nothing to deserve it quite independently of whatever label they're tagged with.
I think part of the reason being pro-people makes others angry is because everyone is so polarized politically. A lot more people than usual are approaching politics expecting that you're either supporting my ideals or not supporting them. Which may as well be opposing them and opposing 'our' ideals is your moral failing. Nuance is gone, the political center is gone. At least until there are some serious changes.
God forbid we just generally think that genocide is bad no matter who it's done to or why.
I get the sentiment, but is this really true? Gotta be honest when I say that genocide of Nazis doesn’t bother me. There’s a case where it is accepted. It may be extremely small, but there’s still a case.
Exactly the same as the "trump isn't a REAL christian!".
No, he's a christian, funded by christian extremists.
Israel is a theocracy, and the homeland for the jewish religion. They're the head of the religion. So now you have "Israelis aren't REAL jews!" as a reaction. No. They're jewish, that's what the jewish religion is. That's what all religions do when they achieve theocracy. They start fighting other religions, genociding them, and create religious terror.
You would have thought that they would have learned from WWII about genocide and conservative religious nazi behavior - but if they can't learn it from that - no religion ever can.
It's just another genocidial religion. The time to stop giving them a pass when they started genociding a religion that was intent on genociding them. Instead of using diplomacy and rationality to achieve peace.
You conflate Judaism with Zionism, and this makes your comment antisemitic.
Edit: Being anti-zionist makes sense. See Jewish Voice for Peace - On Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism and Dangerous Conflations
On Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism and Dangerous Conflations - JVP
Right now, there’s a lot of pain and fear and grief in our interwoven communities. And as our multiracial, multi-faith movements rise in powerful solidarity with Palestinians, violent rightwing forces are going to try to divide us, attack us, and pit…Jason (Jewish Voice for Peace)
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You should look up what we read on Shabbat Zakhor, you might be surprised.
Actually Supreme Court Justice David Mintz this year said: “Jewish law recognizes three justifications for war, to inherit the land, to destroy Amalek, and to defend against an attacker.” in defense of starving the Palestinians to death. To say that this situation has nothing to do with Judaism is beyond ridiculous. Now, where we get into antisemitic territory is when we say not only "all Jews think like this" but also "they think like this because they are Jews". There is a big difference and it is important.
I don't see anything surprising in what you describe. It is well known that Zionism uses Judaism as a tool for its settler colonialism for well over a century now. The Bund wrote anti-zionist songs at the time.
Clearly, Judaism and Zionism are not synonyms, nor have they ever been.
It is the Zionist state of Israel that tries to present Judaism and Zionism as synonyms. We shouldn't fall for Zionist propaganda / Israeli propaganda / Hasbara, call it as you want, these are synonyms. And this is why we need to call out both Zionism and antisemitism.
Saying that Israel is a theocracy (...) because this is what the Jewish religion is, not only is an uniformed statement, it is also an antisemitic one. Israel is a settler collonial theocracy because of Zionist principals. (And the support from the West - meaning, the decendents of the christians and/or europeans that were procecuting Jewish populations for centuries. I won't expand on this now.)
Lessons from the Bund: A Socialist, Anti-Zionist, Jewish Movement - Left Voice
As long as there has been Zionism, there have been anti-Zionist Jews.Frankie Levine (Left Voice)
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I hate awards shows because of all the preaching these rich assholes do.
Still, I appreciate that they did this. (And still glad I didn't sit through it.)
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Bardem doesn't come across that way to me
Einbinder later told Variety that "it is my obligation as a Jewish person to distinguish Jews from the state of Israel. Our religion and our culture is such an important and long-standing institution that is separate to this sort of ethnonationalist state".
Einbinder seems pretty legit too
This happened 5 days ago.
I was shocked to find nothing about it in this community.
I am really questioning the ability of this community to find and post the most relevant international news.
We need to do better.
EDIT: This was the result of a technical failure—not a community failure. Still, something is wrong.
I am also shocked you found nothing about it in this community.
lemmy.world/post/35703988
lemmy.world/post/35710113
lemmy.world/post/35809590
lemmy.world/post/35821542
Honestly, I am relieved.
How did you find these?
I eventually figured it out.
I was searching in world@lemmy.ml—not world@lemmy.world.
And the first time, I was looking in world@lemmy.world under 'Top Week', but didn't quite scroll down far enough lol.
It was just out of range of the first page.
If I had hit 'More Results' or whatever, it would have been the very first one.
Whoopsiedoodle lol
Anyway, it would be better if the ml vs. world mistake were more difficult to make, but yeah, human error.
Doesn't hurt to put it up again in case there are people who haven't seen it.
There is so much shit going on that it seems like people aren't giving the event the weight it deserves. Same with Israel blowing shit up in Qatar.
A few other notes
- MSN links are annoying because they act as a wrapper for the content that another actual news site put out. Finding the original link is better for everyone, and it helps on the Lemmy side since then the UI can indicate cross posts with that correct link
- I don't find as much value in news stories with "Trump says" in the headline. It helps in order to anticipate what kind of issues he might cause next, but otherwise I'd much rather read what actually happened instead of losing brain cells reading what trump said about it
Agreed (second paragraph)
Trump says a LOT of things. Most of what he says are outright lies, fantasies and make believe. A lot of it is plainly insulting. Way too much of it is unhinged blurps of words that makes little sense, even grammatically. Most of what he says leads to nothing at all.
Very little of what trump says is actually news worthy. Now what he does, on the other hand....
Trump's suggestion that the incident could have been accidental.
PicardFacepalm.png
'My wife died giving birth after Trump cut funding to our clinic'
For decades, America has been the largest donor to Afghanistan, and in 2024, US funds made up a staggering 43% of all aid coming into the country.The Trump administration has justified withdrawing it, saying there were "credible and longstanding concerns that funding was benefiting terrorist groups, including... the Taliban", who govern the country. The US government further added that they had reports stating that at least $11m were "being siphoned or enriching the Taliban".
The report that the US State Department referenced was made by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). It said that $10.9m of US taxpayer money had been paid to the Taliban-controlled government by partners of USAID in "taxes, fees, duties, or utilities".
The Taliban government denies that aid money was going into their hands.
BBC investigates Afghan maternal deaths after US aid cuts
The BBC hears devastating accounts of Afghan mothers and babies dying after US-backed clinics shut.Yogita Limaye (BBC News)
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What happened in Afghanistan when/after the Americans pulled out is a fucking disaster that was talked about for way too short a time.
Add to that the more recent USAID cuts.
The worst thing is that all these cuts together are still peanuts compared to government bailouts, funding OpenAI, military, losses in tax revenue because multibillionaires etc.
Like, killing people is bad, but killing them just because you're cheap. Or greedy. Trump and his posse will juice the lemon called USA until it's completely dry, taking parts of the world with them.
Um, why did USA pay anything to Afghanistan after they forcibly ejected everyone from the country? That happened in 2020-2021, and the payments just continuned?
So you actually needed Donald Trump to end that waste? What in the fuck?
It seems this asshole cares more about dollars he'll never be paid than the lives of mothers and children he'll never have to face.
The reason we didn't have much European terrorism after WW2 is because we invested in and rebuilt those countries after the war. Jesus Christ, you so-called fiscal conservatives never learn shit from history.
You know what's even dumber? That money you care so much about being "saved?" You'll never see a penny of it. That's all going to the ultrawealthy ruling class. They're going to steal all of it for themselves. "Steal!?" you object. Yes steal. Oh yes, they might remember to make it legal, probably by executive order or some shit.
That money would be better spent helping babies and mothers in Afghanistan survive childbirth than going to the already filthy rich. Frankly I'd rather have them get it than the likes of even you.
Let me guess, you think you're the next Charlie Kirk so we should have a "debate" now.
Japan again makes no mention of Koreans' forced labor at Sado memorial event - The Korea Times
cross-posted from: lemmy.zip/post/48702462
The Sado Mines, once famous as a gold mine in the 17th and 19th centuries, was mainly used to produce war supplies for the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. More than 1,500 Koreans are reported to have been forced into labor at the mines from 1940-45.
Japan again makes no mention of Koreans' forced labor at Sado memorial event
Japan again made no mention of Koreans' forced labor during a ceremony Saturday commemorating victims of a World War II mine complex in the country...Yonhap (The Korea Times)
Farewell to the fediverse
Farewell to the fediverse
In December 2023, this blog joined the fediverse (pt_BR). Thanks to a WordPress plugin — the publishing platform used by Manual do Usuário — it became possible to follow updates here without leaving…Manual do Usuário
This does remind me that I wish that Fediverse clients would have RSS reader functionality built in by default. I have a sneaking suspicion some do and I just don't know how to use the feature. Effectively allowing people to "boost" aka repost with backlink RSS updates on a Fediverse client would enable most of what a blogger would want from the Fediverse, with the exception of receiving all the comments on the posts they share.
Bridgy does that, but then it is essentially just a mirror so it does have the server inefficiency of redundant hosting built in.
That you might say is the fundamental design decision of Activity pub, shifting the hosting burden from a single host to a distributed network of server instances. This enables a more robust network, with instances holding content the users have interacted with regardless of if the original host instance goes down. It also reduces time to load for content after it has beed federated to a user's local instance, assuming it is closer in proximity and capable enough. At the same time, this makes content ownership and control a challenge.
Functionally the Fediverse is a public commons with content ownership practically distributed across the network of instances, whether copyright says so or not. Attempts to impose universal author controls on this framework face a lot of dissonance because it is fundamentally at odds with the underlying concept of federation as distributed hosting. The minute a host begins hosting content over which they have no control (such as encrypted posts) the potential for abuse skyrockets.
Since the popularization of the Distributed Social Network concept I have wondered whether pre-existing content distribution infrastructure like RSS might not be more advantageous as a backbone for social networking, with the development load entirely shifted to the client side and away from protocols. The IndieWeb project is playing with some of these ideas, and I have seen some prototypes online of RSS based social networks, so my question is, what is the fundamental advantage of ActivityPub over the combination of these other existing protocols with longer histories and broader existing implementation? RSS, email, XMPP, etc. Is lower latency really a good enough justification for widely redundant data distribution?
This question becomes increasingly relevant when it comes to multimedia, and the minute that you offload multimedia to central servers by link embedding instead of hosting within the instance, boom you are back to the old centralized architecture and why are you federating?
So I am going to pose this question to the Fediverse myself, what is the reason that federated content distribution should be adopted for general use rather than distributed aggregation? That is to say of a client performed with the same features as a Fediverse front end, but all of the content was self-hosted and listed via RSS or Atom with comments handled via Webmention, direct messages via email or XMPP, and moderation handled at the level of aggregation via instances (meaning a user "joins" or "subscribes" to an instance, and that instance provides a ban list, list of feeds subscribed to by its users for discovery, provides a user directory) what would be the features that this type of system would lack that ActivityPub based systems have in place?
There are three advantages I see, and I'm not completely sure they justify mass adoption vs. the cost of broad redundancy of content and authorship issues.:
- Choosing local instance for faster loading, but this only is an advantage after content is brought in for the first time, in which case it actually is slower as first the instance has to pull the cintent and then serve it to the user.
- "all" content in the protocol is of the same type, allowing for easier interoperability between clients and services. I'm thinking this is the root of what most people will say is the big advantage of ActivityPub vs. older protocols, but I'd like to hear more about why this is enough of a reason to overcome the inertia of existing mass adoption and support of the alternatives.
- It isn't based in XML, and modern devs don't want to use XML. As I'm not a coder, I cant say how big an influence this has, but from what I have seen it seems to be a substantial factor. Can anyone explain why?
Some interesting thoughts - and questions - here. Seems you posted them in the wrong place, given the paltry response. Or possibly at the wrong time (i.e. 6 hours after the herd had moved on, a perennial problem with social media).
It isn’t based in XML, and modern devs don’t want to use XML. As I’m not a coder, I cant say how big an influence this has, but from what I have seen it seems to be a substantial factor. Can anyone explain why?
XML is space-inefficient with lots of redundancy, and therefore considered to be ugly. Coders tend to have tidy minds so these things take on an importance that they don't really merit. It's also just fashion: markup, like XML and HTML, is a thing of the 90s, so using them is the coder equivalent of wearing MC Hammer pants.
Thanks for clarifying, I figured fashion had at least something to do with it given the number of actively used protocols and services that still use it, XMPP being the one I use the most myself.
Even on XMPP I have seen several projects to "translate" the protocol into other languages (specifically Rust in one).
Efficiency makes sense, but then also the number of devs proficient in a language due to shifts in the emphasis of training and education is just as strong a force.
Blogs are already “social” by nature (comments)
Most Blogs require you to create an account and login to your specific blog. I ain't doin that. But if it appears in my feed on my account that I control, I might throw in my $0.02, which will improve engagement on your blog.
In practice, ActivityPub’s distributive nature replicates content across a multitude of servers (every server where someone follows the blog), which, while not catastrophic here, is at least inefficient.
I mean, that's kinda the point though, also. Any federated product will do the same.
Given that — and the fact that few people follow and almost nobody interacts via ActivityPub — I’ve been considering removing Manual from the fediverse for several months.
I mean, that's fair, but also, what is it costing you to keep it? You're greatly improving visibility of your blog.
Rupert Murdoch's real-life 'Succession' battle just ended in a multibillion-dollar deal that keeps Fox News, Wall Street Journal conservative | Fortune
Rupert Murdoch’s real-life ‘Succession’ battle just ended in a multibillion-dollar deal that keeps Fox News, Wall Street Journal conservative
The future of Fox News and The Wall Street Journal were at stake.Nick Lichtenberg (Fortune)
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Yeah I feel this should be bigger news.
Trumps die, News Corp continues.
I think a more interesting question is why there aren't major US TV news sources between Fox News and the center, occupying the area that the three-more-liberal-kids wanted to take Fox News.
To the right of Fox News, you have upstarts One America News Network and Newsmax.
During the 2020 United States presidential election, President Trump began to promote Newsmax over its rival, Fox News.[80][81][82][83] Trump's preference for Newsmax over Fox News became clearer after the latter became the first news outlet to call Arizona for Democratic challenger Joe Biden.[42] Newsmax has made their more conservative leanings a selling point to disaffected Fox News viewers, as well as employing Fox News alumni to join their lineup on Newsmax TV, such as Rob Schmitt and Greg Kelly.[42][84][43] Emily VanDerWerff of Vox reported that the outlet "spent lots of time arguing that other media outlets jumped the gun in calling the election for Biden and that Trump still has a path to win this thing", and that it was one of the only networks that didn't call the election for Biden, citing the Trump campaign's legal challenges. However, she did write that "Newsmax doesn't go full arch-conservative" and "doesn't give airtime to QAnon paranoiacs".[46]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Amer…
OAN saw growth in its audience as a result of its election coverage. It was boosted in particular by Donald Trump, who expressed disapproval of Fox News' reporting on the presidential election and encouraged his supporters to instead watch OAN or Newsmax TV, another conservative channel promoting election falsehoods.[150][151][152]
In the US, there there are a pretty broad range of media outlets on the left. On the right, things are considerably more concentrated. There's a bunch of data out there on this, but just to dig up a quick recent Pew survey:
pewresearch.org/journalism/202…
You'd think that there'd be space for a center-right TV channel to the left of Fox News.
Nouvelle communauté: Logiciel Libre
publication croisée depuis : jlai.lu/post/26113975
>>> !libre@jlai.lu
This is what solidarity looks like
This is what solidarity looks like
Part 2 of "Decentralization" and Erasure: Blacksky, Bluesky, and the ATmosphereJon (The Nexus Of Privacy)
Is Blacksky a racially self-segregated competitor to Bluesky?
I read the article and watch one of the videos linked in it and that's the impression I got, but I'm hoping someone can confirm/explain.
I'm not on either network, so I think I'm woefully ignorant on this. I apologize if it's a silly question.
It's a platform using AT Proto (the protocol Bluesky uses), independent but still connected (think about Lemmy instances). That way they can apply their own moderation policies and don't have to follow Bluesky censorship.
More details here: blacksky.community/profile/did…
There is another one coming up: northskysocial.com/posts/about
Rudy wants revolution. (@rude1.blacksky.team)
I've disabled invite codes for signing up or migrating to the blacksky.app Personal Data Server (PDS). The invite codes were necessary to prevent en masse bot signups. We've since turned on captchas and added rate limiting to the server.Blacksky Community
independent but still connected (think about Lemmy instances)
It's not really connected in the same sense two Lemmy instances are connected. They're able to pull in the same data as Bluesky as it's all public and PDSs don't really have the ability to block a relay from crawling them.
At the app level (blacksky.community / bsky.app on the web) it's more like TweetDeck/Twitter: different client interfaces to the same underlying network. That's not a perfect analogy though because Blacksky makes different moderation decisions than Bluesky.
But also, people using either of these apps can store their data in arbitrary PDSs, so when people migrate their accounts to the Blacksky PDS they can use either of the apps. So there it's more like Piefed/Lemmy -- different implementations of the same protocol. Again though it's not a perfect analogy because the AT Protocol architecture lets you migrate all your data between PDSs seamlessly, and so far only a few niche ActivityPub implementations support that (Hubzilla et al with nomadic identity, ActivityPods using Solid Pods).
Oh, I thought blacksky.comnunity used Blacksky's relay. If it uses Bluesky's then yeah, disregard what I said.
That's not a perfect analogy though because Blacksky makes different moderation decisions than Bluesky.
I'd hope so given how abysmal Bluesky's moderation is. The discovery feed is filled with transphobia, but you can't say Charlie Kirk should rest in piss.
Again though it's not a perfect analogy because the AT Protocol architecture lets you migrate all your data between PDSs seamlessly, and so far only a few niche ActivityPub implementations support that (Hubzilla et al with nomadic identity, ActivityPods using Solid Pods).
I don't believe Hubzilla's nomatic identity works with APub though, irrc it uses something called Zot.
I've been thinking about how to add nomatic identity to Lemmy quite a bit and it's something I'd like to work on after 1.0 is out, but it's hard a problem for sure.
Yeah, Bluesky's moderation really is abysmal. Somebody I know got suspended for 24 hours for saying something about Charlie Kirk and when they came back immediately moved their account to Blacksky ... and who can blame them!
Right now blacksky.community is an app that uses Bluesky's AppView, which in turn uses Bluesky's Relay. They're working on their own AppView (which will have the equivalent of local-only posts) and that will use their Relay. I didn't mean to undercut your point though, they often talk about PDSs as analogous to web pages, so your "different search engines" analogy is very accurate, it's just not quite there yet.
And good point about Hubzilla ... if I recall correctly either in (((streams))) or Forte (or maybe both) MIke implemented the nomadic identity over ActivityPub as well. It's really frustrating that AP development in general hasn't paid more attention to his ideas! If you're thinking about this kind of stuff for Lemmy, it's also worth looking at socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/…
FEP-ef61: Portable Objects
Hello! This is a discussion thread for the proposed FEP-ef61: Portable Objects. Please use this thread to discuss the proposed FEP and any potential problems or improvements that can be addressed.SocialHub
Right now blacksky.community is an app that uses Bluesky’s AppView, which in turn uses Bluesky’s Relay. They’re working on their own AppView (which will have the equivalent of local-only posts) and that will use their Relay.
Interesting, from what I understand of ATProto, this would be hard to do on protocol, it'll be fascinating to see how they do it. Maybe something off protocol like the recent bookmark feature Bluesky got.
I didn’t mean to undercut your point though, they often talk about PDSs as analogous to web pages, so your “different search engines” analogy is very accurate, it’s just not quite there yet.
I'd love to take credit for this, but the ATProto docs themselves make this comparison which is where I'm getting this from.
if I recall correctly either in (((streams))) or Forte (or maybe both) MIke implemented the nomadic identity over ActivityPub as well
This sent me down a bit a of a rabbit hole. It seems (streams) used an updated version of Zot, Zot/11 but was renamed to just Nomad. I can't find anything about this, the (streams) repo only contains the spec for Zot/6, so I'm not sure about it's APub compatibility. Apparently, Nomad had been discontinued in Forte in favour of pure APub, anyway.
If you’re thinking about this kind of stuff for Lemmy, it’s also worth looking at socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/…
Oh, I know about Silverpill's work, it's really interesting! I even mentioned it recently. I'm glad we have someone smart like them working on this stuff.
I do think some kind of separation of user data from servers, like what AT Proto does, is actually quite desirable. I just don't like that PDSes can have their data harvested by whoever, I think data sharing with a server should be opt-in.
Glossary of terms - AT Protocol
A collection of terminology used in the AT Protocol and their definitions.AT Protocol
I do think some kind of separation of user data from servers, like what AT Proto does, is actually quite desirable.
Curious as well to see how Blacksky develops, having that split would be useful.
I just don’t like that PDSes can have their data harvested by whoever, I think data sharing with a server should be opt-in.
Same
Also agreed that sharing should be opt-in (and here on fedi as well).
In terms of Blacksky's approach to private data, Rudy shared this earlier today blog.smokesignal.events/posts/… ... the working group on private data is having its first meeting this week, and there are a couple of other proposals as well, so it'll be interesting to see how things converge. Bluesky has said they're going to add it to the protocol but the timeframe isn't clear. My guess is people will go ahead with off-protocil implementations initally and plan to adapt once it's standardized (famous last words).
ATProtocol Record Hydration: Building Privacy-Aware Views
ATProtocol Record Hydration: Building Privacy-Aware Views posted by @smokesignal.events on 2025-08-01 18:00 UTCNick Gerakines (Smoke Signal)
U.S. Deputy State Secretary Landau expresses regrets over detention of S. Koreans | Yonhap News Agency
According to Seoul’s foreign ministry, Landau conveyed his deep regrets over the detention of hundreds of South Korean workers in an immigration crackdown earlier this month at an electric vehicle battery plant construction site for a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution in Bryan County, Georgia.
A total of 316 South Korean workers returned home Friday, after being held in a detention center for a week.
U.S. Deputy State Secretary Landau expresses regrets over detention of S. Koreans
SEOUL, Sept. 14 (Yonhap) -- A senior U.S. state department official on Sunday ex...Yoo Jee-ho (Yonhap News Agency)
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Oh, of course not.
But these are skilled workers and, whoopsie!, we kinda need them.
You will never see them come back again. This is gonna cost billions for the us.
I will have popcorn and laugh.
silly liberal, those aren't people /s
But seriously no, and no one of relevance ever will. We live in the bad place.
Another source: dutchnews.nl/2025/09/protest-a…
Their upcoming concert at 013 (Tilburg, this Tuesday) has been cancelled over this: nos.nl/artikel/2582452-poppodi…
Edit: Their upcoming concert at Doornroosje (Nijmegen, this Monday) has not (yet?) been cancelled.
Poppodium 013 schrapt show Bob Vylan na gewelddadige uitspraken in Paradiso
Tijdens een optreden in Amsterdam riep het Britse duo zaterdag leuzen als "dood aan de IDF". Ook noemden ze de deze week vermoorde radicaal-rechtse Amerikaan Charlie Kirk "een stuk stront".NOS Nieuws
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Racists are just tools of the super rich using them, religious, the ignorant disaffected, etc.
After they consolidate power they will be relegated with the rest of the population. They are being used because they are ill-informed, but they are not the ones pulling the strings, not the ones calling and running the plays here. It is moneyed interests doing that
what? this is my first time hearing China is MAGA. that seems patently absurd to me.
i'm just saying MAGA policies have a strong pattern of reinforcing the white supremacist systems of oppression
American MAGAs also don't really want American greatness if it involves immigrants, minorities, or liberals having a good life there. Their love of America and goals for its greatness are VERY selective, all the way to founding values like freedom of speech, separation of powers, and separation of church and state.
It's really just fascism. And fascism, for all its claims to be country-first, is an international reactionary effort.
The performance was held at the Paradiso Grote Zaal. The venue released a statement on Sunday saying it “believed in the power of artistic freedom”.“Music – and especially punk – is an art form that traditionally magnifies anger, discontent, and injustice without a filter,” it said.
“In a world on fire, artists sometimes choose language that sounds confrontational or violent.”
Addressing the singer’s calls for the death of IDF troops, the venue said it shared “the outrage and concern surrounding the genocidal violence taking place in Gaza” and that “Bob Vylan’s raising his voice against this is legitimate and necessary”.
Punk has always been anti-fascist because fascists and punks compete for the same follower base, and overlap is unavoidable unless one side draws a very hard line about what's acceptable.
The fascists want to be able to say whatever they want under 1st amendment, but have always lost their shit when people say the same shit about fascists the fascists say about innumerable target demographics.
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"death death to the idf" =/= "death to idf troops"
and i'm tired of outlets reporting on it like it is. the man was saying the idf is a criminal organization that needs to be resisted and disbanded. yeah, that's gonna result in some fighting because the idf are a violent and vile organization of oppressors, but in the context, "death death to the idf" is the only reasonable stance…
A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, usually applied to attacks on Jews.
I never seen this word before. I'm going to post it here just in case you haven't either.
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DONT MOCK TOO HARD OR YOURE CENSORED
Anyways, only good nazi is feeding sunflowers.
Mine was “death death to the IDF,” the slogan Bob Vylan (ya know, the group mentioned in the OP article) was most in the news for recently.
Fucking delete it again and ban me, I ain’t gonna stop chanting it. Just cause it’s a theme song don’t make it not true
Enjoyer of political violence falls victim to political violence. Oh no! /s
If these guys were themselves pacifists who prided themselves on giving every idea a fair hearing, I guess I would have a problem with any assassinations. As it is, there's just one side trying to unilaterally manifest a certain level of civility. One that unfortunately doesn't seem to exist.
Edit: I believe this complies with rule 6. Lack of concern about violence isn't the same thing as advocacy.
Well, the Right is trying to make Kirk into a new Horst Wessel figure, so I'm registering this is as a based attempt to keep the Overton Window at its current position.
Free speech, bitches.
There absolutely is justification for violence, political or otherwise.
Blessed are they who praise peace, for they shall bury the peacemakers.
the post I had commented this on was deleted so I'm going to put it here for no reason.
I hold the following opinions:
- political violence is probably a bad idea. this is for multiple reasons, one of which being that it usually doesn't create the intended effects.
- charlie kirk might have been the worst piece of shit commentator of that era. i'm glad he shut the fuck up.
- there are a lot of political commentators like him. the benefit of having one less of them is overshadowed by the detriment of the reaction to a political assassination.
- his family is the absolute least of my concerns. i don't think about them at all.
Action to be taken against 'foreigners who glorify violence' - [US] undersecretary of state
The US Undersecretary of State, Christopher Landau, says "appropriate action" will be taken against "foreigners who glorify violence".In a post on X, Landau says he has been "disgusted" to see comments on social media "praising, rationalising or making light" of the killing of Charlie Kirk and those who "glorify violence and hatred" are "not welcome visitors" to the country.
He says he has directed consular officials to "undertake appropriate action" and tells his followers "to bring such comments by foreigners to my attention so that the State Department can protect the American people".
In a response to a tweet, Landau then says he will direct consular officials to monitor the comments to his post.
Charlie Kirk's widow gives tearful address after shooting: 'I will never let your legacy die'
Erika Kirk thanks first responders and President Donald Trump for his support, after her husband's death.BBC News
Doesn't the US have a constitutional amendment for this (maybe even the first one)?
I'd think the "originalists" would be all for this.
#contraapecdabandidagem #anistiaéocaralho
- YouTube
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.youtube.com
Some weird bad luck...
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Communick: social media and messaging hosting that respects you and your privacy
Communick, open communications and social media hosting servicescommunick.com
Presumably USD ? Not being an ass but NZ, Australia Canada amongst others use the "dollar" and this is an international forum.
But thanks for this, it's really interesting !
The group behind it or others similar. When you are on a small self hosted instance. You are at the mercy of a hobby admins time and skill. Which is no dig at them. Sometimes it just becomes too much.
I have had a number of Mastodon accounts since 2017 with the groups Mastodon servers. They run themselves as a serious organization. Providing services of a quality absolutely worth paying for. All with donations.
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Always check terms and privacy policy before signing up, but these seem like they will be here to stay:
- lemmy.cafe
- sopuli.xyz
- slrpnk.net
- lemmy.dbzer0.com
- anarchist.nexus
- scribe.disroot.org
Those are all Lemmy and PieFed, and I'm not so familiar with Mastodon and others. Maybe look at mas.to ?
Ok, others users should stay away from lemny.zip.it.niw has the kiss of death ;)
DIY for suriety I guess ? Or stick with .world?
What would stop you from switching to a flip phone (or dumbphone) in 2025?
I’ve been using a flip phone as my daily driver for a while now. The smartphone is still around, but it mostly sits in a drawer until bureaucracy or banking apps force me to use it.
For me, the benefits are clear: less distraction, more focus, better sleep.
But I know for many people it’s not so easy. Essential apps, social pressure, work requirements… these are real blockers.
I’d like to start a discussion (almost like an informal poll):
- If you thought about switching, what’s the single biggest thing that holds you back?
- Is it banking? Messaging? Maps? Something else?
I’m genuinely curious because if we can identify the main pain points, maybe it’s possible to work on solutions or even start a small project around it.
So: what would need to change for you to actually give a flip phone a try?
Surviving Modern Life with a Flip Phone (Barely)
Mama was right: Smartphones are frying our brains. App locks, screentime reminders, digital detoxes: we’ve tried them all. Nothing sticks because honestly? We’rTim Kicker
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Not having a private OS and messaging.
The best option as of now is the Punkt phone
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2FA app. 2FA via SMS is incredibly insecure.
Map and translation apps a close second.
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Yeah, I can't speak a lick of Spanish although I'm starting to understand it a little. Translation apps are a life saver.
edit: oh, wait: VAMOS A LA CANTINA!
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Stuff I use the phone for in rough order of importance:
- maps and GPS
- messaging (signal)
- emulators and other quality games (none of that candy crush slop)
- ebook reading
- Wikipedia / quick research
- Lemmy
I could drop lemmy from mobile because it's just a time waster and news source.
Wikipedia is important because too often people are interminably arguing something that can be settled with a 30 second search. Like, you don't need to spend 5 minutes arguing about the population of NJ just look it up.
Games are nice. I don't want to go back to carrying around a second device for games like it's 2001. I could bring a steam deck everywhere but that doesn't fit in my pocket.
I don't have any notifications turned on except like direct messages, so I don't find it much of a distraction.
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Literally just having a hotspot built in is keeping me on android. The lappy goes where I go, and that means as long as I have internet access I'm as connected as I could ever want to be.
Basically everyone has wifi, usually available after. I might just go out and get an unlocked dumbphone this week honestly.
Edit: yes I know about the mp02, its on the wishlist. I haven't had a job in over a year so I won't be getting it yet.
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Þere are oþer reasons to want a dumber phone. I miss charging my phone once a week, vs 1-2 times per day. I have a bendy-screen flip phone now, but before þese became available, it was hard to get a reasonably sized phone; þe trend was (and still is) phablets. I miss having þe expectation þat my phone would last for years, and not need upgrading because þe screen broke, or because þe OS stopped being updated, or because OS upgrades got more and more bloated and made þe phone slower and unusable over time. I miss þe time before an upgrade would completely fuck established muscle memory patterns because some dumb-shit decided to completely rearrange gestures - requiring an internet search to uncover þe byzantine, cryptic configuration combination to restore þe old behavior.
It's much more þan distractions.
OTOH, I need Jami to communicate wiþ my peer group, because SMS is insecure and incredibly basic. Navigation in your hand is incredibly useful, even þough it's been shown to ruin users' geospatial skills. And smarter address books are better þan old dumb-phone name+phone number address books.
But if I could get a decent, small e-ink phone, wiþ good battery, Jami, an address book, and hell, just a simple browseable map (even w/o navigation), I'd be golden. Jami is þe sticking point, because it introduces a dependency on Android, and þat's where þe fuckery starts.
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I wholeheartedly agree with this perspective.
I started on a privacy journey because I didn't like that I'm being tracked (by basically everybody) and feel that the technology that I pay for should be service to me, not me as a service to it (and its related parties).
Anyways, along the way I did a few things.
Namely, I turned off mail notifications (this was an inadvertent feature since my mail service couldn't send notifications without google services that I removed). I also removed my sim and use data only via a hotspot, to which I don't always have on.
These sound like crazy things, and admittedly they aren't for everyone, but the resulting mental shifts are exactly to this point.
Just because I have a device that let's me be available to anybody in any place at any time, doesn't mean I should be, or even need to be, available unless I want to be.
Now I protect my time, and the mental clarity that comes with it. I never was a doom scroller, but even now that concept is even more reduced. The phone is my tool, and I use when needed.
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I know someone that has been trying out all of the mp3 players and has yet to find something that works as well as an iPod classic.
But then why would I need one? It’s all on my phone.
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I can't get these people to use Signal instead of SMS.
But nothing internet dependent will turn a phone into a radio. We are in places where even 4G doesn't reach sometimes and if there was a Motorola repeater onsite it'd be great. I've got our company trying it out and the SL300 has been a game changer for our communication on site.
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My first cell phone was a flip phone, and I'm not gonna lie, I've considered revisiting my teenage days again and getting one. But I feel like, right now, my smartphone use is very light.
I avoid Meta apps, I don't play mobile games, my biggest vice was reddit which has now become a shithole of bots and censorship so I don't go on there anymore. I read the news on here, chat a little on Discord, check my birdfeeder and that's pretty much it besides occasional use of google maps as needed.
On top of that, this phone is from 2018 so its battery life these days is not great. I think that helps too.
Maybe for those hesitating to get a dumb phone, perhaps start with an older smartphone to whittle your time down?
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As someone who always had some kind of PDA (CASIO digital diary, Palm, Compaq iPaq) and switched onto the smartphone bandwagon pretty early (SonyEricsson P800/P910i, Qtek 9000, various Androids and various iPhones) ... I don't think I could enjoy the experience with a dumb phone. I love modern technology too much.
I once had a colleague that religiously only used a Nokia 3210 (the newer 3G/4G model). Which meant 160 character messages only. No emojis, no photos (as MMS were expensive). He was also the kind of person to use paper maps when driving - incl. stopping to look for alternative routes if some road was blocked or jammed. That's definitely not for me.
The only way this could work for me would be to have some small PDA that can connect to the phone to use the Internet. And I appreciate that both devices have been merged into smartphones at some point.
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"our society has pushed smart phones down our throats"
smartphones evolved from older methods of just getting through the day. taking notes, listening to music, calandars, date books, libraries, files, methods of communication.
you make the assumption that everyone is a slave to their device just because it's a smart device.
some of us were alive before smart phones existed. and we'd prefer not to go back in tech. and would instead prefer the devices we have now.
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I second this.
No one forced me. Even when work tried to force me to use smartphone 2FA it was easy enough to say "I'm not putting any f-ing micrsoft crap on my phone", they found a workaround - magically they could just use the basic telephone network to do the 2FA.
I chose to get one because it's more convenient than having phone, walkman, camera, book, torch , map, compass etc.
I still carry many of those things from time to time when I want them, or when I want extra resilience.
But I's choose the phone most times because it is a cheap, lightweight, small, convenient alternative that makes so many things just a bit easier.
Bloody hell just faffing around with walkman batteries and recording compilation tapes was annoying enough.
It's also very easy to just leave your phone behind and use the alternatives, they pretty much all still exist in some form. I mean that happens to me regularly whenever I lose my phone of when I forget to charge it or (partly) when I'm just out of range of the celluar network. I don't remember either dying or having any police jump on me and force me to buy a new one or charge it up immediately.
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I dint do calls often at all, so a flip/dumb phone doesn't appeal to me much. However, i have been very tempted to upgrade my existing smart watch to one with LTE connectivity and skip the smart phone completely.
The Apple watch, for instance, with LTE can do maps/directions, calls, texts, etc., without needing a smartphone near by. It would be much less to carry, less distractions, and way more convenient.
The big thing it can't currently do, however, is MFA for my job. It can do Authy and many others, but the one we require doesn't work, I've tried many times, so I'm stuck carrying a smartphone around if I want to remain employed.
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I’m mostly using my phone as an all in one multimedia device I can fit in my pocket.
I don’t see the flip phone as a good replacement for this kind of use. It wasn’t back in those days either. We used dedicated MP3 players or portable radio for music listening for example.
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you couldn't pay me to go backwards in time, sorry!
see I was around before the age of the smartphone. growing up, I thought my cassette Walkman was the most revolutionary thing ever. and when PDAs were new, I would dreaammm about everything being on one electronic device.
smart phones have given me a freedom that younger me never had.
i no longer need to carry a notebook/memobook around, because I have powerful software on my phone that not only let's me note-take, but index and SEARCH my own notes. from my pocket.
i don't need to carry the 3 novels im reading at the moment because they're on the ereader app in my pocket.
contacts, games, all my news sources, photos, videos, all my media.
to me, this is still revolutionary tech and it has only improved my life
i think we are seeing a rise now of adults who were raised as iPad kids who never had to carry all their shit around the way us older individuals have. so they naturally would want to get away from it because they've known no different and they never had to live another way before that point.
its an understandable mentality from that one standpoint. but no, I will never give up my smart phone. i understand the reasons for those that do, but some of us don't really want to go backwards.
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If it's at that point:
- Set up a password manager on your desktop
- Change your account passwords to something too long to remember, and keep them in the password manager
I have a Pixel phone with Graphene for offline maps, Wi-Fi, emergency calls, etc.
Camera is probably the first obstacle. I've got a kid, and I really want to have good documentation of her growing up. If there were a dumbphone with a legit camera, that'd be a big deal for me.
After that, probably maps is the next most important thing that I want an actual smart phone for. I remember getting my first smart phone, and probably the main thing I was excited about was always being able to navigate directly to where I wanted to go.
Almost everything else is tertiary to my needs.
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But then I start to feel like
this guy, with the "real" camera and the phone camera, but the phone camera is the one I've most consistently got on me, because I can't lug a whole additional piece of hardware around in a camera bag, meanwhile the phone camera pictures are grainy and shitty, and I'd just as soon have a Pixel in my pocket at all times that can take fairly good pictures at all times.
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Without the lens, exactly.
Realistically, cameras can be put into two categories - they either effortlessly fit in your pocket, or don't, and any that don't tend to get left home unless you intend to specifically go take photos. Doesn't really matter how much bigger it is at that point.
And if you have a high end smartphone, you probably can't get a camera that fits in your pocket that would be significantly better.
As the saying goes, the best camera is the one you have with you.
this won't fit into a pocket though.
maybe you can reasonably throw into a handbag. but it quickly became a logistical nightmare, with how you're essentially stuck with cheap/kit lens (to make it small enough) and humidity is also a deal breaker.
also, would you want to abuse a not-cheap APS-C camera that way? I wouldn't lol
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RandomStickman e giantpaper like this.
Pretty much nothing i use my phone for can be done on a flip phone.
Smartphone is no distraction for me - I just use it when I need it to do something for me.
maps - occasionally GPS.
mp3 player
mp4s watching on long train / bus rides or when camping.
large sd card (500gb)
memrise/ language learning app.
occasionally guitar tuner
occasionally internet is useful for checking events, buying tickets, checking for hotels and stuff.
occasionally checking emails.
occasionally playing mindustry (when i want my battery to die).
I don't carry a laptop most of the time that i'd need for most of that stuff above.
TBH - I can't use many other apps anyway because I don't want GPS or microG installed - so I'm mostly just f-droid apps.
Edit - i'd also prefer something like simpleX to SMS, but I don't actually know anyone else who uses it - so not an issue really. I just have to SMS.
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No decent (local) music player, no DSP, no music streaming with newpipe, decent video player to watch series in bed, screen too small to read books, no e2ee messaging, no web browser, useless camera, operating system without security updates.
I honestly couldn't care less about calls and SMS, I only use that like few times a year.
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Banking, messages, email, calendars, discord, messenger, maps, browser, Voyager (Lemmy), YouTube, music, shattered pixel dungeon, Wikipedia, notes, swipe keyboard, duolingo, WhatsApp, desmos, reminders, camera, photos, home automation….
I use my iPhone for a ton of different things. I pretty much never use it to make calls and hate talking on the phone (which is what flip phones are optimized for).
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No way. Life is way better with smart phones. Tap to pay, maps, always having a camera, always having my notes, working as a mobile hotspot, controlling my home security system. 25 other things.
This stuff used to be so much harder. I’m not going back.
I will freely admit there are some dangerous addictive and invasive aspects to it also. I’m ruthless about what apps I will grant permissions to. And I don’t browse the App Store getting tempted by their promises.
I think the appeal of our phones not having to be a computer and not needing all the same rigor and paranoia and extra steps of a computer was really exciting. But it hasn’t turned out to be true. So now I treat it like a computer and approach everything with that level of skepticism. And also treat it like the gateway to capitalism that it is and I am skeptical of anything that’s trying to take my data or money. I think with the right attitude it’s a net positive device in my life
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treating your phone like a computer definitely is the way to go. because it is!
my Vivo X100s Pro is a magnitude more powerful than the first hands-me-down laptop I have.
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Speaking as someone who never has carried a smartphone, there are a bunch of tradeoffs. I do my banking in person, for instance, and that can be mildly inconvenient. I don't take a lot of photographs (when I do, I use an old-style single-purpose camera). "Portable media" is a CD player, and I carry a paperback book if I think I might have to wait somewhere for more than ten minutes or so. And so on. Just continuing to live the same way as I did a quarter-century ago.
I expect, however, that it's a lot easier not to miss what you never had in the first place.
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All of that, plus the benefits of having a good pocket camera to carry around - spontaneous photography is my thing and having a good camera phone solves that equation nicely.
And before anyone says "get a real camera", I have real cameras and there's no way they can be carried in my pocket the same way a smartphone does lol. That and the smaller they get, the further image quality worsens to the point where you might just use a (good camera) phone instead.
I grew up with dumb phones, and you couldn't pay me enough to go back to using them - they suck!
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I’ve lived through the cell phone invention, to flip phones, to smartphones. They were terrible back then and I doubt that’s changed now.
Now, I do understand the reason why you moved back to one. For me, I just got aggressive about notifications and turned off most of them. I stopped social media tied to friends and family and am selective about what I’m on and for how long. Takes more personal willpower (or whatever) but you do get used to it in the long run and feel better.
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Not at all. It's really hard to live without the practical features of a smartphone, like web browsing and maps. What I need is privacy, not to throw it all away for a dumbphone.
I believe a lot of the benefits you claim dumbphones provide are all caused by abandoning social media. There's nothing wrong with technology, it's just social media. You don't need to use a dumbphone just to escape social media.
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dhhyfddehhfyy4673 e giantpaper like this.
Same. My "smartphone" usage is about 10% phone, 10% SMS service, 10% camera, 5% flashlight, 10% GPS + Map tool, 15% e-mail, and 40% web browser... I carried a pretty capable flip phone from 2006-2013, the things I liked best about it were its longevity and its long battery life (up to a week on standby, 3-4 days even with normal usage.) However, even upgraded with GPS capability, the small screen would have made for a poor map experience, and e-mail and web browser were just out of its practical reach.
Stop browsing social media, maybe install Tor if you want that level of privacy - Smartphones can do that...
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I simply wouldn't. A dumbphone does mostly the things I don't use a phone for.
And I don't mean fortnite and tickytocks, I've grown up through (most) of the history of mobile phones, I started with my mothers old Nokia 2110 back in like... 1998? I remember how awesome it was to finally have a phone, then to be able to get the bus schedules with the painfully slow WAP connection so I didn't have to call home, then to have navigation, replace the mp3 player, camera, and eventually even mostly my laptop.
I want to have a datapad with access to all the devices and information in my pocket at all times. If I need it to do something, I know there's an app for it probably. It's awesome.
I'd really prefer that the datapad wouldn't then leech all of my information in return, though.
Oh, and bring back physical keyboards. I'd give my left nut for an HTC Desire Z with 2025 hardware.
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Yes, I had to delete lemmy, reddit, twitter, mastodon, all games etc.
But I see 0 harm in:
- 2FA authenticator apps (google authenticator, app for government ID, bank, ...)
- DHL (unlocks packing station / parcel distributing machine here)
- calendar (with voice assistant)
- Pixel, iPhone, Samsung and some others are a fantastic camera! 10 years ago, it'd be a great deal just for that one feature. I used to pay USD/EUR 250 - 500 for a hobby-level camera that was worse
- read my mobile CO2 sensor
- not crucial, but occasionally show someone something in a video call
- send injured animal photo / video right to the wildlife rescue station for advice (~ 2x per year)
- plain old mp3 player
- some might read eBooks, which is a good use of it, but I still prefer a hardcopy
So yes, on my 2nd smartphone only (first in 2021), but I find that it's worth it these days.
Enshittification intensifies, but a Linux phone might become very viable in a few years, especially when LLM adapters become easier to use. Self-hosted alternatives to google/apple photos are already very advanced.
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The benefits of having a full-featured computer in my pocket are just too many for me to ditch it permanently if I have a choice. While it's certainly able to distract me if I let it, I don't think I've ever had it disrupt my sleep (aside from late night phone calls).
I think it's better for most (and potentially easier) to keep to the smartphone and just better control the applications that are on it and the notifications that they raise to make sure it isn't overly distracting you. This may require disabling certain pre-installed apps (e.g. Facebook is one I always disable and just interact with via browser when I want to). Another pattern to follow is adding barriers to the things that distract you most so it takes a little more effort to interact with your distractions. Hank Green's Focus Friend app that got popular recently is an example of that -- placing an emotional barrier on getting distracted when you need to focus.
But ultimately, we all need to do what's best for ourselves. Everyone's suceptibility to distraction is different and if a dumbphone is what works best for you, then by all means, go with that for as long as it's useful.
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My "smart" phone is rarely used as a telephone. It's set to silent, all notifications turned off, blocks unknown numbers, transcribes voicemail and spends most of the day as a window to the world.
I'm not sure what, if anything, a "dumb" phone would add to my life, except more interruption, more administration to keep contacts up to date, and yet another device to charge and maintain.
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presumably having a dumb phone that only does calls and maybe texts can help you stay in contact / reachable but without the possible distractions of the phone itself.
For me, my watch does this job if I need that.
Headphone jack. I just can't say this enough, despite the fact I have apple's wireless earbuds (of some clique name) in my pocket at this very second. Headphone jack.
Don't ask for it for yourself. Ask for it for the d-bag sharing music of some guy grunting over a drum track on the bus. We need to save him from the damage to his reputation when his friends remind him they knew he listened to such trash later when he needs to deny it.
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I am more curious about this section:
bureaucracy or banking apps force me to use it
Does it actually happen? How so? I never had any bank or anything else force me to use a phone, so I am having hard time imagining that. So I am genuinely curious about this portion of your message.
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2 factor authentication via app/texting I'd imagine.
An authenticator app is better than basically anything but a physical token / key generator, but the apps are more universally supported. No one is probably going to spoof your phone number to get into your accounts.... But doesn't hurt to me more secure about it anyway.
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I see. Thank you.
I am using a YubiKey for those (with a desktop authenticator app). Oddly enough, I do that because I do not trust Android/iPhone to stay secure. I actually trust them even less than a plain old SMS-based auth.
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I tried a lot of things to keep my phone/screen usage down.l, including a dump phone. One day I got this brilliant idea to shut my phone off.
That was way more efficient than any of the tricks I tried. When I need it for something I turn it on. I've since removed most fun apps from the thing.
I still have one game that I play, Lemmy, RSS and web browsers. Apart from those it's mostly a bureaucracy machine with messaging, email, banking, MFA, work stuff, maps, lots of apps for managing tickets (it's actually ridiculous), life trackers for some board games. Music, audiobooks and podcasts.
The smart phone is a convenient device that makes my life easier. I don't whis to handicap myself when I can just turn the phone off instead. I also like to leave the phone at home if for instance I'm going to a party at a well known location.
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A flip phone/dumbphone would sort of be mutually exclusive with my use case. I use my smartphone nearly exclusively as a lightweight mobile computer for web browsing, SSHing into my server, and messaging over internet (not SMS). I rarely use the "phone" features of my phone, i.e. phone calls and SMS. So I'd be losing out over the features I do use, in favour of features I don't use.
If you're being distracted by your phone and a dumbphone works for you, good on you. I think most people are like me and use their phones as a small mobile computer rather than a phone though, in which case distractions are best handled with one of the many apps/browser add-ons/etc that block websites or apps.
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Google maps navigation, web browsing, YouTube, music streaming, WhatsApp, email, social media apps for entertainment, news apps, notes app, to do app, public transit app, ebook and audiobook apps, utility apps, good camera, good screen, good speakers.
If I consider all this there is just no way to go back to the old school flip phones or the candy bar phones with the T9 keypad for me, best thing I can do is hide all the apps I don't want to be distracted by, put app locks on the addictive ones and just be mindful of the time I spend on my phone and figure out other ways to spend my time like dedicated ebook readers or paper books and other activities
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I think so too, there are so many useful tools on a phone, nobody has to use social media and apps that have a bad influence instead of just being practical and useful.
I have a minimalistic home screen with essential apps and all else is in folders for ex.
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what would need to change for you to actually give a flip phone a try?
For me to start using my phone as the main way of my computing needs and entertainment needs. Which I don't. I only use it to send messages and read when my laptop is not in my hands. So I essentially have a not-so-smartphone, not-so-dumbphone.
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My understanding is that flip phones only do calls and sms ?
So I never call or text.. Only thing I use is an XMPP client, web browser, youtube music (until I replace that with selfhosted) and would use maps (but right now I broke the GPS on my phone so not that ...)
So I don't think I could use a flip phone, mostly because none of these applications except maybe music work on a flip phone ? Webbrowser needs a full sized screen...
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Web browser. SMS and calling are completely useless. I need a phone so I can access the internet outside. I dont want a dumb 20 year old phone I want a modern phone without the pointless bullshit.
My ideal phone would have a small screen, replaceable battery, shit camera, shit speakers, 5G, two USB C slots and be able to run android apps and be cheap
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Same minus Android apps, like late old Nokia ones. Nokia stuff was perfect. Also UX is always treated today as if those tasks were impossible to combine with a good UX, and thus modern typical UX is just how you can do it.
Except late Nokia before MS acquisition disproves that by its existence. Its UX was better than any of that shit, with all the necessary things possible to do.
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Really only a handful of things:
1) navigation while traveling - don't need it much, if at all at home, but I travel often enough for work that losing that capability would be painful.
2) MFA - authenticator apps are the most convenient way to do MFA. SMS/email are terrible options for this and should only be used if there is absolutely no other option.
3) Access to the internet while away from home, both while traveling and while out and about
4) Music playback in the car
5) Communication - most of my friends don't use SMS/voice to talk, instead preferring Discord or Signal
Basically everything else I do on my phone could be done from a more proper computer with minimal inconvenience.
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All I really need is calls, sms, a solid browser and some more robost messaging apps like signal and matrix/element - I'm a prime candidate for PostmarketOS if we ever get a stable piece of hardware. I have an old oneplus 6 that I've played with it on, its so close. If a flip phone could master that today, sure
I do use tap to pay, but meh I dont think I would miss it and android auto in my car could easily just be a bluetooth audio connection
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I hadn't even thought of it from this angle. That's a hard stop for me right there.
Any flip phone you can basically hook up to bitpim or a cellebrite or whatever and copy its entire contents in a matter of seconds. There's no challenge. There's no security whatsoever.
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Once upon a time, I set up my phone so I didn't need to look at it: it was basically e-ink and audiobooks.
Then I started adding games and learning apps back (I don't remember why), and now I feel like I'm not going back until e-ink reaches parity with smartphones (refresh rate, cell coverage, near-current OS).
well, I work in IT. So I am required to use apps like Teams for mobile and DUO 2FA in order to authenticate my laptop sessions.
Now, could I use only SMS/email 2FA? Technically yes. And I could just have Teams on my work laptop and have that nearby all the time, but it would be extremely inconvenient. Navigation would also be a big problem. Due to the nature of my job, I frequently have to visit a large number of different sites around my area. Having to open my laptop each time I need to go somewhere, open up a map site like OSM or Google maps to get the directions, print them off or write them down, then follow them manually hoping that I don't encounter random slowdowns or closures in an area I am not familiar with is basically a non-starter for me.
As for personal use, navigation rears its ugly head again. I often will be traveling with friends or family and we decide on a whim to change our destination for dinner or hangouts after based on times, appetites, budgets, closures, etc. Having a map app on my phone makes that easy to do. It would be impossible to do that without it, unless I had a near exhaustive knowledge of my whole city and surrounding suburbs.
Honestly navigation is the #1 thing. Random other stuff comes up, like my mobile password manager Bitwarden, or my various apps like my City's bus/metro app, and my city's parking app. Both of which again, I could make do without, but it would be extremely tough and inconvenient.
I've decided that the happy medium for me is to use as much FOSS phone tech as possible. That way at least the tracking and data harvesting is minimized and I am generally not supporting megacorps.
I use GrapheneOS, with mostly FOSS apps. The proprietary apps I do use are isolated with GOS's special sauce. I use Magic Earth for my navigation, which while not open source, the data sets they use are, and they are not google, and based in the EU, so far better privacy than Google's trash.
I wish I could switch to a flip phone, I've seriously considered it many times over the last several years. But for my lifestyle, it's just not feasible. The best balance for me is to compute ethically on my mobile. I have thought about going for the weekend with just a dumb phone, that might be possible, but I'll have to see.
I used a flip/dumbphone for most of my teenage and high school years.
It's like asking what would make me go back to having a DOS computer and playing Wolf3D after being in full body virtual reality with Half Life Alyx.
I don't use a smartphone enough to worry about it. If I am using my phone, most of the time it's either Anki, Google Maps, or, like you mention, banking/government stuff.
Texting via SMS (or whatever it is these days) isn't really a thing in Japan, either, which makes things more difficult especially as I despise talking on the phone. If, for example, I'm at the supermarket and wife remembers something she needs, getting that message is good
I might switch to a flip phone if it had gps and maps.
That's simply the killer app for smart phones, at this point it's a necessary part of my life. Without it I need a separate device just for that, and that device is actually less useful.
Edit: now that I'm reading other responses I have to agree, secure messaging and 2fa are really important too.
I could live without everything else, but to be honest, I don't use much else. A few games, Lemmy, music apps, audiobook apps. Of those, Lemmy is the app most likely to leave me feeling upset, or like I want to doomscroll.
I think limiting the apps I use is the biggest thing I can do to not make the phone a negative influence for me. But to be clear, if that starts happening, Lemmy is the first to go, I already don't use any other social media.
Eh, I see no reason to switch to a dumb phone, because I don't think I'm that bad with my current phone. My main User profile on GrapheneOS is pretty minimal when it comes to apps, it's mostly messaging, banking, navigation, workout and music (I should probably move Lemmy and Pixelfed to a different profile, but they both have pretty little potential for scrolling for too long since the new content is naturally limited).
The only game on this profile is the one I'm developing as a hobby project lol
All the annoying Apps (Secondary Email, Amazon, Aliexpress, Linkedin, Smartlife, Grocery store coupon apps etc) are banished to a secondary profile that has no permission to run in the background or send any notifications.
I would not give up the smartphone for a dumb phone, primarily for the superior security and privacy smartphones provide that dumb phones just do not have technology for.
This conversation has a tone of settling for inferior technology to do the work a well-designed smartphone experience should.
The smartphone can be made pretty "dumb" - the user experience has more to do with the software (apps) added to it than the hardware (the smartphone) itself.
Aside from the apps the platform bundles, I only have Signal (for text and voice), email, a browser, calendar, a note taking app and a FOSS music player. I have disabled all sound and visual notifications and removed all apps off the main screen.
Of late, I've moved the SIM-card onto a secondary phone that resides in my bag, which is only switched-on for navigation or if I need WiFi in a snap.
It has not always been this way for me and I am sure my setup will continue to evolve as my needs change.
I know exactly what I need my phone for: music, maps, banking, messaging, books and sometimes traveling. Anything else I have is a distraction that I'm addicted to have.
You know what keeps me from binning it? The FOMO, and not being able to hold conversations with friends and coworkers because I'm would not be tuned to the latest trends and happenings, and that sucks.
The best setup in my eyes would be :
Dumb phone to take with you for calls / text messages and a non Sim card smartphone that would have apps on it but be hotspot over using the dumb phones data. Basically wifi only
That way if I were just doing errands on the weekend, just take the dumb phone. And then take the smartphone for onsite job trips and whatnot.
Smartphone would be degoogled.
Remember, 2fa authentication doesn't need mobile data to work, its time based
Honestly, for me, it's the one-two-three punch of easy notes taken anywhere + podcasts + camera.
- notes : before smartphones I carried a notebook in my pocket. And sometimes I still do; writing longhand is still pleasant for me, and being able to sketch and doodle with my notes is still clunky with a touchscreen, amazingly. But the experience of losing my notebook, or not having the right one with me when I need it, is disproportionately frustrating to me.
- podcasts : this is one of the few ways my ADHD brain truly focuses. Listening to a podcast while walking, biking, running, driving, doing dishes, cleaning a room, mowing the lawn, etc. is almost foolproof in getting me to pay attention to the content. I have to be in the right mood to read, and videos are background noise to me after having the Discovery Channel or Scifi Channel on 24/7 in my apartment in college. Before smartphones I had a trusty RCA Lyra that went everywhere with me; and while the form factor and experience were fantastic, I now have a backlog of over 800 podcast episodes that would not fit on that device's 512MB internal storage. (Also, I just got a pair of noise canceling earbuds, and I have to admit I really like them)
- camera : I've chosen my last four smartphones based on the camera quality. I've got kids, and being able to take adorable pictures of them at the drop of a hat is very useful to me. I don't need all the computational nonsense, but I do need it to be good enough and ever-present. Before smartphones, I would occasionally bring a digital camera around with me, but I can't afford one that would give me the quality I want, and it wouldn't fit in my pocket anyway.
Messaging, fitness tracking, and work stuff is also easier, though not in a way that I don't think I could backfill with other things if needed.
Nostalgia aside, the experience of these big three use cases is indisputably better with a smartphone than it was in 2005. Could I live without them? Yes! Absolutely. But I'd prefer not to, and since I shook my social media addiction I don't really feel the need to.
Well I had the displeasure of having to use a candybar style phone my mother was using cause it was 'easier' for her.
- Ages to write a message
- Very difficult to navigate through very similar SMSs (automated ones like electronic prescriptions) and pick the correct one based on date. Or even get an accurate broader picture of how many SMSs you received and when.
- Did not setup email but I believe it would also be horrendous
But in my case, I disagree with the base premise of this post. The biggest anxiety and distraction caused by my phone is via phone calls. Asynchronous communications like sms and email are much better for me.
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Whatsapp. That's the only fucking reason I'm not using a dumbphone. In Brazil, everyone uses it. Need to talk to a company? Whatsapp. Friends and family? Wpp. Book a medical checkup? Wpp.
There's also the problem of cell phone fees being abusive when calling/messaging people from a different company.
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Exclusively Internet calls and texts. Most of my communication is split between regular and texting and discord or Whatsapp.
Doesn't have to be those apps but something I can make a call with internationally
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Pretty much because my smartphone is basically my digital Swiss army knife. Like even if I got a separate digital camera and MP3 Player, I also use it for navigation and to communicate with my parents and friends over signal, and like hell I am gonna give up signal. Add to that it's also my portable wifi hotspot when I'm out, my train tickets, and how I pay for things when I'm sans-purse, I don't know if I can give up my smartphone.
Would it be good for me to get off social media and to stop doomscrolling the news? Yes, but I can do that by going out and touching grass.
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I don't make phone calls and rarely use SMS. All the features I need/want from a phone would be missing.
Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I genuinely love my phone. It makes my life better.
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Being forced to use a stock google android or iOS would be what drives me to use a dumb phone.
As long as I can install a custom ROM like LineageOS or GrapheneOS, I'm good.
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The main blocker is MFA. I can technically work around Google Authenticator (I use Aegis currently) because I can run it on my laptop, but I also need Okta verify (work VPN), Symantec VIP (bank), and the Steam app.
And some other very nice to haves:
- Signal messenger
- SSH client
- Libby app
- Organic Maps
I can find workaround for the rest.
That said, wouldn't it just be easier to uninstall the apps that cause distractions?
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Have a good day!
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CoMaps
I haven't. I looked into it, and that's quite the drama. I like the name of CoMaps better, so I'll check it out. I see shared commits, but they seem to go to Organic Maps first and then I guess get cherry-picked onto CoMaps?
I'm closer to carrying around a cyberdeck than a dumbphone.
I don't like either sms or phonecalls.
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Precisely. I'd be more likely to switch to one of those pocket "hot spot" devices. Just a thing in my pocket that gives devices I control internet access and maybe has a shitty web interface I can log into for basic SMS when absolutely necessary. No microphone, no camera, no GPS, no access to my actual computing environment. Only 2 downsides are maintaining battery charge in multiple devices and the fact that those hotspots are generally hot garbage, and so unreliable.
Maybe, a flip phone if one existed that was 1) a full-time good quality internet hotspot (i.e., good battery), and 2) lacked a GPS and camera, and hardware disconnected the microphone when closed. Now that I think about it, that would be a fantastic device... if it existed.
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This notion that healthy adults need mental herding is very pervasive
Need is a strong word, but it is very true that the environment you put people in will influence their behavior. Grocery stores filled with attractively packaged highly processed foods will drive more highly processed food consumption than if you had to show proof of age ID and sign a disclosure before being allowed into the back room to buy those same foods in plain brown wrapper containers blazoned with all the health warnings that apply to them.
Handheld screen tech delivers dopamine release as powerful as most recreational drugs / experiences. People are definitely "herded" by how that tech is delivered, default settings that most of them never take the time to learn how to change, other settings that annoyingly constantly reset themselves to undesired PAY ATTENTION TO ME configurations, etc.
So, yeah, mindfulness of how your devices are shaping your behavior is a "higher level of awareness" that we as a society should be collectively trying to attain.
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Creating “windows” with no phone at all works better for me.
You may as well ask me to throw away me phone entirely. I don't carry a smartphone to make phone calls. I hate phone calls.
95% of that is spam. And an old dumbphone won't even have auto spam detection.
I use my phone to take pictures, send those pictures, look for restaurants, navigate to those restaurants, listen to music, etc.
So what you're asking for is to make the part I hate about phones worse, while removing all the functions I actually use my phone for.
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I was gonna buy one of those Lite phones, but it was expensive so I just deleted time-wasting apps and now my smartphone respects my time.
Hardest part was getting people to just text me instead of various social media messenger apps. In the end, I deleted my accounts and now everyone from school thinks I'm dead, but those close to me can reach me easily.
Sometimes I still binge YouTube via Firefox on my phone though, so I installed "Unhook" which blocks recommended videos, so I can only see what I search for.
I guess just remember that your smartphone can be dumb too. And still a lot more convenient than a flip phone.
My job. I have to answer emails in the field, I need GPS to get to job sites (they don't sell ADC map books at 7-11 anymore). I need to take pictures and respond to texts. I don't need these things but as a business owner I'd rather have the one smart box in my pocket than have to carry around the individual tools for reasons. Also, I carry a flip phone. It just happens to be an extremely smart flip phone (Razr)
Oh, and ParkMobile. I can pay for parking nationwide with my phone. And Audiobooks. and... well shit, I guess it doesn't end really. Sudoku while I poo for example.
Oh, oh, and also... why would I want to get rid of my smart phone? You meantion getting sleep. I don't use my phone in bed. Bed is for sleeping and sexy times. I don't do social media (unless you include this which is really just the modern version of channel surfing with chat attachment.) Maybe it's my age. I didn't grow up with screens like kids these days so to me it's just another tool. I'm responding to this on my PC not my phone.
i don't want my phone to be dumb, I want it to be open source, front to back! The issue of smartphones isn't that its "too smart", instead we should talk about why the control of our phones aren't within our grasp, but on the palm of corpos and govs.
you want to use your smartphone while keeping it simple? Install less apps and disable ALL telemetry (this is where being open source comes in).
Aside from the Rotary Un-Phone, there are pretty much no dumb phones anymore. Those that market themselves as dumb are just reskinned full-fat platforms.
Even almost all flip phones are smart phones with a dumb skin, as they run either Android or KaiOS.
The main reason why I would switch is for device security - a true dumb phone OS that operates purely out of the ROM and has no ability to install anything that could survive a reboot.
And for something that primitive, it would be a flip phone on par with the Motorola StarTac. Simple black-on-green screen, low-res display, with a calendar and address book as the only non-phone, non-SMS functionality.
Well, I can buy a GPS map device.
Cash payments are not much of a problem until the Govt. starts adding that extra tax on cash withdrawal from ATMs.
I will need to wait for companies to grow a brain and stop using WhatsApp for work.
For all else, I use my computer anyway.
Buying train tickets, buying concert tickets, checking schedules for work or school or train times, communicating with people over something that isn't SMS or calls, taking nice photos on the go, listening to music.
Of course many of these would be solvable with a different device (handheld camera, mp3 player) or by buying tickets and checking schedules in advance, but the trade off isn't worth it for me
I would buy a feature phone today, preferably something eink, if it was painless to switch my SIM between it and my smart phone. Having to take the SIM out of one, put it in the other, then turn on the phone is not painless and they do not design the little draws to support thousands of open/closes against the contacts to read the SIM.
There are times I want the smart phone to have the SIM because I will want or need the extra functionality and if you just make the feature phone do everything then its just morphed into a smart phone with extra steps. I want the feature phone to be basic as I can get away with.
That said, I really want google wallet or similar that I can share between the two phones for my passes and tickets, audio streaming support, and maps. Something like a Hisense A9 would fit the bill but the temptation to add more apps than the basics would be too great, plus I still need a way to switch SIMs between the phones.
I cannot replace my smart phone, rather than supplement, with any feature phone because I use it for such a wide range of things. I can ssh from it to my home devices, I can manage my bank accounts, it tracks my health, it provides video and audio streaming on and offline, I can read and write documents/spreadsheets, plus anything you can do via a web browser.
I’m currently in Asia and – in this country at least – you are basically required to have a smart phone to do anything. Credit cards don’t exist. And they use QR payments for most things. So that implies a camera and a banking app (for your bank). Many places don’t accept cash anymore (!) - I don’t really get how they can do that because not everyone has a smart phone (poor people (obviously) & tourists (not even allowed to get bank accounts here) come immediately to mind — of which there are millions of both). I think so far it’s not a big deal because these people just spend their money elsewhere, but I worry this will become entrenched.
Anyway, I tried “dumb phoning” my iPhone and there’s just way too many things I rely on daily that require a smart phone: paying by QR code, banking, international banking, translating, navigation, ride booking, accommodation booking, messaging on iMessage, Line, Messenger (almost everyone in this country uses the last 2). When travelling in a foreign country, these things aren’t really optional. If I can’t pay for a bus ticket or food, I could be really screwed.
Now you might say some of things in my list are doable without apps; like accommodation booking… sure. But even if you find a place old skool style, how do you contact them? Most don’t have web pages, they use Facebook pages. And the contact info is usually a Line or Messenger id. Even if somehow you managed to find a phone number, they are unlikely to speak English. I’m old enough to remember travelling before the internet and honestly it was great and worked well, but that was because everyone was on the same footing. We’ve lost that and I actually think it’s much more difficult now.
I’ve gotten rid of most social media (except fediverse) which has helped my screen time a lot, but I think going back to a feature phone is, unfortunately, impossible here. I do hope that they see how economically unfair requiring a smart phone is though and at least pass some laws that require shops to take cash payments (last I heard these laws did exist in the West).
U.K. fires ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mandelson after publication of supportive emails to Jeffrey Epstein
In a statement in the House of Commons on Thursday, Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty said the decision came in the wake of the publication this week of emails Mandelson sent to Epstein in the 2000s, in which he gave his support to the disgraced financier even when he was facing jail for sex offenses.
Doughty said the emails showed that the “depth and extent” of Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein was “materially different” from what was known when he was appointed ambassador to Washington last year after the Labour Party’s election victory.
U.K. fires ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mandelson after publication of supportive emails to Jeffrey Epstein
On Wednesday, The Sun newspaper published emails that it said showed Mandelson telling Epstein to "fight for early release" shortly before Epstein was sentenced to 18 months in prison.PBS News
Mandelson had corruption problems back in the Blair/Brown days too. He's a slimy middleman who thought it his job to keep Labour aligned with corporate interests. It was unfortunate that Starmer thought it a good idea to give him a job.
Hopefully this time he'll fuck off and keep his head down.
Netanyahu is only obstacle to bringing hostages home, families say - BBC News
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum: Bring Them Home Now wrote on social media that Israel's strike on Qatar last week shows "every time a deal approaches, Netanyahu sabotages it".
The group's comments come after Israel carried out a strike on senior Hamas leaders in the Qatari capital of Doha, which Hamas said killed five of it members and a Qatari security official.
On Saturday, Netanyahu said getting rid of Hamas leaders in Qatar "would rid the main obstacle" to releasing the hostages and ending the war.
He also accused Hamas of blocking all ceasefire attempts in order to drag out the war in Gaza.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio travelled to Israel on Saturday and is due to meet with Netanyahu as Israel faces global condemnation for the attack.
However, families of the hostages described the Israeli PM's response as "the latest excuse for failing to bring home" their loved ones.
"The targeted operation in Qatar proved beyond any doubt that there is one obstacle to returning the 48 hostages and ending the war: Prime Minister Netanyahu," they said.
"The time has come to end the excuses designed to buy time so he can cling to power."
The group added that Netanyahu's "stalling" had cost "the lives of 42 hostages and threatens the lives of additional hostages who are barely surviving".
Before his departure, Rubio said US President Donald Trump was not happy with the strike on Qatar, but stressed that the US-Israeli relationship was "very strong"
Netanyahu is only obstacle to bringing hostages home, families say
Their intervention comes as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrives in Israel to meet the Israeli PM.Yang Tian (BBC News)
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China running out of rubbish to burn as waste power goes into overdrive
The country now has more than 1,000 waste-incinerating power stations, representing more than half the world’s waste power capacity, according to the Global Waste-to-Energy Research and Technology Council.
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It is possible to burn waste and manage the pollution in at least somewhat safe manner. Finland and Sweden do it reasonably well with high temperature furnaces and filtering the exhaust gases either with mechanical filter or trough water. That also (at least as far as I know) requires that you sort out the waste and don't burn stuff like electronics, metals and some other crap which can be effectively recycled and manage whatever remains properly.
So, it's possible, but I have absolutely no idea if China does that properly.
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Finland and Sweden do it reasonably well with high temperature furnaces and filtering the exhaust gases ... with water
That's just a fancy bubbler (bong) 😂
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Stamets
in reply to MicroWave • • •like this
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fittedsyllabi
in reply to MicroWave • • •like this
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charade_you_are
in reply to fittedsyllabi • • •ripcord
in reply to charade_you_are • • •charade_you_are
in reply to ripcord • • •Danquebec
in reply to ripcord • • •oneser
in reply to MicroWave • • •I have said it before and I will say it again.
It is not in the interest of the US that this war finishes.
A stalemate guarantees continued weapons sales much longer that peace.
Currently the US is getting
1) raised income via defence and energy contracts (incl. Oil & Gas) &
2) prolonged economic disadvantage to a competitor nation via sanctions.
ominous ocelot
in reply to oneser • • •The proxy war in Ukraine strengthens China, India, North korea. China gets the chance to ramp up its military production capacity even more while Russia pays for it. North Korea gains military know-how... submarines, rockets, drones. India gets cheap gas.
Ok, Syria's regime collapsed, but the country isn't stable at all.
Europe is forced to arm itself or so they say. The result is a diminishing influence of the US on Europe. The broken promise to protect Ukraine if they give up their nukes reduces the trust in the US. The US diplomacy doesn't look exactly coherent - Russia has not much reason to take the US seriously atm.
Russia's autocracy is stabilized by the war. Its war against Ukraine didn't hurt Russia too much, it even gained something. A message to other countries with ambitions to try it themselves. Canada, Greenland and Taiwan are on the menu I heard.
And: Resources are wasted. Environment and climate are damaged. People die.
Not sure if the advantages outweigh the negative aspects or if it is more about domestic political opportunism and cleptocracy/ personal gain. Inexperiencie and shortsightedness too, maybe.
phutatorius
in reply to ominous ocelot • • •Russia controls Trump. He has never done anything that has worked against Russia, and never will.
ominous ocelot
in reply to phutatorius • • •Controlling, steering, influencing - who knows. He is still hoping for a Trump Tower at the Red Square or something like that.
The problem is that the ministers of the department of state and the department of defense aren't up to their task either. I mean Hegseth?
phutatorius
in reply to ominous ocelot • • •ominous ocelot
in reply to phutatorius • • •phutatorius
in reply to oneser • • •It's important to dstinguish the interest of the US from the interest of Donald Trump and his traitorous junta.
It is not in Trump's interest that the war ends without a Russian victory, since Trump is a Russian stooge who was put in office by Putin to deliver the victory that Russia has not been able to achieve by force of arms. Trump doesn't want to be seen to be backstabbing Ukraine, so instead he has resorted to lip service not backed with any concrete measures that might change the balance of power in the conflict.
US arms sales attributable to the Ukrainian conflict are relatively small part of the US's entire defense market (which is vastly bloated and which has been used over several decades to achieve military Keynesianism).
A strong demand for oil and gas benefits Russia proportionately far more than it does the US, since fossil fuel exports are a far larger percentage of Russian export earnings. What else do they make that anyone wants? Vodka and caviar? Spyware-riddled antiviros software?
The only reason the sanctions are damaging to Russia is that Russia continues its aggression towards Ukraine and threats towards the non-Russian-vassal states in Europe. And the US is far from the only nation sanctioning Russia. And "competitor" in what, exactly?
oneser
in reply to phutatorius • • •I am unsure. Logic tells me Trump has had enough opportunities to completely shit on Ukraine and has not taken them. His position is IMHO unclear.
I disagree. Income for gas exports has not risen LINK whereas US exports continue to do so LINK
Geopolitical influence overall (e.g. in the Middle East, Asia, Central Europe)
June 2025 — Monthly analysis of Russian fossil fuel exports and sanctions – Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air
Petras Katinas (CREA – Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air)phutatorius
in reply to oneser • • •Excellent comments.
He's balancing serving Putin and staying alive. There are factions within the US military and security state that are unlikely to tolerate a complete sell-out. Though I'd argue that the gross act of extortion what was minerals deal was an example of completely shitting on Ukraine, as was the arrogant and insulting behavior shown to Zelenskyy by Trump and Vance.
But that's not quite what I said (perhaps because I didn't say it all that clearly). Russia needs fossil-fuel export earnings much more than the US does, and because of Russia's costs of production and shipping, its break-even point requires a higher market price than low-cost producers such as Saudi Arabia. But with Ukraine attacking pipelines and refineries, and with resources within the economy being commandeered to service immediate military needs, Russia's ability to supply fossil fuels is constrained right now (that's what one of your links is showing), and most of the European countries that used to buy from Russia have reduced their consumption in order to limit the scope of future blackmail.
Influence is helpful. So what are the strategic objectives being served by that influence?