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

  • @Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    10 hours ago

    One should be have been assuming since Windows 7 and automated online updates that the Microsoft key used to sign OS updates is in the hands of at least the NSA (and hence probably the Israeli equivalent) and they can push whatever they want to your computer as an OS update, bypassing all protections.

    In fact the same applies to Linux updates of certain distros - if they’re maintained by a company based in the US they can be forced by FISA courts to provide the signing keys to the US Government.

    More in general, just go read about FISA courts and their secret court orders - companies based in the US or hosting things in the US can be secretly forced to just “give the keys of the Realm” to parts of the US Government.

    Since things like the Patriot act one should be treating companies based in the US as just as untrustworthy as companies based in China.

    (By the way, some other supposed Democratic countries have similar or worse systems - for example the equivalent of FISA courts in the UK have things like secret court sessions were the side which is not the State is not authorized to have a legal representation, see most of the evidence or even know the decision of the court).

    Have people already forgot most of what came out in the Snowden Revelations?!

    • @theblips@lemm.ee
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      57 hours ago

      Would stuff like Fedora be in danger, in this case? I couldn’t find if Red Hat was US based

      • @mlg@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        In theory yes since they’re essentially sponsored by RedHat. (RedHat is owned by IBM)

        Which is funny because the Snowden leaks actually showed the NSA likes using Fedora for their fancy spy tech lol.

        I guess a good alternative would be OpenSUSE.

    • @N0x0n@lemmy.ml
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      5 hours ago

      Yep… Snowden, Chelsea* Manning, Assange and an older whistleblower who died recently but I forgot his name… They also forgot what Cambridge Analytica was about. They just need to throw some bread and games at us and we go one living as nothing ever happend.

      • queermunist she/her
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        8 hours ago

        Chelsea* Manning

        But, yeah, most people just do not care if they are spied on because they don’t think it will be used for anything besides advertising. Trump is going to wake a lot of people up to the immense power we’ve handed over to our tech overlords.

      • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        26 hours ago

        They just need to throw some bread and games at us and we go one living as nothing ever happend.

        I mean, there’s not a whole lot of alternative. It seems like the only two “valid” avenues of resistance are retreating from society into a hermetically sealed bubble and starting a podcast.

        • @N0x0n@lemmy.ml
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          4 hours ago

          Haha, yeah It seems so…

          Another option and a more long term solution would be to go back to the roots and relearn the basics of living !

          How to grow a garden, How to hunt, How to build a small wooden house, how to make fire and then rebuild the technology but only the needed ones.

          If we grew things and dug together the rare ores to make solar panels together, build small wind turbines, waterwheels as a community hands by hands… We would probably profit more and enjoy ourselves way more than ever…

          Regardless we prefer being held hostage by our own limitations and technology constraints… Not blaming anyone here except myself, It’s just a sad though we could all live happy in a more green state without this mass nonsense technology…

          But hey… What’s better than living for ourselves and hard earned money? Huh? Our day to day routine on Netflix, YouTube, Lemmy, twitter Facebook… 7-16 day to day job we all hate thinking we are going to enjoy life when we are old and retired? Emotionally dead gifts bought on Amazon, eBay, temu…

          Without saying… Life sucks ! And If you enjoy this kind of life, What can I say… :/ I either envy you for being a brainless sheep or hate you like I hate myself for not burning down this system all together !

          Pick your poison !

          /Rant off

          • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            44 hours ago

            Another option and a more long term solution would be to go back to the roots and relearn the basics of living !

            That requires large plots of arable land.

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

            The valley, named after the Spanish Mission Santa Clara, was for a time known as the Valley of Heart’s Delight for its high concentration of orchards, flowering trees, and plants. Until the 1960s it was the largest fruit-producing and packing region in the world, with 39 canneries. The growing high-tech industry in the 1960s transformed the area from farmland to densely populated cities, and it became referred to as the Silicon Valley.

            But we paved over paradise and put up a parking lot.

            There’s no unfucking that chicken. We are living in a world that is substantially less arable than it was a century ago. We do not have an Eden to go back to.