Notices by David Culley (davidculley@sigmoid.social)

@plantarum @mpjgregoire @pjohanneson Public services like delivering letters or public transport shouldn’t need to be profitable. Of course they shouldn’t waste money but use it sensibly. But revenue shouldn’t be their priority, and shouldn’t need to be. If we can bail out fucking Goldman Sachs or Lehman Brothers because „too big to fail“, we can also keep public postal service alive, even in an age where people send less and less letters due to digitalization.

The Thunderbird developers listened to their users and removed tracking entirely. Only the beta version of version 8 contained the telemetry. The final release no longer does, at least for now.

@ayoub For context: That TV channel ”Welt“ (German for ”world“) is a right-wing anti-immigrant propaganda channel, and part of the disgusting Axel Springer press. It’s not much different from Fox News in the US. That channel plays a huge role in pushing Germany back to fascism.

@aral I’m curious what made you move from Linux to macOS?

@aral Speedy recovery, Aral!

Seven weeks ago in #Germany, a Muslim killed three people with a knife. That was the perfect justification for the #surveillance fanatics who were already at it building a totalitarian police state.

Germany‘s governing parties now agreed on dystopian ubiquitous bulk face recognition and mass deportation to ”safe“ countries such as Afghanistan/Syria. Next week they decide in parliament to not allow for time for protests.

Brought to you by the people pushing #ChatControl.
https://eupolicy.social/@pneutig/113293674096319660

Mozilla bought the excellent Android email app K-9 (which didn’t include any trackers) and integrated trackers as part of #Mozilla‘s rebranding under the #Thunderbird name.

They even made it opt-out instead of opt-in. Their defense for breaking the law: ”we wouldn’t have enough data if we obeyed the law.“

It doesn’t matter whether you ”anonymized“ the data or not: If you want to extract data from someone’s device to yours, you may do so only if they knowingly consented.
https://social.tchncs.de/@kuketzblog/113244035577912640

@aral The same people (Ministry of the Interior)—or rather their head, Nancy Faeser, a surveillance fanatic—is also currently establishing a police state in Germany that puts both 1984 and Hitler's Gestapo to shame.

She allows police to use ClearviewAI to establish omnipresent face recognition video surveillance. She already allowed police to search your pockets for no reason when before it was allowed only in known criminal hot spots.

Mind you, neo-nazi party AfD will come to power next year.

@aral Do you happen to know ”influencers“ or people with a huge reach to spread the idea of #TaxTheRich #EatTheRich?

I’m thinking hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of followers.

Who could have a bigger impact than us mere mortals?

@aral What worries me even more than the courtiers are the acolytes. The courtiers at least get a place at court for their ass-kissing.

When you tell someone you’re not on Twitter because it’s a cesspool full of Nazis, hatespeech, misinformation and propaganda … and they tell you they don’t really see that … and then go on to defend #Musk who doesn’t even know they exist.

These acolytes gain nothing. They’ve just been utterly indoctrinated. I hope they wake up one day, for their sake and ours.

@aral I can’t believe that virtually the entire West gives Israel a pass on their genocide.

The mayor of Japanese city Nagasaki excluded Israel from the annual peace memorial ceremony.

Israel, who is committing genocide and whose minister Amichai Elijahu demanded in November 2023 to drop an atomic bomb over Gaza.

Because of this exclusion, the USA, the UK, Germany, and other US allies boycotted the ceremony.

The USA who dropped the atomic bomb over Nagasaki boycotted the peace memorial ceremony. Because their friend Israel wasn’t invited. After wanting to use a nuclear bomb in Gaza.

The EU formed a working group (consisting solely of police chiefs) to subvert encrypted communication for all EU citizens.

This is NOT a group of experts, despite its name. This is a group of police officials with mass surveillance fantasies, day-dreaming about total control, with no technical knowledge or even the most basic understanding of how encryption works.

They work in secret, excluding everyone who isn’t police. THEY are the ones going dark. #EUGoingDark

https://netzpolitik.org/2024/going-dark-eu-states-push-for-access-to-encrypted-data-and-increased-surveillance/

@blacklight I recently switched from Namecheap to Porkbun, and am very satisfied with Porkbun.

Namecheap is good but kept getting more and more expensive virtually every year. Porkbun is very affordable and transparent about their pricing, and seems to be the most popular nowadays based on a quick search through the relevant subreddits.