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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   4579 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 27, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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What are some of the best VPN services?

I'd want plenty of speed (live in Europe if that matters), and privacy you might actually trust somewhat.

What are your goals from it, who do you want privacy from?

I'm pretty skeptical on the usefulness of VPNs. Nothing is going to be faster than your bare connection of course. If you want privacy from your parents, local ISP, employer, etc, then any of them will do. If you want privacy from your government, then use Tor from a freshly imaged disposable laptop, and then pray to God because even that probably isn't good enough.

I want to be tracked less by my ISP for torrenting purposes; tracked less by google and others in everything I do online.

I'm becoming more conscious of how thumbprinted I am everywhere by how youtube gives me video recs based on things my android phone has recorded, things said out loud by me or others. Even turning off the mic access on my phone does not stop this. It seems to record all audio at all times anyway. Not sure what to do about that.

It is pretty terrifying sometimes. At this point I've pretty much given up any real opsec because I doubt I can defend myself from the spying of major companies, let alone governments, without an inordinate amount of time studying cryptography.

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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

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