Bluesky had some controversy when it first came out. Now that it's been around for a while, I'm curious what the consensus is. How does it compare to Mastodon? Is Bluesky now self-hostable and compatible with the Fediverse?

I am looking for recommendations for an open source self-hosted ~~version control system~~ source code hosting service. I found a few, but I can't decide on which one to pick:

• Gogs
• Gitea
• Forgejo

If there's a better one than the ones I've listed here, I'd love to hear about it!

I care primarily about privacy and security, if that makes any difference.

About

It has always bothered me that privacy has no unified symbol. Every community has their own take on how privacy should be visualized. I want to unify the privacy community across the internet. It is my belief that, with a universal symbol for privacy, we will grow stronger. We will have a symbol to represent us. We will have a flag to fly.

Icon

The icon is a clipart created by librarian Gordon Dylan Johnson which can be found here. The size of the icon is large enough to still fit if the flag is cropped to a square/circular aspect ratio.

Dimensions

The size of the flag is 140 by 90 centimeters. These dimensions are chosen because of the dimensions of a Tor Browser window (1400x900 pixels).

Colors

The color blue (Azure) was chosen because it symbolizes security, stability, and reliability. The exact shade of blue used is the same azure color used by the flag of Europe, because of GDPR.

Design

This flag follows the "Principals of design" for vexillography.

Use it!

Use this flag for group chats, communities, profiles, stickers, patches, articles, wallpapers, real flags, anything you want to! Spread it around so it becomes a global icon for privacy. Even put it on the Wikipedia page for privacy if you can!

I know there are plenty of software missing from here. This is just a fun infographic I made, no need to take it seriously :)

About

Duck.ai is one of the few online places to chat with AI privately. Self-hosting your own AI model is a better option, but not everybody has the hardware for it. DuckDuckGo has made deals with the model providers to keep your chats private, so it's an easy option to recommend.

If you're like me, you probably clear your cookies a lot (or always browse in incognito). This means that any time you visit Duck.ai, you have to set all your settings again. One solution is to set Duck.ai as an exception to your browser data deletion, but that makes me uneasy. After getting fed up setting my preferred settings each time, I wanted to see if I could automate the process.

The Bookmarklet

Bookmarklets are essentially bookmarks in your bookmarks bar that, when clicked, run your own JavaScript code on whichever page you're visiting. This was a neat trick that some of my classmates used to edit pages when the Inspect Element was disabled on school computers.

I wrote a short bookmarklet that will automatically set my preferred settings in Duck.ai:

javascript:{
	const settings = {
		'aiChatPromptSuggestions': '{"hideSuggestions":true}',
		'aichatPromoDismissal': '{"promosDismissed":"9999-99-99"}',
		'duckaiCanUseApproxLocation': 'false',
		'duckaiSidebarCollapsed': 'true',
		'duckduckgo_settings': '{"description":"Each key is a setting documented in https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/settings/params/","kdcm":"6","kdcs":"0"}',
		'isRecentChatsOn': '"0"',
		'preferredDuckaiModel': '"6"',
		'duckaiSurveyDismissed': 'true',
	};
	
	let keys = Object.keys(settings);
	keys.forEach(key => {
		const value = settings[key];
		localStorage.setItem(key, value);
	});
	
	location.reload();
}

How To Use

(Steps may vary between browsers)

1. Copy-paste the bookmarklet code above (including the part that says javascript:)
2. Right click on the bookmarks bar in your browser
3. Select "Add page..."
4. In the field that says "URL", paste the code you copied
5. Name the bookmarklet whatever you want, for example: Debloat Duck.ai
6. Click "Save"
7. Visit Duck.ai (which redirects to https://duckduckgo.com/?q=DuckDuckGo+AI+Chat&ia=chat&duckai=1) You must visit this page before running the bookmarklet, because bookmarklets can only run code on the page you're currently visiting.
8. Click on the bookmarklet you just created. This will run the code.

You should now have a distraction free, private chat.

Explanation

Duck.ai stores its settings in the browser's "local storage". If you open the Inspect Element (either by right clicking on the page and clicking "Inspect" or by pressing F12) and navigate to Application > Local Storage > https://duckduckgo.com/ you will see a list of settings and their corresponding values.

By default, these settings are a tad too distracting for my taste. The bookmarklet I made does the following:

1. Hides prompt suggestions
2. Dismisses the promo by setting the shown date to something impossible in the future
3. Disables using approximate location for responses
4. Collapses the sidebar
5. duckduckgo_settings doesn't actually do much, and the values there are, in fact, not documented on this page
6. Disables chat history
7. Sets the preferred model to Mistral Small 3, which is open source and has low moderation.

You can set your preferred settings before running the bookmarklet and edit the bookmarklet code according to your own settings.

The code then iterates through these settings, and sets each one. Then, finally, reloads the page to apply the settings.

Updates

This project is far too small to make an entire repository for it, so I will try to just update this post with any new code. For example, duckaiCanUseApproxLocation is a new setting that was added in the last few days.

I hope everyone enjoys this as much as I did!

Here is a before and after:

New Features

• The prompt to take a survey is now dismissed.

NOTE

For some reason, Lemmy isn't allowing me to upload more than 11 images. I will try to add the missing images after posting. It will take a while.

Edit: It isn't allowing me to add more images. If anyone is interested, I will upload the images elsewhere.

Introduction

Setting up a secure coding environment for the Rust programming language on secureblue isn't hard to do, but it's difficult to figure out on your own. That is why I am making a guide explaining how to do it yourself.

For this tutorial, I will be using the silverblue-main-hardened:latest image of secureblue. For this tutorial, I am also assuming you have enabled Flatpak permission lockdown by running ujust flatpak-permissions-lockdown.

Install a code editor

You can install whichever code editor you want, but for this tutorial I will be using VSCodium which is an open source binary of Microsoft's Visual Studio Code without telemetry.

Command-line instructions

Open the terminal.

VScodium can be installed using the following command:

flatpak install com.vscodium.codium

Sources: 1, 2

You will be prompted to proceed with changes to the user installation. After reviewing the changes, you can press enter. VSCodium will be downloaded and installed for the current user.

You may close the terminal now.

User-interface instructions

1. Open GNOME Software.

2. Type VSCodium. This should begin typing in a search bar, and VSCodium should show up as a search result.

3. Select VSCodium (the blue one). VSCodium - Insiders (the orange one) is the nightly release of VSCodium, and is not recommended for daily use.

4. Click the blue Install button on the top right. VSCodium will be downloaded and installed for the current user.

You may close GNOME Software now.

Install the Rust SDK

Rust provides multiple ways of installing. On secureblue, things are more locked down, especially with VSCodium being installed as a Flatpak. Rather than layering Rust as a system package and giving VSCodium invasive permissions to make it work, there is a much more elegant way to install Rust that isn't mentioned in their install instructions.

Flathub provides an SDK Extension for Rust that can be used for Flatpak code editors, such as VSCodium. This can only be installed from the command line. Trying to install it from GNOME Software will install an outdated version of the Rust SDK.

Open the terminal.

First, we need to find the branch of org.freedesktop.Sdk. This will allow us to install the correct version of the Rust SDK.

The branch of org.freedesktop.Sdk can be found using the following command:

flatpak info org.freedesktop.Sdk

Make a note of the version number next to the Branch: section. In my case, it is 24.08.

The Rust SDK can be installed using the following command:

flatpak install org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.rust-stable

You will be prompted to select which ref you would like to install. Find the version that matches the branch of org.freedesktop.Sdk. Type the number corresponding with the version (in my case, 5), and press enter.

You will be prompted to proceed with changes to the user installation. After reviewing the changes, you can press enter. The Rust SDK will be downloaded and installed for the current user.

You may close the terminal now.

Grant Flatpak permissions

Assuming you enabled Flatpak permission lockdown, VSCodium won't have permission to access everything it needs to work properly. We need to grant these permissions manually.

We will need to create a directory to act as your project directory. VSCodium will have access to every file in this directory, so it is best to only use it for VSCodium. I am deciding to create a folder in my home directory named VSCodium to store all of my VSCodium projects.

VSCodium will need the following permissions to work:

• The Network permission, in order to efficiently install extensions and update them automatically.
• Access to a dedicated project directory, in order to create workspaces.
• Permission to access the Rust SDK, in order to support the Rust language.
• Optional access to Development syscalls, in order to use debugging extensions.

Command-line instructions

Open the terminal.

VScodium can be granted the Network permission using the following command:

flatpak override -u --share=network com.vscodium.codium

The -u flag is an alias for --user, which will change the permission only for the current user.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

A project directory can be created using the following command:

mkdir VSCodium

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

VSCodium can be granted access to the project directory using the following command:

flatpak override -u --filesystem=~/VSCodium com.vscodium.codium

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

VScodium can be granted access to the Rust SDK using the following command:

flatpak override -u --env=FLATPAK_ENABLE_SDK_EXT=rust-stable com.vscodium.codium

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

You may close the terminal now.

User-interface instructions

1. Open Flatseal. This should be installed by default, but if you decided not to install it during the post-install of secureblue, it can be installed from GNOME Software.

2. Type VSCodium. This should begin typing in a search bar on the left, and VSCodium should show up as a search result.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

3. Select VSCodium.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

4. To grant VSCodium the Network permission, enable the switch next to the Network permission. It should turn blue, indicating that the permission has been granted.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

5. Open Files

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

6. Right click, and click on the option labeled New Folder... (This can also be done using Shift+Ctrl+N)

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

7. Enter VSCodium in the text field labeled Folder Name.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

8. Click Create to create the folder. This will create a project directory for VSCodium to use.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

9. In Flatseal, scroll down to the Filesystem section.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

10. Click on the folder with a plus icon under the Other files section. An empty text field should appear.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

11. Click on the empty text field.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

12. Enter the following into the text field:

~/VSCodium

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

13. To grant VSCodium access to the Rust SDK, scroll down to the Environment section.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

14. Click the plus icon on the top right. An empty text field should appear.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

15. Click on the empty text field.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

16. Enter the following into the text field:

FLATPAK_ENABLE_SDK_EXT=rust-stable

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

You may close Flatseal now.

Open VSCodium

Now that VSCodium has the necessary permissions to function, we can finally run it.

Command-line instructions

Open the terminal.

VScodium can berun using the following command:

flatpak run com.vscodium.codium

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

User-interface instructions

1. Press the Super key to view the dock.

2. Click on the Show Apps button (nine dots) on the bottom right to show a list of installed apps.

3. Click on the VSCodium icon to open it.

Install the rust-analyzer extension

Upon first launching VSCodium, you will be presented with a README.md file.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

This file has information about using VSCodium as a Flatpak. Since we have already granted it the necessary permissions, this file can be ignored.

We now need to install the rust-analyzer extension. This extension will give us a comfortable Rust development environment in VSCodium.

Keyboard instructions

Launch the VSCodium Quick Open by using Ctrl+P.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

Enter the following command:

ext install rust-lang.rust-analyzer

Sources: 1

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

Press enter to install the rust-analyzer extension.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

You will be prompted to trust the publisher and install the extension. After reviewing the prompt, you can press enter to select the Trust Publisher & Install button on the bottom right.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

You may be prompted to trust the authors of the files in this workspace. After reviewing the prompt, you can select the Install button. The rust-analyzer extension will be downloaded and installed for the current profile.

Mouse instructions

1. Click on the Extensions menu on the left. (This can also be opened by using Ctrl+Shift+X)

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

2. Enter rust-analyzer into the search bar. This will search for the extension we need.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

3. Click on the extension labeled rust-analyzer.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

4. Click the Install button for the rust-analyzer extension.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

5. You will be prompted to trust the publisher and install the extension. After reviewing the prompt, you can click on the Trust Publisher & Install button on the bottom right.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

6. You may be prompted to trust the authors of the files in this workspace. After reviewing the prompt, you can click the Install button. The rust-analyzer extension will be downloaded and installed for the current profile.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

The rust-analyzer extension is now installed.

Create a new project

Now that we have the rust-analyzer extension installed, we can create a new Rust project.

The keyboard instructions are broken due to the Ctrl+K keybind being unfunctional, and the Ctrl+O keybind being binded to the wrong option. Because of that, only mouse instructions are available for this step.

1. Click on the File dropdown on the top left.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

2. Click on the option labeled Open Folder...

You will get a dialogue saying the following:

Oops! Something went wrong.
Unable to find "/app/share/ide-flatpak-wrapper". Please check the spelling and try again.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

This can be ignored. It is appearing because we never granted VSCodium access to a specific folder, and it has no effect.

3. Click on OK to dismiss it.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

4. Double click on the VSCodium folder to enter it.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

5. Right click, and click on the option labeled New Folder... (This can also be done using Shift+Ctrl+N). Alternatively, select the folder with a plus icon on the top right.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

6. Enter the name of your project in the text field labeled Folder Name. For this example, I will create a folder named example.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

9. Click Create to create the folder.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

10. Click Open in the bottom left to open the folder.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

11. You will be prompted to trust the authors of the files in this folder. After reviewing the prompt, you can select the Yes, I trust the authors button.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

12. Press Ctrl+` to open the terminal.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

13. The project can be initialized using the following command:

cargo init

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

You have now created a Rust project, and you can get started coding in Rust.

Optional: Support for debugging

Right now, there are no debugging extensions installed. The two recommended debugging extensions are CodeLLDB and Native Debug. I prefer CodeLLDB because, as of writing this, Native Debug has not been updated in over a year. It is still in active development, but there has not been a release in over a year.

Keyboard instructions

Open VSCodium.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

Launch the VSCodium Quick Open by using Ctrl+P.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

Enter the following command:

ext install vadimcn.vscode-lldb

Sources: 1

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

Press enter to install the CodeLLDB extension.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

You will be prompted to trust the publisher and install the extension. After reviewing the prompt, you can press enter to select the Trust Publisher & Install button on the bottom right. The CodeLLDB extension will be downloaded and installed for the current profile.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

You will see a prompt on the bottom right saying the following:

Completed installing extension. Please restart extensions to enable it.

Select Restart Extensions to restart the extensions.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

Mouse instructions

1. Click on the Extensions menu on the left. (This can also be opened by using Ctrl+Shift+X)

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

2. Enter CodeLLDB into the search bar. This will search for the extension we need.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

3. Click on the extension labeled CodeLLDB.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

4. Click the Install button for the CodeLLDB extension.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

5. You will be prompted to trust the publisher and install the extension. After reviewing the prompt, you can click on the Trust Publisher & Install button on the bottom right. The CodeLLDB extension will be downloaded and installed for the current profile.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

You will see a prompt on the bottom right saying the following:

Completed installing extension. Please restart extensions to enable it.

Select Restart Extensions to restart the extensions.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

The CodeLLDB extension is now installed.

Grant VSCodium ptrace access

If you try to debug a program using a debugger extension, you will receive the following error:

VSCodium
Cannot launch '/var/home/anonymous/VSCodium/example/target/debug/example': ptrace failed: Operation not permitted

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

The reason for this is because VSCodium does not have permission to access development syscalls.

Command-line instructions

Open the terminal.

VScodium can be granted the Development syscalls permission using the following command:

flatpak override -u --allow=devel com.vscodium.codium

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

You may close the terminal now.

User-interface instructions

1. Open Flatseal.

2. Type VSCodium. This should begin typing in a search bar on the left, and VSCodium should show up as a search result.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

3. Select VSCodium.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

4. To grant VSCodium the Development syscalls permission, scroll down to the section labeled Allow.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

5. Enable the switch next to the Development syscalls (e.g. ptrace) permission. It should turn blue, indicating that the permission has been granted.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

You may close Flatseal now.

Enable anti-cheat support

Even though VSCodium has access to ptrace, the system still does not permit it. This is to defend against basic security concerns. secureblue provides a toggle to enable support for anti-cheat, which will allow VSCodium to access ptrace.

Open the terminal.

Anti-cheat support can be enabled using one of the following commands:

ujust toggle-anticheat-support

or

ujust toggle-ptrace-scope

Sources: 1

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

You will be prompted for your administrator passphrase. After reviewing the prompt, enter your passphrase and click Authenticate. This will enable anti-cheat support.

[INSERT IMAGE HERE]

You will need to restart your device to complete the changes.

Command-line instructions

Open the terminal.

The device can be restarted using the following command:

reboot

User-interface instructions

1. Click on the status bar on the top right.

2. Click on the power button.

3. Click on the option labeled Restart....

4. You will get a prompt saying the following:

Restart
The system will restart automatically in 60 seconds

5. Click on the button labeled Restart to restart the system now.

Anti-cheat support is now enabled, and debugging extensions will work.

This is original content. AI was not used anywhere except for the bottom right image, simply because I could not find one similar enough to what I needed. This took around 6 hours to make.

Transcription (for the visually impaired)

(I tried my best)

The background is an iceberg with 6 levels, denoting 6 different levels of privacy.

The tip of the iceberg is titled "The Brainwashed" with a quote beside it that says "I have nothing to hide". The logos depicted in this section are:

• Instagram
• Apple
• TikTok
• PayPal
• Google Chrome
• CashApp
• WhatsApp
• Samsung
• Steam
• Microsoft Windows
• Ring (Security Camera)
• YouTube
• Amazon
• Discord
• Gmail
• ChatGPT

The surface section of the iceberg is titled "As seen on TV" with a quote beside it that says "This video is sponsored by...". The logos depicted in this section are:

• NordVPN
• Bitdefender
• Incogni
• Malwarebytes
• Opera GX
• ExpressVPN

An underwater section of the iceberg is titled "The Beginner" with a quote beside it that says "I don't like hackers and spying". The logos depicted in this section are:

• Telegram
• Authy
• Brave Browser
• Privacy.com (Virtual Cards)
• DuckDuckGo
• iMessage
• Proton Mail
• AdBlock (Browser Extension)

A lower section of the iceberg is titled "The Privacy Enthusiast" with a quote beside it that says "I have nothing I want to show". The logos depicted in this section are:

• Signal (Messenger)
• Tuta
• addy.io
• Linux
• Bitwarden
• uBlock Origin
• Tor and Tor Browser
• ProtonVPN

An even lower section of the iceberg is titled "The Privacy Activist" with a quote beside it that says "Privacy is a human right". The logos depicted in this section are:

• Monero
• GrapheneOS
• Vanadium (Web Browser)
• KeePassDX
• SimpleX Chat
• Accrescent
• SearXNG
• Aegis Authenticator
• OpenWrt
• Mullvad VPN
• An illustration of physical cash

The lowest portion of the iceberg is titled "The Ghost". There is a quote beside it that has been intentionally redacted. The images depicted in this section are:

• A cancel sign over a mobile phone, symbolizing "no electronics"
• An illustration of a log cabin, symbolizing "living in a log cabin in the woods"
• A picture of gold bars, symbolizing "paying only in gold"
• A picture of a death certificate, symbolizing "faking your own death"
• An AI generated picture of a person wearing a black hoodie, a baseball cap, a face mask, and reflective sunglasses, symbolizing "hiding ones identity in public"

End of transcription.

Important

As with all of my long-form, well organized, (mostly) grammatically correct posts that I have been writing for over a year, no AI was used in the making of this post. Every word I write on my own, and I spend hours writing and editing these posts. One of my posts was removed for being "AI slop", which hurt, because it was one I was most proud of writing. From that incident, I considered no longer posting on Lemmy, but I still felt my work is needed, so here I am again.

It's very obvious that there are human mistakes and human additions to my posts that cannot be replicated by AI. It was not the first time one of my posts has been accused of being written AI, but I want it to be the last. There are people who enjoy writing and will put in the work to actually write a piece, such as me. I will prove that I am human by any means necessary.

The content I write is not designed to be short, nor is it designed to be summarized in a short manner. If you are not someone who enjoys reading long text, or prefers reading text with a more condensed meaning, this is not for you. I am also trying out increasing the number of references I use during the post, which is different from my usual style of only referencing more uncommon topics.

Thank you for your understanding.

Introduction

For the sake of people with whom I still keep in touch, I will avoid referencing too many anecdotes while writing this. These individuals have taken great strides in both privacy and security, even if they have a long way to go. It is not my place to publicly degrade these individuals and their experiences, especially knowing that they are reading this. It was wrong of me to have done this in the past, especially without permission.

The topic of this post will, however, cover some common experiences I have observed between numerous individuals, rather than singling out the stories of singular individuals. These stories will be used scarcely and only to help clarify the points I am making through examples.

Threat Model & Privacy Journey

My privacy journey officially started around 6 years ago as of writing this. It was when I was first introduced to the privacy risks of Google, as well as the privacy benefits of Firefox and Tor Browser. In the 6 years that I have spent learning about privacy, my preferences have changed between different extremes.

I used to be a die-hard user of Firefox-based browsers such as Mullvad Browser, and wouldn't dare use a Chromium-based browser. I became obsessed with browser fingerprinting, and Firefox-based browsers seemed to be the only way to mitigate it.

Slowly, though, my views shifted. I became more security-oriented, and became concerned with the security of Firefox. (That topic is a whole can of worms that I have covered in the past. Please don't fight about this in the comments.)

Eventually, I switched to Chromium-based browsers such as Vanadium and Trivalent. Even though I used to be polarized, I eventually switched sides as my threat model changed.

That's where this discussion begins. I have never, in the 6 years I have researched privacy, made a proper threat model. This should not immediately discredit me. I have come to learn that a threat model is a good idea in most cases for most people, and if you haven't made a threat model already, you should.

I have tried many times before to define a concrete threat model, without success. The reason I have not been able to is because of how my privacy journey went about. When I began my privacy journey, I had a goal in mind: "Make myself as private as I reasonably can first, and then work backwards to see what I am actually fine with doing." It's not a bad goal, just an incredibly tedious and difficult one. You first become very experienced in privacy by learning hands-on, and then you are able to make rational decisions after gaining experience and knowledge.

Of course, I never reached the point where I was fully private. Such a thing is not possible. Instead, I accidentally "ignored" some areas of privacy, or didn't push further in areas that became too inconvenient. I essentially did a depth-first search to determine my threat model.

Once I was reasonably satisfied with my state of privacy, I worked backwards to restructure my digital life in a more convenient way with my newfound experience and knowledge. The way I discovered my threat model is extremely difficult and will bring you to extremely low points past privacy fatigue. I would never recommend anyone go through what I went through, which is the main reason I have devoted my time to ease the privacy journeys of others.

One thing I made sure to prevent while learning about privacy is forgetting where I came from and how I got where I am today. This comic illustrates why:

I want to remember all the pitfalls and mistakes I went through, that way I can present easy solutions and workarounds for those just starting their privacy journeys. Even still, I occasionally have to remind myself that not everybody knows what 2FA is, even though I have gotten so used to using it as a part of day to day life. As my threat model has changed, so too has the advice I have given.

Convenience vs. Everything

Convenience makes a lot of rich people a lot of money. If you can make something as convenient and addictive as possible, you gain the undivided attention of someone, and can dictate a lot about that person's life.

Privacy, security, autonomy, and a few other categories are all subcultures of the same concept: freedom, especially digitally. The subcultures often overlap because they are all sides of the same coin.

Digital freedom is a broad topic, but being free digitally means breaking the chains of digital addiction and taking control over where you place your attention. For that reason, digital freedom will inherently feel less convenient. Giving yourself control over your digital life means that, in some cases, you will end up doing more work to manage it properly, but it means that you dictate how it functions, rather than being handheld by questionable entities.

In other ways, however, digital freedom is far more convenient. Take a password manager, as an example. Many people are prone to reusing the same, weak, memorized password for a multiple accounts. That means if an unsavory party gains access to one account (which is more common the more accounts you have), all of your accounts are compromised. Furthermore, remembering and typing passwords is cumbersome and prone to error.

A password manager is incredibly convenient because it fixes those problems. It generates strong passwords for you, changes passwords for every account, stores them all securely so you don't need to remember them, and even types the passwords for you. This is one area where digital freedom is more convenient.

It's often thought that convenience and digital freedom are at whits with each other, but it simply isn't true. You trade convenience in some areas to gain convenience in others. Privacy activists can function the same as those who don't care about privacy, the difference is how they go about it.

The Privacy Hump

"The first step is always the hardest" is a phrase used to encourage taking the first step towards a goal, because it gets easier after the first step. For privacy, this phrase is complicated.

Some steps towards privacy, such as switching your web browser, are very easy, can be done in under a minute, and have a large benefit in privacy. These steps can be first steps, and are not hard at all.

Other steps, such as fully switching to a password manager, are tedious and can get very messy very quickly. I had the displeasure of working for a company that stored all passwords in plaintext on a shared document. I immediately got to work transitioning these passwords to a proper password manager with proper access control, but it was an unpleasant and tedious task. Many of the passwords were incorrect, had multiple entries, or had unclear login pages. One login page was described only by the location of the browser bookmark on the computer of the secretary.

Even if a password manager is a tedious task at first, once your accounts are transitioned to a password manager it becomes infinitely easier to manage and use. These first steps can be the hardest, but provide even greater privacy and security benefits.

With that, I've found that privacy has a "hump". The first steps are easy and can hook you on privacy, and once you are in a comfortable place with privacy the steps become equally as easy, but in between those points in a privacy journey are the hardest.

Conclusion

If privacy were more widespread (and it is becoming increasingly more common), there would be no need for a "privacy journey", because privacy would be the default. Unfortunately, that utopian society currently resides only in the daydreaming minds of authors and privacy activists.

I could add more to this post, but I don't want it to become unbearably long. If you want key takeaways while missing plenty of the interesting portions of this post, I will not deny you the satisfaction:

• I don't write using AI, even if my writing style is similar
• Privacy journeys are long and difficult at times
• Privacy is convenient in some ways, but not in others
• The hardest part of privacy comes towards the middle of the journey

If you decided to read this post in its entirety, then thank you. As always, I had plenty of fun writing this. I hope it helps at least one person.

Cheers!

Google is somehow the only company that is able to completely ruin a calculator app. Even before installing, Google outs themselves with how much data they collect:

• App info and performance: Crash logs and Diagnostics
• Personal info: Email address
• Device or other IDs
• App activity: App interactions

And of course the encouraging message:

Data can’t be deleted

The developer doesn’t provide a way for you to request that your data be deleted

As soon as you try to install it, the app requests network access. I'm glad to be using GrapheneOS where this can be restricted.

The app doesn't crash on launch, which is a new concept for Google, since most of their apps won't even start without Google Play Services installed. Maybe that means the calculator app can calculate 1+1 without requiring installing the most invasive software known to man, right?

Of course it can't. It crashes the moment you press the plus sign. Thank you, Google, for requiring Google Play Services for your calculator app to do basic addition. You know what calculator doesn't require Google Play services to do math?

In all seriousness, OpenCalc is a near 1:1 match to Google Calculator, so I suggest anyone use that instead.

The cherry on top is Google's calculator app is bundled with a privacy policy, which on its own is a treat to read through: https://policies.google.com/privacy

Congratulations, Google, you can spy on math now.

I am going to show what it would look like if a society had no privacy whatsoever, and then compare it to a society where privacy is a top priority. I am going to show that what little privacy we have in countries such as the United States is the thread holding those countries together, and without it society crumbles. I am going to show that privacy is essential for a free society to function properly, and also help you appreciate the privacy you may not know you have. Let's begin.

A Privacyless Society

"Our" Personal Life

Privacy, by definition, is the ability to control your data. That means controlling what data is shared, who it is shared with, how long it is shared for, when it is shared, and by what medium it is shared.

If you have no privacy, that means you lose the ability to obscure any of your data. All of your data is shared with everyone

Personal information: full name, birthday, address, occupation, social security number, etc.

Documents: birth certificate, driver's license, passport, ID, etc.

Biometrics: Facial scans, fingerprints, handprints, retinal scans, DNA, etc.

Digital information: The content of all emails, every post made online, bank account balance, spending habits, social graphs, all pictures, all ~~private~~ instant messages, every show you watch, etc.

Other information: health and workout data, past relationships, every word you say, every thought you think, likes and dislikes, every place you visit, every waking second of your life, etc.

All of that data becomes available for anyone to use. As you can imagine, this data would quickly be used for mass government control. Anyone who thinks out of line would be punished.

Without privacy, you would also no longer be allowed to obscure personal belongings. All carrying devices such as backpacks and bags would need to be transparent. Since clothing counts as a carrying device, it would need to be transparent or nonexistent.

Yes, you heard me right, everyone would be mandated to be completely nude. The French TV series Nu carries this idea, where a society has been "frog boiled" into giving up all privacy, and all clothes. One man has slipped into a coma during this transitionary period, and is disillusioned with the society.

Access Control

With all data becoming public, you may wonder "Why even have passwords anymore?" To put it simply, even if all your data is public, you still wouldn't want someone impersonating you or posting on your social media. It's the same as how you wouldn't want anyone accessing your bank account, even if transactions are public.

This falls under the topic of security. Without privacy, security would become a citizen's most valuable tool. This begins to show you a hierarchy in personal freedom. Security is the foundation, privacy is layered on top of that, and only then should convenience be added. Unfortunately, in today's world, convenience comes first.

Breaches would become much less common as security is prioritized. The use of password managers, multi-factor authentication, time-based one-time passwords, passkeys, and hardware security keys would become common. However, because all biometric data is public, the "rule of three" for multi-factor authentication can't be completely satisfied.

Documents such as your birth certificate or passport can still be used to verify your identity, as long as the physical composition can't be counterfeit. The information itself becomes useless, and so all identification using the documents must be done in person.

Autonomy

This society has no privacy for individuals, but even if you tried to enforce transparency in higher powers, those powers literally have all the power. Governments and companies would hide behind closed doors, and cover up any misconduct. These powers would use the trivially available data collection to control every member of the public, and manipulate their decisions. Good news: Elections will take place almost instantly because all individual preferences are made public. Bad news: The election is rigged so it doesn't matter who you voted for.

The control over the public would stop at nothing, until we all are turned into mindless work drones. If you control every aspect of the population, then many pieces of a society are removed entirely. The public never makes any money, so there's no reason for taxes or rent to exist. The only transactions taking place would be between different companies and the government. Homelessness is solved by cramming everybody into government issued bunkers for maximum efficiency. Soylent becomes the largest company in the world, providing the only food for every citizen. The only people with any real autonomy would be refugees that are somehow evading the global satellite surveillance cameras, high ranking government officials, and CEOs drifting on their mega yachts.

Death and birth rates would hit an all time high as humans become a disposable asset. The most common cause of death becomes black lung disease from the increase of workers mining coal. Trees may or may not be planted depending on how near-sighted the powers are. As society shifts, some terms take on new meanings, such as "self-driving cars" adapting to the meaning of "cars you drive yourself".

The powers would eventually find neurotechnology to be the most efficient means of control. Installation would become mandated for the public, and manipulation tactics such as peer pressure would force everyone into submission. The device would kill a person at the first sign of corruption. People would be selectively bred and genetically modified to minimize the risk of defiance.

The point is, your data is valuable as a means of manipulating you. The more data you give, the more effective the manipulation is. Major influential powers use manipulation to gain more power, and all of society crumbles into an authoritarian regime. One day, though, throwing disposable humans at a problem will fail, and it will lead to the extinction of our planet(s).

A day in the life

I want to end this section by outlining a day in the life of a privacyless society. This is meant to be somewhat lighthearted and humorous.

Choose your character:

• Disposaperson
• CEO
• Government official

If you chose Disposaperson:

You are Disposaperson #42069. You wake up at 7:00 AM in bunker #42, shared by you and your ordinally closest friends. You got a restful 6 hours of sleep. It's election day, so you were treated to 2 extra hours of sleep than normal. You should be in peak mental condition when making big decisions, after all. Speaking of which, you take your mandated 30 minute brain activity period, to make sure you are still able to function mentally. You scroll through Dreamscape, a new app that lets you watch the nightly dreams of each Disposaperson.

As you are scrolling, you land on a deleted video. 'This dream has been removed under suspicion of defying government powers.' Thats good. you think to yourself. Our government is protecting us from misinformation. "I agree," your bunkmate says, while listening in on your thoughts. You scroll past the occasional ad reminding you to work hard and follow the rules.

Once your mandated 30 minute brain activity period is up, your bunker marches in an organized fashion to the cafeteria. The Disposaperson in front of you accidentally stumbles, and is immediately killed. You step over the corpse, just as you have been trained how to do since childhood.

Once in the cafeteria, you take your seat and suck government issued Soylent out of tubes. You feel happy that food is free and doesn't make a mess. You feel euphoric, even, and not just because of the serotonin injected into the food. You're definitely going to cast your vote to the leader promising to increase the frequency of this Soylent flavor by 5%. Listening to everyone else's thoughts, you can tell everyone is in unanimous agreement. I'm so glad everyone can agree on everything. World peace has been achieved.

After your daily meal, you have been assigned to work in sector 12. It's nice to finally be mining coal instead of planting trees. Doesn't everybody know planting trees is bad for the environment? Where else would the government put bunker 9736?

Once in the mines, you take a nice breath of the black air. You're encouraged to breathe as much as possible during the beginning as an adjustment period. You love mining coal because it benefits everybody. You're so fortunate to be living on a planet with so many natural resources to use up. Your first planet, Earth, didn't have this much coal. You're so glad the government blew that planet up to reduce the number of depleted planets floating through space.

You check the mine's digital leaderboard. You are in the top 1% of coal miners today. You are happy at your work. After all, any lower on the leaderboard and you would be killed off to purify the gene pool. Only the best of the best should be working.

Once mining is complete, it's time for the election to be polled. It only takes a few nanoseconds. Oh good! you think. 5% more Roast Beef Soylent! I wonder what "Beef" is anyways... After that last thought, you feel yourself slowly drifting to sleep. The only words in your head: 'Defiance detected.'

If you chose CEO:

Your name is... what was your name your birth parent gave you? You can't remember, but it doesn't matter. Your servants call you "Master" anyways. You wake up on the sunny beaches on your own private island on your own private planet. You had a restful 14 hours of sleep. Your smart watch alerts your personal Disposapeople that you are awake. Disposaperson #1337 brings you your breakfast: scrambled eggs, fresh milk, and sizzling bacon.

You get flashbacks to the time one of your Disposapeople tried to bring you oatmeal. You hate oatmeal. It's too similar to the food those Disposapeople eat, even though you are the CEO of Soylent. You don't thank your personal disposaperson, and eat your meal. You have a nice life, after Soylent became the leading company in the galaxy. It's nice to have all your work done for you.

You check your profits for the day. You get angry after you see that they are only up by 756%. You'll have to pull some strings with your government connections later to only keep the top 1% of coal miners. That should raise your profits, and encourage those workers to work harder and follow the rules. Haven't they seen the ads?

You are almost done with your meal when your spouse barges in. Your spouse urgently tells you to come quick. Your spouse tells you that your child has been infected with a deadly disease. You ask how that could have happened. The doctor informs you that your child likely caught it from a contagious Disposaperson who had been in the mines.

Outraged, you know that the only solution is to cut the number of workers in the mines. You make a few phone calls and order any miner not in the top 1% to be disengaged immediately. You and your spouse can now rest easy knowing that no more of those workers will be infecting your family anymore. Plus, your profits are up by 1,058%!

If you chose Government official:

Your name is Steve. You are the government official in charge of planet C-137. Today is election day, so you have to put on a good show to make it seem like there is competition. You make sure the news is convincing as many people as possible, and you partner with Soylent to launch an ad campaign. "Work hard, and follow the rules." You like it, it's catchy.

Your assistant informs you that the planet needs to cut back on planting trees, otherwise there will be no room for bunker 9736. You thank her for informing you. They say being polite to your assistants increases the chances of winning an election, after all.

You check the numbers. Good. you think. Bunker #42 is unanimous. An alert pops up: 'Potential defiance detected in worker #42069' You scan the worker to check if the it is voting for you. The worker isn't fully confident. You decide to feed the worker its favorite flavor of Soylent, and promise to increase production of that flavor by 5%. It's convenient to know every worker's preferences.

That should do it you think. You tell your assistant to disengage that worker once the election is complete, just to be sure. You tried Soylent once. It was the worst thing you've ever tasted, but you had to put on a good face, or else the CEO of Soylent wouldn't have partnered with you.

The phone rings. You pick up the phone. It's the CEO of Soylent. The CEO tells you that you have to disengage any coal worker not in the top 1%. You remind the CEO that it's already at 2%. The CEO tells you it's urgent. You need Soylent to vote for you in the election, so you give in under the pressure. You order your assistant to disengage any coal workers not in the top 1%.

You turn on the TV to watch the workers from the satellite cameras. You couldn't imagine what it would be like if anyone could hide their actions. Only criminals would do that.

It's finally time to cast the votes. You push a button, and the votes are collected almost instantly. You won the election, you should be happy... Why aren't you happy?

A Private Society

Let's compare that dystopia to a private society. In this society, privacy is a fundamental human right.

Your Personal Life

Your information is yours, and stays yours. Personal information is never collected. There's no reason to collect it, because you never need to identify yourself using personal data.

If you want to rent a house, you just start paying for it. If you try to stop paying rent, the house gets seized. No identity required.

Healthcare is either free or a very small price that you pay for on the spot. No identity required.

Voting is done in closed buildings so nobody can try going to the back of the line to vote a second time. No identity required.

You buy a car by paying on the spot. Budgeting money and saving up is a common practice. No identity required.

People are civil. If you get in an accident, you pay each other's medical bills. No identity required.

If you want to board a plane, you pay for a ticket and board. No identity required.

When you get a job, you work and get paid at the end of the day. No income taxes, no background checks. If there are references on your résumé (which are not required), jobs can call those references as a "background check". No identity required.

No taxes at all. There's no way to enforce it without tracking income, and there are plenty of other ways to fund the government. No identity required.

Education is either free or you pay for an access card to the building. If you stop the payments, the access card is revoked. No identity required.

Immigration is something that can be done while respecting privacy, but it's apparently a controversial topic, so I will avoid talking about it. I will leave this as an exercise for the reader.

Stores can prevent theft in many different ways without surveillance cameras. Some examples are putting products in lock boxes to be unlocked at checkout, or vending machines. I'd love to hear some of your clever ideas for this.

Your data remains yours. No more online accounts to read an article about bigfoot. No more "send us a picture to verify your age". No more surveillance cameras. No identity requirements.

All communications are private by design. Aliases are common. Also, you can wear clothes.

Security

Breaches hit near zero as security becomes a requirement. Software is mandated to be open source, and government used software is required to be heavily audited. People use proper multi-factor authentication in day to day life. Funds are kept secure by using anonymous digital currencies or cash. ATMs to swap these are around every corner.

Centralized banking exists, but is used less commonly. The ones that exist are closely regulated to make sure they use good privacy practices. Companies are regulated in the same way.

Innovations in physical locks skyrocket, since cameras are no longer strapped to your doorbells. People realize surveillance isn't safety, and that they can get hacked quite easily. Those who do have surveillance systems use a closed circuit to host it locally. Laws are in place so these cameras only record the owner's property. Not the sidewalk, not the road, not the neighbors. Notices must be clearly posted outside.

Self hosting becomes widespread, with the most common tool to self host being blockchain miners. Those servers can double as heating systems in the winter. This person tried mining cryptocurrencies to heat his apartment, but the post with the results got deleted.

The society runs on a full mesh network. This ensures that internet is free and not tracked or censored.

Powers

Companies and governments are fully transparent, so any misconduct is easy to spot and fix. Individuals have privacy, but businesses and corporations do not. This society prioritizes individual privacy, but also transparency.

If misinformation spreads, it is neither the government's nor a company's job to censor it. People will learn to spot misinformation on their own.

Open source software is mandated for use in the government. The government takes security very seriously. National security is not kept by obscuring actions, but by putting real protections in place.

Without being able to sell your data, companies charge for products and services, not software. This not only encourages self hosting, but provides a better business model for things that cannot be self hosted. Things like VPNs, cloud storage, streaming services, etc. are open source but paid. Essentially, you pay with money, not data.

People are not controlled by any entity, and so they can think freely and express freely. Of course, free speech always has social consequences, but it is still free speech.

Conclusion

I could flesh out a lot of the fine details, but you get the picture. Society can function and thrive with privacy, and you need privacy for a free society. It really helps you appreciate the privacy we have today, and helps you realize how our privacy is slowly being eroded. It's a fun thought experiment to see some creative solutions to work around some of the challenges with privacy. We should have privacy as an essential baseline, and work around the problems, rather than defaulting to "more cameras in schools!". Can an AI camera stop a bullet?

Anyways, thanks for reading! My mandated 30 minute brain activity period is over, so I have to go.

P.S. I've undoubtedly made some pretty stupid mistakes while writing this, but I wrote this in good faith.

Edit: Typo

I need help installing Fedora CoreOS on a Raspberry Pi 5.

I've tried this method that uses Fedora Media Writer. The Raspberry Pi fails to boot from the flash drive.

I've tried this method that uses the Fedora Arm Installer. The Raspberry Pi fails to boot from the microSD card.

I've tried adapting this method but it seems to be exclusively for the Raspberry Pi 4, and no substitute tools exist. It didn't seem to even install anything on the microSD card.

I'm at a loss. I have no idea how to install it. Can anyone help? I'd be happy to give a step-by-step process of exactly what I did for each method, if needed.

I am making this post in good faith

In my last post I asked about securely hosting Jellyfin given my specific setup. A lot of people misunderstood my situation, which caused the whole thread to turn into a mess, and I didn't get the help I needed.

I am very new to selfhosting, which means I don't know everything. Instead of telling me that I don't know something, please help me learn and understand. I am here asking for help, even if I am not very good at it, which I apologize for.

With that said, let me reoutline my situation:

I use my ISP's default router, and the router is owned by Amazon. I am not the one managing the router, so I have no control over it. That alone means I have significant reason not to trust my own home network, and it means I employ the use of ProtonVPN to hide my traffic from my ISP and I require the use of encryption even over the LAN for privacy reasons. That is my threat model, so please respect that, even if you don't agree with it. If you don't agree with it, and don't have any help to give, please bring your knowledge elsewhere, as your assistance is not required here. Thank you for being respectful!

Due to financial reasons, I can only use the free tier of ProtonVPN, and I want to avoid costs where I can. That means I can only host on the hardware I have, which is a Raspberry Pi 5, and I want to avoid the cost of buying a domain or using a third party provider.

I want to access Jellyfin from multiple devices, such as my phone, laptop, and computer, which means I'm not going to host Jellyfin on-device. I have to host it on a server, which is, in this case, the Raspberry Pi.

With that, I already have a plan for protecting the server itself, which I outlined in the other post, by installing securecore on it. Securing the server is a different project, and not what I am asking for help for here.

I want help encrypting the Jellyfin traffic in transit. Since I always have ProtonVPN enabled, and Android devices only have one VPN slot enabled, I cannot use something such as Tailscale for encryption. There is some hope in doing some manual ProtonVPN configurations, but I don't know how that would work, so someone may be able to help with that.

All Jellyfin clients I have used (on Linux and Android) do not accept self-signed certificates. You can test this yourself by configuring Jellyfin to only accept HTTPS requests, using a self-signed certificate (without a domain), and trying to access Jellyfin from a client. This is a known limitation. I wouldn't want to use self-signed certificates anyways, since an unknown intruder on the network could perform a MITM attack to decrypt traffic (or the router itself, however unlikely).

Even if I don't trust my network, I can still verify the security and authenticity of the software I use in many, many ways. This is not the topic of this post, but I am mentioning it just in case.

Finally, I want to mention that ProtonVPN in its free tier does not allow LAN connections. The only other VPN providers I would consider are Mullvad VPN or IVPN, both of which are paid. I don't intend to get rid of ProtonVPN, and again that is not the topic of this post.

Please keep things on-topic, and be respectful. Again, I am here to learn, which is why I am asking for help. I don't know everything, so please keep that in mind. What are my options for encrypting Jellyfin traffic in transit, while prioritizing privacy and security?