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Terrance Ó Domhnaill's avatar

We talked about this before and since then, I have wiped out my Google share drives, secured my Outlook email client by moving some usernames out of certain email addresses, and I finally finished setting up my private email server. I use my own VPN whenever I take a laptop out of the house, and I also have that VPN set up on my phone. The VPN connects to a VPN server on my network.

I still have some work to do yet but I'm nearly there. I also resurrected (updated) a couple of Linux desktops OS's I had squirreled away on virtual hard drives. I don't use them much but I will be logging in more regularly to keep with the updates. They are handy for testing certain IT functions. Especially systems I don't want the government to know about.

I will never go completely off the world wide network but I can now hide certain aspects a lot better. Besides, I also managed to configure a workaround to bypass Verizon's public IP policy blocks regarding stuff they don't like, such as a private email server. It took me a few days and some assistance from some Ukrainians, but it's up and running.

The things we now have to do to protect ourselves that I would never have worried about even 8 months ago.

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Jessica's avatar

Sounds to me like you should be offering a course in online private security, or doing some consulting. Mad skills. :)

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Terrance Ó Domhnaill's avatar

I offered once before and I didn't have any takers. I have also offered my PC repair skills to my senior citizen neighbors but I've only had one lady take me up on that in the 5 years I've lived here. She got mad at me a while back when I had trouble pairing her phone up to one of those new smart watches so I haven't heard anything from her since. No loss to me.

I use to be a technical instructor a couple of different times in the past. Once, in the military for nearly four years, then at a local Texas community college teaching HVAC until Covid shut down the classes in 2020.

If you need anything, just hit me up at my new secure email address at todonal@Terrysfixitservice.com.

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Julian Cribb's avatar

Where it all leads... https://cribb.substack.com/p/the-end-of-freedom-798

Yes, you can frustrate the data hogs for a while, but they will discover go-arounds. Then they will unleash the power of AI and quantum computing - and there is nothing the individual can do against that. Sooner or later they will monitor ever second of your existence, birth to death.

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Digital Canary 💪💪🇨🇦🇺🇦🗽's avatar

Ah, but once quantum computing breaks the non-quantum encryption algorithms, global financial & economic systems effectively break — and there’s no way that cat gets kept in the bag as long as it’s to even *one* state actor’s benefit to wield it.

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Julian Cribb's avatar

It's one scenario. But the most likely is that humans will use AI+QC to hoard information on other humans in order to control them. That is more important than money.

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Digital Canary 💪💪🇨🇦🇺🇦🗽's avatar

Doesn’t scale … there’s a reason money exists.

Money is the means by which things of value become fungible at scale:

No money = very little of meaningful value, besides controlling labour by force 🤷‍♂️

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Digital Canary 💪💪🇨🇦🇺🇦🗽's avatar

“They want to run models predicting everything from whether you’ll shoot a CEO to how much you’ll pay for a banana.

They want to sell that.

It’s quite terrifying.”

They also want to sell *to* that: it’s great to sell the authoritarian government info about the next Luigi, but even better to sell Luigi vN that they need fancy new tools XYZ to extend & escalate the cat & mouse game further.

And also “surge” pricing for bananas 🤬🤬🤬

That’s the real holy grail for grocery stores and smart checkout carts: you pay 28¢ a banana because you have them on your shopping list, Susie pays 53¢ per because she’s got a potassium deficiency, and Joe pays only 19¢ as he’s being wooed to buy them on an impulse.

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