Attack on privacy

[SamReomo]

open hardware is also a good solution

Yes, it's the best solution for privacy lover who want even hardware level privacy, but at this time there're limited options available. I hope the RISC-V project will be easily available to consumers in future. I hope it's availability at consumer level in 2027.

[vapourminer]

As someone who's been using an old laptop for many years, I can tell you it becomes more and more challenging. With just 2 CPU cores, even Firefox (with it's threads showing as "Isolate+" in top) can easily consume both cores. I can only imagine it gets much slower a few years in the future. Websites become more demanding.

as someone else with a few old lappies can anyone recommend any 32 bit distros?

edit: x86 Pentium M is one of them

[LoyceV]

as someone else with a few old lappies can anyone recommend any 32 bit distros?

It's been years since I installed any of those, and most Linux distributions have abandoned them by now. The last one I installed was probably Linux Mint, on a netbook with 1 GB RAM. Turns out it still exists.
Even years ago, not all software was available in 32 bit. That's probably a lot worse now.

[SamReomo]

as someone else with a few old lappies can anyone recommend any 32 bit distros?

edit: x86 Pentium M is one of them

Mx Linux supports 32 bit architecture, Linux Mint LMDE supports 32 bit architecture, Puppy Linux also has 32 bit distribution. Other than those a few more Linux distributions still have their up to date 32 bit version.

Note: I've applied their official links for you so you can download it from their source domain. Hope, it'll be helpful.

[Lillominato89]

As someone who's been using an old laptop for many years, I can tell you it becomes more and more challenging. With just 2 CPU cores, even Firefox (with it's threads showing as "Isolate+" in top) can easily consume both cores. I can only imagine it gets much slower a few years in the future. Websites become more demanding.

as someone else with a few old lappies can anyone recommend any 32 bit distros?

edit: x86 Pentium M is one of them

I often used Slax for old laptops with very good results. It is a bit heavier than puppylinux but you have a distro that is also more visually appealing than puppylinux.
You can have a look and see if it's right for you

[babo]

I honestly don't know, every time I install my favorite Linux distro, Debian, I don't have any problems since Debian works on everything, even on toasters.
the point is another
It depends on the level of paranoia, when I go to conferences I bring my laptop with a special Linux, to give you an idea (old asus eeepc)

[LoyceV]

It depends on the level of paranoia, when I go to conferences I bring my laptop with a special Linux, to give you an idea (old asus eeepc)

I remember the EEE PC, they were quite slow, but small. And thick to current laptop standards. What's "special" about that Linux distro? I now have what I call my "disposable laptop" for travel: fully encrypted, old, rugged, nice keyboard, many hours of battery life left, and cheap enough not to worry about it. But it runs a "normal" Linux.

[TheBeardedBaby]

I was running a full bitcoin node for a few year, now with the "house project" which drains all my free time the past 2-3 years, I had to take away my lab and all the gadgets. Getting close to be finished this fall so hopefully can re-do my lab again and get back my bitcoin node running, and why not a TOR node too.
I was playing with the lightning network when I had to shut down the lab so there will be a room for it too

[Rgram]

How can someone who is from day one profit-oriented care about privacy?

Only a few were involved in Bitcoin because of its decentralization and privacy feature in the past, and few of them still know the importance of privacy and protecting it, and only a few of the new users consider it important.

I hear cheers when Michael Saylor announces another huge bitcoin buy or when another company jumps on the bandwagon of starting up a crypto treasury.  I have the opposite reaction, because those people and institutions are the man, people.  I don't think any big company is buying up Monero to basically cook their books and make it look like their core business is more profitable than it is.  All of this talk about privacy, and yet there's this big elephant in the room:  you can jump through all of these hoops to try to make your bitcoin usage more private, but if you really wanted privacy why not use a coin that was purpose-built for it and didn't have to have a bunch of layer 2 strap-ons to make good after the fact?

You raised some interesting concerns in this as, this isn’t the case with what we’ve seen. Like the name implies, they mainly stands for the treasury of their buys and very few of them care about its development as it is. Using a coin for the purpose it was made would have been a more effective direction but, we just know that isn’t going to be the case anytime soon. When it’s more about the treasury of the buys, it’s a narrative that they spread too to even petty or small investors.

[dkbit98]

If you want to browse the forum peacefully, an old Linux PC is ideal.

Maybe, but we are talking about attack on privacy in this topic, and I don't think old Linux PC in enough for that.
And the way we are going in the world I suspect it is going to get much worse in future, before it gets better.

open hardware is also a good solution

There is a website tracking all open hardware, and some hardware wallets released everything in public, so you can create your own DIY version if you want.

[Free Market Capitalist]

I'm referring to the UK, specifically. As you probably remember, I don't even live there, but it still bugs me.

EU is trying something silly like this too, but only for social media counter-privacy for now.

Well, unsurprisingly, the EU has gone even further and now does not want to limit itself to social media; it wants to scan all private messages. They hate privacy; they hate anything that can escape state control. All this is happening alongside an acceleration in the launch of CBDCs, while in other parts of the world such projects are being banned or abandoned.

EU “Chat Control” Regulation Nears Final Vote: Understanding the Proposal, the Process, and What Comes Next

One of the most controversial aspects is the potential use of client-side scanning, where messages are analysed on a user’s device before they are encrypted, effectively bypassing the core protections of end-to-end encryption.

This would affect WhatsApp, Telegram, and similar apps.

EU Chat Control law is a step towards mass surveillance

In theory, it is done to protect children from potential abusers, but humanity's greatest atrocities were carried out in pursuit of supposedly noble causes, so nothing new here.

[LoyceV]

Well, unsurprisingly, the EU has gone even further and now does not want to limit itself to social media; it wants to scan all private messages. They hate privacy; they hate anything that can escape state control.

Except for their own messages, of course. Like those Pfizer SMSes Von der Leyen has been hiding for years.

In theory, it is done to protect children from potential abusers

As I wrote before:

What amazes me most is that it's exclusively used for more surveillance, and not for more border security.

It's obvious it's just an excuse.

Some great quotes (shortened):

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.

Everybody likes to get as much power as circumstances allow, and nobody will vote for a self-denying ordinance.

Bureaucracy is undoubtedly the weapon and sign of a despotic government, inasmuch as it gives whatever government it serves, despotic power.

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.

Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.

[SamReomo]

In theory, it is done to protect children from potential abusers, but humanity's greatest atrocities were carried out in pursuit of supposedly noble causes, so nothing new here.

Well, that's a good theory to totally make privacy of the citizens non-existent but I believe it wasn't done for that noble cause, but to attack privacy of the citizens. I know it's valid point that children should be protected from the abusers but those abusers can be anywhere not only on internet. Looks like privacy is become a big burden for the centralized system and in future people might just remember privacy as a term but it may not exist in next 2 - 3 decades.

[babo]

If you want to browse the forum peacefully, an old Linux PC is ideal.

Maybe, but we are talking about attack on privacy in this topic, and I don't think old Linux PC in enough for that.
And the way we are going in the world I suspect it is going to get much worse in future, before it gets better.

open hardware is also a good solution

There is a website tracking all open hardware, and some hardware wallets released everything in public, so you can create your own DIY version if you want.

It always depends on what you want to do, if you have to look at the forum an old PC with a chip before 2007 and Linux do their job perfectly, then on the internet side you just use TOR -> VPN and you're fine
If you have to hack the NSA, I don't know what the best setup is.
I hope you understand what I mean, there are various levels of security depending on what you need to do

[NotATether]

Well, unsurprisingly, the EU has gone even further and now does not want to limit itself to social media; it wants to scan all private messages. They hate privacy; they hate anything that can escape state control.

Except for their own messages, of course. Like those Pfizer SMSes Von der Leyen has been hiding for years.

In theory, it is done to protect children from potential abusers

As I wrote before:

What amazes me most is that it's exclusively used for more surveillance, and not for more border security.

It's obvious it's just an excuse.

So this means that we must also find people who are willing to maintain privacy-enhancing services and then also find other people who are willing to fund them to continue the maintenance of such software.

Because it is the only feasible way to create defenses.

[LoyceV]

~then on the internet side you just use TOR -> VPN and you're fine

Before doing that, you should read TorPlusVPN. It explains why this isn't necessarily the best approach.

So this means that we must also find people who are willing to maintain privacy-enhancing services and then also find other people who are willing to fund them to continue the maintenance of such software.

And keep them safe from, for instance, governments running enough Tor (exit) nodes to be able to analyze data.
When I started with crypto, most exchanges and casinos were just "free for all", now they either went full geoblocking and KYC, or disappeared. I don't expect privacy online to get easier any time soon.

[shield132]

With the amount of countries, governments and social platforms all of a sudden censoring and banning VPNs all at once (they are using pr0n as an excuse to destroy our internet privacy) over the last few days, the utility of Tor has just skyrocketed.

At some point I was really thinking that they are doing to for better but not really. I just remembered one accident that happened in my country. Back then I was a kid and wasn't really thinking much about that but today I think about it. 911 was free in my country, it was 100% paid by the government but seems they wanted to charge that. They started a campaign, hired people who would drop fake bombs in schools and public areas and then would call 911 to report a bomb. This accident happened multiple times in a row and soon the government came up with an idea to make 911 pricey. They were saying that people were abusing 911 and we had to pay for it, so sine that day, we pay every month a few cents from our mobile balance for 911. Magically, no one has abused 911 since those accidents.
It hurts me to see how governments are using excuses and how so many brainwashed people believe in their excuses. We are slowly and successfully returning to the old days when people didn't have rights.

[LoyceV]

We are slowly and successfully returning to the old days when people didn't have rights.

People have never been equals, but the last couple of decades the thing that changed is that (at least Western) governments now tell people that everyone is equal. I bet governments in the Dark Ages didn't do that, and back then, everyone knew there are different classes in society. We still have those classes, but despite having the best access ever to all the information in the world, many people seem to believe we're all equal. It's simply not true, but it's a very convenient way to keep people in line. To quote Cypher: "ignorance is bliss".

[SamReomo]

It always depends on what you want to do, if you have to look at the forum an old PC with a chip before 2007 and Linux do their job perfectly, then on the internet side you just use TOR -> VPN and you're fine

Yes, this forum doesn't require much CPU power + ram and any system that's created before 2007 can be used to browse the forum without any issues and any chip will do the job perfectly when Linux is installed in it.

I used to use a very low-end laptop from 2006 and on that laptop I installed Lubuntu, and to be honest the forum's experience on that laptop was fully okay. I didn't face any lag at all.

I don't remember fully but I'm pretty sure that in 2017 or 2018 I even used this forum on my Raspberry Pi 3B and even on that system the forum worked without any issues.

As a trader I needed to sift to a powerful system that's the reason why I moved to new generation laptop but I would still say that if someone's intention is to use this forum then even a weak system that can browse the internet may work like charm.

I've not tried it myself but I'm pretty sure that even a system with 256 MB ram and 1 GHz processor can easily handle this forum if Puppy Linux or  another low end Linux distribution is installed in that system.

[joker_josue]

So this means that we must also find people who are willing to maintain privacy-enhancing services and then also find other people who are willing to fund them to continue the maintenance of such software.

Because it is the only feasible way to create defenses.

I believe it has to be a little more than that. Well, there will always be physical infrastructure that can be attacked by the authorities.

Something like bitcoin blockchain has to come up. In which everything happens on the network and there is no structure that can be attacked.