Yes, I’m well aware security is a team sport. All it takes is one person to make a mistake, once. I still remember that the Iloveyou virus penetrated our network back when I was in university, through the Unix lecturer…

Still fucking annoying though.

Although I do realise most of my annoyance comes from shitty configuration and poor human decisions. Oh, let’s run a full deep scan at 15:00 everywhere Friday. It’s not like the students will need to use those machines during their Comp. Science lab, right?

good FOSS antiviruses

ClamAV is the Linux antivirus library I’m most familiar with.

we’ll never be a 100% safe, no matter what OS we use. We can’t defend ourselves against backdoors and newly abused vulnerabilities in any meaningful way

I normally would, but my wife has the same problem and she’s done that 3 times in the last 6 months. In fact, her problem became MUCH worse because the “clean slate” was far more impressionable. She’d search up beauty routines, only to find that Youtube thinks she now wants to see “popping” videos, even though she’s now searching for dinner recipes.

So yeah, I saw her experience and decided “no thanks”.

To be fair, MOST of YouTube I watched can be found on Nebula and Floatplane, both of which will likely not have this issue since it’s not a user-content platform. Not to mention, the creators likely make more from those platforms anyways.

YouTube is basically unavoidable though, so now I just view everything through a piped instance if I absolutely need something that can only be found there.

I used to have this exact issue with what was essentially porn on Instagram reels (Meta is evil yeah I know but it’s better than shorts and tiktok). I’d report those e-thots videos but it kept showing them because it considered it engagement. Eventually I got the algorithm to show me what I’m actually there for, memes, funny cat videos and the occasional car videos.

Just scrolling past them quickly eventually got it to stop.

I feel the same. I don’t do ads. If a product doesn’t have an ad-free product that I’m willing to pay for, then that product doesn’t exist for me. Similarly, if a paid product decides to introduce ads (I’m looking at you Amazon) I’m immediately cancelling.

your gf is kind of a tool and needs to crack or replace her TV.

Oh jeez

Haven’t seen in a while

If he tells you, he’d be advertising and that’s against his religion.

Seek and ye shall find.

By advertising. So it is now officially a religion since it’s full of hypocrites.

Unlock Origin*

From now on, referring to it incorrectly is considered herecy and punishable by up to 17 whip lashes.

If they could, they would force it down our throats and noses too.

Throats are still safe (for now?), but hate to break it to you about noses: https://dennisfoodservice.com/the-smells-that-make-customers-spend-more/

(Warning: has an autoplaying video at the very bottom).

Property rights are those rights, and we already have them. The issue is that the copyright cartel is trying to take them away from us. They are colonizing our devices with DRM + the DMCA anti-circumvention clause in an attempt to reduce us to techno-serfdom.

Ad-blocking, Free Software, Right to Repair (also a right we already have, not a new one we need), “you will own nothing and be happy” propaganda , etc. are all just different aspects of the same issue: the corporate war against property rights.

Perfume salesmen have entered the chat

To be clear, property rights don’t come from laws; they are natural rights. “Property” as a concept stems from the fact that when Caveman Oog gets himself a neat tool-shaped rock and is holding it in his hand, nobody else can use it because he’s the one who has it, and the only way they could use it is for him to not have it anymore. He controls it and its use is exclusive to him. The rock is his property. The law doesn’t create that concept; it only codifies it so that the rock can remain Oog’s when he sets it down, instead of him having to guard it all day.

“Corporate” “property” “rights” are a whole different thing:

1. Contrary to the Dred Scott-level bullshit the SCOTUS excreted in Citizens United, corporations are not people and don’t even have an inherent right to exist, let alone any other rights. A person (i.e. a sole proprietor) has rights. People associating with each other (i.e. a full-liability general partnership) have rights. A group granted the privileges of limited liability and taxation as a separate entity via incorporation exists at the pleasure of the State, and the State has every right to impose conditions on that existence in exchange for granting the privilege.

2. Copyright is not “property.” A copyrighted work is an expression of an idea, and ideas are as near to opposite of property as it is possible to be. Not only does an idea stand in stark contrast to Oog’s rock in that it can be freely shared to the other cavemen without Oog losing possession of it, the value of it comes from the act of sharing. A creative work that never leaves the creator’s head is worthless, while a work shared with the whole world is incredibly valuable. (Don’t take my word for it, though: Thomas Jefferson – the guy who wrote or helped write the Copyright Clause, BTW – made a similar point, more eloquently explained.)

3. Copyright isn’t a “right” either. It, like incorporation, is a privilege granted by the State (or more specifically, Congress, but Federalism is beside the point). It does not exist because the creator of a work is somehow entitled to it, or even because the People wish to reward creators for their work. Copyright exists for the sole and express purpose “to promote the progress of science and the useful arts” – in other words, to enrich the Public Domain. The mechanism of copyright, granting a temporary monopoly in order to encourage the creation of more works than would otherwise exist, is nothing more than a means to an end. The goal of copyright is for it to expire!

Anyway, point is, I’m kinda already making that distinction between basic human dignity (natural rights) and artificial laws (copyright). The situation we find ourselves in today, where actual property rights of actual people are being subordinated to Intellectual Imaginary Property “rights” of imaginary “people” is some pants-on-head stupid, ass-backwards, Bizarro-world bullshit!