viking
@viking@infosec.pub
- Comment on 'Don't Buy a Swasticar': Tesla hit by UK boycott campaign over Elon Musk's far-right support 5 weeks ago:
France and UK have higher purchase powers than UK, thanks to Brexit, so I wouldn’t put that down to people being more sceptical.
- Comment on Are "Lifetime" Cloud Storage Plans scams? 1 month ago:
Yeah what I also saw in the terms was that they reserve the right to sell their company without informing users other than through an update in the terms & conditions, and based on play store reviews, they terminate lifetime accounts if they find that you upload copyright protected files, even if you don’t share them with anyone.
Indexing my stuff and comparing it against external databases is a big no no for me.
So far I’m quite happy with sync.com, been using them for well over a decade. Data is fully encrypted during upload, so no matter if the server is ever breached, they wouldn’t get anything useful out of it.
I also got my own nextcloud instance up and running, but it’s with a shared hosting provider where I don’t feel as secure.
- Comment on Are "Lifetime" Cloud Storage Plans scams? 1 month ago:
pCloud, under business terms fairly towards the end:
Term & Termination
This Agreement may be terminated by either party at any time, for any reason. This Agreement will remain in effect until Customer’s subscription to the Services expires or until the Agreement is terminated. In the event of termination by the Customer, the Customer will remain responsible for payment of all fees and charges applicable to the period during which the Agreement was in effect.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
What exactly do you think happened with slaves too old to fulfill their duties?
- Comment on How can a US citizen invest outside the reach of the federal government? 1 month ago:
Anytime! You could also check some blogs like nomad capitalist and others, they offer solutions like incorporating a ltd. company in Georgia (the country) or Belize and stuff, but that also comes with a host of other requirements, reporting and otherwise.
Depending on your assets, there are also some countries like Grenada for example that come with a citizenship by investment program, where you get a passport if you invest either into government bonds or buy a property that you must hold for a certain number of years. If you’d be a citizen from there and casually forget to tick the box for US citizenship when opening your Hong Kong account, you might just get away with it. (Strictly not legal, though).
- Comment on How can a US citizen invest outside the reach of the federal government? 1 month ago:
Outside of the immediate reach requires you to open an offshore brokerage account; however thanks to FATCA reporting requirements, most banks don’t want to deal with you unless you have significant assets under management.
Back when FATCA was first introduced I was working in private wealth management for a bank in Luxembourg, and we decided to terminate all but 3 accounts held by US citizens, all of whom had assets above 700k USD. I believe 500k was the internally communicated cutoff.
Banks in Switzerland now typically require 1M CHF to open new accounts for anyone who isn’t onshore (Swiss citizen or resident), Hong Kong, Singapore and Panama also require minimum amounts between 500k to 1M USD. I think Bahamas, Bermudas, Virgin Islands, Caymans and all the other money islands ask for even higher deposits now.
One thing you could consider are the British channel islands (Jersey and Guernsey in particular), since Brexit they’ve had a bit of an offshore renaissance. HSBC Jersey for example only requires 100k GBP to open offshore accounts (though I didn’t check about FATCA requirements since I’m not a US citizen myself).
If all you want is keep smaller amounts outside of the US, you could look into wise.com, revolut and other money transfer services, they allow you to hold different currencies in physical accounts domiciled in other jurisdictions. Read: If you deposit USD and convert it to GBP, AUD or EUR, those funds will be physically stored in UK, Australia and Belgium respectively. Since wise is a British company (revolut as well btw), the US government at least won’t have immediate access.
If there are any online brokers that accept US customers with casual portfolio sizes, no idea.
Crypto of course is also an option, but I don’t trust it enough as long term asset storage solution.
- Comment on Select a tip 1 month ago:
You bet I would.
- Comment on Select a tip 1 month ago:
Not tipping is not giving my money away for nothing.
Tipping culture creates unwarranted expectations and removes obligations from employers.
I’ve stopped tipping decades ago and won’t look back.
- Comment on Does anyone here speak Portuguese? 1 month ago:
In Luxembourg it’s actual Portuguese, not Brazilians.
- Comment on Does anyone here speak Portuguese? 1 month ago:
There are some Brazilian instances, pretty sure they speak Portuguese as well.
- Comment on Google's AI is using past tense to describe a sporting event that takes place in 3 days. And it knows who won too. 2 months ago:
Private mode has all trackers disabled, so they might be able to trace the IP to my router, but not to a specific device (assuming you have random hardware ID activated). With kagi it’s traced to a specific account regardless.
And while I’m running a VPN by default, kagi will still be able to identify me, so that’s an absolute no-go.
- Comment on Google's AI is using past tense to describe a sporting event that takes place in 3 days. And it knows who won too. 2 months ago:
I’m using kagi on and off, but haven’t reached the point where I’m confident that paid search is the answer. Especially since that ties results to accounts even in privat mode, so they can claim no log policies as much as they want, I don’t trust it.
DDG doesn’t deliver the same quality as google, bing is garbage for anything but porn, and Yandex works surprisingly well, but whether I want my data in Russia is another story. In private mode I use it occasionally.
- Comment on Google's AI is using past tense to describe a sporting event that takes place in 3 days. And it knows who won too. 2 months ago:
Nope, you can’t disable it at all, this is the only workaround that currently gets rid of their crap.
- Comment on Google's AI is using past tense to describe a sporting event that takes place in 3 days. And it knows who won too. 2 months ago:
In your browser settings under search configure a new custom search with the following string:
www.google.com/search?q=%25s&udm=14
That attaches the string udm=14 to every search in the browser toolbar, which omits all AI features.
The downside is that if you’re searching for translation or currency conversion it won’t show you those as google features on top of the search results either, but only as separate links.
- Comment on Amazon Artificially Discounting Items $0.01 Below the Free Shipping Limit 2 months ago:
I use amazon to buy ebooks, and order stuff to my parents or friends back home if they are coming over, when there’s something I can’t get locally.
Taobao is the same garbage as Aliexpress, Temu would be Pinduoduo (which is so riddled with poor knockoffs that locals avoid it and crack jokes about the stupid foreigners thinking it’s hot shit).
The only somewhat trusted platform is JD.com (jindong) or official brand shops on Taobao. Tmall belongs to Taobao, that’s just their own shop (as opposed to third party sellers), but there’s no guarantee you actually buy authentic products either.
- Comment on Medical Industrial Complex 2 months ago:
Wow, where I’m at you can book them 3-5 days in advance, no stress.
- Comment on Amazon Artificially Discounting Items $0.01 Below the Free Shipping Limit 2 months ago:
Remote in what sense? I’m in China.
- Comment on Amazon Artificially Discounting Items $0.01 Below the Free Shipping Limit 2 months ago:
I don’t want to deal with their abysmal costumer service, and I’m not giving my address and phone number to some Chinese data center if I can help it.
- Comment on Amazon Artificially Discounting Items $0.01 Below the Free Shipping Limit 2 months ago:
There are ebooks listed for exactly 1 cent.
- Comment on Why do so many UK electrical sockets have an on/off switch next to them? 2 months ago:
I thought that’s building code, literally never seen any other outlets in the UK, as well as in Malaysia where they adopted the system. Though why it is or became code, I’ve no idea.
- Comment on I mean, that's literally the opposite of what I want 2 months ago:
Excellent, thanks!
- Comment on I mean, that's literally the opposite of what I want 2 months ago:
If you read the reviews on the play store, it seems like people get banned left and right for posting factual truth. So much for “freedom of speech”. Not like anyone expected that in the first place from a fascist echo chamber, but hey.
- Comment on I mean, that's literally the opposite of what I want 2 months ago:
Does it have a dark mode? I used the website mostly which is alright, but tried the app when they announced it a couple days ago, and that was my first issue.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
If you don’t have one yet, take this as a cue to get a powerful (!) blender. You can literally chuck every meal ever in there, either individually (sides, main, salad) or as a whole.
- Comment on People who live in hot climates, how do you deal with the heat? 2 months ago:
Malaysia:
You wake up early for outdoor stuff, like jogging or longer dog walks. I do that between 5.30 and about 7.30 (=sunrise).
Other activities throughout the day are indoors mostly, shops, malls, gyms etc. are all airconditioned.
Most homes that have a garden come with a roofed porch area with a ceiling fan, so that keeps sitting outdoors manageable except for maybe the most intense mid-day heat.
Houses here are also solid brick & concrete constructions, and retain cold air better than the wooden constructs you see in the US and Canada, so you can actually keep homes at bearable temperatures without racking up electricity bills.
- Comment on Why does it seem like every TV series I've ever watched gets cancelled/rushed/incomplete ending, while movies (even those in a film series/trilogy) rarely face the same problem? 2 months ago:
Series start with a concept for 2-3 seasons at most, nowadays often just one. If it’s successful, writers need to come up with an extension fast, since nobody wants to wait for the next one for 5 years. Sometimes they are greenlit halfway through the screening of S1 and they want to start filming half a year later, so there’s not enough time for due process with proofreaders, test audiences etc. as you do with movies, where sequels often come several years later.
- Comment on After shutting down several popular emulators, Nintendo admits emulation is legal 2 months ago:
Bypassing copy protection has always been the number one reason, it was never emulation per se.
- Comment on Doom is playable on PDFs (at least in Chromium-based browsers) 2 months ago:
I genuinely don’t know, I have set my browser to download pdfs by default and only open them with Sumatra. There might be a scripting layer active in the browser as well though, quite possible.
- Comment on Doom is playable on PDFs (at least in Chromium-based browsers) 2 months ago:
Yeah it does. Adobe has a lot of active script support, including java script for example, which can be exploited. If a software can’t interpret those scripts at all and simply displays plain text, that means malware won’t be executed.
And since Adobe Acrobat / Acrobat Reader are the most common pdf viewers out there, they are a natural target for hackers as well.
- Comment on How do I realistically get out of the US? 2 months ago:
Some countries consider limitless ancestral pathways, but you must have factual evidence (birth records, marriage certificate etc.) that are unquestionable. Several countries also consider the paternal side only, meaning you must be able to trace your lineage through your father’s male family line only.
I haven’t heard of anyone being able to trace their line back to the discovery of America, but who knows. Certainly heard of some Brazilian successfully claiming German citizenship dating back to refugees from WW1, which is already 110 years ago and 3-4 generations later.