Mr Penguin

CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc and co-host of syndicated radio show Free Talk Live.

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Last Notes

2026-07-16 02:46:19 UTC

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@nprofile…43na
Yea, so it sounds like this trend hasn't continued, at least according to some.

2026-07-10 05:51:06 UTC

Banning kids from Social Media is about to backfire on parents, as new research suggests we need to ban parents from using social media as it's the real thing that is harming the kids, not the kids themselves on social media:
"'A child with insecure attachment may lack confidence or display a lower sense of self; demonstrate difficulty with interpersonal relationships and intimacy; and possess an unwillingness to take risks necessary to achieve success,' reports Bloomberg, citing one of the study's researchers.
'This type of behavior has become normalized: 2024 Pew data found that nearly half of U.S. teens say their parents are at least sometimes distracted by phones during interactions.'"

2026-07-06 21:50:56 UTC

I'm convinced there should be a test required before people are allowed to manage their own finances. If you can't pass a simple test identifying basic scams you should be forced into a socialist dystopia. The rest of us should be able to run through a random sampling of scams and then NOT show any ID (when opening accounts or otherwise moving money/assets around).
"In one scam, reported Monday, an 84-year-old Clallam County resident believed they had received an email from their daughter with a photo. After opening the email, a fake Microsoft security alert appeared on the computer directing the victim to call a support number, according to the release. 'The victim was transferred to someone claiming to represent the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and was falsely told they were under investigation in a child pornography and money laundering case,' the release states. 'The scammers instructed the victim not to contact local law enforcement and claimed local banks were also under investigation. The victim was told their bank accounts were in danger of being seized and was instructed to purchase gold to protect their assets.' In three separate transactions, the victim purchased approximately $420,000 worth of gold and gave it to an unknown man waiting at the end of their driveway."

2026-05-26 23:03:26 UTC

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@nprofile…chn9
I wouldn't dispute that the backdoor in the ME is a bit overplayed. However, it's merely an example of why we should be concerned whether or not it's being actively used. It's probably not used at scale, but rather selectively.
There is a bit that has to be set to partially disable the ME and one of the developers who wrote one of the solutions was silenced. If you go look at the repository you'll see it hasn't been updated in many years and the reason is pretty apparent. If you look at what he was saying prior and the fact he can't talk about it now... there is something to be concerned about here. I just don't think the US government is using this particular backdoor outside of selective targets.
Intel has gone back with each successive generation and tweaked things to hinder anyone's ability to partially disable the ME.
What I think is worth pointing out is that the government doesn't have one solution, but many. They don't need a backdoor in the ME to target average joe. They need a bit to flip to disable vulnerabilities that that intel has placed there on behalf of the government however such that the government itself can mitigate said vulnerabilities and it's more along those lines that I believe the evidence lies.
Is it overblown? Yes, for most users this is a non-issue. For some users I'd be a bit more concerned.
My company has the option to partially disable the ME on the computers in our catalog on some models. It's not something we push, but is a reaction to peoples concerns.
There are plenty of other security issues that ship in EVERY router just about. UPnP for instance. I'm not sure if it's in the default images for OpenWRT, but I know it's just one component not included in libreCMC's default images.

2026-05-17 19:55:43 UTC

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@nprofile…cyj5 @nprofile…fcss
The data suggests otherwise. If there is something I've missed ... well ... point it out. However the number of "incidents" is so close to zero given the size it's an absurd conceptually to say there is an issue. Undoubtedly bad shit happens, but it's almost certainly more of a problem elsewhere based on the stats than on Roblox.
As far as Discord or the CIA is concerned I'll be skeptical there too only because this is a topic of exploitation by pretty much all political sides. People are using it to their own ends and hyping non-issues. However present some data ... and I'll keep my mind open about there being some kind of a problem.
There are so many issues with data collection and unsound scientifically flawed studies more generally. Then add politically sensitive or difficult to study topics (things like rapes/pedophilia/murder) in and you basically can't draw any conclusions at all of any value. If you only study doctors based on those who have been locked up for murder you end up concluding all doctors are murders and that's basically what happens with rapes/murders/sex offenders. No sex offender is going to say they're an unidentified sex offender so a study. How would a study even identify a group of unidentified sex offenders? Thus these sorts of studies end up only being based on those locked up leading to flawed data and conclusions.

2026-05-16 18:36:15 UTC

Apparently people can't do math and give in to stupid ideas like Roblox has a child exploitation problem based on raw numbers.
Even people advocating against this stupidity. GamersNexus stated that Roblox has a problem and stated there are 13,000 instances of sexual incidents on the platform each year. Without context this sounds like a problem, but it's not. There are 1.4 billion users on the platform! That is 0.000000867% risk factor. In comparison your kid is far far far far far more likely to be hit by a car: 0.0001% and it is about as likely they'll be struck by lightning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DibdcQTZTk

2026-05-15 23:19:12 UTC

More entertaining nonsense from the copyright cartel world:
"'Such conduct, coupled with the use of domain names incorporating the expression 'IMDb', prima facie reflects dishonest adoption intended to exploit the goodwill and recognition associated with IMDb and to induce users into accessing infringing streams under the guise of legitimacy,' the order adds."
When was the last time IMDb had "goodwill"? Maybe in the early 90s when they were claiming to be some sort of non-profit or user-driven organization rather than a corporation out to exploit it's users contributions???
They certainly don't have "goodwill" here. They switched over to a .com from a .org and later shutdown public access to their database. Now you have to go through imdb.com and even pay for a subscription to access some functionality.
I'm not against companies making money- hell- I am the founder and CEO of one, but this isn't the way you generate "goodwill". This is how you put off users. They stop just shy of people fleeing ... not to mention Google and other search engines prioritize them over everyone else because they had the benefit millions of contributions of which no one today can pull off due to the dominance and direction of traffic by search engines to IMDB over everyone else.

2026-05-06 23:24:38 UTC

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation, regarding a new bill that is about to pass in California that mandates everyone ID online (not just age attestation, but like a literal biometric ID on many if not most sites you access):
"By banning access to social media platforms for young people under 16, California is emulating Australia, where early results show exactly what EFF and other critics predicted: overblocking by platforms, leaving youth without support and even adults barred from access, major spikes in VPN use and other workarounds ranging from clever to desperate,"
And the disturbing part I'd like to comment on:
"and smaller platforms shutting down rather than attempting costly compliance with these sweeping bills."
Yea, or they just flat out leave California. There is this thing called jurisdiction and companies that don't operate in California are generally not subject to California law. Particularly laws that don't have equivalents elsewhere (in the extraditing jurisdiction). In other words Canada isn't going to extradite someone from Canada to the US for picking their nose and posting about it online when the US bans it because it's only illegal in the one country. This isn't always the case- but it's usually the case (the US and UK have a one-way thing going where the UK extradites to the US, but not vice versa humorously because the US didn't hold up their part of the deal after signing some treaty recently, but the UK did).
Can we all say it: California, go fuck yourself.
https://eff.org/effector/

2026-05-04 09:37:09 UTC

Are people really this psychotic? Sure, I get there are a few creeps on Roblox, but implying Roblox is tailored made to profit off child molester's grooming kids seems beyond absurd:
"Age verification forces the maker of a children’s game to reconcile and face their real problem of child grooming head on, and their stock market excuse is to blame the law?
Let me not feel bad one bit because investors were forced to realize exactly where those profits were coming from."

2026-05-04 00:52:10 UTC

More on Utah's law that takes aim at the privacy and freedom of ADULTS online (AND youth for that matter):
"NordVPN has called the law an 'unresolvable compliance paradox' and a 'liability trap,' arguing that it holds websites responsible for identifying users whose tools are specifically designed to be unidentifiable. The EFF warned that the legal risk could push sites to either ban all known VPN IPs or mandate age verification for every visitor globally."
That is a danger independent of the laws constitutionality. A mere threat is enough to get most companies and sites to comply for fear of protracted and costly legal fights.
What is more disturbing is this is NOT constitutional and they should know it as I previously stated. There were 4-5 rulings by the US supreme court in the 90s on this very subject matter and each struck down the concept of sites having to do age-checks and this was explicitly for porn sites-at that time. The thought that less than porn could somehow magically change this blows my mind.
Youth do not lose their free speech rights when they enter the school house gates:
"The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969) that students do not 'shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.'"
So on what planet can any state pass a law that shreds them elsewhere where such rights are even MORE staunchly protected and clear cut????
https://www.tomshardware.com/software/vpn/utah-becomes-first-us-state-to-target-vpn-use-with-age-verification-law

2026-04-30 18:07:39 UTC

This is humorous:
“'The goal of DNS4EU is to ensure the digital sovereignty of the EU by providing a private, safe, and independent European DNS resolver,' the project’s website states."
Given a Paris court just ordered them to block sites.
I guess sovereign and independent doesn't include the freedom bit for their users. No, it's more like the 'Great firewall of Europe'.

2026-04-30 18:00:58 UTC

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@nprofile…chn9 I'm not sure that's the point of 'open source' software, but I would phrase the point of free software as being to put the control of peoples machines and devices back into the hands of the end-user.
I think the problem is not that it's not an effective tool against the state apparatus too, but rather that the state still posses a lot of power and is a threat to those who dare operate a system beyond their clutches, develop an app they can't control, etc.
Will they be able to stop cryptocurrencies or privacy friendly cryptocurrencies despite having arrested a handful of developers (Samourai Wallet), threatened exchanges (which in turn have stopped offering privacy coins like Monero), etc? No. I don't think so. However they're certainly going in that direction with hardware mandates that force manufacturing to occur in the United States, mandated lock downs on devices (anything with a modern wifi 5Ghz chip can't be 100% free), etc. And now they're trying to lock down phones, tablets, and computers through laws like that through age attestation and age verification. The UK has already started going after VPN providers because there are 'workarounds' to age verification. Well, there are workarounds if you can install an operating system you control too! That's next. These people are just so stupid they don't realize this quite yet. Once they fail at stopping 'kids' from accessing social media (60% of kids in Australia I believe are STILL able to access social media, proving how ineffective bans are) they will invariably start going after any other means that result in it being possible to bypass their stupid law to 'protect the children'.

2026-04-29 03:25:35 UTC

Help! They want to put an end to free software!
The EFF has put together a campaign to try and push back against these anti-developer, anti-consumer, and-human bills that would mandate you provide ID for every site you visit, app you install, and OS you use/install.
Please tell congress to oppose the GUARD Act!
This broad bill goes way beyond AI and regulates everyday internet life.
With just two clicks you can tell your rep what you think by clicking the link here:
https://act.eff.org/action/tell-congress-oppose-the-guard-act

2026-04-29 03:10:48 UTC

"Sony Rolls Out 30-Day Online DRM Check-In For PlayStation Digital Games"
"No matter what, any game you download from now on will feature this new requirement, effectively eliminating the concept of offline play for even single-player titles. "
And yet... people will continue putting up with this crap. If only there was this thing called the free market and people voted with their fiat (dirty money, ie government money). Then companies wouldn't pull this shit.
I long ago refused to lay my hands on any game console. However my sole voice alone does not impact change. Only people spending their money on products from companies that refuse to pull this bullshit will have any genuine positive impact.
Unfortunately there is no free market with copyright. Copyright is a literal monopoly on distribution. There was for a while some level of limited reprieve with VHS, DVD, blu-ray, and at one time game rentals.
Back in the day the court ruled that companies could rent out the tapes they *BOUGHT*. This created some resemblance of a free market as you could obtain entertainment for some years without there being a single source. However that didn't apply to broadcast and so later when the internet era came to be no one other than major major major tech and entertainment companies (think Netflix and Disney) could enter the online rental (or streaming) market. As a consequence we went from 10s of thousands of rental shops across just the United States to a ~handful. It is also well known these handful will eventually consolidate and we'll be left with ~1-2 options in the coming years.

2026-04-26 07:47:52 UTC

"Governments around the world are watching Australia's moves to rein in the tech giants, with many considering similar regulation to protect children from harms including bullying and body-shaming associated with social media."
For real? Like these things didn't come to be with the invention of social media or the internet.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s and I can tell you one thing for sure. These issues have NOTHING to do with social media.

2026-04-26 01:47:15 UTC

"At the core of the social media ban is emerging research indicating that for some teens, extended time spent on social media is associated with depression and anxiety. A 2022 study found nearly half of adolescents reported social media making them feel worse about their body image."
umm your literally surveying a population that fills out these questionnaires by making faces with the scantron (ok, not sure if that is something still in use, but while it's dated it's literally what I saw EVERY KID in my 9th grade, so about 14, class doing when required to take a survey to this end in the late 1990s early 2000s). The point is the survey data is likely completely and utterly inaccurate in the first place.
However even if it wasn't there is no evidence to suggest that this is anything other than normal teenage behavior. Hormonal changes, etc. and the implication of the wording of the question is what leads to youth to whatever degree there is anything behind the question to answering yes when there is ZERO evidence of correlation between the two.
https://social.freetalklive.com/system/media_attachments/files/116/468/469/987/053/743/original/914e2aba44562ad5.webp

2026-04-25 22:25:40 UTC

"Colorado Adds Open-Source Exemption to Age-Verification Bill"
But does it... ?
"'a strong exemption for open source distros and apps' and has passed in the House committee. He also quoted the key part, which says Article 30 does not apply to an operating system provider or developer that distributes software under license terms that let recipients copy, redistribute, and modify the software without restrictions from the provider or developer... This wording covers Linux distributions and many open-source applications"
If this is the exact wording I believe the legal interpretation is wrong that they're exempting "open source" or free software as there ARE restrictions on distributions. They're at best exempting software in the public domain which FOSS apps are not.
You are free to copy, distribute, and modify within the confines of the license. You do not need to agree to the license to USE the software, but if you distribute the works derivative works must be distributed under the same license terms, meaning they cannot be modified and then released as proprietary software without restrictions.
https://linuxiac.com/colorado-adds-open-source-exemption-to-age-attestation-bill/

2026-04-24 18:33:11 UTC

"'Children cannot be left with the responsibility for staying away from platforms they are not allowed to use,' Karianne Tung, Norway's minister of digitalization, said in the statement. 'That responsibility rests with the companies providing these services.'"
And why shouldn't they be allowed to use them? This is dumb. There is nothing wrong with a bit of social media use. The problems stem from a lack of other activities and personal responsibility. I'll be the first to say that people at large are TOO attached to their phones, and I don't even have a phone with a SIM card (though I do use wifi on the go here and there). Point is though there is no good reason to blame tech for your personal failures and life choices.
If there were blame to go around I'd call out these very politicians for FORCING phones on us through things like automated tolling and parking meters that demand you pay them with your smart phone.

2026-04-24 18:11:02 UTC

"Norway Set to Become Latest Country to Ban Social Media for Under 16s"
You know the nanny state is in full swing they start mandating seat belts, and then helmets for under 14s.
But for christ sake- social media? Weren't we suppose to be pushing kids to be more social, not less???
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/norway-government-plans-social-media-051028496.html

2026-04-24 16:17:04 UTC

Headline: "France Confirms Data Breach At Government Agency That Manages Citizens' IDs"
And soon every app, site, OS, and device will be demanding your ID.
If you think age verification is a good idea your an idiot.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/22/france-confirms-data-breach-at-government-agency-that-manages-citizens-ids/

2026-04-22 07:00:02 UTC

In relation to the story of the attorney general in Florida going after an AI company because their product provided information help to a school shooter.
One comment against the stupidity said:
"Exactly, next people are going to be doing legal discovery on levi's jeans because the jeans helped the shooter keep his balls from flapping during the shooting. Stop trying to blame tools and keep the blame squarely on the human that does the evil thing."
A counter point:
"Osama bin Laden was not on any of the planes that flew into buildings. All he did was sit there and help plan and train the people who did it."
My point: umm so go after the HUMAN. These scenarios aren't alike. The AI company didn't develop a product or provide information with the intent to help the school shooter just like the jeans company didn't intend for the their product to be used to hold the balls of a school shooter.
Intent matters and so does marketing. No no one marketed "AI" for the purpose of assisting people in shooting up schools.
Osama bin Laden used tools for purposes that the tool maker could never have envisioned and even if they had it wasn't the intent of that tool maker. We didn't go after the tool maker (ie the PC maker for the PC he used to plan the attack). We or I should say the US government went after the person using that tool (ie the PC to do evil things).
The lack of humanity to reason soundly just blows my mind.
Under this logic the car maker is responsible because they know that evil people will use them to kill folks. Look at Charlottesville, NC a number of years ago where someone drove a vehicle into a bunch of folks protesting racists.
What happens to the availability of cars? Prices go up to account for liability and sales plummet.

2026-04-21 22:42:35 UTC

“It’s time for lawmakers to choose: Are they going to side with kids and the safety of our children, or with Big Tech?”
Holly christ- like seriously. The manipulative nature of the sentence. "Big tech" is horrible, but YOU chose to use it. It's not "Big tech"'s fault you made poor decisions.
"'Minor’s son Matthew died at age 12 after participating in the 'choking challenge,' which Minor says he learned about on social media. "
Do you know this is the most ridicules argument. I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s and I remember this being a thing back then! Schools even covered this as a topic and there were after-school TV specials. NONE OF THIS IS NEW. NONE OF THIS IS A PROBLEM WITH "BIG TECH".
This is a problem with crappy and lazy parenting to whatever degree you can call it a problem in the first place.
There will ALWAYS be kids who off themselves. It's often not the "internet" or "big tech" that is the fundamental problem. It's treating kids like property where you can dictate to them "you must attend school". "you must attend this school". It's authoritarianism at its best that is the BIGGEST part of the problem.
You as a parent were almost certainly the primary contributing factor in your sons death, not social media, not big tech, not the internet.
Helicopter parenting and authoritarianism is far MORE dangerous than "big tech", "AI", social media, or the internet could ever be.
Stop being a control freak and let your kids grow up. Stop forcing them into situations that are harmful (schools they wish not attend because of bullying you CAN'T solve no matter how many laws you pass, of which is probably only making things worse).

2026-04-21 08:25:47 UTC

Humorous rant in support of forcing everyone to surrender their privacy for the "sake of the children" nutter, and humorously posting on a US website (talk about hypocritical, though I'll admit the US isn't the world, and the world should push back against the US tech dominance, so at least in that respect he'd be right on):
"The world is NOT the USA.
The USA is the worst of things , Greed, Entitlement, Racism, Bigotry, Religion, etc etc etc and you protect the Pedo President...
You have nothing to offer the sane world."

2026-04-21 08:16:39 UTC

"PlayStation To Require Age Verification For Messages and Voice Chat"
Sounds like it is time for a boycott. Sadly gamers are probably one of the least likely groups to push back against this bullshit.
If even a small percentage of people pushed back we wouldn't be needing to deal with this and the rights of adults and youth alike wouldn't be suffering from having their privacy invaded.
I was literally the only one who spoke out against schools having IDs, schooling forcing ID scans to to buy lunch, and similar.
Do you know how we got here? You failed to object. You failed to resist.
I can't resist any further for you. I already refuse to touch Apple, Google, Sony, and Microsoft products.
I already avoid NVIDIA and AMD.
What more can I possibly do?
Ohh that's right suicide myself in defense of my values.. as if that approach ever worked without sufficient like-minded folks objecting. Nope. That's one line I have no will to cross.
I went to a 4/20 rally today in Concord, NH to push back on drug prohibition (it's been decriminalized in New Hampshire for at least small amounts, but it doesn't mean other drugs have also been decriminalized). It's sad when more than half those rallying don't even smoke weed and this is a place that has more support than most for decriminalizing prohibited drugs.
If you want things to change there is only one solution that is working and that's folks from around the US around the world who priotize freedom over safety to migrate to New Hampshire and partake in the Free State Project or our efforts thereof to change *a place* in the world. Where other efforts are more or less frauds the Free State Project actually has 10s of thousands of people who have moved and are fixing it.
https://insider-gaming.com/playstation-to-require-age-verification-for-certain-online-features

2026-04-19 19:12:36 UTC

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@nprofile…04yf @nprofile…fcss
Yea, it's largely what they do. I don't even know so much if it's the poor, but certainly the weak. Entertainingly the cops are usually running from me. I actually had a slow 40 minute 'chase' of a cop up to no good once. They don't like me and umm those around me. We put them in the spotlight on occasion and make them look pretty silly in court on a regular basis. It's gotten to a point where the city I live won't give us court dates for parking tickets (that is they drop the ticket instead), cops run from us, avoid pulling us over, and on a rare occasion when someone does get pulled over due to the cop not realizing who he's pulling over at first (think out headlight) we get thanked for not giving them shit. It's pretty funny.

2026-04-19 19:03:16 UTC

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@nprofile…04yf @nprofile…fcss
Yea, there are a lot of problems with it. Same with facial recognition and that's when you have a database of drivers licenses for comparison. It doesn't even get into the cameras.
It's humorous in that while the technology is scary and orwellian in and of itself it's so much worse when law enforcement actually uses it. People don't understand how truly dangerous law enforcement is to the ordinary individual nor how bad our criminal justice or court system(s) are. We've wrongly trained our 4 year olds that law enforcement is your friend. They're not. Law enforcement is actually terrible and would get an F if properly evaluated like other government entities. They are more of a threat to the public than the small bit of risk that other bad actors are and we're entertainingly (?) funding them through taxation.

2026-04-19 18:57:30 UTC

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@nprofile…haaq Yes.

2026-04-19 18:55:10 UTC

If anyone was skeptical of certain claims I made the other day about governments tracking people without a warrant (and buy data / merely asking for it from vehicular manufacturers) I believe this should sum up what is happening pretty well:
"'Nevada quietly signed an agreement earlier this year with a company that collects location data from cellphones, allowing police to track a device virtually in real time,' reports the Associated Press. 'All without a warrant.'"
It's best to leave your cellular off when not in active use. That is turn on airplane mode. Also, since it's apps on your phone that are part of the problem, like Google suite of software that runs on top of Android that contributes to this problem you should avoid installing third party apps from banks, corporations, and others, etc. One of the best solutions for ordinary people are de-googled phones or phones that run forks of Android that don't contain the privacy invasive software. LineageOS and GrapheneOS are both pretty popular forks. Feel free to ping me if you need such a phone. My company is focused on selling computers and accessories that are freedom-respecting, but on the side I do help people via selling phones with these operating systems too on more of a request basis.
A better solution if one can stomach it is the Pine Phone with Mobian. You can physically disable the webcam, microphone, GPS, cellular modem, etc via dip switches. Then use external adapters for things like wifi and your webcam (particularly important if you intend to use Monero or cryptocurrency at brick and mortar stores, largely something you can do mostly in New Hampshire and/or online thanks to participants in the Free State Project migration).
https://pine64.com/product-category/pinephone/
https://apnews.com/article/nevada-police-fog-data-cellphone-location-tracking-ab6f7d75864cf0bfb949f0c6770f3b44

2026-04-18 21:54:47 UTC

If there was ever a reason to avoid purchasing a newer car this breaks it down very well. So this researcher extracted the data that all modern cars collect and for which is mandated by law. Every time you take a trip your car is logging your GPS coordinates and ratting you out to the "authorities" and potentially others.
Privacy wise the best cars pre-date 1996, but a car from 2005 is still way better than a car from 2015. For the past decade now cars have been getting equipped (and more recently mandated by law) with GPS tracking systems. The most modern cars include cellular connections on top of GPS that can report back your every move.
Governments don't need to plant a GPS tracking device on your car or even get a subpoena necessarily. They need only ask a manufacturer for your info.
You can thank "safety" advocates and politicians for these privacy invasive technologies and the advertising industry and manufacturers. All have colluded to erode your privacy.
My current vehicle(s) are from the early 2000s and my next vehicle will also be from the early 2000s. The humorous part is I'd like to get an electric vehicle, but I'm not willing to surrender any further information to unscrupulous law enforcement and other parties than is otherwise already being collected via other avenues such as cameras and automatic license plate readers (ALPRs).
https://blog.quarkslab.com/tearing-down-a-car-telematic-unit-and-finding-an-accident-on-facebook.html

2026-04-18 19:40:44 UTC

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@nprofile…fcss
Creating a single human identifier is extremely dangerous for privacy independent of how you do it. With a captcha it's less awful as the tracking can be limited to your session and isn't tied to your actual person whereas a single human identifier, like a physical card bought at a store will be tied to your person. This is even if you record no data about who purchased the card. The reason is that the state can go back later and force a seller to ID a person via receipts, cameras, and similar. This isn't some imaginary fear mongering concern either. Law enforcement use cameras focused on parking lots to track back folks who purchase goods from brick and mortar retail stores every day. People think that using cash to purchase pre-paid phone cards for instance makes them anonymous, but it's actually only psudo-anonymous. It helps undermine the mass survalance states to a degree, but it does not stop the tracking and violation of ones privacy outright. So what happens is the cops find out where the pre-paid card used to activate a SIM card was purchased from. They go to that store and dig through the receipt data and get a time/date and video of the parking lot at that time. They grab the license plate number and look it up. From there they go to the registered owner of the vehicle or get a warrant to conduct a search (probably after IDing the person from the video.. at least you'd hope, but warrants are rubber stamping process so very little is ultimately needed... they are the weakest 'protection' ever').

2026-04-18 19:32:00 UTC

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@nprofile…fcss @nprofile…04yf
No Idea. Something about an 'orb'.

2026-04-18 19:26:43 UTC

"At about 6:30 on a Tuesday morning last April, FBI agents started banging on the door of Lane's second-floor dorm room. 'FBI! We have a search warrant,' Lane recalled them shouting. They seized his devices and many of the luxury items he bought with 'dirty' money, as he put it. He said he felt a 'wave of relief.... I'm honestly thankful for the FBI,' he said. 'After they left, I was like, 'It's over ... I'm done with this'..."
There is some wrong with people who thank police. I get we're propagandized and often do it out of fear, but christ.
I also get that it's in the interest of a defendant whose found guilty to suck up and show remorse regardless of whether he believes he/she did anything wrong.
However AFTER the fact?
In this particular case all this kid did was exploit a security vulnerability in a tool called Power School that 80% of the government schools in the US use and end up with a windfall from it.
The problem and danger here is in the way the majority goes about thinking about actors with selfish or malicious intent. 80% of schools being on the same platform using the same tool and using a tool that is vulnerable is part of the problem. It's also concerning that schools have students social security numbers in the first place. There is no law that even requires a student to have a social security number.
But this problem does go back to at least the 90s in that the government back then passed a change to the tax code that incentivized parents to get their kids social security numbers so they could claim them on their taxes.
The only real solution is to stop scapegoating malicious actors. Fix your poorly written code/thought out laws/regulations/overly concentrated use of a single tool. Stop enabling monopolies/duopolies.

2026-04-17 21:59:47 UTC

Apparently they rolling out this technology that scans our eyeballs online and forcing people to prove their a 'real human'. I thought the constant harassment of captchas was bad. Somehow they've made things even worse.

2026-04-17 02:48:46 UTC

Fingerprint reader support in GNU/Linux is getting better every day. ZorinOS and Trisquel now support our USB fingerprint reader and there is additional documentation for each to reflect some slight differences on how to enroll given the different software of each distribution. There is also actually a difference between ZorinOS Lite and ZorinOS Core documented as well.
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/optical-usb-fingerprint-reader-gnulinux-edition-tpe-f4500

2026-04-16 23:06:34 UTC

The truth comes out... it's all about censorship of the masses:
" The EU says a new age-verification app is technically ready and could let users prove they are old enough to access restricted online content without revealing their identity or personal data. Deutsche Welle reports:
Once released, users will be able to download the app from an app store and set it up using proof of identity, such as a passport or national ID card. They can then use it to confirm they are above a certain age when accessing restricted content
...
The app is expected to support enforcement of the bloc's Digital Services Act, which aims to better regulate online platforms. This includes restricting access to content such as pornography, gambling and alcohol-related services. "

2026-04-16 22:50:56 UTC

"Is Linux Mint In Trouble?"
Talk about a click bait headline!
umm, changes that are a consequence of Canonical f'ing things up don't equal a doomed distribution. Clem (lead developer) and team (like umm yea they have multiple full time paid developers) have done an excellent job overall and most of what is needed to make a Debian base of Linux Mint work well are already being done by MX Linux.
Linux Mint should switch to the Debian base, then import the graphics stack from MX Linux Advanced Hardware Support (AHS) repository to get back the sole real benefit that building off Ubuntu offers. That is the LTS enablement stack which basically consists of improved hardware support (graphics and kernel). Either from the repository if manually installed or via point releases.

2026-04-16 22:28:41 UTC

"H.R.8250 - Parents Decide Act"
The US government and masses who supper these age attestation and/or verification bills can go fuck themselves. I've been saying that a lot lately. hmm
Basically this is one of a handful of proposed bills that would mandate the speech of developers to include a component that enables nefarious regulations. This is straight out of George Orwell's 1984. It's surveillance of all devices (age does NOT matter here) and in 1984 they were called telescreens installed in every room of people's homes, which include bedrooms. These two-way devices broadcast propaganda and allow the Thought Police to watch and listen to citizens at all times.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/8250/text

2026-04-16 18:15:43 UTC

The FSF just came out with a statement clarifying the situation with OnlyOffice added terms (restrictions). So the situation is OnlyOffice is violating the trademarks that the FSF holds on the A(GPL) license by adding additional restrictions outside those permitted by the license itself. The license permits users to remove said additional terms in those circumstances.
Basically they can't do that while referring to the license as the A(GPL) license as it's a violation of the trademarks the FSF holds on the A(GPL).
This is actually the intention of trademark law. It's to protect consumers from fraud through brand confusion. OnlyOffice is misleading users when they refer to the license as A(GPL) since the terms added are outside of the permitted scope of the licenses. This is kinda interesting in that people don't think of the fact that the license itself has a copyright and a trademark associated with it and when you use this license you are agreeing to said terms. If you use the license with some change your still beholden to the copyright owner's licensing terms. It would be a copyright violation and a trademark violation potentially. The copyright violation may not apply here as it sounds like there is no restriction on modifying the license (I will admit I thought there was, but it may only be a half-correct understanding) itself, but doing so results in a trademark violation without changing the name of the license to avoid trademark violations and confuse consumers.

2026-04-15 23:50:12 UTC

"Anna's Archive is also ordered to ... file a compliance report within ten business days, under penalty of perjury, including valid contact information for the site and its managing agents." [since their op sec was so good they couldn't be identified]
Ordering someone to ID themselves so you can punish them is pretty hilarious. It reminds me of a time in high school where I told an assistant principle to 'fuck off' in front of an entire student class REALLY LOUDLY (2000 kids). Seniors were told to come in at a certain time that was later than the normal start time since no testing occurred for seniors. Problem was if enough seniors were late the day wouldn't count under state law as the state has a minimum number of days and hours. Here I was on time as well as most of the class and here she was lecturing/yelling at us who DID show up on time. Yea- right? Fuck her. I had even rushed to arrive on time after having trouble finding parking.
One of the 'monitors' ID'd me (I was hidden behind the bleachers alongside many other students). At first I followed one of the assistant principle's minions into the hallway. Long story short she asked for my ID. I replied something like "Wait, you don't know who I am?" and she was like "no" so I was like "If you don't know who I am why the hell would I tell you?" I hadn't broken any laws, so I just said I'm 18 and leaving. School 'security' (not police) followed close behind. A comical 2MPH 'chase' ensued till I lost them. I walked down a one way street since they were driving. They violated the law and followed entertainingly. I then just walked through a parking lot with a barrier and lost them. I was a model student otherwise. They never did figure out who I was either.
https://torrentfreak.com/annas-archive-loses-322-million-spotify-piracy-case-without-a-fight/

2026-04-15 23:00:54 UTC

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@nprofile…00xj Samsung. I'm not sure the details of what happened, but it sounds like some of the reports of Samsung exiting the consumer SSD market may have been wrong. Samsung is the only company that makes an 8TB 2.5" SATA SSD. None-the-less it doesn't substantially change things. Whether they are getting out of the business or simply unable to supply the market the impact will be the same. So another thing if my recollection is correct is that it was reported that Samsung didn't have enough hard disks and ram or maybe it was jut ram to supply itself as third party contracts were signed that secured the manufacturing capacity for those in the AI industry.

2026-04-15 22:53:22 UTC

The crazy f'd up part of our legal system is judges don't understand their own legal limitations nor the technical impossibilities of actual enforcement from their judgements:
"In addition to the damages award, [Judge Jed Rakoff] entered a permanent worldwide injunction covering ten Anna's Archive domains: "
There is NO SUCH THING as a 'worldwide injunction'. The court has LIMITED jurisdiction whether it covers a state or a country, but no judgement handed out in the US applies to some site hosted in North Korea.
You may be able to get a US judgement recognized by a foreign court/authorities, but it's often difficult to impossible. A bunch of factors have to come together.
What is humorous is that the entertainment cartels have EVERYTHING working in their favor in that almost every country on earth recognizes copyright. However the trick is not every country has an equal level of enforcement. Vietnam for example is notoriously lax and in the only copyright case known to exist involving a pirate site there was basically no real or at least substantial penalty of worry.

2026-04-15 07:57:01 UTC

Great story- but it's a lot of no shit conclusions. Blocking doesn't work and has never worked. It's trivial to get around and many VPN providers are NEVER going to comply. It can only be marginally effective in totalitarian states. Of course this is the direction that everyone is heading ... but is that really what people want? Or is it more what politicians are doing as an excuse (ie child 'protection', ie social media censorship, age verification that negatively harms adults and kids alike, etc) and what the copyright cartels want?
https://torrentfreak.com/eu-pirate-site-blocking-is-broken-report-calls-for-ip-blocking-ban-and-rightsholder-liability/

2026-04-15 07:00:27 UTC

I'm amazed by the number of people into BDSM, tech that is.
"Audit Finds Google, Microsoft, and Meta Still Tracking Users After Opt-Out"
https://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/

2026-04-15 06:58:16 UTC

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@nprofile…t7yy
:) We still have routers that respect users freedoms! Not backdoor'd, but your time to get a router that isn't locked down and backdoored might be running out.
This might not apply to wired routers either, but it's still extraordinarily dangerous precedent.

2026-04-15 06:53:59 UTC

California is still trying to push through 3d gun printing laws that don't work. They're trying to regulate by algorithms and take away your ability to run the software you wish (like free or 'open source' software) on your 3d printer to "protect" people and stop 3d printed guns. It doesn't make any sense for so many reasons. Not only will it fail to stop people from printing components for 3d printed guns it will likely have a ton of negative side effects like interfering with the ability of users to print other components that may be "close enough". Want to print a pen? That pen looks like a barrel for a gun, no print for you. But it's not even like it matters in that you can import both guns and 3d printers that don't comply even if this were to pass. There is no customs at the state level that would even be able to stop non-compliant 3d printers from coming into the state.
People intent on crime, or even just disagree with the laws on moral grounds won't comply. Meaning this has no impact on stopping bad stuff from happening will only harm the "good" people who try and obey the laws.
https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/14/eff_california_3dprinted_firearms/

2026-04-15 06:45:55 UTC

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@nprofile…chn9
This statistic is from the late 1990s, but at the time brick and mortar retail chains wouldn't install cameras or additional security until they saw a 3% loss. This loss or shrink occurs for various reasons ... but largely it is theft. Often it's employees actually. However it's also the consequence of gangs going around and making a industry out of shop lifting on top of small time shop lifters.
As far as losses due to fiat or more specifically credit cards really... it's pretty high. So 17% of consumers in 2013 experienced credit card fraud. There aren't losses on the consumer side as they're largely protected, but the businesses that suffer those losses result in higher prices... so it's not really an issue where it doesn't impact the consumer. It actually does and quite substantially. There is also a 3-6% loss + small transaction fee every time you swipe your plastic (ie credit cards, or that thing with the Visa/Master Card/American Express logo).
Basically crypto would have a HUGE economic benefit to society as a whole if more companies accepted it and more people switched to using it.
The costs to send crypto are near zero. The exchange rate from fiat to crypto varies, but it has been largely higher than in aught to be due to government regulations. Pre-regulation crypto vending machines had fees as low as 8%. 1-1.5% with online exchanges. Today due to government regulations it's more likely to be in the 20-25% range. Online it's still relatively inexpensive, but ultimately these costs disappear once you start accepting it (or being paid in it) and spending it rather than buying it and spending it.
Just to give you an idea. The banks/credit card companies make more off the transaction than we do on some PC sales. Crazy.

2026-04-15 06:23:13 UTC

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@nprofile…chn9 Yea, I mean, it's all artificial, so while I'd agree it's probably not the brightest move under the current circumstances this could be very different if the idea and will to change occurred.
It's also worth pointing out that not everyone is in the same social and economic conditions either. For example not everyone's parents are divorced, poor, or working. I had a cousin that ~25 years ago had a child out of wedlock in Wyoming (in high school) and while undoubtedly difficult did have that support needed to get by. She went on to get degrees in the medical field and raise a child on her own. This was in part during a period of economic collapse in that in 2008 the boy was 11 years old. She was around ~27 and still in school if my memory is correct. However keep in mind she went for medical degrees too so her time in college was probably ordinarily greater than had she just gotten a 4 year degree. However even if it took her an extra 2 years because she took on a lesser work load that's not really the end all. Anyone deciding to have children (not just women) is taking on a burden or cost. Children are some of value and it's more along the lines that many haven't found that value sufficient to bother or doing so is otherwise stigmatized and so they don't.
~2008 was the housing crash and it took decades to recover. Many people lost their homes, etc.

2026-04-15 06:09:49 UTC

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@nprofile…chn9
@nprofile…chn9 Aww, so the 10-35% is actually in line with what you'd normally pay in terms of a markup, but it's actually (maybe less) less than normal for some items. The reason there is such a wide range is for privacy reasons. If you clear your cookies and try again you’ll see it’s just picking a number at random so you can “force it down” if you really want to though it may undermine some of the benefits of the wide range. Markups are usually 5-1000s of percent, but it varies on whether we’re talking about a telephone cable or a computer. You might have a 5% markup on a computer, but a 600% markup on a telephone cable.
So we didn’t have your exact use case quite in mind with what the service is intended to offer. If the goods are drop shipped rather than re-shipped 10-35% might be a bit on the higher side.
It might be possible to do 5-10% without doubling the shipping if drop shipped, but it’s probably more realistic to anticipate something in the realm of 10% even if something can be drop shipped. Part of the issue is you have to cover the labor costs involved in running through the ordering process. Of course it depends on what is being ordered and the value and the complication of the order. A $100 item = $10 cost which isn’t really that unreasonable these days. If it’s like a single $1000 item it’s $100. One of the issues with drop shipping goods is you also need to update the address for the card each time you make a purchase. Ultimately drop-shipping random stuff is fraught with various potential issues. We’ve done it for others I think, and have an idea on this, but it’s a process that needs tweaked. It also comes with risks/costs if you accept credit cards. It’s probably not an issue for orders paid for with crypto.

2026-04-15 05:46:30 UTC

"Microsoft Reveals Major Price Increase For All Surface PCs"
I just want to put out a reminder that most PCs still cost less than a car, but that won't be the case shortly. If you think you might be needing a new computer in the next 3-4 years you might want to purchase one while you can still afford it.
A few months ago a nice PC might have run $2500. Today you'll probably be paying $5,000 or more.
Tomorrow ... well.. when there is no supply remaining (and this time is coming shortly) there will be no amount of money you can spend to get a new PC.
Why am I putting out this reminder? I've been having to check our prices on components every few days to a week or two to ensure they're in line with the market. We had to just update some of prices on the higher end 2.5" SSD drives that my company sells. In just ~1-2 weeks we went from being a little bit on the high side price wise for these drives to losing money on 4TB and 8TB SSDs.
I should also point out they're not even going to be making 8TB SSD drives shortly. The one company that produced these drives I do believe announced they were exiting the consumer market.
Do you want a new car or a new computer/phone/graphics card/etc? You're probably going to have to pick one or the other in the months to come. Or at least the vast majority of us in the middle class will be facing that real world decision.

2026-04-14 06:49:03 UTC

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@nprofile…chn9 This is completely artificial. It's an issue of resources. If young people are suppose to study and then don't have access to babysitters and other resources it certainly doesn't work out well. However these resources haven't been provided. What high schools provide babysitting services for instance? Undoubtedly there is some amount of impact, but much of that impact could be made up young women being given additional time to complete exams or delay exams and things of that nature. The system is simply not setup for education + motherboard. When people frown on teen pregnancies rather than promote solutions that enable motherboard during educational periods the end results will ultimately worse overall statistically than places (not even aware of any that do accommodate this properly) that do.

2026-04-14 06:41:28 UTC

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@nprofile…chn9
Yea- that's for sure. They're trying to stamp out the crypto vending machines now by turning a less than 1% of user problem into a 95-98% of users being a victim of a 3rd party scammer which doesn't match up with the actual statistics. Vending operators have a lawsuit against the attorney general of ones of the states in an effort to force her to reveal her evidence and rationale for these numbers. It appears she just flipped the numbers in an effort to mislead and enable people to get legislation passed by way of citing falsified claims.
So for online transactions we have better data. In the Crypto6 case which was more about persecution of a man fighting for your freedoms whom a particular FBI agent (Phil Christina, fascinating story: thecrypto6.com) had been attempting to find something to use against him for about two decades (and prior to his move to New Hampshire other free staters for whom he associates and he is a free stater) we know that about 48 out of maybe ~10,000 or so transactions involve some kind of victim whose being deceived by a 3rd party. The 10,000 number is the number of reviews and the 48 number is the number of 'victims' they could find. He had drivers licenses as he did KYC (know your customer) so finding 'victims' wasn't this impossible task. Given the 10s of millions they spent over a 5 year investigation you can be extremely confident that the number of victims is relatively low overall even though you can certainly come up with individuals who are old and folks who've lost a lost of money. However this is atypical. The average ages of the victims were less than the judge, prosecutor, and lawyer. One 'victim' testified he helped scammers launder money. Of 4 vending machines only 1 victim in 5 years.

2026-04-14 06:29:42 UTC

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@nprofile…chn9
Not 100% sure if I'm following you. If your looking to buy something with Monero from a store that doesn't take it my company setup such a service to that end. It's geared toward the privacy minded user and offers various features to detach from your purchase even such that if someone were to come to us and ask or otherwise subpoena information we wouldn't have it after about 2 weeks or so. It's in some respect better privacy wise than walking into a store and purchasing goods with fiat (cash) as those transactions are always recorded and they can link up things like license plates from the parking lot to particular purchasers.
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/privacy-proxy-purchase-physical-goods-proxy

2026-04-14 06:26:15 UTC

After close to 20 years we finally have an awesome laptop backpack back in our catalog from SwissGear. Just got back from a 10 day trip and it worked great. Solid quality.
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/swissgear-scansmart-backpack-tsa-friendly-rfid-protection-tpe-swgrbkpk

2026-04-13 19:32:24 UTC

Turns out we should be encouraging teens to get pregnant, not discouraging it. According to researchers this is the reason for population declines in the west and other wealthy countries.
In other words both "family planning" advocates and the opposition religious right are wrong.
Sex ed should have been teaching young people how to pro-create this whole time. I believe that actually happens humorously in at least one western country. I believe it is in the Netherlands where they show youth the entire reproductive process rather than teach kids exclusively about abstinence or condom usage.
Nudity in and of itself is a taboo subject in the US- so I can only imagine what typical right-wing American nutters would think if they saw what students in Sex Education classes in the Netherlands were taught. I'm pretty darn confident they'd frame it as sexual abuse (as crazy as that is given this is pubescent youth, not pre-pubescent). Of course you can't even talk in those terms in the US without being labeled some sort of creep or pedophile.

2026-04-13 19:05:59 UTC

I want to let the Paris Court know you can go fuck yourself- we will NOT be blocking any sites on your whim (ie ThinkPenguin.com offers our PenguinVPN services).
Governments in the US do NOT have the power to censor speech prior to it occurring. While speech can be censored AFTER the fact potentially killing a domain from being accessed is NOT constitutional as it's NOT specifically tailored to the speech at question, but rather to an entire website.
For clarity what is prior restraint anyway? Prior restraint is a form of government censorship that prohibits speech or expression before it occurs. It stops communication from happening at all—such as banning a publication or requiring permits for protests—rather than punishing it afterward. In the US, prior restraint is highly disfavored and bears a heavy presumption against its constitutionality.
https://torrentfreak.com/paris-court-issued-simultaneous-site-blocking-orders-against-isps-dns-resolvers-and-vpns/

2026-04-11 17:26:53 UTC

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@nprofile…43na My company actually pulled out of Europe. I want to say almost a decade ago when the GDPR and some other legislation predating that we decided to call it quits in Europe. It's an over regulated impoverished shit hole where any efficiency and improvements in operating their are dwarfed by the costs. It was roughly the same cost for us to ship goods into Europe via expedited shipping as it was to operate a warehouse in Europe and ship from within. The delivery time and cost ended up being about the same. The question became why bother when the amount of regulation we had to comply with kept on increasing. It eventually became not-worth-it. The consequences are Europeans are now at a disadvantage and can not obtain the hardware and accessories that work with GNU/Linux properly quite as easily. The one positive about operating from within Europe is users don't have to deal with customs. Now they do. They did this to themselves.

2026-04-11 17:17:15 UTC

I've failed in my duty to be much of a critic of ICE despite opposing them and every other government entity. However given the nature of recent developments regarding a demand by the US government for reddit to ID a critic of ICE I thought it worth posting my thoughts on ICE. ICE should be shut down. The boarder should be opened. People should be free to travel between countries without soldiers pointing guns at you and doing a 'papers please'. Why is it that goods have more rights and can be easily moved across boarders, yet people are denied that same freedom???
"The Trump administration has stepped up an effort to unmask a Reddit user who criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). After failing to obtain information through a summons issued (PDF) to Reddit, the government reportedly issued a subpoena demanding that Reddit provide the information and appear before a grand jury in Washington, DC. The Intercept described the subpoena today. 'According to a subpoena obtained by The Intercept, Reddit has until April 14 to provide a wide range of personal data on one of its users, whom US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been trying unsuccessfully to identify for more than a month,' the article said. "

2026-04-10 22:26:42 UTC

Europe's got a new contradiction in law: If big tech doesn't scan for illegal content on their social media platforms they'll get charged with violating the Digital Services Act which mandates scanning. However if they do scan for illegal content they'll be charged with violating EU's 2021 privacy law: The EU Privacy Act.
The question comes up again and again. When prosecutors have no problem prosecuting those they dislike rather than those doing wrong why would anyone bother complying given the costs, burdens, and lost business of doing so?
When your best effort at complying still results in criminal violation due to contradictions in the law it stops making sense to comply.
"The regulatory gap has created uncertainty for big tech companies, because while scanning for harms on their platforms is now illegal, they still remain liable to remove any illegal content hosted on their platforms under a different law, the Digital Services Act. Google, Meta, Snap and Microsoft said they would continue to voluntarily scan their platforms for CSAM, in a joint statement posted on a Google blog. "

2026-04-10 07:52:00 UTC

Does anyone else find it humorous that researchers are describing a decline in teen pregnancies as the "silver lining" when they're also concluding the reason for our society heading toward a total societal collapse is the decline in teen pregnancies? Shouldn't we be encouraging teen pregnancies and then focusing on improving services to offset the negatives???? It's decades and decades of societal stigma and policy surrounding teen pregnancy that has left us in this situation.
"One silver lining in the data is the 7% decline in teen pregnancies in 2025. Bianca Allison, pediatrician and associate professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, said: "What is actually affecting the birth rates are likely lower rates of teen pregnancy overall, which is in the context of higher use of contraception and lower sexual activity for youth, and then also continued access to abortion care."

2026-04-09 20:17:59 UTC

Yikes- yea- the FBI and NSA need to be abolished for giving out this level of shitty advice (primarily the reboot part):
"That necessitates good housekeeping habits. Changing passwords, updating whenever (and as soon as) updates are released, and — yes — weekly reboots. My advice is forming a habit of restarting devices, including routers, every Sunday. "

2026-04-09 19:42:19 UTC

"NSA Warning—Reboot Your Internet Router Now"
I thought I'd seen it all. Is this intentional misinformation, idiocy, or more trade war BS?
While I'll give you that in certain instances a reboot may half-resolve the issue where the malware hasn't infected the flash chip itself, but this certainly won't fix the vulnerability that enabled the infection to happen in the first place. Usually a reboot "solves" the problem where a device has run out of memory and isn't behaving as it should, and similar sorts of issues that have nothing to do with malware.
If this is the advice our government is giving to end users the NSA needs to be disbanded.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2026/04/09/nsa-warning-reboot-your-internet-router-now/

2026-04-09 00:28:28 UTC

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@nprofile…chn9 It was not a serious proposal. Just a rage against whatever.

2026-04-09 00:20:00 UTC

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@nprofile…chn9 Yea, well, that's why I moved to New Hampshire for the Free State Project. Alone and spread out those who prefer freedom to tyranny will lose more than those who gather with like-minds to overthrow the system that be. It may not be a violent overthrow of government, but rather a slow dismantling of it over decades. ~23 years in and free staters have control of 25% of the house in New Hampshire and 20% of the senate. It'll be a bit yet before the numbers equate to genuine control of the state, but some day we'll be able to institute real change, and not just have a limited ability to curtail would be tyrants from stealing our freedoms.
Did you know that independence from Great Britain started in New Hampshire with a dozen men during the Pine Tree Riots? Did you know that New Hampshire was an independent country for a couple years prior to the formation of the United States?
It could be independent once more, but a lot has to go right. Fortunately New Hampshire is on that path no matter how hard it is to imagine the possibility. Few people ever say they saw it coming when countries break apart or independence is declared. Well, it might be decades, but it might happen faster than anyone realizes or imagines that a possibility even exists. Just a few years ago there was a single representative in New Hampshire that would put forth a bill on independence. Heck- not even Texas which has a better known indpeendence movement was willing to do so. Do you know who did just a few years ago? It was something like 8-9 NH state reps. It didn't pass. The next year the number of reps voting for a similar piece of legislation doubled. 24 of 400. It took a decade before 1 rep would put forth a bill, but only 1 year to double that support.

2026-04-09 00:08:07 UTC

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@nprofile…chn9 Yea, no doubt. Did I threaten to stop taking dirty fiats? I might have. Hmm not what you are replying to I suppose. In any event... yea... I can't be overly critical of folks taking dirty fiat, but I can certainly encourage folks to pay with crypto, goldbacks, and pretty much anything that doesn't involve government:
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/catalog/shirts-cds-case-badges-gnulinux
https://social.freetalklive.com/system/media_attachments/files/116/371/835/043/002/539/original/7c37385d2f6ce1c3.jpg
https://social.freetalklive.com/system/media_attachments/files/116/371/835/112/713/148/original/db27d9b4026f390c.jpg

2026-04-09 00:01:49 UTC

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@nprofile…chn9 I get it. Sometimes you got to do what you got to do. Principally speaking, morally speaking, I avoid paying with dirty fiat wherever I can, and even when I can't I use dollars over plastic. Plastic (ie credit/debit cards) contributes to many of the problems.
Keep in mind I moved to New Hampshire a decade ago alongside 10s of thousands of others to work toward creating a bastion of freedom somewhere in the world. My perspective is a bit different in that I can do more more easily than many, but none-the-less it is still a ton of time and energy. I can do things like speak at the state house against anti-crypto legislation (such as I did just yesterday in fact) on a regular basis, but it also means I lose a day of work.
Ultimately it's not what any one individual does, but what enough like-minds working together can achieve through taking individual and group actions toward common ends. For me that means using cryptocurrency online and at brick and mortar. For me, that meant moving to New Hampshire. To me that meant encouraging others to move. To me that meant testifying at hearings in support of positive legislation and against bad legislation, going to protests, etc.

2026-04-08 23:53:03 UTC

Finally- there is a solid use case for Bitcoin:
"Iran Demands Bitcoin For Ships Passing Hormuz During Ceasefire"
https://www.ft.com/content/02aefac4-ea62-48db-9326-c0da373b11b8?syn-25a6b1a6=1

2026-04-06 21:41:02 UTC

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@nprofile…00xj
First, I was half-joking, as this is certainly not the best way to do this, but the best way wouldn't fly either.
I am also guessing this is in response to my comment about taxing copyrights at 100%. I'm not seeing how this goes against the spirit of free software. I don't think it does at all actually, but it does go against libertarian philosophy. Taxation is theft in and of itself, so.. I'd agree that free software is about the liberty, not the price. You are free to charge for a copy of LibreOffice or put up a box on your distribution's download page and make people jump through hoops, entering 0 or some number to download elementary OS for instance (doing so is in poor taste if you ask me, but you can).
I'd also be a hypocrite if I said it was wrong to charge people. My company sells flash drives/DVDs with GNU/Linux. Mind you these come with support services and a physical component, but... we also don't charge for the download of a distribution (more than one actually) we primarily fund the development of either.
Back to the point though. So the taxing stuff is morally re-pungent and I wasn't making a serious argument for doing so although 100% tax would be a defensive use of violence against actors using the violence of the state to extract money (ie copyright) rather than voluntary means. A better option would be to eliminate copyright. Nothing says you can't make money from 'free stuff', both free as in gratis, or no charge, and free as in libre, or liberty.
My company develops software and distributes that software online at no charge, but you can also purchase copies on microSD (for a router) and USB flash drive (for various distributions of which some we help fund, plus physical media, mailing, and support inc.).

2026-04-06 21:24:35 UTC

"Meanwhile two thirds of the nation cannot afford a $500 emergency expense"
While much can be said about government screwing things up for the majority (excessive regulation killing small business) it's also an issue of people refusing take responsibility for their own actions. I'm old enough to remember that in generations past people including my parents took some amount of responsibility for their expenditures and saved up for things. They at most had a credit card for large purchases and then they'd only use it if they had the money to pay off the bill.
It's been a long time since that has been the norm and part of the problem of why people don't have even a $500 emergency fund. It's not that they can't afford it, it's they're wasting money on frivolous things they don't need.
Health care, education, etc has all become expensive because of the government subsidizing it. Decades ago people worked while in college to help keep their costs down and when college was unaffordable people didn't go. That incentivized colleges to keep prices in line with inflation. Since gov guaranteeing loans the cost of higher education has exceeded the rate of inflation.
A lot can be said about education at public schools getting more expensive because of a false belief more money = better education. This simply doesn't correlate with the statistics.
Prior to governments getting involved in health care (~near 100 years) and employers providing it people joined lodges that had doctors on staff. This was way cheaper. More recently schools started artificially limiting the number of doctors to boost pay. No free market, no advertising of prices, has also bumped up costs. Plus regulations minimizing competition on health care items (hearing aids).

2026-04-06 17:58:54 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…fcss
Switch to a tip based system. Trump already exempted tips.

2026-04-05 23:13:35 UTC

Someone is exploiting old people and trying to get Bitcoin effectively banned in New Hampshire through absurd regulation. The senate hearing was packed with old people from AARP and passed the senate disturbingly!
Help save cryptocurrency in New Hampshire!
The address for the house version of the bill is Tuesday April 7th at: 1 Granite Place, Concord, NH 03301.
The hearing is on house bill SB482. "Granite Place" Room 159.
This bill will mandate full KYC for cryptocurrency vending machines, put a $2000 per day limit on purchases, put a 14 day hold on your funds, and make vending operators liable for 3rd party scams if users send their crypto to scammers. It will also mandate chainalysis.
This effectively this bans the sale of cryptocurrency through vending machines as it's economically infeasible to ensure little old ladies buying crypto don't send their crypto off to scammers after acquisition. If even a small percentage of users did so it would completely eliminate the margins on selling and therefore WILL put every vending machine operator out of business in New Hampshire.
The scary thing is this already passed the senate.
It's extraordinarily important that everyone who cares about financial freedom show up to the hearing and testify against this bill. Testifying against the bill is easy. You just sign up and tell the reps why you think this bill should not be passed.
https://social.freetalklive.com/system/media_attachments/files/116/354/604/913/616/889/original/274a09459e235535.png

2026-04-05 19:03:56 UTC

I'm sure lots of people are going to think, good, he got what he deserved, and while I'll admit I didn't read the story here I have to wonder if it makes any sense to go after lowly mules picking up the cash when the real perpetrators of the scheme are largely untouchable. Often these mules don't know what it is they're doing. They're often mere kids working a side hustle to get through college or similar. Meanwhile the attorney generals scheme to make it sound like they've got a 'big fish' and then try to justify reality by saying mules are somehow more culpable than they really are. It's literally when schemer (prosecutors) going after another low-level largely uninformed desperate victim involved in a scheme perpetrator by another schemer.
How on earth is this suppose to protect the elderly? Ohh right, it's not. It's just used by prosecutors to move up the political ladder and cops love easy targets... combine the two and it work for everyone EXCEPT the victims (which themselves we've learned aren't always as innocent as the government wants you to believe, sometimes they're even partaking in money laundering KNOWINGLY which just makes these prosecutions all the more damming and wrong)
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/man-youtube-fraud-seniors-22188072.php

2026-04-05 18:12:41 UTC

It's truly amazing how many angles of attack the copyright cartels have on our freedoms. Copyright owners need to be declawed. I'd like to propose a 100% tax on copyright content. 100% of $0 is 0 so the distribution of free software remains $0 tax. Distribution of anything that is non-zero ends up going straight into the governments pocket. Lets add a twist since we don't want to incentivize theft. Enforcement would result in the tax going to building homeless shelters and housing initiatives should anyone decide to charge for their creations.
https://torrentfreak.com/u-s-lawmakers-work-on-unified-site-blocking-bill-to-counter-online-piracy/

2026-04-03 20:22:24 UTC

Big tech is trying to stop 'right to repair' in Colorado, but it's a terrible solution to lock downs and making things unrepairable or unrepairable by 3rd parties.
I'd normally prefer to let the end-user decide and vote with their dollars, but there is something to be said about intellectual property interfering with the ability of the free market to operate. As a consequence more often than not we end up with no good options or sometime few good options.
Unfortunately the best solution I think we could push is getting rid of intellectual property with the exception of trademarks. Trademarks when used appropriately are geared at protecting the consumer from fraud. Intellectual property is utilized to ensure monopolies and duopolies and prevent solid competition from forming. The same thing can be said of regulations.
People often think companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, etc don't want regulation, but this is not true. Often they don't want it initially, but do want it later. Once a market has been established it's in those whom have built that market to stop smaller competitors entering after them. Barriers to competition in the market place are then pushed, ie regulation. Often it's called "safety" when in reality it's utter bullshit. It's fear mongering pushed by folks with an interest in minimizing competition.
One example is the number video rental stores in the 90s compared to today. That is to say I'd expect brick and mortar video rental stores to have declined and been replaced with thousands of online stores? Didn't happen because intellectual property is legally different from physical property. Anyone can start a brick and mortar rental business, but only those with billions can start an online one.
https://www.wired.com/story/tech-companies-are-trying-to-neuter-colorados-landmark-right-to-repair-law/

2026-04-01 23:02:42 UTC

At least one court clearly doesn't understand how DNS works. A DNS provider can't block anything... only an ISP can:
"This argument failed to convince the court, which found that the 'neutral and passive' nature of the DNS resolvers is simply irrelevant to Article L. 333-10. The law isn’t about liability at all. What matters is whether a service can help to block access to pirate sites, which DNS resolvers clearly can."
Let completely eliminate DNS be it from the ISP or a third party. So one can add an IP to ones host file and the domain will resolve/function/work. It doesn't matter whether a DNS resolver stops resolving the domain. The user will still be able to access the site.
If if you wanted to stop someone from coming in your house you wouldn't demand your address be removed from the phone book. You'd get a lock for your door. A lock will block an intruder from entering, but removing the address from the phone book will not. At best they can't look up your address via one particular means of obtaining it. There are other sources for obtaining the address of a home owner besides a phone book. Most cities / regions have websites that let users lookup the ownership of properties and this can also be used to locate a persons address independent of a phone book.
Removing an address from a phone book does NOT block someone from entering that address.

2026-03-31 23:40:34 UTC

So Australia banned under 16s from social media recently and now the government is going after companies for failing to “do enough” to inhibit under 16s from getting on social media...
Interesting comment in opposition to the law:
"Use the highly effective parental controls available to you. It will stop your under 16s accessing social media and in addition will stop them from installing bypass VPN software on any devices you give them (i.e. those that you control). "
It might keep your 6 year old off social media, but it's not going to work for a teenager or even pre-teens short of diminished mental capacity.
Key issue here is "give them"... computing devices. A 11-12 year (and even younger really) old can easily come up with the money to just buy one. I used my lunch money at ~11 or so to save up for a PC in the 90s and that is at least 10 times more than what you’d need today after inflation.
Mandating devices be locked down and "authenticated" is too simplistic and doesn’t work nor should we try. Education is key. You can bypass the most hardened devices. GNU/Linux exists, but even without it you can buy a device used and bypass the strictest age-verification measures.
Moral crusaders in the 90s tried to stop kids access to R rated films. In NJ where I lived theaters didn’t ask for ID, but I was stopped in Boston of all places at ~13. At ~11 a rental shop started restricting kids so I just said I was my older brother (worked for a while). When that stopped working I thought to myself the restriction is on the rental account so I just verified with the clerk I could still buy an R rated movie. It cost 4x as much, but early eBay existed, so I sold it after. In protest I switched to cheap online rentals. I was early to DVDs in ~1997.

2026-03-30 17:40:14 UTC

"Company Hopes to Build Age-Verification Tech into Vape Cartridges (wired.com)"
Talk about big brother and the nanny surveillance state.
Unfortunately there is no hope in stopping this orwellian trend pretty much anywhere. At least not without like-minds that oppose it stepping up to the plate and gathering in regions to oppose it. We need to create a bastion of freedom somewhere.
This is not a new trend and has been ongoing over the past hundred plus years. First (probably not really the "first", but before either of our lifetimes) there was the hand written identification for cars, which turned into the license plate, and then vehicle registration, drivers licenses that were a response to bigotry against motor vehicle operators (NOT safety, there was no driving test written or road in many places even as late as the late 1960s), cameras constantly monitoring everyone and everything, and now tracking via cellular devices/automatic license plate recognition systems/and even now AI.
Not to mention (mandatory) social security, government education, health care (criminalizing and increasingly costly as a consequence), and more.
Much of the "safety" these things propose to ensure are little more than an illusion and often come at greater expense than individuals voluntary participation in similar non-government run programs.
While no state or country has even toyed with the idea of eliminating these things or evaluating their cost benefit ratio people have been flocking to New Hampshire to this end- a state selected by "free staters" who have been winning elections for the past decade plus. There are around 100 reps in New Hampshire in a 400-member house. 5 of 24 in the senate. Each election cycle more people move and in another decade we win.

2026-03-30 00:26:08 UTC

"Is It Time For Open Source to Start Charging For Access?"
No. This is the wrong way to do free software development. There is nothing wrong with tipping and one can and should charge for auxiliary services, but not the code itself. Demanding cash undermines the communal value and nature of this method of development.
I am a huge fan of promoting tipping and fiscal contributions by those who utilize and depend on free software and would encourage companies to properly fund development.
This whole 60% of developers don't get paid # is wrong. Most development is paid for. I don't know where they came up with 60%, but it's flat out wrong and/or misleading.
The sole developer working from his basement has NEVER been the reality. It's been the exception.
There are exceptions of course, but that isn't how most free software gets developed.
One of the reasons I still prefer Drupal to Wordpress is I'm not hounded for dollars. Wordpress is literally more expensive as a consequence of every developer demanding you subscribe to achieve even a basic site.
Asking for tips and taking fiscal contributions is solid middle ground that both preserves user's freedom and ensures developers can continue developing.
The real problem is software developers not asking for tips in the first place and in some instance there being no place for software developers to ask for tips.
A perfect example is an openssl library. When your code is always included in other projects rather than being what the user goes to you run into opportunity problems.
We have a similar problem with hardware. End-users don't understand that buying random hardware undermines their support. Buying hardware for Linux incentivizes release of code and fixing issues.

2026-03-29 19:36:48 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…43na
Of course it is mine. It is all of ours individually and collectively. I don't have to have the same line as you or the guy who has decided his line has been crossed and acts, but ultimately it would be hypocritical for me to say he's wrong because he took steps before me to defend against tyrants. I'm just shy of being a passivist, but I'm NOT a passivist. I believe in the right of self defense. However I don't believe anyone including government has the right to aggress that of others outside of self-defense constructs. When you mandate something via legislation that is inherently backed by violence and someone's violent reaction to that can be justified when said action is against peaceful actors. In this case it's a violent defensive reaction against otherwise peaceful minors and adults alike.
There is however a rationale side to reacting in that you should shoot for achieving an objective. It may not be "winning" in the sense the law changes. It may be to undermine its effectiveness or bring attention to a problem or bring together a people in a place with the intent of providing options. This is what the Free State Project has been about. Freedom is going bye-bye everywhere and at one time people fed parking meters as silly as it was in defiance of a city in NH as it undermined revenue from parking tickets (city makes money off tickets, not the coins you feed the meter). The left ran with it and mocked the cause, but ultimately it achieved its objective of bringing attention to those who care about liberty. People moved to NH and as a consequence NH has 100 times more representatives that support liberty than any other state. At the current rate it'll likely be the case that libertarians cut most government within a decade here.

2026-03-29 19:15:09 UTC

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@nprofile…n98v
Too late. Already heavily involved in funding and development of libre software in addition to funding of the leading desktop distribution Linux Mint.
The only question that exists is what will we end up doing to push back on this besides not include it.
I don't know what the stance is of Clem (Linux Mint's lead developer), but it could be we do anything from pull funding/sponsorships to simply funding, developing or promoting a more freedom friendly solution. The Linux Mint project has overall done a very good job by of respecting users overall in comparison to Canonical, Red Hat, and others, but I can't say for certain it will continue to do so. The project already does things I'm not a fan of from including non-free drivers to blocking Tor and I think VPN users (one of the sponsors have a firewall tool). The question I ask every day is what line will they have to cross before we put together a desktop distribution to solve issues they're not. Thus far it's not made sense to do so and I hope it continues to be the case as our resources are better spent elsewhere. I'd rather continue to improve support for GNU/Linux overall than have 'yet another fork' for users to have to grapple over whether to go with it or something else. Forks do make sense at times when projects act particularly egregiously, but it's also true we should avoid them where possible. Debian for example doesn't include the spyware in its build of Audacity. A fork of LibreOffice was developed when Oracle bought Sun. Great examples of when forking makes sense. I'm not sure where my line is with this, but it's certainly one more issue that may need solving and given the long list of issues that need solving it might make sense to fork now and include things like LibreWolf.

2026-03-29 02:16:34 UTC

There is a time to say no to age gates and it's long before your leaders start chopping heads off. There is a time to realize owning a gun isn't a terrible idea even when your side is in power. Refusing to comply with age gates won't end with your head on a chopping block, but tolerating their demands today may lead their tomorrow.
Learn from history don't be stupid and repeat it.

2026-03-29 02:06:59 UTC

"They think the installer should have a date picker with a flag to disable it, and 'We can even default it to off, and corporate distributions using Calamares or those not willing to take the risk could flip it on if they need to. That way if maintainers of the distributions do not wish to collect the birth date, they won't have to, and no forking is required to patch it out.'"
This is one instance where any distro that wants to incorporate age verification should absolutely have to maintain their own set of patches if they wish to fuck over their users.

2026-03-29 02:03:16 UTC

"As I said in the previous response, the corporate-backed distributions really have no choice in the matter."
Last time I checked Nazi's executing jews didn't get off the hook by saying they were just following orders and neither do you.
Corporations that go along with the bullshit and distributions that follow suit (and developers defending it thereof) are just as worthy of boycotts and ridicule.
"Companies are notoriously risk-adverse, but something like Artix or Devuan? Those are small and independent enough where the individual maintainers may be willing to take on more risk."
Phh give me a break.
I'm the founder and CEO of ThinkPenguin.com THE LEADING supplier of hardware to the GNU/Linux market and I'm telling you this is the biggest pile of shit ever.
I have no problem taking on the "risk". There is no genuine "risk" here. We're going to continue to ship routers with libreCMC which will also be in violation of this to customers wherever they may be.

2026-03-29 01:49:10 UTC

"We need Linux and other free operating systems to remain a viable alternative to closed systems."
We don't need Microsoft, Valve, System76, tons of users, or proprietary software to have a thriving free operating system.
In fact these companies are often more of a hindrance to the adoption of free software than they help.
System76 regularly pushes proprietary crap that undermines support and makes GNU/Linux difficult to use. First you go System76 cause that's what everyone talks about, then you realize they're full of shit and do little other than market crapware with the word "Linux" on it and pull the same publicity stunts that AMD (looking at you proprietary "free" driver) and others have pulled. Coreboot's great, but it's ONE piece of the puzzle. Acting as if you've done something magical while feeding people dog shit isn't helping people adopt GNU/Linux. It's one thing to ship Linux Mint that includes non-free components and another to take actions (ship with Coreboot) that are little more than publicity stunts to sell more computers (while ignoring all the other proprietary blobs that are actually easier to deal with).

2026-03-29 01:39:30 UTC

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@nprofile…fcss
No idea what you do precisely, but the "job market" in New Hampshire is strong. If your saying you have a CS as in "computer science" background there shouldn't be an issue finding a high paying job in New Hampshire. Particularly in relation to the lower costs of living here relative to the insane costs of living in NJ, CA, OR, NY, and Texas (well, where the jobs are more CS-oriented).
The economy is actually hindered by the lack of employees to fill jobs ... not the other way around. If you have trouble getting a job in New Hampshire you may have taken the freedom thing a bit too far. Smoking crack and shooting heroin may very well make you unemployable here just as it would anywhere else.

2026-03-29 01:21:49 UTC

Maybe it's time developers who don't get security, privacy, and safety be shunned and kicked out of our communities. The communist nuts certainly have no problem pushing their non-software agenda on the rest of us who dare let slip a politically incorrect word. Slave. Master. Whitelist. Blacklist. God knows what else. Maybe it's time to push back a bit. Stick to software politics- not right-left wing bull shit. Even RMS understood the importance of that with his point regarding the GNU GPL and keeping his other political leanings out of the license such that we could all work together on software development projects independent of our other beliefs.
https://itsfoss.com/dylan-taylor-systemd-controversy/

2026-03-29 01:11:21 UTC

Are you still using US currency? You may want to think twice as doing so will soon be the endorsement of Donald Trump. They're adding his signature to the dollar. Don't endorse Trump's bad behavior. Say no to US dollars.
Use privacy friendly cryptos like Monero and non-government currencies instead such as the Goldback. The Goldback isn't backed by gold. It's does one better. It contains actual gold and doesn't play party politics.
Where can you spend your cryptos and goldbacks? Well, you can start at ThinkPenguin.com for your computer and electronics/accessories/peripheral needs.
Don't like actual gold bills? There are also silver coins that exist.
Don't have anywhere to spend your non-government currencies in the real world? Move to New Hampshire if you care about freedom above safety. 10s of thousand have already moved making New Hampshire the freest-leaning state in the nation (and if the US ends up breaking up the world, we'll be at the forefront of independence, heck we already are).

2026-03-28 23:44:57 UTC

Is exploitation of children inevitable? Of course it is!
Facebook didn't sexually exploit your kid and only a bunch of dumb fucks and those who ACTUALLY are out to harm you and your kids would think they had anything to do with sexually exploiting children.
I NEVER used facebook cause facebook is and always has been evil, but your even MORE evil than facebook pushing this bullshit.
It's not facebook exploiting anyone. It's a nanny state do gooders who are exploiting everyone through manipulation and deceit. These people don't care about your poor kid either. They're just using it to to manipulate you and everyone else into surrendering their freedom and control so the rest of us can get fucked up the ass by their whims.
There is some pretense that people are listening with their emotions, but I'm convinced the majority in society are largely just plain retarded.

2026-03-28 23:17:49 UTC

Humorous response to a Slashdot comment:
Person 1:
"Unless you take an extreme stance of not letting anyone on the platform under 18 (or 21), I don't think it's possible."
Response to person 1:
"Why is that 'extreme'? There are plenty of products and activities that children are banned from using or doing. It's quite commonplace, actually."
If taking away the human rights of youth is just dandy with you I'm going to propose extermination of those who think like you since your fucking insane.
Just because something is commonplace hardly makes it not-extreme. The left and right are fucking nuts. Both are extremists pretending to be different from one another when in reality they largely advocate for and do the same evil shit.

2026-03-28 21:49:52 UTC

"Spotify and Labels Seek $322 Million Default Judgment Against Anna’s Archive"
ha, good luck with that.
"The proposed order names every registry, registrar, and host that would be bound by the judgment, including Public Interest Registry, Cloudflare, Switch ...
"All would be required to permanently disable access to the named domains ..."
"The labels argue this is justified because Anna’s Archive deliberately ignores U.S. law and bypasses the authority of the court."
The humorous part about this is they're not subject to U.S. law. It's actually the copyright cartels who are doing an end-run-around as US jurisdiction only extends to US territory. Try getting this judgement enforced somewhere that doesn't have a similar law. Ohh right, you can't. Which is why you went after them in the US in the first place.
https://torrentfreak.com/spotify-and-labels-seek-322-million-default-judgment-against-annas-archive/

2026-03-28 21:27:56 UTC

Regarding Cox's win against the copyright cartel's attempt to censor the internet:
The RIAA responded through CEO and Chairman Mitch Glazier:
“We are disappointed in the Court’s decision vacating a jury’s determination that Cox Communications contributed to mass scale copyright infringement, based on overwhelming evidence that the company knowingly facilitated theft. "
hahahah
OK, copyright infringement isn't theft, nowhere in copyright law does it say anything about theft. Theft deprives someone of something and no one is deprived of anything when you make a copy. It's entirely artificial situation, fabricated lie, and dishonest to suggest copyright infringement is somehow "theft".
What you on the other hand are advocating for is the use of violence against peaceful people to your own selfish ends. There is nothing wrong with asking for tips in the course of producing content, good or bad, but you cross a line into violence and coercion when you demand laws or demand prosecution or threaten civil action. Lots of YouTuber's make money off advertising, selling t-shirts, and asking for donations. So do free software developers, musicians, and so on.
Violence isn't the answer to a healthy creative economy.
https://torrentfreak.com/supreme-court-wipes-out-record-labels-1-billion-piracy-judgment-against-cox/

2026-03-28 21:10:06 UTC

Copyright cartel had this to say about IPTV users in France:
"'The LFP and LFP Media welcome this strong message to users of piracy services, who mistakenly believe they can act with impunity when in fact they are knowingly contributing to a mafia-like ecosystem that seriously harms the entire sports sector,' the organization writes."
I am not a fan of sportsball, but I want to know where I can sign up to squash that entire industry. They're an evil upon this earth that needs to be exterminated.
They should not just be deprived of revenue through users refusal to pay up for 'legal' services. Those involved should be incarcerated (sorry, against the death penalty here, but these are villains far worse than the worst serial rapist or killer in respective to the total harm caused) as they've taken violent and corrosive/threatening (violent) actions against peaceful people (via the legal system/political system).
https://torrentfreak.com/france-fines-first-batch-of-pirate-iptv-subscribers-following-reseller-bust/

2026-03-28 20:58:18 UTC

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@nprofile…04yf That's for sure. It's about controlling speech and suppressing dissent. If you ID those you don't like it makes it easier to go after them and/or suppress their speech.

2026-03-28 20:50:50 UTC

Entertaining news out of France where the prosecutors office just 'fined' 19 IPTV Subscribers.
If I lived in France and was an IPTV scofflaw I’d be shaking in my boots!
Of the subscribers in France that subscribe to an illicit IPTV service a mere .00010556% have been fined. For background info: 34% of people in France subscribe to illegal IPTV services. This number so small as to be incomprehensible to the human mind. Even more humorous is the fine is a mere 400 euros or about ~ US $458. You literally have better odds of being struck by lighting at some point in your life than getting fined in France for being an IPTV scofflaw and if you are fined your still better off having been fined than having paid for legal services.
Besides the humorous side of this not being at all scary or effective it’s still disturbing as these sorts of fines undoubtedly lack any kind of fairness or due process. They amount to a mere accusation and even if one were to be able to and have the will to fight it the cost would likely be insurmountable.
In the early 2000s law enforcement tried to go after child predators in what was the largest “child porn” bust in history. They ended up arresting thousands of entirely innocent people based on the assumption a credit card charge equaled a predator (most if not all arrested). At that time you had to sign up to a system to ID yourself as an adult to access porn. Users thus provided a credit card number to one such system. Porn sites signed up to said system and got a small commission from the fees to users. A small number of sites hosted illegal content and thus the thousands of arrests based on a false premise that a credit card charge equaled a predator. A similar danger exists here based on faulty data/assumptions.

2026-03-25 23:24:54 UTC

Think of the children nutters just won their first lawsuit against Facebook for not doing enough to protect children (as if they had ANY obligation to do so in the first place!):
If you think Facebook is so dangerous because of a few bad apples then don't hand your kid an internet connected device and point them at Facebook. I've been on the internet since the internet came into existence and there have ALWAYS been bad apples on it. In fact BEFORE the internet there were also bad apples in the real world, on the school playground, and on BBSs.
The threat of the internet on children is so over exaggerated. While it's undoubtedly true you can setup fake 'child profiles' and get predators to send you inappropriate materials/messages and so on... it's hardly the typical experience of minors. Minors are far more likely to get bullied by PEOPLE THEY ACTUALLY know offline when going online than be sexually harassed or be preyed upon by the equivalent of creepy men driving 5 mph in white trucks without windows through your neighborhood.
Statistically it's dad, mom, or someone in the family that's going to sexually abuse a child, not some creepy person on the internet.
And if the concern is algorithms... that's just pure fear mongering. There use to be this thing called parenting. If your kid was spending too much time watching TV you click the off button on the TV and told them to go play outside.
I hate to break it to you psychos who think it's always someone else's problem... but you can still tell a child no. You can still choose not to give your [at least actual children, teens will undoubtedly get around your stupid control freak of a parent parenting] 10 year a cell phone.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/meta-loses-trial-after-arguing-child-exploitation-was-inevitable-on-its-apps/

2026-03-25 22:54:23 UTC

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@nprofile…haaq Yea, your right. I've been working on enabling non-technical (and technical alike for that matter) users to move away from Microsoft Windows for almost two decades (two decades if you include time before starting a company to this end). While I've seen a steadily increasing adoption by new users over the past two decades (in part due to a lot of the work I'll claim credit for that I've done behind the scenes in the hardware arena) it's definitely Microsoft's own actions that have contributed to and are continue to contribute to the increasing migration of users from Microsoft Windows to GNU/Linux.
GNU/Linux has been relatively user friendly since ~2000 or so and the primary stumbling blocks have been more due to the lack of availability where people actually look for new computers/shop (major online PC manufacturers and retail), end-user support, and hardware availability (ie properly supported, not just something that half-works or works until you apply security updates/OS upgrade), and a decade ago software compatibility.
Anyhow- Microsoft has definitely continued to drive people away from Windows and look into the other options available. As the only company with a more or less complete selection of hardware and accessories [and end-user support] I can definitely say it's not hard for the majority today wanting to move way to actually move away. A decade ago 50% of users I could assist in a migration who wanted to migrate. Nothing held them back we couldn't provide a solution for. In the past 3-5 years the software holding 30% of people back (primarily Quickbooks) has moved to the web so at least 80-90% of people today can easily migrate. If they "can't" it's a knowledge issue on where to get proper end-user support/hardware.

2026-03-25 22:36:36 UTC

Fantastic news. The US supreme court just ruled Cox is NOT liable for pirating customers as knowledge is in and of itself not sufficient for a provider to be liable for customers infringing activities. There must be some level of active participation or promotion of the service to that end, not simple knowledge and failure to terminate. This is EXACTLY what I have repeatedly stated for more than two decades now ever since colleges started forcing students to hand in their PCs so 'pirating software' like Limewire could be removed from their machines. Colleges should NEVER have agree to violate and coerce students into handing over their machine on the mere accusation of piracy by one of their students. In fact college students have additional privacy protections not afforded to ordinary internet subscribers.
F' you Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. Your lawyers were flat out wrong and I told you so back in ~2005 (this was in relation to an angry email I sent them, and I did not live in a dorm on the campus nor was I impacted by said policies, but what the policy was they had was morally bankrupt and legally wrong.. they should have protected their students... not caved to the copyright cartels mere threats).
https://archive.is/mEgaK

2026-03-24 02:32:45 UTC

In reference to the US government (Trump) mandating all new consumer grade US routers be manufactured in the United States:
"Sure some routers will be made in the US, but there is no guarantee at all they will be any more secure."
So the excuse for this mandate is that if stuff is manufactured in the US it somehow makes it more secure even though all the actual security issues have nothing to do with where the routers are manufactured and are entirely connected to a lack of security updates and lack of a complete set of source code.
So, haha, yea, it doesn't mean they will be any more secure, it means they will absolutely be LESS secure. When you force proprietary components into EVERY router you don't gain trust you lose trust.

2026-03-24 02:13:13 UTC

US government just mandated all new routers sold in the US include a backdoor via proprietary blobs.
To understand this you have to understand that all the SoCs in consumer grade routers are produced by non-US entities or US fabs in Arizona or Texas. These SoCs depend on propritary components that are more than likely backdoored by the US government.
What we know for sure is that other x86 CPUs from Intel have had their backdoors discovered and were developed to be deniable. That is they were introduced through security vulnerabilities that could be exploited to gain remote control. The remote control component is a security threat found in modern x86 CPUs from Intel and AMD. These backdoors are in proprietary software components. The US gets around their own vulnerabilities through a bit that when set allows the device to effectively not load the vulnerable component or part of said component thereof.
https://www.theverge.com/news/899172/fcc-foreign-router-ban

2026-03-24 00:37:10 UTC

It's amazing the number of stupid people that exist in this world. You'd think them doing this (making users create an account) in and of itself would be enough to convince folk to never consider another Microsoft product ever again. If you had faith before in Microsoft's actions (and you shouldn't have) you certainly should after this whether or not they lift this requirement (mandate creating a Microsoft account to use Microsoft Windows).
"Yes, Microsoft announced it's fixing common Windows 11 complaints. But what about getting rid of that requirement to have a Microsoft account before installing Windows 11? While Microsoft didn't mention that at all, the senior editor at the blog Windows Central reports there's 'a number of people' internally pushing at Microsoft to relax that requirement: "

2026-03-19 23:21:15 UTC

If your in Colorado there is an opportunity to push back against tyranny.
Age Verification legislation has been proposed and and folks need to tell their reps they want to be secure and private online, without any OS modification mandates or age verification.
Please contact these four "politicians" and send them the message that our will for freedom is strong and that we will not obey their tyrannical legislation if passed.
SB26-051
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/SB26-051
https://itsfoss.com/news/colorado-age-attestation-bill/
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Suggested messaging (in your own words):
Include what you are opposing:
"I oppose SB26-051 as a free software user,"
"OS-level age verification adds unfair/undue stress to already underpaid coders.
Many coders of open source/free operating systems such as GNU/Linux, are very over-worked, and under-paid. In fact, many work for free. Demanding they add age verification code at the OS-level is completely unreasonable. This will do nothing other than undermine options in the market for an OS to those in the state."
"OS-level age verification can be misused and similar voluntary efforts adopted by platforms have already been regularly used to suppress and harass other users first amendment rights."
"While pornography is a concern particularly to the more prudish among us it's far from the danger that it is being made out to be a small selective racist, bigoted, and sexist religious cult that hates anything modern. I doubt that their was ever a time in practice when kids didn't exchange pilferaged copies of their fathers playboys. Besides for the most part what kids are 'exposed' to is little more than this short of anything intentionally sought."