Mauve 👁💜 @mauve@mastodon.mauve.moe

Many people seem still unaware of just how bad Chrome Sync is for your privacy. By default, Chrome will sync all your data – including e.g. your passwords, bookmarks, browsing history and open tabs. And by default, Chrome will not encrypt any of this data. All of it will be accessible by Google, by anyone who subpoenas Google to turn up your data and whoever else managed to get access to these servers.

If you want this data encrypted before it is first uploaded, you need to click “Settings” instead of confirming sync, then expand “Encryption options” and set up a sync passphrase. The default option “Encrypt synced passwords with your Google Account” is essentially a disguised “We can access all your data but we promise not to look. Don’t you trust us?”

Except that they will look of course. Apparently, they now started censoring your synced bookmarks: https://strangeobject.space/@silvermoon82/110969122337810598

The only positive aspect here: Chrome Sync used to be a lot worse. It used to enable automatically when you signed into Chrome. It used to encrypt only passwords and none of the other data even if you set up a passphrase. It used to warn you when setting a passphrase because Google’s web services would no longer be able to access your passwords. It used to upload data without encryption first, only allowing to enable encryption after the fact. And its encryption used to be horribly broken. I wrote about that five years ago: https://palant.info/2018/03/13/can-chrome-sync-or-firefox-sync-be-trusted-with-sensitive-data/#chrome-sync

But even now, Chrome Sync requires you to take action in order to get privacy. Because Google knows that you won’t. Compare that to Firefox Sync which has always been encrypting all data by default. I criticized the implementation here as well, but that was really a minor issue compared to the mess which is Chrome Sync.

#Google #GoogleChrome #privacy

Quick reminder that we are not actually in a "Cost of Living Crisis".

It's a Extreme Inequality and Record Untaxed Profits Crisis.

While we struggle for the basics, banks, energy companies, supermarkets and the oligarchs are posting record breaking profits.

It would be pretty straight forward to even it out. If they wanted to.

Don't buy the framing that makes it seem like nothing can be done, other than suffering through it.

@futurebird The science fiction species I'm writing are plant-people. Their "technology" is largely biohacking of their (and other plant) physiology.

A backpack? It's a living plant grafted to the host. A space ship? One of the People sacrificed themselves to be mutated into that vessel. Communication and transportation? "World trees" link colonies whose space-born seeds offer zero-risk expansion. #peirspapre #spapre

The complexity of life and its interactions will never cease to amaze.

there was a post that went by recently like “the weird thing about Open Source is that PhD research relies on the work of college dropouts”, but I’m really looking forward to the first respectable conference or journal paper with a citation like:

[35]: Bisimulation for concurrent reasoning. Retrieved April 13, 2024 from https://pissdumpster.horse/sapiosimulation.

grocery stores: record profits for like 3 years

also grocery stores: we're so sad to be pricing poor people out of being able to buy food but we have no choice due to the definitely real and very not made up phenomenon of Inflations 😪

does there exist a device which:
- is bluetooth
- presents as a bluetooth device to a computer
- lets me have multiple connections hot at the same time
- muxes these down into one bluetooth channel

I want something that lets me hear all my audio sources, through one bluetooth headset. Laptop + desktop + tablet + phone.

Instead of only the active one.

As a last resort I am willing to pursue raspberry pi implimentations if you have ideas.

please boost.

edit: no multipoint

for more "is it ok to punch nazis" discourse check out my friend @nasser 's gem of a game "Dialogue 3-D" : https://nas.sr/dialogue-3-d/

Autistic authors writing neurotypical characters:

"They were the kind of person who read between the lines without even knowing the lines were there.

A natural smile played on the face of their un-headphoned head, and they functioned executively down the stairs."

@mauve

This is also why e.g. the horrible ecosystem of recipe sites is what it is: the most useful content has long ago stopped being what you find through Google. But Google needs a captive audience of regular ad-fee-payers, which in turn is who gets featured.

Much like Amazon only posting products from those vendors who pay, Google is simply selling your eyeballs directly.

That process of capture is basically complete, is what I'm saying, and has been for some time now.