Hans-Christoph Steiner @eighthave@librem.one

#Google likes to claim that they pay the taxes that they owe according to the law. Then why did they just agree to pay 218 million Euros in back taxes? That's hardly little "oops".
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/nov/25/google-to-pay-183m-in-back-taxes-to-irish-government

Yet another of the many ways that #Cloudflare breaks the open #internet: connecting without a User Agent gives 403 Forbidden with an obscure "error code 1010". My #TLS #ECH test suite works fine on all the other sites, only Cloudflare does this.

To avoid burnout, I've been looking for sources of good news. My most recent one is dam removal. Around the world, dams are being removed and rivers are coming back to live. There is still much work to be done, but things seem to be trending in the right direction.

https://riverwatch.eu/de/dedamming/karte

https://yewtu.be/search?q=dam+removal

Someone should really dig into #pharma PR against the #Oxford/#AstraZeneca vaccine. The science clearly shows it is a safe and effective vaccine. Sure, there were some hiccups in the process. #BigPharma really does not want the Oxford model to succeed because they were going against #patents and working on non-profit manufacturing. #BigPharma already spends the same if not more on marketing than research.

* https://www.politico.eu/article/how-astrazeneca-threw-away-its-shot/
* https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/11/big-pharmaceutical-companies-are-spending-far-more-on-marketing-than-research/

Huh, I just got banned from all GrapheneOS rooms. I haven't posted in months...

I find it super frustrating how well constructed #Google #privacy PR is. They are masters of taking one little problem, making an a solid privacy improvement to it, then using it to distract people from their giant surveillance capitalism machine. Something like that is only a privacy improvement for people who are fully in Google's ecosystem. Switching to using Google Fi encrypted calling would be a net privacy loss.

If device manufacturers stop supporting their hardware with software updates, they should be required to release the source code so that people can continue to maintian the working devices. https://spectrum.ieee.org/we-need-software-updates-forever

@U039b found it:
"Okay. Based on Google's documentation, you could check 2 attributes in the Manifest: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9842756"

Specifically com.android.stamp.source and com.android.stamp.type.

I had an internet connection with native #IPv6, it was dynamic e.g. DHCP and changed biweekly. I just realized a potential advantage: it removed the long-lived association between IP and household. Are ISPs actually considering this? Does anyone think it is a useful protection? It seems it would have to change a lot more often to actually be useful. I've always assumed it was just a tactic to get people to pay more for a static IP.

Anyone know a way to detect whether an APK was signed using Google Play App Signing? Or otherwise, anyone know of an app that is using Google Play App Signing?

If you want to understand why the #USA goes to war even when it is stupid and costly, like #Vietnam #Iraq #Afghanistan, look at who is benefitting from those wars. https://theintercept.com/2021/08/20/mike-waltz-afghanistan/

Here's a newsreel from Vienna in 1937, when the Austrofascist Schuschnigg was in power. They were forcing pedestrians into the narrowly constrained segments of the city that is now all too common. Before, the whole streetscape was open to all. https://www.britishpathe.com/video/watch-your-step-1/

Even in Red Vienna, we're still suffering from the Nazi's focus on the automobile: the 1939 "Reichsgaragenordnung" (Reich's Garage Law) still is law in some form in Vienna, Austria, and Germany. It requires that there are parking places for every job, apartment, store, etc.

https://cba.fro.at/347920 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellplatzverordnung https://www.falter.at/zeitung/20210818/autos--autos-ueber-alles/_5e5d2b1b12 Reichsgaragenordnung

And there were propaganda films about the Autobahn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-8cHRs4JM0

Hitler loved doing grand opening events for new sections of the Autobahn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwemPLBzME8

Mercedes was also an early Hitler supporter and received lots of support from the Nazis. The Nazis stopped taxing cars in 1934, for example https://jalopnik.com/some-nazi-car-won-pebble-1847495169

Modern day Hitler apologists also want to claim the Nazi role in the #Autobahn https://hitler.org/artifacts/autobahn/

And the contemporary German government tries to highlight that the Autobahn wasn't purely built by the Nazis, but can't get around that they drove their widespread creation and adoption https://www.dw.com/en/the-myth-of-hitlers-role-in-building-the-autobahn/a-16144981

I'd love to see a well researched documentary or book about the fascist roots of how cars came to dominate the world, the story is out there plain to see: Mussolini and Hilter pioneered the freeway, Nazis started VW, Franco started SEAT, Ford loved the Nazis, Fiats owners were tied to Mussolini, Peugeot and Citroen owners switched to producing for the occupying Nazi armies. https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/the-peugeot-plant-attack.html https://jalopnik.com/the-inventor-of-the-rotary-engine-was-a-nazi-nutjob-1030379772 https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/henryford-antisemitism/ https://voxeu.org/article/nazi-pork-and-popularity-how-hitler-s-roads-won-german-hearts-and-minds https://www.webuildvalue.com/en/infrastructure-news/first-italian-motorway.html