Hans-Christoph Steiner @eighthave@librem.one

@FAU oops I mistranslated the country code ES, it should be Spain not Estonia.

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At the beginning of 2023, there was a sudden increase in the rate of growth of #FDroid bandwidth usage on the ftp.fau.de #mirror. I can't think what might have caused such a dramatic, acute event. It is really an elbow. Any ideas?

@FAU

Countries by percentage total bandwidth usage in 2023:

44.88% Germany
11.30% China
9.52% United States
3.25% Italy
2.33% United Kingdom
2.04% Russia
1.96% Estonia
1.88% Austria
1.85% France
1.59% Canada
1.50% Switzerland
1.40% Netherlands
1.25% Poland

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So I messing around a bit more with stats data from the f-droid.org mirror hosted by @FAU in Germany:

* About 25% of the bandwidth of the mirror is for #FDroid
* Countries by percentage total bandwidth usage since /fdroid/ was added in 2019:

47.83% Germany
9.04% United States
5.13% China
3.68% Italy
2.69% France
2.55% United Kingdom
2.07% Russia
1.93% Switzerland
1.87% Estonia
1.82% Poland
1.70% Austria
1.40% Netherlands
1.38% Czechia
1.28% Canada

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Assessing the #security of computer systems is really hard because of "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns". For example, there are lots of reports about #NSO #Pegasus being found on #iPhone but few about #Android. One might be tempted to conclude that Android is more secure. The truth is unfortunately much harder to pin down. For example, it is harder to detect and confirm Pegasus on Android, although it is clear that there have been plenty of infections on both platforms.

When reading about things like "almost half of British teens feel addicted to social media" https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/02/social-media-addiction-teenagers-study-phones

It is important to remember that #SocialMedia was designed to be addictive using science and techniques developed by universities like #Stanford and widely taught https://stanfordreview.org/how-stanford-profits-tech-addiction-social-media/

#SurveillanceCapitalism and #AddictiveSoftware came from the same forces as generated the dominant forms of explotation in the 20th century.

"[People] all have a right to exist but only because they are human beings. And there is no justice in securing your own right to exist by denying it to others." https://newrepublic.com/article/177768/israel-right-to-exist-rhetorical-trap

Anyone procuring #Chromebook hardware with public funding, like for schools, should be aware that the expiration date on that hardware is artificially created by #Google since they maintain their firmware as incompatible with other standards. Given a properly structured firmware, any old #Chrome device would run #Debian or other #GNULinux just fine. The #Chromium team operates in public and has done a good job of releasing their source, but the bad structure remains.

#PublicMoneyPublicCode

@elly and @domi outline how #Google has structured their firmware to make it incompatible with the standard methods of booting an OS. So even though it is open source and #Google upstreams their #Linux changes, lots of key functionality like audio, USB ports, etc does not work when booting any other OS (e.g. GNU/Linux or even Windows). This serves to lock the hardware to #Chrome, and thereby generate lots of e-waste when Google drops support for hardware which #Debian supports.

I'm happy to see more attention given to freeing #Chromebook hardware. They already are built on free software, so with some focused attention on supporting them well with #FreeSoftware distros like #Debian, the number of good GNU/Linux laptops can be greatly expanded. #Depthcharge should be as well understood as other BIOS things. Thanks to @elly and @domi for your #37c3 talk: https://media.ccc.de/v/37c3-11929-turning_chromebooks_into_regular_laptops

Our current situation resembles right before World War One: there are many governments that their people want to change, and those governments are drumming up wars to stay in power. #Putin, Ukrainian oligarchs, #Netanyahu & co, #Hamas, #Saudi and Gulf Monarchies, the current regime in #Iran, status quo elites in #US and #EU. We need louder voices representing all the people, regardless of nationality, religion, class, etc to organize the large majority who want to get along and live in peace.