I agree they have their place. The issue is the governance of that place.

The drones are stated to be connected to the same ALPR network which becomes as troublesome as the the ALPR controversy. The fact that the camera is not static and can be flown around makes it a higher threat to privacy in that regard.

The abuse of such technology could be catastrophic. A warrant wouldn’t be needed to fly over and surveil a neighborhood if they were in pursuit of somebody else. It can absolutely be flown over and around your home without a judge approving it. That’s an issue.

You can’t control or convince others.

What you can do is live your best life and let them know it. Not in an annoying way, but in a real way.

How many conversations do I hear about spam calls or text messages? Everybody hates them and they get in on this commonality thing of yeah we all hate that it sucks. Then I bust out with a, yeah I’m glad I don’t really deal with that anymore… Wait what? I have a solution?

Then I break it down, and I’m very clear my measures are not for the faint of heart. But its a spectrum and there’s some low hanging fruit they can do to dramatically change things from where they are. Do they do it? No. But they now know there is a better way and acknowledge it, then actively choose not to do it.

Does that change anything? Yes and no. No, nothing technically changed. But yes, they understand a little more now. So now they don’t treat you like a crazy person or if you say you’d rather not use WhatsApp or whatever they aren’t so insistent that this is all you being weird.

Stop making it a confrontation is my point. That makes you the bad guy. You’re not, the companies and governments are. Let them see that.

My issue with passkeys is the fallback. For instance, when the biometric fails, you can use a fallback login. That’s fine (and good that it exists). But the fallback for me is a pin number. That pin is far less secure than my password or a randomized TOTP number.

How do you handle that for your setup?

I’m no expert so take this with a grain of salt.

But basic logic says if the data (your prompt) gets processed by anything then it needs to be able to read it. Therefore its not private by default.

Sure, they can encrypt it (where? At rest? End to end?) and not retain history etc, and that can make it more private, but it won’t be private.

That’s like Proton’s Lumo which is “private” in the same sense, but the requests are being sent to a server to process so that data is read by something somewhere. I use Lumo BTW, but never put personal info into it etc.

Then no matter how private it is, if Meta starts using it it’s immediately spyware.

If you want true private you’ll need to run your own local models.

If you don’t use a google account what do you do to get apps? Fdroid? I also suspect not having an account removes the Chromecast functionality.

I have a threat model, and I stick with it. It means I’m very comfortable where I’m at.

I also acknowledge other peoples threat model don’t match mine. Most people aren’t as strict as me, and some of you here are far more strict than I. That’s okay, and I’m not going to to crazy trying to control something I can’t.

Then I try to apply the same logic to the world. Yes there’s a lot going on and being established in laws and practices that we most definitely need to be aware of and raise awareness of. But that being said, I can’t control everything so I try to to let things I can’t control get to me. The way I see it if they get to me and affect the quality of my life, then they’ve won even if they don’t have my data. So I try to stay sane that way.

Mostly though, I try not to be a weirdo. Yes I’m weird compared to he average. But who wants to be average? That’s how I express myself. I’m not going to put down anybody on social media, but I’m also very clear I’m not and have such a better life for it. Guess what, nobody ever disagrees with me. They don’t say I’m wrong. They know in right because they feel it. They just don’t have the will power to take the steps I do. So again, I never argue or say I’m right. I say I’m right for me, and let then know it in a non judgemental way.

I’m the beacon. If I’m 100% right and am a jerk about it, they’ll reject the message because of me. But if I can show them it is possible to be private and control your data and live a fuller life because of it, then maybe it’ll inspire them to take the plunge. Educate and inspire.

Good clarification on the JMP setup I missed covering. I can also verify that proton VPN with a local server works flawlessly for JMP calls.

JMP you pay to your account and then they charge it monthly or as needed. For instance the numbers are $5/month. I auto load $15 whenever it drops to $5. You can adjust the amounts and timing but there is some minimum I don’t remember. For data, you prepay for it and then you get charged when it runs out. JMP is privacy friendly and doesn’t really need any info on you at all. I forget their payment methods but that would essentially be the privacy gap. They are US and CA only so no international travel. They are also VoIP which has its own strings attached that has nothing to do with JMP as a provider, just with the VoIP platform.

I still have a number with JMP but have recently moved to Cape for my primary number. They are US only (so again not international) but seem as private as you can be with a standard carrier. They don’t need all your info and they don’t store your payment info, though there’s no “purse” functionality, you just prepay for the month. I really like some of their features like rotating IMSI number and secondary text only numbers. There’s a referral program so if you sign up with my code we both save $20 off our bills. Referral code: GCMHTPE2

Not to detract from the recommendations and finding what works for you, I do recommend starting with a simple spreadsheet first. You don’t have to stick with it, but it’s a good start.

Benefits are you get use to logging your transactions, and you can do this manually or by CSV import. Not only can it do the math for you, but you can use multiple formulas to summarize various things.

For instance I enter all my recurring bills into the sheet per month, and it calculates my money both on what has posted (how much do I have today) and end of month (how much is left at the end).

I also categorize the transactions then table it. How much have I spent on groceries vs dining out? What percentage of my income is that? That’s where you really start seeing where your money is going and you can start making educated decisions on where you spend.

Static sites are the way, especially for a free tier.

Also +1 for Astro from me.

Using an LLM to customize it and set up all the scheduling etc is also very handy.

This is why despite me self hosting some things I don’t rely on vaultwarden. I’m a flawed person and my family has no idea about anything. I don’t need to stretch my imagination very far to think of a handful of reasons why it would fail my situation. I’ll gladly pay for a password manager to not have to deal with that.