eroz-codes

Todays topic: Irritation can be your greatest strength or greatest weakness.

For the past couple of MONTHS I have been listening to this annoying 'Device Disconnect' whenever I use my laptop (It is windows, I know it's unfortunate but, while in school I don't feel like struggling with software while struggling through assignments). I never want to hear that noise again I feel revulsion at the thought of it.

Anyway, today I was trying to watch a video and kept. hearing. it. the. entire. time. the. video. played. I cannot describe to you all the amount of inner rage there has to be for me to start trouble shooting a problem. There has to be a lot for me to give a shit about something that is not directly impacting me. Maybe I am just in a funky mood this morning but finally, I had enough and started to do some research. As the problem screamed at me through my headphones (because at this point I turned off my video I needed the range of that stupid fucking "boink" to power me through), I delved into chains of threads of problem after problem people encountered.

"it was a shitty mouse wire" -> I don't have anything connected to my laptop aside from bluetooth and a docking station.

"oh I just made it so that no noise would come if a device disconnected" -> ... interesting approach. dangerous one but interesting.

"it was my docking station constantly shutting down" -> now this I could work with.

Low and behold, that last one was my issue. Apparently, windows gives itself the right to turn off random devices it doesn't think is being used through the "Power Management" of that Device on Device Manager. Once I removed that right, pure, blissful, silence ensued.

dragons

spotify sucks aaaass. so start downloading shit!!

I wouldn't use an adblocker if ads were just banners on the side funding a website I enjoy using and want to support. Ads pop up invasively and fill my whole screen, I misclick and get warped away to another page just for trying to read an article or get a recipe.

Every app shouldn't be like every other app. Instagram didn't need reels and a shop. TikTok doesn't need a store. Instagram doesn't need to be connected to Facebook. I don't want my apps to do everything, I want a hub for a specific thing, and I'll go to that place accordingly.

I love discord, but so much information gets lost to it. I don't want to join to view things. I want to lurk on forums. I want to be a user who can log in and join a conversation by replying to a thread, even if that conversation was two days ago. I know discord has threads, it's not the same. I don't want to have to verify my account with a phone number. I understand safety and digital concerns, but I'm concerned about information like that with leaks everywhere, even with password managers.

I shouldn't have to pay subscriptions to use services and get locked out of old versions. My old disk copy of photoshop should work. I should want to upgrade eventually because I like photoshop and supporting the business. Adobe is a whole other can of worms here.

Streaming is so splintered across everything. Shows release so fast. Things don't get physical releases. I can't stream a movie I own digitally to friends because the share-screen blocks it, even though I own two digital copies, even though I own a physical copy.

I have an iPod, and I had to install a third party OS to easily put my music on it without having to tangle with iTunes. Spotify bricked hardware I purchased because they were unwillingly to upkeep it. They don't pay their artists. iTunes isn't even iTunes anymore and Apple struggles to upkeep it.

My TV shows me ads on the home screen. My dad lost access to eBook he purchased because they were digital and got revoked by the company distributing them. Hitman 1-3 only runs online most of the time. Flash died and is staying alive because people love it and made efforts to keep it up.

I have to click "not now" and can't click "no". I don't just get emails, they want to text me to purchase things online too. My windows start search bar searches online, not just my computer. Everything is blindly called an app now. Everything wants me to upload to the cloud. These are good tools! But why am I forced to use them! Why am I not allowed to own or control them?

I hope you never need it.

1. Use a USB that you wont lose, this is especially important if you set up persistent storage. You can get good quality USB sticks on places like newegg for less than 20 bucks. I have a 128GB teamgroup one that I use as my main and it works wonderfully. One with a cap you can put on is nice to have, to protect it from weather and the like.

2. Understand that no computer is 100% safe from being tracked no matter how careful you are. This is doubly true for institutional computers like school chromebooks or internet cafe terminals. Work around this restriction accordingly. If you need to use the internet, set up a vpn that you trust. I use proton vpn at the moment, I like it and it works for me. I would stay away from nordvpn, surfshark, private internet access, and the like. most are based in the US and obligated to store information. I have heard good things about mullvad, though I have yet to try it myself. Do some research before you use any of them.

3. Tails uses TOR, and the thing about TOR is that it doesnt hide the fact your are using TOR, it simply hides what your doing with TOR. I would recommend running it with as few plugins and addons as possible, as the more customised and unique your browser is, the easier it is to fingerprint it and identify you, defeating the entire purpose. your offline applications/non web browsing applications do not have this limitation, get as creative as you want

4. Use strong passwords and an on device password manager, dont use cloud services. Yes its inconvinient, but thats life. A strong password doesnt need to be exactly sixteen characters, contain a number, and a special character. Ideally it should be a long phrase that you can remember or at least copy and paste into an input box. the longer the better usually. Randomly generated passwords are easier for computers to guess, because they follow a set of rules designed for computers, not humans, whereas your password phrases dont have to follow any rules. Passkeys can also be good if used in conjunction with a password.

5. Avoid Biometrics, especially if you are in the US. Plenty of my followers are im willing to bet, but this may also apply elsewhere. Here in the US, cops cannot make you enter a password. They can make you use your fingerprint or face to unlock a device however, so avoid biometrics like the plague. Also if you use microsoft or apple they absolurely can and do store that information on their servers and why would you want that anyway

6. Avoid mixing and matching your traffic between tails and whatever your main OS is. If you use tails to buy hrt or communicate with your local activist group or compile evidence for an article your writing, for example, dont log into your facebook or tumblr profile while using tails. Any web traffic that can be seen can be tracked, pretty much. Kind of like gun safety. Assume you can always be tracked and act accordingly.