Odile’s Rants

ICE cannot be allowed to murder anyone in our home. No one should be mourning their mother, their wife, their daughter, and their friend today.

My account is still blocked from searching/tags/etc on my business blog @foundfamilyadventurecrafts so I'm posting this here. There's something very bad happening with Small Business, Tech, and Amazon. What else is new?

Links: Bobo Design Studio for Updates & Submitting Information

Arrows Aim Greenhouse + Chroma Rex are putting together a complaint with WA State Attorney General's Office + Templates for complaints / opt out

Articles:

Amazon's Buy For Me Information Page

Reuters Article

Ars Technica Article

Let’s start with a simple test. Click this link here: https://whatismyipaddress.com/ It will tell your IP adres, your ISP (internet service provider), and your location. The location might not be very accurate, but then again, it’s just a simple website. Imagine what the government can do!

So basically, everyone can find out where you live. But there is more danger. Your ISP. Your ISP logs your every move online and they are required to keep it in case the government wants access to it (or if a 3rd party wants to buy your data (yikes). They have everything. What websites you visit. How long you stay on a website. What you download. Your search terms. European laws are more subtle on this but if you are from the US you are #@*#&, especially because Trump doesn’t support the open internet. It’s scary but maybe in the future you can’t get a job because the recruiter knows your searched on ‘how to deal with depression’ or anythings else that’s supposed to be private because it’s your f*cking right. Or you get a $100k fine because you pirated a movie 15 years ago. You need a VPN. You’re dumb for not using one. but what does a VPN do?

A VPN encrypts all your data so if it were be intercepted no one can ‘crack the code’ and damage your privacy. 

Usually being online goes like this (simplified): Your computer —-> ISP (—–> keeps data —–> sells it)

But with a VPN it goes like: Your computer —–> VPN (encrypts data)—–> ISP (ISP can’t see shit)

Furthermore, a VPN hides your IP address and location by giving you another IP address located in Spain for example (you can often choose from a list and change as many times as you want).  

Now that you know why you should get a VPN and what is does it is important to educate yourself because people often choose the wrong VPN. VPN providers are also businesses and have to obey the law. If you choose a VPN provider located in the US then you are throwing your money away because the laws in the US shits on your privacy. If the US gov wants the provider to give all their logs they have to obey.  The ISP  still can’t see what you are doing online and sell your data but the US gov can interfere with your VPN provider so NEVER CHOOSE A PROVIDER LOCATED IN THE US. 

I just wanted to make that very clear so my followers don’t buy false security.

There is still more danger!  Who says your VPN provider isn’t selling your data? You need to check their logging policy. Do they keep logs? If yes, what for? For how long do they keep them? Tip: Choose a provider who doesn’t keep logs

More about law  The US is part of the Five Eyes program (the worst):  

The Five Eyes, often abbreviated as FVEY, is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. These countries are bound by the multilateral UKUSA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence (source)

There is also a Nine Eyes (bit better) and Fourteen Eyes Program (better).  You don’t want a VPN provider who is located in one the Five Eyes countries.  If you had to choose go for a provider located in a country that’s part of the Fourteen Eyes Program or even better, go for a country that isn’t part of any program! 

I know this is a shitty explanation and please pardon my english but now it’s time to do your own research. Take your privacy seriously. Maybe WWIII breaks out and you get killed for liking the ‘wrong’ FB-page.  

Go to this website: https://thatoneprivacysite.net/simple-vpn-comparison-chart/

Make sure that your future VPN provider both has green boxes for Privacy Jurisdiction and Privacy Logging. 

I recommend ovpn.se and trust.zone. ovpn is located in Sweden so they are part of the 14 Eyes Program and they keep minimal logs. Their business ethics, however, are alright. 

Trustzone is located in the Seychelles. No country can interfere and their privacy jurisdiction is the best you can get. The US want your data but needs to get it from Trustzone? The Seychelles will simply give them the finger and wave them goodbye. However, this makes this provider very appealing for people who torrent and criminals because they keep no logs (and that is how it shoud be) Also,  there are almost no marketing efforts so this provider is one the cheapest)

Also, often providers such as ExpressVPN are being called ‘The Best’ on websites about VPNs but know that this is just marketing which also makes those provider more expensive (and they too shit on your privacy)

This must be the worst article you have ever read but please, please take your privacy very seriously.

Trust.Zone has a free trial. Use it. 

btw this post only has 11k notes? That’s quite disappointing for something this important. 

Sources

Anger as US internet privacy law scrapped 

Congress just voted to let internet providers sell your browsing history 

Don’t tell me you just wanted to scroll past this. Stop looking at pictures of cats for a moment, okay? Don’t you realize how important this is? This is dangerous! ‘America, the best FREE country in the world’ my ass.

With this new law your ISP can sell your Internet history which could include passwords, usernames, religion, credit card numbers, race and much more to the highest bidder. So here is what I want you to do. You are going to read the whole thing and before you think ’this is so important. Let me reblog this real quick and go back to admiring cats again-’ NO! Don’t reblog this. Take action first. Then reblog. Sign up for a free trial! Trust.Zone offers one (here). Yes. It might be difficult to set up a VPN for some people. But is that going to stop you from protecting yourself and your family? 30 minutes. 30 minutes is all that it takes. 5 if you know how to install software. The problem with some of you is that you see ‘difficult’ as something negative. I want you to see difficult differently. I need you to push through this stuff. You are going to protect yourself. There is nothing negative about that. VPNs are fun and costsaving too! A VPN bypasses geographical restrictions so you can access websites you normally can’t or you could start Netflix’s one month free trial over and over again- forever. And it’s legal! (unless you use it to buy weapons etc.,) Don’t tell yourself that you are too tired and that you will do this tomorrow. Because that isn’t going to happen and you know it. You have to do this right now. You only have to click on it. Don’t let this/shit/life just happen to you. Take yourself seriously. Get a VPN.

"Trickle-down" started as a snide JOKE.

Andor Appreciation Day 2 - Everyone Has Their Own Rebellion

I keep seeing reposted tweets about PragerU and how the government basically wants them to replace PBS, but at most these posts call them "right leaning"

People don't understand just how bad PragerU is. It's every flavor of fascism. It denies evolution and other science. It's violently transphobic, often hosting people like Ben Shapiro and Abigail Shrier. It's racist and anti BLM and pro slavery

The specific part about slavery starts at 50:00, but skip to 45:18 for them misrepresenting abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who they make say that they "should work within the system" and "don't be a radical"

Nope. Completely incorrect and wrong.

you didnt "force open" the egg. you didnt help. you told her "this isnt your choice, nor is it important. what you are is mundane and obvious, and we can all see it. stop pretending." that isnt encouragement. thats impatient and reductive. that's childishness. you threw an ideological tantrum when she asked you to stop. you threw a bigger one when other trans girls who actually know her asked you to stop.

you arent her friend. it wasnt your place to speak with familiarity as if you were. you made it more difficult for a public figure to come out as trans, and she was asking you to stop the entire time. that is the irrevocable truth.

And I’m like: You’re also just hurting trans women too. And also everybody else. Stop fucking misgendering people. Trust people on their own. Encourage them to examine their own gender, absolutely, but realize that misgendering people, even those you’re SURE have some SERIOUS GENDER THINGS HAPPENING — when you say you know someone’s gender better than they do, because you know “the signs,” you’re saying that there is a prescriptive truth of gender, that you can secretly detect a person’s gender just by looking at them. And that’s… that’s a lot more like terf shit, actually than me asking folks to not maybe consider at least not misgendering strangers in my presence because it makes me personally uncomfortable.

THIS. Too important to leave in the tags.

This is a practice that can literally endanger folks for a million and one reasons, especially now that there are things like bathroom bills and the like everywhere.

It can stunt peoples’ opportunity for growth. It can out people trying to stay stealth. Often too, when people say “egg” they almost always mean exclusively “binary opposite gender,” and try to force somebody into a gender that may well not be theirs, even if that person DOES have gender going on, and will eventually be trans. Maybe that person will turn out to be nonbinary. Maybe they’ll be agender. Genderfluid. Maybe they’ll just be a cis man who discovers he enjoys the performative masculinity of Rockabilly.

All these reasons and more — it’s fine to refer to yourself as having been as an egg. It’s fine to refer to hypothetical groups, like “Eggs in the south are going to have an extra hard time right now,”— but directly asserting someone else is an egg, overrides their autonomy, self determination, and possibly their safety. And you’re even more likely to do damage if you presume what kind of egg they are.

If you really do want to help people, don’t try to force this shit on them. If you know them well, be open with them and say “you seem to be sharing a lot of experiences that a lot of your trans peers have gone through.

“Here’s some media that even if you’re not trans, may resonate with you for different but similar reasons.”

Or “have you considered just trying out, doing an experiment safely among your peers to see if it makes you feel different?”

“Doesn’t even have to be a big thing. Worst case scenario it’s just you and your friends having a good time together and maybe having a laugh.”

i think actually it's really important to let people be who they are and identify how they are. i joke that i'm 3/3 on arguing with people about their gender, but it's a joke. i didn't really argue with them about their gender. i told them what things about their life so far made me think the question might be relevant. like, "elementary school teachers let you use the teacher restrooms because they could not force you into the girl restroom" is not a behavior most cis women had growing up!

If you don't stand up for others: Ukraine, LGBTQ, immigrants, school kids...

Medicine, water, supplies, food, fuel (much of it black market being upsold at egregious prices) — these all cost money and pretty much all Palestinians in Gaza have no source of income now. It’s drops in the bucket compared to ending the siege and occupation but it’s one way to do at least something small to help. Others are in need of money to evacuate when the border opens again (which hopefully is asap…), tuition and supplies for school to continue studies despite it all. Another fund is focused on trying to rebuild farmlands in Gaza to get food again that way.