You can’t just tell people to ‘get a VPN (Virtual Private Network)’. Buying a VPN is like buying a house. It’s very very important. Having no VPN or having a ‘wrong’ one can seriously damage your life. Especially for Americans because their privacy laws are garbage. I am going to try explain why you should get a VPN but bare with me, I am from Germany and my English is far from perfect.
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.
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.
I am also with Trustzone but I think you forgot to explain one of it’s most important features. It protects you when you are using someone else’s Wi-Fi. If you are at Starbucks and you use their Wi-Fi your privacy is at risk. Anyone with ill intentions could steal your information. Especially if you are using an unsecured Wi-Fi hotspot. With a VPN your data gets encrypted so no one can steal it.
Wait, what’s going, on? Did trump destroy internet privacy with a bill or something? Where’s the news? Oh wait, why am I getting visions of Alex Jones and selling water purifiers?
He hasn’t yet but he says he wants to. And if he is serious about it it would be really easy to do. Since all our data is already recorded, as the person above explained.
Trump wants more surveillance of Muslim Americans. This in a country where internet privacy is already close to non-existent.
To all my friends in the US, please read this entire post. Making everyone aware of VPNs is going to be my mission. Your privacy matters. Please reblog this post.
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.
Privacy is not a privilege, it’s a fundamental human right
Ok sorry that it’s so freaking long and also sorry for the language, but this is extremely important. Please reblog!
Twilight may be trash but at least they cast actual native americans to play natives
you know you’ve fucked up when Twilight does something better than you
Okay story time
So I went to college at Western Washington University, which is super close to the Lummi reservation.
I went to see New Moon in theaters with a couple of friends (we love hatewatching stuff, and had a few drinks before going to the theater). We were super confused when we sat down, because for some reason about half the theater was full of 12-year-old boys. The movie starts, it’s just as terrible as we expect, and then about halfway through the movie theatre erupts into cries of THERE HE IS!!! THERE HE IS!!!
Turns out the boys had come to see their Lummi buddy who had been cast as one of the werewolves in the movie. It was absolutely adorable, and my friends and I instantly felt super irresponsible for having come to a movie to trash the film a kid’s friends went to to support.
Hey guys FYI the Quileute tribe (the one depicted in Twilight) is currently fundraising because they have to move their entire town of La Push to higher ground to avoid everything being destroyed by climate change related rising oceans. Maybe give them some money okay.
help them outbut also remember that the Quileute tribe disagrees with their portrayal in Twilight and have been trying todispel misconceptionsthat Meyer created
hi everyone im still pissed we never learnt in school that shakespeare was bi and wrote the sonnets about a dude and a woc he was into
hi everyone im still pissed that we were told emily dickinson was a spinster when she spent her whole life writing love letters to a woman
hi everyone im still pissed about the fact that we never got taught any of the super super gay Greek myths. it seems impossible to think they managed to pick all the hetero myths when Greece was just THAT gay but guess what? they did.
hi everyone virginia woolf was also bi im still pissed that so much of literature is queer and has queer coding within it that deserves to be analysed through that lens in the same way that we don’t ignore the gender of an author, but sexuality is never mentioned in highschool literature classes
hi everyone i’m still pissed that we were never taught that da vinci was gay af and that the ideal the western world has of jesus (white, long straight brown hair) was based on one of his male lovers
The general rule? History is more feminist, less white, and more queer than you have been led to believe.
Re: Leo Da Vinci- I thought the painting of Jesus was based on Cesare Borgia.
Androids are my special interest so i’ve been following discussion about them and development of them for almost ten years and I’m stupid passionate about it. If anyone is wondering where we are at in our ethical discussion of robot development, this is whats going on.
Most of the discussion seems to be between these 5 fields:
Robot makers of all kinds (from animatronics all the way to industrial robotics) Psychologists Sociologists Lawyers/Lawmakers Ethicists
The general consensus has been:
All: Humanity clearly wants these robots and are getting blisteringly close to being able to build them to Chobits level, but not Blade Runner level, so while we have some free time between those phases lets talk about potential outcomes.
Psychologists: hem hem. we are concerned about what happens to the way we develop relationships. Humans imprint on things hardcore and because of this we are concerned.
Sociologists: I mean… yeah thats a concern, but its not nearly as concerning as what introducing an entire class of humanoid beings without rights to a society where real living people dont have rights
Lawyers: speaking of rights, what happens if you kill one. Like. do we call it “kill” or is it “break?” can you kill something that’s technically not alive??? what if you rape it?? Can you rape a robot? I feel lawsuits coming and its making me itchy.
Robot Makers: Everyone calm down. They’re just objects, they’re toys. Its chill.. See, we’ll make something like it and see what hap–they broke it. they fuckin destroyed it. They destroyed it in a creepy way too….We are now also concerned.
Psychologists: Maybe we should be less concerned about people falling in love with robots and more concerned about what all this might do to their understanding of the disposability of concent and personhood.
Sociologists: YEAH MAYBE YOU SHOULD BE, PSYCHOLOGIST.
Ethicist: While you were all talking I’ve been thinking about what Lawyer said about raping a robot. While technically it wouldn’t be “rape” by our laws, would the robot perceive it that way? Do robots have concepts of justice?
Robot Makers: They don’t if we don’t program it into them. See I’ll just make this prototype and–wow. it can comprehend fairness and concern. I only taught it the difference between a safe and unsafe situation under the circumstances of it rolling off a table or not. huh. uh. ok…thats. hm.
Lawyers: If it can be concerned for its well being, does that give it personhood? Becuase if its got personhood, its gotta have rights. And if it needs rights, we gotta make laws.
Ethicist: The question is not whether we think it has personhood, but more whether IT considers ITSELF to have personhood. Because historically, people have decided other groups of people dont have personhood regardless of the opinon of individuals within that group and it was bad. Like… real bad.
Sociologist: Does anyone remember what i said 20 years ago about being concerned about introducing an entire class of humanoid beings without rights to a society where real living people don’t have rights? Can we be concerned about that now?
All, chagrined: Yes.
Sociologist: Cool, lets move on. Ethicist brought up an interesting point about personhood and Lawyer brought up an interesting threat about personhood and Robot Maker is having an existential crisis about what it means to become God. So let’s condense our viewpoints and overview potential consequences:
1. we agree that society frames the use and consequences of all products/entities developed in it.
2. personhood is self-defined, and thanks to Robot Maker we now know that adding components to a robot that seem benign can have the added effect of them developing aspects of personhood.
Robot Maker, interrupting: And I think that the more complex the android, the more immediate and complex their understanding of personhood would develop–
Sociologist: Yes, we get that. This is a review. Anyway, 3. When they develop that personhood, they should be eligible for rights??
Lawyer: Get back to us on that, we’re trying to figure out whether this is going to make us a lot of money or just be a giant red-tape headache and you know how much we hate those. But also, if we give them rights they might not kill us all later, so we’re taking that into consideration.
Sociologist: Noted. 4. when they develop personhood, denying them rights is unethical????
Ethicist: Technically yes, but that’s dependant on the definition of personhood within our legal systems ethics. You see Kant believes–
Sociologist:
Psychologist:
Robot Maker: while you guys were talking I made a robot that has opinions, can understand the nuances of humor, can teach itself to walk, and also doesn’t like humans much apparently so can you tALK FASTER PLEASE
And that’s where we’re at now. That was 35-ish years of intracommunity discussion condensed.
The policy position for a president Sanders or any Dem who gets the nomination and dares call themselves a progressive should be the continuation of the policy Trump stumbled into which is do nothing and let the two Koreas self-determine. Just without the drunken twitter threats!
All the credit to the Moon administration for rebuking Trump & Co’s threat of a preemptive strike and signaling to Kim that the South is willing to negotiate independent of any directives from Washington!
An actual historical miracle, folks are going to look back on this moment in history as a time of hope.
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