I don’t think you can expect any VPN to work without sign-in for very long. Google’s playing whack-a-mole with VPNs.
I’ve never actually tried signing in with yt-dlp. How easy is it to make a throwaway google account nowadays? Do they require phone verification or something similarly onerous?
This is network-specific. It’s been going on for a few months at least. yt-dlp itself still works without sign-in, if your network is not “suspicious”.
Always worth making sure you’re updated to the latest version of yt-dlp, but this is probably a network thing.
Yes, I loved classic Trek for showing a better a future, where humans have moved beyond our greed, prejudice, and self-destructive tendencies. That was the through line in TOS and TNG, even if it wasn’t always 100% on-point and didn’t always age well (you need to view TOS in its historical context to get past the baked-in 1960s sexism, for example).
There’s a place for cautionary tales, and there’s a place for aspirational tales.
I liked Discovery well enough for what it was, but I hated its picture of a future where good humans are the exception rather than the rule.
Nowadays, I think solarpunk is where its at.
A paper-only journal would defend against the state, but not against people you live with. A digital journal can be encrypted, but an intelligence agency could potentially gain access
A digital journal doesn’t need to be any more government-accessible than a paper journal.
Depending on your threat model, this could require special hardware, special software, or both. In order of ease of setup, I would suggest:
Keep all your data on your own physical media. No cloud services, period.
Keep it encrypted.
Disable network connectivity at every level that you possibly can, such as:
OS level: disable wi-fi, disable blutooth, and disable networking entirely.
Firmware/BIOS level: If you BIOS has options to disable networking components (especially wireless ones), do that.
Hardware level: If your laptop has a switch to disable wi-fi, use it. If ethernet, unplug the cable. Etc.
Physical level: Remove any removable wireless cards or antennas.
Wallet level: buy a computer than never had wi-fi or bluetooth in the first place. This could mean a retro computer, or could mean using a micro-pc like some models of Raspberry Pi.
According to the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, 2013, the median score for the US was “level 2”. 3.9% scored below level 1, and 4.2% were “non-starters”, unable to complete the questionnaire.
For context, here is the difference between level 2 and level 3, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_the_International_Assessment_of_Adult_Competencies#Competence_groups :
- Level 2: (226 points) can integrate two or more pieces of information based on criteria, compare and contrast or reason about information and make low-level inferences
- Level 3: (276 points) can understand and respond appropriately to dense or lengthy texts, including continuous, non-continuous, mixed, or multiple pages.
Link to Mastodon thread: https://mastodon.social/@protonprivacy/113833073219145503
Tuta.com is similar to Proton Mail + Calendar.
Location: Germany
Governance: Private GmbH (German corporation, similar to an American LLC)
Integrity/trustworthiness/transparency: Better than Proton IMHO. All their apps are open source and available on F-Droid. They encrypt email headers (unlike Proton, who are weaselly about this in their marketing materials).
User Experience: Ehhhh…6? I’m not in the best position to compare because I do not have a premium plan, so I am not able to examine features like inbox rules/filters. Much like Proton, it doesn’t support full-text email search unless you have it cache your entire mailbox locally (either via the web site or app). They do not support POP or IMAP, but do offer their own desktop and mobile apps.
Pricing: €3/month for 20GB, €8/month for 500GB. https://tuta.com/pricing
Removing copyright entirely is a bridge too far.
Just roll it back to a reasonable time limit (I dunno, 7 years?), and categorically reject all further lobbying attempts from Disney and the like.