My daughter starts a new online school program and I have to be a “learning coach” which basically means I have to keep an eye on her during the school day and help her when she needs it.
I think it will be very difficult, but rewarding. Going down to a single income sucks, but she had to be taken out of school because of some serious bullying. I just hope this will make her happier.
This thread went longer and more serious than I could’ve imagined at the outset. Glad I stuck with it! Congrats on the mod role (maybe I’m late to notice?).
Sorry to hear about your daughter and income situation. Kids, and the parents that raise them that way, can be such di**s.
Thanks for all of that. The mod thing was a surprise to me. One day, I was a mod. No one asked me. And that thread is getting dangerously close to the maximum number of posts Discourse allows.
for me, the section that changes the most goes last…
in a whole year, the YYYY never changes, the MM changes only 12 times… i never implementing the day… there’s only so many possibilities i could have had for saved files in June. i just go straight to description
I like that for files, but not for written documents. When I label things I try to use the most intuitive/least confusing way I can think of: DD mmm YYYY. This comment is posted on 23 NOV 2023, for example.
I do prefer the abbreviated month with the yyyy mmm dd format. It makes things relatively easy to sort but you also don’t have to worry about confusing others if you are referring to the 10th month or day for example.
That isn’t a sign of collapse. That just shows that the average retailer would let a baby starve than lose a dime. Its a reflection of the morality that these people have. But of course they never examine themselves deep enough to have that realisation.
There’s a drug store chain near me that has a sign, if you need formula and can’t afford it, they’ll let you have their brand generic formulas for free. You just bring it up to the desk, let them know and they’ll scan it and give it to you.
We got lucky that my wife happened to be SAH and able to breastfeed. We know people who had issues breastfeeding and were really stressed about finding and paying for formula.
The devil’s advocate in me says that dealers often cut drugs with formula so there’s at least one other reason to keep it locked, but I don’t know how well that statement holds up under scrutiny, because it’s not like they check to see if you actually have a baby when you buy formula, and it’s probably not worth the risk to steal it as opposed to just buying it with the kind of return you’d get from diluting your product.
And yeah, I see razor blades, shampoo, and fucking laundry soap under lock and key in stores all the time. Nobody’s cutting drugs with any of those. Shit’s getting real fucked up.
It’s not an either-or situation. Something like baby formula is only added as a filter. Fentanyl is far too potent to use as a filler. It’s added to other drugs to give a better high so users are less likely to realize they’re not getting what they paid for.
I asked at Safeway and the guy told me it’s because people steal it and then try to return it for cash, not so much for starving babies. Same with the name brand laundry detergent that is now in a cage.
In the US, we have WIC (nutrition assistance for pregnant women, infants and children under 5) that covers formula for parents whose income is less than 185% of the federal poverty level. That does mean that parents who fall over the benefits cliff (make 186% of the fed poverty level) are seriously fucked.
I’ve heard the baby formula drug thing before, but I find it hard to believe you can’t mix it with something cheaper like regular powdered milk or flour.
A lot of this stuff is easily resellable down your local flat-roofed pub, and there’s practically no punishment for shoplifting.
I prefer to think of it as maybe don’t shoehorn a shitty type checker into a dynamic language. Honestly I think people who get excited about typescript should fuck off and go write java instead.
The type checker is actually pretty smart and can handle a lot of weird use cases, especially in strict mode (if you mark everything as Any type, that’s on you). The fact that the underlying language is very dynamic can be both good and bad. It’s good because you can be flexible when you need to be, but it also won’t prevent you from writing really shitty code, which lends it its reputation.
I don’t know if you’ve ever tried writing frontends in Java, but it is terrible, especially if you want to make dynamic and accessible UIs. You don’t use a power drill when you need to hammer a nail.
My comment was obviously devoid of any nuance, I am on programmer humor after all. I actually do use typescript, but I think fixing issues in application code that isn’t used by other code is a waste of time. I also think there are lots of advantages of a very dynamic language, like usable REPLs and much easier debugging. We can take these advantages way further by embracing the dynamic nature of javascript, like how lisps do it for example. But instead, everyone is happy going down the route of turning it into another c# (nothing against c# but we don’t need all languages to be c# and java).
JS is the one that’s built into the browser. If JS wasn’t built into the browser, it would go onto the trashbin of bad old languages that only survived because of their platform like VBA and ActionScript and .bat batch scripting. You can’t compare JS to any other language because JS is the one you don’t get a choice on.
I’ve heard it said that the longer you work with JavaScript, the more you hate it. I’m not gonna lie, I really miss working on ASP.Net Core backends. Switching from that to NodeJS was a huge downgrade.
Fine but whatever you think about js, dynamic languages have certain advantages, and trying to turn it into another java or c# is a stupid endeavor. You’re not “fixing” javascript by making it more like java.
Click the clock on the taskbar, which has worked as far as I remember, maybe even before Windows 95. Notifications and calendar pop up but no seconds.
Search “seconds” in settings. Apparently you can only have them shown on the taskbar permanently (with implied distraction and CPU usage).
Look in time settings. No seconds, either.
Open the Clock app. The update takes a minute. No seconds there, either.
Search the internet. Apparently this is a function Microsoft disabled in Windows 11 but can be restored with Explorer Patcher, along with the option to set taskbar transparency via Classic Shell (so that you can watch the status in another window while others are maximized).
Don’t have time for that, install Linux instead
(I’m not even kodding. The only place where a vanilla Windows 11 installation will show seconds in GUI is a very obscure page deep in the unintuitive jungle of settings. Interesting that a $3 watch does something a Windows computer with a million times more transistors doesn’t.)
Welcome to Clock 2.0, the new time and reminder experience from Microsoft! Powered by Bing AI and Microsoft OneDrive.
Sync your time zones, alarms, and reminders to all your devices via Microsoft OneDrive
Get suggested wake-up times powered by Bing AI and your calendar!
Use of Clock is governed by the Microsoft Cloud Connected Experiences Privacy Policy (click here to view).
Click I Agree to start your use of Microsoft Clock!
and for all this, your alarm reminders become yet another datapoint for personalized ads, your phone alarm to wake you up then plays at full blast through the living room computer and wakes everybody else up, and you agreed to a 750kb privacy policy that displays in a 2"x3" window with 500 pages to scroll through.
Edit: are you psychos actually pulling up YouTube on your browser?
Edit edit: Listen, I’m about convenience on this matter. I want to click a link and just have it open up. I’m also not as militant as most of you about making sure YouTube doesn’t make any money off of me because…that doesn’t make any sense. Yeah I’m going to block ads where I can but I’m not going to inconvenience myself in the process. Everyone keeps recommending revanced which admittedly I haven’t tried, but vanced worked like donkey dick. I said it.
Edit edit edit: ok assholes I got revanced set up. I am not an idiot but that was far from “5s of effort”. Thanks for the recommendation.
Yes, on an Android tablet, using the PocketTube app (which manages my YT subscriptions into groups), to forward a group playlist to YT in Firefox with uBo installed, without being logged into YT in FF.
I don’t have to rely on other 3rd party servers and services working properly, I don’t get ads, and YT gets little to nothing on me as an anonymous user beyond PocketTube just pulling the latest videos from my subscriptions.
I’ve been reading all these posts about blocker warnings being displayed and having to update the uBo filters, and I haven’t seen one of those yet, without doing any of that.
My revanced setup literally shows as “Youtube” and functions identically, with sponsorblocking and adblocking. It let me disable shorts entirely and use the click-bait thumbnail circumventer. Took me 5 minutes to setup. I see a video on any app and click on it and it opens up in revanced no problem.
People act like 5 seconds of effort is worth what, 120$/year? After googling, closer to 160$/year? Lmao I wish that amount of money was inconsequential to me
Setting aside the conflation of “5 minutes” to “5 seconds” for a bit just to say: setting up ReVanced is a gigantic pain in the ass. I’ve only ever been on the android platform. I’ve sideloaded apps. Also been in the technology industry for almost 3 decades. The documentation is dog shit. The official user forum r/revanced, (iirc) is a fucking circlejerk. Their own faq and top pinned “definitive install guide” post is out of date and just plain wrong. Down thread, whenever someone has questions (inevitably, because the documentation is fucked (see previous)), some smarmy asshat has the audacity to direct the confused newb to the same flawed docs.
I swear, fanatics are their own worst enemies. Now, I’m not saying you’re a fanatic. But sideloading that app in 5 mins (or seconds, depending on which sentence you’re relying on)? Yeah, bullshit.
I dont even have root. You download the apk for the recommended version of YouTube, which the revanced manager app tells you, select it - it auto picks all the patches - hit apply, wait - then hit install. Takes maybe 2 minutes to install. Then you’re done. Never once had any difficulty beyond that. One time I used a different youtube version than what was recommended, worked fine just didn’t have all the patches.
I dunno why you were trying to sideload it. That’s not necessary. You can do all this in, I’ll be generous and say 15-20 minutes. I’ve done it a few times now and done it for others too, so it usually only takes me 5 to 10. Depends on how fast their phone is to patch the apk.
Throw in another minute to fully disable the official YouTube app and route all YouTube links to open with revanced and you’re set.
Revanced is quite the pain to set up, in my opinion, and the Revanced forums aren’t super helpful. The developer refuses to publish a useable guide.
I switched to NewPipe x Sponsorblock, and that one was maybe 20 seconds of downloading and installing, not counting tweaking the settings to my liking. It’s been much more stable for me. Revanced always crashed for me at exactly 3 hours of continuous use, which was a problem since I use those 8-hour ambient sound videos to help me sleep.
There’s also LibreTube, but that one can be a lot more finicky, and you have to manually switch the instance, which becomes a pain in the ass after a while.
Revanced forums are straight-up toxic. Any setup questions are smugly redirected at the unusable documentation, as you pointed out. For some reason, there’s an elitist attitude in that group.
Can't use uBO from most of the devices I actually watch YouTube on.
For me, it's much easier to just pay for Premium. No ads on my phone, Playstation, Chromecast, or locked-down work laptop that I can't install extensions on.
And the creators whose content I consume still get paid for my views. Honestly, it's worth it for both my use-case and my morals.
They don’t even need to do that, since the ads come from the same domain as the app’s content. Some apps use their own DNS resolver but a lot of the time it’s for other reasons, like preventing DNS hijacking by ensuring DNSSEC records are validated.
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted, paying for services you use shouldn’t be looked down upon. It’s way easier then trying to always be ahead of the ad block blockers. I do block all ads on websites though
I can afford it and use it all the time. It’s completely unreasonable to expect a company to provide a service for you for free without any way for them to monetize you. Hosting videos isn’t free so why should they pay for you to have access to their service
I can afford it and refuse to pay on principle. I actually would be glad if Google went out of business (although extremely unlikely). Monopolistic Companies like them use every opportunity to cheat and modify laws to give them advantage and remove any chance of a new innovative competitor taking over. Then they expect us to act honorable and play by the rules that they set up.
They are the cancer and we need to restore old antitrust laws that supposed to prevent them from ever getting so big.
I started Premium as Google Play Music back when. Made sense as an alternative to Spotify. In my book, it still does. Ad-free YouTube is just a bonus for a music streaming service.
Because LemmyWorld is full of immature users who think that anybody who pays money for a thing they get extensive use out of is a shill. They think that using adblockers is somehow sticking it to The Man.
I'm starting to understand why LW has the reputation it does now.
By being seen as the de facto "hub" for Lemmy, they've attracted a large chunk of Redditors who haven't left their Redditor attitudes behind them. As LW continues to grow, I've been noticing a lot more immaturity on the platform as of late. It's honestly a little disappointing to see.
How else do you expect a globally-accessible video hosting service that requires no upfront costs for users to upload millions of video files at the cost of several petabytes of data transfers every day to function?
The users generating the content people actually want to watch wouldn't be able to do so without the monetization that's in place, though. They can't make content for free, and shouldn't be expected to. And not all creators can rely on sponsorships to subsidize themselves, either, so most creators rely pretty heavily on ad revenue in order to stay afloat on the platform and keep the lights on.
If the creators can't afford to keep creating, then that also degrades YouTube's service as a whole, as well.
Really? I’m pretty sure people can make youtube content, and maintain a job. If youtube can’t stay afloat without invasive ads happening every 5 minutes then youtube deserves to go the way of MySpace and every other dead platform before them. Simple as that. Youtube isn’t a necessity.
“the price is what the market will bear” or whatever. I used to pay for ytp (red)/gpm. Paused for a month, went to resub, was like +$4 more a month. I don’t value yt at ~$16, not even at ~$12 really but hey, they wouldn’t fuck billions of users over in the pursing of profits, right? If yt/Google was a scrappy little startup, or a creator that I valued, sure, here’s $5 a month through patreon. But they aren’t, they bought a platform with no clear avenue to monetization/breaking even, and sat on it for 10 years, and then they want to be like ‘please we are the victim here, it’s the evil ad blockers that are forcing us into the streets!’.
G has, metrically speaking, fuck-tons of money. And if they so desperately need to clear their books, they can always close yt, anytime they want. Or they could let the customers pay what they think the service is worth. Hell, they could even shift the costs to the creators, which isn’t the worst idea in the world - it’d at least stop kids from uploading their fortnite clips with them screaming into their mics. Not everybody should be allowed in front of a webcam.
But as long as it’s [number higher than I value yt as] or [shitty experience], I will take option 3 and tell g to gag on my balls, and I shall enjoy my $5 and my ad-free experience.
Lots of options, but nah “fuck the users” came out on top. Acting like the users are the reason why they bought and operated a money pit for 15 years is just hilarious.
Storage isn’t the only cost, or even the major cost, it’s bandwidth to serve them
I don’t see a better way for YouTube to be managed in the current environment, but I do agree it’s not the best possible way; it’s just the ideal way is limited to an ideal world, which we don’t have.
That can be a shared expense, but bandwidth is variable and storage space isn’t, so I imagine yt would charge by the MB for uploads but do a simplified floating split cost for bandwidth. Again, not everyone should be able to blast the internet with their (tbh) shitty unboxing, multiplayer raging, prank/harassment, 8 second meme, etc videos.
Everyone knew - or should have known - that yt was a money pit. I was happy that the og devs got bought out, but the writing was on the wall back then. The fact that g let it sit for so long before trying to recoup some funds for it is one reason why everyone is so pissy about the whole paying vs ads debate - it was free and non-intrusive for so long, the fuck do they need to fix it now?
So yeah, my idea is shitty for the people who aren’t able to bankroll their video startup career, but if you just open yt and take in what kind of ‘content’ is being created and shoveled… The fact that they haven’t at least pitched the idea is an active disservice to the internet as a whole. I don’t think it would be so bad, short-term pain for long-term (theoretical) sustainability.
You don’t have to always be ahead. I’ve been using revanced for years now without problems. Before that Vanced. My computer has had ublock origin with 0 issues for years prior to the recent changes. To resolve those I literally had to click 2 buttons in the UI. Bam no ads. Have had no problems since. The time I’ve invested in configuring adblocking since I started watching YouTube, sometime around 2008-9, has probably amounted to 20 minutes of time.
It could just have something to do with the fact that many people think ads are not only annoying but also highly manipulative, creating artificial needs in people, a tool to make already successful and rich companies even richer, … and the surrounding technology to power them is unethical, hoarding tons of information, building profiles of people, tracking which websites they visit, what search terms they use, …
When people talk about blocking ads, being frustrated about them showing up, it’s just kind of disrespectful to be like “well you could just pay for the service, you know?”. Besides, who knows how much actually ends up in the creators’ pockets.
how much actually ends up in the creators’ pockets
For most, very little. For the big ones, millions of dollars, and I always resent people lecturing me about “morals” because I’m not willing to subsidize a rich person’s hobby.
Regular perople aren’t making anything from YouTube, only the ones who had the capital to invest in their channels upfront. I don’t feel compelled to pay for any of that, and I’d just as soon have their content filtered from my feed if it’s immoral not to want to see ads.
The channel I use most often is Audible Anarchist, and I really don’t think they give a fuck if I use an adblocker or even Piped to watch their videos.
Never forget that youtube filters us towards those creators, too. New creators saying a new message? They aren’t gonna get any attention. Youtube de-prioritized LGBT and BIPOC content tags for years.
Yep, I never let YouTube recommend me content, because it’s all highly-polished monetized garbage. They’ve made it purposely difficult to find videos uploaded by normal people. I used to watch this random lady with a pet squirrel who made videos with her phone, it was so fun to watch. Once it all became monetized, that got buried. It’s to the point that most of what you see on the front page, you could just as well be watching cable TV. It’s so bad.
I feel like an old man saying this, but it seems there are a lot of younger users who got sucked into the YouTube algorithm and see this all as normal or even good. That’s why you get weird accusations of “stealing” content or not supporting “creators,” as if it’s my job to subsidize some rich person’s hobby. The entire reason I liked YouTube is it was a free forum where users could share random videos with each other. If it’s not that anymore, then it can die for all I care – I don’t want it.
Paying Google doesn’t feel like the correct thing to do when they keep making Youtube worse while increasing the price. Morally I think it’s wrong to reward their shitty decisions against other users. Personally I’m still mad about they removed the dislike counter.
I’d rather watch non-monetized channels using an adblocker. The entire attraction of YouTube for me was that it was a platform where regular people could share random videos for free. If that’s not what it is, then I’m not interested.
If YouTube had an option to filter all monetized channels from my feed, then that would be the most moral course of action, since I could simply not watch those – quite bluntly, awful – videos.
You could just, you know, send those creators money directly. Nearly all of them have methods set up for that already, and I’m guessing anyone who doesn’t would set something up in a hurry if you asked to donate to them.
It’s a win / win. You get to sit on your moral high ground, the creators get paid, Google can fuck off.
My subscription list is 100+. As much as I would love to support all of those creators directly, it's not a financially viable option for me. At least with my Premium subscription, they're getting something from my viewership, which is more than they'd get from me if I was adblocking their videos.
Hold on, Premium subscription where Google gets the cut and doesn’t have to provide you with any report on your money spent is “a financially viable option”?
As opposed to paying even $1/mo per channel I subscribe to, yes. Many creators have come out and said that their earnings reports show that higher-valued views come from Premium users, even though those viewers are not being served ads. It benefits them more than if I were to sit through every ad on their channel.
At the end of the day, Google's paying them more for my views than if I were an ad-viewing user. So for ~$20/mo (for family plan), that's much more financially viable for me than if I were to pay $1/mo to all 100+ creators I watch.
At the end of the day, Google’s paying them more for my views than if I were an ad-viewing user. So for ~$20/mo (for family plan), that’s much more financially viable for me than if I were to pay $1/mo to all 100+ creators I watch.
Are you trolling? It feels like you are. At no point in this thread is anyone saying you need to start paying more. If you’re paying $20/mo for premium, and you’re using an arbitrary amount of $1 as the donation minimum per creator, then why not just donate $1 to 20 different creators for each month? Then the next month, donate to the next 20 creators, then the next 20, and so on. Believe it or not, all of those creators still get paid more by your direct donations – even measured over several months – compared to the tiny fraction they’d get from that same money via your premium subscription.
It seems like you’re trying to argue some moral high ground of funding content you enjoy on youtube. That’s fine. But it takes about 10 seconds of critical thinking to find ways to do it where you pay the same, the creators get paid more, and google gets paid nothing.
Because realistically, that's more work than I'm willing to put into it. I wouldn't maintain that long-term. Especially because then I'd have to also sit through ads (99% of my YouTube use is from my TV via my PS5, so adblock isn't an option there), which would turn me off from using the platform, at all.
Premium is what works with the compromises I'm personally willing to make. And, this may come as a shock, but I don't want Google to get nothing, either. They need to be able to maintain their platform, which I get hours upon hours of use of every single day. I don't take issue with them making money in order to keep the lights on.
As much as I would love to support all of those creators directly, it’s not a financially viable option for me.
No one’s suggesting you pay more than what you’re paying now. I simply suggested you pay them directly. Take whatever you’re paying per month/year to google directly, then divide that up and contribute directly to the creators of your choosing.
which is more than they’d get from me if I was adblocking their videos
Now you’re moving the goalposts. No one is arguing against the fact that content creators get some amount of money from ads and subscriptions. The argument was that donating to them directly is better / more revenue for the creators, since google doesn’t get a cut. You spend the same amount, the creators get paid more, google gets paid nothing.
It’s bizarre how you are such an apologist for google.
I'm not moving the goalposts. I'm explaining my opinions on the matter and the choices I made. I'm not sure why you, who are not in any way impacted by my video consumption habits, take issue with any of that.
Once upon a time it was worth it for me too. But since every service is running up the rates, I had to decide which, if any, deserved my money. Google didn’t make the cut. I have a feeling nobody will by the end of year
If you paid the content creators directly they’d receive tens of thousands of times more than any of your views gave them.
I used to work with a partner account, and I can tell you they make NOTHING for views compared to what Google makes.
So hey, you do you, but don’t try to convince us or yourself that this is for the content creators. That’s like saying you order Uber eats to support the drivers, but you never tip them.
This is about the compromises and concessions I'm personally willing and financially able to make. Obviously it's not the perfect solution, but we don't live in a perfect world.
And an ad blocker should be part of everyone’s personal and organisational security model regardless, so you’d have to install ublock and specifically turn it off for YouTube.
But of course, the reason people block ads is most of the Google ads were straight malware at one point.
uBlock origin works, but you must disable all other blockers or browser plugins doing something with youtube, as they might interfere with the adblocking capability.
For the fire stick, simply install smarttubenext. Adfree and with sponsorblock included.
uBlock should work, if it doesn’t make sure you are using latest version, you have custom filters disabled and disable all extension. If that fixes it then you can start enabling other extension tracking which one caused issue.
With adblock detection filtering too much can cause to trigger the detection.
Also, you might have to go into filter lists in the uBO dashboard and make sure you’ve checkmarked everything.
I’m not sure what can be done about a fire stick. I’m lucky because I have a mini PC connected to my main TV that runs Linux so I can use that to stream whatever I want. It’s one of the best setups I’ve ever had for entertainment. I just got one of those cheap wireless keyboards with a trackpad for $10 from newegg, and Linux Mint has a setting to make the UI more usable from a distance.
I do use a Roku sometimes when I travel for work, and I just deal with the ads, so if there’s a way to make something like a fire stick or roku work with a custom OS, that would be nice, but I’m not aware of anything.
Edit: Just noticed u/[email protected] has information about smarttubenext. Might look into that.
Lol, you’re out of your mind! A frozen patty is not “ready to eat” and is not prepared. You know that… Come on, you know if you order a burger anywhere it will arrive cooked and hot, all components assembled and actually ready to eat. Anything less, and it’s not “prepared”.
A patty, ready to be cooked means that it has been prepared. If it was a kit with all constituent parts and instructions informing you how to achieve patties, then it would not be prepared.
You sound like you’ve literally never cooked before.
Still not seeing it, lol. I guess you mean it would be their 69, except that you need one to be the upside down version of the other…? I don’t know. Someone should write a research paper on this. :D
Unless you’re meaning it specifically has to be 2 digits, and therefore XIX doesn’t qualify? If so that’s fair (it was just the closest analogue I could think of. Maybe II would indeed be better).
I can’t believe I have to explain this, but the key to 69 is that the two “people” are in opposite directions to reach other, not that the pair looks the same from either direction.
You’re all missing the real kicker here - this sign is only here for the HIPAA auditor. Everyone knows that no one is actually going to mute the thing.
No, there is a button to make the Echo stop listening.
If you want to prove me wrong, it should be incredibly easy to press the button and record the Echos network activity. If you’re right you’d still see network traffic. But nobody has been able to show this so far. I wonder why?
Yeah I read the other comments after making mine. However everyone keeps calling it a “physical” button, and I don’t think that’s accurate. It won’t be a physical switch that opens a circuit, it will be a button that operates a transistor that opens the circuit.
Still, I see no good reason to trust the device - especially in a medical setting.
This is disingenuous at best and incorrect at worst. The mute button on the Echo is just that, a button; it is not a switch. It is software-controlled and pushing it just sends a signal to the microcontroller to take some action. For instance, one action is to turn on the red indicator light; that’s definitely not physically connected to the mute button.
Maybe another response of pushing the button is to disable the transistor used for the microphone, but it’s more likely that it just sets a software flag for the algorithm to stop its processing of the microphone input signal. Regardless of which method it uses, the microcontroller could undoubtedly just decide to revert that and listen in, either disabling or not disabling the red light at the same time.
But I personally don’t think it listens in when muted. I don’t think it spies on us to target ads based on what we say around it. I’m not worried that the mic mute function doesn’t work as intended.
But I fully understand that it is fully capable of it, technically speaking.
I don’t know the internal workings of the echo, I was responding to a comment that said it “operates a transistor”. Which is way different than it being an input to a microcontroller.
If the button is just connected to a transistor, it’s not software controllable, since transistors are electronical devices that don’t interpret any software. A microcontroller does execute software. There’s a big difference.
Transistors are simple electronical devices. They don’t run software. You can control their inputs with another device (such a microcontroller) that does run software. You can also control their inputs with a button. You can’t control their output with software.
I don’t know how an Amazon echo is wired up, but if you just have a button connected to the gate of the transistor, it works basically the same as a mechanical switch.
Transistors have no registers. They have no arithmetic logical units. They have nothing. They are so simple they can be made up of less than 100 atoms. Transistors have to be connected electrically to other device. Any reverse engineer can trace what it is connected to and it’s behaviour cannot be programmed. If you know that it’s a transistor and you know the inputs, you can know the output. The same cannot be said for a device which runs software, you’d have to additionally know what that software does, which is incredibly more complicated.
Software is ran by microcontrollers. Transistors can be connected to microcontrollers. But they can also be connected to buttons. If there is no microcontroller, there is no software.
It’s about as likely that the transistor is attached to a pin that sends an interrupt to the processor and it then applies a soft mute as it is the transistor is attached to a flip flop or register that toggles the mic getting power physically.
My guess would be it’s controlled by software rather than directly by the hardware because then they can do whatever they want with the button via firmware or software updates. This includes nefarious stuff like a fake mute mode, or more innocent stuff like special behaviour on a long press vs short press.
I’m not sure that’s the case. We have one at work and if it thinks you’re calling out to it repeatedly it will say out loud that its mic is off and that you have to enable it.
It might just be the part that listens for “Alexa” but that audio buffer is available to the device and it can do things with it.
Because - as I’ve explained in the comment you replied to - it’s pretty easy to check it for yourself. Unless you believe that an Echo has a secondary cellular connection that’s only used while muted, any traffic must go over your configured connection.
Just look at the amount of transferred data while it’s muted. If there is data (beyond extremely low background traffic) I’m wrong. If there is no data, you’re wrong.
This is not some hypothetical metaphysical principle we’re talking about, it’s a product that you can analyse yourself. Put up or shut up.
Which you could easily see by looking at the amount of traffic sent after unmuting, unless you believe that Amazon secretly found an infinite compression algorithm they use only in muted Echo devices.
Again: Which you could easily see by looking at the amount of traffic sent after unmuting, unless you believe that Amazon secretly found an infinite compression algorithm they use only in muted Echo devices.
You understand that sending more information means more traffic? Unless - as I stated - they found a perfect compression algorithm, you’d be able to tell.
I’m a little confused as to why you are being so condescending. Every time you say “this is so simple if you do X”. And then I say “what about Y?” And then you’re like “that’s obvious too, just do Z” and kind of insulting me, even though you did not account for it in your prior comment. And it becomes less trivial with each additional test.
Your first method involves simply checking if there is any traffic after muting. Your revised method involves additionally checking if there is any traffic for some period of time after muting (how long?). And now your third method involves doing the first two things as well as gathering data on the average amount of traffic in your requests generally and deciding whether subsequent traffic during requests after muting for an unspecified amount of time is significantly large enough to conclude it is sending information acquired during muting.
But if they send it a little bit at a time, or they just leak a small portion of it occasionally in some requests, I think it would be very challenging to conclude definitively one way or the other.
I’m actually aware that there is no infinite compression algorithm, so you don’t need to keep saying that. And to be honest it just makes you look like you are lacking imagination because it’s not the only way to make detection difficult as illustrated by my responses.
I’m a little confused as to why you are being so condescending. Every time you say “this is so simple if you do X”. And then I say “what about Y?” And then you’re like “that’s obvious too, just do Z” and kind of insulting me, even though you did not account for it in your prior comment. And it becomes less trivial with each additional test.
I’m writing the way I do because you’re bringing up points that are incredibly easy to disprove as if they’re some kind of gotcha. “They might store the data” seems like a good point until you remember that even that stored data has to be transmitted at some point. How would you have me reply to these non-arguments?
Your first method involves simply checking if there is any traffic after muting.
Because it’s sufficient to prove that the device doesn’t just not respond. That was the initial point I was replying to. Why do I have to find any possible counter-arguments when they weren’t brought up?
Your revised method involves additionally checking if there is any traffic for some period of time after muting (how long?).
Yes, because it’s sufficient to disprove the additional point you brought up. Just do it until the heat death of the universe if you want to be sure. You’re the one theorizing they might store the data locally.
And now your third method involves doing the first two things as well as gathering data on the average amount of traffic in your requests generally and deciding whether subsequent traffic during requests after muting for an unspecified amount of time is significantly large enough to conclude it is sending information acquired during muting.
You make it sound like “gathering data on the average amount of traffic in your requests generally” is complicated, and like you don’t already have the data from the previous two points.
But if they send it a little bit at a time, or they just leak a small portion of it occasionally in some requests, I think it would be very challenging to conclude definitively one way or the other.
And you could still see this through statistical analysis.
I’m actually aware that there is no infinite compression algorithm, so you don’t need to keep saying that. And to be honest it just makes you look like you are lacking imagination because it’s not the only way to make detection difficult as illustrated by my responses.
It’s the only way your points make full sense. It’s a simple truth of the universe that transmitting more information requires transmitting more information. The only way to get around this is the aforementioned infinite compression algorithm. Any other method is detectable through statistical means.
When there isn’t any stored data to be sent, they could easily send fake/random data in requests though. So then it’s not detectable if data is stored and sent or not. How would you make up for that?
That’s actually a good point! Random data is unlikely since it would be noticable due to differences in size of the compressed traffic (random data doesn’t compress), but fake data would not be distinguishable from just looking at traffic.
Luckily there are still things you can do, like analyzing the firmware itself (especially when you can inject your MitM proxy cert). It has been done before, and it’s reasonable to assume such a technique would have been found by security researchers by now.
It was never supposed to be a “gotcha”, it’s just the obvious question that arises based on what you said. I didn’t think my ideas were clever. Your thesis when you started this thread was that there was an easy way to be sure that the mute is real, and you gave it. You sound like a person who simply can’t stand to just say “oh right, I misspoke” or even just “ah yes, I oversimplified”, so you act like obviously everything I bring up was implied all along, with a touch of rudeness as punishment. Even though, again, your point about there needing to be a zero-compression algorithm each made it seem like there was nothing else left to account for, even though there was.
I would not be surprised at all if there is a way to detect with high confidence whether the mute does what it should, and for all I know that has been done. I was really just wanting to hear what I was missing by bringing up the obvious questions that a non-security expert like me would wonder. You really have to ask yourself what you were even trying to accomplish with posting on this topic at all based on your reaction to those very simple, non-threatening questions.
It was never supposed to be a “gotcha”, it’s just the obvious question that arises based on what you said.
And I gave the obvious answers to those obvious questions.
I didn’t think my ideas were clever. Your thesis when you started this thread was that there was an easy way to be sure that the mute is real, and you gave it.
Sorry, but that’s a mis-representation. Somebody said “Also muting it probably doesn’t stop it listening, it just stops its response.”, and I replied to that with a simple way to show it’s not the case. I didn’t bring in a thesis, I brought up a counter-argument.
You sound like a person who simply can’t stand to just say “oh right, I misspoke” or even just “ah yes, I oversimplified”, so you act like obviously everything I bring up was implied all along, with a touch of rudeness as punishment.
You’re free to show me where I went wrong, but I don’t see it. Somebody said “what if A?”, and I responded “it can’t be A due to X”. Then you came in “what if B?”, I said “it can’t be B due to Y”. Then you came in again and I responded again. Where did I supposedly oversimplify or mis-speak? People kept bringing up hypotheses, and I kept bringing up counter-arguments.
Even though, again, your point about there needing to be a zero-compression algorithm made it seem like there was nothing else left to account for, even though there was.
Yes, if someone makes a different argument, previous counter-arguments won’t fit. Seems pretty obvious?
I would not be surprised at all if there is a way to detect with high confidence whether the mute does what it should, and for all I know that has been done. I was really just wanting to hear what I was missing by bringing up the obvious questions that a non-security expert like me would wonder.
And I gave you answers for your obvious questions.
It seemed like it couldn’t be as straightforward as you said, and through your responses in fact it isn’t. You really have to ask yourself what you were even trying to accomplish with posting on this topic at all based on your reaction to those very simple, non-threatening questions.
The answers to the questions you brought up are as straightforward as I said. The answer to other questions isn’t as straightforward, because I didn’t answer those questions.
Tbf to foobar, that should still give a falsifiable and testable data-difference if you are willing to alter your behaviour around experimentation for an extended period of time
Though, there are always more ways to hide traffic
Knowing Doctors and Nurses they’ll openly and loudly discuss senstive issues in front of anyone in the hospital grounds. Its really quite frustrating and has even been raised in our local newspapers.
We’re not all like that. Some of us do really care (a whole lot) about the person, and not just “the patient”. We get eye-rolled and sighed at sometimes because we speak up; but it doesn’t matter because advocating for our patients is one of our top priorities.
Some hospitals have better work-cultures than others, but all of them have at least a few who truly give a damn
That’s cool, but given the majority of the population literally has zero clue on what privacy actually is, or what tech is intentionally doing to destroy it, it’s a lost cause. The healthcare system is one of the worst places for any personal information.
Yeah I could care less about people saying they’d watch ads of they were less intrusive. I’m not, I don’t give a fuck about YouTube’s sustainability who happened to still have major growth while I ran an AdBlock this entire time.
Maybe I’d consider paying if YouTube was the actual product I was paying for. Instead I get privacy invasive spying and my data being harvested, while am paying to do so. The product I’d want to pay for would have zero privacy invasive stuff involved. Which that isn’t going to exist, so I’m never going to pay.
That Netflix price is for one account, two screens. Premium family is for 5 separate accounts, no matter where geographically and no password sharing. Your comparison is not fair.
That Netflix price is for one account, two screens. Premium family is for 5 separate accounts, no matter where geographically and no password sharing. Your comparison is not fair.
In my opinion its impossible to be unable to care less if you are aware of something there is always a tiny bit of care wether its negative or not is irrelevant.
Is that a native app, or webapp? I thought there was a native app, in fact I know there is and it’s called Kuhmbus. Nobody can correct me because I’m right.
There’s a fork that has SponsorBlock integration, fyi. Get it on github and it requires manual updates but auto notifications. You can also use obtaimium to install it, and that will handle updates for you.
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