@namark well said

@zpartacoos @namark until we have an easy to use, streamlined privacy app with a good UI, the vast majority of citizens will be surveilled and manipulated.

@skells @zpartacoos

>privacy app

sure...

@namark @zpartacoos

or we could just snark our way to the gulag

we won't have food but at least we showed those people who supported our agenda how silly they were

@skells @zpartacoos wtf is we? anything that you and I can do with "the vast majority" is to manipulate. Get that international monopolist crap out of your head and think about how to convince the guy next door to run a free OS, and maybe consider investing in a CPU that doesn't have network connected hardware backdoors, because until that is common place, your "privacy against the big brother" rhetoric is a fad.

@namark @zpartacoos

if the objective is to stop the NSA snooping then yeah, gonna need to go the whole hog

if the objective is to render mass social engineering prohibitively expensive, then an accessible UI running on a secure protocol is the lower hanging fruit

both are of value, neither are mutually exclusive

@skells @zpartacoos you having no control over your device excludes you being able to run anything on a secure protocol whatever that means. It's not at all prohibitively expensive for google or microsoft to say, "you know what? that program, I'm not running it", apple is already doing it.

And even if somehow due to the sheer mess of it all, whatever hackish solution you have in mind could work, you want to convince someone who hands total control of their local system over to one megacorp, that preventing another megacorp from showing them targeted ads is somehow important?

Nah you are rather suggesting to build another pop culture fad on top of existing pop culture fads, to manipulate the masses in the way you see fit. The unwashed masses can't think for themselves so I have to make a shiny treat to wiggle in front of them so that they chase it in the right direction. That will never work, and you will end up right back where you started.

@namark @zpartacoos so, fuck the masses and rebuild robust networks from a hardcore instead of pretending otherwise

@skells @zpartacoos so go convince one neighbor to run a free OS. If it works convince another one. If it works really well maybe make a business out of it (consultation, installation, warranty), and drop your aspiration for the holy grail that will solve the problem for everyone across the globe. The holy grail is local independent experts serving the general public directly (like yer mechanics or plumbers) and you can only be one of them.

@namark @zpartacoos

it's a small market without better education/accessibility

@skells @zpartacoos Sure you gotta teach and preach as well, but the industry needs to be established first, then a school. Today's schools are based on today's industry. So mostly just preach.

What I see is that market is huge, but for people who can tap into it finding a job in one corporation or the other is easier than starting a business. Less responsibility, no risk, don't have to deal with clients directly. Some do though and succeed to various degree. It's not so hopeless, the industry overall is still very young. Look some people who started it are still alive, those bastards!