Yep, such a shame they don’t accept XMR. I was not aware of the Trocador affiliate link, so thanks for sharing.

I believe that Odysee and LBRY (the blockchain-based back end technology Odysee sprung from and draws on) are separate companies with different people running them.

You don’t have to touch crypto or use any crypto features to use Odysee, so I’d still suggest it as a platform in the toolbelt in addition to a lot of the other great recommendations you’ve already gotten here in other replies.

VeraCrypt and 7zip are both good recommendations. I’ve read up on cryptomator, but haven’t used it yet, so it’s good to read an endorsement of it from someone who does for cloud storage.

Edit: you could also encrypt it with a local pgp key if you already use that encryption method with a pgp program or provider

These are probably less ideal for the tech illiterate, but they are available for iOS and haven’t been mentioned yet:

Session

Element / Matrix (edit to note someone else did already mention element above in the thread)

Yep. I’ve tried using dummy numbers in the past for things where no phone contact is required for contact and it frequently triggers fraud prevention even if not rendered useless by sms verification before submission.

I’d personally prefer they didn’t implement any KYC-style identity verification at all in the first place, but it’s not my service or project and I’m not a paying customer, so my preference is largely irrelevant to them. But that said, I didn’t intend the comment to be damning, or even a particularly harsh criticism, just thought it wad an odd choice.

If what you are saying is accurate, and there aren’t better options, I at least understand that choice a bit more. If they feel they need an identity provider for whatever reason, they should obviously choose the one they feel best fits that need. And as others have noted, different servers and instances can be spun up or utilized. Users can choose to utlize whichever fits their needs best, or none if none of them fit.

Your other point is well taken though that it may be a gap in the marketplace. Sounds to me like a need waiting to be filled. I recall reading about some decentralized blockchain solutions for this sometime back, but do not recall the specifics. I haven’t followed along because it didn’t seem relevant to my personal or business needs at the time.

If anyone else knows of alternative options that may be better or more privacy friendly, I’d certainly be interested to hear about them. And would chip in funding for any good FOSS projects that might seek to solve this problem.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I won’t sugarcoat it and pretend it would be easy to change the system. It took a long time to get to the state it is in now and it will likely take a long time to roll it back if it is possible. I also don’t profess to have all the answers, or that what I’m about to write is all that’s needed. It’s just the beginning of trying new approaches with different ideas and ideals, and changing hearts and minds so we can move back in that more positive direction.

You’ve hit on a few ways to opt-out already in your reply. One is to not take devices across boarders if you can prevent it. Or to take wiped, empty, dummy or burner devices without sensitive personal info on them. Alternatively as you mentioned, they could be shipped or transported separately. This is a workaround that does not target the enforcement practices in any real way though as you rightly pointed out. Another is to simply not travel over boarders, but that’s self-limiting your freedom to travel and kind of handcuffing yourself. It also does not solve the problem if you truly need to be on the other side of one.

You hit on what I think is truly the necessary first step in your last sentence. It will take a critical mass of people caring about things like this and taking steps to opt out and, most importantly, to support others who wish to opt-out as well.

As it stands now, people in uniforms which are supposed to convey special priviledge and authority about their actions that are extraordinary and not afforded to the average citizen enforce these unjust searches and seizures. They are backed by state apparatus’ that target those very individuals and groups they draw their funding and supposed consent from. The crowd of average people largely either believes that when these goons target an individual from amongst them and pick them off from the herd that this individual targeted “must have done something wrong”, or those other average people in the herd are too scared to stand up and speak up lest they be targeted as well. This should not be the default assumption. We should encourage people to practice the concept of innocent until proven guilty in the court of public opinion and perception, not just in the legal system.

In short, the mentality of how we all think about things has to change. Most movements that enact change do not need anywhere near 100% support. Or even a simple majority. There is a lot of argument about what percentage of people need to be engaged or mobilized to enact successful change, but most of the things I’ve read seem to show that 15% or less of a given population that is organized and motivated for a cause can bring about real lasting change as even a minority movement.

For instance, if 15% of people who believed they were being prosecuted for victimless crimes chose not to take plea bargains but took their cases to jury trials it would freeze most already overwhelmed criminal justice systems and courts. The legal system and courts wouldn’t have the funding, staffing or capacity to keep up with the deluge, and eventually the system would break and be forced to focus only on the serious and heinous crimes with real victims, so the problem would solve itself. This could turn into a much larger discussion on it’s own, so I only use it here as a simple illustration of how it might change peacefully without the need for violence or slow bureaucratic regulatory and policy change under the right conditions. Simply find weak spots and collectively throw a monkey wrench into them.

I’d rather see enough people support one another and make enough noise and gum up the works of systems that aren’t working in their collective interests so that those systems will either change by choice/necessity or simply breakdown. I hope to see lots of things start to move in better directions by sheer non-compliance of those impacted who can agree they aren’t happy with the direction it’s going now. This will not happen overnight, but overnight change is typically only achieved by violent revolution. I have not and do not call for this, and it’s not the way I want to see things play out. Which is why I’m advocating for slowly beginning to walk things back in the other direction toward individual freedom and liberty and respect for individual rights now. That has to be a spark ignited in each person and spread to others before we will get anywhere peacefully.

I agree with you and it’s an important distinction. But for me it’s also about the ethos of the developers or company. Promoting free and open source tools is great, but requiring the opposite as a prerequisite to use the largest publicly facing implementation of that is a very odd decision.

The general population need to stop recognizing the authority and legitimacy these thugs try to claim for themselves.

I hope we the average people can find ways to put aside all of our petty differences to unite under peaceful opposition to the tyrants and security states and practice civil disobedience by opting out of the liberty and dignity depriving practices like these en mass.

Nice graphic!

Absolutely rubbish company that has nearly cornered the market on venues artists and events and made the entire process of engaging with live entertainment worse and worse as time goes on.

The awful practices of Ticketmaster/Livenation are many, including many things others have already listed as well as an increasing phase-out out of cash and other anonymous payment methods throughout the entire process, including at the actual participating venues themselves.

Haha, love the image. I think everyone feels that way the first time they learn it.

End to end encrypt emails whenever you can too. Now, getting those you communicate with to implement and utilize pgp? That’s a whole other battle.

Smart. Everyone reading this thread who cares about privacy and separation of work and personal life should follow your lead.

Unfortunately, words on paper frequently fail to prevent organizations, public of private, from doing things they are technically not allowed to do. See the security state apparatus of any of the nations around the world including the 5, 9 and 14 eyes, or any number of tech companies that claim and market privacy respective policies only for people to uncover later that what they pitch publicly diverges in spirit from what they do or what is in the actual terms of service.

Hopefully if people find their employer going outside the bounds of the contract they can catch it, catalog it and hold them to account. Accountability can often be tricky and costly though.

This, but it won’t matter if you delete history. They know anyway if the want, and can enable logging it if they choose.

Same can be said for any browser, any app, any connection while on the employers network IF they wished to monitor it. Even if you were able to delete all local browsing history and used private browsing, your employer would still be able to know every site you visit if they wished.

If you’ve authenticated with your credentials on the device, IT is able to see IPs visited and DNS queries and has access to all sorts of network tools to track, shape and otherwise manage your activity.

It’s best to assume that nothing you do on your employers network, even when logging into their corporate VPN from a personal device, is private.

I’m always shocked by privacy conscious people who do not have complete segregation of work and personal equipment and devices.

Could it be designed so users generate and share the vast majority of the content? I’m envisioning something that is mostly self-sustaining once coded if it were simplistic enough so that continued development or features were largely unnecessary short of ocassional bug fixes and maintaining hosting.

It wouldn’t need much moderation as the scope of the service would be sufficiently narrow. Could it then be written to limit what type of content was even permitted to be submitted in the first place and where content filters catch anything off-topic?

Just spitballing ideas. Anyway, if you ever found time and had interest, I’d be happy to toss some funds at it in an effort to help cover any development, hosting or maintenance costs.

Yep, I agree. And even if you were to get a generic loyalty card with no info tied to it, or fake credentials as someone else in the thread suggested, it would still be attributed to a single person/household where they build a solid marketing profile and may tie it to credit card or other financial or tracking information.

This is a good idea. If it doesn’t exist, someone with the skills should build out an app or service. I don’t have the skills or the time, but would definitely donate if someone else took up the cause.

It’s absolutely crawling with authoritarians.

I don’t care to spend much time determining if people are lefties or righties. Or care whatever other label they may use, because you’ll quickly find out that whichever affiliation they claim, they want to control what others do in different aspects of their lives and are not in support of individual liberty, self determination or personal responsibility.