FirstMajesticComet

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

The fact that you are assuming someone wants to use Tor on Lemmy to do something illegal shows that you have fallen prey to the idea that Tor itself is illegal or meant for illegal activity, it’s the driving force behind many of the pushes to block Tor or even to attempt to extinguish it.

Fact of the matter is Tor is a tool, a tool that like any is not inherently evil or illegal. Tor’s purpose also isn’t to facilitate illegal activity, its purpose is to provide privacy and anonymity to people who want it. It sounds to me like you have been listening to a lot of those “scary” deep web videos or assuming people use Tor for those reasons and not for legitimate privacy and security reasons, (like for example did you know that Lemmy doesn’t proxy images?). This is one thing I really hate about those types of content, they portray the idea of privacy and security as if it’s evil or nefarious, or that the idea of hosting your own hidden service is creepy or wrong, it’s really gross actually, all for clicks and views, but they push it as if it’s real, it’s harmful to services like Lemmy which are currently outside of the mainstream and probably are associated with Dark web contend just by virtue of not being Big tech products, for a while I’d heard similar stories about linux too (people talked about how linux is for criminals, glad that one didn’t catch on).

TL;DR you shouldn’t be assuming that people want to use Tor (a privacy and security tool) for nefarious or evil purposes due to it’s reputation with nontechnical people, especially when those people are known for spreading misleading or even wrong information about the subject itself.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

It’s not a load problem though, it’s because some loser is DDoSing the server. Doesn’t hurt to move to other instances where it isn’t happening but the real solution would be to find who’s doing this so they can be brought to justice (or silenced from the internet forever, whichever is easier).

Please tell others to stop misrepresenting this issue, it is an attack, not a user overload problem and nobody who’s misrepresenting it that way is doing anyone any favors except the attackers by presenting it as such. Instead it should be presented as what it is.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

block the porn communities or disable NSFW, that’s what I did (at least before lemmy.blahaj.zone defederated from them)

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

There used to be some weird elitism that “video games are for boys” or something dumb like that. I’m not sure why maybe it was based on the subjects in video games but it’s not as mainstream today as it used to be in the early 2000s, nowadays it’s pretty widely accepted that gaming is typically gender neutral, or at least masc-neutral.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

I wish they would honestly stop with the Toxic masculinity and gender stereotypes, boys can and should be kind and compassionate and also be taught that self care is important, not be scolded for doing these things. Strange that we live in a world where being a boy who takes care of themselves causes you to get shit for it.

Luckily things seem to be changing for the better in recent times.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

That is true, although in the early days (when they started being a thing in the late 70s) video games were something meant for the whole family, not just for the boys/kids and they were usually marketed to the family.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

And to those that think it only comes from men, I’ve been in the receiving end of that kind of crap from both men and women in my life.

I’ve gotten it from both, especially teachers in school. “Riley why are you crying, see this is what I’m telling you, you’re clearly not a boy, boys don’t cry that much”. My school was interesting because they were trying to be ““trans-inclusive”” but ended up pushing toxic gender stereotypes onto people. They also were enbyphobic too (didn’t believe in or care about NonBinary gender).

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

I don’t care what anyone says I still think this style is cool and I’m 27 years old. Maybe it’s an Enby/Agender thing though, I don’t know.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

There are no words to describe what a shitty person this is. I bet he’s also a scab in the current Reddit protests trying to kiss up to spez for some crappy Reddit merch.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

I wasn’t physically able to finish the assignment, but that’s okay because I didn’t care enough anyway.

The physically able part is because I have a genetic condition that causes me to look very androgynous, also young, I don’t really care that much though, in a way it helps with being Agender since I’m naturally androgynous.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

Not giving up my penis, I need it so I can pee properly (while standing).

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

But then it seems more like a reduction or a step backwards.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

Long hair is awesome, I know that unfortunately it’s considered feminine by gender stereotypes but that never stopped me from growing it out. Did cause problems with my school thinking I was (binary) trans though and trying to corner me with gross questions about “wanting to be a girl” that I didn’t want to discuss with them (was mostly teachers trying to get into this with me).

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

Honestly outside of the weird issues with my school and a bit of egging online I haven’t really experienced any major problems because of it, though I’m not sure if that’s because most people don’t mind or because they think I actually am a young girl since I do have a condition that causes me to look much younger than I am and also very androgynous.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

Exactly, that’s why we need one for what happens the other way. One for transmascs.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

Pro tip: There are tools specifically made for opening jars so even if they do that, just get one of these tools and you’ll never have to ask someone else to open a jar for you again. There are also ones that work with different sized Jars and even twist off bottle caps as well.

Here are some pictures of them by the way (in case anyone is in doubt of their existence):

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A standard traditional one (this is what I have)

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fs3.amazonaws.com%2Ftanga-fetched-images-prod%2F12152d60-cd59-11e6-832b-9d2ef6db0913.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=d0c7044927d35e1209b26fe8197ba672d5b136b5dc46fe1f929a2d3e7d2ac1a6&ipo=images

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This one is marketed as “arthritis friendly”

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/pictrs/image/OW0gTHXmqF.jpg

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This one is an alternative one similar to the first but with a different method of selecting size.

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/pictrs/image/KtCjkCWSFz.jpg

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FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

The top one which is what I have is 8.99 (at the time of writing) from walmart but I’ve also seen similar ones on Amazon, they’re not expensive or hard to get. That is a good tip though if you don’t have one.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

I’ve also found that many ones that are blocked aren’t completely blocked, I can access them by using a new circuit (lots of these sites seem to really hate European Exit nodes but anything else has typically worked).

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

Reddit also has a .onion as well. Funny considering their pride on Ban evasion detection they should outright block Tor.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

Yeah people when they discuss Neworking and VPNs I’ve noticed are either illiterate to the existence of https or are deliberately not mentioning it for the purpose of misleading people in some way (in the case of VPN sponsorships it’s to get people to buy them).

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

I use it, it’s a bit slow and you sometimes get lots of captchas but overall I think it’s pretty good.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

Hate to burst your bubble but many of the stories are just that, stories. Vast majority of the onion sites out there are either forums like 4chan or hobbyist sites like the old days of the internet.

Illegal websites do exist but they’re rare and hard to find, they also are subject to being taken down. They’re nothing like the stories though. In fact majority of the websites that exist when you search for these topics are just bitcoin scams, i.e. a livestream website that asks you to pay $200 in bitcoin to enter, almost certainly a scam because livestreaming over Tor is terrible due to low spead and it breaks the anonymity due to generating tons of unique traffic.

TL;DR Tor is a tool that can be used for privacy on the clearnet it can also be used to host your own onion sites. Dark web stories do have a small element of truth to them but are mostly scary stories to tell in the dark.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

Might also be a good idea to use something like Ublock origin and Portmaster as well, don’t just try to curate ad targeting, block them, if you want to still support websites you can use something like adnauseam which clicks the ads.

I’m not trying to say that Tor isn’t a good idea because they should be blocking ads, I think more people should absolutely use it for better anonymous browsing, I only bring up ad blockers because if people don’t want to be targeted ads they should be blocking them.

Bonus: Add anti-adblock filters to ad-block, it helps significantly with sites that try to detect them, also spam and malware filters are essential.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

In my experience it’s a bit slower but not by much, I usually only access text based websites over Tor though with minimal images, streaming over YouTube can be horribly slow but it’s generally worked okay for me.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

I think it might have something to do with the fact that much of Europe has privacy laws that protect their citizens and also makes it so people running nodes there don’t have to kiss up to US companies. Hence why they block those nodes or just give them a huge amount of challenges to solve in hopes to frustrate them. Same with how they put annoying privacy pop-ups on the website in European locations which re-appear every time you login or visit the site.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

I know they require them, it’s is the way that they’re implemented that I’m referring to. Like they made it deliberately frustrating. Some of them one a few websites even pop up twice or even three times and you have to click them multiple times to get them to go down.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

I’m not sure exactly why it is to be honest. I’ve heard a few theories on why though.

Disclaimer: these are theories I have heard from people in the community, they are not my own.

1. There are just more transfem people on Reddit and reddit-like platforms due to there being more males on Reddit and thefore more transfem trans people:

One theory I’ve heard from people is that because Reddit is supposedly meant more for men than it is for women a larger majority of trans people there will be transfem. It seems like a plausible reason for why there are so many transfem posts but it does little to explain the hostile treatment of transmasc and enbies on its own.

2. There are more transfem people than transmasc + nonbinary:

Another theory I’ve heard is that there’s just more transfem people than transmasc and nonbinary. This one doesn’t seem likely because there isn’t much evidence to back it up besides the abundance of transfem posts in the community and also people claiming it’s better (that’s very subjective by the way, transmascs would say the same thing about being a man). On top of being unsubstantiated it also reeks of terf rhetoric since I’ve heard similar reasoning from them i.e. trying to say men will go extinct because they’ll all become women 🙄. I’ve also seen quite a few polls with numbers significantly higher in transmasc and nonbinary numbers so that kind of dismantles this one then and there.

3. Transfems are louder to combat more stronger transphobia

This theory basically says that it’s not that there are more or less of any group but rather that transfems are louder in order to combat the immense amount of more direct and/or violent transphobia that they are targeted with. I heard this one in a trans community in a discussion about violence towards trans women. In some ways it makes sense since often trans women are more often seen as predators and attacked for it though it doesn’t mean they experience more transphobia than anyone else. Transmascs still experience quite a lot of it but it’s more subtle and typically less violent (except in cases where they’re mistaken for trans women which sadly isn’t uncommon). This one also reeks of terf rhetoric to me since I’ve heard lots of them say that transfems are loud and proud so I can’t say for certain how accurate it actually is.

These are just a few theories I’ve heard people talk about when it comes to this phenomenon, there are also a few others but I’m not going to bring them up because they’re either straight up completely bigoted arguments or they don’t make any coherent sense whatsoever (sometimes both). Also it’s important to take theories like this with a grain of salt, they may have elements that are true to them but they also have issues with them as well which could lead you astray. I don’t think this isn’t an issue it definitely is and I know a lot of transmascs and nonbinaries who have experienced invalidation in some way related to this or have been told that we matter less. I’m not really sure how we could solve this problem though.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

Yeah I’m not super surprised, I figured their numbers were either equal or at least close to it. Even though there are slightly more trans women than trans men, it does make me wonder though why the sub was so overrun with them and why they try to be exclusionary to trans men (i.e. saying that being masculine is evil).

Also as a Side note, why is Gender Non-Conforming listed as trans there? Seems a bit weird since a Man assigned male at birth identifying as their assigned gender but choosing to dress as feminine doesn’t really seem to fit the trans label, not saying people can’t identify as trans if they choose to, it just seems a little strange in this case.

FirstMajesticComet, 11 months ago

Personally I think we need to work on not seeing it as hostile at least as quickly as we do. It is very true that many are way too quick to impose a binary view of gender or gender stereotypes onto others. I was egged aggressively when I was younger both due to my androgynous appearance (genetic) and due to the fact I liked to wear “girly” clothing and had long hair (still do). Honestly as an Agender it really felt shitty to be told constantly that I “must be a girl” because of stupid arbitrary gender stereotypes.

So I say we should be more open about gender, not to say that people can’t be a Man or a Woman if they identify that way, but that they are only if they identify that way. Gender stereotypes do not define us and we shouldn’t imply that they do, it’s dangerous and hurtful (it even comes back to bite Binary trans people too, i.e. transmasc femboys who get called a girl for wearing “girly” clothes).

FirstMajesticComet, 11 months ago

Absolutely, couldn’t agree more.

FirstMajesticComet, 11 months ago

It’s Riley, my name is Riley.

FirstMajesticComet, 11 months ago

Eh I prefer Alternative Rock, JRock, Jpop, and occasionally Jazz.

FirstMajesticComet, 11 months ago

Yep I did that to my school Chromebook, they never asked for it back when I graduated and being a broke college student I decided to UEFI flash it and use it as a cheap Linux Computer, still using it now. It’s not the fastest laptop but it’s certainly good enough. It’s really dumb that they enforce software expiration dates on these PCs when they’re probably fully capable of running the next version perfectly fine.

FirstMajesticComet, 11 months ago

(prevents unenrolling and prevents sideloading Linux)

Should note that it’s not completely foolproof, I know because I bypassed it. It’s just not easy and technically you can get in trouble for it. Never got a ‘vacation’ for it though 😕

FirstMajesticComet, 11 months ago

FYI Most Chromebooks are Intel CPU computers, there are a few arm based ones but majority are Intel x86_64.

FirstMajesticComet, 11 months ago

Light bulbs aren’t planned obsolescence though, he even said as much in the video, light bulbs more akin to dish-soap which eventually runs out then a device made to be obsolete faster. They are consumable items, which run out or burn out, they are not expensive appliances with long lives, hell he even pointed out that some utilities gave them away for free.

FirstMajesticComet, 11 months ago

I would agree that if you’re looking to buy a cheap computer an older Thinkpad beats a Chromebook by a long shot. Main benefit to Chromebooks is that if you get lucky you can obtain them for free, mine was permanently loaned to me by my high school (I didn’t technically steal it from them, they just never asked for it back). I would’ve much preferred an old Thinkpad with Coreboot but the Chromebook was free so I can’t really complain.

FirstMajesticComet, 11 months ago

Aren’t most Chromebooks out there Intel CPUs and essentially PC hardware? I know there are a few arm ones but it’s not most of them.

FirstMajesticComet, 11 months ago

I never tried using WIndows on my Chromebook before, heard that it really performs badly on Chromebook hardware. You might have better luck with Linux if the error is happening in Windows so it might be worth giving it a shot.

FirstMajesticComet, 11 months ago

It sure is a good thing I learned very quickly to directly oppose egg arguments made against me rather than try and justify why I don’t want to be a girl. Indirect Dysphoria arguments are awful, and you can’t get out of them with any kind of formal politeness, it’ll just be turned around against you and labeled as “indirect dysphoria”.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

For the love of god use Tor with tails, or at least just Tor on its own. Even that’s probably overkill, but with telemetry monsters like Reddit it doesn’t hurt to go above and beyond.

Generally the tracking Reddit does is this:

• Cookies
• Cross site tracking (just like Facebook does)
• Canvas Data and User agent (including browser window size)
• IP address (generally the last thing they target to prevent cross-bans on public WiFi and universities)

Replacing a laptop isn’t necessary to get around it, this is a lie spread by moderators (and also admins in some cases) trying to mystify the ban evasion detection system in an effort to curb ban evasion. Using a private browser that limits information is usually sufficient, using Tor is very effective, and using Tor with tails is insanely effective if maybe a tiny bit overkill.

FirstMajesticComet, 10 months ago

OP it’s not difficult at all, you’re just doing it wrong. Keep the fingerprint blocking browser but put it on a proxy or VPN network to remove IP address associations, or to just use Tor.

Tor is simpler and has redundancies and features that make tracking incredibly difficult, not impossible (don’t use it to commit crimes) but essentially impossible for someone like Reddit. Funnily enough they actually indirectly endorse this since they actually have their own onion site, which is hilarious but also convenient.

As for why they do it that way, I’m not really sure. The idea of “ban evasion” policies seems pretty laughable in my opinion more like they’re asking nicely not to do it. It’s even more laughable since they handed the bypass tools to us on a silver platter by allowing us to access Reddit without even touching an exit node via their onion site. It’s really strange of them.