freedomPusher

joined 3 years ago
MODERATOR OF
[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

One of the big problems social and collaboration platforms is people go to where the people are, like Lemmings, with disregard to principles and ethics. I go to the ethical venues regardless of where the people are. Instead of feeding a harmful network effect, I would rather feed free and open spaces. If I were to contribute to MS Github, I would have to consider myself part of the problem.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

That bug tracker is in MS Github - a place I will not go. And I have yet to find an organised or simple way to find downstream trackers. I generally check Debian but when a pkg is not in official Debian then I report to [email protected] and [email protected].

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Did you report the bugs on the Lemmy github?

No, and I wouldn’t. I created this community specifically for reporting bugs when bug trackers are in bad places like Github:

[email protected]

Most people are indeed probably using Firefox

The cross-posting problem is specific to Tor Browser, which is Firefox based. But that one was fixed in 0.19.5.

I was actually shocked to recently learn many are using their phones, which often means 3rd party apps (and which would not have any of the stock UI bugs).

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (5 children)

0.19.5 only fixes one of the 4 bugs (cross-posting). None of them seem to be mentioned in the change notes.

141 servers are already running 0.19.5

Ungoogled Chromium and Tor Browser are perhaps less popular than they should be.

 

In both Lemmy 0.19.4 and Lemmy 0.19.5, you click the magnifying glass to open the search dialog. If you enter a search query and tab out of the field, whatever you typed is cleared. Even if you simply hit <enter> without tabbing out of the query field, the search form is refreshed and it tells you enter a query, as if you had not done so already.

Both versions have this problem with Ungoogled Chromium. The problem does not manifest on Tor Browser.

 

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/14184367

Lemmy version 0.19.4 introduces 3 relatively intolerable bugs, and 0.19.5 only fixes one of them.

 

Lemmy version 0.19.4 introduces ~~3~~ 4 relatively intolerable bugs, and 0.19.5 only fixes one of them.

 

This bug was introduced with version 0.19.4 and still persists in 0.19.5: There are four possible timeline views:

  • subscribed
  • local
  • all
  • moderator view

That selector is broken in Ungoogled Chromium 112.0 but not in Firefox-based browsers. In UC, clicking “moderator view” highlights the button, the page refreshes, but the selector does not stick. It snaps back to whatever view is the default and remains trapped on that timeline.

This problem is replicated in both 0.19.4 and 0.19.5 instances.

 

If I use the cross-post feature to copy the post elsewhere, the form is populated just fine but then I have to search for the target community at the bottom of the form. As soon as I select the target community, the whole rest of the form clears. If another field is re-populated, the target community field clears. So only one field at a time can be populated.

Tested with Tor Browser.

Untested in Lemmy 0.19.5.

 

Lemmy 0.19.4 introduced a quite serious defect whereby if you are using Ungoogled Chromium (and perhaps stock Chromium), the form to create a new post accepts input but then the instant you tab out of the field, the whole field is cleared. Poof… just like that, all your work vanishes and no way to get it back.

Firefox-based browsers have no issue.

~~Lemmy 0.19.5 seems to have fixed it.~~ But there are other problems with both 0.19.4 and 0.19.5, so I suggest not upgrading past 0.19.3.

(edit) actually the problem manifests differently in 0.19.5. The form can be filled out and there is no data loss, but the “create” button is insensitive. It remains gray and behaves as if the form is still empty.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Yes, that’s a good tip and I use it. But that doesn’t replace the search tool on the stock Lemmy app of the instance. Usually lemmyverse is just a precursor to a localized search.

When you cross-post, there is a pull-down search dialog that has a quite limited number of slots and they’re often filled up with centralised instances. Then it becomes a pain to cross-post. The only other option is to use the full screen search page to go straight to the target community, then paste everything over.

Lately lemmyverse craps out a lot, likely due to popular demand.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

They are centralised in the walled garden of Cloudflare. Access to all those instances is dictated by a gatekeeping tech giant in the US who excludes several demographics of people. Lemmy World and some of the others are also centralised by disproportionate size, which is enabled by Cloudflare with no sense of self control on growth.

Ethical users who are informed about Cloudflare avoid those centralised instances. The purpose of the fedi is to balance power. Those instances represent an attack on that principle. In principle it’s not much different than doing a community search and getting half a screen full of Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn links.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

FCC blocks Tor so I can’t see the page, but I just wanted to mention a hack if number porting is refused for some reason (based on @[email protected]’s hint that it could be): downgrade the vz contract to the full extent possible (ideally make it a prepaid acct if that’s possible, so you can nix the monthly fee). Then dial whatever magic code forwards your vz number to your new number.

 

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/14087065

One quite annoying Lemmy behaviour is when you search for a community that has many results spanning multiple screens (e.g. query “software”), the list is largely clusterfucked with crappy centralised instances that go against the #fedi philosophy (e.g. #lemmyWorld, #ShItjustWorks, #lemmyCa, #LemmyZip, #programmingDev, etc).

I discovered a fix: ctrl-rt-click on every community in the list to open each in a tab. Then click “block community”, then repeat the search. It works the way it should: blocked communities are excluded from search results.

Wish I realised that sooner.. would have saved me some effort and frustration in trying to search only for communities in the decentralised free world.

 

One quite annoying Lemmy behaviour is when you search for a community that has many results spanning multiple screens (e.g. query “software”), the list is largely clusterfucked with crappy centralised instances that go against the #fedi philosophy (e.g. #lemmyWorld, #ShItjustWorks, #lemmyCa, #LemmEE, #LemmyZip, #programmingDev, etc).

I discovered a fix: ctrl-rt-click on every community in the list to open each in a tab. Then click “block community”, then repeat the search. It works the way it should: blocked communities are excluded from search results.

Wish I realised that sooner.. would have saved me some effort and frustration in trying to search only for communities in the decentralised free world.

 

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/13985430

The problem:

Most #fedi authors post links with no idea if the hosting server discriminates against people, or who. The consequence is that the fedi is muddied with references to exclusive venues that do not treat people equally, which wastes the time of readers who are impacted by discrimination. A variety of walled gardens pollute our threadiverse experience. So how can we remedy this?

Proposed fix:

Suppose we create a community and designate it as a testing area which welcomes bots. So e.g. I post something in the test community, and a bot that is paywall-aware replies yes or no whether the link is paywall-free. A bot that is Cloudflare-aware does the same. A regional bot, such as a bot in Poland can check that Polish IP addresses can reach the URL and make noise if the website blocks Poland. Etc. It need not be just bots.. someone in some oppressed region might manually attempt to visit links and report access problems. We would certainly like a bot in a GDPR region to test whether access is refused on the basis of a data controller’s unwillingness to respect GDPR rules. The OONI project could have a bot that reports anything interesting in their database.

There could also be anti-enshitification bots, which point out things like cookie walls.

There are bots that find better links to replace Cloudflare links. Those bots could help direct authors to better URLs to share.

There could be a TL-DR bot that replies with a summary or even the full text, so an author can decide before posting in the target community whether to omit a shitty link and just post the content.


(update) It’s worth noting that for Mastodon there an ad hoc tool. If you follow @[email protected], that bot will follow you back and analyze every URL you share for whether it is Cloudflared. If yes, it will DM you with alternative URLs.

Note that the mitigator bot is quite loose it its judgement. If the host is not Cloudflared but another host on the same domain is Cloudflared, it is treated as a positive because it’s assumed that when you visit the host it will link to other hosts on the same domain.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

So not what their running debt is but only whether they can take on a new, specific one.

I knew the criteria was out of the hands of EU-based lenders, but didn’t realise the data is also out of reach to the lender. I suppose it makes sense that the lender would get no info other than a yes or no, if lenders have no discretion.

I noticed A shop had a rediculously priced phone (like €800+, something I would never buy) but advertised something like €9 if you take a contract. So it’s effectively a loan factored into a locked-in phone service plan. IIUC, the phone shop must arrange that with a bank and does not have the option of taking on risk, and then the bank asks the central bank if customer X can handle that loan, correct?

You can reverse payments through the bank in the EU as well but it’s seldom necessary, since the companies tend to revert the charge willingly when confronted by the consumer protection bureaus.

I’ve only had to resort to bank reverse a couple if times.

One was when I ordered a pair of shoes of what appeared to be an Italian website. It later turned out it was a scam site that listed popular models that were not made anymore and then sent you a ridiculously poorly made knock-off copy from China. I explained the issue to my bank and showed the knockoffs I got and a week or so later the charge was reversed.

That’s quite a surprise. I heard SWIFT/IBAN transfers were permanent and irreversable. I heard of mistakes being corrected but it required the two banks to collude and the bank of the recipient to do a money grab on their account, which I suppose would be impossible if a criminal closes their account. I wonder if your bank took a loss or if they colluded with the other bank. IIRC, banks have a minimum “investigation” fee of like €25 plus an hourly rate to pay bankers to deal with bad transactions. Did your bank offer that service for free?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

The only similar things I know is the central bank keeping a listing of “unpaid credit” which make ban you from getting any new credit for a certain time.

Indeed that’s what I’m talking about. In Belgium it seems consumers have no control over whether a creditor can access the central bank’s records. Apparently the central bank simply trusts that creditors are checking records in response to an application for credit. I would like to know if any EU countries make use of an access code so consumers can control which creditors can see their records.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

I don’t mean to imply anything about scoring, but certainly there must be some kind of mechanism to expose bad debtors to lenders.

In Belgium, there are no private credit bureaus but there is a central bank. Belgian banks are obligated to report loan defaults and cash transactions to the central bank, and creditors are obligated to check the central bank’s records. Consumers have no way to control creditors access to their records in the central bank. It seems to be trust based. The central bank apparently trusts that a creditor is checking a consumer’s file in connection with an application for credit by the consumer.

 

In the US, consumers can freeze their credit worthiness records and receive a code. When the records are frozen, the only orgs that can access the records are those already doing business with the consumer. If a consumer wants to open up a new account, they share the code with the prospective creditor who uses it to see the credit report.

So the question is, how are access controls on credit histories done in various EU nations? Do any use unlock codes like the US, or is it all trust based?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I wasn’t aware of the “Privacy Shield”, but the article mentions that:

“In the Schrems II judgement, the CJEU raised several points regarding the U.S. intelligence agencies’ access to EU data. The EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework tackles them and includes significant improvements compared to the mechanism having existed under the Privacy Shield.”

Found this and this to help me catch up on this.

(edit) in this doc I counted 81 “should”s and 33 “shall”s, to get an idea of the strength.

 

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/14006758

Yikes.

“In the adequacy decision, the European Commission estimated that the U.S. ensures a level of protection for personal data transferred from the EU to U.S companies under the new framework that is essentially equivalent to the level of protection within the European Union.” (emphasis added)

Does the EU disregard the Snowden revelations?

And what a missed opportunity. California state specifically has some kind of GDPR analogue, so it might be reasonable if CA specifically were to satisfy an adequacy decision, (still a stretch) but certainly not the rest of the country. Such a move could have motivated more US states to do the necessary.

I must say I’ve lost some confidence and respect for the #GDPR.

 

Yikes.

“In the adequacy decision, the European Commission estimated that the U.S. ensures a level of protection for personal data transferred from the EU to U.S companies under the new framework that is essentially equivalent to the level of protection within the European Union.” (emphasis added)

Does the EU disregard the Snowden revelations?

And what a missed opportunity. California state specifically has some kind of GDPR analogue, so it might be reasonable if CA specifically were to satisfy an adequacy decision, (still a stretch) but certainly not the rest of the country. Such a move could have motivated more US states to do the necessary.

I must say I’ve lost some confidence and respect for the #GDPR.

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