Thank you for your attention to this matter!

Looks familiar. Philadelphia on No Kings Day June 14, 2025:

Nothing’s computer. :(

Oops! Looks like I have an incredibly severe mental health disorder. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to treat it.

Unless… maybe I can bring light or bleach into my body - almost like a cleaning. You know, to stop this disorder? I heard Trump’s team is looking into that. Should be interesting.

HTTPS with no VPN:

You trust the web site to encrypt your data if and only if the web site has properly implemented encryption along with encrypted DNS traffic. Sometimes you make a connection to HTTP before you’re redirected to HTTPS. Your ISP can see what web sites you visit, but the ISP can’t see what you’re doing because the traffic is encrypted so long as encryption is implemented correctly. ISP knows you went to https://www.website.com/.

Conclusion: Your ISP knows exactly what web sites you visit, but can’t see what you’re doing on the web site (if encryption is properly configured by the web site provider).

HTTP or HTTPS with trusted VPN (e.g., Mullvad):

You trust the VPN provider. Your connections are encrypted entirely. Your ISP can’t see what web sites you’re visiting nor can they interpret your traffic.

Conclusion: Your ISP is completely blind to what you’re doing and where you’re going.

ExpressVPN:

"HTTPS is essential for security, but it can only do so much. Don’t fall into a false sense of security—there are limitations to HTTPS protection:

• HTTPS doesn’t hide what websites you visit. Your ISP or network provider can still see which sites you access, even if they can’t view what you do on them.
• HTTPS won’t protect data stored on a website. If a site suffers a data breach, HTTPS won’t prevent hackers from accessing your saved information.
• HTTPS cannot encrypt all your internet traffic. It only secures connections between your browser and a site—not your entire internet activity.
• You have no control over HTTPS. The protocol is set by website owners, so if you visit a website without HTTPS protection, there is no way for you to enable it." Source: https://www.expressvpn.com/blog/https-vs-vpn/

PureVPN:

"HTTPS:

• Encrypts data between your browser and websites.
• Protects against eavesdropping on web transactions.
• Activated automatically with ‘https://’ VPN:
• Encrypts and routes all internet traffic, including from apps.
• Protects the entire internet connection. A VPN is used to establish an encrypted connection - also referred to as tunnel - between your device and unsecure network like the Internet. Since all your traffic goes through the VPN’s server rather than that of your ISP, nobody can find out what you’re up to online. What HTTPS Cannot Do?
• Hide Your IP Address: HTTPS doesn’t mask your IP address. Websites and your ISP can still see your IP and location, whereas a VPN hides your IP, making your online presence more anonymous.
• Encrypt All Internet Traffic: HTTPS only secures data between your browser and websites. A VPN encrypts all your internet traffic, including apps and services outside your browser.
• Prevent ISP Tracking: Your ISP can still see which sites you visit with HTTPS, they just can’t see the exact content. A VPN encrypts all your traffic, preventing ISPs from tracking your web activities. https://www.purevpn.com/blog/https-vs-vpn/

Here are more sources I won’t quote, but you can read:

• https://www.zdnet.com/article/reader-question-answered-if-i-have-https-do-i-need-a-vpn/
• https://nordvpn.com/blog/https-vs-vpn/
• Mullvad. This is more advanced as the article is targeted to technical users. However, it explains how they handle encrypted DNS in their services: https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls

Great input and you’re absolutely correct. Very important to safeguard backups.

Use of a VPN depends on your privacy threat model.

Using VPN at all times while using the internet like one normally does is beneficial only to the extent that you encrypt your traffic and prevent your ISP from spying on you… mostly. But if you’re logging into known accounts associated with you, then it’s a moot point. Your traffic is encrypted, but your use of services leaves an easy to follow cookie trail of where you’ve been.

If your privacy threat model is much more serious, then you wouldn’t login to any known accounts while on your VPN. You wouldn’t use services that can be pinpointed to you.

Hence, use a VPN to your discretion. If you generally don’t want your ISP spying on you, keeping it on is always best practice. If you have more things to hide, you’d want to use Tor while on VPN and of course don’t use any services that could be linked to you.

Nothing much you can do except make it harder for nefarious parties to get your information. If you’re in the U.S. most of your information is public. With two pieces of info about you, you’re one Google search away from your name, physical address, schools you went to, where you’re employed, etc. You can’t stop this, so just make it harder when your data does get leaked.

Here are my best practices:

• Own my email domain name and use it for generating unlimited random aliases.
• Update old accounts using a random alias.
• Generate random usernames using a proper username generator. Unique username per account.
• If an old account email can’t be updated, changed, or deleted, spoil the information in their system by using fake info and then abandon the account (Anon O’Moose, 1234 Fake Street, Beverly Hills, CA 90210).
• One email alias per account - never shared.
• Unique passwords via a password manager (e.g., passwords like ‘Obtuse4-Entangle-Matrix’).
• Enable TOTP multi-factor authentication wherever possible.
• For legacy security questions, always use a passphrase generator for the answer, and save both the question and answer into your password manager. “In what city did you go to school?”Answer: “Bandit4-Topic-Guardian”.
• Save recovery codes for your accounts into your password manager.
• Leverage virtual credit card numbers if your provider offers it. One virtual card per account - never shared.
• Create accounts only if you have no choice.
• Submit your formal request in Opt Out Prescreen to minimise the sale of your info.
• Delete all centralised social media accounts. Instruct people to text or call you.
• Switch to Linux completely if you can. Get off Windows and Mac where possible.
• Get off iOS if you can and try to run a proper trusted degoogled OS where possible. You can experiment with Linux phones in the future, but right now it’s not mature enough yet nor is it as secure as something like Graphene OS on Pixel phones.
• Get all your data on prem only. If you choose to backup some data for safeguarding online, encrypt it before you upload it.
• If your phone number has been leaked and you’re getting multi factor code requests, excessive spam, etc. consider setting up a new phone line with new number. Then update all your accounts, employer, government records, etc. to point to the new phone number. Let your contacts know. Once satisfied, deactivate your old phone number.
• Minimise posting any personal details about yourself online. Never identify physical locations. Make up fake details about yourself, your employment, etc. Make yourself a little more anonymous by providing fake information. One day you have a pet, another day you’ve never had pets, one day you’re divorced, another day you’re 18 years old, etc. Strive to be consistently inconsistent with the data you post about yourself online. Lots of things I’ve said on Lemmy about myself are untrue, while some things are true. It’s important to not reveal personal identifiers as it is trivial for a determined actor to correlate data and pinpoint who you are.
• Never, ever have any usernames, passwords, email addresses, or security questions that have any meaningful information related to you. ALWAYS use random generators. There is only one password you need to remember, and that is the one password to your password manager. Write it down on paper using pencil (graphite lasts longer than ink) and stick it in a safe.
• Use a VPN properly and with discretion, based on your privacy threat model.

The Regime: “It’s preventable as long as you accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and bury those problems deep inside. No, deeper. Now shut up and get back to work.”

Archived article: https://archive.is/rDbgD

In the age of information take-downs by the Fanta Menace’s Nazi regime, make sure to archive this and mirror it to Peertube and Archive.org.

YouTube link (for now, it will probably disappear in the next 48 hours): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDJaymU2hfw

You can also find this on Archive.org. I won’t put the link here to help protect it from takedowns. If you have the capacity to do so, seed the torrent. Don’t let the world forget of this hilarious clown-show.

And remember - you probably feel empathy witnessing someone get bullied like this. But don’t forget what this James Bond villain is responsible for, the havoc he has caused, and the millions of lives he has disrupted. Harden your heart because these facists will NEVER change. Cyberdump man-baby emerald mine fascist Nazi jumping Tesla man deserves to get cyberbullied, and at points in the video he looks like he is going to cry; those are Crocodile Tears. He’ll hide the pain with his hundreds of billions of dollars, memes, and ketamine while sitting in his ivory tower resting his feet on Trump’s back.

MAGA:

• Vandalise Tesla. ✋ Terrorist
• Vandalise the U.S. Capitol. 👌 Patriot

Yes, but he’s really good at weaving. He said so himself. And man those words hit extra hard when punctuated by tiny accordion hands!

No prob at all dude! I just wanted to add the additional context in case some other persons stumbled upon these comments, were confused, and so they can get some more information on different browser options out there. Candidly, I only learned about Mull vs Mullvad Browser this week when I was researching what non-chromium browser to switch to next.

Mull Browser != Mullvad Browser. Just to be clear. I’m adding this context because your reply was regarding a thread on Mullvad Browser, and you replied with details about Mull.

For anyone else reading this comment: Mull browser is from DivestOS and deprecated. Firefox fork. Mull was forked by the community into IronFox.

Mullvad Browser is still alive and kicking, developed by Mullvad the VPN provider. Developed in partnership with Tor Browser, also a fork of Firefox.

If you’re stuck with Windows for corporate-issued computers, the next time this happens you can abort shutdowns in Windows.

Command Prompt:

shutdown /a

Saved me several times over the years.

Rep. Mark Alford: “God has a plan!”

The plan: No such file or directory

Do it. It’s very straightforward.

• Buy a domain.
• Edit the DNS records to make your provider work with your domain.
• In Tuta (or even an alias service like Addy), create new emails using your custom domain.
• Done.

Whenever you need to switch providers such as if Tuta decides to support fascism like Proton’s CEO, you can easily switch to a new provider. Then add your domain to the provider, update your DNS records to point to your new provider, click Save. Done. And you won’t have to change your email addresses ever again.

Just an FYI that the Smart cancer has already began infecting computer monitors. It won’t be long until there are no more dumb monitors.

Samsung and LG make smart computer monitors. There are probably many others.

Wow I never knew about this utility! I downloaded one for my smartphone and it’s extremely straightforward. You can even set up reminders so that it’ll notify you when you should spend 5 minutes calling your reps.

I’ll have to verify the scripts that I see, but it looks like it’s as simple as giving you the name of the rep, a script to read, a phone number to click so you can call them, and a logging utility so that you can just click the Next button and move on to the next rep. Makes it stupid easy to let your reps hear your voice and stance. Definitely going to try this out as I’ve been feeling so powerless and overwhelmed by the onslaught of these racists in power.

Thanks for sharing this. I had no idea it was this easy to track everything and make it simpler for me to try to fight back.

Edit: on mobile so fixed some typos