5 ms·

I remember around 10 years ago people were calling Stallman paranoid for this. Now he seems more like a prophet: >I generally do not connect to web sites from

by swebs 7y ago

I remember around 10 years ago people were calling Stallman paranoid for this. Now he seems more like a prophet: >I generally do not connect to web sites from my own machine, aside from a few sites I have some special relationship with. I usually fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program (see https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/womb/hacks.git https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/womb/hacks.git) that fetches them, much like wget, and then mails them back to me. Then I look at them using a web browser, unless it is easy to see the text in the HTML page directly. I usually try lynx first, then a graphical browser if the page needs it (using konqueror, which won't fetch from other sites in such a situation). https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html

shultays 7y ago
Well, that is a bit paranoid.
- mort96 7y ago
  It's not though? If your goal is to avoid having your every move online tracked by companies hoping to earn money from spying on you, what Stallman does is one of the few strategies which work.
  - shultays 7y ago
    You can take various actions to improve your privacy. At some point it becomes a paranoia. If you are fetching web pages on a remote server and email stuff to yourself then I would say it is becoming paranoia. And I would say what Stallman does probably gives him a very unique fingerprint (wget ting web pages from a unique server). I doubt he is doing that for privacy.
  - ludjer 7y ago
    Well the fact that he uses WGET on a remote server means that its a static ip in a DC most probably. Which means its allot easier to track him. Also considering the amount of pages i go through i would rather have no internet then have to wait for a email for ever page i want to use. Then also half the pages wont work because of no JS.
- Smithalicious 7y ago
  I don't think paranoid is the right word, since it implies some kind of (usually unfounded) fear. I don't get the impression that Stallman is actually afraid of anything in particular; he's just doing this to thwart what he thinks are bad practices. So I'd call it extreme, but not paranoid.
walrus01 7y ago
I mean, if you want to be super paranoid like that there's no need to use a script to fetch webpages into email format. Use some sort of vnc-over-ssh session to a disposable virtual machine hosted 9500 km away, to browse interactively in a GUI, running firefox+sensible privacy extensions inside xfce4/xorg. With the right automation you could have the vm overwrite itself from an image file every day. This could be done on the CPU+RAM+disk resources of a $4.50/month vm. For the purpose of not being tracked by advertising networks (not a nation-state intelligence agency), a stateless vm located on a static ipv4 /32 in bulgaria that saves absolutely no data would be rather hard to track back to its actual user.

by swebs 7y ago

shultays 7y ago

Well, that is a bit paranoid.

mort96 7y ago
It's not though? If your goal is to avoid having your every move online tracked by companies hoping to earn money from spying on you, what Stallman does is one of the few strategies which work.
- shultays 7y ago
  You can take various actions to improve your privacy. At some point it becomes a paranoia. If you are fetching web pages on a remote server and email stuff to yourself then I would say it is becoming paranoia. And I would say what Stallman does probably gives him a very unique fingerprint (wget ting web pages from a unique server). I doubt he is doing that for privacy.
- ludjer 7y ago
  Well the fact that he uses WGET on a remote server means that its a static ip in a DC most probably. Which means its allot easier to track him. Also considering the amount of pages i go through i would rather have no internet then have to wait for a email for ever page i want to use. Then also half the pages wont work because of no JS.
Smithalicious 7y ago
I don't think paranoid is the right word, since it implies some kind of (usually unfounded) fear. I don't get the impression that Stallman is actually afraid of anything in particular; he's just doing this to thwart what he thinks are bad practices. So I'd call it extreme, but not paranoid.

walrus01 7y ago

I mean, if you want to be super paranoid like that there's no need to use a script to fetch webpages into email format. Use some sort of vnc-over-ssh session to a disposable virtual machine hosted 9500 km away, to browse interactively in a GUI, running firefox+sensible privacy extensions inside xfce4/xorg. With the right automation you could have the vm overwrite itself from an image file every day. This could be done on the CPU+RAM+disk resources of a $4.50/month vm. For the purpose of not being tracked by advertising networks (not a nation-state intelligence agency), a stateless vm located on a static ipv4 /32 in bulgaria that saves absolutely no data would be rather hard to track back to its actual user.