OT: Is the internet broken today?

Loadsa money going into puffing Charlie Kirk from both sides of the moat.

Everybody wants to grind their axes

Me? I'm a soft right conservative. I probably wouldn't have liked him but I like even less the Left celebrating his death,.

Speaking as a soft leftie[1] who would have called himself Labour back in the days when there was a Labour Party, I agree with you about the attitude of the extreme left. But I also abhor the extreme right who have also been itching for an excuse for a violent response.

When they appoint me Prime Minister, I'll appoint a government of all the talents from the moderate right through to the moderate left because I think we folk in the middle can work well with each other and benefit from the range of views we represent. But when I say a government of all the talents I'm not including any of the current crop who I consider to all be talentless.

Nick [1]There! That came as a surprise, didn't it?[2] [2]And it might also come as a surprise to find I stand much further to the right in Argentina because left and right work differently over there.

Here is a picture from a Linux. ISP is Canadian. Browser session looks normal. I don't own a smartphone. Not interested.

The following examples, are from the Linux VM in the picture, which is a frozen one that gets (clean-reloaded) each time it is transferred from cold storage. That's why I only have the Google DOM storage and not 40 others. Once the picture is taken, the folder will be deleted.

/home/bullwinkle/.mozilla/firefox/i1yckn2o.default-release/storage/default https+++www.google.com <=== DOM storage folder

/home/bullwinkle/.mozilla/firefox/i1yckn2o.default-release/ cookies.sqlite 512KB <=== can grow to 1536KB cookies.sqlite-wal 0 (journal file for dirty shutdowns) webappsstore.sqlite 96K <=== can grow to 10MB before it becomes slow webappsstore.sqlite-wal 0 (journal file for dirty shutdowns)

For your Android phone, switch off sucking from the Wifi data, and go back to 4G operation and rerun the test.

When exploits like this happen, they are from provocateurs like Russians etc. You know the drill.

Examine network tree for equipment known to have exploits.

Switch to DOH and retest. There's got to be some way to beat the bastards.

I will be perfectly honest with you, Paul, my comprehension of many of the words and acronyms you've used is minimal and when they are incorporated in sentences it is barely higher than nil.

The John Fletcher I was looking for is the dramatist mentioned here:

My Linux and Firefox are completely up to date. The Android is laughable: it's over ten years old and has never been connected to a mobile network and has never had a SIM installed: I bought it as a cheaper alternative to a Skype phone and now that 3G signal is no longer available here, I couldn't use it on a mobile network if I wanted to. I use private/incognito browser settings so all cookies and history ought to be deleted on exit.

I guess this must be pointing to my router/modem - a Cudy LT500 connected to the "3" mobile network. All the default passwords were changed before it was first used. Maybe it's time to reset it and change all the passwords again.

Thanks,

Nick

You might be fighting an out-of-date battle!

The new struggle is between the Cosmopolitan Globalists and the Communitarian Nationalists.

It could be said that one of the skirmishes playing out between these two groups did so at the Bell Hotel in Epping. The local people, concerned for the safety of women and girls were the Communitarians, and the forces of the Globalists, acting through the police, were ranged against them.

It was notable that at the protests held throughout the country on one particular day, the police, doubtless obeying their masters, turned nasty, trying to goad individual protesters into a reactions for which they could be arrested in an unnecessarily rough manner.

The old Left-Centre-Right spectrum has gone, but the concept is kept alive because it acts as a cover for the Globalists. Meanwhile, the Communitarians have to take to the streets to get their voices heard.

You can easily see that the Google search AI summary is repeating what AI is producing when it comes to some of the misleading B******t content on social media, especially Facebook.

The trouble with me is that I'm an idealist. I think democracy is a great idea but I'm well aware that, even if you say that it started in ancient Greece, it's still only a moment in human history and if you say it really began in the twentieth century then it's less than the blink of an eye.

Nick

I just googled "Linux mint miracast" and was told that it refers to a restaurant which does a speciality mint dessert.

I didn't get that at all.

The search term 'TV Playright John Fletcher' came up with this,m using DuckDuckGo:

I don't get anything like you mentioned - just boring stuff about butter and playwrights.

But I think this is basic internet hygiene:

- run a blocker browser addon. UBlock Origin (note the Origin bit) is good. The ads are annoying but aren't the main problem, the spying/tracking is. (not all adblockers also block spying)

- don't login to sites unnecessarily. If you are logged in, it defeats your anti-tracking

- run data slurpers like Facebook and Google in Incognito windows so they don't infect your other browsing and track you across sites. Especially if you are going to log into them, don't let them near your other browsing.

- being able to turn off Javascript on a per site basis is handy to get around annoying popups and paywalls (uBO and Brave have a button for that)

Firefox + uBO on Linux is a good combination. On Android I'd likely recommend the Brave browser which has built in adblocking, with Firefox + uBO coming in second. I think you may have to jump through some hoops to install extensions on Android FF, I can't remember (I do have it working there). No idea if they'll work on your ancient Android, but will likely be better than whatever default browser it has.

But I might gently suggest that if you're going to run a phone you run one that's reasonably up to date. De-tracking your phone is harder (especially if you are logged into the Google mothership), but stock Android is worst - GrapheneOS is a much better replacement from a security/privacy point of view (with some downsides, not least that it only runs on Pixel phones with the 6 onwards in current support). If you don't want to go down aftermarket OS route then iOS isn't as bad as stock Android.

Theo

DuckDuckGo provides App Tracking protection as well as browser blocking.

i would have been astounded if you did. "AI" results are transient and hard to replicate. As well as being s**te.

I've just asked Deepseek a question. It answered. I asked a follow up question and it created a new reply because it doesn't remember what you or it said previously.

Do you get different results if you do the search in an "incognito" window?

LLMs choose their output randomly from a distribution based on the training data. The same question can produce entirely different answers for no reason other than that randomness.

-- Richard

Thanks, Theo, all duly noted.

The Android thing is a bit of a distraction because I don't and never have used it as a phone: I simply find it handy as a kind-of mini-tablet around the house on my wi-fi. My real phone is a 4G Nokia but I still use a 2G/GSM phone for 2FA because so many companies have that number and it is so ancient it can't be transferred to a modern phone.

Thanks again

Nick

I always do everything in incognito windows anyway. Currently using my spare data SIM in a mi-fi unit while deep-cleaning my regular router. Will see what happens.....

Thanks,

Nick

Athenian democracy was based on slavery - which makes the great press it receives today rather puzzling.