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Joined 2 months ago
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Cake day: April 2nd, 2025

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  • Trying to discredit people because of the forum on which they discussed a topic, or because you view them as beneath your skill level, is a more than a little misguided, and frankly, disingenuous.

    Epic themselves have admitted to copying Steam data and scanning running processes, as has been documented in various news articles. (example, example)

    In any case, the point is not one particular incident or report, but rather that they have the capability, grant themselves permission to use it via their policy documents, and have earned distrust among a lot of gamers. Posting condescending emoji here doesn’t change that.

    Edit: P.S. In future comments defending Epic, you might do readers the courtesy of stating up front that you are moderator of an Epic Games forum.




  • You could download and play the games on a machine that is never used for any other purpose, but it would still be able to collect biometric data (mouse movement, keystroke patterns, voice if you have a microphone, etc.) and probe/fingerprint your network.

    Short of a dedicated machine, the closest you’re likely to get is a hypervisor-based virtual machine. Of course, that won’t safeguard your biometrics or (in most cases) your network, either.

    Such a machine would be safer if you never gave it network access, so it couldn’t exfiltrate any data that it had collected, but downloading games requires network access at some point, and it would only take milliseconds for a “helper” process (perhaps quietly installed or launched with the game) to leak the data.

    In general, hostile code will always be unsafe. If it concerns you, it’s best to avoid it entirely.






  • who@feddit.orgtoPrivacy@lemmy.mlBrowsers are complicit in browser fingerprinting.
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    3 days ago

    Let’s be careful how we phrase things here. JavaScript form submission and navigation are choices, not needs.

    Also, progressive enhancement / graceful degradation exists. When competent developers (or bosses) want script effects on our sites, we can include them and make the sites continue to function with scripts disabled. It might require more work, but it is absolutely possible.

    Framing the script-based approaches to these things as if they were needs contributes to the problem, IMHO.

    (I am referring to the vast majority of web sites, of course, not special-purpose web applications like games.)


  • who@feddit.orgtoPrivacy@lemmy.mlBrowsers are complicit in browser fingerprinting.
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    4 days ago

    Web developers are complicit in browser fingerprinting, by insisting that sites require JavaScript (or WASM).

    All of us are complicit in browser fingerprinting, because we tolerate this script dependence.

    IMHO, a web site being allowed to execute arbitrary code on visitors’ hardware should be an anomaly. The vast majority of them could be built to deliver the same information without requiring that inherently dangerous permission.









  • Last I checked, archive.org usually didn’t work when articles are paywalled. Has that changed?

    In my experience, it depends on when the snapshot is made. If made early enough that the paywall was not yet in place (probably because publishers want their articles to be indexed by search engines) then it will not have the paywall.

    One nice thing about archive.org’s mirroring is that they list all their snapshots of a page by date and time, so if the latest one contains a paywall, you can sometimes go back to the first one and find it with no paywall.



  • If I wanted to do this, I think I would start by getting to know the IT staff. This would:

    • Help me to understand the challenges they face in getting their work done: what’s problematic for them, what’s helpful, what skills they already have, etc. This would eventually guide me in how to approach suggesting changes with minimal friction.
    • Make me a familiar person to them, and allow opportunities to build trust in my skills, knowledge, and judgment. If this is established before I ever suggest a change, it could avoid some of the doubt and resistance that would surely come if a stranger walked up and pushed for changes. I want to be a friend, not a foe.
    • Potentially identify an ally within IT: Someone who might already want to make the switch (perhaps because they’re tired of Microsoft’s BS) or at least agree that it would make sense. An ally on the inside would not only make it easier to get others to seriously consider the change, but also potentially help gather information about how MS Office is currently being used so that I could prepare equivalent LibreOffice workflows for users who need them.

    I suggest taking your time, and saving Linux for later so that it doesn’t create more friction against moving to LibreOffice.