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Goofy question, I also got this email and am trying to go through the process. However no emailed ever make it to my inbox.

Is Blackblaze getting flooded with these requests? I'm also a bit confused at the decision here. :)


Basically yes, so they are a bit slow to send. We reset quite a few passwords so the system is overloaded a bit. More details from our CISO on our subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/backblaze/comments/1j67bte/comment/....


Mixnet would be a solution. Like what you described, have inbound packets held for some period of time and released as a group so that you cannot as easily correlate the inbound and outbound traffic.

The downside is that it gets much slower, and feels 'bad' as an end user. Each packet takes longer.


Why do all of these new VPN solutions want some form of Crypto payment that has to go through KYC regulations to acquire... doesn't that somewhat defeat the purpose?

Mullvad with cash seems like a super ideal way to go. Why can't I just mail you $20 and call it a day?


There are a couple of options for acquiring crypto without KYC. One might sell goods and services for crypto (I have done it myself, sold a videogame console P2P through a local libertarian group chat), or buy crypto with cash via P2P or in a country with looser KYC laws, and lastly they could just mine it themselves. Having significant money through mining might seem improbable, but we can't forget the market dynamics, someone might have mined a lot of some altcoin before a big boom (e.g. dogecoin) and ended up rich overnight.

Also, let's not forget Monero. Even if you buy Monero in a KYC exchange, the letterbois can only track if you've bought, but can't track where you send it to next. You could then exchange it for bitcoin with someone or using a non-KYC service, and there you have it, an anonymous BTC reserve. Or you could just bypass BTC altogether and use the much superior Monero to buy whatever you want.


That whole comment is "With a way harder method than going to the ATM".

I understand that it's possible to get crypto through obscure methods. However if you're selling a privacy focused solution, ideally you shouldn't have to spend 3-4 weeks to acquire the funds to purchase it.


I agree cash is currently king, but we need a crypto (or even better, Monero) economy if we are going to maintain financial privacy in the long run. In the event of a full transition to a Central Bank Digital Currency, like the EU is discussing and Brazil has already announced, cash will not be private anymore, as any physical bills will be just tokens for the underlying digital currency, which is tracked by the government.


You mean Aha! isn't hiring 100 people in 100 locations world wide at all times?


The one person I know who worked there was very disillusioned.


Whomever has this fake certificate can run a server and say it's google.com and windows will say "yep you are" with the little green lock.


Where? In Edge you mean?


And everything that uses the OS trust store, when run on Windows, I assume.


The certificate is for a specific IP address, no?

And without DNS pointing google.com to that IP address, it's pretty useless.


Nope, certificates are issued for CNs(Common Name), also known as FQDNs (Fully qualified domain names). Something such as *.google.com, not IP addresses.

If they were issued for IP addresses they would have to reissue the certificate every time they spun up a new server. Also it's why if you spin up another server and make DNS point google.com to that server, it would not pass verification since the certificate you will be using on that server is not issued to *.google.com, but rather some other domain you own. The IP address plays no role in certificates.


Nit: a CN (stored in the Subject field of a cert) is not an FQDN, though historically web browsers treated them as such. This practice is now deprecated. Modern practice is for the domain name(s) to be placed in the Subject Alternative Name (SAN) field.

The Subject field is not consulted so long as the SAN field is present, and can in theory be any X.500 Distinguished Name, of which Common Name is one possible attribute, which may be any freeform string of a limited length (though it is typically set to the primary domain the cert is issued for, for easy identification).


Certificates can be issued to IP addresses (at least on SAN level, not sure if they are allowed in CN in CA/B baseline requirements), like https://crt.sh/?id=15492507462


That is different in context to what was being asked though.


> And without DNS pointing google.com to that IP address, it's pretty useless.

On the internet itself maybe, but you can still MITM people on some network, right?


How is this any different than the other 1,000 "encrypted chat" solutions?


This has been used by doctors and is not free - this is how I found it.


My doctor can barely use a mouse let alone comment on surveillance technology


Ideally for transit you vaccum seal it. Then they can't 100% predict how the beans will shift undergoing the compression.


It is true, games were present but it wasn't in the objectives of the hardware manufacturers to have "better game support" at this time.


Extreme claims require extreme evidence. The claim they have is that they were targeted directly, and signals encryption was broken (or signal elected to steal the data?)

I've never heard of these people or their "legacy chat application" that would be worthy of compromising signal. And they are trying to sell their chat application bundled on a VPN as "airgapped" from the internet.

Kinda feeling BS on this one.


Why not just stop using YouTube?


I would love to do that but unfortunately Network effect means that a lot of creators don't upload their video anywhere else. It is unfortunately becoming the default for everything.

I paid for Vimeo and other services in the past. But I will not pay for Youtube/Google


So you want their free hosting, but don't want to pay for it either directly, or indirectly?


YouTube spent about ten years convincing their users that videos will be offered with only unobtrusive banner ads or short, pre-video ads. Then once the network effects were safely locked in, they changed it to a protection racket where multiple loud, frequently offensive ads (including for scams!) will interrupt a one-minute video and new ads are triggered by so much as rewinding, but you can pay to not see them.

I'd much rather support a different platform, myself.


Who asked for Google to be the custodian of our culture? I don’t owe them rent just because they were so presumptuous to put themselves into that position.

There used to be a thriving variety of video hosting sites.


That's exactly how I feel as well. I don't want them to be the default but here we are.

And I'm definitely not going to pay which would encourage/send the signal that this is what we want.


For me, it's not the concept of paying. I'd gladly pay someone to host YouTube. I just don't think paying Google is a good thing.


Yes. I'm fine with them dying and a better company taking over that I would then support.


If they weren't already stealing my data, I'd gladly pay them for ad-free. My data is worth far more to me and goog won't even offer me an option to not steal it because it is worth far more to them as well.


Yes.


That’s the 21st century equivalent of becoming an ascetic monk.


That’s like asking a large segment of the population to stop using the Internet altogether. YouTube is basically a utility now, you can’t avoid it in many cases.


Or just pay for premium (it’s worth it)


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