communism

I was interested in hosting my own mail server that provides a similar level of privacy for users as Protonmail, ie the server admin cannot read any emails, even those which are not E2EE with PGP. Is there a self-hostable solution to this?

I'm aware the server admin can't read emails that were sent encrypted using the user's PGP key, but most emails I get are automated emails from companies/services/etc without the option to upload a public key to send the user encrypted email. If you're with a service like Protonmail, the server admin still cannot read even these emails.

I don't own any controllers.

I started playing Dark Souls 3 which I now understand has a controller strongly recommended. I may as well just look into getting a controller of some kind as I have a few games that have somewhat janky kbm controls and are better enjoyed with a controller.

I just wanted to ask for general advice about what controller to get in terms of compatibility. Also if someone has made a controller that's more in the spirit of foss that also works fine with Steam and Proton games that would be nice?

I know Steam is pretty good with Playstation controllers and I used to use a PS controller (don't remember what generation) with some native Linux Steam games, not sure how the whole PS vs Xbox controller thing is affected by running games through Proton if at all? If it matters let me know, and I'll see if I can procure a controller for myself.

You still have to pay for it because it costs money to make. But it's completely open-source beer so you can recreate it yourself if you don't want to buy it pre-made, or you want to modify the recipe.

I have no idea how to make beer otherwise I'd have a crack at this shitpost myself...

I've only ever used desktop Linux and don't have server admin experience (unless you count hosting Minecraft servers on my personal machine lol). Currently using Artix and Void for my desktop computers as I've grown fond of runit.

I'm going to get a VPS for some personal projects and am at the point of deciding what distro I want to use. While I imagine that systemd is generally the best for servers due to the far more widespread support (therefore it's better for the stability needs of a server), I have a somewhat high threat model compared to most people so I was wondering if maybe I should use something like runit instead which is much smaller and less vulnerable. Security needs are also the reason why I'm leaning away from using something like Debian, because how outdated the packages are would likely leave me open to vulnerabilities. Correct me if I'm misunderstanding any of that though.

Other than that I'm not sure what considerations there are to make for my server distro. Maybe a more mainstream distro would be more likely to have the software in its repos that I need to host my various projects. On the other hand, I don't have any experience with, say, Fedora, and it'd probably be a lot easier for me to stick to something I know.

In terms of what I want to do with the VPS, it'll be more general-purpose and hosting a few different projects. Currently thinking of hosting a Matrix instance, a Mastodon instance, a NextCloud instance, an SMTP server, and a light website, but I'm sure I'll want to stick more miscellaneous stuff on there too.

So what distro do you use for your server hosting? What things should I consider when picking a distro?

I've been reading through Signal's government requests and couldn't find a similar section on Mullvad's website. I'd be curious to read about them if there are any. It would seem unlikely to me that Mullvad has never received any kind of court order for information about a user.

There are other FOSS real-time voice changers for Linux, but the others I found either seemed to have fewer features, be less polished, or be abandoned.

I'm not really a voice expert or anything so I'm not sure what aspects of voice a, like, forensic voice analyst or something would look at. I've just changed the pitch and I sound different enough that I wouldn't recognise the voice, which is good enough for me. Open to suggestions as to what effects would give the most privacy in terms of making it harder to identify your voice (while still being intelligible)

Also, for people's reference, if you want mic input to be changed for all apps, go to three dots > Preferences > General > Audio > Process All Input Streams and enable.

I sometimes get linked google docs links and would like to view them without visiting a google site directly.

Digital privacy seems quite straightforward, because your digital devices are environments you more or less can have complete control over if you want to. But when you're out and about, it's a much more uncontrolled environment. There are cameras everywhere.

I wear face masks everywhere for a combo of protecting myself from illness and privacy. But the limitation is social acceptability. If anything good came out of covid it's the normalisation of face masks, but you are far from unidentifiable if your only face covering is a covid mask. We're lucky that sunglasses and hoodies on their own are fairly normal, but all of the above in combination would draw attention to you. And it's definitely not socially acceptable to walk around in a balaclava.

The other thing is forensic data. If you don't wear gloves, you'll leave fingerprints everywhere, and hair too. I suppose wearing gloves is not particularly seen as weird or suspicious, but it just seems like there are a lot of considerations and challenges with preventing the state from knowing your every move when you leave the house.

What considerations do you make for IRL privacy, if any?

(Not particularly interested in "I don't care about IRL privacy so I don't do anything"—that's fine and your choice, but ofc this question is aimed towards those who do care)

I've gotten prepaid sims for things but obviously that's not really a feasible method for your main life phone.

espeak's apk doesn't seem to have been updated in 2 years and says it isn't compatible with my phone (Pixel 8a). I'm not sure if there are any decent ones. I want TTS for OSMAnd's navigation while driving. They do prerecorded voices too but those can only say prerecorded things obviously, so eg can't say specific road names.