Ditching the Linux kernel is probably a good idea.

It’s certainly not. There are so many actors with opposing agendas that are motivated to keep it secure that its incredibly difficult to slip something through.

If you’re going to attack Linux, you won’t attack the kernel, but instead you’d go for some obscure component that most distros use but is only maintained by one or two people (e.g. xz).

If you abandon Linux, you’re likely going to have more vulnerabilities. Security through obscurity is no security at all.

Will the risk be higher during Trump 2.0

Why would it?

I think you’re paranoid and irrational, and should probably step away from social media and go talk to some actual Trump supporters. That’s not me, but my family largely voted for that clown, so I think I know a thing or two about what his supporters want.

In essence, they want Trump to cut spending, stop drug trafficking, and create jobs. I think it’s far more likely that he cuts the FBI and related law enforcement and potentially merges them than to put them on the attack. He cares more about stopping illegal immigration than spying on residents, so that’s where his attention will be.

FOSS

FOSS + self-hostable is always the right answer. I don’t think who the President is matters all that much because data requests are an agency level thing and not something the President or even the cabinet member is involved in (outside of perhaps very high profile issues).

If it’s not on your machine, you won’t know if the server admin has been forced by the courts to give up the data. I use a VPS, but it doesn’t actually store anything, it just forwards packets to my computer on my network, so if LE wants my data, they have to get it from me directly.

If you’re paranoid about the government spying on you, it doesn’t matter who’s in the Oval Office, what matters is if they can get access to your data without you knowing. So my tier list for this is:

1. Self-hosted, FOSS, E2EE with no data stored on the server (e.g. Simplex)
2. Self-hosted, with data stored on the server (e.g. Matrix) - only if it’s on your LAN
3. FOSS client, E2EE (e.g. Signal)
4. Hosted in a country with strong privacy protections and no agreements with your country for exceptions (e.g. Proton)

Pretty much everything else is unacceptable IMO.

shoot first and ask questions later

…

will not be taking any questions

Logical conclusion is to shoot first, full stop. Questions reduce morale and efficiency anyway.

Consider this my application for the Civil Air Patrol drone defence division.

As someone with a family with young kids, it makes even less sense. Kids will order chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, or hotdogs or something, which are expensive at restaurants (>$5 usually), cheap at home (like $2), and easy to make (~10 min)

It literally takes longer to order than to cook IMO. For each of those meals, here’s the process:

1. Prep for cooking - about the same time as entering an order, less if kids get to pick drinks and sides
2. Wait
3. Finish (add sauce, mix, etc) - about the same as unpacking and distributing the doordash stuff

And it costs less than half as much. We keep easy meals in the freezer if it has been one of those days and we need food to be ready in 15-20 min. I made orange chicken tonight, and with cooking rice in the rice cooker, active time was 5 min (wash rice, preheat oven, prep cooking sheet), and we had food about 25 min after starting. Total cost to feed 3 kids and 1 adult (SO was out) was ~$10. If I ordered the same thing, it would’ve been $30 if I picked up or $40-50 delivered. Oh, and no fighting about sodas, we just had water.

Especially when most restaurants I’d order from are like 1-2 miles away. It’s worth it to me to drive 15 min roundtrip to save $10-15 and be able to check my order.

We went to Little Caesars for the first time in 5 years, and it ended up being more than Dominos, took longer, and wasn’t as good. Little Caesars used to suck but was cheap, now it just sucks.

There are cheap, single serving meals, such as:

• baked potato - extra lazy version is 6 min in the microwave, add toppings
• oatmeal - overnight oats, microwave (3 min, water shouldn’t quite cover oats), etc
• sandwiches - lots of options; freeze extra bread and cheese
• eggs - scrambled, fried, boiled; eggs last weeks

I got through college cooking stuff like this. It was cheap, quick to make small portions, and didn’t require many seasonings. I lived on sleek something like $45-50/month, which covered the vast majority of my meals.

If shoplifting is allowed, you could go indefinitely…

Reminds me of Arcologies in Sim City 2000.

Or maybe they wear it on their belt, like this:

One of my kids eats noodles w/ a spoon. Everything is possible.

Maybe it’s in their knife block.

What, you never have yogurt or tea with your morning oatmeal? Or are you a heathen that uses the same spoon for both?

Or they could be up to their eyeballs in debt and any small expense sends them into credit card debt. That’s sadly quite common…

Yeah, I think mine was $80. You can get a consumer router with built-in wireless for about that much, so once you add in the AP ($100-150), it’s more. But you get more flexibility and features.

But yeah, for an enterprise grade router, they’re pretty cheap.

And this is why I use Mikrotik:

• not Chinese
• seem to care about security
• used by big orgs, so a vulnerability would be big news
• more features than I’ll need
• not cheap, but affordable

I have a separate access point as well by Ubiquiti. My reasons:

• can upgrade wireless without touching router config
• no trade-off between router and wireless features, I can choose them independently
• AP and router don’t need to be in the same place (nor should they be)

Don’t buy cheap crap, buy entry level enterprise equipment instead.

Yup. Here’s how I see it:

• American routers - utter crap, and targeted by Chinese hackers
• Chinese routers - utter crap, but not targeted (yet) by Chinese hackers, probably because they already have backdoors

Blocking Chinese routers doesn’t solve the utter crap problem.

Yeah, the WW2 units might as well just stay home.

Modern air outclasses modern ground, but if I’m fighting and nukes are in play, I’m going with ground so I’ll die from the blast instead of radiation and starvation.

It’s not about how big it is, it’s about how you use it.

Huh, the current US national debt is around $35T, so we almost could’ve gotten a Star Destroyer. Priorities people!