Mr Penguin

CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc and co-host of syndicated radio show Free Talk Live.

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Last Notes

2026-05-24 04:36:04 UTC

One of the victims with a technical background that spoke during the enemy of state event at the national libertarian convention today referenced the name of the specific remote management protocol that governments are using to take control of ISP supplied routers/modems and spy on users.
As someone behind a product that hinders this sort of abuse through a router that can sit between your ISP supplied modem/router (or spying device) and your actual network I found it quite interesting to hear from a technical user describe their experience when a government exploited this functionality against them.
So it’s something we’ve known was possible on routers and I’ve mostly only read about in the case of cellular phones and/or articles have alluded to.
On routers it's called the TR-069 protocol, and apparently has been succeeded by TR-369.
In any event I hadn’t known the name of the specific protocol prior (not that it would have been hard to figure out, it’s not a secret) and thought it was interesting to hear that it’s what was in fact exploited and used against him.
My companies routers solve this problem of course which made it particularly interesting for me to hear someone even if only briefly bring it up where it’s been used against an actual person with first hand experience.
Basically the moral of the story is stick a device you actually control in-between your [probably] ISP supplied modem (or even if you bought it) and the government spyware we all know you've got in your home (ie modem/router).
If your interested in watching the video you can find it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h450fh7qvks
These are the two router products my company currently develops that can mitigate the threat:
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/free-software-wireless-n-mini-vpn-router-v3-tpe-r1300
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/free-software-gigabit-mini-vpn-router-tpe-r1400

2026-05-23 00:49:06 UTC

Spanish court demands the impossible: Decides not to fine NordVPN for non-compliance
It blows the mind that courts will order those OUTSIDE their jurisdiction of whom they've given no notice or ability to appeal said order to do stuff. Particularly when "stuff" = impossible.
All because of a cartel leader LaLiga’s demand.
NordVPN pointed out the following problem with the order:
1. The flagged IP addresses changed frequently, often within hours, so the provided lists no longer matched the live addresses by the time blocking could take effect.
2. The blanket IP-level blocking demanded would have resulted in broad overblocking, rendering thousands of lawful websites inaccessible to users in Spain and beyond.
https://torrentfreak.com/spanish-court-declines-to-fine-nordvpn-over-laliga-piracy-blocking-order/

2026-05-18 08:41:42 UTC

If you haven't heard the news yet, Bitcoin Pizza Day 2026 in Keene, NH is a go!
Our plan of action is to meet at Little Zoe's in Keene, NH and eat outside if it's nice (they have tables). Little Zoe's has been taking crypto for over a decade and is also taking Goldbacks and is one of the original business that got Bitcoin on the map as a real currency or means of doing business so to speak.
If the weather doesn't cooperate the Shire Free Church has graciously said they'd host us. The Shire Free Church has a property a few blocks away. Just come round back at 73 Leverett St if it rains and your running late.
If you can please also click the meetup link to let others know your going. The more people who say they're going the more likely we'll see attendees outside our Free Stater liberty loving community come out. Basically many meetup events are dead events, but when others thing they won't be the only ones... we do see some outside attendance.
https://freekeene.com/2026/05/17/bitcoin-pizza-day-is-on-may-22nd-2026-announced/
https://www.meetup.com/monadnock-dcn/events/314841951/?utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=announce_event&utm_source=link&utm_version=v2&member_id=94874812

2026-05-16 18:36:15 UTC

Apparently people can't do math and give in to stupid ideas like Roblox has a child exploitation problem based on raw numbers.
Even people advocating against this stupidity. GamersNexus stated that Roblox has a problem and stated there are 13,000 instances of sexual incidents on the platform each year. Without context this sounds like a problem, but it's not. There are 1.4 billion users on the platform! That is 0.000000867% risk factor. In comparison your kid is far far far far far more likely to be hit by a car: 0.0001% and it is about as likely they'll be struck by lightning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DibdcQTZTk

2026-05-06 23:24:38 UTC

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation, regarding a new bill that is about to pass in California that mandates everyone ID online (not just age attestation, but like a literal biometric ID on many if not most sites you access):
"By banning access to social media platforms for young people under 16, California is emulating Australia, where early results show exactly what EFF and other critics predicted: overblocking by platforms, leaving youth without support and even adults barred from access, major spikes in VPN use and other workarounds ranging from clever to desperate,"
And the disturbing part I'd like to comment on:
"and smaller platforms shutting down rather than attempting costly compliance with these sweeping bills."
Yea, or they just flat out leave California. There is this thing called jurisdiction and companies that don't operate in California are generally not subject to California law. Particularly laws that don't have equivalents elsewhere (in the extraditing jurisdiction). In other words Canada isn't going to extradite someone from Canada to the US for picking their nose and posting about it online when the US bans it because it's only illegal in the one country. This isn't always the case- but it's usually the case (the US and UK have a one-way thing going where the UK extradites to the US, but not vice versa humorously because the US didn't hold up their part of the deal after signing some treaty recently, but the UK did).
Can we all say it: California, go fuck yourself.
https://eff.org/effector/

2026-05-04 09:37:09 UTC

Are people really this psychotic? Sure, I get there are a few creeps on Roblox, but implying Roblox is tailored made to profit off child molester's grooming kids seems beyond absurd:
"Age verification forces the maker of a children’s game to reconcile and face their real problem of child grooming head on, and their stock market excuse is to blame the law?
Let me not feel bad one bit because investors were forced to realize exactly where those profits were coming from."

2026-05-04 00:52:10 UTC

More on Utah's law that takes aim at the privacy and freedom of ADULTS online (AND youth for that matter):
"NordVPN has called the law an 'unresolvable compliance paradox' and a 'liability trap,' arguing that it holds websites responsible for identifying users whose tools are specifically designed to be unidentifiable. The EFF warned that the legal risk could push sites to either ban all known VPN IPs or mandate age verification for every visitor globally."
That is a danger independent of the laws constitutionality. A mere threat is enough to get most companies and sites to comply for fear of protracted and costly legal fights.
What is more disturbing is this is NOT constitutional and they should know it as I previously stated. There were 4-5 rulings by the US supreme court in the 90s on this very subject matter and each struck down the concept of sites having to do age-checks and this was explicitly for porn sites-at that time. The thought that less than porn could somehow magically change this blows my mind.
Youth do not lose their free speech rights when they enter the school house gates:
"The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969) that students do not 'shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.'"
So on what planet can any state pass a law that shreds them elsewhere where such rights are even MORE staunchly protected and clear cut????
https://www.tomshardware.com/software/vpn/utah-becomes-first-us-state-to-target-vpn-use-with-age-verification-law

2026-04-30 18:07:39 UTC

This is humorous:
“'The goal of DNS4EU is to ensure the digital sovereignty of the EU by providing a private, safe, and independent European DNS resolver,' the project’s website states."
Given a Paris court just ordered them to block sites.
I guess sovereign and independent doesn't include the freedom bit for their users. No, it's more like the 'Great firewall of Europe'.

2026-04-30 18:00:58 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…chn9 I'm not sure that's the point of 'open source' software, but I would phrase the point of free software as being to put the control of peoples machines and devices back into the hands of the end-user.
I think the problem is not that it's not an effective tool against the state apparatus too, but rather that the state still posses a lot of power and is a threat to those who dare operate a system beyond their clutches, develop an app they can't control, etc.
Will they be able to stop cryptocurrencies or privacy friendly cryptocurrencies despite having arrested a handful of developers (Samourai Wallet), threatened exchanges (which in turn have stopped offering privacy coins like Monero), etc? No. I don't think so. However they're certainly going in that direction with hardware mandates that force manufacturing to occur in the United States, mandated lock downs on devices (anything with a modern wifi 5Ghz chip can't be 100% free), etc. And now they're trying to lock down phones, tablets, and computers through laws like that through age attestation and age verification. The UK has already started going after VPN providers because there are 'workarounds' to age verification. Well, there are workarounds if you can install an operating system you control too! That's next. These people are just so stupid they don't realize this quite yet. Once they fail at stopping 'kids' from accessing social media (60% of kids in Australia I believe are STILL able to access social media, proving how ineffective bans are) they will invariably start going after any other means that result in it being possible to bypass their stupid law to 'protect the children'.

2026-04-29 03:25:35 UTC

Help! They want to put an end to free software!
The EFF has put together a campaign to try and push back against these anti-developer, anti-consumer, and-human bills that would mandate you provide ID for every site you visit, app you install, and OS you use/install.
Please tell congress to oppose the GUARD Act!
This broad bill goes way beyond AI and regulates everyday internet life.
With just two clicks you can tell your rep what you think by clicking the link here:
https://act.eff.org/action/tell-congress-oppose-the-guard-act

2026-04-29 03:10:48 UTC

"Sony Rolls Out 30-Day Online DRM Check-In For PlayStation Digital Games"
"No matter what, any game you download from now on will feature this new requirement, effectively eliminating the concept of offline play for even single-player titles. "
And yet... people will continue putting up with this crap. If only there was this thing called the free market and people voted with their fiat (dirty money, ie government money). Then companies wouldn't pull this shit.
I long ago refused to lay my hands on any game console. However my sole voice alone does not impact change. Only people spending their money on products from companies that refuse to pull this bullshit will have any genuine positive impact.
Unfortunately there is no free market with copyright. Copyright is a literal monopoly on distribution. There was for a while some level of limited reprieve with VHS, DVD, blu-ray, and at one time game rentals.
Back in the day the court ruled that companies could rent out the tapes they *BOUGHT*. This created some resemblance of a free market as you could obtain entertainment for some years without there being a single source. However that didn't apply to broadcast and so later when the internet era came to be no one other than major major major tech and entertainment companies (think Netflix and Disney) could enter the online rental (or streaming) market. As a consequence we went from 10s of thousands of rental shops across just the United States to a ~handful. It is also well known these handful will eventually consolidate and we'll be left with ~1-2 options in the coming years.

2026-04-26 07:47:52 UTC

"Governments around the world are watching Australia's moves to rein in the tech giants, with many considering similar regulation to protect children from harms including bullying and body-shaming associated with social media."
For real? Like these things didn't come to be with the invention of social media or the internet.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s and I can tell you one thing for sure. These issues have NOTHING to do with social media.

2026-04-26 01:47:15 UTC

"At the core of the social media ban is emerging research indicating that for some teens, extended time spent on social media is associated with depression and anxiety. A 2022 study found nearly half of adolescents reported social media making them feel worse about their body image."
umm your literally surveying a population that fills out these questionnaires by making faces with the scantron (ok, not sure if that is something still in use, but while it's dated it's literally what I saw EVERY KID in my 9th grade, so about 14, class doing when required to take a survey to this end in the late 1990s early 2000s). The point is the survey data is likely completely and utterly inaccurate in the first place.
However even if it wasn't there is no evidence to suggest that this is anything other than normal teenage behavior. Hormonal changes, etc. and the implication of the wording of the question is what leads to youth to whatever degree there is anything behind the question to answering yes when there is ZERO evidence of correlation between the two.
https://social.freetalklive.com/system/media_attachments/files/116/468/469/987/053/743/original/914e2aba44562ad5.webp

2026-04-25 22:25:40 UTC

"Colorado Adds Open-Source Exemption to Age-Verification Bill"
But does it... ?
"'a strong exemption for open source distros and apps' and has passed in the House committee. He also quoted the key part, which says Article 30 does not apply to an operating system provider or developer that distributes software under license terms that let recipients copy, redistribute, and modify the software without restrictions from the provider or developer... This wording covers Linux distributions and many open-source applications"
If this is the exact wording I believe the legal interpretation is wrong that they're exempting "open source" or free software as there ARE restrictions on distributions. They're at best exempting software in the public domain which FOSS apps are not.
You are free to copy, distribute, and modify within the confines of the license. You do not need to agree to the license to USE the software, but if you distribute the works derivative works must be distributed under the same license terms, meaning they cannot be modified and then released as proprietary software without restrictions.
https://linuxiac.com/colorado-adds-open-source-exemption-to-age-attestation-bill/

2026-04-24 18:33:11 UTC

"'Children cannot be left with the responsibility for staying away from platforms they are not allowed to use,' Karianne Tung, Norway's minister of digitalization, said in the statement. 'That responsibility rests with the companies providing these services.'"
And why shouldn't they be allowed to use them? This is dumb. There is nothing wrong with a bit of social media use. The problems stem from a lack of other activities and personal responsibility. I'll be the first to say that people at large are TOO attached to their phones, and I don't even have a phone with a SIM card (though I do use wifi on the go here and there). Point is though there is no good reason to blame tech for your personal failures and life choices.
If there were blame to go around I'd call out these very politicians for FORCING phones on us through things like automated tolling and parking meters that demand you pay them with your smart phone.

2026-04-24 18:11:02 UTC

"Norway Set to Become Latest Country to Ban Social Media for Under 16s"
You know the nanny state is in full swing they start mandating seat belts, and then helmets for under 14s.
But for christ sake- social media? Weren't we suppose to be pushing kids to be more social, not less???
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/norway-government-plans-social-media-051028496.html

2026-04-24 16:17:04 UTC

Headline: "France Confirms Data Breach At Government Agency That Manages Citizens' IDs"
And soon every app, site, OS, and device will be demanding your ID.
If you think age verification is a good idea your an idiot.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/22/france-confirms-data-breach-at-government-agency-that-manages-citizens-ids/

2026-04-22 07:00:02 UTC

In relation to the story of the attorney general in Florida going after an AI company because their product provided information help to a school shooter.
One comment against the stupidity said:
"Exactly, next people are going to be doing legal discovery on levi's jeans because the jeans helped the shooter keep his balls from flapping during the shooting. Stop trying to blame tools and keep the blame squarely on the human that does the evil thing."
A counter point:
"Osama bin Laden was not on any of the planes that flew into buildings. All he did was sit there and help plan and train the people who did it."
My point: umm so go after the HUMAN. These scenarios aren't alike. The AI company didn't develop a product or provide information with the intent to help the school shooter just like the jeans company didn't intend for the their product to be used to hold the balls of a school shooter.
Intent matters and so does marketing. No no one marketed "AI" for the purpose of assisting people in shooting up schools.
Osama bin Laden used tools for purposes that the tool maker could never have envisioned and even if they had it wasn't the intent of that tool maker. We didn't go after the tool maker (ie the PC maker for the PC he used to plan the attack). We or I should say the US government went after the person using that tool (ie the PC to do evil things).
The lack of humanity to reason soundly just blows my mind.
Under this logic the car maker is responsible because they know that evil people will use them to kill folks. Look at Charlottesville, NC a number of years ago where someone drove a vehicle into a bunch of folks protesting racists.
What happens to the availability of cars? Prices go up to account for liability and sales plummet.

2026-04-21 22:42:35 UTC

“It’s time for lawmakers to choose: Are they going to side with kids and the safety of our children, or with Big Tech?”
Holly christ- like seriously. The manipulative nature of the sentence. "Big tech" is horrible, but YOU chose to use it. It's not "Big tech"'s fault you made poor decisions.
"'Minor’s son Matthew died at age 12 after participating in the 'choking challenge,' which Minor says he learned about on social media. "
Do you know this is the most ridicules argument. I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s and I remember this being a thing back then! Schools even covered this as a topic and there were after-school TV specials. NONE OF THIS IS NEW. NONE OF THIS IS A PROBLEM WITH "BIG TECH".
This is a problem with crappy and lazy parenting to whatever degree you can call it a problem in the first place.
There will ALWAYS be kids who off themselves. It's often not the "internet" or "big tech" that is the fundamental problem. It's treating kids like property where you can dictate to them "you must attend school". "you must attend this school". It's authoritarianism at its best that is the BIGGEST part of the problem.
You as a parent were almost certainly the primary contributing factor in your sons death, not social media, not big tech, not the internet.
Helicopter parenting and authoritarianism is far MORE dangerous than "big tech", "AI", social media, or the internet could ever be.
Stop being a control freak and let your kids grow up. Stop forcing them into situations that are harmful (schools they wish not attend because of bullying you CAN'T solve no matter how many laws you pass, of which is probably only making things worse).

2026-04-16 22:50:56 UTC

"Is Linux Mint In Trouble?"
Talk about a click bait headline!
umm, changes that are a consequence of Canonical f'ing things up don't equal a doomed distribution. Clem (lead developer) and team (like umm yea they have multiple full time paid developers) have done an excellent job overall and most of what is needed to make a Debian base of Linux Mint work well are already being done by MX Linux.
Linux Mint should switch to the Debian base, then import the graphics stack from MX Linux Advanced Hardware Support (AHS) repository to get back the sole real benefit that building off Ubuntu offers. That is the LTS enablement stack which basically consists of improved hardware support (graphics and kernel). Either from the repository if manually installed or via point releases.

2026-04-14 06:49:03 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…chn9 This is completely artificial. It's an issue of resources. If young people are suppose to study and then don't have access to babysitters and other resources it certainly doesn't work out well. However these resources haven't been provided. What high schools provide babysitting services for instance? Undoubtedly there is some amount of impact, but much of that impact could be made up young women being given additional time to complete exams or delay exams and things of that nature. The system is simply not setup for education + motherboard. When people frown on teen pregnancies rather than promote solutions that enable motherboard during educational periods the end results will ultimately worse overall statistically than places (not even aware of any that do accommodate this properly) that do.

2026-04-14 06:41:28 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…chn9
Yea- that's for sure. They're trying to stamp out the crypto vending machines now by turning a less than 1% of user problem into a 95-98% of users being a victim of a 3rd party scammer which doesn't match up with the actual statistics. Vending operators have a lawsuit against the attorney general of ones of the states in an effort to force her to reveal her evidence and rationale for these numbers. It appears she just flipped the numbers in an effort to mislead and enable people to get legislation passed by way of citing falsified claims.
So for online transactions we have better data. In the Crypto6 case which was more about persecution of a man fighting for your freedoms whom a particular FBI agent (Phil Christina, fascinating story: thecrypto6.com) had been attempting to find something to use against him for about two decades (and prior to his move to New Hampshire other free staters for whom he associates and he is a free stater) we know that about 48 out of maybe ~10,000 or so transactions involve some kind of victim whose being deceived by a 3rd party. The 10,000 number is the number of reviews and the 48 number is the number of 'victims' they could find. He had drivers licenses as he did KYC (know your customer) so finding 'victims' wasn't this impossible task. Given the 10s of millions they spent over a 5 year investigation you can be extremely confident that the number of victims is relatively low overall even though you can certainly come up with individuals who are old and folks who've lost a lost of money. However this is atypical. The average ages of the victims were less than the judge, prosecutor, and lawyer. One 'victim' testified he helped scammers launder money. Of 4 vending machines only 1 victim in 5 years.

2026-04-14 06:29:42 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…chn9
Not 100% sure if I'm following you. If your looking to buy something with Monero from a store that doesn't take it my company setup such a service to that end. It's geared toward the privacy minded user and offers various features to detach from your purchase even such that if someone were to come to us and ask or otherwise subpoena information we wouldn't have it after about 2 weeks or so. It's in some respect better privacy wise than walking into a store and purchasing goods with fiat (cash) as those transactions are always recorded and they can link up things like license plates from the parking lot to particular purchasers.
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/privacy-proxy-purchase-physical-goods-proxy

2026-04-13 19:32:24 UTC

Turns out we should be encouraging teens to get pregnant, not discouraging it. According to researchers this is the reason for population declines in the west and other wealthy countries.
In other words both "family planning" advocates and the opposition religious right are wrong.
Sex ed should have been teaching young people how to pro-create this whole time. I believe that actually happens humorously in at least one western country. I believe it is in the Netherlands where they show youth the entire reproductive process rather than teach kids exclusively about abstinence or condom usage.
Nudity in and of itself is a taboo subject in the US- so I can only imagine what typical right-wing American nutters would think if they saw what students in Sex Education classes in the Netherlands were taught. I'm pretty darn confident they'd frame it as sexual abuse (as crazy as that is given this is pubescent youth, not pre-pubescent). Of course you can't even talk in those terms in the US without being labeled some sort of creep or pedophile.

2026-04-09 00:08:07 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…chn9 Yea, no doubt. Did I threaten to stop taking dirty fiats? I might have. Hmm not what you are replying to I suppose. In any event... yea... I can't be overly critical of folks taking dirty fiat, but I can certainly encourage folks to pay with crypto, goldbacks, and pretty much anything that doesn't involve government:
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/catalog/shirts-cds-case-badges-gnulinux
https://social.freetalklive.com/system/media_attachments/files/116/371/835/043/002/539/original/7c37385d2f6ce1c3.jpg
https://social.freetalklive.com/system/media_attachments/files/116/371/835/112/713/148/original/db27d9b4026f390c.jpg

2026-04-05 18:12:41 UTC

It's truly amazing how many angles of attack the copyright cartels have on our freedoms. Copyright owners need to be declawed. I'd like to propose a 100% tax on copyright content. 100% of $0 is 0 so the distribution of free software remains $0 tax. Distribution of anything that is non-zero ends up going straight into the governments pocket. Lets add a twist since we don't want to incentivize theft. Enforcement would result in the tax going to building homeless shelters and housing initiatives should anyone decide to charge for their creations.
https://torrentfreak.com/u-s-lawmakers-work-on-unified-site-blocking-bill-to-counter-online-piracy/

2026-04-01 23:02:42 UTC

At least one court clearly doesn't understand how DNS works. A DNS provider can't block anything... only an ISP can:
"This argument failed to convince the court, which found that the 'neutral and passive' nature of the DNS resolvers is simply irrelevant to Article L. 333-10. The law isn’t about liability at all. What matters is whether a service can help to block access to pirate sites, which DNS resolvers clearly can."
Let completely eliminate DNS be it from the ISP or a third party. So one can add an IP to ones host file and the domain will resolve/function/work. It doesn't matter whether a DNS resolver stops resolving the domain. The user will still be able to access the site.
If if you wanted to stop someone from coming in your house you wouldn't demand your address be removed from the phone book. You'd get a lock for your door. A lock will block an intruder from entering, but removing the address from the phone book will not. At best they can't look up your address via one particular means of obtaining it. There are other sources for obtaining the address of a home owner besides a phone book. Most cities / regions have websites that let users lookup the ownership of properties and this can also be used to locate a persons address independent of a phone book.
Removing an address from a phone book does NOT block someone from entering that address.

2026-03-31 23:40:34 UTC

So Australia banned under 16s from social media recently and now the government is going after companies for failing to “do enough” to inhibit under 16s from getting on social media...
Interesting comment in opposition to the law:
"Use the highly effective parental controls available to you. It will stop your under 16s accessing social media and in addition will stop them from installing bypass VPN software on any devices you give them (i.e. those that you control). "
It might keep your 6 year old off social media, but it's not going to work for a teenager or even pre-teens short of diminished mental capacity.
Key issue here is "give them"... computing devices. A 11-12 year (and even younger really) old can easily come up with the money to just buy one. I used my lunch money at ~11 or so to save up for a PC in the 90s and that is at least 10 times more than what you’d need today after inflation.
Mandating devices be locked down and "authenticated" is too simplistic and doesn’t work nor should we try. Education is key. You can bypass the most hardened devices. GNU/Linux exists, but even without it you can buy a device used and bypass the strictest age-verification measures.
Moral crusaders in the 90s tried to stop kids access to R rated films. In NJ where I lived theaters didn’t ask for ID, but I was stopped in Boston of all places at ~13. At ~11 a rental shop started restricting kids so I just said I was my older brother (worked for a while). When that stopped working I thought to myself the restriction is on the rental account so I just verified with the clerk I could still buy an R rated movie. It cost 4x as much, but early eBay existed, so I sold it after. In protest I switched to cheap online rentals. I was early to DVDs in ~1997.

2026-03-30 17:40:14 UTC

"Company Hopes to Build Age-Verification Tech into Vape Cartridges (wired.com)"
Talk about big brother and the nanny surveillance state.
Unfortunately there is no hope in stopping this orwellian trend pretty much anywhere. At least not without like-minds that oppose it stepping up to the plate and gathering in regions to oppose it. We need to create a bastion of freedom somewhere.
This is not a new trend and has been ongoing over the past hundred plus years. First (probably not really the "first", but before either of our lifetimes) there was the hand written identification for cars, which turned into the license plate, and then vehicle registration, drivers licenses that were a response to bigotry against motor vehicle operators (NOT safety, there was no driving test written or road in many places even as late as the late 1960s), cameras constantly monitoring everyone and everything, and now tracking via cellular devices/automatic license plate recognition systems/and even now AI.
Not to mention (mandatory) social security, government education, health care (criminalizing and increasingly costly as a consequence), and more.
Much of the "safety" these things propose to ensure are little more than an illusion and often come at greater expense than individuals voluntary participation in similar non-government run programs.
While no state or country has even toyed with the idea of eliminating these things or evaluating their cost benefit ratio people have been flocking to New Hampshire to this end- a state selected by "free staters" who have been winning elections for the past decade plus. There are around 100 reps in New Hampshire in a 400-member house. 5 of 24 in the senate. Each election cycle more people move and in another decade we win.

2026-03-30 00:26:08 UTC

"Is It Time For Open Source to Start Charging For Access?"
No. This is the wrong way to do free software development. There is nothing wrong with tipping and one can and should charge for auxiliary services, but not the code itself. Demanding cash undermines the communal value and nature of this method of development.
I am a huge fan of promoting tipping and fiscal contributions by those who utilize and depend on free software and would encourage companies to properly fund development.
This whole 60% of developers don't get paid # is wrong. Most development is paid for. I don't know where they came up with 60%, but it's flat out wrong and/or misleading.
The sole developer working from his basement has NEVER been the reality. It's been the exception.
There are exceptions of course, but that isn't how most free software gets developed.
One of the reasons I still prefer Drupal to Wordpress is I'm not hounded for dollars. Wordpress is literally more expensive as a consequence of every developer demanding you subscribe to achieve even a basic site.
Asking for tips and taking fiscal contributions is solid middle ground that both preserves user's freedom and ensures developers can continue developing.
The real problem is software developers not asking for tips in the first place and in some instance there being no place for software developers to ask for tips.
A perfect example is an openssl library. When your code is always included in other projects rather than being what the user goes to you run into opportunity problems.
We have a similar problem with hardware. End-users don't understand that buying random hardware undermines their support. Buying hardware for Linux incentivizes release of code and fixing issues.

2026-03-29 19:36:48 UTC

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@nprofile…43na
Of course it is mine. It is all of ours individually and collectively. I don't have to have the same line as you or the guy who has decided his line has been crossed and acts, but ultimately it would be hypocritical for me to say he's wrong because he took steps before me to defend against tyrants. I'm just shy of being a passivist, but I'm NOT a passivist. I believe in the right of self defense. However I don't believe anyone including government has the right to aggress that of others outside of self-defense constructs. When you mandate something via legislation that is inherently backed by violence and someone's violent reaction to that can be justified when said action is against peaceful actors. In this case it's a violent defensive reaction against otherwise peaceful minors and adults alike.
There is however a rationale side to reacting in that you should shoot for achieving an objective. It may not be "winning" in the sense the law changes. It may be to undermine its effectiveness or bring attention to a problem or bring together a people in a place with the intent of providing options. This is what the Free State Project has been about. Freedom is going bye-bye everywhere and at one time people fed parking meters as silly as it was in defiance of a city in NH as it undermined revenue from parking tickets (city makes money off tickets, not the coins you feed the meter). The left ran with it and mocked the cause, but ultimately it achieved its objective of bringing attention to those who care about liberty. People moved to NH and as a consequence NH has 100 times more representatives that support liberty than any other state. At the current rate it'll likely be the case that libertarians cut most government within a decade here.

2026-03-29 19:15:09 UTC

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@nprofile…n98v
Too late. Already heavily involved in funding and development of libre software in addition to funding of the leading desktop distribution Linux Mint.
The only question that exists is what will we end up doing to push back on this besides not include it.
I don't know what the stance is of Clem (Linux Mint's lead developer), but it could be we do anything from pull funding/sponsorships to simply funding, developing or promoting a more freedom friendly solution. The Linux Mint project has overall done a very good job by of respecting users overall in comparison to Canonical, Red Hat, and others, but I can't say for certain it will continue to do so. The project already does things I'm not a fan of from including non-free drivers to blocking Tor and I think VPN users (one of the sponsors have a firewall tool). The question I ask every day is what line will they have to cross before we put together a desktop distribution to solve issues they're not. Thus far it's not made sense to do so and I hope it continues to be the case as our resources are better spent elsewhere. I'd rather continue to improve support for GNU/Linux overall than have 'yet another fork' for users to have to grapple over whether to go with it or something else. Forks do make sense at times when projects act particularly egregiously, but it's also true we should avoid them where possible. Debian for example doesn't include the spyware in its build of Audacity. A fork of LibreOffice was developed when Oracle bought Sun. Great examples of when forking makes sense. I'm not sure where my line is with this, but it's certainly one more issue that may need solving and given the long list of issues that need solving it might make sense to fork now and include things like LibreWolf.

2026-03-29 02:16:34 UTC

There is a time to say no to age gates and it's long before your leaders start chopping heads off. There is a time to realize owning a gun isn't a terrible idea even when your side is in power. Refusing to comply with age gates won't end with your head on a chopping block, but tolerating their demands today may lead their tomorrow.
Learn from history don't be stupid and repeat it.

2026-03-29 02:06:59 UTC

"They think the installer should have a date picker with a flag to disable it, and 'We can even default it to off, and corporate distributions using Calamares or those not willing to take the risk could flip it on if they need to. That way if maintainers of the distributions do not wish to collect the birth date, they won't have to, and no forking is required to patch it out.'"
This is one instance where any distro that wants to incorporate age verification should absolutely have to maintain their own set of patches if they wish to fuck over their users.

2026-03-29 02:03:16 UTC

"As I said in the previous response, the corporate-backed distributions really have no choice in the matter."
Last time I checked Nazi's executing jews didn't get off the hook by saying they were just following orders and neither do you.
Corporations that go along with the bullshit and distributions that follow suit (and developers defending it thereof) are just as worthy of boycotts and ridicule.
"Companies are notoriously risk-adverse, but something like Artix or Devuan? Those are small and independent enough where the individual maintainers may be willing to take on more risk."
Phh give me a break.
I'm the founder and CEO of ThinkPenguin.com THE LEADING supplier of hardware to the GNU/Linux market and I'm telling you this is the biggest pile of shit ever.
I have no problem taking on the "risk". There is no genuine "risk" here. We're going to continue to ship routers with libreCMC which will also be in violation of this to customers wherever they may be.

2026-03-29 01:49:10 UTC

"We need Linux and other free operating systems to remain a viable alternative to closed systems."
We don't need Microsoft, Valve, System76, tons of users, or proprietary software to have a thriving free operating system.
In fact these companies are often more of a hindrance to the adoption of free software than they help.
System76 regularly pushes proprietary crap that undermines support and makes GNU/Linux difficult to use. First you go System76 cause that's what everyone talks about, then you realize they're full of shit and do little other than market crapware with the word "Linux" on it and pull the same publicity stunts that AMD (looking at you proprietary "free" driver) and others have pulled. Coreboot's great, but it's ONE piece of the puzzle. Acting as if you've done something magical while feeding people dog shit isn't helping people adopt GNU/Linux. It's one thing to ship Linux Mint that includes non-free components and another to take actions (ship with Coreboot) that are little more than publicity stunts to sell more computers (while ignoring all the other proprietary blobs that are actually easier to deal with).

2026-03-29 01:39:30 UTC

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@nprofile…fcss
No idea what you do precisely, but the "job market" in New Hampshire is strong. If your saying you have a CS as in "computer science" background there shouldn't be an issue finding a high paying job in New Hampshire. Particularly in relation to the lower costs of living here relative to the insane costs of living in NJ, CA, OR, NY, and Texas (well, where the jobs are more CS-oriented).
The economy is actually hindered by the lack of employees to fill jobs ... not the other way around. If you have trouble getting a job in New Hampshire you may have taken the freedom thing a bit too far. Smoking crack and shooting heroin may very well make you unemployable here just as it would anywhere else.

2026-03-29 01:21:49 UTC

Maybe it's time developers who don't get security, privacy, and safety be shunned and kicked out of our communities. The communist nuts certainly have no problem pushing their non-software agenda on the rest of us who dare let slip a politically incorrect word. Slave. Master. Whitelist. Blacklist. God knows what else. Maybe it's time to push back a bit. Stick to software politics- not right-left wing bull shit. Even RMS understood the importance of that with his point regarding the GNU GPL and keeping his other political leanings out of the license such that we could all work together on software development projects independent of our other beliefs.
https://itsfoss.com/dylan-taylor-systemd-controversy/

2026-03-29 01:11:21 UTC

Are you still using US currency? You may want to think twice as doing so will soon be the endorsement of Donald Trump. They're adding his signature to the dollar. Don't endorse Trump's bad behavior. Say no to US dollars.
Use privacy friendly cryptos like Monero and non-government currencies instead such as the Goldback. The Goldback isn't backed by gold. It's does one better. It contains actual gold and doesn't play party politics.
Where can you spend your cryptos and goldbacks? Well, you can start at ThinkPenguin.com for your computer and electronics/accessories/peripheral needs.
Don't like actual gold bills? There are also silver coins that exist.
Don't have anywhere to spend your non-government currencies in the real world? Move to New Hampshire if you care about freedom above safety. 10s of thousand have already moved making New Hampshire the freest-leaning state in the nation (and if the US ends up breaking up the world, we'll be at the forefront of independence, heck we already are).

2026-03-28 23:44:57 UTC

Is exploitation of children inevitable? Of course it is!
Facebook didn't sexually exploit your kid and only a bunch of dumb fucks and those who ACTUALLY are out to harm you and your kids would think they had anything to do with sexually exploiting children.
I NEVER used facebook cause facebook is and always has been evil, but your even MORE evil than facebook pushing this bullshit.
It's not facebook exploiting anyone. It's a nanny state do gooders who are exploiting everyone through manipulation and deceit. These people don't care about your poor kid either. They're just using it to to manipulate you and everyone else into surrendering their freedom and control so the rest of us can get fucked up the ass by their whims.
There is some pretense that people are listening with their emotions, but I'm convinced the majority in society are largely just plain retarded.

2026-03-28 23:17:49 UTC

Humorous response to a Slashdot comment:
Person 1:
"Unless you take an extreme stance of not letting anyone on the platform under 18 (or 21), I don't think it's possible."
Response to person 1:
"Why is that 'extreme'? There are plenty of products and activities that children are banned from using or doing. It's quite commonplace, actually."
If taking away the human rights of youth is just dandy with you I'm going to propose extermination of those who think like you since your fucking insane.
Just because something is commonplace hardly makes it not-extreme. The left and right are fucking nuts. Both are extremists pretending to be different from one another when in reality they largely advocate for and do the same evil shit.

2026-03-28 21:49:52 UTC

"Spotify and Labels Seek $322 Million Default Judgment Against Anna’s Archive"
ha, good luck with that.
"The proposed order names every registry, registrar, and host that would be bound by the judgment, including Public Interest Registry, Cloudflare, Switch ...
"All would be required to permanently disable access to the named domains ..."
"The labels argue this is justified because Anna’s Archive deliberately ignores U.S. law and bypasses the authority of the court."
The humorous part about this is they're not subject to U.S. law. It's actually the copyright cartels who are doing an end-run-around as US jurisdiction only extends to US territory. Try getting this judgement enforced somewhere that doesn't have a similar law. Ohh right, you can't. Which is why you went after them in the US in the first place.
https://torrentfreak.com/spotify-and-labels-seek-322-million-default-judgment-against-annas-archive/

2026-03-28 21:27:56 UTC

Regarding Cox's win against the copyright cartel's attempt to censor the internet:
The RIAA responded through CEO and Chairman Mitch Glazier:
“We are disappointed in the Court’s decision vacating a jury’s determination that Cox Communications contributed to mass scale copyright infringement, based on overwhelming evidence that the company knowingly facilitated theft. "
hahahah
OK, copyright infringement isn't theft, nowhere in copyright law does it say anything about theft. Theft deprives someone of something and no one is deprived of anything when you make a copy. It's entirely artificial situation, fabricated lie, and dishonest to suggest copyright infringement is somehow "theft".
What you on the other hand are advocating for is the use of violence against peaceful people to your own selfish ends. There is nothing wrong with asking for tips in the course of producing content, good or bad, but you cross a line into violence and coercion when you demand laws or demand prosecution or threaten civil action. Lots of YouTuber's make money off advertising, selling t-shirts, and asking for donations. So do free software developers, musicians, and so on.
Violence isn't the answer to a healthy creative economy.
https://torrentfreak.com/supreme-court-wipes-out-record-labels-1-billion-piracy-judgment-against-cox/

2026-03-28 21:10:06 UTC

Copyright cartel had this to say about IPTV users in France:
"'The LFP and LFP Media welcome this strong message to users of piracy services, who mistakenly believe they can act with impunity when in fact they are knowingly contributing to a mafia-like ecosystem that seriously harms the entire sports sector,' the organization writes."
I am not a fan of sportsball, but I want to know where I can sign up to squash that entire industry. They're an evil upon this earth that needs to be exterminated.
They should not just be deprived of revenue through users refusal to pay up for 'legal' services. Those involved should be incarcerated (sorry, against the death penalty here, but these are villains far worse than the worst serial rapist or killer in respective to the total harm caused) as they've taken violent and corrosive/threatening (violent) actions against peaceful people (via the legal system/political system).
https://torrentfreak.com/france-fines-first-batch-of-pirate-iptv-subscribers-following-reseller-bust/

2026-03-28 20:58:18 UTC

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@nprofile…04yf That's for sure. It's about controlling speech and suppressing dissent. If you ID those you don't like it makes it easier to go after them and/or suppress their speech.

2026-03-28 20:50:50 UTC

Entertaining news out of France where the prosecutors office just 'fined' 19 IPTV Subscribers.
If I lived in France and was an IPTV scofflaw I’d be shaking in my boots!
Of the subscribers in France that subscribe to an illicit IPTV service a mere .00010556% have been fined. For background info: 34% of people in France subscribe to illegal IPTV services. This number so small as to be incomprehensible to the human mind. Even more humorous is the fine is a mere 400 euros or about ~ US $458. You literally have better odds of being struck by lighting at some point in your life than getting fined in France for being an IPTV scofflaw and if you are fined your still better off having been fined than having paid for legal services.
Besides the humorous side of this not being at all scary or effective it’s still disturbing as these sorts of fines undoubtedly lack any kind of fairness or due process. They amount to a mere accusation and even if one were to be able to and have the will to fight it the cost would likely be insurmountable.
In the early 2000s law enforcement tried to go after child predators in what was the largest “child porn” bust in history. They ended up arresting thousands of entirely innocent people based on the assumption a credit card charge equaled a predator (most if not all arrested). At that time you had to sign up to a system to ID yourself as an adult to access porn. Users thus provided a credit card number to one such system. Porn sites signed up to said system and got a small commission from the fees to users. A small number of sites hosted illegal content and thus the thousands of arrests based on a false premise that a credit card charge equaled a predator. A similar danger exists here based on faulty data/assumptions.

2026-03-25 23:24:54 UTC

Think of the children nutters just won their first lawsuit against Facebook for not doing enough to protect children (as if they had ANY obligation to do so in the first place!):
If you think Facebook is so dangerous because of a few bad apples then don't hand your kid an internet connected device and point them at Facebook. I've been on the internet since the internet came into existence and there have ALWAYS been bad apples on it. In fact BEFORE the internet there were also bad apples in the real world, on the school playground, and on BBSs.
The threat of the internet on children is so over exaggerated. While it's undoubtedly true you can setup fake 'child profiles' and get predators to send you inappropriate materials/messages and so on... it's hardly the typical experience of minors. Minors are far more likely to get bullied by PEOPLE THEY ACTUALLY know offline when going online than be sexually harassed or be preyed upon by the equivalent of creepy men driving 5 mph in white trucks without windows through your neighborhood.
Statistically it's dad, mom, or someone in the family that's going to sexually abuse a child, not some creepy person on the internet.
And if the concern is algorithms... that's just pure fear mongering. There use to be this thing called parenting. If your kid was spending too much time watching TV you click the off button on the TV and told them to go play outside.
I hate to break it to you psychos who think it's always someone else's problem... but you can still tell a child no. You can still choose not to give your [at least actual children, teens will undoubtedly get around your stupid control freak of a parent parenting] 10 year a cell phone.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/03/meta-loses-trial-after-arguing-child-exploitation-was-inevitable-on-its-apps/

2026-03-25 22:54:23 UTC

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@nprofile…haaq Yea, your right. I've been working on enabling non-technical (and technical alike for that matter) users to move away from Microsoft Windows for almost two decades (two decades if you include time before starting a company to this end). While I've seen a steadily increasing adoption by new users over the past two decades (in part due to a lot of the work I'll claim credit for that I've done behind the scenes in the hardware arena) it's definitely Microsoft's own actions that have contributed to and are continue to contribute to the increasing migration of users from Microsoft Windows to GNU/Linux.
GNU/Linux has been relatively user friendly since ~2000 or so and the primary stumbling blocks have been more due to the lack of availability where people actually look for new computers/shop (major online PC manufacturers and retail), end-user support, and hardware availability (ie properly supported, not just something that half-works or works until you apply security updates/OS upgrade), and a decade ago software compatibility.
Anyhow- Microsoft has definitely continued to drive people away from Windows and look into the other options available. As the only company with a more or less complete selection of hardware and accessories [and end-user support] I can definitely say it's not hard for the majority today wanting to move way to actually move away. A decade ago 50% of users I could assist in a migration who wanted to migrate. Nothing held them back we couldn't provide a solution for. In the past 3-5 years the software holding 30% of people back (primarily Quickbooks) has moved to the web so at least 80-90% of people today can easily migrate. If they "can't" it's a knowledge issue on where to get proper end-user support/hardware.

2026-03-25 22:36:36 UTC

Fantastic news. The US supreme court just ruled Cox is NOT liable for pirating customers as knowledge is in and of itself not sufficient for a provider to be liable for customers infringing activities. There must be some level of active participation or promotion of the service to that end, not simple knowledge and failure to terminate. This is EXACTLY what I have repeatedly stated for more than two decades now ever since colleges started forcing students to hand in their PCs so 'pirating software' like Limewire could be removed from their machines. Colleges should NEVER have agree to violate and coerce students into handing over their machine on the mere accusation of piracy by one of their students. In fact college students have additional privacy protections not afforded to ordinary internet subscribers.
F' you Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. Your lawyers were flat out wrong and I told you so back in ~2005 (this was in relation to an angry email I sent them, and I did not live in a dorm on the campus nor was I impacted by said policies, but what the policy was they had was morally bankrupt and legally wrong.. they should have protected their students... not caved to the copyright cartels mere threats).
https://archive.is/mEgaK

2026-03-24 02:32:45 UTC

In reference to the US government (Trump) mandating all new consumer grade US routers be manufactured in the United States:
"Sure some routers will be made in the US, but there is no guarantee at all they will be any more secure."
So the excuse for this mandate is that if stuff is manufactured in the US it somehow makes it more secure even though all the actual security issues have nothing to do with where the routers are manufactured and are entirely connected to a lack of security updates and lack of a complete set of source code.
So, haha, yea, it doesn't mean they will be any more secure, it means they will absolutely be LESS secure. When you force proprietary components into EVERY router you don't gain trust you lose trust.

2026-03-24 02:13:13 UTC

US government just mandated all new routers sold in the US include a backdoor via proprietary blobs.
To understand this you have to understand that all the SoCs in consumer grade routers are produced by non-US entities or US fabs in Arizona or Texas. These SoCs depend on propritary components that are more than likely backdoored by the US government.
What we know for sure is that other x86 CPUs from Intel have had their backdoors discovered and were developed to be deniable. That is they were introduced through security vulnerabilities that could be exploited to gain remote control. The remote control component is a security threat found in modern x86 CPUs from Intel and AMD. These backdoors are in proprietary software components. The US gets around their own vulnerabilities through a bit that when set allows the device to effectively not load the vulnerable component or part of said component thereof.
https://www.theverge.com/news/899172/fcc-foreign-router-ban

2026-03-24 00:37:10 UTC

It's amazing the number of stupid people that exist in this world. You'd think them doing this (making users create an account) in and of itself would be enough to convince folk to never consider another Microsoft product ever again. If you had faith before in Microsoft's actions (and you shouldn't have) you certainly should after this whether or not they lift this requirement (mandate creating a Microsoft account to use Microsoft Windows).
"Yes, Microsoft announced it's fixing common Windows 11 complaints. But what about getting rid of that requirement to have a Microsoft account before installing Windows 11? While Microsoft didn't mention that at all, the senior editor at the blog Windows Central reports there's 'a number of people' internally pushing at Microsoft to relax that requirement: "

2026-03-19 23:21:15 UTC

If your in Colorado there is an opportunity to push back against tyranny.
Age Verification legislation has been proposed and and folks need to tell their reps they want to be secure and private online, without any OS modification mandates or age verification.
Please contact these four "politicians" and send them the message that our will for freedom is strong and that we will not obey their tyrannical legislation if passed.
SB26-051
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/SB26-051
https://itsfoss.com/news/colorado-age-attestation-bill/
matt.ball.senate@coleg.gov
larry.liston.senate@coleg.gov
amy.paschal.house@coleg.gov
Naquetta.Ricks.house@coleg.gov
Suggested messaging (in your own words):
Include what you are opposing:
"I oppose SB26-051 as a free software user,"
"OS-level age verification adds unfair/undue stress to already underpaid coders.
Many coders of open source/free operating systems such as GNU/Linux, are very over-worked, and under-paid. In fact, many work for free. Demanding they add age verification code at the OS-level is completely unreasonable. This will do nothing other than undermine options in the market for an OS to those in the state."
"OS-level age verification can be misused and similar voluntary efforts adopted by platforms have already been regularly used to suppress and harass other users first amendment rights."
"While pornography is a concern particularly to the more prudish among us it's far from the danger that it is being made out to be a small selective racist, bigoted, and sexist religious cult that hates anything modern. I doubt that their was ever a time in practice when kids didn't exchange pilferaged copies of their fathers playboys. Besides for the most part what kids are 'exposed' to is little more than this short of anything intentionally sought."

2026-03-09 01:31:31 UTC

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@nprofile…dhjj @nprofile…cju7
No worries. I don't need a tip incentive to use Mastodon/the fediverse etc ... but appreciate the upvotes and any efforts to spread crypto more broadly.
I'm probably the only person on the planet with cryptocurrency, mastodon, matrix, and GPG public keys on my business card. And a set of directions on how to contact me (via encrypted communications). lol
I am not on any major social media... I skipped Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking platforms for Mastodon, Matrix, and similar more decentralized, self-hosted, and/or federated solutions. Not that I was the first to hop on any of these platforms either, but I probably am one of the few regularly active users.

2026-03-09 01:23:50 UTC

lol- Apparently we're winning. What I'm imagining are probably left-wing activists came out the other day in protest against the Free State Project. Though they could be right-wing nuts too for all I know. The republican party has been decimated by libertarians taking over largely from an influx of libertarians from out of state and around the world who migrated for the Free State Project- which aims to turn New Hampshire into a libertarian paradise. This is in large part just us backing a population that has leaned in the libertarian direction. The minority here is in some respect the left/right (democrats and republicans, which makes the picture funny in that this would be libertarians in any other states protesting the statists).
https://social.freetalklive.com/system/media_attachments/files/116/196/589/760/378/776/original/bab989b971e87537.png

2026-03-08 19:27:18 UTC

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@nprofile…cju7 @nprofile…dhjj
I don't have nor am I aware of any wallets that I'd be willing to use that support it. At least none have passed any sniff tests I've done.
I don't have nor am I aware of any wallets that I'd be willing to use that support it. Plus the technology doesn't even really work that well from what I have seen so far.
So basically at least none of the wallets I have looked at with support have passed any sniff tests I've done. I don’t even consider my sniff test to be all that high. Edge wallet depends on MyMonero (hmm also going away. Not sure what Edge Wallet is doing regarding that) which is saying something (ie it’s far from the most privacy friendly wallet, better wallets that pass my sniff test for at least Monero include Feather Wallet).
I have not looked recently, but for a failed effort that has taken a decade (?) ... it really doesn't matter. BCH, Dash, Monero, and other cryptos are far superior in one or multiple ways and for that rare BTC transaction well... it still works outside of the rare occasion. Costs a little more maybe... but... it's not like anyone is using BTC to get lunch. They're using Monero and BCH and Dash... not Bitcoin via lightning.

2026-03-08 19:20:13 UTC

:( I wish it didn't take so long to get around to finishing the solution to the mail problem I've been working on for the past year. It's basically done except for the setup user interface.
But... this comment is in relation to the often recommended solutions that I think suck: And that is use Proton VPN / Proton Mail (more the Proton Mail, but ultimately Proton anything really, though maybe for a few other different reasons):
https://www.404media.co/proton-mail-helped-fbi-unmask-anonymous-stop-cop-city-protestor/

2026-03-06 19:11:15 UTC

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@nprofile…dhjj
@nprofile…cju7
Yes to FTL. Not on lighting as none of the wallets as far as I know support it.

2026-03-04 03:12:46 UTC

Anyone who thinks the "ribbon" in Microsoft Office is somehow better is nuts and three lines to indicate a file menu is also just as crappy (looking at you Firefox). This insistence on hiding critical functionality in "modern" UI design started with Microsoft as far as I can tell around 2003. Yes- it pre-dates the "ribbon" by a long time. All I can say is LibreOffice is the FAR superior choice. Not because they often a "ribbon"-like interface, but because they offer a traditional user interface that actually works.
There is a reason people have been driven to GNU/Linux more and more with each passing year. Besides it getting better it's primarily shitty decisions by the "tech" industry, ie Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc.
https://www.neowin.net/news/libreoffice-hits-back-at-its-critics-says-its-ui-is-better-than-microsoft-offices/

2026-02-24 23:12:20 UTC

It's just a matter of time before blocking efforts by the entertainment cartels become almost entirely futile as it relates to most pirated content. It's a technological issue and even a 100% effective blockade of all pirate sites is irrelevant to piracy if there is even a single technical change to how content is distributed by pirates. I'll refrain from pointing out the trivial solution for pirates to get around all site blocking once and for all and for all time. I'm sure the day will come when hollywood wished it hadn't pushed the issue so hard as the best solution for pirates is to make the internet entirely irrelevant and one needs not a mesh network. One need only look to places where the internet is severely restricted to understand how movie, tv, and even news piracy is achieved without internet access. The solution is one that any pirate with a calculator, a tiny bit of technical aptitude, and an understanding of bandwidth can solve:
https://torrentfreak.com/protonvpn-fights-french-pirate-site-blockades-but-court-rejects-overblocking-fears/

2025-11-17 19:37:50 UTC

Headline: AI Use in 'Call of Duty: Black Ops 7' Draws Fire From US Lawmaker
"The use of AI in the latest Call of Duty has prompted a US lawmaker to call for regulations to prevent artificial intelligence from taking jobs away from human workers. On Friday, Khanna tweeted: 'We need regulations that prevent companies from using AI to eliminate jobs to extract greater profits.'"
Hilarious post on Slashdot to this call of action:
"I have been complaining for 30 years that game companies have used AI to drive the decisions of dishonestly named "non-player characters" instead of employing real human beings to play against the people buying their games. Billions of jobs have been lost over the decades!"
He has a good point. I mean, I remember back in the day playing games 'against the machine', as opposed to an employee of the game company, and as a consequence that was one less person they had to keep on the payroll.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/ai-use-in-call-of-duty-black-ops-7-draws-fire-from-us-lawmaker

2025-11-02 19:25:06 UTC

I would say our free stater halloween party in Keene, New Hampshire brought back memories of Hallowkeene, but that was actually before my time in New Hampshire. However it certainly brought back memories of hearing about it and was a reminder of how awesome Keene and New Hampshire are thanks to the Free State Project and associated migration movement! And really the 10s of thousand of people who have moved here in the last 20 years that are working to make New Hampshire a last bastion of freedom or freedom friendly haven amongst the tyranny that's been since history's beginning.
A look back at our history in Keene to 2015 Halowkeene (I just barely missed this, slightly pre-dates my move for the Free State Project):
https://social.freetalklive.com/system/media_attachments/files/115/481/734/771/094/591/original/0315686f07211654.png

2025-10-22 18:16:12 UTC

Re: Catherine Connolly Quitting Presidential Race
It seems seriously problematic to be censoring users even where such content is geared at misleading people in political races. The humorous thing about the recent video in the story below is it doesn't even sound real. If you see a video with a politician pulling out of a race don't you think you should think twice particularly when it's coming from social media sources that may be questionable?
https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2025/10/22/meta-removes-ai-video-purporting-to-show-catherine-connolly-quitting-presidential-race/

2025-10-20 20:09:08 UTC

"IPTV Pirates May Soon Be Named and Shamed, Italian Minister Says"
I just want everyone to know that if I were in Italy I'd be in the process of investigating how I too could become an IPTV pirate.
There is nothing shameful about "pirating" content. If you want to be ashamed of something be ashamed that your not contributing more (either via financing or exertion of effort of some kind presumably) to the production of creative and useful content and software you use and enjoy.
Just because copyright is immoral and is enforced through the use of violence that is the state doesn't mean you can't be a economic contributor to the creative and software ecosystems.
Whether it be through purchasing of t-shirts from your favorite bands, donations where such options exist, or other means. We get fan emails daily from customers purchasing our products and in doing so they too are contributing to the development of free software. It's not immoral to charge for free software. Free software is about the freedom the user gets from being able to make changes, fix bugs, and being able to redistribute said changes to others. Whether or not you can make money from it is another matter, but the reality is yes, you can. Numerous companies and thousands of individuals make fiscal contributions to free software developers and organizations every day. Much of the development is funded by companies and individuals out of self-interest. It's not even necessarily a charitable act.
https://torrentfreak.com/iptv-pirates-may-be-named-and-shamed-italian-minister-says-251020/

2025-08-18 23:36:01 UTC

I just donated to the Tor Project because I support the human right to privacy. Tor, which now includes the Tail project (another super important privacy project/distribution) too is one of the most important projects on the internet when it comes to privacy. Whether your a persecuted individual that has a more substantial privacy need or just don't like advertisers and others tracking you Tor is where it is at (and maybe you just want to support journalists and other who depend on Tor by using it or contributing to its development in economic terms): https://donate.torproject.org/

2025-08-15 01:47:11 UTC

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@nprofile…w8cy
Ha, just noticing the free software extremist mastodon instance your on. That's awesome. I have a friend who is blind with a shirt that says free speech extremist. Both are great messages. He actually has another shirt that says something like the worst thing for a blind person to read is a sign that says don't touch. It might even be more hilariously worded than that. Obviously a blind person needs to feel the don't touch sign to know it says don't touch.

2025-08-15 01:42:12 UTC

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@nprofile…w8cy
Yea, we can agree on that much. It doesn't matter to me, so-far-in as I know better not to install this malware, but others don't. The more people see it the more people will enable it and the more easily other entities can use it in an effort to coerce me to surrender control of my computer.

2025-08-14 10:52:06 UTC

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@nprofile…w8cy
No, they were never on my radar to begin with, but DRM advertising is not 'innocuous'. Lets see why else not dell? They lock down the wifi slot so you can't upgrade or replace your wifi card with another. They have a history of undermining GNU/Linux this way and I use GNU/Linux, but even if I didn't fuck any company that forces me to buy replacement parts through them. They have also had a history if shipping proprietary crap like power supplies on desktop PCs. Bundling malware...

2025-08-09 09:46:35 UTC

What the hell is wrong with people. What the hell is wrong with the people at Coinbase? What the hell is wrong with the people at companies and websites that utilize Coinbase. Do people not understand that Coinbase is NOT crypto. You can't even pay a merchant who accepts crypto via Coinbase with crypto. It's freaking insane. They only support specific wallets and that isn't crypto. Like Bitcoin has a standard and a QR code for it and if you actually take Bitcoin you got to show that QR code. When you use Coinbase there is NO option for Bitcoin! Like, umm I don't have one of the 6 wallets that your supporting and I have never even heard of and almost certainly wouldn't use EVER.
#boycottcoinbase
https://social.freetalklive.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/998/168/179/769/576/original/9046b310ab96801f.png

2025-08-09 06:48:07 UTC

See democrats and republican are stupid as f'. Like listen to Trump complaining about an activity his administration pioneered! This is debanking people for their politics. Yea, the left did something similar against conservatives pertaining to the IRS, so don't go thinking you should vote for the left/democrats now. BOTH are evil. I don't disbelieve him in this instance and I'm sure he's correct when he says conservatives have been debanked.
https://reclaimthenet.org/trump-order-banks-political-debanking-excludes-payment-processors
Here is what trumps complaining about now that is soo stupid given his own administrations participation in this debanking system:
"The order’s language is strong. Trump, who has a personal score to settle in this arena, told CNBC’s Squawk Box, 'The banks discriminated against me very badly. They totally discriminate against – I think me, maybe even more, but they discriminate against many conservatives.'”
And meanwhile his administration continues to pursue people like Ian Freeman (did little more than sell Bitcoin and even implemented KYC despite not being required to, yet government for political reasons went after him, he is the reason crypto took off, syndicated radio show on ~200 stations was first to cover Bitcoin), Roman Storm (Tornado Cash, software developer, software helped people preserve their privacy, never held anyone's money, still charged him with money laundering related offenses and unlicensed money transmission despite not doing any of it, and complying with regulations, but criminal prosecution made an absurdly broad interpretation of the law and went after him for political reasons anyway), Roger Ver (big proponent of BTC in the early days, led to crypto in the real world, now they're extraditing him despite the fact he relinquished his US citizenship).

2025-08-09 06:27:34 UTC

Executive orders change with the presidency and I wouldn't hold my breath that government will stop debanking people particularly given I believe it was trump's own administration that debanked "sex traffickers". For those who aren't aware you need to be super skeptical of anyone using the word "sex trafficking" . They're putting it up as if it means what you think it means (people being forced into slavery), but in reality it's being manipulated and usually used in a way that is purely hostile to anyone who dare not share a conservative extremist viewpoint. When they debanked "sex traffickers" for instance anyone who ever worked in the sex industry- be it selling it, working as an actor in porn, or even just stripping down in a movie, well, they all got debanked. It was I believe the first trump administration that did it. Under his leadership a segment of his conservative base (some people think ? feminist ?, but either way they're anti-porn, anti-lgbtq, etc) pushed him to have his regulator send out a threatening coded letter to suspend the licenses of banks if they didn't debank "sex traffickers" or something along those lines.
Don't for one moment think that this bigoted group has only been successful with trump. They've gotten most of the political class on board with passing other laws like creating liability for websites. If someone posts a sex for sale coded message which may not even be obvious to the site administrator the site becomes liable for "sex trafficking". Keep in mind not everyone selling sex has even been trafficked, or forced into it. Some people actually like their job and if you don't then don't sell yourself for sex!
https://reclaimthenet.org/trump-order-banks-political-debanking-excludes-payment-processors

2025-08-07 23:49:20 UTC

Someone needs to explain to Italy that it doesn't have the power to regulate what DNS and VPN providers external to its jurisdiction do or don't do:
"Widened scope: VPN services and publicly available DNS providers are required to deploy blocking measures consistent with those already in place at ISPs. The requirement to block within 30 minutes applies regardless of a providers’ location or residence. "
Just to clarify my company (ThinkPenguin.com) will not be complying (we offer our PenguinVPN service if you go to the networking section of the site you can find a product subscription offering) with Italian law. We don't operate servers in Italy and have no bank accounts, employees, or similar in Italy. If Italy wants to block their citizens from accessing our services they are free to do so, but we're not complying with laws that aren't applicable or enforceable in New Hampshire and/or the United States.
I also have no plans to travel to Europe let alone Italy. Hell, I don't even want to leave New Hampshire and I'm a big advocate of NHexit. That is New Hampshire declaring independence from the United States.
New Hampshire independence is likely a bit of a ways off still, but we did see the number of house representatives supporting it go from ~13 to ~24 in just the past ~1 year or so. And this is actual reps voting on constitutional amendments and related bills. We may be a bit far off from independence, but unlike every other state we're heading in the right direction. Every year we see an increase in the number of libertarians or free staters elected. About 25% of the house and 20% of the senate currently. It's not that these numbers are huge it's the rate of increase that matters and that is significant enough to see freedom in my life.

2025-08-07 23:30:50 UTC

And people continue to buy from Dell why?
https://social.freetalklive.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/990/083/125/620/384/original/f83b62c392aacc47.png

2025-08-07 05:23:31 UTC

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@nprofile…thfz
Ha, yea, I can kinda see where they are going with that one. However pets suck. They are wayyy too much work and zero real reward. I was once gifted a guinea pig when I was about 11 and all I thought when I saw it was "really?". I had never once in my life hinted that I wanted a pet. My younger brother on the other hand had wanted a dog. Glad my parents never got a dog, but at least if they had gifted him a guinea pig he'd at least initially had been excited about it until he realized how much work one was. I comparatively had to grin my teeth and pretend like I was happy while thinking about the next 7 years of hell (they live about 7 years, and while you keep em in a cage ya kinda got to feed and clean the cage at least once in a while). And yea they kinda are hard to kill. I did the absolute bare minimum in terms of feeding and cleaning. They won't eat them selves to death like gold fish will, which meant I shoved as many pellets in the bowl so I didn't need feed it often.

2025-08-06 08:24:06 UTC

I got a new found respect for the danish. Apparently they have no qualms about feeding their pets to predators. A zoo asked for donations and apparently it's not a problem, but revealed a 'culture issue' in at least the United States. There was such an insane reaction the Zoo had to mute its social media page. LOL. I am definitely on the side of 'it's how the world goes round' and this comes off to me as this delusional fantasy land so many people live in today. I get it is a pet... but come on. If only people were this upset about like actual people being murdered and caged by their governments.

2025-08-04 23:44:12 UTC

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@nprofile…thfz
I think Visa/Master Card should be able to do what they like, but the problem is ultimately the government regulations inhibit competition within the market place for payment solutions and that ends up eliminating free market competition. I am against the regulations that enable the psycho religious or feminist groups the power to sway politicians (and the bureaucrats they put in power) into using said regulations (they have threatened every financial institution, specifically the suspension of licenses to operate) to threaten financially regulated entities into doing their political bidding of stopping others these fringe groups don't like from being able to receive payments online.

2025-08-03 22:30:50 UTC

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@nprofile…ya88 Yea, yawn, kinda. My company sells VPN subscriptions, but we don't offer renewals. That is automatic renewals. You can pick 1 month, 6 months, 1 year, 2 year, and 3 year options, but each is paid up front. When the subscription expires you have to go back and renew the subscription. I understand that some things are just more optimal with automatic renewals, but I think that's also a poor excuse to do nothing.

2025-08-03 20:35:16 UTC

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@nprofile…ya88 Yea, I mean, this doesn't solve any real problem and just funnels money to this abusive industry. I don't disagree that it can at time get around various types of problem, but we should be avoiding these companies altogether. I am under no illusion that is a big ask, but you also don't always need everyone doing something to have a positive impact. For example even a small loss of revenue from folks using cryptocurrencies more can result in companies and industries thinking twice or undoing bad policies.

2025-08-03 19:41:18 UTC

So I was right for anyone questioning whether it was top down (coming from visa/master card/etc) or an act of the payment processor alone to kick NSFW games from Itch.io. This regulation of the financial world is extremely dangerous for democracy and free speech (yes, I'm a democracy skeptic even if I'll give you that it appears to be the least bad solution thus far tried/implemented by comparison to things like kings and dictators):
"Itch's founder told the gaming news site Aftermath that it was a notice from Visa that led to the sudden deindexing of so many games."
What is happening here is that religious nut-jobs (some appear to be using the term feminists or some niche thereof) have lobbied for a crack down on porn and sex that they see as taboo. They push it as a crackdown on "sex trafficking", but sex trafficking today is a code word for going after the sex industry (porn primarily, but voluntary non-forced prostitution, etc) rather than a small percentage of violent thugs using violence to achieve their financial objectives. The state is itself a far more violent actor in crushing the lives of peaceful sex workers and peaceful actors in the porn industry than the pimps and actual sex traffickers (ie using violence).
If it's OK to use violence, threats, and force against those involved in this industry that consists of mostly peaceful voluntary interactions than it can and will be used against political rivals. And we have already seen that with censorship filters (often used to try and stop piracy) in some countries and banks shutting off access to debit/credit/bank accounts of persons in Canada during what became known as the 'trucker protest'. These were protests against prime minister Justin Trudeau for excess COVID restrictions.

2025-08-03 19:28:19 UTC

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@nprofile…ya88 Better to complain and then not use said services/sites.

2025-08-01 07:09:44 UTC

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@nprofile…0w4g
Who needs Skype? Literally no one, certainly not today, but that said what is GNUJami? Presumably some kind of Skype replacement? Does it let you connect with Skype users or is it more an alternative VoIP solution?

2025-07-29 08:36:52 UTC

It's about time someone stood up against these right-wing religious nut jobs that have pushed censorship and other laws that have primarily benefited politicians in the name of 'protecting' LGBTQ, women, and others and can't comprehend the difference between fantasy and reality. While I'm against the use of violence there is a HUGE difference between 'violent' video games, or in this case creepy sexual fantasies and people committing actual violence. When you pass a law criminalizing thoughts your committing a VIOLENT act that isn't justifiable. Banning actual violence (without consent) is justified, but not some sickos fantasy. Just like it's not justified to ban violent video games just because some small percentage of people will commit actual violence.
https://www.polygon.com/news/616835/visa-mastercard-steam-itchio-campaign-adult-games

2025-07-20 00:59:44 UTC

📣 STAND WITH SHYLO – SENTENCING HEARING EVENT
🗓️ Date: Monday, July 28th, 2025
🕜 Time: Meet at 1:30 PM (Hearing begins at 2:00 PM)
📍 Location: Outside 217 Main Street, Newport, Vermont (Orleans County Courthouse)
A Vermont mother, farmer, and freedom advocate — Shylo Bourdeau — is being sentenced for obstruction of justice and impeding a public officer. These charges stem from a family court custody case that was later dismissed for lack of merit. Yet the State continues to pursue punishment for Shylo’s refusal to comply with unlawful interference in her private family life.
This hearing is not just about one woman. It is about every parent’s right to educate their children, protect their family, and live freely without coercion.
Shylo’s only “crime” was asserting her rights. For that, she now faces jailtime — and your presence, your voice, and your written words of support can make a difference.
✊ Here’s How You Can Help:
✅ SHOW UP IN PERSON:
Join us outside the courthouse at 1:30 PM to stand in peaceful support. Bring signs, cameras, your voice, and your honor.
✅ WRITE A LETTER OF SUPPORT:
Submit a heartfelt letter for Shylo to present at sentencing — or read your statement in court.

2025-07-15 06:34:23 UTC

Great news today out of New Hampshire involving a free stater named Alu who was falsely accused sexual misconduct with a minor ! Basically said misconduct had supposedly occured at a party during the Porcupine Freedom Festival (as I understand it). There were many other wittnesses who had the trial occured would have testified to the fact no sexual missconduct at the party occured. The entire thing however is kinda messed up and seemingly entirely a political attack and slander on our actual libertarian reps from a conservative adversary. Basically the goal was to use a false claim regarding a taboo subject to demonize a solid libertarian in the eyes of the public. This isn't the first time and it is highly unlikely to be the last that our enemies use this and similar tactics against us. Anyway the case was dismissed with prejudice meaning it can never be refiled. Alu won!
In 2016 the FBI raided Free Talk Live's studio for the first time (2nd attack by FBI agent phil christinana though) via the use of a false affidavit. This is what enables a judge to issue a warrant. The affidavit would have read something to the effect that child porn would be found. Ian's one of the leading activists in New Hampshire and the point of raiding was to smear his good name and destroy the largest syndicated libertarian run radio show on the planet. Despite no arrests, no evidence, no trial, and multiple lawsuits to force return of stolen seized devices that day no child porn ever existed. But that of course doesn't stop the media from smearing Ian's name or that of the show. An internnet connection that we estimate had ~300 or so folks using it. For the first time in history a radio program only lost 7 of 200 stations from a smear tactic of this nature.

2025-07-13 20:27:14 UTC

A friend of mine has been working on self-improvement now for a few years and I have been helping him out where I can. His objective is to be more self reliant and less dependent on the state. In practical terms it means he has taken the plunge and moved to New Hampshire, refused state aid, and is learning to be more independent. For him this means learning to traverse the town on his own, do his own grocery shopping, and get to and from various nearby places where we have held weekly social events by himself.
This is frankly amazing as he's been told his entire life that he'd be depended on the state and others for the rest of his life. You see the reason for that is my friend is blind. However what we have been led to believe and what many people with disabilities have been led to believe is that those with various sorts of problems couldn't do this or that and then given only one option: take money from the state. What most don't know is that this money comes with strings attached that hold the more ambitious, like my friend here, back. If he were taking money from the state he'd be unable to take a job.
The truth is he can work when people give him a chance. He's a professional in the audio production world editing podcasts. He's now started a new business as a baker making and selling bread.
For 1 Goldback (or an equivalent in crypto, about $7-8) you can now get fresh extremely delicious bread in Keene, New Hampshire. This is until the state comes in and shuts him down for baking bread without a license.
It's time to end the state and let people get back to being productive human beings. My friend has been living independently for the past two years and soon won't need any help that he can't get through free market solutions.

2025-07-13 16:39:02 UTC

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@nprofile…4jyj
Yea, I have been working on a proper easy to deploy fix for this problem. Think mail in a box, but a more complete solution that automates setup of every hoop in such a way the user isn't given the opportunity to screw things up. For probably $150 you'll get everything including hardware you can actually fully control along with options for an IP that isn't on the protest or blacklists.

2025-07-13 16:34:52 UTC

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@nprofile…fm8l
LOL, I agree with the sentiment, but won't go so far as using violence to dictate what others do. Although I guess that isn't what you said and I'm just reading into your statement a bit. In other words I was thinking you were implying you'd stop Microsoft from using its OS on its computers.

2025-07-12 20:14:04 UTC

Microsoft Outlook in the "cloud", the "greatest thing ever invented" according to some went down for over 21 hours on Wednesday and Thursday according to to CNBC.
I don't think I've had 21 hours of downtime total during the entire 25 years I've been managing mail. Why people are obsessed with the cloud I'll never understand. Handing over your most important data to a dishonest and self-serving corporation has never made any sense to me. Then to top it all off people get upset when Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Google, or someone else wipes out there stuff.
Best t-shirt ever:
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/there-no-cloud-its-just-someone-elses-computer-t-shirt
Article: https://slashdot.org/story/25/07/12/1730242/microsoft-outlook-malfunctioned-for-over-21-hours-wednesday-and-thursday

2025-06-29 19:18:55 UTC

This guy is such a fascist, he actually thinks people should be free to express wrong opinions and fork free software projects:
https://bobcall.me/redhat.html

2025-06-13 16:08:07 UTC

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@nprofile…thfz
This is just wrong. The Taliban won in Afghanistan with little more than sticks and rocks. There are different approaches to war, and it is not beyond hope for little people to win out in wars against major adversaries. Often it is the propaganda your spouting that keeps a population in line and powers that be in power. When you believe the propaganda of the enemy you don't even try and trying is 99% of the fight. It's not the physical weapons. It isn't mass violence, though some amount of violence on all sides does tend to occur, but not always. There have been some relatively peaceful independence movements where countries broke away from the Soviet Union with as few as a single death as an example. No, Californians should resist the feds and it is not unlikely that people around the country would support the state. Polls on this suggest something like 1% or maybe it was 10% of the population supports invading a breakaway US state today. The point being it would be a very unpopular war, and continued resistance would be key, not necessarily guns. Keeping troops on the ground is expensive and the population will easily tire of war, particularly an unjustified one of a common people (ie Afghanistan is a foreign population relative to California making it out to easily be an enemy, the US is largely homogeneous and seen as a population that is 'one of us'.).

2025-06-12 08:30:58 UTC

Heros defend the victims AND the victimless through any means available at their disposal. This includes use of violence when necessary against other violent actors. This includes those using violence as a defense against the gang calling itself law enforcement. The difference between most gangs and law enforcement is most gangs don't target the victimless masses by way of 'civil asset forfeiture', take a paycheck by way of 'fining' people who have no victims, or kidnap folks usually under false and manipulated pretenses in the name of some false greater good.
Police may be above the law, but they should NOT be beyond the justice of the masses and it is only the masses who can enforce justice when it comes to law enforcement, prosecutors, and other bureaucrats that place themselves beyond the reach of public accountability.
Support the protesters and those defending the public against the violent abusers calling themselves law enforcement, national guard, marines, and ICE. The real heros aren't the politicians either (except for maybe ~100 migrants for the FSP who moved to NH). The real heros in Los Angeles aren't the ones getting getting paid. They are the ones being persecuted for using whatever means were at their disposal to defend your freedoms. Be it their words, their rocks, or their cocktails.

2025-06-12 05:34:59 UTC

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@nprofile…yxww
Ohh city states might just be an even grander idea, but we will probably need to start by focusing on the great national governments of the world to diminish and dismantle the biggest threats to the world. Then focus on city states. And finally individuals as the best governments are the ones in the individuals own control.

2025-06-12 05:30:34 UTC

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@nprofile…2vsq
You do realize that the feds get there money from Californians and money handed to the states by the feds are literal bribes. Talk about corruption at its core. It's a terrible supreme court ruling that makes this even possible. This very issue goes back to the days of independence from Great Britan in some respect and whether or not we should even have a strong central government. The weak federal government originally formed was overthrown ~7 years in if memory serves me right. However the decision on whether or not the feds could tax a state's citizens and then use the money to bribe the states is a much much much more recent ruling. I want to say it is a ruling of the last 100 years or so. Prior to the 1910s (? AND that is despite government education existing) governments were smaller including the federal government and taxation was comparatively low. California would be better off as an independent nation just as New Hampshire would be. This may not be the case in economic terms for all the peoples in every state. Mississippi for instance would probably be worse off economically, but maybe not. Its a poor state that receives a lot of federal aid, but as an independent country it wouldn't necessarily have to contribute to funding the war machine which is the greatest economic burden at a federal level. Eliminate that cost and incomes almost double. Eliminate taxes incomes more than double leaving poverty almost nonexistent at least among the majority of those with the lowest incomes.

2025-06-12 02:03:38 UTC

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@nprofile…ss5v
@nprofile…tqhs
So why fight? I'll agree to surrender to your independence movement if you agree to leave us alone in New Hampshire. And I'll agree to these terms for any other party who wishes the same for their state and/or themselves.

2025-06-12 01:47:52 UTC

As the southern baptists push their 'new' immoral political agenda to criminalize gay marriage, porn, and vice it seems only rational that the rest of society start setting up baptist conversion camps under the guise of undoing the damage from these cults. In practice we need not change their beliefs, only cause them to suffer their own advocacy. The camps should include mandatary penetration tests, same sex only bunk houses, and whips for those who dare blindly follow the camps teachings.

2025-06-11 23:53:36 UTC

It's time for the governor and legislature of California to declare independence from the United States. He should take back the California national guard and order them to seize federal buildings. Neither Joe nor Trump should have the authority to dictate their whims to all of of the US. Independent nations are more than capable of working together to defend one another against a common enemy and in fact that was the basis of the US's founding. Insurrection was the founding of the american way.

2025-06-10 21:57:16 UTC

Are getting ready to attend the greatest libertarian fests starting Thursday June 12th? Forkfest, the even freer precursor to the Porcupine Freedom Festival is about to begin! Come join us at Rogers Campground and discover what it's like to live around other like-minded libertarians. A group that puts individuals and freedom before "safety" and authoritarianism. The Porcupine Freedom Festival is an event put on by the Free State Project every year. The event is geared at drawing in libertarians from around the world to one place (New Hampshire) for the purpose of creating a free society somewhere. With a large enough migration to a low population state it's been possible to take over the politics and begin making real changes somewhere. Most folks locked up in cages are there at the whims of the state for non-violent 'offenses' and of whom have no victims (of violence). While the federal government is a scarier beast to confront, the most benefit comes at reforming state and local government. As such New Hampshire was picked by early to-be free staters as the location that thousands of libertarians have since migrated to and begun to reform. We now have ~100 liberty and liberty leaning reps in our state house out of a 400 member statehouse. We also now have achieved 5 reps in the 24 member senate. We still have a little ways to go before more radical and significant changes can be pushed through, but little by little we gain new movers and in the coming decade estimates indicate we will have the first true libertarian dominated free homeland.
We're not just crazy about freeing a state. We want to welcome you to an independent New Hampshire too!
https://nhexit.us
Festival info:
https://forkfest.party
https://porcfest.com

2025-06-10 21:44:42 UTC

Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, speaks out for the first time after his kidnapping by the government of France (likely at the behest of the US) for the dastardly crime of providing telecommunication services to the world (while simultaneously compromising your freedom by complying with government orders to hand over your personal information to said governments):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=bxFQvOyTolg
(this is the danger of even giving anyone reason or giving the appearance that you might be liberty-leaning in an pro-authoritarian leftist/right world, Pavel Durov isn't a libertarian, but he may lean that way on some issues in some respect)

2025-06-10 21:41:16 UTC

2025-05-20 21:15:27 UTC

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@nprofile…4jyj
Hmm, true, you could just not play games too. Playing proprietary (I don't mean assets, just code) games is just wrong. So many better things you could be doing with your time. I'm far from anal when it comes software freedom, but I also don't make excuses for gaming companies. I was mostly OK with what ID did back in the day for example with many games like doom with the release of source code, but licensed the art assets. If you wanted the full game you paid for a copy. The software though you could install for free and the source for that matter.