• 2 Posts
  • 59 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 3rd, 2023

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  • Using a phone that long is risky due to the lack of security updates, especially if you’re using it for work. People not using phones longer is a problem, but the bigger issue is manufacturers killing support so quickly to force people into upgrading.

    I recently upgraded after 5 years on an iPhone because it reached the end of its support cycle. I considered another iPhone because 5 years of support is great, but really didn’t feel like paying another $1000+ for what is essentially the same phone I was already using, just with a different body. So I went with a used Pixel 7 on ebay and installed GrapheneOS on it, and I’m very happy with it. I’m getting the same 5 years of support, a more secure OS, and I’m recycling at the same time!




  • These types of projects are driven by metrics, and teams have some kind of quota/goal that they need to reach by a certain date to keep the project on schedule. Bonuses or job security may be on the line here, and so you may see some desperate employees “going the extra mile” to reach their goals.

    Relatedly, Alexa’s voice activation sensitivity is essentially a tunable number. It can be changed to be more sensitive, so that it will activate more easily (e.g. maybe you say “Alex” instead of “Alexa”). The people who control this are likely on the team with that deadline, so the incentives are there to lower this value in order to collect more data by recording personal conversations “accidentally”. Maybe a bad update goes out that causes Alexa to activate randomly, and they quickly fix it after a few days when they collected all the non-Alexa personal conversations they need for their AI.

    That’s maybe a bit too deep into the paranoia/tinfoil hat spectrum for some, but history has shown that you can’t give big tech the benefit of the doubt. Especially when you see some of the documents from the Google trial, where executives discuss rolling back new features to improve arbitrary metrics in the short term so that they can get their bonuses for the quarter, even if it hurts consumers.









  • Are you sure? I currently have an online account (because it was easier to give other people access and I too only have these watching my yard), but I remember when I first set it up in my home I was using a local account created in the DVR’s portal (a Cloudkey Gen 2). The web portal is hosted on the cloudkey, you can access it via any web browser, and the cameras will record to it without an internet connection.

    I could’ve sworn you could host the camera server without a Unifi DVR, but apparently not. The network stuff can be though. I guess that’s important to keep in mind, although I’d be surprised if they removed the ability to use the DVR without an online account.



  • Switch to Unifi. It’s enterprise-grade hardware and high quality software at consumer prices. If you know networking, you can set them up without connecting them to the internet while still being able to access them outside your network. If not, you can just use their free web portal to access your cameras. It’s probably easier than Wyze, and it’s certainly more secure.

    I don’t normally like to shill brands on the internet, but for these people I make an exception.