Since my work involves sensors, I set up a continuous testing setup on a raspberry pi and got its IP whitelisted. I ssh into it when something is annoying to do in the Windows laptop.

Thanks a lot for the examples! I have been looking through these, and, as far as I can tell:

1. In SSL stripping, the site would appear to your client as HTTP, not HTTPS. If that’s the case, I think SSL stripping is blocked when using ‘HTTPS-Only’ mode
2. For DNS spoofing, the visited site would show up as insecure because they would not be able to generate a valid certificate for the target website

I still have not had the chance to look into leaky metadata. But, generally, I think metadata issues can in part be addressed by not generating much metadata.

Probably the biggest vulnerability is the captive portal. There is no way to verify you’re connecting to an official Starbucks router. I think that when connecting to a public router it is wise to assume that it is malicious.

I’m curious about an example that comes to your mind as you say this. In your view, what is a privacy risk associated with public WiFi use that is not easily mitigated?

By hand. We are only two people, and we usually clean after we cook/eat. When one is cleaning only 2 plates + a pot/pan at a time, it is easy to use little water. Spray of soap, metal scrub, sponge scrub, and then turn the tap on to rinse for a few seconds. Utensils get individually scrubbed and then all rinsed together for a few seconds.

Maybe when we have kids a dish washer will make sense.

I have been happy with my Garmin. It is functional without having to connect to anything, and data can be easily exported to a computer for more advanced processing. It is a handy GPS receiver that lets me monitor heart rate and log running metrics.

Hopefully the English language is developed and Rick Astley gets to make his song before anyone figures it out!

I would take a portable CD player, place a CD with Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up on it playing backwards, hook up solar panels, remove the ability to shut it on/off, and set it up a circuit that will:

• As the device solar charges, keep it off until some voltage threshold is exceeded
• Once the voltage is high enough, start a random timer (8 - 100 hours), so that it is not immediately obvious that the sun activated the device
• When the timer ends, turn the music on on repeat mode
• Sometimes turn the music off at random, and then turn it on again at random after a long delay, so that in some cases you can have turn ‘ON’ events without the device being exposed to the sun
• When the voltage drops below a low threshold, turn the device off until it is charged again

I speak spanish natively and at during uni I would hang out with a group of Brazillian friends. I would speak a mixture of portuguese and spanish with them.

The mom of one of these friends made a Brazilian dish for us (Feijoada) and asked me how it was as it was the first time I tried it. I answered that the dish as ‘exquisito’, which in Spanish means delicious (similar ‘exquisite’). She seemed somewhat disappointed and upset by my response so I probed a little and found out that ‘esquisito’ in Portuguese actually means ‘weird’. She thought I was calling her dish weird tasting. I found quickly enough to clarify, but I did feel bad about making her fell that way… She was very excited about sharing her cooking and she thought I called it weird.

No worries! If you need me to test something with it I can this week, just let me know

I am currently near Cologne in Germany. I placed one of these LycaMobile SIM cards from NL and it activated automatically. It does recognize that it is connected to the German network and roaming, and still activates data and assigns a phone number.

So, it seems to work fine

The use-cases that I see advertised are not things that I do in my day-to-day. I usually place my phone on a drawer or leave it in my backpack - I definitely don’t want it on my face.

So, to me, smart glasses feel like an uncomfortable gimmick at this point. Maybe there is something amazing about them that has not yet clicked with me, but for the time being I don’t see me buying one of these for the foreseeable future.

I also did not know of him at all. I did know who Ben Shapiro is. This week has been an educational one: I have learned about Nick Fuentes and ‘groypers’, Candace Owens, and that the change my mind meme guy is called Steven Crowder (I first thought it was this guy when I saw the video of Kirk).

The US political commentator that I do watch some times is Hasan, but not too often. The US lore goes too deep and moves too quickly, hard to keep up.

Yeah, I’m still looking. This is the closest I found so far

Ha, maybe! I don’t remember if I ever saw a 180 flip. This is the closest I could find from a quick search: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZpIglVnYuY

If you have a video with the 180 degree flip I would really like to see it. This context seems like a plausible place to see such a move in modern days. I would imagine that in some martial arts this effect would be well known.

Some of these ‘games’ do trigger real physiological mechanisms. A well-documented example is the Valsalva maneuver, where forcefully exhaling against a closed mouth and nose affects heart rate and blood pressure.

In some games, this maneuver (or similar) is combined with a second action that normally increases blood flow demand to the brain. The mismatch between reduced blood pressure and sudden demand can cause dizziness or brief loss of consciousness due to insufficient oxygen reaching the brain.

Actually, there is a similar effect sometimes seen during heavy deadlifts, suddenly releasing can sometimes make people pass out. There are many “deadlift passing out” videos online.

So, those ‘games’ can work. I have known of kids breaking their teeth after face-planting against the floor while playing those games. Not a very smart thing to do.

If you catch a frog in between your hands and quickly flip it around, you can get the frog into a kind of paralyzed state called ‘tonic immobility’.

Here is a photo from Wikipedia:

OK, well, many years ago I was very interested in this phenomenon and decided to look into the literature.

I found a paper from 1928 titled “On The Mechanism of Tonic Immobility in Vertebrates” written by Hudson Hoagland (PDF link).

In this paper, the author describes contraptions he used to analyze the small movement (or lack of movement) in animals while in this state. They look kind of like torture devices:

OK, but, that’s still not it… The obscure fact is found in the first footnote of that paper, on page #2:

Apparently this or a similar effect can be observed in humans too?! In this paper, the author himself claims to have done this and that it works! I tried to locate more recent resources describing this phenomenon in humans but I could not find them… Is this actually possible? If so, why is this not better documented? Or, maybe it is better documented but understood as a different type of reflex today? Not sure.

That’s a very interesting resource!

Actually, the countries where I have been able to purchase anonymous SIM cards are in the list “As of 2021, the following countries do not have mandatory SIM card registration laws”. So, it appears like I just happen to have been lucky and I should not make this as such a general recommendation…

Funny, about Mexico it says:

Countries expected to implement mandatory SIM registration in 2022: Philippines, Mexico.

I can at least confirm that I was not asked for ID when buying SIM cards last year in Mexico.

I just looked it up and found the proposed law for Mexico on Wikipedia. It was struck down in 2022 as unconstitutional.

So, then, I really have no anecdotes to say that it is easy in places where it is formally illegal.

I am not sure about France. When I search online, I often find resources stating “Yes, ID is required”, even for the countries where I know that I have bought SIM cards with cash. Well, the SIM is usually free and what I pay for is the top-up code.

I would imagine (but I’m not sure) that if you try to buy a SIM card at an airport or at an official store from a large telephony provider you are more likely to get asked for an ID. I find them in shops that have signs with the names of smaller MVNOs. Something like what is shown in this image that I found online, where you can see signs of ‘Lyca Mobile’ and ‘Lebara’:

But, your mileage may vary. Probably some locations are more strict than others.

Depending on where you are travelling to and from, you can often get an anonymous prepaid SIM card. That is what I do: buy one with cash, put it into a MiFi router, and only switch it on when I need internet. That way I stay off the records of whoever else is with me and I am not relying on their identity as a shield. I have not found an eSIM provider that gives me the same level of anonymity, so I have avoided those.

If you really have to register a SIM with your identity, it depends on the situation. For example, if you buy a SIM in the EU, activate roaming, and then use it in Mexico, the Mexican authorities can’t instantly demand your subscriber info from the EU. On the other hand, if you or your family buy local SIMs while showing ID, then travel together and check in to hotels together, it makes little difference whose SIM is whose. For Mexico specifically, you can walk into an OXXO store, pay cash, and get a prepaid SIM with a data package, no ID required. Many countries have similar cash options so you check ahead of time.

About whether the worry is justified. The type of surveillance you mention, such as stingrays, requires both strong capability and strong motivation. If a government wanted to, they could stop your entire family at the border before you ever left. But from what you describe, you are just a foreigner who might pass by a protest. That is unlikely to trigger the level of targeting you are thinking of.

Still, I would not call it “in vain.” Building habits that protect privacy and understanding how information flows is always useful. But if you can get a prepaid SIM anonymously with cash, it is usually a cleaner option than tethering from family.

Thanks!