I had a similar incident with a cheap, 360, cam I bought off of Aliexpress. It was not going to be a security cam, just a cam to keep an eye on some seedlings in a grow box. I set it all up and would review the video of the seedlings sprouting. Then I noticed an weird behavior. At 5:00 AM it would automatically pan and stop, then repeat.

At the time we were experiencing some heavy electrical storms in our area and I have a Woody doll that sits up on a shelf in my lab. When we get electrical storms in this area, my Woody doll will introduce himself all on his own. ‘Hey howdy hey! My name’s Woody!’ It’ll freak you out if you didn’t know it does that. The Woody doll has a pull string voicebox and I haven’t pulled the string in years. I attribute the phenomenon to static charges in the air that activate the voicebox somehow.

So the panning I attributed to this static electrical charge during electrical storms. However, it started becoming a schedule. At 5:00 AM~ it would begin panning. So I got into the guts of the cam and the software. Turns out, no matter what DNS you used, one was already hard coded (1.2.4.8) along with other network settings, into the firmware and seemed to bypass any setting you punched in. The cam operated as a normal cam would and for what I was using it for, it did the job, except for the early morning panning.

So, great, I’ve allowed a nefarious actor into my network. I removed the cam off the wifi, and destroyed it. Combed through the network for any signs of exfiltration or other angles of attack and found nothing, except that I had pretty much set up a cheap, Trojan horse on my network.

There is no cost associated with your disbelief.

Nobody is doing double the work. If you ask AI a question, it only gets a vibe check at best.

Hey there BluescreenOfDeath, sup. Good to meet you. My name is ‘Nobody’.

Wow! That’s quite a list. Thanks.

Just because I find an inaccurate search result does not mean DDG is useless. Never trust, always verify.

You’re welcome to buy in to the AI hype.

We’ve been using ‘AI’ for quite some time now, well before the advent of AI Rice Cookers. It’s really not that new.

I use AI when I master my audio tracks. I am clinically deaf and there are some frequency ranges that I can’t hear well enough to master. So I lean heavily on AI. I use AI for explaining unfamiliar code to me. Now, I don’t run and implement such code in a production environment. You have to do your due diligence. If you searched for the same info in a search engine, you still have to do your due diligence. Search engine results aren’t always authoritative. It’s just that Grok is much faster at searching and in fact, lists the sources it pulled the info from. Again, much faster than engaging a search engine and slogging through site after site.

I believe we are reading two different Hitchhiker’s Guide.

No wAy something popular and megacorp-embraced could be bad. Asbestos, lead pipes, 2-digit dates, NFTs, opiates, sub-prime lending, algorithmic content, pervasive surveillance, etc must have just been flukes.

All technology weilds a double edged sword.

In 70 years on this planet, I would have thought we’d put LGBTQ+ and racism to rest. I look forward to a day when being LGBTQ+ is as boring as being heterosexual. America could solve about 50% of it’s problems by using this one simple trick: Mind your own fuckin’ business. My sexual proclivities should only come into discussion if you’re sitting on my lap. Otherwise, piss off.

Thing is, I already have a standalone, whole network, pFsense firewall in place. I already run DNSCrypt as well as PIA VPN, & Tailscale on my servers. I run Windows Firewall Control on my Windows PC, which was bought out by MalwareBytes, for a couple things I like to have precise control of but only at certain times as needed. I really was just interested in someone’s personal perspective. I do have Portmaster bookmarked, as I’m not one to dismiss useful software off hand. Never know when I might just have a use case for it.

Multi-Level Tunneling Sounds interesting. Is that like choosing which layer you want to use in the OSI stack? I’d be all in if Portmaster could generate network noise for obfuscation. That’s what I’m trying to educate myself on currently.

Ain’t no normie ever gonna figure that out

We were all ‘normies’, to use your vernacular, at one point or another. Could it possibly be more complicated than building an Altair with less than supportive instruction manuals of the time?

Do you find Portmaster to be viable? I’ve seen it around and read a couple brief articles about it. I’ve just never found anyone who uses it. I use MalwareBytes Firewall Control from Binsoft (Alexandru Dicu - https://www.binisoft.org/). It’s fairly bare bones but it does the trick. I’m always looking for something better. I do have the whole network behind a standalone pFsense box. I just needed something local on the machine to silence chatty programs and services.

(Simple) DNSCrypt: https://www.dnscrypt.org/

OP, I’m not going to castigate you for your Google usage. I am going to assume that you are aware of the privacy concerns when dealing with Google since you are posting here in a Privacy chan. Sometimes, people are required to use Google services and there is no way around that. If that were my situation, I’d use a sandbox, VPN, 7 diff proxies, and a hazmat suit. If this Google usage is not required by say an employer, I’d find something more private.

Google does have some pretty cool technology. Unfortunately most of it, if not all, is built off of data theft.

(like websites ask for captcha or don’t let you in)

Thank you for your comment. As far as captcha, the way I have my network set up, captcha’s are just part of the ‘way it is’. I would rather captchas than have my jimmy just hanging out exposed in the ether tho. I was just very curious about NYM because it sounds very promising. The reviews I’ve read from as recent as 01-25 place NYM in the beta range of development tho, so I’ll keep an eye on it.

First, congratulations on the new family member.

Not knowing exactly the nature of your entrepreneurial skills, I have found good success with meet n’ greet, press the flesh as it were. Some businesses need a lot of advertising, some don’t need any. Join your local Chamber of Commerce or Business Association. Keep your ears open. Treat every interaction as an opportunity to grow your business.

For example, I am getting along in years so farming 20 acres got to be a bit much for one old guy. I started leasing acreage to other local farmers mainly for growing silage. I was at one of our local farmer’s market one day and by chance overheard/eavesdropped a conversation a small group was having. They were talking about looking for small plots of land that they could all go in on together and have a communal garden. You help with the labor, you get a share of the grow type of thing.

So I approached them and listened to them talk and suggested that I may have the solution they were looking for. Long story short, I now have four, one acre plots that I lease to locals for their communal gardens. I provide the pipe stand for a water supply with bib to split off different watering troughs and I plow the plot for you. All you have to do is work the soil, grow your veggies, and profit.

So basically now, I have positive cash flow with moderate to minimal work. I still maintain a one acre plot for my personal grow but in all honesty it’s far to much for just one person to eat. I usually donate most of that to local food banks in town. Which is another good thought to keep in mind. We all get help along the way in life. No one is self made. Pay it forward. Give something back to the community local to you.

In my honest opinion, I don’t think companies really delete every last kb of your data. Your data probably still exists on a backup in some server farm.

How common is it for law enforcement to use a browser fingerprint? Seems rather rare in my reading. I guess they could use it as complimentary evidence. However it would seem to me you’d have to be a high level adversary.