There’s already been documented instances of Zionists using other shell entities to launder their donations instead of giving through AIPAC. I only expect that to accelerate.

Mao, on the other hand only took up arms against Japan.

An invading and occupying imperialist force that was busily conducting war crimes. How the hell did you expect China to aid the Western front, exactly? The West was content to let Japan do whatever it wanted to the rest of East Asia so long as they didn’t attack their colonial holdings. Only then did they actually step in.

Trotting out with the damn Molotrov-Ribbentrop Pact is old hat by this point, but now you’re inventing new ways to be anticommunist. I’d almost be impressed if I weren’t so thoroughly disgusted.

Unless they’ve changed dramatically, they’re not new, just back in fashion. I remember those being around 20 years ago. Of course, they all had cables back then.

I’m really hoping I never have to do this, but congrats to you on figuring it out. I intend to keep my “dumb” appliances going as long as possible, but the unavoidable ones have me a little worried. I’ve seen HVAC filters with Bluetooth in them now for fuck’s sake!

It’s how it’s marketed to the public, though I do not disagree.

Even if the assets aren’t in their name, they’re living a life of privilege and undoubtedly will inherit or expect to inherit a large sum when their parents die. If they suddenly found themselves on the street, I wonder how many would change their tune, and how quickly.

Yes. I don’t mean to throw shade on all that they are doing. I just don’t think they’re coming to save us and frankly, we shouldn’t ask them to. If we can get to a point where a viable communist party is one faction of a civil war, perhaps they would render some form of aid, but we can’t depend on that. We have to be willing and able to support ourselves.

I suspect that people, if they become conservative, do so as they accumulate wealth which often, but not always, correlates with age.

I would like to see a study on whether political attitudes remain consistent when material conditions change, which I think would be more interesting.

I’m really curious as to whether this will impact the build out of the surveillance state, particularly in regards to Flock and other ALPRs. Or is a phone’s location history somehow sacrosanct while an image on a camera is not?

Doubtful. All they have to do is cry “terrorism” and they’re allowed to do whatever they want.

We can dream…

I’m feeling pretty justified in sticking with Wacom. I only replaced my first tablet because it had a 4:3 aspect ratio and a serial port. (I could’ve lived with the latter, but the aspect ratio was making things skewed on a modern display.)

Google doing the CIA’s bidding as per usual. I’m glad it’s an option for people outside the US.

Yeah, I was pretty disgusted as well. If I was on the fence before, that definitely clinched it for me. I only wish I hadn’t renewed recently.

Emphasis on “over the internet”. Mullvad and others also accept cash via mail, though obviously that can take weeks depending on where you’re mailing it from.

They look good from an ethics standpoint, but it looks like the only anonymous payment method they take is monero. I’m considering them, but I’m not super familiar with crypto and how to obtain monero. Looks like I’ll need to do some research.

Apparently they’ve now posted a response:

We also live these values by being tolerant in our daily work. Everyone is welcome to collaborate with Mullvad if they share these narrow core values. As employees, contractors, customers, suppliers, lobbyists, campaign partners or whatever it might be. No matter what their other opinions are and no matter whether the founders or anyone else in Mullvad dislike them. The founders themselves fundamentally disagree on several important issues.

In context, this seems…tone-deaf. “It’s okay! Immigrants are welcome to work for Mullvad even if the founders ‘dislike’ them.” Yikes.

It should be obvious that Daniel’s private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad’s values or mission, in the same way that someone’s opinions on animal rights, taxes or public healthcare policy isn’t.

I would argue that those three things aren’t even all on the same level, and that’s without even addressing the fucking fascism of ‘re-migration’ policies.

That said, if you no longer want to be a Mullvad customer for philosophical reasons, we think it’s important to honor that, and will gladly refund you.

Unless you were smart enough to pay anonymously, in which case you’re welcome to doxx yourself, I guess.

Seems like they have far fewer servers than Mullvad does, but at least they state who they’re hosted with and it looks like they do have a multi-hop setup like Mullvad does. They undergo annual audits so I’m not seeing any major security red flags. I frankly would have stuck with Mullvad had they not pulled this shit, but I won’t be made a hypocrite over this.

Anyone have experience with iVPN? I’ve generally heard it’s good, but I’m not sure how it compares. Looks like it’s the same price as Mullvad at least, and also accepts cash and monero as payment options. I’m just wondering about how many servers they have comparable and how often they got blocked by major websites. I’m thinking that’ll probably be what I switch to, unless it has some major problems I’m not aware of.

I remember all the FUD about their anti-virus back in the day, even though it consistently tested the best. I didn’t know they had a VPN. I’ll have to look into it.

Edit: website says “purchase is unavailable for US customers”. I’m sure that’s the US government’s doing and not their own choice, if I had to guess.