Yep, thats corporate monitoring software for you. Everyones got it, if you dont see it, assume its there. If the PC is not yours and or built with your own hands, assume its bugged or key logged. This goes for school PCs as well for the youngins, this is not to make people paranoid, just manage expectations on privacy. If you didnt make it, assume its recorded.

You know you can stand up your own Matrix-Synapse server as part of your home lab, its the “we have Telegram at home” answer.

Yes, What have the Romans ever done for us?

…the aqueduct!

Ha [Internet high five], there is a thing about EvE online players and being opinionated nerds about VOIP solutions.

Sounds perfect, my TS3 instance was running on a 10+ year old Dell Optiplex until a while ago when I moved it to a VM.

You seem to have everything covered, VOIP services are not that heavy, and its great having a residence on the internet where your nerds can drop in and out of. The main issue is getting people off Discord or understanding that old programs are just as if not more functional. (Plus, the whole “If TeH PrOdUcT is Fr33, UR da PrOduCt” thing, but im preaching to the choir here)

Some expirence on some self-hosted VOIP solutions from my EvE online days and I self-host a Teamspeak instance (my nerds like it, get off my lawn).

Mumble in terms of its UI and user expirence, the worst of the major VOIP projects (looks very 2008), however it is by far the best in terms of server stability, plugin compatibility and security. To quote my old EvE admin “Mumble will take the team two weeks to set up correctly, and drive them mad, but once thats done they will not need to touch the config again”. Plus it not requiring a license allows large orgs to use it freely. Ever have a need 2.5k+ VOIP users all trying to talk over eachother? Mumble is the only free application that will handle that without issue.

Teamspeak3 is what I run, and for small communities its perfect. TS5 exists, and the devs keep trying to make “We have Discord at home” and its just a UI fork, they all run the same server backend. As for features, TS3 has the best of ease of set up and granular permissions with API tools to allow for remote or automated managment. For user counts, anything beyond that of a small guild in any game will require a license, they are cheap (I just renewed my 30$ a year license and didnt have to reboot). Its drawbacks are that it struggles after several hundred users (its heavier on server hardware than mumble is) and user accounts with permissions can break the server. Fortunatly settings are managed by a local database so backups of server state and files are easy.

I remember Ventrilo existing, thats about it.

Hardware wise, a new pi should be fine, older models might have issues based on expected user load. Network load is not significant for normal hobbiest user counts, security is not any different than normal homelab internet services.

Let me know if there is anything I can help with.

Yah… You dont own your OS on W11, you had better script those changes or they might be reverted on major updates. (They do that for the default browser all the time, and they will likely break that script every year or two)

This is why the [gestures broadly to Lemmy community] evangalizes for Linux so much, everyone is going have to learn a new OS anyway. Aside from what ever Apple is doing, there really are only two choices, a free and open source suite of software that is trusted because everything is public and auditable, or an OS that activly contributes to the creation of the Torment Nexus. We do get that some applications wont work on linux, but my response to that is to look for a new version anyway, your living on borrowed time. Windows 11 is rolling full speed ahead on breaking compatibility with everything Microsoft did not make (and therefore cant update to collect data on you).

Exactly, there was a social contract where we would exchange watching ads for consuming the following product without additional charges. Those days are mostly gone and you have to pay to get in the door, watch and ad and the product has enshitifies to the point of usually not being worth it. Ad block and cable cutting has been a method to claw that back to a fairer exchangr, or atleast give the consumer some negotiation power in that dynamic. However its just created a game of cat and mosue between those who wish to consume your attention and people who dont want sponsored shit beamed into their brain space.

To add to this, the only person who did was that stoner that Michael in “The Good Place” has framed on his wall, because he knew too much/was the only human who (for a brief moment) knew roughly how the universe worked.

Brazil gets to sit at the table with Iceland on the list of countries who jailed the people responsible for almost torpedoing thier own country. (In Icelands case, it was the bankers involved in 2008s financial crisis)

I dont have a problem with that, but what I will object to is the current regime making the replament ID system. 1) there is no way they would design it well or securely, smart people capable of building such a system are usually the first to bounce to another country as they will have the means to do so. 2) it would be too easy for them to lord the new ID over peoples heads (like they are with immigration status now) and impliment a social credit score like China does.

Your correct that SSNs should not be used as IDs, but getting the government to build a modern system for that opens too many avanues for abuse (especially with darth cheeto in charge).

Tell that to silicon valley, its a marketing bit now. Being “Too cool for school” is part of the tech startup playbook.

If I had a nickle for ever time the UK did something pants-on-head stupid or short-sighted from a minor survey or public poll, [counts change jar]… How much are big macs these days?

Destiny 2 was the old game I played 2 years ago when I switched to linux full time that does not play nice with Proton. And given how its driven itself off a cliff. I will miss the old space opera, but nothing of value was lost.

Trebuchets are just medieval siege weapons from the trebuch region of France, everything else are sparkling catalults.

Its a golf course, you will need a good arm… Or a taco cannon…

(Internet, write that down, we need to make a taco cannon)

[OPs post = top text]

Oh neat, the tech flavored distraction, place your bets on whats next. My bet is he tried that freedom fries shit again.

Wern’t there a few AI maze projects in the works? I wonder if running one of those for a bit will cause you to be added to an ignore list, clearly they dont respect your robots file.

Then his stunt double sucks at the game too.