TheRhinoThing

I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, Pronouns: He/They

[welcomedhappiness]

Farewell online privacy

[tikalgirl]

What happened?

[welcomedhappiness]

Trump happened.

[pizzaalle]

just get a VPN?

[earth-ruins]

You can’t just tell people to ‘get a VPN (Virtual Private Network)’. Buying a VPN is like buying a house. It’s very very important. Having no VPN or having a ‘wrong’ one can seriously damage your life. Especially for Americans because their privacy laws are garbage. I am going to try explain why you should get a VPN but bare with me, I am from Germany and my English is far from perfect. 

Let’s start with a simple test. Click this link here: https://whatismyipaddress.com/ It will tell your IP adres, your ISP (internet service provider), and your location. The location might not be very accurate, but then again, it’s just a simple website. Imagine what the government can do!

So basically, everyone can find out where you live. But there is more danger. Your ISP. Your ISP logs your every move online and they are required to keep it in case the government wants access to it (or if a 3rd party wants to buy your data (yikes). They have everything. What websites you visit. How long you stay on a website. What you download. Your search terms. European laws are more subtle on this but if you are from the US you are #@*#&, especially because Trump doesn’t support the open internet. It’s scary but maybe in the future you can’t get a job because the recruiter knows your searched on ‘how to deal with depression’ or anythings else that’s supposed to be private because it’s your f*cking right. Or you get a $100k fine because you pirated a movie 15 years ago. You need a VPN. You’re dumb for not using one. but what does a VPN do?

A VPN encrypts all your data so if it were be intercepted no one can ‘crack the code’ and damage your privacy. 

Usually being online goes like this (simplified): Your computer —-> ISP (—–> keeps data —–> sells it)

But with a VPN it goes like: Your computer —–> VPN (encrypts data)—–> ISP (ISP can’t see shit)

Furthermore, a VPN hides your IP address and location by giving you another IP address located in Spain for example (you can often choose from a list and change as many times as you want).  

Now that you know why you should get a VPN and what is does it is important to educate yourself because people often choose the wrong VPN. VPN providers are also businesses and have to obey the law. If you choose a VPN provider located in the US then you are throwing your money away because the laws in the US shits on your privacy. If the US gov wants the provider to give all their logs they have to obey.  The ISP  still can’t see what you are doing online and sell your data but the US gov can interfere with your VPN provider so NEVER CHOOSE A PROVIDER LOCATED IN THE US. 

I just wanted to make that very clear so my followers don’t buy false security.

There is still more danger!  Who says your VPN provider isn’t selling your data? You need to check their logging policy. Do they keep logs? If yes, what for? For how long do they keep them? Tip: Choose a provider who doesn’t keep logs

More about law  The US is part of the Five Eyes program (the worst):  

The Five Eyes, often abbreviated as FVEY, is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. These countries are bound by the multilateral UKUSA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence (source)

There is also a Nine Eyes (bit better) and Fourteen Eyes Program (better).  You don’t want a VPN provider who is located in one the Five Eyes countries.  If you had to choose go for a provider located in a country that’s part of the Fourteen Eyes Program or even better, go for a country that isn’t part of any program! 

I know this is a shitty explanation and please pardon my english but now it’s time to do your own research. Take your privacy seriously. Maybe WWIII breaks out and you get killed for liking the ‘wrong’ FB-page.  

Go to this website: https://thatoneprivacysite.net/simple-vpn-comparison-chart/

Make sure that your future VPN provider both has green boxes for Privacy Jurisdiction and Privacy Logging. 

I recommend ovpn.se and trust.zone. ovpn is located in Sweden so they are part of the 14 Eyes Program and they keep minimal logs. Their business ethics, however, are alright. 

Trustzone is located in the Seychelles. No country can interfere and their privacy jurisdiction is the best you can get. The US want your data but needs to get it from Trustzone? The Seychelles will simply give them the finger and wave them goodbye. However, this makes this provider very appealing for people who torrent and criminals because they keep no logs (and that is how it shoud be) Also,  there are almost no marketing efforts so this provider is one the cheapest)

Also, often providers such as ExpressVPN are being called ‘The Best’ on websites about VPNs but know that this is just marketing which also makes those provider more expensive (and they too shit on your privacy)

This must be the worst article you have ever read but please, please take your privacy very seriously.

EDIT: I got many people asking me which provider I use. For those who want to know, I use Trust Zone. They offer a free 3-day trial with no strings attached. But still do your own research! 

[writing-prompt-s]

I am also with Trustzone but I think you forgot to explain one of it’s most important features. It protects you when you are using someone else’s Wi-Fi. If you are at Starbucks and you use their Wi-Fi your privacy is at risk. Anyone with ill intentions could steal your information. Especially if you are using an unsecured Wi-Fi hotspot. With a VPN your data gets encrypted so no one can steal it. 

[rabbittiddy]

Wait, what’s going, on? Did trump destroy internet privacy with a bill or something? Where’s the news? Oh wait, why am I getting visions of Alex Jones and selling water purifiers?

[thecrystalfems]

He hasn’t yet but he says he wants to. And if he is serious about it it would be really easy to do. Since all our data is already recorded, as the person above explained.

[coltrer]

Trump wants more surveillance of Muslim Americans. This in a country where internet privacy is already close to non-existent. 

Trust.Zone has a free trial. Use it. 

btw this post only has 11k notes? That’s quite disappointing for something this important. 

Don’t reblog this post to save a life. Reblog this to protect an entire family!

[imthedoctor12]

@earth-ruins @writing-prompt-s Should I get trustzone for my mobile device?

[writing-prompt-s]

If you use public Wi-Fi, then yes. Which VPN you use is up to you, amigo. Take @earth-ruins advice. Do your own research first. 

[writing-prompt-s]

@elvesfromthedeep​ just brought the current situation in the US to my attention (March 30, 2017). 

Sources

Anger as US internet privacy law scrapped 

Congress just voted to let internet providers sell your browsing history 

To all my friends in the US, please read this entire post. Making everyone aware of VPNs is going to be my mission. Your privacy matters. Please reblog this post.

[greeneyespurpleheart]

Don’t tell me you just wanted to scroll past this. Stop looking at pictures of cats for a moment, okay? Don’t you realize how important this is? This is dangerous! ‘America, the best FREE country in the world’ my ass.

With this new law your ISP can sell your Internet history which could include passwords, usernames, religion, credit card numbers, race and much more to the highest bidder. So here is what I want you to do. You are going to read the whole thing and before you think ’this is so important. Let me reblog this real quick and go back to admiring cats again-’ NO! Don’t reblog this. Take action first. Then reblog. Sign up for a free trial! Trust.Zone offers one (here). Yes. It might be difficult to set up a VPN for some people. But is that going to stop you from protecting yourself and your family? 30 minutes. 30 minutes is all that it takes. 5 if you know how to install software. The problem with some of you is that you see ‘difficult’ as something negative. I want you to see difficult differently. I need you to push through this stuff. You are going to protect yourself. There is nothing negative about that. VPNs are fun and costsaving too! A VPN bypasses geographical restrictions so you can access websites you normally can’t or you could start Netflix’s one month free trial over and over again- forever. And it’s legal! (unless you use it to buy weapons etc.,) Don’t tell yourself that you are too tired and that you will do this tomorrow. Because that isn’t going to happen and you know it. You have to do this right now. You only have to click on it. Don’t let this/shit/life just happen to you. Take yourself seriously. Get a VPN.

Privacy is not a privilege, it’s a fundamental human right

[warmhappycat]

Hey is thatoneprivacysite still good? The link works and it does take me to an article about vpns, but it just looks like an ad for expressvpn with extra steps.

[skeleskeeller]

No they switched to https://thatoneprivacysite.xyz/#simple-vpn-comparison a couple years ago

Welcome to the VPN Comparison!  This section is meant to be a resource to those who value their privacy, specifical...

[skeleskeeller]

I had Trust.Zone when this post first started making the rounds on Tumblr and I forgot about it after Biden took office. I recently sent them an email asking why my subscription wasn’t automatically renewed and why their website hasn’t changed since 2017(?). Their answer:

Shady people, good people, this company only cares about privacy and doesn’t care who it serves. But now with Trump and Musk this is the only VPN I’ll use.

[firerockt]

I understand some people might not want to use this VPN on moral grounds, but it’s genuinely one of the very few VPNs set up in a way that no authority can touch you. ExpressVPN and other ‘popular’ options operate in jurisdictions favorable for profits but their privacy is just a band-aid our government can easily rip off if it demands information. I’m a trans man, I’m afraid of our government, and at this point, I simply don’t care anymore.

[moonxchaos]

For a second I was like noooooo, not this long post again! Haven’t seen it in years and I always thought it was a bit extreme and exaggerated. Now that we are in 2025, I am like, nahh, these people knew what they were talking about all along. First time I am reblogging this.

[moonxchaos]

Also I don’t think anyone has said this yet but the free trial only requires an email address. No credit card details or anything. Refreshing.

[foxbridgeni]

Could someone please put the link to the free trial here? I don’t want to scroll back up 10 miles. Thank you.

[skeleskeeller]

here you go @foxbridgeni

Trust.Zone Free Trial

[moonfireroulette]

The argument against VPNs has always been, “but I have nothing to hide.” Now that an unpredictable lunatic is in charge, purging based on whatever whim strikes him, that sentiment is quickly fading. VPNs aren’t just about hiding personal secrets; they’re about protecting freedom, autonomy, and your basic right to live without unjust scrutiny or arbitrary persecution.

[bearcubsandicecreammachines]

Reblogging again bc this is important

[willgrahamscock]

It’s funny because if these ‘ai artists’ put the same effort into learning art as they do into defending that generated slop, they’d actually be able to create many different anime girls with big titties without wasting half of a city’s water supply in an hour just to last 30 seconds gooning to that shit

[willgrahamscock]

Coca cola’s ai Christmas commercial took 70 THOUSAND prompts to generate, and I cannot recall a single scene after watching it because it was just generic slop with nothing authentic or memorable. the worst part is that the amount of time it took for editors to stitch it together could have been used to employ people who could probably use the money before the holidays AND their creativity wouldn’t be limited by what ai can recreate. not like they can’t afford it with their trillions of dollars in revenue.

[willgrahamscock]

look I’m not saying ai isn’t fun, it can create some unintentionally funny content and some of the art it recreates is cool. I can see the appeal of using ChatGPT for fast information rather than searching the web for hours, I see the appeal in roleplaying with it when you have no friends or you’re embarrassed. I’m saying that it goes against my morals. People getting put out of jobs, the water usage, mental health issues it causes, stolen artwork, the study that’s coming out showing we are losing a part of our brain function because it no longer has to work as hard, all of this is why I choose not to use ai.

[willgrahamscock]

!!!!!

[zombieelmyra]

Just want to add that ChatGPT will not get you fast information, it will make shit up. The moral concerns are extremely valid and I share them, but we also need to keep hammering the point that by definition genAI cannot do the things most people want to use it for. If we are very lucky, in ten years' time we'll look back at this period and go "we just need to pave over everything created during this time because it's unreliable, meaningless slop and start again". If we're less lucky we'll keep trying to build on it and things will get Real Bad.

[inqorporeal]

^ oh this. Every week I encounter someone who is surprised to learn that genAI is not a web search function and that it cannot tell truth from lies or fiction.

[rhinorapscallion]

i have sense realized that it's not the technology that i hate. its the people using and profiting off of it. LLMs can do some really cool shit. like real time translation and live image descriptions for the visually impaired. but OpenAI needed to make it profitable and went and created this boom of innovation without thinking. the water and electricity requirements can be lessened by investing in renewables/nuclear and tech to make recycling water easier.

and then there's the consumers. Not all of them are bad, but a vast majority of them are unaware of the damage AI is causing and the potential economic ruin a bubble like this can cause. look up the total GDP AI is responsible for, then realize that the entire industry is propped up by Nvidia investing in these AI companies while at the same time selling these same companies the chips they need to do the AI stuff. AI has never been profitable. its an incredible tech, that just doesn't have as many uses as these tech bros think. take DALL-E and Sora 1. they were tech demos. something that was very cool, but otherwise had no real use. now we have Sora 2, chatGPT, DALL-E but good this time, stable diffusion, etc. all built to sell you the promise of skill free creation.

now we're living with the consequences of this tech becoming good enough that the average person cannot tell the difference between an AI video and a real one.

there's a lot of uncertainty, and a lot of bad. but remember, its the people who are innovating without balancing the inevitable damage that comes with it. its the people that are looking at the water and power consumption and then building on rivers and paying power companies for the equivalent of new york in watts. its these power companies that see dollar signs. its the consumers that use this tech without thinking and the companies that shove it down our gullets when we do.

its not the tech i hate, but the people and culture that seems to have blown up around it. they want the innovation, i have no problem with that, but they want it without feeling the consequenses of what they're doing. AI is an awesome tech tree, but the incessant need to be monetized has led to the most idiotic industries i have ever seen.

[eraserheadadult]

tbh the current default state of operating systems & internet browsers looks fucking indistinguishable from when i gave the family desktop one billion viruses downloading Free Neopoints Hack in 2005

[eraserheadadult]

not to be a millennial but back in my day getting blasted in the eyeballs by ads on your desktop the instant you turn on your computer used to mean something was extremely wrong

[rhinorapscallion]

Linux. As long as you can stomach learning an new operating system and potentially abandoning some of your industry programs, thats probably the best thing you can do on the OS side. on the browser side, there's an upcoming one called Ladybird that im following the development of. its definitely not a daily yet, but the project has a very good direction as well as a bevy of sponsors to keep development going (they have not shaken on their ideals.)

I have a lot more resources to recommend regarding switching to linux, but that can get long winded.

[kaijuno]

[evilwizard]

[rhinorapscallion]

dont do this. the number is usually spoofed.

[kolaepup]

quick snap hehe paintover for my friend sepphie :3

[imsobadatnicknames2]

The reason why Doom "runs on everything" (aside from being an obsessively well-optimized game) is because in the late 90's ID software publicly released the game's source code, which allows people to, among other things, port it to whatever device they want.

This is but a glimpse of what a world where anyone can do whatever they want with art would look like. Every game could be Doom in a post-copyright world.

[rhinorapscallion]

copyright is a good idea in theory. to ensure the creators of a creative work can profit. however. the current US system is extremely flawed and easily taken advantage of (you can blame Disney for that.)

I don't agree that copyright should be abolished as its a decent idea, but i do agree that it should be heavily, heavily reformed.

[despoinanyx]

How long before we start seeing cases like these for just being queer? Do we have to get to that stage for people to start to mobilize against this loudly? We can't let the fight against internet censorship and puritan outrage against NSFW content be another controlled narrative by the right wing grifters.

[rhinorapscallion]

My question is, why the hell are they denying business? I don't know, and frankly don't care what bank Scott Cawthon or Toby Fox used when they got bunches of money from their games, but im assuming their accounts made those banks a lot of money. Dudes got nearly 100,000 pounds of capital.

this is so fucking stupid, both from a censorship standpoint and a banking & business standpoint. I didn't give a shit about Visa and Mastercard as business until the internet censorship drama. i didn't mind paypal until they started "protecting" their image by holding people's money hostage. these "brands" are doing more damage to their image than brokering the transaction between a person and the porn they choose to play.

[mevil]

being black in any art community is such a strange feeling cause you’ll see just blatant racism being expressed in others art and you have to just casually ignore it, for your sake if anything, colorism being something that’s just fundamentally there in every artist and you deal with it cause it’s not worth it in the end to even think of it too hard let alone even mentioning it, it’s definitely something

[creatingblackcharacters]

Hello nonblack reader of this post, I think you ought to share this one so that you and your peers can actively remind yourselves 1) of how your Black peers feel when you tolerate antiblack racism in your art spaces for entertainment and 2) that we notice it, but don't believe it is secure around enough of you to bring it up 🙏🏾

[scottbaiowulf-deactivated201805]

Male writers writing female characters:

“Cassandra woke up to the rays of the sun streaming through the slats on her blinds, cascading over her naked chest. She stretched, her breasts lifting with her arms as she greeted the sun. She rolled out of bed and put on a shirt, her nipples prominently showing through the thin fabric. She breasted boobily to the stairs, and titted downwards.”

[m1ssc0mmun1cat10n]

‘ She breasted boobily to the stairs, and titted downwards’ is the greatest fucking sentence I have ever read.

[silly-activites]

THE ORIGINAL??

[dduane]

(smh) Never thought I’d see it in the wild. Yet here it is. :)

[tired-momfriend]

You’ve heard of Jorts

NOW PREPARE FOR KNORTS

[tired-momfriend]

I did not severely damage my search history with the abomination of “knorts” for no notes.

[ralfmaximus]

Knorts aside, the color choices are alarming

[rhinorapscallion]

Banana Knorts.

[zangerdanger]

ninetails 🔥 for @/waggoboyo.bsky.social

[curioscurio]

I have a confession to make... I thought the idea of wireless headphones like air pods were so so stupid when they first came out. But having owned wireless headphone pods with a case I have to admit that I do enjoy them quite a lot. But we should still eat the spleen of every person who lobbied to phase out the headphone jack in electronics

[rhinorapscallion]

i actually had a pair of airpods pro after reading the glowing reviews of them. i wanted better quality so i regularly use something a bit more expensive now. but they are still great for situations where my over-ears attached to a tiny bluetooth amp dont work well.

funnily enough, even though the quality is better with the over-ears, it still isn't what it should be because apple doesn't support anything but AAC where bluetooth is concerned.

[rhinorapscallion]

Valve: unveils new steam machine

The internet: GabeCube

[flareonfloof]

does anyone have that "doesn't have spotify girl" meme handy

[crown-princess-carrion]

is it this one :3

[flareonfloof]

YES you understand now

[flareonfloof]

not how that works!

[dragongirlsnout]

no it's true i dug this old mp3 out of the closet the other day and it sounds like shit

Visit Original Link

[winonaparadise]

woah this sounds awesome can you put this on spotify

[rhinorapscallion]

I think they ment download lossless if you can. I regularly buy music on Bandcamp, and the difference between their lossless and mp3s is noticeable (sometimes, I have to have a quiet room with my headphones and amp connected with a usb cable)

Though with high quality MP3s, you don't really need lossless unless you've got a setup where the difference would be noticeable. For archival, lossless is the way to go. If you're not worried about storing it and just want to listen, lossy is just fine.

I tend use lossless because I'm a data hoarder. But I have MP3's from Amazon (I will never buy music from there again, the mp3s are noticeably worse than the Spotify versions) in there because that's the only format Amazon would give me.

In other words, unless you have a specific reason to use lossless or really expensive sound equipment. You don't really need lossless.

[everydaywomble]

but here's the thing

[madeline-kahn]

Music in Film: Space Jam (1996) dir. Joe Pytka

requested by @sandushengshou

[plethoraworldatlas]

why is Space Jam marked mature?

[rhinorapscallion]

O was wondering the same thing...

[bff0f7]

so can we start hunting down white liberals now or what

[adamtheredbeard]

The full picture is even more heart breaking after you open the uncropped version. Just a heads-up, it's rough

“The Roman Catholic Parish in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan was just grafitted.”

[afronerdism]

Nah let’s post it. Let’s feel it. Don’t look away.

[doobiebenson]

[butch-bakugo]

I notice alot of my followers on here skipping these posts just to mess with my lgbt ones, suspiciously the white popular ones.

Heres a not so friendly reminder, as an lgbt metis person, i dont give a single fuck what your blog is themed or if this is too painful for you to look at. Reblog this post. Reblog this post with the sources of the 751 children who were found.

Your compliance and silence as well as the compliance and silence of your ancestors is what allowed these schools to open and kill first nations children. The children of MY people.

Dont follow me if you cant reblog this post or the one with sources to your political blog or your most popular blog. Add trigger warnings if you must but if your political blog is only focused on the harms you personally face like being lgbt then you need to see some bigger pictures and stop being afraid of angering your racist mutural or actually saying some shit about racism. If you can reblog some antifa graphics or add blm to your bio to be a surface level ally, you can reblog some sources on the genocide first nations people faced and still face today.

They were CHILDREN.

They were murdered in cold blood.

[churchoftheconfusedchicken]

I’d like to add this photo I took last night in Victoria of the statue of Captain Cook. Though I myself am not indigenous, I 100% agree that these murderers, kidnappers and rapists shouldn’t have huge statues and plaques that decorate them and say how “great” they were.

Here’s another photo of the legislative assembly from yesterday. Later on there were more items, candles and signs at the memorial, as well as a big poster with 1505 painted on it but I didn’t get a picture

People need to see this. Not just quickly glance at the photos and keep on scrolling. They need to see this.

Reblog this or just stop following me

[ifiknewiwouldtellyou]

I had seen the first picture of the church, but not the second.

I went to a “Cancel Canada Day” event and burst into tears - not because I was surprised to learn of the unmarked graves (survivors told us they were there. Our government pushed it aside, and we let them), but because seeing all the people gathered in mourning drove it home: They. Were. Children.

This is my country’s legacy - and it’s not history. The last schools closed during my lifetime. My Father went to school with students who lived at the local residential school, after it was changed to a boarding house (read: holding centre) for indigenous youth who went to local schools.

They were all children, injured, abused, and killed in my country’s attempt to erase them. I want the world to see this and hold the state accountable to *active* reconciliation> I mean we could at least truly adopt UNDRIP in action instead of words for god’s sake.

[gayvampyr]

here you can read an article about a survivor of the church and some of the things he experienced to help put into perspective how awful and just how recent it was

[nothingweirdhere]

this is the memorial at the vancouver art gallery. 215+ pairs of children’s shoes (as well as stuffed toys and flowers) cover the steps…

[rhinorapscallion]

... just. Wow ... Why? Does "cleanse" Canada even mean? killing native children?... how the fuck does that work? ...

I'm at a loss for words. I feel angry that it happened, angry that I didn't know about it, and angry that I'm probably all but guaranteed US doing this shit with a little research. This needs to be taught in schools, we cannot ever repeat this, ever. We remember 9/11 here in the states because of the loss of innocent lives, but the more I learn about settling, what we did, what can't be taken back, I realize that we should give lands back, we should honor those who fought against the US and Canada during colonization, during now.

The more I learn, the more I realize that, there's nothing that could be done to make up for this. 751 CHILDREN. Found dead, in unmarked graves. How many were not found? How many were in different "schools". How many? This is making me deeply upset, as it should. Spread this post please, even if you don't like my addition, reblog the one above me.

I just, don't understand, why anyone in their right mind would do this...