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Joined 7 months ago
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Cake day: May 3rd, 2024

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  • I did this during an international trip last year coming back into the country. The guy mostly seemed confused and kind of suspicious, but it was nbd.

    They will potentially take you out of line to a side room to hand you off to someone else. It seemed to be an area where they deal with any oddball kind of things. There was a lady ahead of me who was more raucus and upset about some issue with her ID. The guy who checked mine mainly seemed kind of bemused, like it was unusual.

    Be prepared for “We have the biometric data from your photo already, why do you care?”

    You’re not obligated to give them a super detailed justification. Just remain polite and unconfrontational, and explain that you prefer not use the system as long as the right remains afforded to you to opt out.

    (Note, this right only extends to US citizens)


  • I can’t say about XP or 7 but they’ve definitely saved my bacon on Win10 before on my home system. And the company I work for has them automatically created and it made dealing with the problem much easier as there was a restore point right before the crowdstrike update. No messing around with the file system drivers needed.

    I’d really recommend at least creating one at a state when your computer is working ok, it doesn’t hurt anything even if it doesn’t work for you for whatever reason. It’s just important to understand that it’s not a cure all, it’s only designed to help with certain issues (primarily botched updates and file system trouble).






  • I’m not sure about dystopian stories, but I think the big appeal with post-apocalyptic and disaster stories is the fantasy of being able to start society over from scratch. To get a fresh start at a scale where the individual has a stronger influence on whatever group they’re part of.

    I think as real life society becomes more complicated, oppressive and individuals lose their sense of agency, those kinds of stories become more popular.





  • Giving Israel the means to continue ethnic cleansing is more than cheerleading. Not that it would be acceptable if he were just cheering it on.

    There’s no evidence that Trump can do anything that Biden already isn’t already, barring sending American soldiers to participate in the genocide which I doubt would be politically feasible for him. Israel doesn’t need our soldiers, they do need our bombs though, which Biden has provided without any effective conditioning.


  • Is it possible to just hide the computer or to try and mask it as something else?

    That’s kind of what the anti-fingerprinting settings in browsers are meant to do. A lot of the info that sites like reddit and many others use to identify you are based on browser settings and data. This is stuff like your canvas/monitor size, timezone, browser/OS version etc. Note that not all browsers have anti-fingerprinting settings.

    Anti-fingerprinting isn’t perfect though, it’s just one tool to help scramble your identifiable info a bit. Ironically, really strict security settings themselves can also be used as a unique identifier, because you basically stand out against the crowd of normal users as an anomaly, so it’s a double-edged deal.

    That’s why I recommend using a different computer to create the account and don’t use the official reddit app at all, make sure that the browser cache and cookies for the reddit site are wiped before going to create the account. If you can’t use a VPN, you’ll maybe want to go to a cafe or somewhere public to create ypur account. That first IP that reddit sees seems to be most important, once you establish yourself on that IP for a bit, you can potentially start using your home network.

    The reason your other accounts got banned together was because reddit was able to link them closely enough that they IDed them as alts. They collect data and build up a correlation, your aim is to make it difficult as possible for them to correlate separate accounts.

    This is all just trial and error by me though, I’m no expert and we can’t know for sure all the efforts reddit takes to ID users, I can only speak for what worked for me ~1 year ago or so. I’d read up on browser fingerprinting to get an idea of how that tracking works and how to combat it (it’s actually really gross and distressing to anyone concerned with privacy).

    Alternatively, you could leave your router off all night and see if you can get a new public IP, though you may need to ask your ISP to issue you a new public IP address. They might not do it without justification, but that would go a long way to giving you a fresh start, especially with the other measures I’ve outlined.




  • I don’t use reddit anymore, but I’ve had plenty of accounts banned there, mostly for arguing with sock puppets and tankies and stuff who will stalk your account and mass report anything that can be construed as even remotely violating the rules. Or one of the power mods just back channels the admins, who will ban based on that alone, no questions asked.

    The key is, you need to create your new account on a separate computer (so the browser fingerprint they get is unrelated), use a VPN for the creation, build up enough karma to get past the automated systems (answering stuff on AskReddit was usually my go to, but don’t spam, take your time and give thoughtful answers) then make sure you use strong anti-fingerprinting settings on your browser on whayever device you plan on using. Possibly use a different third-party app on your phone (though I dunno how well this works since the API changes). Boost worked well for me, and Bacon Reader. And obviously delete your browser/app cache if you eventually use your main device.

    Also, when you create your new account, sub to a bunch of shit you normally wouldn’t, if you’re not a sports fan sub to a baseball subreddit, avoid subbing to any niche subreddits you had on your old account for a while. Try to be bland and unremarkable in your choices.

    The key is to avoid as many connected data points to your old account as possible until you’re pretty well established as “someone else”. Avoid attracting too much attention, and have multiple accounts that live on separate devices (I had one that I used on my phone only, and usually only when not at home so it was a separate IP) and one I used at home. Then a couple created on a laptop that were just kind of aging, just in case.

    That might seem like great lengths to circumvent a ban, but I have a thing about abuse of power where it just kind of sticks in my craw, plus getting one over on the reddit admins was fun and I was curious exactly how deep their profiling went. I left the site on my terms eventually, which puts a smile on my face.