COURTNEY PLACE WELLINGTON

 Three historic photos of Courtney Place Wellington NZ

 Courtney Place circa 1915

 

 

Courtney Place 1958

 

Courtney Place 1980

I'VE ADDED AN ABOUT PAGE TO THIS BLOG

 And it even includes a contact email!

ABOUT

 Using the internet while displaying any sort of real identity online is a bit like walking down the street stark naked. I'd rather be completely anon, but I've been online for more than a quarter of a century and have revealed more than I can ever really take back now. But that is not to say I have to make things easy for "them" (the "government", or the deep state, or spammers, or stalkers) to track me down.

Until last week this blog has never had any sort of contact details on it, and I was going to leave it that way. But one of the other blogs I follow had added a link to my old www.frot.co.nz blog, which didn't work because of a typo. Being a bit of a completionist I wanted to let them know, but it was difficult to find a contact email on their blog. Eventually I did find a contact and emailed them.

Engagement used to be a big part of blogging, and back when I was posting on blockchains like Steemit, Hive (PeakD), Blurt, Flote, and Bastyon, I used to sometimes get hundreds of comments and I tried to reply to most of them.  These days I have all comments turned off and pretty much just ignore everyone. But the experience of trying to find a contact email on someone elses's blog made me grudgingly admit that it might be a good thing to include a one on this blog.

I've had a lot of problems with spam in the past so don't want to include an actual link, but I figure if I just put an image of an email address that comes to me (but not my daily driver) that should do the job. So here it is - just type out the address in this image:

SO THIS IS WHERE TESLA RIPPED OFF THE CYBERTRUCK FROM

 Just like the Tesla cyber truck, the 1980 Citroen Karin was a concept car that didn’t actually go and was never sold.

The Tesla cybertruck does appear to have some working versions, but the actual production and sale of them is a rabbit hole well worth checking out.

The 1980 Citroën Karin was a French concept car that looked like a pyramid spaceship on wheels.

When the Citroën Karin was first presented at the Paris Motor Show in 1980, it attracted the astonished gaze of visitors. It was quite unusual to see a futuristic sci-fi pyramid in a motor show, let alone a pyramid on four wheels.

The driver was able to control almost everything without letting go of the steering wheel. Small computers that controlled various functions were also placed in the door panels near the handles so that both the driver and passengers could reach them.

The real gem was on the dashboard, where a mini cathode-ray tube screen was there to display information about the road and the car.

https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/citroen-karin-concept-car-photographs/

A GOOD BLENDER

 A good blender can do wonders for your health, with a daily smoothie being transformative!

SESSION vs SIGNAL

 

Signal is a popular messaging app that is widely regarded as being private, and compared to Messenger it is, but the big issue, the main reason it can never really be a privacy app, is that it requires a phone number to set up an account.

 

An alternative to Signal is Session, which is in many ways very similar to Signal, in fact it nearly looks identical because it's an open source hard fork based on the Signal code. But the big difference is that it doesn't require a phone number, so a Session account can actually be anonymous.

 

Session is not as popular as Signal yet because it's fairly new and not many people have heard of it. But it's easier to set up an account on Session than it is on Signal.  It doesn't require a phone number, and it doesn't ask anything about you. 

 

A new account can be rapidly set up not just on a phone, but also using a Laptop, a PC, or a tablet, running Windows, Android, Mac, or Linux operating systems.

To install it you can get it from any of the app stores, but better yet go directly to the Session website. This is preferable because by not logging into an app store you remain anonymous - https://getsession.org/

 

Initially Session had several drawbacks, but these have now been addressed.

 

It previously had a size limit of 10 on encrypted groups, but that has now been increased to 100 which is hopefully enough for most groups. 

 

It was originally set up in Australia which is considered a major security risk (as is NZ) but they have now moved to Switzerland - https://getsession.org/blog/introducing-the-session-technology-foundation 

 

And Session also had a reputation for being buggy in 2023 when it was new, but it seems to have really improved in the past six months. I have had no problems with it so far, and in fact have found it works better for me than Signal, because I can be logged in with multiple Android devices with no account conflicts. 

 

The only issue I've had is that it won't install on Windows 7, which is only an issue for around 3% of desktop users these days, and I was expecting that to be the case anyway because it's based on Signal and Signal won't install on Win 7 either. But I've found it works really well on both Linux and Android.

 

YOUR ACCOUNT ID

 

There is really only one new thing to keep in mind when using Session - because unlike Signal it is not using your phone number or the phone numbers of your contacts, to set up the initial link you have to exchange your account ID for the first contact. This is the minor inconvenience that allows the whole platform to be totally private.

 

The account ID is a 72 character code that will look similar to this one (this is not an actual code but just an example):
  06b2451d1bc973a57021bf76f353306c7sfc7ec891eb29ef4997bd82473300e00b

 

Your account ID is not high security and it's OK to give that out to everyone you want to contact. You also get a recovery code which is a random generated series of 13 words, and that on the other hand needs to be kept private. Keep that code secure and don't share it with anyone.

https://getsession.org/faq

 

Who is behind Session?

Session is part of the Loki Foundation, a non-profit organization without a permanent seat. The CEO is Simon Harman. Even though the project is not profit-oriented, he wants to monetize Session. Parts of the infrastructure are based on a block-chain network that mines its own currency, $LOKI.

The network provides important infrastructure for anonymizing its users, including an onion router to hide your IP address. Neither your counterpart nor the Loki Foundation can determine your location.

So if a state were to obtain a court order to inspect the session servers, investigators would find nothing but meaningless session IDs and TOR-IP addresses. None of this information would allow us to draw clear conclusions about the identity of the messenger app's users.

Privacy features of Session

    Users can generate a Session ID with a private key to start an account

    Session doesn’t require phone numbers.

 

    The chat platform doesn’t collect any data, and therefore a data breach is impossible.

 

    Messages go through an onion routing network, removing traceability.

    Session is an open-source program, so you can verify everything.

 

    It’s censorship resistant thanks to its decentralized network, therefore also harder to shut down

 

REVIEWS

 

Here is a good review of Session on the Restore Privacy website. It answers a lot of questions, but keep in mind that it was written in April 2024, and  the concerns about Australian privacy are no longer an issue - https://restoreprivacy.com/secure-encrypted-messaging-apps/session/

 

 

I have found Rob Braxman's Youtube channel really helpful for learning about privacy. Here is his video about Session, which he recommends highly.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nprSLN_GEGI&t=18s