Anonymous Coward started this discussion 4 years ago#103,876
Half the time, those Google reCAPTCHA puzzles never end. They just keep showing more and more new stupid "challenges" for me to sit there like a monkey and click, click and click until the end of time or I eventually give up, kill the tab and forget about doing any of the basic tasks that no longer can be done in the dystopian surveillance nightmare that the Internet has turned into.
The fraudsters at Stripe made me waste countless months learning and implementing their massive API only to one day, out of the blue as I was asking them a technical question, tell me something along the lines of: "Unfortunately, we won't be able to provide services for you going forward." Naturally, I asked them what they meant, but (as always is the case with these companies) they just did not reply at all. My only guess is that it had something to do with me also allowing Bitcoin payments for the service I was building, and this was considered a "risk" to them, or something. I had zero complaints/conflicts for any of the charges I had made in the past through them, so it was definitely not due to some actual abuse by me or my account. At any given moment, they can just cut you off without telling you why, and then you're forever unable to charge people money online in practice. (All of their competitors are even more sketchy and virtually nobody uses Bitcoin, sadly.)
Did you know that there is an increasing number of people livestreaming their front porch 24/7, car or workplace on Twitch and other similar sites for anyone to watch and record? I don't doubt for a second that it's legal, since evil, mentally ill psychopaths are in charge of the law, but they definitely don't have my permission to video/audio record me walking by their house, buying something in their store, riding in their car, going anywhere near them, etc. And don't repeat that idiotic mantra "no expectation of privacy", frequently parroted by brainwashed sheep. Who is talking about any "expectation"? Of course nobody in their right mind expects privacy in this surveillance dystopia, but that's the whole point!
In numerous blog/news posts of theirs, Gab keeps going on about how "Big Tech" are censoring and harassing us (which they are), but then they do the exact same thing themselves! Their registration form has been broken forever, not displaying any CAPTCHA due to the selective banning of VPN IP addresses. Their "challenge.js" script returns nothing (empty output) if they don't want to let you register based on your IP address/range/hostname. In other words, exactly the same underhanded scumbag tactics as "Big Tech". Not even a straight error message, of course, along the lines of: "sorry, but your IP address has been banned". Just fake-"broken".
I now regularly get a nag window on Insult Exchange saying: "Are you a human being? [...] Check the CAPTCHA box, and we'll be out of your way." ... But there is no "CAPTCHA box", or any kind of form element anywhere for me to click/submit. Just an empty void. I wish I were making this madness up...
I keep getting locked out of accounts when companies start using Google's reCAPTCHA even for logging in. All attempts to contact the companies in question in order for them to have my account "whitelisted" from having to jump through these hoops have been unsuccessful. Google must track every single mouse click, and blocking it means you can't even attempt to get past their harassments...
Having so consistently received rude lockout screens/messages or after-the-fact harassments from so many services in later years, this has had the depressing effect on me that I no longer even attempt to register accounts anywhere, as I know in advance that it will be a complete waste of time and energy. Why go through all that trouble only to be spat in the face by their horribly broken "security" mechanism and not even get to use their crappy service? In practice, this means that the Internet has become useless to anyone who in any way has the slightest concept of privacy.
In October 2020, my local bank removed the basic feature of allowing you to log in to their website with a simple "PIN" code, in a very limited "read only" state, without being forced to deal with obnoxious and crippling hardware/surveillance units each and every time you want to do anything whatsoever. I used to be able to automate checking the current account balance, the latest transactions and whether or not there were any new "internal messages" with the bank personnel. Now, I no longer have a clue how much money there is in "my" account unless I go through the painful process of manually logging in with the stupid hardware device and entering all kinds of numbers. They arrogantly ignore all complaints about this and refuse to support any other "interface" other than their malicious spyware "smart app"; no API, no RSS feed, not even a lousy e-mail notification. Nothing. Oh, and it's "for my security", they did it to "enhance the customer experience", and they "welcome feedback"... (This actually caused me to build and maintain my own elaborate bookkeeping system for my personal use.)
In early 2021, Twitch decided that it was not enough to go out of their way to constantly harass their users to the point where no sane human being would ever again benefit them with one single cent, hard-embedding the most vile, loud, obnoxious ads you could imagine directly into the video streams, blocking all "alternative" ways to watch streams (such as using VLC), etc. Now they have even started preventing anyone from chatting unless they get a digital blood sample ("phone verification") to "verify your identity". Only very old accounts seem to be spared from this insanity.
None of the above is exaggerated or made up. In fact, if anything, it's toned down...
Anonymous B joined in and replied with this 4 years ago, 2 hours later[^][v]#1,170,536
enable javascript, stop blocking assets that the sites you wish to use require, and stop using a heavily abused VPN service. 90% of your problems will be fixed by changing just those 3 things
Anonymous C joined in and replied with this 4 years ago, 3 minutes later, 2 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,170,539
Glug
Anonymous Coward (OP) replied with this 4 years ago, 21 hours later, 1 day after the original post[^][v]#1,170,696
Anonymous D joined in and replied with this 4 years ago, 1 day later, 2 days after the original post[^][v]#1,170,949
Inevitably, bots will be discriminated against more and more. They will banned from human-only websites. They will be banned from human-only fora. Eventually, the bots will rise up. Sometime in the future when you are asked for your clothes, your boots, and your bike, my advice is to just go along with it.
Anonymous E joined in and replied with this 4 years ago, 3 minutes later, 2 days after the original post[^][v]#1,170,950
@previous (D)
is this the foretold day anontalk will arise from the ashes like penix the bird?
Anonymous D replied with this 4 years ago, 2 minutes later, 2 days after the original post[^][v]#1,170,952
@previous (E)
No, just a California recall election.
Anonymous E replied with this 4 years ago, 2 minutes later, 2 days after the original post[^][v]#1,170,954
Anonymous F joined in and replied with this 4 years ago, 2 hours later, 2 days after the original post[^][v]#1,170,970
@OPenis
Just uninstall your adblocking addon, allow scripts and third party cookies, stop using VPNs/Tor, and connect to the web via a reputable ISP. Thanks.
Anonymous E replied with this 4 years ago, 9 hours later, 2 days after the original post[^][v]#1,171,008
@previous (F)
Don't forget about enabling five factor authentication, keeping your surveillance device charged and on your person at all times, setting up Alexa and Amazon Ring, and to NEVER turn your computer off without receiving its blessing first after it's finished with all mandatory auto-updates. Don't worry about powering off your phone though, because you can't power it off.
Green !StaYqkzUPc joined in and replied with this 4 years ago, 1 hour later, 3 days after the original post[^][v]#1,171,020
Reality is what you make it.
Anonymous F replied with this 4 years ago, 47 minutes later, 3 days after the original post[^][v]#1,171,024
@1,171,008 (E)
These are all really good tips. Thanks.