Comments by "" (@MsHojat) on "Rob Braxman Tech" channel.

  1. This will regularly happen when you enter a large/solid building. Aside from that it can potentially occur from Stingray-type spying attacks (maybe that's why you brought it up?), but I would generally doubt it and pin it on some other issue like connection overload/outage or poor reception. There is a detector app out there which you could try called AIMSICD, although it is old and possibly out of date.
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  2. The problem that I have with Signal is that it uses Electron on desktop so is super bloated. It also requires installing it on mobile (and with a phone number) despite the fact that it has a desktop version. So it is misleadig to say that you can't use it on desktop, just that it's not a good experience on desktop, and it also still requires installing it on a mobile (at least temporarily. The mobile doesn't need to be connected at all Also the problem that I've had with most modern messengers is that I'm stuck using their specific client. One that usually has very limited features (like poor customizability, or no DND/offline/idle, sometimes even no logs). Matrix and XMPP are exceptions that I'm aware of though.
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  3. I do like Linphone, but for some reason after a few months (or some random number of months) it unregisters with the SIP account somehow and can't reconnect to it. Restarting the phone and the software didn't do anything. Oddly enough I had to completely reset the account (delete it) and/or reinstall the program (I can't remember which one I did but functionally they'd be similar). The bigger problem I've experienced with linphone is that it doesn't remember my SMS history well. I think it's due to the fact that there is no official standard for SIP SMS, and that Linphone client uses a slightly different standard than my VOIP provider uses. This results in only my most recent SMS message for each number being displayed in the app. For those who are okay with non-open options Zoiper is a very good SIP app for mobile as well. It's still freeware (with a premium option), just closed source proprietary. I actually get a similar problem with Zoiper too except it happens more frequently (like every few days or something). I think in both cases for the loss of registration/connection the problem is related to my device since I disabled some services on the device as well as put up a firewall, and something related to that could be causing disconnections.
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  4. I'm not sure what you mean by that statement.
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  5. I get this as well, but it can occur for any message. From my experience YT just "randomly" deletes a ton of comments because it thinks it's spam. I think it mostly has to do with using tracker/script/fingerprint blockers in your browser, and considering the topic I wouldn't be surprised if you were both using them. Or at least that is my best guess how/why it happens. From my experience the topic seems mostly irrelevant (although it's possible that certain key words still might play a factor, even innocuous ones that you wouldn't expect (such as "hello", "vid" or "sexy")
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  6. What pisses me off is that Facebook is being bitched at and distrusted by everyone when they really never sold any info of users to anyone. In the mean time Twitter is literally selling personal info such as phone numbers and everyone still uses it and doesn't complain about it's data exploitation (although there is a lot of talk about the quality of user content). Such terrible double standards and/or ignorance when it comes to much of the major apps and services. I'm not suggesting that Facebook had good privacy practices, but just that so much about them is overblown by the less tech/privacy-savvy people, and is often the users' fault in the first place (for enabling "find friends by phone number" and posting all sorts of content publicly (or even friends of friends) but having expectations of privacy from it).
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  7. At least personally I find that Youtube deletes comments (presumably anti-spam) in a seemingly random manner. I've never noticed specific topics that it blocks. I can re-post pretty much the same content as the deleted post again and it will go through. I think it's more related to whether or not a user has anti-fingerprinting anti-scripting, and other privacy features in their browser. If Google/YT find it to be a hard to verify account it will seemingly randomly delete comments several seconds after they are posted. At least that is my experience and my hypothesized theory.
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  8. I don't know if its my browser or what (Firefox with some anti-fingerprinting and script blocking, although all scripts and content originating from brax,me should be allowed), but every time I visit brax,me website I can't see any navigation/links to pages for any of the services or products. It's been like this for ages(over a year probably). I suppose that I should have mentioned it sooner, although I can only assume not too many people have this issue. Is it maybe intentional that people have to login before they can see the store or something? (even though it can be skipped by just visiting a search engine link)
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  9. I liked this root certificate topic, although it can be a bit hard to understand. Have you talked much about DivestOS? Seems good for privacy but maybe not ideal for security. Have you Considered making a video about the issues of RCS?
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  10. This is a great video, but one important thing that you didn't say is that there are many better alternatives to something like the Ooma than what you had mentioned; someone just needs to look for a VOIP router. Stuff like Magicjack is proprietary which locks you in to their service. Ooma is probably the same way. Perhaps more importantly, one can also get a real phone number over VOIP with no additional hardware, just a mobile. You sign up with a VOIP service, and then install a VOIP softphone onto your device, such as Linphone. You can now send and receive regular telephone calls (and SMS texts as well for many providers) with a mobile that has internet (whether it's wi-fi or mobile data, or mobile data routed through wi-fi). edit: I guess near the end you di explain that softphone feature that Ooma has as well; although it's still not mentioned that Ooma is by far not the only option, and that something like Linphone is completely free (Ooma softphone maybe requires an Ooma device? maybe not) You can also set up number sharing, so that if someone calls one number, you could have it ring to both you and your spouse's phone at the same time
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  11. Can that mobile hotspot work as a wi-fi relay as well?
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  12.  @robbraxmantech  a lot of —if not all?— Google's spyware seems to be in Google services which can be disabled even without root. It will break a ton of app functionality though, since indeed many do require it. What other stuff is there outside of apps/services that can be disabled? Another thing that can be used is a firewall. And while one could argue that in theory the manufacturer could bypass it, I don't think they care enough to actually do so. It's only like targeted government spying where I wouldn't trust a firewall to be effective (like baseband modem stuff) I'm not suggesting you're wrong, but rather asking for more info, and/or saying that it's a viable option for some people who could get by without GApps at all and who don't necessarily care about 100% sealed perfect privacy, particularly if it's from the govt which is harder to avoid and not as much reason to avoid (I know that is up for debate, but less-so in developed areas like NA/EU)
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  13. I don't understand what you're suggesting. Doesn't make any sense from what I can tell.
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  14. Are you not able to set it up again? Is the option just missing? Maybe Google disabled that feature for many people and not just you? assuming that you could just set up the forwarding again it might have been disabled from some sort of bug or something, but I'm guessing that you can't re-enable it. Have you contacted Google support or the Google forums? Doesn't seem like a question that Braxman or anyone else could answer; something you should look up and/or ask about yourself with Google.
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  15. What are you referring to?
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  16. As much as I agree that it makes sense, I don't think many people are willing to drop using all services that require a non-virtual mobile number. It's making a difficult "demand"/suggestion to them amongst an already extremely small portion of the population (I'm guessing like 1-5%; currently probably closer to the 1%), and would lose even more of them there.
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  17. Yeah this has been a thing for many years now, ever since voice-activated assistants existed. From what I've heard it's even been used in the past in online games to kick people off of the server by saying something like "hey Xbox, shut down now". Although I'm surprised it occurred to you now because I heard that many years ago it was patched to not happen for internet videos, due to some sort of detection mechanism (I'm not sure if it's Youtube that plays some inaudible sound in the background during videos, or it listens on a frequency that would normally be cut off, or just has better detection or something). Maybe your phone is really old and hasn't received any updates for that?
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  18. How are you supposed to track an object for cheap aside from something like Tile or AirTag though? If someone wants to track an object (ex. a bicycle in case of theft), it seems like these are the only two options without paying for a more bulky battery-consuming device that has it's own GPS and cell data plan. For that matter saying that there's privacy issues to THE USER seems questionable as well. Using these devices aren't inherently a risk to the user's privacy (much), but rather other people who have the phone ping enabled (I think for Apple this is "Find my" functionality, and for Tile having the App installed (assuming that it also gets the permissions it wants). So while functionality of these devices is dependent on other people having their phones pinging out, It's not necessary to do so yourself to use the devices.
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  19. "this isn't a simple process" Isn't it super-simple for GraphenOS though? I'm not suggesting that is the solution people should go to nor that Grphene is otherwise good nor that the devs are nice or whatever, but if the user doesn't have any technical knowledge it is as-far-as-I-know the only option for them without getting a friend or business to do some install for them.
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  20. Just because some disabled people don't have mobiles doesn't mean that it would be a violation of the disabilities act. Short of someone who is completely paralyzed, SMS is accessible to everyone. So I don't really buy your argument. I would agree that it should be illegal to require though. I suspect that if that is somehow the case or a law would be made for that it would only only apply to required services such as banks, and hence still keep most people locked out from stuff like Steam or Discord. I tried contacting Discord about not having an SMS phone number and they essentially said "tough luck, we don't want you then". Steam would probably say the same thing (granted this is just for verification for ladder and/or SteamGuard or such, not required for basic Steam use).
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  21. How much of the NLP/AGPS/SUPL stuff is performed on a default Android phone with all Google services disabled? I noticed that he said "pretty-much hardcoded", and I'm not sure what he means by this.
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  22.  @robbraxmantech  Yeah I didn't think so. Youtube just arbitrarily deletes certain comments a moment after they are posted, and I have no idea why. I didn't spot any odd trigger words in my message, just talking about how services don't take VOIP numbers, and how Discord doesn't even allow VPNs nor land line 2FA.
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