Maybe he’s a Motörhead fan? (Lemmy Kilmister)

it can but people who don’t read manuals will never escape

Kinda remember there being similar discussions about people should not use TOR for P2P and for similar reasons.

Anyway, I thought I read something awhile back that P2P and torrenting were eyeing I2P for future anonymousness. Is thhat still a work in progress or am I remembering wrong?

authoritarian country

How authoritarian we talking? China?

thanks. i know i how to use mediainfo tool. no clue how to convert from a x264/x265 command to an ffmpeg one tho

Very good comment. That said, for this part

Figure out how to encode and compress video so that it still looks good, you can still find some old scene rule nfo’s to have a better idea on what settings to use to encode. I use a gui called qvs to do encodes, theres also another one called staxrip, you can also learn how to just use command line arguments and just use x264 or x265 from the command line.

I’m wondering if anyone might have any ffmpeg one-liners that are pretty decent for converting larger mkv’s from makemkv or similar down to a more reasonable size for archiving. Basically looking to get something similar to the old ION10 / ION265 encodes from RARBG if that helps (720p or 1080p w 8- to 10-bit depth using x264 or x265).

Even better if someone’s got a link to a github or similar page with a few different tried and tested presets to study.

I’ve heard a few people mention bubblewrap but never really looked into it. might have to read up and give it a try. do you think it’s pretty easy to pick up coming from firejail?

thanks mate. much appreciated

not OP but nice guide. thanks man

Ive only done a handful in linux. mostly i use repacked gog stuff cuz its easy and i don’t have to deal with cracks. so easy that sometimes i end up legit buying to support the devs if the game is good.

lot of the time i also use firejail. haven’t run into many issues with it so far (i think there was one game where i disallowed net access but it wouldnt run until i granted it) and most stuff works same as without.

me too but im on linux so i can do firejail lutris (or firejail steam or whatever for legit stuff) and run that shit in a security container.

thanks guys, i think i am finally starting to get how it works a little

and know the basics of gdb

oi, how ye learn that? i use linux but don’t know gdb worth a damn. maybe cuz i drink too much to study lol

can confirm

im not really into crypto … Monero / XMR is a privacy coin

thanks… same here. so much so that until you phrased it exactly that way, I hadn’t even put together that “Monero” == “XMR” and thought people were talking about 2 separate coins 😅

frugal usenet and Blocknews actually have a cash payment option on the website at checkout, if you are worried maybe ask them the track record for receiving it.

good to know, thanks

If you are doing VPN to, Mullvad takes cash but you do not need vpn for usenet.

already have a paid, no-log VPN that I torrent with. Mullvad looks awesome but probably won’t check it out til mine expires. my current one says my payment and connection info is separate. no way to verify that but at this point, i’ve been with them over a year and if they were lying, i would be well and truly fucked anyway lol

ok thanks man. at least given me some more to go on. i don’t mind reading… i just get confused on a lot of this stuff

Thanks man, really appreciate you helping my dumb ass here.

Alternatively you could use a known account like paypal or zelle or cashapp to fund an initial wallet but then you have to make sure to send it to another XMR wallet so it’s anonymous.

That actually sounds pretty awesome in terms of not having big risk and being easy enough that someone like me can pull it off. But does just moving it to another wallet make it anon?

If you did something like:

(non-anon wallet) => transfer A => (anon wallet)

then would transfer A be trackable from the first wallet so you would need to do something like:

(non-anon wallet) => transfer A => (anon wallet 1) => transfer B => (anon wallet 2)

or is this just paranoid overkill thinking?

Also… maybe a dumb question and I know this is completely different but i’m used to having tools like ipleak.net to check for dns leaks and stuff like that. Is there a way to check if your current wallet is anonymous or can be traced back to you?

For text messages you can buy a temporary burner phone with cash, or if you’re lucky you can find a SMS service that works with the BTM - just be aware most BTMs don’t work with virtual SMS phone numbers.

yeah, learned already that most verification systems (not just BTMs) don’t work with virtual SMS. I have no clue how to tell if a service works or not so unless someone can specifically recommend one they know works, then will probably pass on that option. for the cash money burner phone, good idea. never tried it cz it cost extra money and figured they would locked that options down already

Or going non crypto you could technically just purchase a pre-paid credit card with cash, you’d just need to make sure the card would work with whatever services you are subscribing to.

that is an awesome idea. didn’t think of that at all. might be something to try and at least if it doesn’t work (like they require registration or some shit - i remember i got a prepaid card once that did require that kind of crap), i should be able to still spend the money on groceries or something.

PS - Not sure if your post is breaking rules here, this Lemmy instance is anti-cryptocurrency and does have a rule forbidding crypto shill topics. But it might be okay if you’re just asking a general question.

The way I read it was no spam / advertising / promoting for cryptocurrency, blockchain or NFTs… so I think I’m ok especially since is more asking about how to stay anon while purchasing services related to piracy than about any specific crypto but if any mods/admin reading this disagree, please let me know. def wasn’t trying to break any rules and happy to delete or revise if needed.

thanks for the reply

If you must use Bitcoin specifically

i don’t care about bitcoin specifically, just don’t know crypto stuff - just updated title. whatever usenet services will accept is fine by me, whether that’s bitcoin, monero, xmr or whatever other ones you guys suggest.

You aren’t going to be able to mine more than a few cents of Bitcoin a month without specialized hardware.

ugh, that sucks. had been hoping to run a old gaming rig and maybe get 50 or 100 USD of some kind of anon crypto after 3-6 months. Guess that idea is out.

one option is to “wash” whatever you buy by using an exchange that allows anonymous account creation, then converting it to XMR and back before using it.

So even if I bought the KYC-style bitcoin from a bank or atm or whatever, if I convert to XMR then that hides me? Any clue how it hides it?

There at least used to be localbitcoin to help facilitate that, if that’s even still a thing.

Thanks, when I searched I see 2 of them: localbitcoin.com and localbitcoin.net ? Does it matter?

ok, XMR then. sorry, very new to crypto stuff. how do you get it anon? do you use site the other guy recommended? mine it? something else?

i heard somewhere that mining is hard unless you spend lot of money on hw but wasn’t sure if i could do something like that for smaller amounts like $100 every 6 months or something.

sorry, i’m a total noob at this stuff. so from here https://agoradesk.com/how-to-buy-or-sell-cryptocurrency-anonymously-with-cash

does that mean i can only trade other crypto for it? like i have a credit card and cash but no crypto, no wallet, etc currently…

so still kind of confused. i know it says they take paypal, zello, etc but assume that all of those would leave a papertrail.

Pay by cash

so that only leaves cash and it sounds like you are supposed to put actual paper cash monies in an envelope and physically mail it out? doesn’t that mean if you mailed like $50 or $100 or whatever, that it could get lost in the mail and you’re just fucked and have to eat it?

Also, doesn’t post office requiere a return address? i thought they refuse to mail without that cz of bombs/hatemail/etc? Am I wrong about that?