Mikelius

Actually, there are some apps and even phone level things that do try to call to custom DNS, ignoring all the phone settings, including those defined in the global settings. Termux nslookup is one I can think of at the top of my head that ignores the phone’s settings and instead tries to call to Google DNS. I’ve got DNS default blocked in a custom script for AFWall on my phone, excluding calling my custom DNS, and see the block frequently hit. Just now checking, I see 54 blocks on 8.8.8.8:53, 2 blocks on 1.1.1.1:53, and 16 on “other” port 53 (catch all block).

Think the best solution is either a router firewall setup if always on the wifi, or a phone firewall app that can act as a VPN and just default block everything, or something like that. If rooted, AFWall does wonders.

Hmm that’s actually something I hadn’t thought about, but yeah it probably wouldn’t work for an offline mode… If the app is already open, maybe it would work, but I’m not 100% sure. In general, it does require internet to connect to your home assistant (my phone is setup with wireguard to VPN into mind so it’s not internet facing). So yeah unless it can be used during those random connection drops, maybe not a perfect option :(

My family uses a custom Todo list on home assistant. I’ve got a separate dashboard of items we can just click to add to the grocery list, and then when shopping, checking them will move them out of the way. Very convenient, quick, and shared. So if you use HA, it might be good option, especially since you’re wanting something simpler (I was in the same boat)

Interesting, I didn’t have this experience a couple of years ago. I wonder if they’ve just upped it to try and “automate” things more with the crazy amount of tourism they’re suddenly getting. Also I’d be curious on which airport you went to, Haneda or Narita?

If the scans and such were in the states, I’ve requested opting out and no one really cared, they just said okay. Funny enough, it actually made me go through quicker than it was taking everyone who did the face scans, contradicting the sign claiming it’s quicker.

I left like a decade ago when they asked me in a chat to verify my identity by answering a question asking what my first car purchase was. I’ve never given then my SSN or that kind of financial details, so the fact they had these questions and details about me terrified me at the time and I immediately requested to delete and close everything with them. Haven’t used PayPal again since then.

Glad I looked at this thread. The fact they’re cheap and have what sound like reliable PoE hats… Tempted to replace a few old Pis lol. Maybe. But can at least say no future devices will be Pis at this point.

Note: only using them for simple things. Wireguard VPN (no I don’t have a fast internet so I don’t need more than the 1gb connection speed), pi hole, and a touch panel I installed that connects to home assistant on the wall.

This thread has provided genius ideas I somehow never thought of, and I’m totally stealing them for my sites lol.

Friends and I are in the upper 30s and 40s range so not young not old I guess lol. For the family side, I tend to look for all my closer relatives which range in all ages. While there were many many lines that matched our last names, the entries that were a match didn’t have the right phone numbers or addresses (so couldn’t really validate if they were us or others with the same name). Or it could always be that they were addresses so old that I don’t have a record of them to compare to… Considering a large chunk of the data is apparently old, it’s possible that could be a reason I didn’t see everyone, too? I’ll probably go back and dig a little deeper on the family side since I haven’t deleted the data yet.

The news is kind blowing this up bigger than it really is. But I find this as a good thing because I’ve noticed a few people FINALLY taking the advice I’ve been giving for years now, and that’s to freeze your credit at the big bureaus and some, if not all, of the smaller ones.

That being said, I checked this data dump for my own data as well as a bunch of friends and family. Not a single person I checked was in it… Which is why I’m not finding this breach to be that frightening personally. The ATT breach was way worse. Also Krebs posted on this today… A good read for anyone interested. Main thing I took from it was a large number of these entries belong to people who have passed away already.

The NoScript list terrifies me a little though… Not sure what’s going on there, but that’s a lot of JavaScript lol.

I’ve been doing this for a while now with opnsense being what masks the whole network behind the mullvad VPN.

Pros:

• Even fresh new devices that have all that crap junkware installed get routed through the VPN, meaning no tracking to you immediately (unless they sniff the rest of the network and relay your network AP I guess)
• one device instead of many, leaving extra devices available to use for a single mullvad account (limited to 5 devices, at least for wireguard)
• if using wireguard, you honestly won’t be hit with network performance issues. Just don’t choose a server across the world from you. I chose one in the same country as myself and get an average 95-97% of my internet speed, and that’s because I also have IDS/IPS enabled

Cons:

• as others mentioned, increase captcha annoyances
• some banks may lock your account if you try to log in with the VPN
• if the VPN server goes down, the whole network will. This may be a good thing since your don’t want traffic to leak, but just pointing out you now have another single point of failure outside your ISP
• when someone’s hoarding the entire VPN server you’re connected to, you’ll probably witness a slowdown

That all being said, if you’re not very technically savvy on the networking side or haven’t ever setup a custom router/firewall, this will be a pain. But it you want to learn something new and are up for the challenge, eventually it gets down to almost never having to worry about it. I’ve been doing it for a long time now, so for me personally, I’ve gotten to the point of only needing to login to the firewall for a VPN setting update or server change maybe once a month