Finally replaced Google Keep notes as part of my personal Big Tech exodus. After considering Obsidian and LogSeq, I chose Joplin: markdown-based, with E2E encryption and native sync to various backends, including to my existing OpenCloud deployment. #joplin #opencloud

Jason Stangroome @jstangroome@infosec.exchange

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@ElbowsUpforDigitalSovereignty@thecanadian.social I'm on a similar journey, thanks for sharing your replacements. https://blog.stangroome.com/2026/07/11/big-tech-exodus/

Jason Stangroome

My Big Tech Exodus

Over the last two years I've recovered the capacity in my personal life to think about my dependency on the big tech companies and to start exploring and migrating to alternatives. Part of my motivations are to be voting with my wallet against enshittification, partly in response to increasing geopolitical uncertainty, and partly to be an example that it's possible to reduce the amount of big tech in your life.

Jason Stangroome @jstangroome@infosec.exchange

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@JessTheUnstill@infosec.exchange over the past year I've incrementally migrated away from Google Search, Gmail, Gdrive, Chrome, "login with Google", etc partly for this situation. I'm yet to decouple my Pixel phone though, and there's other minor items to address too. This migration process really highlighted all the subtle dependencies.

Jason Stangroome @jstangroome@infosec.exchange

· 2mo ago

Replying to

@whack@hachyderm.io so much this. I am also regularly frustrated by knowing which kubernetes object and property I want to influence and then having the reverse engineer the helm chart to find which helm variable (if any) will allow me to set that. At least kustomize didn't need me to fork a chart to change a property that wasn't anticipated.

Jason Stangroome @jstangroome@infosec.exchange

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@siguza I wondered the same thing a little while ago and discovered this: https://blog.benjojo.co.uk/post/class-e-addresses-in-the-real-world

blog.benjojo.co.uk

Jason Stangroome @jstangroome@infosec.exchange

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@Stephanie thanks, today I learned. There is a Spar store near me, apparently one of only six in Australia.

Jason Stangroome @jstangroome@infosec.exchange

· 8mo ago

Replying to on oldbytes.space

@nini@oldbytes.space @jellyfin@mastodon.online Thanks I'm now donating the monthly price of a Plex Pass to Jellyfin instead, 50% to the project, and 50% directly to an individual dev, with a calendar reminder to rotate between devs regularly.

Jason Stangroome @jstangroome@infosec.exchange

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@nicolas17 @siguza given the official definition of the IP space, I appreciate it is a reasonable default for routers to drop packets using those IPs to mitigate abuse. Unfortunately whether it's a router firmware update, or a trivial configuration toggle, there are going to be router operators unwilling to make those changes. And then there's the end-of-support router hardware that would need replacing. *Sigh*.

Jason Stangroome @jstangroome@infosec.exchange

· 5mo ago

I want to store and access my old emails (1 to 20 years old) on-premises, only accessible via the local network (or perhaps VPN).

They should be searchable, but read-only, and require no reply or forward support. They'll be accessed infrequently so CPU and ram demands should be minimised between and during accesses. Moving newer mail to this archive will be batched manually.

I was originally hoping to find OSS webmail server software with low resource requirements and the option to disable editing.

Now I'm considering a read-only IMAP server without SMTP.

I considered building my own but I'd get stuck in the weeds around low-mem full text search structures, secure mime and html parsing, and anti-xss dom rendering.

Jason Stangroome @jstangroome@infosec.exchange

· 5mo ago

Almost 18 years ago I adopted Google Workspace (then GSuite) for my family mail domain. Today I switched the MX records over to mailbox.org instead.

I had considered Proton Mail, Tutanota, and self hosting but mailbox.org won for supporting a broad range of mail and calendar clients via popular protocols for the right price.

Slowly chipping away at the Big Tech dependencies in my life.

Jason Stangroome @jstangroome@infosec.exchange

· 2mo ago

Local police increasingly embracing foreign big tech and not bothering to link to their own website for the latest missing persons alert SMS. Their website does list the person they're seeking but then states "An image of the missing person is available on NSW Police Force social media pages" with no direct link. https://www.police.nsw.gov.au/news I really hope the person is found, soon and safe, but police only posting the image to Facebook is suboptimal. #auspol #digitalsovereignty

police.nsw.gov.au