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> I remember hearing a few months ago that companies in the EU still have to use Dun & Bradstreet (a US company) for routine government filings!

Could you name which European nation this was?

I would genuinely be interested in knowing.


There is a very large presence over at Mastodon when it comes to people well versed in web standards. The public discussions are often very lively (in a good way).


They're closed for sign-ups, so no way to view their feed :(

But happy to follow those accounts.


Any tips on how to find those people or discussions?

Can you link to some lists or an example discussion to seed my list to follow? Mastodon seems stalled out but I think it’s just a discoverability issue.

You say this like you are unaware of how the US has utilizied cheap manufacturing in China, relied on imported manpower from both developed and developing countries as well as, until recently, been a net importer of energy from other nations.

This only (but still sadly) applies to the use of the meet.jit.si instance.

If you self host there are no such requirements.


When this whole thing got announced, I purchased a new Pixel 9 and flashed it with GrapheneOS.

I am hoping that in about 6-8 years (when I realistically need to update) the landscape might be a bit better. Or who knows, maybe I'll just continue using GrapheneOS.

So far I have not had a single issues with it. Apps the rely on attestation do not work, but honestly it's only two applications out of hundreds so I can live with it.

I also financially support GrapheneOS on a monthly basis (15$). This is just too important of an project not to.


I think the EU should pile in as well. It's basically an oven-ready independent mobile OS.

Graphene OS spends its social capital on hallucinating attacks from other projects and bullying other projects by sending their followers against them, based on those hallucinated attacks. It also has a completely intransparent project structure based around a supposedly retired mean developer, who then just did not (and still does almost all commits). That's not a project where the EU can invest money in, and the confidence users on HN tend to put into that project is baffling.

These weird anti-Graphene posts confuse me. I use GrapheneOS, fwiw, and I believe some things the project does (like its attacks on F-Droid) are misguided for orthogonal reasons.

However, it all makes sense from the perspective of Graphene not attempting to be a general purpose OS like Lineage, but explicitly a security focused OS. Security is often in conflict with what the average consumer wants, and they can go use Lineage or whatever.

It's like writing lots of comments complaining about OpenBSD devs coming across as grumpy and refusing to support Bluetooth. That is part of their value proposition! You're just not the target audience and that is okay.


Most if not all of their attacks are inexcusable. Calling a competing OS, CalyxOS, nazi sympathizers is unacceptable and when I first read that I started seeing the red flags.

Nothing is open about GrapheneOS aside from the source code. We officially know nothing about the leadership, their current plans, what their finances look like or even who this new mysterious OEM is.

It's weird.


not much in the parent comment is anti-graphene. it's probably the best available option for a mobile OS right now.

the sentiment is that the dev team - specifically one zealot - does not engage politely/rationally/transparently in any public forum, which undermines the image of the OS as a whole.


And unfortunately that one zealot is the project leader.

Yes that guy is extremely weird, he should delegate operations and community management to someone who isn't weird and stick to development.

The EU hate GrapheneOS. They chased them out to Canada just last year because they didn't want to put in backdoors for law enforcement.

The EU should pile money into /e/OS. It's maintained by an EU company (Murena) and has European hardware options - Fairphone (NL), SHIFTphone (Germany), and Volla (Germany). Yes, I know some of them use US Qualcomm chips, but you have to start somewhere.

Europe is hostile towards Graphene users.

I am sure you know this, but just in case:

Europe is a continent, with many disparate nations and cultures. This continent is not hostile towards Graphene users.

In Europe there is the European Union (EU), which also is comprised of many disparate nations and cultures but a subset of those comprising Europe.

I say the following as a staunch supporter of European integration and cooperation:

The EU is actively hostile towards any software with the stated goal of safeguarding users right to privacy and security. That means GrapheneOS but also Signal, Matrix and more.

edit: spelling & grammar



And with Europe you mean a single country, Spain?

GrapheneOS can choose to simply not apply the same restrictions but now that they're partnering with another vendor to get security updates earlier, I'm not sure what the future holds in this aspect.

This is only an issue for Google compliant Android so projects like LineageOS will be fine. Depending on their implementation, this may even just be restricted to AOSP with Samsung and others just ignoring the extra restrictions.

But, if they make compliance a requirement for being part of their parent programme, GrapheneOS will be in a tough spot.


The new phone is a nice reward for Google for this announcement

Nah, rather an upgrade from an ancient device. But good try there.

Can be both

Ironically, I've found that blocking the attestation API for some apps that supposedly require it (such as the latest versions of Waymo) might make them work anyway. lol

My next phone will be on GrapheneOS or EOS as well, the last straw was Samsung removing the bootloader unlock with an update (not even sure what they've done is legal)

I would love to run GrapheneOS if it didn't involve giving any money to Google to get up-to-date hardware, brand new. (Yes, I know I can buy and run it on a used Pixel.)

Which apps require attestation? People always mention banking apps but I'm curious what non-banking apps might pull this crap.

Airalo, an esim provider I use when traveling wouldn't load.

My partner has had three extensive cancer treatments in the Netherlands. She has had dietary and psychological specialists help her during and after each one.

All of this was just on normal health insurance and with normal clinics and hospitals.

Never did she have to wait more than perhaps 3 weeks tops for an appointment.

The medical system here is world class.

However Germany and it's infrastructure can not be compared to the Netherlands. I refuse to take trains through that country anymore.


> However Germany and it's infrastructure can not be compared to the Netherlands. I refuse to take trains through that country anymore.

In which country are the trains bad? Netherlands or Germany? Do you care elaborating why? is that punctuality? strikes? decaying infrastructure?


Yeah I see now how that was unclear.

I was talking about Germany's infrastructure. Last year I had 3x separate trips turn into chaos due to how broken their system is. Broken trains, broken track infrastructure etc. Think multiple hours on each trip rather than just 10 minutes delay.

The Ditch system is very reliable in contrast.


Many European countries have a single payer system when it comes to the medical system. That gives them a big leverage in negotiations for drug pricing.

When European customers pay American firms, it's "protection money".

When American customers pay European firms, it's just capitalism, sorry bro.


You’re twisting words at this point. Visa and Mastercard are a duopoly and neither of them are afraid to use their power to cut off money flows towards entities they disapprove of. It’s an intrinsic risk and a big issue for sovereignty. The situation is very different for pharmaceuticals, a lot of which are American. The short story is, the American healthcare system is broken and very expensive for the results it provides. The solution is to reform your health system. Moaning won’t solve anything because even if you replaced all those evil European companies with American alternatives, it won’t bring prices down because the system still encourages price gouging.

You’d have a point if you had examples of European pharma companies cutting off supply to American entities for political reasons. You don’t, so you don’t have a point.


I was responding to this comment about how Visa/Mastercard fees are supposedly "protection money": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46736657

If US firm profits in Europe are "protection money" then EU firm profits in the US should also be added to the ledger.


For pharma there are, most of the time, alternatives. There is no alternative to Visa/Mastercard in Europe. It's an American duopoly.

No, Europe had Europay, which their regulators allowed to be subsumed into Mastercard.

Hell, the EMV standard — used in all cards worldwide — means "Europay, Mastercard, Visa".

Look after your toys better.


> Look after your toys better.

Lesson learned, at least for me. I am in the process of moving everything digital to Europe.


That comparison makes no sense at all. What protection money are you taking about?

It's a claim from the comment I originally replied to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46736657

There is an Icelandic company called Kerecis that produces these kinds of fish skin based grafts. There are some videos of some of their patient's before and after over at their webpage[0] but be warned, they might be a bit graphic for some.

[0]: https://kerecis.com


Wow, those before and after videos really are amazing - while my own scars are tiny, they aremore noticeable than some of these fairly major wounds.

The EU is the more reasonable actor here. Making a reactionary move, even one that would feel good, wouldn't be the best move.

The USA is in the process of systematically demolishing it's soft power around the world.

The EU is like a super tanker that takes a long time turning and, make no mistake, it is turning away from the USA.

The push back will be felt for years and decades.


Iceland based data centers are able to cut their energy usage for cooling by 24-31% compared to US/UK equivalent due to the climate [0].

[0]: https://eandt.theiet.org/2022/12/12/iceland-coolest-location...


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