Maybe federation should be based on allowlisting, instead of allowing instances by default.

Why could this not just be a webpage with links instead of an image or PDF

Switching from Windows to Linux isn’t going to block them from monitoring your use of online services. Facebook doesn’t even do anything in the OS space.

*or the initial VPN connection request will not go through.

But mentioning DNS is a good point: if you’re addressing your VPN server by hostname, your client will need to be able to resolve that name somehow, either by running a DNS server elsewhere on your LAN and allowing traffic to the LAN (which is how I do it) or by allowing DNS traffic from the VPN client to a DNS server on the Internet.

That assumes they know which Microsoft account it was attached to, the password, and have another device to access that account and retrieve the recovery key. If they did the setup five years ago, they’ve probably forgotten all that info.

Only if they were a VPN app talking to the VPN server.

Add an allow rule for the VPN traffic on wlan0 to your VPN server.

Given that AES instructions have been implemented directly in the CPU since 2008, any performance penalty should be negligible.

Windows does not let you save the key to the drive being encrypted. (Unless you access it via SMB share, which I’ve done a number of times during setup before moving it off.)

They’re not forcing it. You can still create local accounts (though it takes some work) and it doesn’t require you to upload any keys. I have bitlocker enabled with a local account and no Microsoft account connection.

And people are pissed because they don’t realize, and when they don’t have the key any more, all their data is gone!

Which phone? Any custom ROM?

Keep in mind that you can’t restore data from one app to another. For stuff like photos it’s a full export and import outside of the app.

It’s a layer of security. Keep it on when you can. If you have issues doing something, then turn it off (and see if you can turn it back on afterward).

Legally, it’s probably not. The OEM desktop license probably doesn’t cover virtualization.

How should we know? Ask them, not us.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/rewards/about

The most effective motivation is intrinsic. It’s very hard to make someone want to do something. It’d take Apple-level marketing, or Microsoft-level outright paying people to use their products.

Why are you using some random blog post? The page you linked to shows how to use it without Cloudflare…

You can, turn off your devices and go outside.

What exactly is the connection?