Ebby

First of all, the ISP controls cable modem firmware. They have all the settings and manage the device. You don't get much control there.

As for your question, I'd say no, for 2 reasons. First, designing that capability is expensive and modems are built for cheap reliability. Second, any hardware to spy is more useful installed in a data center accessible to their user base. There is not much point installing unnecessary tech to one endpoint.

As for router, they are beefier CPU-wise. AT&T has in the past prevented users from changing DNS settings and that could lead to lots of tasty data. Deep packet inspection is becoming more prevalent in home routers as is integration with other technologies. (EERO devices for example).

Make sure to fire up a VPN or something when you need.

The user may not be aware they have this tracking technology on their phone. The toolkit may be some app developer integrating a 3rd party library for analytics. Banking apps, loyalty apps, phone companies, games, utilities... they all can rely on 3rd parties for proximity services.

In fact, I was going to mention an app, Exodus, that can reveal these trackers and in scanning my phone, I found 2!. The first is home assistant, which is understandable, but the second is a Health app my doctor office uses! Man, that irks me!

Uhhh that exact technology has been in use for years. Your phone broadcasts/receivers a beacon at regular intervals while Bluetooth is on. Anyone can pick it up if they are looking.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/14/opinion/bluetooth-wireless-tracking-privacy.html

The process is so streamlined companies bragged your advertising profile is updated before you check out.

The Next Major Version of Bluetooth Might Help Advertisers Track Your Smartphone Faster

FIFY

Let's not pretend this feature didn't trickle down the data harvesting dog-hydrant to us peons solely for our benefit.

Straight up, Firefox isn't search, so that's never going to be competitive. Changing from Google is easy though. That aside though ...

Comparing Firefox to Chrome is a little complicated as it comes default on pretty much all Android phones. Yes, we can change, but it's still installed and running services in the background if I recall. I really hope the move away from useful extensions takes a toll on chrome and brings users over to Firefox.

Million dollar salaries are excessive IMHO and rarely justified. I'm with you on that.

Some things Mozilla does, and doesn't do, have been instrumental in not only bringing awareness, but security for the web and triggering dialogue. That openness is important and not something Google has been known for.

Google may be covering their butt funding Firefox, but an Internet without Firefox may look much different today.

"Who am I?"

"Why am I here?"

"When I'm done rolling up this booger, should I eat it or throw it out the window?"

Linky

I sort of already do. It's called dreaming about driving a car.

I think these folks forgot that random dreams play an important role in information processing. I'd rather not mess with that too much.

Ha! Yes! Even today USB 5 volts is pretty sweet for low power stuff. USB PD re-complicates things, but it's not user dependent so that's a plus.

And you need a loooot of copper to prevent voltage drop especially when a grid of 100 houses 1/2 mile long draw 20-80 amps each. The math starts adding up real quick.

I heard it said many years ago that if DC won the battle, we'd have power stations every 10 miles and power lines as thick as your wrist.

Converting local power is fairly easy, with AC inverters added for universal compatibility.

But, take note of how many DC voltages you use in your house. Devices in mine range from 3v to 25v and some weird one like 19v for a laptop. You'd still have adapters all over the place.

I use kimai. It's gotten much more stable over the past couple years and there is a mobile app. (I think it's a couple bucks now, but works pretty well)

It runs in docker so it's pretty easy to set up.

I have one customer who is pretty nuts about bills and this is the only way to track and invoice all that nonsense.

There are several out there using yt-dlp. Tube archivist, tube sync, etc. They are fairly straightforward to set up in docker if you use that.

I've been downloading my subscriptions and loading them into Plex. Plenty of room for improvement in that system, but I get a nostalgic hit of YouTube long ago. Man, it's fallen so far over the years.

Also related, I've hit 2.4TB of internet use for the first time last month doubling my previous record.