Para_lyzed

I agree with this sentiment 100%, but I think it lacks some of the context that these are children we are talking about. They aren’t being educated on privacy or security; not by their schools, and certainly not by their parents. This generation is being raised to believe that everything they do and say needs to be posted online to social media, and their concept of privacy is virtually nonexistent. Couple that with the fact that most of them don’t have a personal computer, and it leads to great levels of negligence with regard to their use of technology, and most relevant to this discussion, their use of school computers. The children being surveiled and exploited by this software don’t have the education on it to understand why it is bad, or even that it is happening to begin with.

So while yes, they shouldn’t have private communications on school computers, they don’t have the context to understand that or independently come to that conclusion themselves, thus those private communications will happen nonetheless.

Interesting to note, though another user pointed out that this does not work the same way in the United States (political organizations still have to provide a means to opt out).

Yes, I believe all of that is in line with what I have stated. Just to clarify, my interpretation of the previous comment was that political parties were exempt from the requirement to provide an opt out in Australia for political parties (by my interpretation, just the official parties and not unrelated political organizations), and they implied they believed it to be the case in many other countries. I have not recently reviewed the relevant laws, so I was not 100% certain if that implication would prove true in the United States (though was pretty confident that was not the case by my previous experiences with messages from officially endorsed organizations), but I went on to explain how these are not officially endorsed by political parties anyway, so if such an exemption did exist, it should not apply to this particular message.

Thank you for the clarification!

Political organizations and non-profits are exempt from this list.

In that case, you’re best off opting out and seeing if it works. If you get a text from the same group at a later date, then you can report them to the FTC. Please do not do this unless they do not honor your opt out request, as politically affiliated groups are legally allowed to market in this way so long as they provide a means to opt out of communication. Falsely reporting puts strain on the already incredibly underfunded system and prevents real scams from being caught and dealt with due to a lack of resources. I recommend you keep a list of groups you have opted out from that is easily searchable to track this. 4 years ago I got multiple of these texts per day. I have been opting out every time I receive one, and now I have not gotten one in over 2 years. Eventually you will run out of groups to opt out of, and will only be messaged by newly created groups, which will happen much more slowly than all of the groups constantly texting/calling.

Beyond that, there isn’t really much you can do. Your number is on a list, and people are buying that list. Although you could see if putting your number on the national do not call list would help (EDIT: though apparently political organizations are exempt from that on further reading). I have not done this personally, but I came across it while looking up how to report scam texts. Perhaps it could be beneficial to you (who knows?)

Mine reset when I switched phones a couple months ago, and I had to manually add them to my new phone. If I hadn’t noticed, then my blocked numbers list would be empty. Not saying that is a common issue, but it doesn’t hurt to opt out before blocking; just don’t click any links or say anything other than the opt out keyword.

While I would have to find the US law and examine it more closely to tell if that is true here, these groups are not actually representatives of political parties. They are groups of self-proclaimed political advocates that try to raise money to host events that raise awareness of their causes for local voters. But they would not qualify for an exemption due to association with a political party, as they are not officially connected to or endorsed by a party.

True, but if you get a new phone and your blocked numbers list is reset, or they send messages from a different number, then you could get them again in the future. I see this often because there are multiple people in that campaign that will all reach out to people with their own phone numbers. Opting out prevents that for legitimate donor campaigns (you are removed from the list for all of the solicitors associated with that campaign), but obviously not for scams. There is no harm in doing both, and I would recommend that (it’s what I do).

Your number is on a list of real numbers with real identities associated with them that was sold to them. Data brokers sell this information daily. They already know your number is real, but in order to comply with the law, they have to provide you with a legitimate option to opt out, so you will actually stop receiving correspondence from them if you ask them to stop (it is legally required). If not, they could be subject to a fine, but you’d obviously have to file a complaint with the relevant regulatory body for that.

If you do not attempt to opt out, they cannot be fined for spam if this is part of a legitimate donation campaign. If you don’t reply, they will continue sending messages to you in the future. It costs them almost nothing to do, so even if they didn’t know your number was real, they would do it anyway. Most of the people who donate from these messages don’t reply through text message anyway. And if this were an actual scam, then there is nothing they gain from receiving a text back so long as you do not open their link. But again, in order for legal action to be taken (since these political reach outs are legal and not spam so long as there is an option to opt out), you must first try to opt out.

EDIT: Feel free to block the number after opting out. If they are legitimate (though the name is really fishy), then opting out will remove your number from all of their solicitors’ lists, so you won’t get texts or calls from different numbers working for the same campaign. Again, replying doesn’t give them anything even if it is a scam, as your number was obtained from a real list sold to them by a data broker; they already know the number is in service. Just don’t click the link in the text, and don’t reply with anything other than stop.

If two sets have no elements in common, the regions do not overlap.

You seem to have skipped over the context in the Wikipedia page. That statement is true for an Euler diagram, not a Venn diagram. The next paragraph actually says outright that this is not the case for Venn diagrams. Here is that paragraph;

A Venn diagram, in contrast, is a graphical representation of n sets in which the n loops divide the plane into 2^n zones such that for each way of selecting some of the n sets (possibly all or none), there is a zone for the elements that belong to all the selected sets and none of the others. For example, if the sets are A, B, and C, there should be a zone for the elements that are inside A and C and outside B (even if such elements do not exist).

Note the “(even if such elements do not exist)”.

You can find the Wikipedia page on Venn diagrams here, which further illustrates this point (I have linked to the section that starts off by detailing how all relationships between sets are shown in Venn diagrams, even if they are empty, which is in contrast to Euler diagrams)

A Venn diagram does not imply that the intersection of the two sets is nonempty. It is merely a visual aid to illustrate the contents of two sets, and the center part is the intersection of those sets, which can be the empty set if the sets are disjoint (as they are in this context). The use of a Venn diagram is often used to show similarities and differences between two sets, but in this case the lack of any shared elements is actually the focal point of the diagram, used to illustrate a point. Showing disjoint sets disconnected from one another doesn’t send merely as powerful of a message as showing disjoint sets in a Venn diagram, as the Venn diagram highlights the fact that they have no common elements. The reader is immediately drawn to the center of a Venn diagram when one is shown, and given that the center has no labels, it is a quick and effective way to illustrate that the sets are disjoint, especially when the reader notices how many labels exist in either set.

The essential point here is that the use of a Venn diagram does not imply shared members, it merely implies that sets are being compared.

Fedora is what I’d describe as cutting edge, but not bleeding edge. It’s still behind from source, and is semi-rolling release, so it’s further behind than Arch but way ahead of stable/fixed release distros like Debian

Idk, I think Gentoo and Void would be worse for a new user. But yeah, most other distros will be more new user friendly. Bazzite has a great new user experience, for instance

Looks like they cut in front of the truck from another lane, likely completely out of view from the driver. 100% their own fault, and they’re lucky they didn’t die for it. I don’t understand how people like this manage to survive when putting themselves in such needless danger, all while not even saving time on their commute.