Sadly no-one can tell you that as it is your decision based on your morals and your beliefs. It’s a hard decision, one that I also had to make. The question is, what is harder and more painful: losing this friend or being friends with someone who is like this.

Wish you all the strength you need to get through this.

The more news I read the more I think of judge dredd as the future for the USA.

Corporate Takeover of Government

Elon Musk and DOGE and the budget cuts, like a megacorp executive running essential public services for profit.

Trump & Musk pushing privatization, bust like how corporations in Judge Dredd control everything from housing to law enforcement.

Weakening Social Safety Nets

Cutting Social Security, making healthcare deniable based on religious beliefs (Arkansas bill), reducing government services looks like pushing society toward a survival-of-the-fittest model to me.

The rich live in luxury, while everyone else is left to fend for themselves like the division in Judge Dredd’s Mega-City One.

Authoritarianism & the Rule of the Few

Trump’s policies, Vance’s ideology, Musk’s influence, the US is shifting toward rule by billionaires and strongmen, bypassing democratic institutions.

The Rise of Private Justice & Armed Control

Musk’s obsession with tech-based policing & surveillance (like Neuralink, AI, and robot enforcement) eerily mirrors corporate-controlled law enforcement in dystopian fiction.

Ever heard the saying, „Your freedom ends where someone else’s begins“?

Exactly. Don’t give them a platform

There’s a lot going on in the US that I never thought would happen and it just goes on and on and on. Every day I read something that scares me even more.

To me it’s not that absurd that open source projects could be affected. Wouldn’t be the first time they tried (EARN IT Act or how often they tried to get backdoors in encrypted data https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/a-brief-history-of-the-nsa-attempting-to-insert-backdoors-into-encrypted-data )

To me it seems possible.

Yes, it’s open source, yes, it can be taken elsewhere and developed outside of the USA. It’s just that I’m extra cautious right now.

I agree with you, it’s not only the USA which is problematic, but currently the US is the country with the most power doing „shitty things“. That’s why you get extra bonus points.

Just a couple of examples

Red Hat Developed by a U.S.-based company.

Fedora A community-driven project sponsored by Red Hat.

Debian Originally founded in the U.S., with some legal ties to US regulations.

Slackware developed by Patrick Volkerding in the US

Since these distributions are developed or registered in the United States, they are subject to US laws, regulations, and export restrictions.

When I have a look at what’s happening right now in the US I’m not sure what kind of laws will suddenly appear which might affect privacy and security of any kind of software from there. That’s why I decided to avoid them as much as possible.

I will certainly go through your suggestions and have a look if I should change stuff (apart from proton, I’m sure about changing this one).

I listed the stuff I use and what I changed. There’s also a reason why I chose this specific Linux distro as I try to avoid as much as I can with the jurisdiction in the US, which means a lot of Linux distros are not an option anymore.

But that does not mean everyone needs to do the same. Do whatever you think is best.

Fastmail: Privacy & Security Overview

+Encrypted storage & transit (TLS 1.3, Perfect Forward Secrecy).

+No ads, no data selling – user-funded.

+2FA & Passkey support for added security.

-Based in Australia – subject to laws like the Assistance and Access Act (2018).

-No built-in end-to-end encryption (E2EE) – requires third-party PGP/S/MIME.

https://www.fastmail.com/features/security

https://www.fastmail.com/policies/privacy

Good for privacy, but jurisdiction risks & lack of E2EE make alternatives like tuta (or proton) a better choice.

I’m also not that happy with proton. Maybe tuta could be a replacement.

I’m also trying to avoid as much American tech as possible.

• Vivaldi/qwant instead of Firefox/Google
• Proton instead of gmail
• Waiting for WERO impatiently until then virtual card from wise instead of PayPal
• Void Linux instead of windows/macOS
• Surfshark for VPN

Can’t change everything though. I have a company phone. I could get an extra private phone, but I’d still need to use the company phone for company related stuff. Same is true for the company laptop, but I do have my own computer.

It’s not perfect, but the important thing to me is trying as best as I can.