ThrowAway237s

A sparse file is created using truncate -s 100M example.bin on a file system that supports sparse files, like ext4. This will not take any space besides the file metadata, which can be checked using du -s -h example.bin.

However, is there any way to detect blank sectors (sectors with only null bytes) on a non-sparse file and mark them as sparse after the fact?

Without root access and an unlocked bootloader, you don't truly own your phone.

By default, Android places lots of restrictions on the user, for example they have no normal write access to the MicroSD card since Android 4.4 and USB OTG media since Android 6.

Google provided no menu option to let the user opt out of these restrictions, so rooting is the only way to gain normal access to your property.

Unfortunately, bootloader unlocking requires a factory reset, and backing up in-app data can be difficult to impossible depending on the app. By the time people learn about rooting, it tends to be too late.

Do not accept this nonsense as normal. This is an ownership violation.

I hereby release this post into the public domain ().

It will not be found anytime soon due to the lack of a pressing need for it, besides providing closure to the families, which the Malaysian government has - let's face it - little reason to care about. Besides, something like MH370 has never happened again since then, because the air traffic controllers are better prepared this time.

The overwhelming majority of signs point to a pilot suicide, specifically by captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, see the video by Green Dot Aviation.

The flight data recorder (FDR) and cockpit voice recorder (CVR) will unlikely contain anything useful, if they are readable at all. Almost certainly, Zaharie pulled the circuitbreaker for the FDR before his vanishing act, and let the CVR run so it would overwrite itself due to the two-hour limit, destroying all evidence.

If the remote possibility that the wreckage has already been seized by some authorities but it is covered up from the public is true, then this post of course does not apply. But this post presumes that the wreckage is still at the bottom of the ocean.

Date: 2040 - 2049. Evidence: see above.

I release this post into the public domain, CC0 1.0.

Mainstream smartphone operating systems (Android and iOS) let applications arbitrarily disable screen capture, screen recording, and screen mirroring to an external display such as a television or an MHL connection to an HDMI monitor.

I am surprised smartphone users have been conditioned into accepting this ownership violation as a "normal part of life". It is not.

As a device owner, you should be able to screen-capture anything that appears on your screen, without exception. App makers have no business deciding what you can screen capture.

Two well-known examples of screenshot blocking and screen recorder blocking are the , and .

The first one probably only intended to prevent incognito mode from appearing on external displays such as a television, which is accomplished though the same feature as screenshot blocking and screen recorder blocking (). So screenshot and screen recorder blocking are apparently collateral damage.

Samsung also added the "secure" flag to their lockscreen key pad in 2023. The goal of this is to prevent it from appearing on external displays, so screenshot and screen recorder blocking are side effects. There is no reason to prevent the device owner from screen recording the keypad if they voluntarily wish to do it, which can be useful for a demonstration or bug report, using a temporary passcode.

See also my prediction on :

And regarding WhatsApp profile pictures: Screenshots of profile pictures are not privacy violations and never were, but have legitimate reasons such as preserving good memories.

Everyone knows that one should not upload something onto a visible spot on the Internet that one does not wish to be preserved by others. A profile picture is such a spot.

A privacy violation is, for example, . Here, developers are being coerced into disclosing personally identifiable details (including home address!) that they probably wished not to, in order to be able to release applications that work on most Android smartphones sold (network effect).

But a profile picture is something one voluntarily chooses to make public, and not even a mandatory requirement to be able to use WhatsApp. Not a privacy violation.

Ironically, this comes from Meta, Inc. - one of the biggest data harvesters in history.

I hereby release this post into the public domain ().

I never understood why popcorn seems to be so popular in cinemas. It tastes boring, and sometimes popcorn pieces get into your throat, drying it up.