Oct 24, 2026, 1:18 PM@ghostsnwitches @abolish-ai are you thinking of a Ry or something more clandestine
- Oct 24, 2026, 1:18 PM
Replies
- Oct 24, 2026, 1:25 PM
> ...master degree in Visual Communication Design at Aalto University
Ah how marvelous! Brace yourself for going through Microsoft oAuth and Outlook on a daily basis, including for accessing CSC or helsinki university library, or literally any service that wants to you know your student status
- Oct 24, 2026, 1:27 PM
@ghostsnwitches
Yes your firstlastname and DoB are automatically submitted to Microsoft for Outlook & oAuth, _and_ to Google for Google Drive. I'm not 100% sure about the data Zoom gets, but yes you will use Zoom. And a bunch of courses switched from Zulip to Teams 
Julian OliverJulianOliver@mastodon.socialOct 24, 2026, 7:12 PM@nobody @ghostsnwitches Quite the same where I'm teaching remote for Masters of Information Design students, in Eindhoven, NL.
So I switched students Zoom -> BigBlueButton, Teams -> Mattermost, GG Drive -> Nexctloud, all self-hosted and data sovereign, latter two on a recycled server at Hetzner in Helsinki.
Worked out great. It can be done!
horiaghostsnwitches@post.lurk.orgOct 25, 2026, 6:03 PM@JulianOliver @nobody I started in September so I've already witnessed it!
However the worst for me has been the aggressive digitalisation. Everything needs an app and everything needs a smartphone (which I don't have anymore!)...and not just in Aalto but the rest of Espoo and Helsinki too.
It would be incredible to get away from the Google and Microsoft infrastructure at Aalto, although it's massive on a scale I'm not used to at all. In Belgium art schools are separate entities from universities so everything felt much smaller and more convivial in a way.
As for the initiative (Ry or not): definitely the latter, I'm more familiar with informal organising :)
- Oct 25, 2026, 6:05 PM
> the aggressive digitalisation.
HSL removing the coin machines is so frustrating...
Oh, did you set up your Frank App yet? Amazon biometrics, yaaaay!
- Julian OliverJulianOliver@mastodon.socialOct 26, 2026, 4:04 AM
@nobody @ghostsnwitches Sad to see some countries become vassal states of the US, infrastructurally speaking. My own country is in that list. A Google account for almost every child, from the moment they start school.
The US would never accept the same, for its citizens, nor public sector.
We have to turn the tide. It starts with organising a front of resistance (as you are Horia) and, where needed, building up alternatives ourselves.