From what I can gather it is intended to be an open source hardware security key, or key generator, not really a usable personal computer

Of course, google is trying to dissuade you from using other app stores, nothing more. You might be able to download and install it from GitHub using obtainium if you really want to verify the origin of the app.

Seems slightly unnecessary unless you have loads lying around, I’m still using a 10 year old dual core i3 and it doesn’t sweat running 60 services, and I can expand the storage much more than a Mac mini.

Yep get a second hand Kobo for £30 and install Koreader on it. Or if you fancy, Kindles can be had cheaper, but they will require a jailbreak to use Koreader.

Yes, just don’t assume that self-hosting is out of the question

I would definitely still go with containers, running baremetal is less secure, more fiddly and less reproducible

You could do all of them

A noble ideal, but that should be the case regardless of where you’re going ;)

Then the same rules apply, Use different identities that have no connection to each other at all (none of the same information, email, usernames, phone numbers etc) on my phone I like to have “real” stuff separated into a different profile. If you are worried about a search then you can log out of all your real or fake stuff, depending on what you want to be seen. (I’m assuming the fake stuff should be hidden seeing as they will have your passport). You may even want to clear data for those applications or uninstall them.

YES you should not bring any technological devices with you. In fact it is better to abstain from digital systems for a period of 3 months before entering and after leaving China. (Viruses, etc)

DO NOT think your anus is safe. I had a friend who tried to smuggle in 3tb of Xi Jinping x Winnie the Pooh fanfics by encrypting it with AES-1024 and storing it on micro SD cards in his rectum. Little did he know, that day they had started doing mandatory anus probes on all foreigners. They found it. They cracked the encryption in a few minutes due to Chinese quantum supremacy and needless to say, he was executed on spot.

DO NOT think about the CPC. They have theta-brainwave detectors at the border and can detect revisionist and counter-revolutionary thoughts. Especially if you have any information that could lead to the downfall of the CPC.

Seriously though, what are you expecting to happen? What privacy are you expecting to lose? What laws for discrimination are you expecting to be missing?

When you travel internationally you already lose some privacy in that they have your passport. You are telling them exactly who you are, and where you came from. Some countries will take fingerprint scans (US, China too). Those are pretty big but are not specific to China. You should disable biometrics on your phone though, as that means they cannot force you to unlock it. But regarding the tech on your phone, if you are using any google or meta services, then all your privacy is already gone and Chinese authorities can just buy that information if they want. So I’m not sure exactly what you’re worried about, some specifics might be useful.

It would also help to know what you want the cloud storage for. They can’t suddenly hack into all of your accounts the moment you cross the border. If you already have sensible security steps like strong passwords and MFA in place, then I don’t see what else you’d need to do.

Ah good point. Even more then :)

If you can find a second hand PC with a Celeron, they’re pretty low draw, and it will mean you can open it up and add as many drives as it has SATA ports. We did the same, got an old PC for £30 and added drives and more RAM.

Afaik this is not a feature unique to Gmail, it’s a feature of the email system as a whole. Same with a dot. Any characters after a plus or dot in the first part of the email are ignored.

https://www.laquadrature.net/en/2023/06/05/criminalization-of-encryption-the-8-december-case/

Problem is they want an address, I don’t feel comfortable giving my address now for fear of being noted down as an encryption user. This has been used in France to accuse people of crimes.

Hardware attestation is bad. It is clearly a tool to be used to lock down hardware, keep it OEM and proprietary, and decrease lost revenues due to user repairs and used parts. I believe everyone should be able to open up their own hardware and repair it themselves, and use whatever parts they want.

GPG

Do not use proton, get yourself a domain and then use something like Migadu to host it for you on that domain. Then you can also use anonaddy to add anonymous addresses where needed.

Why do perfectly healthy teenagers need electric bikes? I understand the case for less physically able to use ebikes, but why can’t these kids just use regular bikes? Has everyone forgotten how to use their bodies?

Edit: carbrains have arrived

ssh

It seems others have suitably answered your questions, but I’ll add my opinion too:

Ditch windows and use linux, you will get much more performance, reliability and of course less spyware. “Old” is probably completely fine, we are hosting loads of stuff on an old i3 with 2 cores, including streaming. If you have an old CPU it may be worth adding a basic dedicated gpu to help with video decoding when streaming video, audio should be fine however. A cheap second hand ssd would be a good purchase as a boot drive and for the container images, and then you can store the big data on a hard drive.