privacy

I am kinda on the Karmic side of #infotech

If you were lazy ok with corps eating all your data because #privacy was not your concern.

Or worse, were one of those Muppets who espoused "I have nothing to hide, so I have nothing to fear" and accepted ubiquitous #surveillance from your Government without any action on your part...

...you absolutely have no leg to stand on and get all squeally about #ai #generative #llm eating all your precious doodles and unpublishable writings you blogged.

You allowed this to happen by your inaction.

Just because you were unequipped to see the consequences, you were happy to abandon us, who tried to hold the thin red line against the #dataabuse.

I looked over my shoulder, and there was no one behind us.
These things do not happen overnight and if we had strong regulatory regime, we would not be here now.
Instead the public stampeded into the cloud and big data like farm animals to slaughter.

#ai #aihate #eff #efa

Migrated to a new instance, time for a refresher #intro

If you are seeing this post that is likely because you followed me before at my old account at @fiery

The fine folks there apparently were having some scaling issues and since I also wanted to be using a server software that is less wasteful, I moved here to bsd.cafe, graciously hosted by @stefano

If you are unsure whether you want to follow me, what is likely to be seen here is mostly pictures of #vegan food, #nature, #baking, and you will may also see me sometimes ranting about #technology, #programming, #privacy. Some of my interests in technology include #unix, #openbsd, #golang, #security. Glad to be on this new instance, hello bsd.cafe and snac.bsd.cafe people!

New Release: #TorBrowser 14.0

https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-140/

#privacy #cybersecurity #anonymity #FOSS #Tor

The New Oil is not slowing down in 2025, and you can help us keep going!

https://thenewoil.org/en/support/

#privacy #cybersecurity

UPDATE: I haven't seen Recall in action there. I was just asking the doctor how they'll deal with it.

This morning, I went to the doctor for a scheduled appointment. While she was looking at the results of blood tests from two years ago on the screen (and suggested repeating them for a follow-up), I realized she was using Windows 11. A detail came to mind. The doctor is extremely polite and friendly, so I asked her, "How do you handle the feature called Recall?" The doctor was taken aback and had no idea what I was talking about. I was about to drop the conversation, but she, being a serious professional, immediately called the technicians who manage their PCs to ask for clarification. They downplayed it, saying it's not an issue and that it's a feature "on all PCs, so we can't do anything about it." She started to express that she didn’t like it and wanted it deactivated. No luck: they won’t proceed because, according to them, even deactivating it is "a hack that could compromise future updates." She’s furious and will talk to her colleagues and the decision-makers. She wants secure systems because "there’s patient data involved."

In reality, patient data is stored on servers (which I haven't investigated), but everything that appears on the screen is, in my opinion, at risk.

I’ve offered to help them find a solution—because, if I'm right, all they need is LibreOffice and a browser. In that case, I’ll suggest one of the *BSD or Linux systems and do it for free.

I don’t want to make money off my doctor. I just want patient data to be (sufficiently) secure.

#IT #Recall #Windows #OwnYourData #Security #Privacy #RunBSD #Linux

Good Privacy & Personal News! 🔒

I am absolutely delighted to
officially announce today that I have joined the wonderful team at @privacyguides !

I will be working with the team as a Journalist, and I am overjoyed by this opportunity to write and investigate for the Privacy Guides non-profit organization (donations welcomed 😉).

Thanks to all the staff and volunteers for your excellent privacy advocacy work, and welcome to the two teammates who have recently joined as well. I look forward to working with you all.

By the way, these are all amazing
and very talented people you should definitely follow on Mastodon 👇
@jonah @sgp @freddy @blacklight447 @jw @kevpham

And of course you should follow Privacy Guides as well if you don't want to miss any of our upcoming articles, videos, and other material!

Official announcement here 👇🎉
https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2025/01/17/privacy-guides-hires-three-staff-members/

#Privacy #PrivacyGuides #DigitalRights #HumanRights

Schleuder Encrypted Mailing List and Remailer

~$ apt show schleuder

Homepage: https://schleuder.org/

Schleuder is an encrypting mailing list manager with remailing-capabilities. Subscribers can communicate encrypted (and pseudonymously) among themselves, receive emails from non-subscribers and send emails to non-subscribers via the list.

Schleuder aims to be robust, flexible, and internationalized. It also provides an API to be used with schleuder-cli and/or schleuder-web.

#Cryptography #Remailer #Encryption #Privacy #Anonymity #Schleuder #PGP

@infostorm@a.gup.pe @cryptography@lemmy.ml

This morning a customer told me that the new Samsung Galaxy S25 (and probably also the previous ones – but I hadn't noticed this on my S24) run, by default, a background service called "Meta Services," which belongs to Meta. And it runs even if you don't have any Meta apps, as it's the result of an agreement between the two companies. I don't have any information about this – does anyone know more?

#Samsung #Android #Privacy

We're Privacy Guides, a non-profit project & community focused on personal data security and privacy. 👋

Much like the right to interracial marriage, woman's suffrage, freedom of speech, and many others, our right to privacy hasn't always been upheld. In several dictatorships, it still isn't. Generations before ours fought for our right to privacy. Privacy is a human right, inherent to all of us, that we are entitled to (without discrimination).

You shouldn't confuse privacy with secrecy. We know what happens in the bathroom, but you still close the door. That's because you want privacy, not secrecy. Everyone has something to protect. Privacy is something that makes us human.

We're on a mission to inform the public about the value of digital privacy, and about global government initiatives which aim to monitor your online activity.

#PrivacyGuides #Introduction #Privacy #Security

My post from yesterday (https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@stefano/113962852422322623) generated some very interesting comments. It seems that this behavior is confirmed and not just on Samsung devices, but also on devices from other manufacturers.
I knew that many Chinese manufacturers, in order to keep prices low, made deals with third-party companies to pre-install apps and games, but I didn’t think this would happen on high-end, expensive phones, and not only installing apps but also underlying services.

In my opinion, this behavior is unacceptable, and no, having to accept a document hundreds of pages long (otherwise it becomes impossible to use the device you bought and paid for) is not an excuse.

And it's not because the services are from Meta - they could be from anyone. I don't want third-party services installed on a device I buy, period. I can accept (though, I’m saying it lightly - personally, I don’t want any useless background services) manufacturer services, for the purpose of making the device (more) usable, but I certainly don't want shady processes that collect (and, I assume, send) personal data to other companies.

I’m more and more glad I installed #GrapheneOS on my Pixel.

#Privacy #Security #Android #Smartphones #DataCollection

I may be old (I was actually called that by someone today when I said this), but for me, the idea that this instance runs on a device just a few meters away from me, with hard drives I can physically touch, an operating system I trust, and backups that are both local and remote but fully under my control makes me feel truly free.

#Privacy #Freedom #SelfHosting #TechControl #DigitalSovereignty #DataSecurity #OwnYourData