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FineCoatMummy

@ FineCoatMummy @sh.itjust.works

Posts
6
Comments
119
Joined
2 mo. ago

  • Premium Privacy Services: are they really that private ?

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  • I pay for Proton because I'm not tryin to protect myself from Proton.

    I think I could pay with a masked CC if I want. But I don't bother. That isn't part of my threat model. It might be for others, tho.

  • How can I avoid proprietary software on school & company computers?

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  • I've heard of parents being successful at it before. But it took a little group of them. They got together and approach their kids school. They used a positive approach. Not confrontational. More like we have these privacy concerns. But we want to work together with the school on them.

    I lost the link now, it was years ago. But they were successful in getting alternatives for the worst "ed-tech" spywares.

  • Federal Surveillance Tech Becomes Mandatory in New Cars by 2027

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  • is absolutely dystopian

    Esp because they could already use, you know... a spike strip!

    It feels kinda like targeted v dragnet surviilance debate. Targeted feels OK if you get a warrant from a judge, use the legal procedures. But dragnet makes for a dystopia. Similar here. I don't want a global ability for some centralized db to flip a bit and stop any body's car across the world. Or, worst case, hacked and stops EVERYBODYs car at once.

  • We Found a Stable Firefox Identifier Linking All Your Private Tor Identities

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  • That's my exp too. Esp with the endless pop-overs like "We share your data with our 5 million partners! Unless you dig through 45 pages of opt out checkmarks, b/c fuck you". 95% of the time, disallow JS bypasses those.

    Also tho, some important sites flat don't work with js disabled. I hate that. I get it. There are some things where js is necessary. But it's like 2% good things plus 98% fuckery.

  • We Found a Stable Firefox Identifier Linking All Your Private Tor Identities

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  • Wow. I wonder how many vulns like this are unknown outside of identity broker co's and gov intel orgs. Seems like new ones discovered hella lot.

    Turning the WWW into an app platform was a mistake. JS allows so much fuckery.

  • [Discussion:] How does physical surveillance affect you?

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  • it’s really no wonder society is as polarized: it seems to be by design.

    For sure. And not in a conspiracy-theory kind of way! Facebook ex-employees testified to the US Congress, said exactly that. FB amplify the most divisive content on purpose. That is the most powerful emotion, to make people engage. Other employee whistleblowers talked to the WSJ about "The Outrage Algorithm". And there's a whole book, "The Chaos Machine" about that.

    Polarization drives maximum engagement. Right up until society rips itself apart. And then it's too late.

  • Should cash stay alive to enable "private" transactions?

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  • they had to resort to taking a tractor to work.

    I feel bad for the situation but TBH that's kind of badass.

  • Whats a privacy friendly way of learning a new language?

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  • That made me curious! Muppet Wiki says 70 languages and some dialects on top.

  • Exclusive: ICE Glasses

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  • Poor JRR did not realize we would eventually have them for real.

    And poor George did not realize we'd take 1984 as a blueprint rather than a warning.

    Maybe it's for the best, that they both died before they had to see.

  • Should cash stay alive to enable "private" transactions?

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  • whilst considering on abolishing cash altogether

    No personal exp with this, but I have a vague idea that the Nordic countries, or maybe Singapore etc are further down the cashless road than we North American peeps are. Though they may also have better protections in some ways.

    I do want to preserve cash as an option. I try to use it for everything I can, just to safeguard the option. I try to get my friends to do it, but they find contactless too convenient.

  • Should cash stay alive to enable "private" transactions?

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  • Same in the UK, but its more a case of protecting people

    That happened to me in the US once. I deposited a paper check (cheque) for a large sum, and Bank Lady started asking questions. She was trying to protect me against scammers. There are scams where the perp gives the mark a bad check. Mark deposits bad check, withdraws funds immediately which banks let you do if you're a customer in good standing. Mark gives funds to perp. A few days later, bank discovers the check is bad, unwinds the transaction. Now the mark is out the money. The perp has gone to ground and cannot be located.

    I assured Bank Lady that I knew about that risk, and I trusted of the origin of the check. That satisfied her.

  • Google Starts Scanning All Your Photos As New Update Goes Live

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  • Even if I migrate to a privacy-respecting FOSS solution, my friends, family, acquaintances and random people around me will not (well, some may). I will still be featured in their photos out of my control.

    Ayup. That is the infurating thing. I can be careful. But ppl around me are not. Of course you u/l your pictures to big-tech! Everybody does!

    TBH, I wanted to volunteer on a local crew that maintains hiking trails. I didn't... because they were all about taking endless pics and u/l it to their FB and maybe IG. So I avoided sth I wanted to do make my city better. But no way could I avoid their need to share everything with big tech.

  • [Discussion:] How does physical surveillance affect you?

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  • if the current trend continues, you’ll effectively become a prisoner to your own home

    Same feeling for me. It's oppressive AF. It feels inescapable, relentlessly expanding. I don't want to be a hermit! If it's not a store, it's a rando who takes a selfie in a restaurant and you're at the next table. Or at any kind of public event. Photo u/l'ed to their IG or FB. Then machine learning models spool up to wring out every possible inference. Those inferences can reveal so much more than most ppl understand.

    Your categorization is on the money, "unnoticeable change". It is the same on the tip top surface between their parents film camera photos, and their IG. But below that is a whole new world of capability.

    Culture changes. Laws change. Tech possibilities change. But data is forever! We can never know how today's data may be abused tomorrow, by who, and against who. We're seeing data of people's past lives weaponized against ppl, more and more often.

    It also has psychologic effects. People are less willing to change their personal views, when their whole past is discoverable. That leads to more polarized societies over time.

  • Uncovering Webloc: An Analysis of Penlink’s Ad-Based Geolocation Surveillance Tech

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  • Wow, the article is long. Long but good so far, I'm 20% in.

    Smartphones are just a clusterfuck in every last way. Maybe very technical people can avoid the worst of it. Most people can't.

  • [Discussion:] How does physical surveillance affect you?

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  • Well said.

    I once heard someone sum it up like,

    "Everyone has something to hide. You just don't know what that is, until it's too late."

  • [Shitpost] Government bodies that block your VPN

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  • And what makes you think the VPN is not doing exactly the same thing?

    Several reasons. First, they have been hit with gov lawsuits and a police raid before. They were unable to provide any data about customer behavior on the VPN. Police left empty handed. They don't log it. Also I pay with cash. They don't know who I am.

    Second, they are audited by independent 3rd parties.

    Third, it has also a good reputation. That rep would be destroyed overneight if it was discovered.

    Nothing in life is 100% certain. But not all things are equal either, just because something "could" happen. I know for a fact my ISP does it. I have good reasons to believe my VPN is not. Thus, I will pick the safer option. My best guess is <1% chance my VPN does this. But even if 50%, that's STILL better than 100%.

  • [Discussion:] How does physical surveillance affect you?

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  • That was my little rant, please feel free to leave yours below in the comments; I’m somewhat desperate to hear it.

    I'm in the US. Lots here is commercial. Cameras are all over in most stores. Everything bigger than mom & pop tier and even some of those. Long ago, that was kind of okay. They were closed circuit. The video went to a literal video tape to be overwritten in 1-3 days. Now? It's unavoidable mass surveilance coupled to AI and cloud based analytics. The bigger chains run sophisticated facial recognition and AI behavior analysis.

    Is that just for anti-theft? Oh no! These systems are used to analyze customer behavior. "Modern vision technologies are turning store video footage into powerful marketing insights". Are you staring at a product, or looking away? Did you stop and pause near a display? Do you appear interested, or distracted? Did you pick up a product and return it to the shelf? Or place it in your cart? Did you read the label first? What route did you take through the store? These are all literally what modern video customer analytics do.

    "This is where modern video analytics shines: it allows stores to map the entire in-store customer journey, from the moment someone enters to the moment they make a purchase (or leave without one). More advanced models add pose estimation, which looks at body posture and hand movement."

    It's like somebody told Orwell 1984 was MUCH too mild.

    Oh, did you want to opt out? Sure! You can. All you got to do is stop eating food!

    but it eats at me on a daily basis.

    Totally with you, sir, ma'am or other. I try to be an upstanding person. I try to help those around me. To be kind to others. To support my community and my neighbors. I just don't want to live in a fucking constantly monitored world without a lick of privacy left. Where every action I have ever taken is recorded, analyzed, used against me. I believe this erodes democratic societies. These data streams are inevitably abused by tyranical ones. It's a cancer on our societies. It harms all of us.

  • [Shitpost] Government bodies that block your VPN

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  • Yah, I believe you are right. Everyone will exit on the same IP. So maybe it's not totally necessary.

    Part of my reason was, I wanted a VPN inside my country for my identity tied use. To avoid possible geo-blocks. But for non-identity use, I wanted to use a VPN in Europe.

    Also I hoed, maybe it makes life slightly harder for identity brokers? Like, they can track that I use a certain IP for my ID-tied uses. Even if there are also 100 others on that IP, it's still data which can form part of a fingerprint. For my non-identity use, I wanted to minimize anything to tie the two worlds together. I use a different browser and different device, even.

    I'm not doing anything wrong, or illegal, or unethical. I'm just a normal ass person, but I fucking hate identity brokers and mass surveilance.

  • Hackers Expose The Massive Surveillance Stack Hiding Inside Your “Age Verification” Check

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  • Hopefully. At the mo, it's totally bypassable.

    But what concerns me is, it could so easily slippery slope into being unavoidable. Most sites forced into requiring some PKI signed token. Token only obtained by giving your gov ID to Big Surveillance.

    The requirements of modern life could end locked behind a mass surveillance gate.

  • Privacy @lemmy.ml
    FineCoatMummy @sh.itjust.works

    Closing the Data Broker Loophole

    www.pogo.org /fact-sheets/fact-sheet-closing-the-data-broker-loophole
  • Privacy @lemmy.ml
    FineCoatMummy @sh.itjust.works

    Large-scale online deanonymization with LLMs

    arxiv.org /abs/2602.16800
  • Privacy @lemmy.ml
    FineCoatMummy @sh.itjust.works

    Moving and keeping home addy private?

  • sh.itjust.works Main Community @sh.itjust.works
    FineCoatMummy @sh.itjust.works

    Is it possible to see only new post replies?

  • Privacy @lemmy.ml
    FineCoatMummy @sh.itjust.works

    Car (lack of) privacy, and what to do about it. Let's talk about this?

    www.mozillafoundation.org /en/blog/privacy-nightmare-on-wheels-every-car-brand-reviewed-by-mozilla-including-ford-volkswagen-and-toyota-flunks-privacy-test/
  • Books @lemmy.world
    FineCoatMummy @sh.itjust.works

    Lauren Haney, "Right Hand of Amon" etc? Good?

    en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Lauren_Haney