Privacy

Vanadium version 133.0.6943.39.1 released:

https://github.com/GrapheneOS/Vanadium/releases/tag/133.0.6943.39.1

See the linked release notes for a summary of the improvements over the previous release and a link to the full changelog.

Forum discussion thread:

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/19595-vanadium-version-13306943391-released

#GrapheneOS #privacy #security #browser

Sign says "TSA Facial Recognition is optional"
I request no facial recognition.
TSA agent says okay.
Kiosk display draws a box around my face and text saying "image captured".

Yeah, optional.

#UStravel #TSA #privacy

Developers are using "tarpits" to combat AI scrapers that ignore robots.txt. Tools like Nepenthes and Iocaine trap crawlers in infinite loops, wasting their resources.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/ai-haters-build-tarpits-to-trap-and-trick-ai-scrapers-that-ignore-robots-txt/

#AI #Privacy

Vanadium version 133.0.6943.39.0 released:

https://github.com/GrapheneOS/Vanadium/releases/tag/133.0.6943.39.0

See the linked release notes for a summary of the improvements over the previous release and a link to the full changelog.

Forum discussion thread:

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/19536-vanadium-version-13306943390-released

#GrapheneOS #privacy #security #browser

There's no end to corporate manipulation of people's privacy.
#CVS #privacy

https://gizmodo.com/cvs-is-turning-locked-shelves-into-an-excuse-to-make-you-download-its-app-2000555808

Data Privacy Day was January 28th, but there is still time to take advantage of our special offer. Save 50% on select Linux Magazine and ADMIN magazine print and digital editions. Each issue includes data privacy and security content to help you protect your data and your organization's data. Sale ends February 7th!
https://shop.linuxnewmedia.com/shop/category/data-privacy-day-print-issues-47
#Privacy #DataPrivacyDay #security #Linux #OpenSource #malware #FOSS #kernel #tools

Vanadium version 132.0.6834.163.0 released:

https://github.com/GrapheneOS/Vanadium/releases/tag/132.0.6834.163.0

See the linked release notes for a summary of the improvements over the previous release and a link to the full changelog.

Forum discussion thread:

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/19510-vanadium-version-132068341630-released

#GrapheneOS #privacy #security #browser

"Envious of the power and wealth of corporate America, the head of U.S. intelligence has issued a new directive calling on the spy agencies to “routinize” and “expand” their partnerships with private companies. Agencies are even authorized to incur “risk” in these relationships, the directive says. The move underscores the awesome power of corporations — the appistocracy, as I call them, or “non-state entities,” the directive’s euphemistic term.

Called Intelligence Community Directive 406, the order was signed on January 16 by then-President Biden’s Director of National Intelligence in the final days of the administration. It lays out new ways for spy agencies to capitalize on the information and expertise of these corporate superpowers, which could be anything from social media platforms to AI firms. It is not yet clear how the Trump administration plans to exercise these authorities.

There is an unspoken and unsettling context to this effort: these corporations have become more powerful than many nation states. Top companies are now worth more than the GDPs of most countries. Where the CIA once might have coveted the secrets of Albania, now it is Apple, whose wealth exceeds all but the four richest countries."

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/big-brother-becomes-little-brother

#USA #Surveillance #PoliceState #SocialMedia #BigTech #Privacy

Today's #DataPrivacyDay in the US, and #DataProtectionDay in the EU. Speaking of which, here's @[email protected]'s excellent series on "The Cyber-Cleanse: Take Back Your Digital Footprint"!

https://www.optoutproject.net/the-cyber-cleanse-take-back-your-digital-footprint/

#privacy

GrapheneOS version 2025012700 released:

https://grapheneos.org/releases#2025012700

See the linked release notes for a summary of the improvements over the previous release.

Forum discussion thread:

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/19481-grapheneos-version-2025012700-released

#GrapheneOS #privacy #security

"Last week, EFF, along with the Criminal Defense Attorneys of Michigan, ACLU, and ACLU of Michigan, filed an amicus brief in People v. Carson in the Supreme Court of Michigan, challenging the constitutionality of the search warrant of Mr. Carson's smart phone.

In this case, Mr. Carson was arrested for stealing money from his neighbor's safe with a co-conspirator. A few months later, law enforcement applied for a search warrant for Mr. Carson's cell phone. The search warrant enumerated the claims that formed the basis for Mr. Carson's arrest, but the only mention of a cell phone was a law enforcement officer's general assertion that phones are communication devices often used in the commission of crimes. A warrant was issued which allowed the search of the entirety of Mr. Carson's smart phone, with no temporal or category limits on the data to be searched. Evidence found on the phone was then used to convict Mr. Carson.

On appeal, the Court of Appeals made a number of rulings in favor of Mr. Carson, including that evidence from the phone should not have been admitted because the search warrant lacked particularity and was unconstitutional. The government's appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court was accepted and we filed an amicus brief."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/eff-michigan-supreme-court-cell-phone-search-warrants-must-strictly-follow-fourth

#USA #Michigan #Surveillance #Cellphones #FourthAmendment #PoliceState #Privacy

"Last week, EFF, along with the Criminal Defense Attorneys of Michigan, ACLU, and ACLU of Michigan, filed an amicus brief in People v. Carson in the Supreme Court of Michigan, challenging the constitutionality of the search warrant of Mr. Carson's smart phone.

In this case, Mr. Carson was arrested for stealing money from his neighbor's safe with a co-conspirator. A few months later, law enforcement applied for a search warrant for Mr. Carson's cell phone. The search warrant enumerated the claims that formed the basis for Mr. Carson's arrest, but the only mention of a cell phone was a law enforcement officer's general assertion that phones are communication devices often used in the commission of crimes. A warrant was issued which allowed the search of the entirety of Mr. Carson's smart phone, with no temporal or category limits on the data to be searched. Evidence found on the phone was then used to convict Mr. Carson.

On appeal, the Court of Appeals made a number of rulings in favor of Mr. Carson, including that evidence from the phone should not have been admitted because the search warrant lacked particularity and was unconstitutional. The government's appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court was accepted and we filed an amicus brief."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/eff-michigan-supreme-court-cell-phone-search-warrants-must-strictly-follow-fourth

#USA #Michigan #Surveillance #Cellphones #FourthAmendment #PoliceState #Privacy

“Is there going to be pressure for the app to become the portal that you have to interact with the government through?

One future problem is it ends up evolving into a national identity database where every interaction is tracked, which has considerable privacy implications.”

🗣️ ORG's @[email protected] on the UK government's proposals for a gov.uk app and wallet.

#privacy #surveillance #ID #data #ukpolitics

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/26/govuk-app-wallet-could-lead-to-mandatory-id-scheme-claim-privacy-groups

I have a friend working at one of the govt medical research institutes in the US.
They are scared, this week they've received communications telling them to snitch on each other. They feel like the eye of sauron is on them and fear for their #privacy.
Their social media is going dark, comms on signal, docs on cryptpad. Proton is sadly suspect.
I pointed to the awesome #Opsec zines here: https://opsec.riotmedicine.net/
VIolet Blue's newsletter:
https://www.patreon.com/violetblue
And TAILS
https://tails.net/

GrapheneOS version 2025012600 released:

https://grapheneos.org/releases#2025012600

See the linked release notes for a summary of the improvements over the previous release.

Forum discussion thread:

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/19436-grapheneos-version-2025012600-released

#GrapheneOS #privacy #security

GmsCompatConfig version 153 released:

https://github.com/GrapheneOS/platform_packages_apps_GmsCompat/releases/tag/config-153

See the linked release notes for a summary of the improvements over the previous release and a link to the full changelog.

Forum discussion thread:

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/19423-gmscompatconfig-version-153-released

#GrapheneOS #privacy #security #gmscompat

"Government must stop restricting website access with laws requiring age verification.

Some advocates of these censorship schemes argue we can nerd our way out of the many harms they cause to speech, equity, privacy, and infosec. Their silver bullet? “Age estimation” technology that scans our faces, applies an algorithm, and guesses how old we are – before letting us access online content and opportunities to communicate with others. But when confronted with age estimation face scans, many people will refrain from accessing restricted websites, even when they have a legal right to use them. Why?

Because quite simply, age estimation face scans are creepy AF – and harmful. First, age estimation is inaccurate and discriminatory. Second, its underlying technology can be used to try to estimate our other demographics, like ethnicity and gender, as well as our names. Third, law enforcement wants to use its underlying technology to guess our emotions and honesty, which in the hands of jumpy officers is likely to endanger innocent people. Fourth, age estimation face scans create privacy and infosec threats for the people scanned. In short, government should be restraining this hazardous technology, not normalizing it through age verification mandates."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/face-scans-estimate-our-age-creepy-af-and-harmful

#USA #AgeVerification #AgeEstimation #Surveillance #Privacy #CyberSecurity #FaceScans

Unter dem Hashtag #UnplugTrump werden @[email protected] und ich ab nächster Woche jeden Tag einen von insgesamt 30 Tipps zur Soforthilfe gegen Trumps autoritäre IT-Politik veröffentlichen. Die Tipps zeigen Wege aus der US-dominierten IT-Welt hin zu Diensten, Apps und Produkten, die Datenschutz respektieren und digitale Souveränität fördern. Matthias wird die Mastodon-Serie mit einem Blogartikel einleiten.

#UnplugTrump #sicherheit #datenschutz #security #privacy

Palms were offline devices that only synced with your computer when put on a docking station.

You could read and reply to emails offline, book or cancel meetings, and sync with your computer later. The latest versions allowed you to snap pictures and listen to your music.

No servers running constantly. No data spilled everywhere. Days worth of battery on a single charge.

The future stole our cables, and it took our attention span and our privacy with it.

#privacy #offline #data

"So I feel the issues here are ultimately systemic policy problems that need to be fixed with regulation (such as enact national right to repair laws, de-fang the DMCA, implement US national privacy protections, somehow limit the massive seemingly untouchable influence of big tech companies, and probably tax down tech billionaires).

That’s a big ask that feels insurmountable at this moment, but it’s a movement can start now with people who are fed up with our current de facto abusive tech business models. I think eventually we will get there anyway, because the I am not sure the current extractive model is sustainable without encountering massive social unrest within the next decade. The alternative to change, if taken to an extreme, may be the collapse of personal liberty for everyone.

In the meantime, while these lofty goals simmer and take shape, you can also continue to take personal steps to preserve your own tech liberty. Support nonprofits like the EFF that fight for privacy and user rights, strong encryption, open source, use local storage, and so on. I highly encourage it.

Ultimately I hope these thoughts can be a starting point for others to pick up the torch and build off of. I will also be thinking of constructive solutions for a future follow-up."

https://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/3292/the-pc-is-dead-its-time-to-make-computing-personal-again

#USA #Privacy #BigTech #SurveillanceCapitalism #DMCA #RightToRepair #Oligopolies

"The Federal Trade Commission announced a proposed settlement agreeing that General Motors and its subsidiary, OnStar, will be banned from selling geolocation and driver behavior data to credit agencies for five years. That’s good news for G.M. owners. Every car owner and driver deserves to be protected.

Last year, a New York Times investigation highlighted how G.M. was sharing information with insurance companies without clear knowledge from the driver. This resulted in people’s insurance premiums increasing, sometimes without them realizing why that was happening. This data sharing problem was common amongst many carmakers, not just G.M., but figuring out what your car was sharing was often a Sisyphean task, somehow managing to be more complicated than trying to learn similar details about apps or websites."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/ftcs-ban-gm-and-onstar-selling-driver-behavior-good-first-step

#USA #FTC #GM #OnStar #Privacy #LocationData #GeoLocation #DataProtection

Hey @[email protected], radical idea: how about following your own laws?

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/01/22/european-commission-fined-for-violating-its-own-data-protection-rules-also-found-to-have-used-privacy-violating-ads/

#GDPR #privacy #humanRights #democracy #EU

Vanadium version 132.0.6834.122.0 released:

https://github.com/GrapheneOS/Vanadium/releases/tag/132.0.6834.122.0

See the linked release notes for a summary of the improvements over the previous release and a link to the full changelog.

Forum discussion thread:

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/19322-vanadium-version-132068341220-released

#GrapheneOS #privacy #security #browser

Seems it's also a good time to remember that the safest data is the data you don't collect.

You almost certainly don't need people's legal names for your blog commenters or forum users.

You don't need a date of birth for almost anything at all, unless you're selling pron, alcohol, tobacco etc..

You never need to know where someone was born, unless you are issuing passports or visas.

Basically, if you're not the government, don't ask for private details.

Stop using lazy pre-built forms that ask for address and phone number, if you don't actually need those things.

#privacy #webdev

Die Signatur-Problematik bei F-Droid ist offenbar noch immer nicht gelöst: "We find it concerning that F-Droid constantly chooses to move the goalposts and continues to rely on a fundamentally broken approach for certificate pinning, merely patching [15] known vulnerabilities without ever addressing the underlying cause." 😵👇

https://github.com/obfusk/fdroid-fakesigner-poc?tab=readme-ov-file#update-2025-01-19

#fdroid #security #privacy #certpinning #signature