Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

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much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
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What are your thoughts on filen? I don't seem to be able to find a community for them here, but it seems like a pretty solid up and coming company for secure cloud storage options.

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I've seen on TrackerControl this system app (on my grapheneOS) contacting Amazon (amazon.com) and Google (android.clients.google.com, m.youtube.com, play.google.com and www.youtube.com).

What does this app do? I've disabled internet access for the time being.

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Real question. I would like to know what drives you to hate Apple? (In terms of privacy of course because in terms of price it’s another story).

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I heard about silent.link but I want to know if I should trust it.

It claims to be an anonymous e-sim provider.

Let's say it is legit and not backdoored by the government and not a honey pot, would the government be able to find out that I own the anonymous e-sim on it if my other sim in my phone is another provider not silent-link. Like how on android you can use a sim for data and a sim for calls.

Also do you guys think the us government will put peoples name on a list from having silentlink?

The whole thing sounds too good to be a true a anonymous e-sim so let me know what you guys the privacy community think.

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I was researching WebMail providers, and noticed that most WebMail providers recommended in privacy communities are labelled as proprietary by AlternativeTo.

I made a list of WebMail providers, private or not, to see which ones were actually open source:

Proprietary

AOL Mail: Free

Cock.li: Free

CounterMail: Paid

Fastmail: Paid

GMX Mail: Free

Gmail: Free

HEY Email: Paid

Hushmail: Paid

iCloud Mail: Free

Mail.com: Free

Mailbox.org: Paid

Mailfence: Freemium

Outlook.com: Freemium

Posteo: Paid

Rediffmail: Paid

Riseup: Free

Runbox: Paid

Soverin: Paid

StartMail: Paid

Yahoo! Mail: Freemium

Yandex Mail: Freemium

Zoho Mail: Freemium

Open source

Criptext: Free

Disroot: Free

Forward Email: Freemium

Infomaniak kMail: Freemium

Kolab Now: Paid

Lavabit: Paid

~~Mailpile: Free~~

Proton Mail: Freemium

~~Roundcube: Free~~

Skiff/Notion: Freemium

Tuta: Freemium

Unless I'm missing something, it seems like people overlook this when deciding on WebMail providers. Is it a distinction between a proprietary backend server and a proprietary app, or is there a different way to decide if a WebMail provider is proprietary vs. open source? Lavabit was labelled proprietary by AlternativeTo, but open source by Wikipedia.

Note

If I have labelled an open source WebMail provider as proprietary by mistake, please provide evidence by linking to the source code, and I will happily change it.

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I've recently heard about their services, and others like them, and wanted to know what privacy-focused people thought about them, what experiences they may have had, and whether this was recommended for people who have a footprint they want scrubbing (even if only in part) or not?

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Decentralized Encrypted P2P Chat (chat.positive-intentions.com)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

Id like to introduce you to a decentralized chat app that works purely in the browser. Breaking away from traditional solutions that require registration and installation.

A decentralized infrastructure has many unique challenges and this is a unique approach. Ive taken previsous feedback and made updates. Its important to note, it is still a work-in-progress and provided for testing/review/feedback purposes. it would be great if you can tell me what you think.

Some of the features of the app include:

  • Free
  • Decentralised
  • No cookies
  • P2P encrypted
  • No registration
  • No installing
  • Group messaging
  • Text messaging
  • Multimedia messaging
  • Offline messaging (LAN/hotspot)
  • File transfer
  • Video calls
  • Data-ownership
  • Selfhosted (optional)
  • Screensharing (on desktop browsers)
  • OS notifications (where supported)

With no registration or installation required, its easy to get started.

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Both are interesting choice, which one do you choose?

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  • Note: "relay" is the nostr term while "instance" is the AP/Mastodon/Lemmy term. They are functionally very similar and offer the same abilities to ban annoying users from "public square" type spaces. Moderation works identically.
  • In AP/mastodon/lemmy you are connected to one "main instance" and then connect to other instances "through" that instance. In nostr, you are typically connected to multiple relays and access content more directly.
  • Nostr is an underlying protocol like AP is for Mastodon/Lemmy. The main use of nostr currently is as a twitter/mastodon clone, but it has other interfaces as well (calendaring, video sharing, etc) that I am less familiar with.
  • Both networks are decentralized in nature

AP/Mastodon/Lemmy

  • Instance admins on your instance and the instance of the user you are DMing can read your DMs, block them, or modify them without your knowledge or the knowledge of the receiving user
  • If your instance goes down, so does your access to the wider network. It will take your DMs with it, and your identity.

Nostr

  • Relays cannot read the content of your DMs as they are encrypted. They can only see that user A is DMing user B and approximate DM size. (This upgrade reduces that visibility further)
  • Relays cannot manipulate DMs as they are encrypted and will fail a signature check
  • No relay can prevent you from DMing another user as your client will automatically route the DM through another relay (unless that user has blocked you, which they can do).
  • You can receive DMs from anybody as long as one relay lets your DM through (and you are usually connected to several)
  • Your DMs and other content is replicated across multiple relays. Downed relay? No problem. You don't lose your content or your identity as your identity is a private/public keypair not "user @ instance dot com"

Bluesky

Idk anybody care to fill this section in?

Image source: nostr post

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Hi, while I know the link name may be... self-explanatory. I cannot seem to find any actual information on this link and it was strangely not blocked by my NextDNS(and other services) configuration. I'll explain the full story here:

So in April, ago I set up NextDNS and added it to my devices, it worked fine and blocked several in app ads. Then comes today, the game which had it's ads blocked the entire time which was also blocked by other DNS provider I was using before like Adguard and Mullvad suddenly has it's ads pop up again. I thought this was weird so I tried switching over back to AdGuard and Mullvad to see if my config was missing something. The ads still came up on opening the game So I re-added my NextDNS to my phone and checked the logs on their website, everything was fine besides the afromentioned "http://googleadsservice.online/" which wasn't blocked, the name seemed pretty on the nose so I added it to my Denylist and voila, no more ads. But I checked the logs for the URL and it turns out it's been a thing completely unblocked since I first set up?? That is to say there are several pages worth of the URL going through on my logs. I tried looking up the URL but found nothing. So I was hoping someone knew exactly what this was and why none of the DNS providers seem to block it. Thanks in advance

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I know people have mixed opinions on Braxman but I don't see any huge leaps in logic here tbh... Thoughts?

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With the recent WWDC apple made some bold claims about privacy when it comes to so called Apple Intelligence. This makes me wonder if they did something to what Microsoft did with Recall feature, would people be less concerned and to an extend praise their effort?

Do you trust apple with their claims?

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I just got this email from Sony. My kids use their profiles offline (meaning they don't even have a playstation account) on their PS4, and use my games. And now they want to allow kids to link their other accounts (my kids only have a SimpleX user to chat with their family, LOL).

The sad thing is that a lot of parents will go: "Nice, they can now have it all in one place!"

Love how they say this at the end:

Stay tuned for more details. In the meantime, we recommend talking to your child about account linking so that they can safely enjoy these new features while playing on PlayStation.

They fucking call these FEATURES!

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I just love this guy when he's riled up. Makes me feel all warm and cozy 🤣

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What is the best cloud storage that gives a nice balance between features and privacy? I know you can manually encrypt files to use any provider, but I would prefer an open source E2EE for the sake of convenience.

Currently I have heard about the following:

  • proton
  • filen
  • sync
  • icedrive
  • pcloud

(Not including GDrive, Onedrive etc..)

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This post contains a canary message that's cryptographically signed by the official BusKill PGP release key

BusKill Canary #008
The BusKill project just published their Warrant Canary #008

For more information about BusKill canaries, see:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Status: All good
Release: 2024-06-11
Period: 2024-06-01 to 2024-12-31
Expiry: 2025-01-31

Statements
==========

The BusKill Team who have digitally signed this file [1]
state the following:

1. The date of issue of this canary is June 11, 2024.

2. The current BusKill Signing Key (2020.07) is

   E0AF FF57 DC00 FBE0 5635  8761 4AE2 1E19 36CE 786A

3. We positively confirm, to the best of our knowledge, that the 
   integrity of our systems are sound: all our infrastructure is in our 
   control, we have not been compromised or suffered a data breach, we 
   have not disclosed any private keys, we have not introduced any 
   backdoors, and we have not been forced to modify our system to allow 
   access or information leakage to a third party in any way.

4. We plan to publish the next of these canary statements before the
   Expiry date listed above. Special note should be taken if no new
   canary is published by that time or if the list of statements changes
   without plausible explanation.

Special announcements
=====================

None.

Disclaimers and notes
=====================

This canary scheme is not infallible. Although signing the 
declaration makes it very difficult for a third party to produce 
arbitrary declarations, it does not prevent them from using force or 
other means, like blackmail or compromising the signers' laptops, to 
coerce us to produce false declarations.

The news feeds quoted below (Proof of freshness) serves to 
demonstrate that this canary could not have been created prior to the 
date stated. It shows that a series of canaries was not created in 
advance.

This declaration is merely a best effort and is provided without any 
guarantee or warranty. It is not legally binding in any way to 
anybody. None of the signers should be ever held legally responsible 
for any of the statements made here.

Proof of freshness
==================

04 Jun 24 14:10:16 UTC

Source: DER SPIEGEL - International (https://www.spiegel.de/international/index.rss)
Fortress Europe: Migrants Abandoned on the Edge of the Sahara
Israel-Gaza-Krieg: Menschenrechtler Aryeh Neier über Schuldfrage und Strafverfolgung (Kopie)

Source: NYT > World News (https://rss.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/World.xml)
Middle East Crisis: Israeli Airstrikes Kill Iranian General in Syria
Live Updates: India’s Election Results Suggest a Setback for Modi

Source: BBC News - World (https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/world/rss.xml)
Shock for India's Modi as opposition set to slash majority
Gaza ceasefire plan turns into deadly game of survival

Source: Bitcoin Blockchain (https://blockchain.info/q/latesthash)
000000000000000000014cd79802b29c1dcd7fc6debee1e3968cfc216b59bf16

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To view all past canaries, see:

What is BusKill?

BusKill is a laptop kill-cord. It's a USB cable with a magnetic breakaway that you attach to your body and connect to your computer.

What is BusKill? (Explainer Video)
Watch the BusKill Explainer Video for more info youtube.com/v/qPwyoD_cQR4

If the connection between you to your computer is severed, then your device will lock, shutdown, or shred its encryption keys -- thus keeping your encrypted data safe from thieves that steal your device.

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