Originally I've download the signal app through playstore, but often it also get updates from Droid-ify(Fdroid client). Today its weird and I got this . Explain to me this.

On the Droid-ify the signal app is provided by: org.thoughtcrimes.securesms

Let's review what Elon Musk has done just in 2023:

1. Changed Twitter to X.
2. Plans to implement a small monthly payment for everyone using the X system.
3. Plans to collect user biometric information, job, and education history for "safety, security, and identification purposes."
4. Brings back shadowbanning.
5. Uses user data to train AI models.
6. Limits replies to verified users only.

Elon has made so many terrible changes to Twitter that I can’t remember what the breaking point was for me.

Fortunately, there’s a lot more competition in Twitter-like social media platforms. Mastodon may currently hold the position as the most established platform, but there are numerous other services competing to become the next preferred place for online users.

Installed grapheneOS on my pixel (finally) the other day. Actually was loving stock, until it got corrupted due to a bug. Had to factory reset to boot up again. Anyway, used that opportunity to install GOS.

NGL I do miss adaptive features and now playing, but I am liking GOS more and more day by day. Better battery life despite not having adaptive features, more security options like sensor permission and scopes, auto reboot if not unlocked feature and all that.

I use GPay and my bank app on a secondary profile. works seamlessly. Some UI improvements and adaptive features and it will be on par with the stock pixel experience itself.

I'm kind of disappointed in ecosia for implementing a new feature that would send user data to Microsoft and Google. I liked it not only for it's environmental mission but also because it had decent privacy.

I care about my privacy, though I like it's UI. Is it really as bad as some say?

A programmer in northern China has been ordered to pay more than 1 million yuan to the authorities for using a virtual private network (VPN), in what is thought to be the most severe individual financial penalty ever issued for circumventing China's "great firewall." The programmer, surnamed Ma, was issued with a penalty notice by the public security bureau of Chengde, a city in Hebei province, on August 18. The notice said Ma had used "unauthorised channels" to connect to international networks to work for a Turkish company. The police confiscated the 1.058m yuan ($145,092) Ma had earned as a software developer between September 2019 and November 2022, describing it as "illegal income," as well as fining him 200 yuan ($27).

Charlie Smith (a pseudonym), the co-founder of GreatFire.org, a website that tracks internet censorship in China, said: "Even if this decision is overturned in court, a message has been sent and damage has been done. Is doing business outside of China now subject to penalties?"

Abstract credit: https://slashdot.org/story/420019

Washington-based Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL) has called for more money to be set aside for digital public infrastructure (DPI) including one of its elements, digital ID – and this means not only the funds earmarked for the technology portion of it.

Currently, DPI projects can count on $400 million by the end of the decade – that is the figure “stakeholders” have already committed to “the cause.”

Essentially, DIAL is advocating for money to be steadily spent on promotion of its mission via seemingly “trustworthy” messengers such as civil societies, academics, etc. Apparently, this would also allow their participation in governance, as well as the design and deployment of various DPIs.

Among those sitting on DIAL’s board are the director of USAI, an organization known for its involvement in setting up the digital ID in Ukraine, as well as the president and CEO of the UN Foundation, and a Gates Foundation senior adviser.

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Delete Act yesterday, making it possible for Californians to either ask data brokers to delete their personal data or forbid them to sell or share it, with a single request.

I've been using Proton Mail and VPN for a while now, and I'm just wondering how everyone else feels about them. I have this kind of inherent alight distrust of them just because they seem like they offer a lot for free and kind of have a Big Tech vibe about them, but there's nothing for me to really substantiate that distrust with, its mostly just a feeling. That being said, I do use their services as mentioned and they work pretty well, even on the free teir. So aside from that one instance where they gave that guy's info to the feds, is there any reason not to trust them with my data?

The new bill reinforces that all data brokers must register with the California privacy protection agency, and it requires the CPPA to establish an easy and free way for Californians to request that all data brokers in the state delete their data through a single page, regardless of how they acquired that information. If data brokers don’t comply with these rules, the bill stipulates they be fined or otherwise penalized.

Hopefully this becomes the standard nation wide. Having a single page where you can delete your accounts on multiple services with a single click sounds like a data privacy dream.

In a few weeks I'll do a workshop about security for people who are tech illiterate, I plan to teach about password managers and 2FA.

If I show the 2FA number codes, like the 123 456 ones that I have to paste when required, can that be a possible security breach for me? or is it save since is gonna change in a few seconds anyway?

Are there any FOSS phone apps/ private alternatives for Google Translate for translating text from images? Or maybe a privacy-friendly alternative front-end for GT? The ability to translate from images (such as product labels in a store) is the main feature I'm looking for. TIA for any and all tips.

Hi guys! Back in the day I bought a DJI Mavic (1st gen) for my travels, when they were not so absolutely obnoxious about sending ALL your flight logs back to the motherland. As the obnoxiousness increased, I ended up installing a CFW (Merlin, I think) on the drone, so I could fly unrestricted and with no logged-in account on the phone (custom modded app), with the app requiring no callback to any server. But seems these days the drone is increasingly misbehaving. Might be due to old age, but it tends to not detect obstacles at all, and also doesn't detect the floor, so landing is...hairy.

So I'd like to have some sort of replacement, hopefully with similar flying aids (GPS positioning and obstacle detection at least, more are welcome), and hopefully smaller & foldable... but without the need to call home at every damn time. Is this possible? What are the recommendations these days? Can newer DJI drones be modded in the same manner? Are the alternatives?

Thanks!

So I've got Android as I want. LineageOS, no Google, Magisk, MicroG but with AndroidAuto with OsmAnd+.

But the outside world of WhatsApp, Bank apps, etc is putting pressure to join. Plus not everything works properly with MicroG instead of the Google service provider. Makes me cross techno-politically, but I can't always hard life tech choices when it effects others.

So, what do others do? At the moment, I've thinking I need a non-free phone and a free-phone! Then what, I keep swapping SIM?? I can't see a workable VM solution to run a non-free Android in a freer Android.

The state of the phone market is pitiful.

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/939198

Searching for replacement for Bibliogram, I found an website called imgsed.com .

It was sufficient to my needs.

One problem was that it seemed to fetch only a few comments of a post.

Here's the website's own About page:

imgsed.com is an online instagram backup tool that helps users save instagram photos through the instagram public API.

imgsed.com can't verify user information, so you need to pay attention to the copyright when downloading photos.

If you do not wish to be downloaded, please submit your information remove account

ETA:

Apparently it has crazy much ads, so use of adblocker is very much advised!

I have seen many people in this community either talking about switching to Brave, or people who are actively using Brave. I would like to remind people that Brave browser (and by extension their search engine) is not privacy-centric whatsoever.

Brave was already ousted as spyware in the past and the company has made many decisions that are questionable at best. For example, Brave made a cryptocurrency which they then added to a rewards program that is built into the browser to encourage you to enable ads that are controlled by Brave.

Edit: Please be aware that the spyware article on Brave (and the rest of the browsers on the site) is outdated and may not reflect the browser as it is today.

After creating this cryptocurrency and rewards program, they started inserting affiliate codes into URL's. Prior to this they had faked fundraising for popular social media creators.

Do these decisions seem like ones a company that cares about their users (and by extension their privacy) would make? I'd say the answer is a very clear no.

One last thing, Brave illegally promoted an eToro affiliate program making a fortune from its users who will likely lose their money.

Edit: To the people commenting saying how Brave has a good out-of-the-box experience compared to other browsers, yes, it does. However, this is not a warning for your average person, this is a warning for people who actively care about their privacy and don't mind configuring their browser to maximize said privacy.

For open source messengers, you can check whether they actually encrypt your messages and whether the server has access to your encryption keys but what about WhatsApp? Since it's not open source, you can't be sure that the encryption keys aren't sent to the server, right? Has there been a case where a government was able to access WhatsApp chats without reading them from the phone itself?

Hello, how are you guys?

As the title says, what search Ingine are you currently using? I used DuckDuckGo for years, and just recently switched to Brave.

Also, what do you think about the Brave Browser? I have been using FireFox since forever.

Thank you for reading.

I am using Mozilla Firefox as my web browser. I have configured it to clear cookies, active logins, form & search history, and offline website data when I close Firefox. Should I also configure it to clear the cache? What are the privacy implications if I don't clear the cache?

EDIT: additional information:

• My goal is to reduce fingerprinting and tracking by websites.
• I use Mozilla Firefox on my personal laptop that almost never leaves my residence. The laptop has full disk encryption. I am the only user of the laptop.
• I don’t erase my web browser history. I want to keep browser history for my future reference.

There is this common narrative I see all the time, implying that we as individuals are empowered to choose and manifest our own destiny, and this comes up often in privacy discussions.

Don't like Facebook's privacy nightmares? Just don't use Facebook!

Don't like personalized ads? I remember a popular post on reddit saying "if your ad interrupts my YouTube video, I will hate your product".

Don't like Google chrome hegemony? Just use Firefox!

And while I agree that we should strive to do that, the battle doesn't end here. Facebook has shadow accounts for people who never signed up. Google chrome keeps it's hegemony despite people on the Internet advocating Firefox day and night. And ads continue to be extremely profitable despite you "hating the product" because it interrupted your YouTube video.

Even worse: even if you "hate the product", you now already know it. You now know they product exists, and possibly whatever they wanted you to know about it. The reality is that these companies own your eyes. They control what shows up on your screen. And even if you hate it, they control what you end up learning.

the reality is that our individual resistance is very far from enough

I am not saying it is completely futile. It is a step in the right direction. But the only effective solution is organized action. We, alone, cannot achieve much. Unless we organize our resistance against privacy violations, we will continue to live through this privacy nightmare.

I'm sure a lot of us are already using Firefox with uBlock Origin, and I'm also sure that most of us already know about Arkenfox.

Despite this, one thing that I'm still noticing on the internet are people recommending extensions that, as per the Arkenfox wiki, are frankly just not needed anymore.

So people, please stop using:

• Cookie extensions like Cookie Auto Delete
• URL cleaning extensions like ClearURLs
• Anti-fingerprinting extensions
• Redundant privacy extensions like Ghostery or Privacy Badger
• NoScript

And also please note that Firefox Multi-Account Containers is probably overkill for most threat models, and that Firefox's builtin Total Cookie Protection is probably just fine.