Privacy

Curious since I found out about NoScript's shady past and Tor comes bundled with it, would it be safer to tweak uBlock Origin for the same purpose of NoScript?

I've been fairly successful at getting people to get on Signal of recent. However, I cannot find them in Signal to send a message. I'm on GrapheneOS, have them saved in the default contacts app (not something isolated like Fossify), and I have refreshed the contacts list in Signal. That doesn't work. So I type their number in the "find by phone number" and then all it offers is to "invite to signal".

Does anyone know what the issue is and how to fix it? I'm trying not to lose people from the Signal train but this is a real turn off for normies.

OC text by @relic4322@lemmy.ml

So there are lots of ways to figure out who people are, and I am sure I dont know all of them, but I bet I know some you dont.

Lets put together a list of known ones. Ill start.

(If we dont get a big list, which we may not, for bonus points add techniques to ease drop/intercept information)

fingerprinting techniques

• browser (duh)
• encrypted network traffic analysis, see mullvad link here https://mullvad.net/en/vpn/daita
• stylometry, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylometry

Mouse movements, typing speed, and typing style can serve as unique identifiers, much like fingerprints. As AI technology advances, it may become increasingly effective at recognizing these patterns, potentially compromising individuals' anonymity. Are there any measures available to protect against this?

cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/216174

The Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), a data broker owned by the country’s major airlines which sells travellers’ detailed flight records in bulk to the government, only just registered as a data broker with the state of California, which is a legal requirement, despite selling such data for years, according to records maintained by the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA).

The news comes after 404 Media recently reported that ARC included a clause in its contract barring Customs and Border Protection (CBP), one of its many government customers, from revealing where the data came from. ARC is owned by airlines including Delta, American Airlines, and United.

“It sure looks like ARC has been in violation of California’s data broker law—it’s been selling airline customers’ data for years without registering,” Senator Ron Wyden told 404 Media in a statement. “I don’t have much faith the Trump administration is going to step up and protect Americans’ privacy from the airlines’ greedy decision to sell flight information to anyone with a credit card, so states like California and Oregon are our last line of defense.”

A Wyden aide said office staff alerted ARC’s general counsel on June 4 that the company wasn’t enrolled as a data broker in California. By at least Wednesday, ARC had registered with the agency, according to the CPPA website. Searching for Airlines Reporting Corporation on that site now shows the company.

The more than one billion records that ARC sells includes passengers names, full flight itineraries, and financial details. Documents 404 Media previously obtained show the data can be searched by name or credit card. ARC is able to source this information because it acts as the conduit between airlines and travel agencies; whenever someone books a flight through an agency, such as Expedia, ARC gets that information.

ARC’s board of directors includes representatives from Delta, Southwest, United, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, and European airlines Lufthansa and Air France, and Canada’s Air Canada.

The website of the CPPA, which is California’s data protection authority, explains that a data broker “is a business that consumers don’t directly interact with, but that buys and sells information about consumers from other businesses.” It appears ARC would fit this definition.

💡Do you work at ARC? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.

The Wyden aide said office staff have already spoken to the CPPA and Oregon’s Attorney General about ARC’s failure to register.

Failure to register as a broker can incur fines of $200 per day. 404 Media previously found contracts between ARC and agencies such as the IRS, State Department, SEC, DEA, and more stretching back years, although they may not all necessarily be for the sale of data.

On May 1, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) published details about its own purchase of ARC data, totalling $250,000 according to public procurement records. On May 2, 404 Media filed FOIA requests with a range of other agencies that had contracts with ARC. Shortly after, The Lever covered the ICE contract.

In the CBP documents 404 Media obtained, ARC told CBP to “not publicly identify vendor, or its employees, individually or collectively, as the source of the Reports unless the Customer is compelled to do so by a valid court order or subpoena and gives ARC immediate notice of same.”

ARC did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

From 404 Media via this RSS feed

A hacker working for the Sinaloa drug cartel was able to obtain an FBI official's phone records and use Mexico City's surveillance cameras to help track and kill the agency's informants in 2018, the U.S. Justice Department said in a report issued on Thursday.

Meta says its new AI feature won't be used for targeted ads, but experts still have concerns. When people upload personal photos or videos—even if they agree to it—it's unclear how long that data is kept or who can see it. Since the processing happens in the cloud, there are risks, especially with things like facial recognition and hidden details such as time or location.

Even if it's not used for ads, this kind of data could still end up in training datasets or be used to build user profiles. It's a bit like handing your photo album to an algorithm that quietly learns your habits, preferences, and patterns over time.

Last month, Meta began to train its AI models using public data shared by adults across its platforms in the European Union after it received approval from the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC). The company suspended the use of generative AI tools in Brazil in July 2024 in response to privacy concerns raised by the government.

WhatsApp introduced a feature called Message Summaries. It is powered by Meta AI.

Why would one need this? The Meta-owned messaging app explains that sometimes users may have too many chats to catch up with, and if you want to do so quickly, the new feature will help.

Message Summaries uses Meta's Private Processing, a technology which was introduced in May 2025. Private Processing uses certain optional Meta AI features to process messages off-device in a confidential and secure environment. WhatsApp says that this process is so secure that not even Meta or WhatsApp can read or access your personal messages.

Sure, we may occasionally have to deal with long group chats that we may have missed. But, I'm not sure if the answer to this is AI-powered summaries. It could be useful in a pinch, but the fact is an AI may not be able to determine what is important to you, and what isn't. There's a good chance that some crucial information could be overlooked by the bot. If you want to use the summarization tool when you're in a hurry, that's cool, but I would advise checking your messages when you have the time.

Message Summaries are currently rolling out to users in the U.S., specifically for users in the English language. WhatsApp says it will bring the feature to more languages and countries later this year.

Google is making a change to Gemini, which will allow it to access WhatsApp and other content by default. Imagine that, both Gemini and Meta AI can access your WhatsApp. Don't forget, WhatsApp has ads now.

Would you allow AI to access your private conversations?

Denmark plans to become the first country in the world to give its citizens copyright over their faces and voices in an effort to clamp down on “deepfakes” — videos, audio clips and images that are digitally doctored to spread false information.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_Lxkt50xOg

In recent months, we have received numerous reports from users across West Asia and North Africa (WANA) expressing alarm over a little-known but deeply intrusive bloatware application—AppCloud—pre-installed on Samsung’s A and M series smartphones. Without users’ knowledge or consent, this bloatware collects sensitive personal data, cannot be removed without compromising device security, and offers no clear information about its privacy practices.

The new tool, called Mobile Fortify, uses the CBP system which ordinarily takes photos of people when they enter or exit the U.S., according to internal ICE emails viewed by 404 Media. Now ICE is using it in the field.

WhatsApp can now call on Meta AI to summarize your personal chats. As shown in a GIF, you can access it by tapping the button to unfurl all of your unread messages in a chat. But instead of showing your messages, WhatsApp uses Meta AI to generate a bulleted summary of what you missed.

The feature is rolling out in English in the US, with plans to launch in more countries and languages later this year. It uses Meta’s Private Processing technology, which the company claims will prevent it and other third parties from snooping on your messages.

WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta, says its AI message summaries are optional, and the feature is turned off by default. You can also use WhatsApp’s “Advanced Privacy” setting to prevent users from using AI features in group chats. We still don’t know if WhatsApp’s AI message summaries will struggle with accuracy, which is something we saw with the launch of Apple’s AI-generated message and notification rundowns.

Over the past year, Meta has continued stuffing different AI features into WhatsApp, including a way to ask Meta AI questions from within a chat, as well as a feature that generates images in real-time. Some users have grown frustrated by the new Meta AI button in the bottom-right corner of the app that they can’t turn off or remove. Meta also sparked backlash with another change that brought ads to the app — something its founders said they never wanted to do.

The app’s Private Processing is supposed to conceal your interactions with its AI model by creating a “secure cloud environment,” preventing Meta or WhatsApp from seeing your summaries. Other people in the group chat won’t be able to see the message summaries, either.

Psylo, which bills itself as a new kind of private web browser, debuted last Tuesday in Apple’s App Store, one day ahead of a report warning about the widespread use of browser fingerprinting for ad tracking and targeting.

It was a fortuitous coincidence.

Psylo for iOS and iPadOS was created by Mysk, a Canada-based app biz run by software developers and security researchers Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk.

“Psylo stands out as it is the only WebKit-based iOS browser that truly isolates tabs,” Tommy Mysk told The Register. "It’s not only about separate storage and cookies. Psylo goes beyond that.

“This is why we call tabs ‘silos.’ It applies unique anti-fingerprinting measures per silo, such as canvas randomization. This way two Psylo tabs opening the same website would appear as though they originated on two different devices to the opened website.”

Things Bill C2 does (from the site)

• Forced Corporate Spying: Companies must keep records of your personal data under secret government orders, with blanket immunity for privacy violations for handing over more than they should.
• Privacy Protections Removed: The bill allows unrestricted information sharing about migrants across all government levels. Undocumented workers asserting labour rights could face deportation when employers report them to border enforcement.

Following 404 Media’s reporting and in light of new legislation, automatic license plate reader (ALPR) company Flock has stopped agencies reaching into cameras in California, Illinois, and Virginia.

Original question by @Gloomy@mander.xyz

I am trying to get away from Google and am looking for a decent cloud service that integrated well won't Linux, either by itself or by using rclone.

I tried Proton drive, but it is laggy and overall not very good.

I just need storage, nothing fancy. Self hosting is not an option tough, at this time.