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refalo

@refalo@programming.dev

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refalo ,

money buys freedom, obviously

refalo ,

What are the privacy implications of adopting RCS?

When it first came out, I specifically remember that trying to turn it on in the messages app makes you agree to hand over all your messages to google, so I never used it. But now it just seems to support it anyways, so not sure what happened to the agreement I never clicked on.

Private WiFi camera for out of town viewing. Live view only. No storage.

Is there a WiFi camera with an app for viewing when away from home, that has decent privacy? Plug and play would be nice. Limited time to do major setup as in 2 hours tops. Cost is fine nothing into 4 digits. Recording not neccesary. No storage is needed. Simple live viewing is all.

refalo ,

When you say "app" do you mean something that will let you view remotely through a residential NAT connection with no port forwarding or hole punching? Because 99.9% of those options are inherently not private.

If you only need the camera itself to have a local feed i.e. you already have some kind of VPN/tunnel/etc. into your home network, then something like a cheap Amcrest works fine and does not require Internet access for the camera itself.

Privacy@Lemmy.ml: Do browsers block websites from uploading data that could be used for fingerprinting like resolution, installed fonts, etc.?

Fingerprinting works by collecting bits of information about the browser and device to identify users. Couldn't browsers see when a website gets such info with JS and either prevent or ask permission from the user for the website to make HTTP requests to upload such information to the website. Idk if they do something like this...

refalo ,

No, there is no way to prevent sites from uploading the info besides just not providing it in the first place.

And because of how programming languages work, there's no way for the browser to identify that data being uploaded "is" anything specific, especially when there's things like encryption, obfuscation or just re-arranging the data itself into larger collections of data.

refalo ,

same way on all platforms

too bad navigator.platform still returns Linux instead of Windows...

refalo ,

what privacy lol, it's already gone

To those of you with nothing to hide: One day you might have. Because you don’t make the rules. (mullvad.net)

The most common argument used in defense of mass surveillance is ‘If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear’. Try saying that to women in the US states where abortion has suddenly become illegal. Say it to investigative journalists in authoritarian countries. Saying ‘I have nothing to hide’ means you stop...

refalo ,

I have nothing to hide

Ok, pull down your pants and hand me your unlocked phone.

refalo ,

It is not possible to have privacy online anymore. Full stop.

refalo ,

legit I've had people get angry at me for using "they" the same way everyone normally does

A Rising Enforcement of Censorship (blog.thenewoil.org)

In recent weeks, I’ve noticed a rise in censorship regarding SMS communication that’s not being discussed. At all. I’m concerned that it may become a slippery slope that eventually effects us all. I don’t have any dramatic, prose-ridden introduction this week. Just some news, facts, and observations I wanted to share. So...

refalo ,

Freedom of speech is the right to express opinions without government restraint, not without corporate restraint.

refalo OP ,

that doesn't make it bad

not inherently no. just like computers, the internet, gps, tor etc., all came from government/military funding

the first digital computer was even created specifically to calculate how to kill people better in the war.

refalo OP ,

never encountered a single instance of abuse

I encounter it literally every single day and I know many others that do too. It's so bad it makes me want to quit using Matrix altogether. You're just not in the right (wrong) rooms. The ones that happen to get left unmoderated are always taken over by bad actors, not even talking about the ones (like mentioned in the video) that were deliberately setup to harbor vile content, which is also plentiful unfortunately.

refalo OP ,

The problem is the evidence requires linking to channels hosting CSAM, so nobody is going to provide that for you.

refalo OP ,

Besides the seeming "government automatically = bad" stance, I found it quite informative and I think sheds a big light on some serious problems with it (and all) federated services (not to mention the privacy/GDPR minefield that federation is) that a lot more people need to know about.

refalo OP , (edited )

People need to get this through their heads, XMPP is the only solution for their problems.

Strongly disagree and this sounds like dangerous FUD to me. For one, there's comparatively zero users across XMPP anyways, and it has a big problem with compatibility across different software packages. It also does nothing to help the problems stated in the video of massive droves of abusive content and server operators unknowingly hosting copies of it across the world. Then there's the privacy and GDPR minefields that come with any decentralized/federated service.

refalo OP ,

Is this impossible due to Matrix’s design, or is it poor moderation from server admins?

Kinda both. The design does not inherently destroy rooms permanently afaik, and server moderators don't do enough to prune bad things either way. It's a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. People have also been (ab)using its file upload capabilities to use matrix as a global, free, unlimited CDN, sometimes even for completely (to normal users) hidden content using custom message types hiding in plain sight.

refalo OP ,

the only way for an average user to get exposed to such rooms

But there is a growing dissent for matrix.org itself as a homeserver for various reasons, and many people/blogs/posts/etc. online will try to steer users towards alternative "privacy-respecting" or "free-speech/anti-censorship" (aka allowing illegal content) servers, many of which of course host terrible content, so I think more and more people are getting exposed to it and realizing how bad of a problem it is.

refalo OP ,

I think that’s a problem of who is recommending the servers to people

I don't think that is true at all, for several reasons:

  • matrix.org actually has tons of terrible users itself, and many channels even ban or strongly discourage even having users from that server, plus it's usually the slowest.

  • a great many channels on matrix.org are unmoderated and already host CSAM and abusive/illegal content

  • because of how federation works, anyone who is on matrix.org and happens to join a "bad" channel even on another server, now forces matrix.org to always keep a copy of that channel and all of its content forever.

Facebook

Including Cloudflare, who for some reason banned kiwifarms yet continues to allow sites like 8chan and others who are also hosting CSAM/zoosadist/other vile content.

refalo OP ,

It IS all over the place. Did you not watch the video?

refalo ,

https://youtu.be/W8KEuAEYjQ4

refalo ,

now if we could just get some real mods @ lemmy.world...

refalo ,

Tesla is synonymous with climate destruction and if you believe otherwise demonstrates that you have grossly bought into their propaganda.

Drones trespassing in my property

Idk if anyone had a similar problem before, but I live in EU by the countryside, at first there were only a few but now it happens more and more often to see drones passing over my house, I am sure they are civilian drones because law enforcement has no reason to use them since the area is quiet (and honestly I doubt they would...

refalo ,

Actual airplanes must have a hell of a time abiding by that rule then.

refalo ,

may

may

where's the proof that they do?

refalo ,

I prefer hard evidence to FUD

Is there a simple way to severly impede webscraping and LLM data collection of my website?

I am working on a simple static website that gives visitors basic information about myself and the work I do. I want this as a way use to introduce myself to potential clients, collaborators, etc., rather than rely solely on LinkedIn as my visiting card....

refalo ,

Blocking non-Mozilla user agents has eliminated 99% of scraping in my experience. I've seen a few larger sites do it as well but not many.

refalo ,

what scrapers actually go to such lengths? I've never heard of any.

refalo ,

as a user, if I saw this trying to visit a personal web page I would close the tab immediately

refalo ,

headless browser print to pdf, then extract the text from pdf, can automate getting around this easily. one way to harden things might be to use the canvas to draw text that is not selectable, but then OCR can easily defeat that too.

refalo ,

I think that's such a small percentage of users that it doesn't really matter

refalo , (edited )

Way too expensive. I pay $200/mo for 160TB with an entire large dedicated server attached to it from hetzner.

refalo ,

Warrant canaries are not fool-proof. Courts/government/other secret gag orders can force a company to not disclose any change of situation even if it means lying to the public. It has happened several times before.

refalo ,

doesn't always work unfortunately

refalo ,

You seriously can't understand how they would have personal data on you that every other company already has?

refalo ,

I highly doubt you actually couldn't turn it off if it was during flight. Also you could just not look at the screen, same as with any other ads you see in your daily life constantly.

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    refalo ,

    I reall don't mean to make this sound like FUD, but what about that blackbox security chip only used in google phones, that they promised to open source but never did? No OS can get around that...

    refalo ,

    It sounds like you already know the main reasons.

    refalo ,

    Not one that works in the US at least, as all the carriers now require LTE and VoLTE.

    refalo ,

    Surely not or else companies would be doing this every day to avoid litigation.

    refalo ,

    Good luck, every day more than 1PB is uploaded to IA.

    refalo ,

    not everyone is a science wizard

    refalo ,

    Vivaldi is proprietary, for those that don't know.

    refalo ,

    jami maybe

    refalo ,

    tabloids

    lol

    refalo ,

    something something destruction of evidence

    refalo ,

    Neither, it happens because my browser settings make it more difficult for them to fingerprint me which makes it think I'm a bot or something untrustworthy.

    The Best Email Aliasing Providers in 2024 (blog.thenewoil.org)

    Email aliasing is one of the most underrated privacy techniques that has yet to go mainstream. For the privacy-conscious user, it offers a degree of separation between all your accounts, making it harder for data brokers to correlate your various accounts across different services by not using the same email address to sign up....

    refalo ,

    Potentially liable how? There are specific protections for service providers from third-party content in many countries, such as Section 230 in the US and Articles 12-14 in the EU.

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