#Data Security

[victusinveritas]

Well that's bad and evil. Here's an article.

[abbiistabbii]

I think every computer user needs to read this because holy fucking shit this is fucking horrible.

So Windows has a new feature incoming called Recall where your computer will first, monitor everything you do with screenshots every couple of seconds and "process that" with an AI.

Hey, errrr, fuck no? This isn't merely because AI is really energy intensive to the point that it causes environmental damage. This is because it's basically surveilling what you are doing on your fucking desktop.

This AI is not going to be on your desktop, like all AI, it's going to be done on another server, "in the cloud" to be precise, so all those data and screenshot? They're going to go off to Microsoft. Microsoft are going to be monitoring what you do on your own computer.

Now of course Microsoft are going to be all "oooh, it's okay, we'll keep your data safe". They won't. Let me just remind you that evidence given over from Facebook has been used to prosecute a mother and daughter for an "illegal abortion", Microsoft will likely do the same.

And before someone goes "durrr, nuthin' to fear, nuthin to hide", let me remind you that you can be doing completely legal and righteous acts and still have the police on your arse. Are you an activist? Don't even need to be a hackivist, you can just be very vocal about something concerning and have the fucking police on your arse. They did this with environmental protesters in the UK. The culture war against transgender people looks likely to be heading in a direction wherein people looking for information on transgender people or help transitioning will be tracked down too. You have plenty to hide from the government, including your opinions and ideas.

Again, look into backing up your shit and switching to Linux Mint or Ubuntu to get away from Microsoft doing this shit.

[scipunk]

Hackers (1995)

[musicofthenightphantomoftheopera]

KOSA COPYCAT BILL INTRODUCED IN AUSTRALIA

If you know anybody in Australia that uses the internet, spread the word immediately! Do everything in your power to make your voice heard!

[saphronethaleph]

bonk

“General?” Princess Leia asked. “Will your fighters be ready?”

“Ready as we can be, Princess,” General Dodonna replied. “We can at least hope to destroy the Death Star soon. If it’s coming here, that gives us something resembling an advantage.”

Leia nodded.

“Very true,” she said. “It’s why I didn’t get the smuggler to land somewhere else and ditch the tracking beacon. We’ve found a weakness, correct?”

“Yes,” Dodonna agreed. “But that was an enormous gamble, Princess. I hope it pays off.”

“If it doesn’t pay off, then we’re doomed anyway,” Leia said, with a sigh. “But…”

Her voice trailed off, and she looked towards the corridor.

“Something’s not right,” she said, then focused on the sunlight streaming in through a window at the far end of the corridor. “The light looks different.”

“General! Senator!” someone shouted. “The planet!”

“What about the planet, man?” Dodonna asked.

“It’s – just look!” the Rebel told him. “I don’t know how to describe it!”

The man was right.

It wasn’t really something any of them could describe.

Yavin Prime, the reddish gas giant around which Yavin Four orbited, was rippling. The gaseous, tenuous surface of the planet was splashing, like a stormy sea without the storm, and just the fact they could see the ripples meant they had to be hundreds of kilometres high… and they glowed, like fire, as they dissipated some titanic amount of energy.

“What’s going on?” Dodonna asked. “Anyone?”

“Could it be the result of the Death Star firing on Yavin?” an analyst asked.

Dodonna looked around sharply. “Has the Death Star arrived yet? Signals!”

“We haven’t picked up anything,” the analyst admitted. “I just can’t see what else could cause this.”

“Oh, my…” C-3P0 said, in astonished tones.

R2-D2 rolled up next to him and whistled.

“What?” C-3P0 asked. “What do you mean, you’re welcome?”

Luke hurried up. “Threepio, what’s going on? R2 just rolled out over here while the techs were checking on his compatibility with an X-Wing.”

R2 bleeped in a self-satisfied tone.

“Well?” Leia asked. “What’s he saying?”

“He says… ah… he was connected to the Death Star and he had the complete plans in his databank,” C-3P0 translated. “He tells me that he’s a very good slicer. And he adjusted the tolerance on the hyperdrive by a fraction of a percent.”

Luke was silent for a moment.

“You mean R2 made the Death Star crash into Yavin?” he asked.

“That appears to be the case, Master Luke,” C-3P0 confirmed.

R2 chattered some electronic noises.

“He says he’ll need some sticky tape to affix his medal,” the protocol droid added, helpfully.

[fuzzyghost]

[allthecanadianpolitics]

The ticket sales giant said through emails to its users and in a press release that it recently discovered "an unauthorized third party" was able to obtain information from a cloud database hosted by a third-party data services provider. "Based on our investigation to date, we determined that the unauthorized activity occurred between April 2, 2024, and May 18, 2024," Ticketmaster wrote in an email sent to its users on Monday. "On May 23, 2024, we determined that some of your personal information may have been affected by the incident. We have not seen any additional unauthorized activity in the cloud database since we began our investigation." The California-based company confirmed the cloud database contained personal information of customers who bought tickets to events in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. "This may include email, phone number, encrypted credit card information as well as some other personal information provided to us," it wrote in the press release, adding it is in the process of reaching out by email or mail to customers it believes were affected.

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Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[fly-the-pattern]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 7, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

May 08, 2025

Alarm appears to be rising about how the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) is consolidating data about Americans. Hannah Natanson, Joseph Menn, Lisa Rein, and Rachel Siegel wrote in the Washington Post today that DOGE is “racing to build a single centralized database with vast troves of personal information about millions of U.S. citizens and residents.” In the past, that information has been carefully siloed, and there are strict laws about accessing it. But under billionaire Elon Musk, who appears to direct DOGE although the White House has said he does not, operatives who may not have appropriate security clearances are removing protections and linking data.

There are currently at least eleven lawsuits underway claiming that DOGE has violated the 1974 Privacy Act regulating who can access information about American citizens stored by the federal government.

Musk and President Donald Trump, as well as other administration officials, claim that such consolidation of data is important to combat “waste, fraud, and abuse,” although so far they have not been able to confirm any such savings and their cuts are stripping ordinary Americans of programs they depend on. White House spokesperson Harrison Fields told the Washington Post reporters that DOGE’s processes are protected by “some of the brightest cybersecurity minds in the nation” and that “every action taken is fully compliant with the law.”

Cybersecurity experts outside the administration disagree that a master database is secure or safe, as DOGE is bypassing normal safeguards, including neglecting to record who has accessed or changed database information. The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard’s Kennedy School explains that data can be altered or manipulated to redirect funds, for example, and that there is substantial risk that data can be hacked or leaked. It can be used to commit fraud or retaliate against individuals.

The Ash Center also explains that U.S. government data is an extraordinarily valuable treasure trove for anyone trying to train artificial intelligence systems. Most of the data currently available is from the internet and is thus messy and unreliable. Government databases are “comprehensive, verified records about the most critical areas of Americans’ lives.” Access to that data gives a company “significant advantages” in training systems and setting business strategies. Americans have not given consent for their data to be used in this way, and it leaves them open to “loss of services, harassment, discrimination, or manipulation by the government, private entities, or foreign powers.”

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo suggests Musk’s faith in his AI company is at least part of what’s behind the administration’s devastating cuts to biomedical research. Those who believe in a future centered around AI believe that it will be far more effective than human research scientists, so cutting actual research is efficient. At the same time, Marshall suggests, tech oligarchs find the years-long timelines of actual research and the demands of scientists on peer reviews and careful study frustrating, as they want to put their ideas into practice quickly.

If the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is an example of what it looks like when a tech oligarch tries to run a government agency, it’s a cautionary tale. Under Trump the FAA has become entangled with Musk’s SpaceX space technology company and its subsidiary Starlink satellite company, and it appears that the American people are being used to make Musk’s dream come true.

Musk believes that humans must colonize Mars in order to become a multiplanetary species as insurance against the end of life on Earth. On Monday he explained to Jesse Watters of the Fox News Channel that eventually the Earth will be incinerated by an expanding sun, so humans must move to other planets to survive. In 2016, Musk predicted that humans would start landing on Mars in 2025, but in the Watters interview he revised his prediction to possibly 2029 but more likely 2031.

Critics note that while it is true the sun is expanding, the change is not expected to affect the Earth for another 5 billion years. As a frame of reference, humans evolved from their predecessors about 300,000 years ago.

But getting to Mars requires lots of leeway to experiment, and Musk turned against the head of the FAA under President Joe Biden, Mike Whitaker, after Whitaker called for Musk’s SpaceX company to be fined $633,009 over safety and environmental violations. Musk complained that the FAA’s environmental and safety requirements were “unreasonable and exasperating” and that they “undercut American industry’s ability to innovate.” Musk continued: “The fundamental problem is that humanity will forever be confined to Earth unless there is radical reform at the FAA!”

Musk endorsed an employee’s complaint on social media that Whitaker required SpaceX “to consult on minor paperwork updates relating to previously approved non-safety issues that have already been determined to have zero environmental impact,” reposting it with the comment: “He needs to resign.” Musk spent almost $300 million to get Trump elected, and Whitaker resigned the day Trump took office.

That same day, the administration froze the hiring of all federal employees, including air traffic controllers, although the U.S. Department of Transportation warned in June 2023 that 77% of air traffic control facilities critical to daily operations of the airline industry were short staffed. The next day, January 21, Trump fired Transportation Security Administration (TSA) chief David Pekoske, and administration officials removed all the members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, which Congress created after the 1988 PanAm 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. The Trump administration vacated the positions with an eye to “eliminating the misuse of resources.”

Today Lori Aratani of the Washington Post reported that in February, shortly after the deadly collision of an American Airlines jet and a U.S. Army helicopter in the airspace over Washington, D.C., administration officials also stopped the work of an outside panel of experts examining the country’s air traffic control system.

After President Trump blamed the crash on diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring practices, career officials quit in disgust, according to Isaac Stanley-Becker of The Atlantic. As they left, an engineer from Musk’s SpaceX satellite company arrived. He had instructions from Musk to insert equipment from Starlink, a subsidiary of SpaceX, into the FAA’s communications network. On the social media platform X, Musk warned that the existing communications system for the FAA “is breaking down very rapidly” and was “putting air traveler safety at risk.” In fact, the government had awarded a 15-year, $2.4 billion contract to Verizon in 2023 to make the necessary upgrades.

Starlink ties into Musk’s plans for Mars. In November 2024, SpaceX pitched NASA on creating Marslink, a version of Starlink that would link to Mars, and Starlink’s current terms of service specify that disputes over service on or around the planet Earth or the Moon will be governed by the laws of Texas but that “[f]or Services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other spacecraft, the parties recognize Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities. Accordingly, Disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement.”

In early March, debris from the explosion of one of Musk’s SpaceX starships disrupted 240 flights. On April 28, air traffic controllers lost both radio and radar contact with the pilots who were flying planes into Newark, New Jersey, Liberty International Airport, for about 90 seconds. In the aftermath of the incident, aircraft traffic in and out of Newark was halted, and four experienced controllers and one trainee took medical leave for trauma.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, a former Fox Business host, suggested the Biden administration was to blame for the decaying system. His predecessor as transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, dismissed the accusation as “just politics,” noting that he had launched the modernization of the systems and reversed decades of declining numbers of air traffic controllers.

On Monday the White House fired Alvin Brown, the Black vice chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the agency that investigates civilian aviation accidents. Former FAA and NTSB investigator Jeff Guzzetti told Christopher Wiggins of The Advocate: “This is the first time in modern history that the White House has removed a board member.”

Musk has the power of the United States government behind him. In December, Trump nominated Musk associate and billionaire Jared Isaacman to become the next head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Senate has not yet confirmed Isaacman, but the Republican-dominated Senate Commerce Committee advanced his nomination last week. The president’s proposed budget, released Friday, calls for cutting about 25% of NASA’s funding—about $6 billion—and giving $1 billion of the money remaining to initiatives focused on Mars.

Yesterday the FAA granted permission for SpaceX to increase the number of rocket launches it attempts from Boca Chica, Texas, from 5 to 25 per year after concluding that additional launches would have “no significant impact” on the environment near the launchpad. The first test of a SpaceX rocket launch there in 2023 caused the launchpad to explode, and the spaceship itself blew up, sending chunks of concrete into the nesting and migration site of an endangered species and starting a 3.5-acre fire. In their hurry to rebuild, SpaceX officials ignored permitting processes. According to Texas and the Environmental Protection Agency, the company then violated environmental regulations by releasing pollutants into bodies of water.

Musk is trying to make Starlink dominate the Earth’s communications, a dominance that would give him enormous power, as he suggested last month when he noted that Ukraine’s “entire front line would collapse if I turned it off.” In April, Trump delayed the rural broadband program in what appeared to be an attempt to shift the program toward Starlink, and today Tom Perkins of The Guardian reported that the administration is going to end federal research into space pollution, which is building up alarmingly in the stratosphere owing in part to Musk’s satellites.

Today Jeff Stein and Hannah Natanson of the Washington Post reported that the administration has been telling nations that want to talk about trade that it will consider “licensing Starlink” as a demonstration of “goodwill and intent to welcome U.S. businesses.” India, among other nations, has rushed through approvals of the satellite company. Just 1% of India’s consumer broadband market could produce almost $1 billion a year, the authors report.

In a statement, the State Department told Stein and Natanson: “Starlink is an American-made product that has been game-changing in helping remote areas around the world gain internet connectivity. Any patriotic American should want to see an American company’s success on the global stage, especially over compromised Chinese competitors.”

The attempt to gain control over artificial intelligence and human communication networks regardless of the cost to ordinary Americans might have a larger theme. As technology forecaster Paul Saffo points out, tech oligarchs led by technology guru Curtis Yarvin have called for a new world order that rejects the nation states around which humans have organized their societies for almost 400 years. They call instead for “network states” organized around technology that permits individuals to group around a leader in cyberspace without reference to real-world boundaries, a position Starlink’s terms of service appear to reflect.

Mastering artificial intelligence while dominating global communications would go a long way toward breaking down existing nations and setting up the conditions for a brave new world, dominated by tech oligarchs.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[bynux]

Be Careful Putting Your Phone Down At Panera Bread Locations

I noticed my phone buzzing repeatedly when I'd have it open on the table at Panera, and on further review I realized that my phone was repeatedly scanning an NFC tag on the underside of the table. I'm assuming the servers use these as a shorthand way of confirming that food has been delivered to the correct table.

This is all well and good; this is a prime use case for NFC tags, and using an NFC reader app I was able to see that they're just basic numeric codes. As long as the tags aren't rewritable by anyone, they're not a security risk.

The NFC tags at Panera Bread are rewritable. Like, easily. Using a simple app you can get from the Google Play Store.

What this means is that someone can rewrite the NFC tags to redirect to a download link for malware, or a phishing website, or any number of other attack vectors.

I have more information about this issue on my personal website, as well as a video demonstrating the effect. My recommendation is to keep NFC turned off on your phone unless and until you're actively using it (for touchless payments, bus tickets, etc.).

[amethystsoda]

Here’s more data “training” info from the meta ai assistant that I got today:

They’ve been hiding the opt out options on their privacy policy lately 🙄🙄🙄

[scipunk]

Hackers (1995)

[bfoxanimation]

"It looks like you have some private personal and financial details on display! I'll take a screenshot and store it in a folder someone can access later. "

[qu33rsources]

How to install NewPipe on Android

NewPipe is a YouTube replacement client for Android devices. It's open-source (meaning, you can see all of their code as you please), privacy-oriented, lightweight, and supports features that are normally locked behind a YouTube Premium paywall.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with NewPipe, YouTube, Android, Google, Alphabet Inc, or any other brand or name mentioned here. I made this guide to help my friends who were curious.

NewPipe's Website: https://newpipe.net/

The GitHub Repository

Step 0. Compatibility check

Make sure you're running an Android device! This won't work on an Apple device of any kind! Also, for those more tech-savvy among you, if you have the F-Droid store installed, you can download NewPipe straight from there!

Step 1. Downloading

Go to NewPipe's Github repo (repository, the codebase or where all of the code is stored). Scroll to the bottom of the page until you see "Releases". Click on the one that says "Latest" next to it in a little green bubble:

Your version number (v#...) will be different if you're reading this in the future! That's okay. Scroll past the changelog (unless you want to read it!) until you find "Assets":

Click on the first one, the one with the little cube ending in .apk. APK files are Android Package (Kit) and are the main format for downloading apps. Once you click on the link, it should begin downloading or your browser will ask you to confirm that you want to download this file. You should always verify the filename matches what you expect it to be (namely, the file format) before attempting to install! It might take a few moments for the file to download depending on your internet connection.

Step 2. Installation

Once you have the file downloaded, you can click the download popup in your notification bar or find the file in your device's file system. One of 2 things will happen:

You will get a popup asking if you want to install an APK by the name of NewPipe - confirm that you do (and make sure the app is really NewPipe!) and it will install automatically. You can then click "Open" to open the app and begin using it.

You will get a popup warning you that you have the ability to install apps from unknown sources disabled and that you can't install this. This is normal and does not mean that you downloaded the wrong thing.

If you got the first popup, continue past this step. For those of you who got the second, let's go over what this means.

By default, most Androids have this setting disabled. This is for security purposes, so you can't accidentally install a malicious app from the whole internet. If you enable this setting (allow installations from unknown/unsigned sources), you are theoretically putting yourself at risk. Realistically, you're probably fine. But, after installing NewPipe, you can always re-disable the setting if it makes you more comfortable. That will prevent you from installing updates in the future, but it can always be re-enabled.

Ready to turn that setting on? It will vary by your individual device! Some devices will take you directly to the page with the setting upon failed installation, and some you will just have to find it yourself using the searchbar in settings.

Once you've allowed installations from unknown sources (wording may vary slightly), try to repeat the steps above of clicking the download popup or finding the APK in your files and trying to install it. It should work correctly this time!

Step 3. Updating NewPipe

Like most apps, NewPipe is in development currently and frequently has new versions released to improve it and fix bugs. Unlike most apps, NewPipe needs to be manually updated, since we haven't downloaded through the Google Play store.

To update NewPipe, all you have to do is follow the above steps for installing the app, except that when you get the popup asking to install it, it will instead say "Update". That's it! NewPipe and Android handle the rest.

NewPipe also has popup notifications for when the app has a new update, so you don't have to worry about checking the GitHub for a new release. Just click on the "A new version is available" popup and it should take you directly to the webpage.

That's it! Enjoy browsing videos in peace without ads and with the ability to download and so much more. Pro tip: you can copy paste YouTube links into the NewPipe search bar to go directly to that video/playlist/channel.