#security and privacy settings

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

Section 6: How to Maintain Privacy on Substack

Summary of my Udemy Course “From Zero to Substack Hero.” Purpose of this Series for New Readers This is a new series upon request from my readers. I recently developed a course titled “From Zero to Substack Hero” and published it on Udemy and shared it on Content Marketing Strategy Insights owned by Dr Mehmet Yildiz who kindly allowed me to use his Substack Mastery book to design the…

[knightofleo]

[mars-ipan]

fuck wait guys am i ovulating too. are we all synced

[th3p1nkfr34k]

just because it came up again in my real life ODC doesn't stand for 'obsessive cleaning disorder' its "obsessive COMPLUSIVE disorder"

not all people with OCD are neat freaks. I am very messy. My OCD manifests in different ways.

mostly time checking and making sure i know the exact location of everyone in my house at all times so I know they're safe and well so I can focus on things I actually need to do and then i forget one of them and have to do the whole loop over again. I know its ridiculous and such but I also can't stop the feeling that if I don't know where someone is that they are going to die. Its irrational and confusing but its how my brain is.

not the best wording but hopefully you get what i mean.

theres a lot more but thats all i'm comfortable sharing.

[kc22invesmentsblog]

Budgeting Apps and Tools: Streamlining Your Financial Management

Written by Delvin In today’s fast-paced world, managing our finances effectively is more important than ever. Thankfully, technology has provided us with a range of budgeting apps and tools that can simplify the process and empower us to take control of our financial well-being. In this blog post, we will explore the benefits of utilizing budgeting apps and tools, and how they can streamline…

[kamalkafir-blog]

WhatsApp top 5 privacy features you should know or else you might get spied on

[NEWS] Whatsapp Privacy Features: आज के डिजिटल दौर में WhatsApp सिर्फ चैटिंग ऐप नहीं बल्कि हमारी निजी ज़िंदगी का अहम हिस्सा बन चुका है. ऐसे में अपनी प्राइवेसी का ध्यान रखना बेहद जरूरी है. WhatsApp में कई ऐसे फीचर्स दिए गए हैं जिनसे आप अपनी चैट्स को और भी सुरक्षित बना सकते हैं. आइए जानते हैं 5 खास प्राइवेसी सेटिंग्स, जिन्हें आपको तुरंत एक्टिवेट कर लेना चाहिए. एडवांस चैट प्राइवेसी ऑन करें इस फीचर…

[kopfconsulting]

Google Domains has officially been acquired by Squarespace, and domain migrations are underway. Understand your options, why choosing the right registrar matters, and how to ensure a smooth domain transfer process without downtime.

[jypsyvloggin]

How to Approve Tagged Posts on Facebook?

How to Approve Tagged Posts on Facebook – Quick Guide Hey guys, what’s up! 👋 In this quick guide, I’ll show you how to approve tagged posts on Facebook so you can control what appears on your timeline. Let’s get started! Steps to Approve Tagged Posts on Facebook 1️⃣ Open Facebook First, open the Facebook app on your phone. 2️⃣ Go to Your Profile On the top left corner of the screen, you…

[lureofthesea]

Source: lautakwah

warning for discord users

If you're on the app, immediately go to your dms and then "add friends". After the latest update they allow your contacts to find you and have that option turned on by default, so make sure it's unchecked!

This is very obviously not great for a multitude of reasons, but especially for people in vulnerable positions who do not want people in their contacts to see who they are on discord and/or know they have discord in the first place. I've also tried finding out if this is a thing on desktop but haven't been able to find any mention of it, so either it's not a "feature" (yet) or they've hidden it. Either way, stay safe, and turn off finding friends via contacts!

[ID: three screenshots from the discord app with circles around the buttons to press to get to this "feature". 1: the messages/DM button, 2: the "add friends button", 3: in the add friends page, the "allow contacts to add me" checkbox. /END ID]

[munaeem]

Who’s Spying on You the Most? Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, or Steam? Let’s Find Out!

Hey everyone! Let’s talk about something we all know but don’t always think about: tech companies spying on us. Yeah, it’s no secret that our devices and apps are constantly collecting data, but have you ever wondered who’s doing it the most? Is it Microsoft? Google? Nvidia? Steam? Or maybe even EA? I decided to run a little experiment to find out, and the results were… eye-opening. The…

[bob3160]

Your Phone is a Blabbermouth - Stop It from Leaking Your Data Now

[ourladyoftheflytrap]

Ack I just discovered that the app I use to change the LED light settings in my room has unlimited permission to turn my Bluetooth on "as needed," which in effect means i literally can't turn it off Ever when im in my house

[childrenofthedigitalage]

The Latest in Online Safety: Protecting Your Digital Identity

In today’s interconnected world, our online safety has become more critical than ever. With increasing threats ranging from identity theft to cyberbullying, it’s essential to stay aware of how to protect your digital identity. In this blog, we’ll explore the latest developments in online safety, offer advice for parents, students, and teachers, and provide tips to help keep your personal…

[ms-demeanor]

Do you have thoughts about the changes to Firefox's Terms of Use and Privacy Notice? A lot of people seem to be freaking out ("This is like when google removed 'Don't be evil!'"), but it seems to me like just another case of people getting confused by legalese.

Yeah you got it in one.

I've been trying not to get too fighty about it so thank you for giving me the excuse to talk about it neutrally and not while arguing with someone.

Firefox sits in such an awful place when it comes to how people who understand technology at varying levels interact with it.

On one very extreme end you've got people who are pissed that Firefox won't let you install known malicious extensions because that's too controlling of the user experience; these are also the people who tend to say that firefox might as well be spyware because they are paid by google to have google as the default search engine for the browser.

In the middle you've got a bunch of people who know a little bit about technology - enough to know that they should be suspicious of it - but who are only passingly familiar with stuff like "internet protocols" and "security certificates" and "legal liability" who see every change that isn't explicitly about data anonymization as a threat that needs to be killed with fire. These are the people who tend not to know that you can change the data collection settings in Firefox.

And on the other extreme you've got people who are pretty sure that firefox is a witch and that you're going to get a virus if you download a browser that isn't chrome so they won't touch Firefox with a ten foot pole.

And it's just kind of exhausting. It reminds me of when you've got people who get more mad at queer creators for inelegantly supporting a cause than they are at blatant homophobes. Like, yeah, you focus on the people whose minds you can change, and Firefox is certainly more responsive to user feedback than Chrome, but also getting you to legally agree that you won't sue Firefox for temporarily storing a photo you're uploading isn't a sign that Firefox sold out and is collecting all your data to feed to whichever LLM is currently supposed to be pouring the most bottles of water into landfills before pissing in the plastic bottle and putting the plastic bottle full of urine in the landfill.

The post I keep seeing (and it's not one post, i've seen this in youtube comment sections and on discord and on tumblr) is:

Well-meaning person who has gotten the wrong end of the stick: This is it, go switch to sanguinetapir now, firefox has gone to the dark side and is selling your data. [Link to *an internet comment section* and/or redditor reactions as evidence of wrongdoing].

Response: I think you may be misreading the statements here, there's been an update about this and everything.

Well-meaning (and deeply annoying) person who has gotten the wrong end of the stick: If you'd read the link you'd see that actually no I didn't misinterpret this, as evidenced by the dozens of commenters on this other site who are misinterpreting the ToU the same way that I am, but more snarkily.

Bud.

Anyway the consensus from the actual security nerds is "jesus fucking christ we carry GPS locators in our pockets all goddamned day and there are cameras everywhere and there is a long-lasting global push to erode the right to encrypt your data and facebook is creating tracking accounts for people who don't even have a facebook and they are giving data about abortion travel to the goddamned police state" and they could not be reached for comment about whether Firefox is bad now, actually, because they collect anonymized data about the people who use pocket.

My response is that there is a simple fix for all of this and it is to walk into the sea.

(I am not worried about the updated firefox ToU, I personally have a fair amount of data collection enabled on my browser because I do actually want crash reports to go to firefox when my browser crashes; however i'm not actually all that worried about firefox collecting, like, ad data on me because I haven't seen an ad in ten years and if one popped up on my browser i'd smash my screen with a stand mixer - I don't care about location data either because turning on location on your devices is for suckers but also *the way the internet works means unless you're using a traffic anonymizer at all times your browser/isp/websites you connect to/vpn/what fucking ever know where you are because of the IP address that they *have* to be able to see to deliver the internet to you and that is, generally speaking, logged as a matter of course by the systems that interact with it*)

Anyway if you're worried about firefox collecting your data you should ABSOLUTELY NOT BE ON DISCORD OR YOUTUBE and if you are on either of those things you should 100% be using them in a browser instead of an app and i don't particularly care if that browser is firefox or tonsilferret but it should be one with an extension that allows you to choose what data gets shared with the sites it interacts with.

[lamtfluff]

A few years ago I had a phase of being REALLY into digital privacy, using tor, duckduckgo, etc before suffering some burnout because I was trying to be 100% secure. So I'm by no means a expert I'm just relaying experience.

The culture of a lot of left leaning and "fandommy" sites (tumblr, twitter, etc) tends to fear/dislike (or just not know about) a lot of the IT stuff used by people into online privacy because they asscoiate it with "techbros". ESPECIALLY anything even remotely involving cryptocurrency. But if Trump is going to start censoring things and making morning after pills harder to get now might be a VERY good time for Americans to get into online privacy and how to avoid being tracked as well as avoiding censorship. Perhaps even some crypto to buy things discretly (or perhaps if ICE agents start caring about cash?) and because many activists groups also take donations in crypto. Never dealt with crypto myself but from what I know Monero was designed to be more untracable than Bitcoin. Don't know how succesfull that is though. Definetly get into privacy in general though.

I'll leave some useful links to get started. Words of advice:

Don't install a fuckton of privacy extensions on your browser, your unique combination of extensions will give your browser a unique fingerprint. Instead read up on and pick a few commonly used ones.

The BIGGEST annoyance for me was acedemic/proffesional settings because noone wants to switch over to some software they never heard off for one group project. Personally I use some normie software for exclusivly proffesional purposes with NO other information on me and do my actual browsing/leisure computer use more privatly.

https://www.privacytools.io/os: General software/browser/etc recomendations.

https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/: Test how private your browser is.

https://www.torproject.org/: THE gold standard for privacy focused browsers. Also obscures ip. Might not always be practical. Has the disadvantage of being notoriously slow and is blocked by some services/websites to avoid people bypassing ip bans and whatnot. Probably don't use this as your everyday browser but if you ever need to look up anything without censorship use tor.

https://tails.net/: Install a portable mini operating system on a usb stick to browse privately from any computer.

https://www.eff.org/ Electronic frontier foundations website.

https://mastodon.social/explore Don't have experience with it myself. But open source social media that should be much harder to censor.

Tumblr probably won't like me talking too directly about this because of ties to piracy but for people interested in banned books https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_library should be an interesting read...

[applereid]

— MYSTERY GIRLFRIEND, AARON HOTCHNER.

sorry if this is bad i needed to churn something out today, the next one will be better i promise!!

No one truly knew much about Aaron Hotchner’s personal life following his divorce from Haley. He was notoriously private, reserved even among close colleagues.

Unlike Morgan, who wore charm like cologne, Hotch never flirted, never hinted at a workplace crush, never so much as entertained office gossip.

The general consensus was that he simply went home— to an empty apartment and a quiet, solitary routine. But that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Each evening, Aaron returned home to you— his radiant, warm-hearted girlfriend. You met him at the door with that bright, effortless smile, wrapping your arms around his neck, pressing a soft kiss to his lips, grounding him in a peace he rarely found elsewhere.

It wasn’t something he broadcasted. His relationship with you was his own— private, meaningful, and not something he felt compelled to share with coworkers. Especially not Morgan.

That privacy, however, came crashing down on a rare paperwork-heavy day. The team was still at their desks, buried in reports, when the elevator doors opened and you walked confidently into the bullpen. All heads turned as you made your way over to the first familiar-looking face— Emily Prentiss.

“Hi,” you greeted with a kind smile, a paper bag in hand. “I was looking for Aaron? I’m dropping off his lunch.”

Emily blinked, clearly caught off guard. “Hotch?” she repeated, brows raised. “His office is just over—”

But before she could finish, Hotch was already descending the steps from his office, eyes only for you.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he murmured, his hand settling instinctively on the small of your back as he gently ushered you away from the now very curious stares of his team.

“Not so fast, Hotch!” Morgan called out behind him, followed closely by Emily, JJ, and Reid. “You’re not going to introduce us?” Emily added, a playful glint in her eye.

“No,” Hotch replied without missing a beat, smoothly guiding you into his office and closing the door behind you, shutting out the murmurs from the bullpen.

You laughed softly, leaning against his desk, still holding the lunch bag. “Work got you all grumpy?”

“Not work,” he said, stepping closer with a faint smile. “Just them.” He took the bag from your hand, setting it aside before pressing a lingering kiss to your lips.

You giggled against his mouth, looping your arms around his neck as he steadied himself with a hand on the desk behind you.

“Thank you for lunch,” he whispered.

“Of course.” You reached up to wipe a smudge of your lip gloss from his mouth, making him chuckle as he playfully nipped at your finger.

“There’s pasta, some greens, and I slipped in a snack cake. Just in case,” you added with a grin.

“A snack cake?” he teased, raising an eyebrow. “What am I, ten?” Still smiling, he moved around to his chair and sat down. “Why don’t you stay with me while I eat?”

You followed, walking around the desk and settling onto his lap. His arm wrapped securely around your waist, hand resting warmly against your stomach as he tilted his head to press a kiss just beneath your ear.

You smiled at first— until the kiss lingered, deepened, his mouth moving deliberately against your skin. You squirmed slightly, breath catching.

“Aaron?” you murmured.

He didn’t answer with words— just a hum of affirmation as his other hand pulled you closer.

“Turn around,” he murmured, voice low and coaxing.

You obeyed, as you always did, shifting to straddle his lap. His hands found their place on your hips, then lower, as his lips sought yours once more with increasing urgency.

Outside the office, Spencer's voice broke the stunned silence. "Guys... maybe we should get back to work."

The rest of the team stood frozen, eyes wide and cheeks red, as they quickly realized that Hotch had, for once, forgotten to close the blinds.

All of them staring just long enough to see Aaron’s hand slip somewhere it definitely shouldn’t have in a federal building.

"I didn't see anything," JJ said quickly, turning around.

"Yep, back to work, back to work," Morgan muttered, practically jogging away.

Emily just blinked, then slowly followed, shaking her head. "Well. That explains the mystery girlfriend."