Snapchat’s automated system flagged a private DM to three contacts and triggered an FBI alert in under 60 minutes, ending her teaching career

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1305860/google-search-testing-sign-in-to-verify-searches-are-human

Google Search is testing asking searchers to sign in to verify they are humans and not bots conducting the searches.

Google will stop showing you search results, as you click through the pages, and say "Sign in to verify you're a human and see more results."

Source: Search Engine Roundtable

On May 9, 2025, a deputy with the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office in Texas queried Flock Safety’s nationwide license plate reader network. The reason entered into the search log, according to documents obtained by 404 Media: “had an abortion, search for female.” That single query swept across 83,000 cameras in 6,809 law enforcement networks — including cameras in Washington and Illinois, states where abortion is legal and protected. A small-county Texas deputy, hunting for a woman suspected of self-administering an abortion, had just searched a surveillance apparatus stretching from Spokane to Springfield. No warrant was required for the search.

It's not my event, but if you care about privacy (and in the area), I'd really appreciate it if you showed this guy some support. He's putting in a lot of work on the ground to organize folks.

https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/07/google-play-age-signals-api-safer-experiences.html?m=1

Yea so I have some aquariums / hydroponics that I'd like to measure the energy use as well as control individually with timers. Probably looking for a combination power bar with a wall outlet meter.

I see lots of power bars that have 1 timer for 4 outlets, but none that let me control outlets individually.

Meanwhile all the outlet meters I'm seeing have apps and give me spyware vibes.

Not categorically against "smart" stuff, but I'm hesitant to use anything with wifi connectivity that isn't "privacy community approved."

I already have mechanical timers Looking for upgrade suggestions.

Not all information need to be shared..!
@privacy

It's 2026 and 1 billion people still use "123456" as their password. I wrote a blog about how we can securely use the Internet safeguarding our emails and passwords

https://text.tchncs.de/czars-blogs/h1-style-font-size-50px-not-all-information-needs-to-be-shared

Cross posted from https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/73088538

Cross posted from https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/73088538

Recent reports have raised alarm about the use of PatronScan, an ID-checking and face-scanning system, at multiple LGBTQ+ bars in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood. Much of the attention has focused on reports that the system photographs patrons as they enter venues and questions about whether those images are used for facial recognition

Reversing course, Flock Safety—the surveillance technology vendor most known for its extensive network of automated license plate readers—has announced that it will end a pilot for its acoustic gunshot detection devices to identify signs of “human distress.”

I've spent the past two years building NeoSearch with a simple premise: search got bad not because the web got worse, but because the incentives did. Ads, profiling, and SEO all pull results away from what I actually wanted.

NeoSearch is my attempt to fix that. It's private by design (no cookies, no IP logging, no profiles, no ads), and it uses AI to improve results rather than replace them: independent sources get ranked above affiliate listicles, titles and snippets are rewritten to say what a page actually is, duplicate results get merged into one enriched entry, and "Lenses" let you flip between meanings — search "eagles" and choose the band or the football team.

Currently it takes the top results from Google's index as raw material, then re-ranks, rewrites, and enriches them so heavily that Google's #20 result can land at #1. That's stage one, to prove the experience.

Stage two is crawling the parts of the web mainstream engines ignore.

The end goal is an open, distributed search index anyone can build their own engine on. I don't want to be the next Google, I want search to stop needing one.

As of this week the whole thing is open source (Apache 2.0) on GitHub, so you can audit it or run your own.

It's free, I'm funding it personally, and there will never be ads. I'd genuinely love your feedback — especially the searches where it does worse than Google. Those are the ones I learn from. Ask me anything!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/49935507

Good, glassholes can fuck off