Plot twist: it was only twenty guys, but they really like BK.

Anyway this is a good example of why to never install apps from various chains and co's. Even if the app doesn't sell you out on purpose, which it prob also does, the standards are low for these shovelware apps.

Safest data is data you don't provide.

probably gonna be downvoted.

Not by me. It's a reasonable answer. Couple things come to mind tho.

One, to this very day I can "launder" a $20 bill through a local family run mercantile.

And two, my online donation would not be untraceable when using a virtual card. That card protects my identity from the vendor, but NOT from the company that issued me the card. They know who i am IRL, real name, real addr, etc. If I do something bad with it, the authorities can still come knocking. I only want to be protected from Patreon, not complete inpenetrable Snowden tier privacy. I feel the same about online shopping. I want protection from the e-store. Not from the civil authorities.

Unless Patreon is selling your data, them having your IP once or twice for logging in isn’t the biggest issue

That is something worth thinking about.

I would probably be OK with that, if I can also avoid using my real name. And maybe I can? I haven't tried that combo (masked card + real IP + fake name).

The men in black will still know what you do with your money.

Yah I'm sure they could if they want. But I still think it gives me protection from the commercial tier data brokers. The company is putting its own rep on the line as a privacy broker. When it comes to their private emails, I have never seen the slightest sign that they've sold me out.

I figure nothing's ever gonna be perfect. My threat model isn't the NSA tho. It's commercial data brokers hoovering up everybody's purchase and donation history. Plus the constant everyday site hacks that compromise ppl's activities.

I get where you are coming from.

Thing is, these are like.. a history podcaster. My guy's not plugged into the privacy community at all. Prob knows nada about any of this. And frankly it wouldn't even be worth his time. He'd get what, a handful more donations? Wouldn't even cover his time to figure out a private payment opt.

I want there to be more private methods too. But I gotta balance that against, I also want to support creators I like.

No kids here but my understanding is that it's basically impossible to avoid these systems if you have school age children. Plus other things like google accounts for them etc.

The names, addresses, demographic information and disability status of all 7 million students enrolled in California public schools over the past three school years were exposed in the breach, the CDE said.

It's one thing if you can opt out. But the entire system funnels you right in. Which makes it feel so much more unfair. Even when you see the oncoming train, you've been tied to the tracks.

This is good. Humor is surprisingly effective in getting others on-side.

The article has another link, I can only read a little, but it's funny,

Protesting Flock, Arizona Man Presents Plan to Surveil Government Official

“I've spent the last several months talking to people all over Casa Grande, and one thing keeps coming up: Safety. So, today I'm excited to announce a new company called Shepherd Safety,” he said. “Our mission is simple. Keep government officials and their families safe.” It would be no different than how the city monitors its citizens using Flock cameras, he said.

He said he’d already started compiling profiles on their vehicles, spouses vehicles, children's vehicles, and planned to combine that data with Bluetooth signals, advertising IDs, and commercial data sources, “so our authorized users can replay the movements of every government official and their immediate family,” he said. Local businesses would be invited to join the network, to “protect” officials while they shop, eat at restaurants [...]

Apple seems really focused on preventing the audio from making it off the device.

Which fine, I believe they'll make that very difficult. Apple has engineering chops.

But it's not the fucking point. I ALSO don't want every watchhole around me making transcriptions of anything I say within earshot of whoever wears one. Which will be way less noticeable than even smart glasses. Say goodbye to having an unrecorded conv in most public places.

The whitewashing of the privacy probs with this is galling.

Well, sure. But think more ahead.

The same mechanic is already proposed by Google to lock things you DO care about. They are talking QR code walls presented to desktop browsers. Where you have to scan a QR code on a "trusted" device to pass the wall. Trusted by google of course, not by you. They want it anywhere teh web requires "trust". Shopping, banking, access to gov services. Google has the muscle to drive it anywhere they want.

Ultimately that can put big parts of the web out of reach to your fav desktop browser. Ironfox? Waterfox? Boom, QR wall! Scan it on your google approved mobile device to proceeed! There would be fuck all your browser can do about it. Chain of trust required from a Google or Apple approved device. No chain of trust, no looky.

Would Goog/Appl ever go that far? IDK. I'm sure there would be anger. Maybe lawsuits. But think how tech illiterate ppl are now! Most ppl would not even realize anything was different! Their mass consumer devices still work. "Why are you using that weird browser on your nerd OS? It doesn't even let you shop or bank lololol!"

That ignorance is what are are up against.

Ayup that has been the holy grail of big tech.

They are most of the way there today. Make Identity Resolution inescapable. Bing bang boom.

It is more than just phones and lappys too. It's everything. That smart TV. That fitness watch. That automobile. That streaming music service. The ebook reader you got as a birthday gift.

Your behavior across every single device is data gold. This is today's reality.

Unfortunately, it is simply impossible for me to stop using Facebook.

I never started.

Tunick’s federal public defenders,

TBH I hope he can get more than public defenders. They work hard but they are often over worked and under resourced. Plus not being specialists in this. Maybe the EFF will offer specialist help. EFF is already aware of his case. Hence why anyone who is able to, should donate to the EFF. So they can employ high powered lawyers.

Additionally, the agents produced no warrant and did not read Tunick his rights.

NAL, but I think the gov can't have it both ways. IF they did not produce a warrant or Mirandize him, THEN they cannot come at him for wiping his own phone. The gov might have a case if they had a warrant and he knowingly wiped it. But that's not what allegedly happened here. No warrant = still 100% his device to do what he wants.

Aside from his case, courts in the US are all over the place, on whether you can be compelled to unlock a device if there IS a warrant. More often than not, they have ruled you CAN'T be compelled to produce a passcode from your memory. But in some cases, they have ruled the opposite. It's super chaotic, and prob needs a SCOTUS ruling.

Frankly humanity does not need this invention one bit.

Yah. Unfortunately, we've got it though. :( :( :(

People I know, some friends, they are completely oblivious to how much it will surveillance them. Or how much Meta already does, in other ways. "I don't care, I'm not doing anything wrong".

Constant surveillance erodes a society. It erodes democracy.

IDK if it was Persona, but when I tried to sign up last year, they demanded I send a copy o fmy photo ID to a 3rd party identity broker. I refused, and did not sign up. Given the recent huge breaches of photo ID databases, I feel kinda vindicated about that.

that the best privacy strategy is integrity,

The prob, ofc, is that it doesn't matter if YOU think you're doing something wrong. It only matters if someone ELSE thinks you are doing something wrong. Maybe you ahve the wrong religion. Maybe you have the wrong skin color. Maybe you push for democracy in an autocratic system. Maybe you're female in a society that opresses the shit out of women. Or w/e! A million things.

In a globally connected world, there will be someone who hates you and tries to destroy you, no matter WHO you are. No matter HOW much integrity, or HOW decent a human you are.

Also, fuck this guy. I want every moment of his life recorded and live streamed to youtube. If he is doing nothing wrong, he has nothing to hide.

Wow. I wonder how many vulns like this are unknown outside of identity broker co's and gov intel orgs. Seems like new ones discovered hella lot.

Turning the WWW into an app platform was a mistake. JS allows so much fuckery.

No, that is untrue. I hate this kind of defeatism.

It is true by a simple count of cameras, most in Florida remain. But that is not the right metric, unless you planned a tour of every Lowes and Home Depot and w/e in the state. Getting them off the state highway system is a big deal. And more and more cities are starting to terminate contracts too.

Just because the whole problem isn't solved in a single stroke, does NOT mean we should minimize how important each step is.

Reminds me of how Zuck spent $110M buying all the homes around the one he wanted, to maintain HIS privacy. And then he had the city change zoning codes so he could stitch all 11 houses he bought into a single private compound.

I know I'm going out on a limb here. But I betcha almost nobody reading this thread can drop $110M buying out a whole neighborhood to get privacy, and then spend a couple years of heavy equipment and crew time to rebuild it.

Extreme example? Yah. But lots of smaller examples too, down here at normal ppl levels of money. You want privacy? It'll cost. Privacy becomes a luxury for the well off.

What it got right,

• My OS. It's in the user agent header, which I hate.
• I read the page methodically at a human reading pace.
• I am using a VPN.

What it got wrong,

• Location.
• Screen res.
• Num of CPU cores.

It's good for ppl to think about fingeprinting. So demo pages like this are good. But I'm sure the identity resolution industry is MUCH better at it. They have capabilities like TLS fingerprinting, outside the browser. For most ppl, not the privacy crowd so mcuh but normal ppl, they fingerprint resource fetches to diff geographic servers. They can run 100's of scripts on a single page from every identity broker. They employ the best data scientists, to figure out every possible way.

I'm pretty careful. More than 99.999% will ever do. Can commercial fingerprinters still ID me? IDK. But like Skywalker, I have a bad feeling about it.

Sad thing is, that argument works against so many ppl. "I can trust this app. It's from Google!"

We(*) are tearing down personal computing. Brick by brick. The very idea of controling our own devs is getting lost. Replacing with Big Tech Feudalism.

(*) Not most of us here. But in the whole pop.