Michel Salim @michel_slm@social.privacytools.io

"Killing links is a strategy, designed to keep people from the open web. The web is where we can make sites that don’t abuse data in the ways that Facebook properties do. Links take us to places where we can make choices that Instagram never would."

https://anildash.com/2019/12/10/link-in-bio-is-how-they-tried-to-kill-the-web/

I'm continually impressed with how much good, new cryptography the Signal community keeps researching and developing to ensure that services can know as little about their users as possible https://signal.org/blog/signal-private-group-system/

Todo.txt: the official website for the todo.txt system, listing available apps for major platforms.
http://todotxt.org/

Sigh. Some day I will stop ranting about Twitter. I guess I'll be happy when some prominent writer covering the social media beat and constantly railing about how awful Facebook/Instagram/YouTube/etc are, concludes their podcast interview by saying, "Follow me on Mastodon/fediverse/my own damn blog." Either that, or they come up with a convincing argument as to why those platforms are so awful, but Twitter deserves hours of their attention every day.

RT @SarahJamieLewis
If you want actual privacy, actual security, actual tech empowerment then you can't rely on tech professionals to build things for you.

Part of that is demanding open standards and an end to proprietary interfaces, and another is taking responsibility to rebuild those bridges.

When clicking "I accept" on CNN's edition.cnn.com cookie policy, the default "Allow All" grants any of 387 different #advertising systems to place cookies in your browser.

It takes one click to potentially undermine your #privacy.

Maintain better privacy:

- Containerize browser tabs. This creates an isolated browser in each tab to stop cross-site transfer.
- Empty browser cache after each use.
- Use #EFF's #privacybadger
- Don't accept default cookie popups.

#news #culture #ads #cnn

@dredmorbius @alexbuzzbee

Or, you can replace steps 2–4 with pitting Google's toys against one another, and have the audio Captcha solved by google's speach-to-text algorithm: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pa55z8/researchers-fool-recaptcha-with-googles-own-speech-to-text-service?utm_source=reddit.com

@alexbuzzbee Also, as a user: file bugs / issues with service providers who *do* rely on reCAPTCHA telling them that you find this practice unacceptable.

Possible reasons:

1. Privacy / surveillance.
2. Privatising results of crowdsourced intelligence.
3. Potential military / antisocial applications of technology.
4. Other (think of your own).

I regularly do this.

@codesections If you're a web user, and don't like Training Google's GD ML AI Dragon:

1. Request audio.

2. Repeatedly respond with "Fuck you, Google."

3. The algo will eventually let you in.

4. Bonus: all audio interpretation trends to "Fuck you, Google".

@alexbuzzbee

If you are a web developer trying to keep spambots out, DO NOT use reCAPTCHA. It is an unethical privacy invasion that follows people around the Web and stops disabled people from accessing information or services for no good reason.

Instead, just ask a (very) simple logic puzzle from a decent-sized set. Ask the questions in regular text and give an option to change puzzles. Switch out the library of puzzles occasionally. This will stop the vast majority of spambots.

I'd really be interested to see more of this type of anti-surveillance design. Anyone in the #fediverse or #beyond have any examples?

"How designers are fighting the rise of facial recognition technology

From LED-equipped visors to transparent masks, these inventions aim to thwart facial recognition cameras."

https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/facial-recognition.amp.html

Remember that even when you trust a company to not share your information, if they can access it, that means they can be compelled to give it up. Dangerous times we love in and majority of folks don't even realize it.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/11/search-warrant-overrides-1m-users-choice-not-to-share-dna-with-cops/

Looking for volunteers who would be interested in translating privacytools.io to any variety of different languages (via Weblate). If you're interested shoot me a DM :)

I feel vindicated that even Facebook knows its ads may "know too much". That's an odd option...

The messenger #Wire and the web search service #Startpage have been taken over US companies. They are/were popular services in the privacy and #cryptoparty scene. Both companies appear to be interested in the data business. Takeovers like these will happen again. If these events teach us anything it is that we should seek decentral and self-hosted alternatives to take back control. Don't put your trust into centralized services!
#searx #yacy #xmpp #jabber #matrix #fediverse #mastodon #email

Here's a website dedicated to list plenty of reasons to not use Facebook or any of their malicious services.

https://www.stopusingfacebook.co

(Thanks to @joacim for the link.)

#Facebook