Hans-Christoph Steiner @eighthave@librem.one
I see a shift in how people think about #privacy in #software. Now that people are aware of how bad software can be for privacy, I see a lot of pressure to not include useful functions because they might appear to be invading privacy. #Android permissions are a good example: so many people are rightly concerned about location tracking, as represented by location permissions. The first question is ask when seeing a suspicious one is: do I trust that app's people and process to do the right thing?
I'd like to have something that automatically convert links to the #privacy preserving version in the browser. Like play #youtube links in #invidious, etc. There seems to be things like #UntrackMe but for me the question is which one to trust, is maintained, works well enough, etc. Once I find a tool that I think it generally applicable, then I work to get it into #Debian so its easy for others to make this decision. Is there a browser extension for this that is worth getting into Debian?
The real #privacy protections of using a #VPN come from putting all your eggs in one basket: force all your DNS and traffic through the VPN provider. Then nobody else sees your real IP address, etc. As long as the VPN provider does everything right, doesn't get hacked, or doesn't have to comply with secret government orders, it does provide a real privacy improvement. But I have a real hard time buying into putting so much trust into one service. I wonder if it is possible to be so good
As lead maintainer of the official #FDroid client, I hear a lot of criticism that #targetSdkVersion is still at 25. fdroidclient is #FreeSoftware, publicly audited, with #ReproducibleBuilds, written in memory safe languages, with a proven record of respecting #privacy and delivering #security. The source and binaries also receive human and machine review. #targetSdkVersion is designed around untrusted proprietary software with non-memory safe code where the binary only gets machine review. 1/2
I find it super frustrating how well constructed #Google #privacy PR is. They are masters of taking one little problem, making an a solid privacy improvement to it, then using it to distract people from their giant surveillance capitalism machine. Something like that is only a privacy improvement for people who are fully in Google's ecosystem. Switching to using Google Fi encrypted calling would be a net privacy loss.
There are two semi-related questions that have been repeatedly popping up in my head for the past couple years: 1) now that we know how to do real #SecureMessaging, are we sure we want a world where wiretapping isn't possible? 2) now that we know how to privately track usage without #tracking people, are we sure we want to encourage software development based on tracking data? #privacy
Reading about how #Vivaldi browser aims to remove unique IDs when counting users makes me think about how #fdroid hasn't been tracking users from the beginning, and stopped tracking downloads years ago, and seems to only have become more popular. Makes me think that #FreeSoftware developed by community motivated by doing the right thing is a better way than a #startup or being driven by #tracking. Maybe improving the #privacy of tracking is missing the point.
https://vivaldi.com/blog/how-we-count-our-users/
Don’t Let Encrypted Messaging Become a Hollow Promise
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/dont-let-encrypted-messaging-become-hollow-promise #privacy #e2e
