Hans-Christoph Steiner @eighthave@librem.one

"As I sat down with each inmate, the first question I always asked was, “How did you come to be a violent person?” Without fail, every single person I spoke to was quick to respond with a horrific tale of trauma in his childhood.

[…]

If we are serious about preventing violence, we have to be serious about early intervention. We have to work together to prevent child abuse and build better mental health screening and services for younger people."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/compassion-matters/201504/the-making-of-a-murderer

#Meta #Facebook and #Yandex are always looking for new ways to spy on you and track you. #LocalMess is the latest in a long line of abusive methods to gather your private data. Having their mobile app installed gives them super powers. Uninstall it. If you must use these services, do not use their app, keep it in the browser, or even better, use a wrapper app, like

* https://f-droid.org/packages/it.rignanese.leo.slimfacebook/
* https://f-droid.org/packages/us.spotco.maps/

Here is a nice technical write up:
https://localmess.github.io/

#tracking #privacy

Instagram, TikTok und Co erst ab 15 - neue Initiative durch EU-Minister

Mehrere EU-Länder wollen ein Verbot von Social Media für unter 15-Jährige. Die Plattformen seien gefährlich für die Entwicklung der Kinder.

https://www.heise.de/news/Instagram-TikTok-und-Co-erst-ab-15-neue-Initiative-durch-EU-Minister-10437261.html?wt_mc=sm.red.ho.mastodon.mastodon.md_beitraege.md_beitraege&utm_source=mastodon

#EU #Facebook #Instagram #Jugendschutz #Mobiles #Netzpolitik #SocialMedia #TikTok #news

Google Tightens Android Sideloading—At What Cost to Digital Freedom?

Google has begun blocking sideloaded Android apps in Singapore, citing security concerns over apps requesting sensitive permissions like SMS and accessibility services.

Read more at Purism: https://puri.sm/posts/google-restricts-android-sideloading-what-it-means-for-user-autonomy-and-the-future-of-mobile-freedom/

Remarkable investigation into Telegram by IStories (in Russian):
https://www.istories.media/stories/2025/06/10/kak-telegram-svyazan-s-fsb/

English version by OCCRP:
http://www.occrp.org/en/investigation/telegram-the-fsb-and-the-man-in-the-middle

tl;dr:

👉 Telegram uses a single company with ties to the Russian FSB as their sole infrastructure provider, globally.

👉 Combined with a cleartext device identifier Telegram's protocol requires to be prepended to all encrypted messages, this allows for global surveillance of Telegram users.

I am quoted in this story.

#Telegram #InfoSec #Privacy

A Researcher Figured Out How to Reveal Any Phone Number Linked to a Google Account

🔗 https://www.404media.co/a-researcher-figured-out-how-to-reveal-any-phone-number-linked-to-a-google-account/

Industry Committee vote: Technology sovereignty is only possible with Free Software

The Industry committee of the European Parliament shows necessity and benefits of “open-source first” policy but report lacks concrete measures.

https://fsfe.org/news/2025/news-20250603-01.en.html

#SoftwareFreedom

Are you working on a free and open source project that contributes to the digital commons? Consider applying for NGI Zero funding. Our next deadline is June 1. If you can't make that, no worries, the next call opens right after.
We offer grants between 5 & 50k and grantees can also request practical support with licensing, security, accessibility, long-term sustainability, mentoring, UX testing, trouble shooting, packaging, internationalisation & more. https://nlnet.nl/news/2025/20250401-call.html
#FOSS #funding

#whatsapp has been feverishly copying #telegram features the last year. Both are now in a battle who enshittifies faster. Mr. Durov announced that #Telegram, sitting on the biggest cleartext data and metadata pile second only to #Meta, is to integrate "AI" the next days, see https://youtu.be/JBCY3ZE9Rz0?t=10048 ...

Let them fight. We stubbornly continue to focus on resilient private messaging for families, groups and communities, with end-to-encrypted #webxdc apps and decentralized agency at all levels.

A good example for bad AI propaganda and bad reporting.

That kind of anthropomorphization - implying agency ("revolt", "refuse to shut down when instructed", "sabotage the shutdown script") - is completely misguided and only contributes to the AI marketing hype.

It would be more adequate to report on it the way you'd report on:

- a Windows computer refusing to shut down because of a broken service/process
- a PLC-controlled assembly line refusing to stop because a certain condition isn't met

DeGoogling is possible, and it doesn't need to be difficult. 👏

Take a look at our in-depth guide of Google alternatives to learn how you can take back your privacy in 2025. ❤️🔒

👉 https://tuta.com/blog/how-to-leave-google-gmail

Have you already DeGoogled? If so, let us know your favorite Google-free apps.

#DeGoogle #GoogleAlternatives #PrivacyMatters

We are celebrating 10 years of #reproducible builds in #FDroid this year, and we are overhauling the way the build server works.

Thanks to the funding from #NLnet, #NGI #NGIO part of #HorizonEurope, and your donations, our work is intended to power the future of #FDroid for the next ten and more.

Dig deeper for the why and the how in this 15 mins post: https://f-droid.org/2025/05/21/making-reproducible-builds-visible.html