While China's passing of a strict privacy law pushing back on technology companies’ data collection is a big win for Chinese citizens, unfortunately it does not extend to the state's widespread surveillance.
Eva Xiao reports:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-passes-one-of-the-worlds-strictest-data-privacy-laws-11629429138
Original tweet : https://twitter.com/DuckDuckGo/status/1429439969391697920
Modern day Hitler apologists also want to claim the Nazi role in the #Autobahn https://hitler.org/artifacts/autobahn/
And the contemporary German government tries to highlight that the Autobahn wasn't purely built by the Nazis, but can't get around that they drove their widespread creation and adoption https://www.dw.com/en/the-myth-of-hitlers-role-in-building-the-autobahn/a-16144981
I'd love to see a well researched documentary or book about the fascist roots of how cars came to dominate the world, the story is out there plain to see: Mussolini and Hilter pioneered the freeway, Nazis started VW, Franco started SEAT, Ford loved the Nazis, Fiats owners were tied to Mussolini, Peugeot and Citroen owners switched to producing for the occupying Nazi armies. https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/the-peugeot-plant-attack.html https://jalopnik.com/the-inventor-of-the-rotary-engine-was-a-nazi-nutjob-1030379772 https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/henryford-antisemitism/ https://voxeu.org/article/nazi-pork-and-popularity-how-hitler-s-roads-won-german-hearts-and-minds https://www.webuildvalue.com/en/infrastructure-news/first-italian-motorway.html
In #Afghanistan, "...as internal U.S. government documents show, the United States enabled a kleptocratic state rife with corruption." https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-corruption-government/
Anyone whose paid attention to #Afghanistan over two decades knew the gov would collapse like a house of cards, it is corrupt from top to bottom. Kudos to #Biden for finally ending the charade. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/15/a-tale-of-two-armies-why-afghan-forces-proved-no-match-for-the-taliban
In countries from the UK to Indonesia, it will be easy for governments to ask Apple to expand their message-scanning program—and hard for Apple to say no. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/if-you-build-it-they-will-come-apple-has-opened-backdoor-increased-surveillance
Even if you think the #Taliban is bad does not mean that the war in #Afghanistan makes any sense. We are finally now seeing the truth: that 20 year long war was built on willful fiction https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/14/afghanistan-taliban-us-troops
https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2021/08/07/Apps-Get-Worse is worth reading, though its a bit ranty. The core idea he's talking about is one that it is rarely taught yet is really valuable to learn: sometimes the best choice is to not change something.
#helloSystem sounds like it is taking the right approach on building a coherent operating system. Consistency, interaction, and minimalism means the OS gets out of the way of the user https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/16/hellosystem_maclike_freebsd_project_05/
Building a bunch of wind and solar is not proven to cool the #climate, it could backfire. Reducing consumption is proven: Eat a lot less meat! Get rid of your cars! Yes, also electric cars. Ride the train! Take mass transit! https://www.sciencenews.org/article/how-wind-power-could-contribute-warming-climate
Sometimes the best tech is low tech. Cash leaves no digital footprints, unlike credit cards. So we’ve teamed up with dozens of groups to urge Congress to require stores to take cash. https://www.eff.org/document/2021-08-05-group-support-2021-payment-choice-act
"Es ist nicht lustig, wenn plötzlich Maskierte mit Sturmgewehren in den Kinderzimmern stehen" - 9 von 60 Hausdurchsuchungen sind rechtswidrig. https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000128650481/gericht-erklaert-razzien-gegen-muslimbrueder-teilweise-fuer-rechtswidrig
#CalyxOS is leading the charge to deliver a truly #private mobile device, it is also #FreeSoftware. Since it is based on #AOSP, you can port it to lots of devices, even if they do not support a locked bootloader.
It is exciting to see #Amazon's #Drone delivery program collapsing, I hope this is the end of this idea. It would really have a horrible impact on so many aspects of daily life. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/amazon-drone-delivery-prime-air
Hosting code with automated publishing into well known namespaces is looking more and more like a broken model. A better approach is human verification of package names like in #Debian, @fdroidorg, #MavenCentral. Then other pieces can be safely automated https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/critical-cloudflare-cdn-flaw-allowed-compromise-of-12-percent-of-all-sites/
I'd love to see data on what verified boot actually stops. The ideal malware implants itself at the lowest level possible. Is there good public data on these kinds of exploits on #Android #Debian #Windows #iOS etc? Does standard spyware do that? Writing to /system requires a root exploit, lots of malware never gets root. How often there are vulns in #VerifiedBoot itself. Here's a real world full #exploit of verified boot:
https://threatpost.com/multiple-vulnerabilities-found-in-nvidia-qualcomm-huawei-bootloaders/127833/
#Debian created an ecosystem where the software available there is reviewed and trusted, so the system can prioritize flexibility over security. In #Google Play, there are many apps we feel forced to use, despite knowing they are unethical or are tracking us. Google responds by locking down #Android to reduce data leaks, which also reduces the system's flexibility. #FreeSoftware puts the user in control so we can build user-friendly systems without being forced into bad decisions.
Dark Patterns are unethical by design, aimed at tricking you into giving away your data, and ultimately stealing your freedom to choose privacy.
Can you spot one when you see one? Take this quiz from @alfredwkng & @sammorrisdesign to find out: https://themarkup.org/2021/06/03/dark-patterns-that-mislead-consumers-are-all-over-the-internet
Original tweet : https://twitter.com/DuckDuckGo/status/1411682966099607555
Torsten Grote explored Free Software alternatives for smartphones as early as 2012. ⭐
In our interview we look back at the start of Free Your Android campaign.
Of course, we asked @grote@status.grobox.de which options are available for liberating our phones today.
The interview was conducted in the context of celebrating 20 Years of the FSFE 🙂 #FSFE20
Does anyone know how to query the system for information about Trichrome Libraries https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src.git/+/refs/heads/main/docs/android_native_libraries.md#Trichrome? They seem to be installed as APKs, but the regular way of querying for app metadata does not work. For example, is there a separate concept of "Version Code" for Trichrome libraries?