Guardian Project @guardianproject@librem.one

Its cool to see more and more apps using #MabLibre. It used to be so many apps just used #Google for maps and then just failed on #GoogleFree devices. For example, I just downloaded a city's bike sharing app made by a mega corp, and it uses MabLibre so works fine without Play Services. My experience used to be that all the navigation apps required Google.

Large corporations like the hate on the #GPL even though it has brought them big benefits. #Linux would be nowhere near what it is without the GPL. I always saw #Google's #Fuchsia kernel as their effort to get out of the GPL, since it would replace the Linux kernel. There was even media hype to that effect. Now I'm happy to see that Google is no longer supporting #Chrome on Fuchsia. I see this as a win for #FreeSoftware

https://9to5google.com/2024/01/15/google-is-no-longer-bringing-the-full-chrome-browser-to-fuchsia/

I recently got my Shift6mq from @shiftphones back from repairs, and the power issues I was experimenting before seem to be gone. What is remarkable, however, is that I had unlocked the bootloader, installed postmarketOS on it, and opened it for some hacking... But Shift did still consider the phone under warranty and repaired it for free 🤯️ They certainly stated when contacted that installing postmarketOS does **NOT** void the warranty. This is just absolutely incredible, and trully worth the extra money (when one has it...) that is required to support a small company like Shift.

#postmarketos #linuxmobile #Shift6mq

In addition, dealing with the support was an extremely professional experience. Clear instructions, good communication, well-set expectation from the beginning (like estimate on repair time), and met deadlines. Certainly much better than I've experienced with other small HW companies...

The @NGIZero consortium, of which the #FSFE is a partner, has just unveiled the #NGI0 Commons Fund! 🏦

Are you developing any #FreeSoftware tech improving the Internet❓

This fund is for you! It will award 21.6 million euro 💶 to small and medium R&D projects developing #FreeSoftware technologies.

Learn more here:

https://fsfe.org/news/2024/news-20240117-01.html

#SoftwareFreedom

Persistent surveillance sold as a cure for loneliness (alienation, isolation, etc) is, IMO, one of the central marketing narratives of the surveillance business model.

But it's rarely put as plainly as this!

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/sam-altman-openai-protected-by-silicon-valley-friends-f3efcf68?st=fqvjf26wqvek9fx&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

AI or not, being monitored and managed by algorithms at work can be harmful.

It can lead to:
🦅 excessive collection of personal data
👎 discrimination
😩 harms to mental health

New rules are needed for these new threats. Transparency, accountability, fairness and mutual respect are key.

But companies can, and should, engage with workers and their representatives to put in place better practices already without waiting to be told to do so.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/07/artificial-intelligence-surveillance-workers

Happy New Year from the @ReproBuilds
folks! Here's a somewhat belated report from what we got up to during December.

https://reproducible-builds.org/reports/2023-12/

cc. @debian @conservancy @zacchiro etc.

The US #Supremecourt has declined #Twitter's legal challenge to publicly disclose national security subpoenas. 👨‍⚖️

At Tuta, we pride ourselves on #privacy and #transparency. Our warrant #canary is live and regularly updated. This is one reason among many that keeping your data securely #encrypted within the EU has major privacy advantages over the US. 📣

You can check out our transparency report and live warrant canary here:
👉 https://tuta.com/blog/transparency-report

We are looking back on an intense but successful 2023 & starting the new year full of motivation. 🚀 This important work for fundamental rights in the digital age is only possible with broad support from civil society, and for that we say: Thank you! https://epicenter.works/en/content/from-austria-to-the-un-an-intense-year-2023

Did you know Privacy Badger replaces embedded tweets, video/audio players, and comments sections with "click to activate" placeholders?

Although potentially useful, these "widgets" often track your browsing. The tracking happens regardless of whether you interact with the widget. If you see a widget, the widget sees you back.

Privacy Badger blocks the widgets to protect your privacy, and replaces them with placeholders to put you in control.

Learn more at https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/01/privacy-badger-puts-you-control-widgets

Build your phone app on your phone https://f-droid.org/en/2024/01/11/twif.html

We invite you to our webinar on security audits tomorrow, Thursday January 11, at 13.00 CET.
Radically Open Security / @ros 's Melanie Rieback and Andrea Jegher will explain and demonstrate how security audits work.
ROS is the world’s first not-for-profit computer security consultancy company. As an NGI0 partner it offers security audits to all projects within the #NextGenerationInternet initiative.
The webinar is open to all and no need to register.
https://nlnet.nl/events/20240111/index.html

Hey! We've been thinking a lot about what's next for the postmarketOS project,
we have a lot of ideas, but we can't do it without your help. We've decided to
join OpenCollective, this makes it possible for us to be financially supported
by and beholden to you - our community.

If you like postmarketOS and want to help us continue on our quest of true
ownership, we would highly appreciate your donations!

More info here 👇

https://postmarketos.org/blog/2023/12/14/pmos-on-oc/

🎉 Best News Of The Year! 🎉

Google confirms they will disable uBlock Origin in Chrome in 2024: Finally everyone understands it's time to quit Google. 😎

Here are our favorite browser alternatives:
➡️ https://tuta.com/blog/best-private-browsers

Which one did you pick?

🦊 Firefox
🦆 DuckDuckGo
🕵️ Tor Browser
Mullvad
Pale Moon
Puffin
GNU IceCat
WaterFox
Brave
Hyphanet

Dropbox was caught enabling "Third-party AI" as an opt-out default to all user accounts.
Meanwhile users were deeply uninformed of the changes..

This is our new world: If your privacy matters, keep your data yours!

Our friends @arstechnica explore the debacle:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/12/dropbox-spooks-users-by-sending-data-to-openai-for-ai-search-features/

The jury in Epic v. Google has delivered its verdict — and it found that Google turned its Google Play app store and Google Play Billing service into an illegal monopoly.

https://www.theverge.com/23994174/epic-google-trial-jury-verdict-monopoly-google-play

Also need to address Apple’s monopoly too. https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/investigation-into-apple-appstore

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/es/ip_20_1073

1.2+ million downloads and a rating of 4.2 – a good indicator for a safe app in Google's #PlayStore? One should think so – until one takes a look at its #permissions (46, including access to quite personal data) and the number of KNOWN #trackers #ExodusPrivacy reports (28!!).

Just wow. Had to add that one to my app lists, as a warning example.

https://android.izzysoft.de/applists/category/named/office_contacts_callerid

Who Cares Who Delivers Our Notifications? https://wrily.foad.me.uk/who-cares-who-delivers-our-notifications

In addition, we strongly advise developers to encrypt their push notifications, recommending #WebPush (following RFC 8291, forget about this draft abandoned 7 years ago!) or to adopt a sync-on-push strategy (which is what Signal does).

@Mer__edith Here is one thing Signal could be doing that it is not: the Signal fork @mollyim has already implemented #UnifiedPush support, Signal can help there, or even integrate that work https://github.com/mollyim/mollysocket