Guardian Project @guardianproject@librem.one

This week in F-Droid (TWIF) was published again.

Our highlight this week:

F-Droid and F-Droid Basic were updated to the stable version 1.19.0. It brings automatic background updates and a new and better workflow for adding repositories. Please note: this version is not yet the suggested version, so you need to enable beta updates, if you don't want to wait any longer.

Also we talk about notable updates oft some apps and the ongoing spring cleaning.

https://f-droid.org/2024/02/01/twif.html
#FDroid

Do you share F-Droid repos with the NFC feature in our client app?

Background: the support for Android NFC Beam was removed in Android 14, so we probably have to remove this feature in the future. We want to know if anybody is impacted by this.

#FDroid

Hello #FOSDEM, this guy, Alberto Marti, announced 3bn euros for this open source European cloud project with an explicit focus on interoperability.That’s more than 2x the funding announced here back in December. Is there a link online for more info?

Did the other 2bn come from private sector investors?

https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/ipcei-next-generation-cloud-infrastructure-and-services-boost-europes-digital-decade

After #FOSDEM my current understanding of how #EU #CRA and #PLD affects #FDroid and anyone who contributes to it:

* F-Droid org makes the "product" so it would be liable
* F-Droid is currently entirely non-commercial, handles no money
* Volunteer contributors are very clearly exempt from all this
* Donation funded contributions are also exempt
* Contracted contributors are helping build the regulated product, so the legal entities of the contractors would not be liable for F-Droid's "product"

#FOSDEM 2024 will be happening in a bit more than 1 week in Brussels!

Catch my talk "From phone hardware to mobile Linux" on Saturday morning or "Open Source for Sustainable and Long lasting Phones" (together with @agnes007 in the big Janson room!) on Sunday afternoon!

Or come by the postmarketOS (+friends) stand in the AW building!

I hope to see you there!

Links:

https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-2234-from-phone-hardware-to-mobile-linux/
https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-3362-open-source-for-sustainable-and-long-lasting-phones/
https://fosdem.org/2024/stands/

This week in F-Droid (TWIF) was published again.

We have a lot of information in it, so jump right in: https://f-droid.org/2024/01/25/twif.html

In short:

- FOSDEM is around the corner.
- We specifically talk about the following apps: Money Manager Ex, Open Video Editor, Tachiyomi, Fossify Phone, KOReader, OnionShare, Organic Maps and OsmAnd~.
- The spring-cleaning of our repo is underway, and we have found some proprietary dependencies. The affected versions were removed.

#FDroid

VICTORY! Ring has announced it will no longer facilitate warrantless police requests for footage to Ring’s users. This comes after years of sustained pressure from EFF and other civil liberties and privacy advocates. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/01/ring-announces-it-will-no-longer-facilitate-police-requests-footage-users

Nächste Woche geht es wieder los: Ihr könnt euch mit euer #OpenSource-Software-Idee bei uns bewerben. Es warten 47.500€, Coachings sowie Vernetzungs- und Bildungsangebote auf euch!
Alle Infos:
prototypefund.de

Court ruling rejects spyware vendor’s motion to dismiss lawsuit filed by Apple. Judge says anti-hacking laws fits #Pegasus case „to a T“. #NSOGroup will fight on https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/24/us_judge_rejects_pegasus_spyware/ #Staatstrojaner

“Ring hopefully will altogether be out of the business of platforming casual and warrantless police requests for footage to its users,” EFF’s Matthew Guariglia told @verge though we remain "deeply skeptical" about how police and Ring will cooperate.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/24/24049165/ring-police-neighbors-app-clips-search-warrant

Fun fact: it's data privacy week 🔒 so here are some of our favorite extensions for a safer online experience.

1. Multi-account containers! cookies are separated by container, so you can use multiple accounts at the same time.

2. Privacy badger: this extension automatically blocks invisible trackers and opts you out of data sharing & selling.

3. History cleaner: this deletes browsing history older than a specified number of days 👀

Which ones are you currently using?

We have defined a secure and usable architecture for decentralized package repositories that any mobile user can use and understand possible risks.

The next official release of the official F-Droid client will widely deploy this to our users. We then plan to make a final architecture document, so others can understand the whole model.

We would love any kind of feedback, our drafts are here: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/wiki/-/wikis/Repository-Management-Overhaul#architecture-and-ux-considerations

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