Notices by evacide (evacide@hachyderm.io)

A lot of people who are not experts in domestic abuse think they're making a clever point by informing me that if an abuser has physical access & login credentials, the game's already over.

I am very tired and do not have the energy to explain why making spying easier for abusers is bad, actually.

"...a would-be hacker would need to gain physical access to your device, unlock it and sign in before they could access saved screenshots."

I've got some news for Microsoft about how domestic abuse works.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwwqp6nx14o

This is your regular reminder that most communications on Telegram are not end-to-end encrypted. Channels and groups are never end-to-end encrypted and 1-on-1 messages are only end-to-end when explicitly enabled.

I will be at the Computer History Museum on May 16th, talking about digital privacy, security, and Big Data with the folks from PBS' NOVA.

https://computerhistory.org/events/nova-secrets-in-your-data

Did I mention that the data broker industry must be destroyed? Because yeah.

Signal has finally introduced usernames so you can use it without giving out your phone number. This is the number one feature I have seen prevent people from using Signal for many years and I’m happy it’s here!

https://signal.org/blog/phone-number-privacy-usernames/

If you live in San Francisco, please vote in March and vote NO on Prop E: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/01/san-francisco-vote-no-proposition-e-stop-police-testing-dangerous-surveillance

Oh look, it's another company that's very excited about building the Torment Nexus: https://www.404media.co/cmg-cox-media-actually-listening-to-phones-smartspeakers-for-ads-marketing/

Heads up to folks in the US seeking abortions or gender-affirming care in an increasingly criminalized environment: pharmacies share medical data with police without a warrant because of course they do.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/12/pharmacy-records-police-privacy-abortion/

Have you recently broken up with an abusive partner? Do you need a guide to locking down your digital life afterwards? Refuge has an interactive guide for that:

https://refugetechsafety.org/digitalbreakup/

If you have a Macbook Pro and you need to record video, what webcam would you recommend using? Everything I've read pushes Logitech webcams, but once you upgrade to Ventura, everything goes to shit.

Please do not reply with anything that will make me regret asking a technical question on Mastodon.

From a data privacy perspective, cars are just cell phones on wheels now and I hate it so much.

If you have a uterus and you live in the UK, it's time to update your threat model to include police testing you for the presence of abortion meds and requesting data from period-tracking apps: https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2023/10/30/british-police-testing-women-for-abortion-drugs/

It is tempting to dismiss that manifesto as incoherent and self-serving, but it is important to remember that this it is also a list of beliefs the founders of tech companies will need to recite if they want investment money from that guy and his friends.

If you're mad at EFF for making it possible to use Chrome with less tracking instead of yelling at people to use a different browser, then I assume you have never heard of harm reduction. Giving people digital privacy and security advice means meeting people where they're at. Otherwise, you're just running your mouth to make yourself feel smart.

I appreciate that infosec Twitter moved pretty effectively over to Mastodon, but woo boy is this not the place to go when I want useful updates when a war breaks out.

The story of why Elon Musk fired most of the election integrity team after saying he would expand it is stupider than I even imagined. The team's manager liked a tweet calling Elon a dipshit.

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/09/28/elon-fires-half-of-extwitters-election-integrity-team-because-a-manager-liked-a-tweet-calling-him-a-fucking-dipshit/

If you think the US needs to ban TikTok because the Chinese government can run influence ops on it, just wait until you find out how easy it is to influence ops on platforms YOU DON'T EVEN OWN--even wholesome American platforms like our beloved Facebook.

@malwaretech There are genuine security concerns for, say, journalists or Chinese activists living abroad or even people who work for the US government, but a blanket ban just on TikTok is just some incoherent xenophobic bullshit.

I'm not writing an entire blog post about how stupid a US TikTok ban would be because this is all that needs to be said:

If the Chinese government is in your threat model, don’t install TikTok on your device. Otherwise, your actual problem is surveillance capitalism.