@drwho Not necessarily. In the short term, the huge split in the Republican party means that the NDAA's already not a slam-dunk, so throwing gasoline on the fire with FISA activism could potentially have an impact. It also adds to pressure on Speaker Johnson, who's under a lot of fire from Republicans for how badly he's handled this mess.
And even if they do the short-term reauth (which I agree is more likely than not), it's still very much an open question as to what happens next -- it could be anything from GSRA or PLEWSA (with significant reforms) to a straightforward longer-term reauth with minimal reforms as a "compromise" to the odious FFRA (which broadens the scope). So pressure now is also a preparation for the next battle.
Empathy, as always, is the real problem with the GOP. They are perfectly fine when it’s immigrants, liberals, gays, brown people, etc that suffer these laws. When angry white people get affected, then they are suddenly sad about it and suddenly were the whole time.
The bill is H.R. 6570, the Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act, sponsored by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ). It has a lot of similarities to the bipartisan Government Surveillance Reform Act (where Wyden and Sen. Mike Lee are the Senate sponsors). But there are other bills potentially moving forward as well.... (1/3)
#YouTube is making the watching experience worse on #Firefox and Microsoft Edge.
I didn't believe it the first time I heard abt it, since it sounded more like a conspiracy theory than a actual thing, but it's true. Google does add 5s timeout specifically to Firefox and Edge users when they try to watch a video on YT. If you want to know more about it, Mental Outlaw make a very good video abt it (Link: https://youtu.be/v4gXhmzQztE ). I think Google did this, to get people moving to Chrome since the majority will think this is a browser issue, nobody would expect YouTube to purposely doing this. In the attached Screenshot you can see that YouTube checks the user agent of browsers to see if it's Edge, Firefox or not. You can bypass this by changing your User agent to chrome.
Edit: Due a lot of people saying a lot of different things abt it, I want to say that I'm not 100% sure abt how exactly this works, there is a inbuild delay by Google, but who is actually affected, there are a lot of different opinions abt it. I wasn't able to verify this myself in LibreWolf, but this could be the case due my intensive hardening I did and this is just a result of what I found in the code and what Mental Outlaw and others shared across social media, if you got different or additional infos abt this feel free to comment and I suggest everyone ti also check the comment section.
It would be a lot more conclusive if you could find somewhere the isGecko function is being used in association with a delay though, there are other things they could use it for.
"[GNU/]Linux is thought to be secure primarily because of its source model, popular usage in servers, small userbase and confusion about its security features. This article is intended to debunk these misunderstandings".
Based on this, one should try to do as much as possible on a GrapheneOS device
Yes agree on that. Linux needs more standardization.
It is big problem, because it lacks the structure somehow. If there is easy tooling for app development, as Flatpaks with all the modern security practices (safe language, portals, modern GUI, Wayland, Accessibility APIs) then developers could easily follow these rules and create good apps more easily.
Currently app development is not easy and thus also very random.
Good news! Brave for Android now let's u use your favorite uBlock Origin Blocklists!
Under Settings > Brave Shields & privacy
Can you now add custom filterlists and edit Brave's default selection of the already avaible filterlists. Some of you now that this was possible before too (via brave://adblock) but at this time it had no UI and wasn't a official feature, now you can easily add, remove and customize fiterlists via the the settings.
I disagree that you are inherently in a worse position simply because you dont know enough to take a peek at the code or harden things. I think that again, simply being such a massive project linux gives a trickle down effect to normal users. Even as a normie, you are safer on linux than on windows, full stop. As for github scripts, thats an entirely different subject because yes, open source CAN be dangerous still (just like proprietary can).
A article about if Ecosia is really a private search engine.
I did spend a lot a time to analyze and investigate Ecosia, I hope this article helps people to better understand how private is Ecosia really and which are the downsides of it. Is the first article I ever written, so it isn't perfect. I'm open for feedback!
I heard of this methode of Tracking before, but never knew that this was it's name, anyway. As I searched for it, I found this article from Brave which gives a very easy to understand explanation of Bounce Tracking, I recommend reading it.
@NightAuthor Skip Redirect can do this, but it often cause also some kind of breakage, Brave has it inbuild so no need there and not sure if Firefox has in it's config some protection for this
"Gizmodo observed the College Board’s website sharing data with Facebook and TikTok when a user fills in information about their GPA and SAT scores. When this reporter used the College Board’s search filtering tools to find colleges that might accept a student with a C+ grade-point average and a SAT score of 420 out of 1600, the site let the social media companies know. Whether a student is acing their tests or struggling, Facebook and TikTok get the details.
The College Board shares this data via “pixels,” invisible tracking technology used to facilitate targeted advertising on platforms such as Facebook and TikTok. The data is shared along with unique user IDs to identify the students, along with other information about how you use the College Board’s site. Tok, and a variety of companies."
Tired (if also dystopian): Having to provide encryption keys to the UK Government when it updates it's Investigatory Powers Act
Wired: Mandating that all encryption keys include the name of a UK Government minister, a description of a sex act, and at least one animal (or other UK Government minister)
"Among other things, [the UK Government] want to be able to prevent companies from providing important security updates and ensure these powers would have a global effect." from @privacy
Excuse me, for just a moment, BUT WHAT THE ABSOLUTE F*ING F?? 🤣
my point has nothing to do with either phone or computer. My point is that when a governement wants to pass a law that will reduce personnal freedom, there is very little you or me can do to prevent it. Examples abunds.
feel free to point me to counter-examples.
I wrote this blog post to inform the people I know who aren't as tech savvy or otherwise don't put any thought into their choice of browser. Another goal is to help get enough awareness on the topic and make sure it fails.
Best Linux Distro Privacy/Usability for a mid level user
What do you think is the best linux distro for a user who wants to migrate from windows in terms of privacy, usability and respect for the FOSS spirit?
#Elementary has a very opinionated design and includes some defaults that would be desireable for pretty much absolutely nobody - the most prominent of them being that it only lists apps from its own store, which is almost empty, and then gives warnings to users to try and discourage them from going to a place like FlatHub for the software that they will no doubt need. There is a tone about the OS in its design and especially its language in dialogs that may make people feel like they are the ones who are "wrong" if they do not wish to stick with these defaults - I think that's what really rubs so many people the wrong way, and a brand-new user that doesn't know much about Linux would just be completely lost.
It also has no direct upgrade paths for major new versions, and they do their own apps and DE which is great, but they are also under-resourced and so the experience can be a bit glitchy sometimes.
You mention being a mid-level user though, so I think you'd be fine with it, if you like the look of it. In terms of privacy, usability and respect for the FOSS spirit, I think Elementary and its Pantheon desktop environment is fantastic, and I believe it's actually worth trying to adapt to its way of doing things. I use it and love it.
For someone brand new to Linux that just wants to get up and running quickly and get work done, I'd highly recommend #ZorinOS instead. It's very much a counter-point in philosophy to Elementary OS and gives a vibe of: "You do things however you're used to, I just want to make it as easy for you as possible."
@ianmclean@FarLine99@privacy
thanks for your comments. I've already decided to install #LinuxMint. Actually I've been using it for around a month and I'm very satisfied. Currently I almost don't use windows.