As an Indian, I know protesting against this bill is the best we can do but it seems like most of the people in country arent aware about this or simply dont care, this is disastorous!!
I wouldn’t doubt that it is, and we just don’t know about it.
The NSA (CIA?, well Fed assholes) installed surveillance gear in Verizon data centers in the 90’s so they could listen to any phone call or read any text message. It was reported about 1996ish.
Never heard that it was removed, or if they were in other telecom systems.
So yea, my guess is it’s already there. Even worse, people in the right positions are probably controllable (again, good old CIA/NSA at work, thanks Hoover, ya jackass). Don’t need a law or specialized gear when the right people are already compromised.
Just read up on why Bill Gates even got an audience with IBM…
I don’t like so called smartphones (flashy devices to mine your data and other reasons) but my regular no touchscreen phone’s microphone is no longer working as it should, making conversations difficult....
A normal phone doesn’t have AGPS download ephemeris (edit:they may today, I haven’t looked into it for a while), doesn’t have Google Services tracking everything, or third party apps phoning home.
I’d say by default a smartphone is way worse, it has fsr more data collection by default, even without an account. Every data point a feature phone has, a smartphone has, plus more.
Voice calls and SMS use the exact same infrastructure in exactly the same way on both types of phones.
But it can be mitigated quite a bit on Android by not using an account on it, disabling GPS, wifi, Bluetooth.
They could also debloat it to reduce some of the background nonsense (Universal Android Debloat has a “safe to disable” list). (I’m assuming it’s not an unlocked Pixel or a phone that’s on the Lineage list).
If they don’t care about apps, I’d even add NoRoot Firewall, configure it for always on, and set it to block all network access by default. This would be a Global Pre-Filter using asterisk (*) for both the address and port fields with both Wifi and Cell boxes checked (system apps will still have network access, this only affects users apps on a non-rooted phone).
Other than root or flashing a custom OS (like Lineage or Divest, Graphene if they were lucky enough to get an unlocked Pixel), this is about the best that can be done.
If you can’t get a Pixel, look for a phone on the DivestOS list (or the Lineage list, it can be way better than stock Android since it lacks Google anything).
DivestOS is Lineage, with some more work done, kind of between Lineage and Graphene. I really like it, actually prefer it over Graphene for my use-case (it can run MicroG as a user app in a work profile, so kind of a stepping stone for getting away from Google).
You can setup Android without a user account. I’m not sure about iPhone, I don’t believe that’s an option in the setup process (but it’s been a while, since I set mine up).
They can do so with a smartphone too, they both use the same cellular network, so same voice calls, same plain-text text messages (SMS is a feature of the cellular network management, messages are injected into the cell management frames).
Even worse, smartphones use AGPS, so download from AGPS servers (providing another point of location data) and using that ephemeris data to improve location update times.
The smallest camera I can pocket weighs 5x my phone, is about 10x thicker.
GPS, same.
Mp3 player, about the same as my phone.
Computer/web browser? Well, nothing is as small as a phone.
I get all that in a single device with a phone weighing 8oz, measuring 6"x3"x3/8".
Separate devices is better if your use-cases for them have strong independence (e.g. Only use GPS in the car/on motorcycle, only use a camera when doing dedicated photo shoots, etc). If anything I’d say multiple devices is less convenient even then, it’s just that those devices work better for those use-cases, making the tradeoff of less convenient worthwhile. I’d much rather use a dedicated camera sometimes (and do), when I’m taking lots of pics and want to go faster.
But for most people, these activities are strongly related, and occur throughout their day. It would be far less convenient to carry multiple devices and have to pull them out and handle for these activities.
Google and hardware manufacturers aren’t motivated to make open devices. Quite the opposite, really.
They learned their lesson from the BIOS wars of the 80’s that resulted in standardized hardware interface, so any compliant OS could be installed. This is what gave MS the ability to beat IBM at their own game, and prevented strong DRM.
Phones don’t have a standardized BIOS like that, so each brand requires drivers built specifically for it (also a bit of a result of using Linux as the base, since it’s a monolithic OS). Without those drivers you can’t install an OS, and each device is different.
Google and friends like it this way, their long-term goal is fully locked down phones that you don’t control and can’t modify, so they can fully implement DRM.
From a privacy standpoint, i guess. I want to support open scrobbling with listenbrainz and the account isn’t directly linked to a real acc. Why shouldn’t I/ why don’t you?
Sure. They won’t be able to access the data itself, but they’ll have already used the data as it was being generated to add metrics to your profile. So they don’t need it anymore if it’s already been utilized.
Liars always find a way to phrase things to misdirect.
These TVs can capture and identify 7,200 images per hour, or approximately two every second. The data is then used for content recommendations and ad targeting, which is a huge business; advertisers spent an estimated $18.6 billion on smart TV ads in 2022, according to market research firm eMarketer.
It supports both links and embeds and is available on firefox for android. List of sites is on github. I’m the main developer so you can ask questions.
These companies learned their lesson with the open BIOS of pc’s preventing them from really controlling DRM.
Android, not having a standardized BIOS, really gives them the opportunity to provide devices they can fully control.
If you can’t unlock boot, you can’t root, so you can’t fully control the device.
That’s the long-term goal: get people used to devices they don’t actually control.
Lots of people already don’t know the massive difference between using a full desktop app and a limited mobile app, many actually prefer the mobile because it’s simpler! (I admit I do too, for certain use cases and maybe day-to-day use, but not for all use).
And then all the people who argue against having root access on your own device. 🤦♂️
There are good arguments for much of what Google does to improve Android security, it’s just very frustrating to know their real agenda is to lock us out.
Fortunately, businesses will always need MDM (Mobile Device Management), which will require root access in some fashion, and there are already Open Source/low cost/free versions of MDM out there, and plenty of smart devs always working on root, like Magisk by topjohnwu and the new KernelSU by tiann (which gets root at the kernel level!)
Though I’ve become a fan of DivestOS recently because they enable you to run Google Services (well, MicroG) as a user app, so it doesn’t have system permissions. Makes a good stepping stone to help my friends and family move away from Google.
Check out www.gsmarena.com and www.phonearena.com to find phones that meet your requirements. Their search tools are impressive. You can filter by all sorts of attributes.
Just looked, their smallest phone (Zenphone 9,if my search is worth anything) is slightly larger than a Pixel 5, (to be fair it’s narrower and thinner, which can make a big difference, especially being narrower).
Granted the Pixel is 2 years older, but I’d bet that running Lineage very few people would know. I run a 2017 phone that with Lineage is faster than any phone in my circle. It’s rather shocking to see the difference a leaner OS combined with some optimization can make (some kernel tweaks make it responsive while improving battery life over stock settings).
The Pixel is just under half the price of the Z9.
I keep trying to find a better phone than the Pixel, (smaller, more battery, more ram, something), but it’s really hard to beat. Then again, my requirements aren’t everyone’s: camera just has to work, I prefer plastic over “nice” materials, don’t need SD card, etc.
If I could run Android on iPhone hardware, an iPhone 6 would be awesome. Edit: wow the 13 mini is smaller than the six. Even better!
I’m not the best person to ask, but I think the difference is where each obtains root perms.
Magisk gets root by modifying the boot image, while KernelSU modifies the Linux Kernel. I think being in the kernel it’ll be harder to detect and it’ll be more stable, protected from system updates.
Plus the kernel is more constant across devices, it really doesn’t change much from what I understand. My boot image is different per version of Android, but I think the kernel doesn’t change.
Most Android updates take place in what I’d call the Android Subsystem, since it’s really a shell on top of Linux.
That’s what I’ve been able to glean so far, but I’m no developer.
I’ve been a privacy advocate for 20+ years, and people kept calling me paranoid. I may be, but (as my hillbilly uncle would say), “ya gotta look at who’s ox is gettin’ gored” (kind of a redneck version of no such thing as a free lunch).
No one does something without an angle (that is businesses, and many people too).
I post about rooting and people reply with “you don’t need root, it’s a security risk”. Right, because all the Linux and windows boxes I’ve touched over the years, with root access, are insecure 🤦♂️.
This is my phone. Not Google’s, nor anyone else’s.
Too many people are content viewing anything as complex as a toaster as magic. They just want the results.
I keep telling them that security isn’t one thing, it’s layers.
There are many unrooted phones that have had malware installed courtesy of the Play store… I’ve never had any, and none of my pc’s since about 1990 have never had a virus.
I honestly feel defeated right now, it feels like currently it’s impossible to truly stay private online unless one is willing to move to a cabin in the woods with no internet and you stop using tech all together and truly become a ghost and stay offline. Can someone help me feel like everything I am currently doing is...
It’s interesting to me to see articles about this now, when the first rewards card I saw (every bit of 20 years ago) it was obvious why they would give you such steep discounts for using nothing more than a free card.
Pretty much it’s the Beeper devs and one other. But the initial setups were really nothing more than using a Mac on the backend with a an adapter to Android.
Beeper and one (maybe two) other were pretty effective at it.
Beeper Mini is a different thing altogether. It uses a service to translate ANP (Apple Notification Protocol?) to GCM (Google Cloud Messaging), which are the respective notification handlers.
The Android client is able to comm directly with iMessage servers, unlike the original Beeper and the other ones.
The FBI investigated a man who allegedly posed as a police officer in emails and phone calls to trick Verizon to hand over phone data belonging to a specific person...
For Molly, I kept seeing this popup by Google when downloading Molly FOSS from fdroid.
Should I be concerned? What should I do to ensure I am downloading Molly from a trusted source if Fdroid isn't an ideal place (due to misleading names as depicted in the referenced post)?
This BS is one of the last straws pushing me away from Google.
Running DivestOS, you can install MicroG as a user app in a secondary profile. So it runs only when you want it to. You can install play store there too, and again it only runs when you want it to.
That should limit this nonsense until I can replace my paid for apps with something else.
Shut up Google. Most malware comes from the play store.
My main browser is Librewolf but I keep a chromium browser just in case. Previously used brave but their flatpak is shit. Ungoogled chromium seems ok but it looks like they don’t change much from upstream chromium. Any good chromium browsers which harden their browsers like librewolf does for more privacy?
I can send them fine on Verizon SMS, from Android to Apple. Apple decided that sending via SMS, regardless of carrier limit, they get wrecked. When I send the same video back to Android from my iPhone, the video is shit.
I’ve tested this repeatedly across carriers. Since Verizon doesn’t seem to have an MMS size limit, it makes it pretty clear what’s going on.
Telecom Bill allows Centre to take over, suspend services over ‘national security’ (www.indiatoday.in)
As an Indian, I know protesting against this bill is the best we can do but it seems like most of the people in country arent aware about this or simply dont care, this is disastorous!!
US lawmakers push DOJ to investigate Apple following Beeper shutdowns - The Verge (www.theverge.com)
Question about phones: Am I overreacting?
I don’t like so called smartphones (flashy devices to mine your data and other reasons) but my regular no touchscreen phone’s microphone is no longer working as it should, making conversations difficult....
9to5Google: iMessage for Android doesn't matter, just use good apps (9to5google.com)
why don't you guys scrobble?
From a privacy standpoint, i guess. I want to support open scrobbling with listenbrainz and the account isn’t directly linked to a real acc. Why shouldn’t I/ why don’t you?
Google Just Killed Warrants That Give Police Access To Location Data (www.forbes.com)
Are there any good FOSS time tracking tools can that periodically take snapshots of your screen? (kbin.social)
This is a feature of manictime that I find incredibly useful, I'd love to know if anyone is familiar with a FOSS tool that has similar functionality.
Blocking app access to the internet
Question for the group on a problem I’m trying to solve: How can I block internet access for some apps on standard, OOTB Android?...
Are there any good privacy friendly keyboards for android?
I’ve looked at a few on fdroid and they all seem like they aren’t being maintained anymore....
Switched my Parents to Linux
I’m visiting my parents for the holidays and convinced them to let me switch them to Linux....
Beeper Mini’s iMessage fight with Apple is about platforms, protocols, and power - The Verge (www.theverge.com)
Google will store Location History, Maps Timeline on your device (9to5google.com)
Your Smart TV Knows What You’re Watching (themarkup.org)
These TVs can capture and identify 7,200 images per hour, or approximately two every second. The data is then used for content recommendations and ad targeting, which is a huge business; advertisers spent an estimated $18.6 billion on smart TV ads in 2022, according to market research firm eMarketer.
Predirect: A manifest v3 web extension with minimal permissions to automatically redirect popular sites to privacy friendly frontends (github.com)
It supports both links and embeds and is available on firefox for android. List of sites is on github. I’m the main developer so you can ask questions.
Android is preparing to add built-in protection against phishing (www.androidpolice.com)
This is why your phone doesn't have a matte display - GSMArena.com news (www.gsmarena.com)
QR codes can be phishing scams in disguise, warns the FTC - The Verge (www.theverge.com)
Sharing The Verge link due to context provided and NYT paywall.
Why Even Your Local Grocery Store Wants Your Digital Data (www.youtube.com)
I honestly feel defeated right now, it feels like currently it’s impossible to truly stay private online unless one is willing to move to a cabin in the woods with no internet and you stop using tech all together and truly become a ghost and stay offline. Can someone help me feel like everything I am currently doing is...
Apple responds to the Beeper iMessage saga: ‘We took steps to protect our users’ (www.theverge.com)
YouTube adds tracking parameters to shared URLs that can be traced back to individual Google accounts (nitter.net) German
Verizon Gave Phone Data to Armed Stalker Who Posed as Cop Over Email (www.404media.co)
The FBI investigated a man who allegedly posed as a police officer in emails and phone calls to trick Verizon to hand over phone data belonging to a specific person...
Why Don't More Smartphones Have This? - YouTube (youtube.com)
Hear me out… Would this be a good idea for the Pixel Tablet/Hub?
iQOO 12 Review: At $650, The Best Value Phone of 2023 (www.youtube.com)
Librewolf but like... for chromium?
My main browser is Librewolf but I keep a chromium browser just in case. Previously used brave but their flatpak is shit. Ungoogled chromium seems ok but it looks like they don’t change much from upstream chromium. Any good chromium browsers which harden their browsers like librewolf does for more privacy?
French government recommends against using foreign chat apps (www.bleepingcomputer.com)
There’s a new iMessage for Android app — and it actually works (www.theverge.com)
Firefox is close to not beeing supported by US government's websites (www.brycewray.com)
Beeper Mini brings iMessage to Android - The Verge (www.theverge.com)
Note: this is a paid subscription service with a 7-day trial. $1.99 USD/mo.