https://i.imgur.com/Dtu5R0N.jpg

​

I saw this from their announcement.

Edit: Consensus seems to be that it is still encrypted.

``` So this post was removed and censored right away after posting it to /facebook yesterday.

I am looking for less official ways to discuss this topic, might be the most trending here. How do you get these companies to change their data privacy protocolls when government itself uses these data sets to manipulate votes / gives these companies special privilages to avoid accountability? ```

​

Hi everyone

I am trying to deactivate both my facebook and IG. I would like to go on from now only with chats instead of feeds, posts and stories.

However, i am not able to do so, when i am following instructions in meta/facebook help centre / ig centre then all is happening, is me getting redirected to infinite amount of "help material" which has nothing to do with my problem.

Not only that, but there is no support hotline or chat in case of unresolved issues, which are a lot.

My question is: How can this company and even the government who clearly deals with these companies for data afford to not have support when they are clearly collecting and making money with our data sets?

Furthermore, how is it possible that the content i upload is forever stored and kept in a database which i have no supervision over whatsoever?

Even if i sign an online data privacy document, i was 14 years old when i made facebook to be percieved cool in high school just like the other kids. Of course i cannot consent to my personal data being processed and kept for the rest of my life at that point.

It is also, just by the core thought, it is absurd to think, that by content i upload for others to see, i would also lose ownership of that. Its like someone collecting my spit and saying, now its their belonging, because its on their side of the neighborhood, but it contains my genetic structure and no one elses on this planet.

There are so many issues and i dont know where to go. Like how do you even appeal against predatory companies like this, when government itself doesnt care?

Even if i do deactivate my accounts which i still want to do, my data will be held and sold for higher bidders. I feel like it is time to take companies who collect and sell data and also those who buy them (everyone in facebook / google / social media ads) accountable, as this is clearly mass manipulation of costumer behaviour. We need more clear and strict guidelines and boundaries when it comes to people and individuals.

So i guess the real question is: How do you make a change in the legal system that deals with digital and data related issues? Is there like a proper field for this? And even if there is, how does it not work? I mean, there must be many more people like me concerned, who have probably already started a case legally, but there global companies can still get away with no support, no hotline and rediecting responsibility for personal matters.

So, as the title says, I've been wondering if it's still worth it to go gung-ho with this privacy stuff after years of being snooped on as a consequence of my youthful ignorance. I signed up for a lot of dumb shit over the years with Google and other Big Tech corps, and I'm pretty sure they've scraped enough data on me to digitize an AI simulacrum of me in the future.

The point is, is it still worth it to continue going? I'd like to gauge the communities thoughts on this, specifically from people who've been through this situation... because surely i'm not alone, right?!

Hello World! So I've been strugling with this for a quite while now, I live in a country where you must need to adress your ID in order to get a sim card or a number, which kinda ruins entire purpose - and yep you can't just convince someone to get a number for you since it's illegal and if you get caught you can get fined around 10k which is quite a lot for a collage brookie like me.So lets go through telegram/signal example. I need a phone number in order to sign up.But obviously I dont want to sign up with my daily public phone number (not because I'm doing something illegal , i just don't want to [you folks know this as much as I do]).So I've looked for websites that offered "privacy-respecting" services.But obviously, I wasn't satisfied since they provided little to no evdience and there wasn't a great source on internet that used their service and published a report on it.So yeah I'm looking for service that I can that is neither super expensive nor shady.Any advivce would be welcome,peace.Sorry for typos/grammaritical errors if theres any, english is not my mother tongue.

I use X and Instagram from time to time and can’t help but notice that Instagram basically knows everything I looked for, I chatted about etc.

How can I limit this on iPhone? I tried using the web app but it gets stuck all the time, Meta clearly limits the scrolling etc.

Of course I toggled off the Allows apps to track, I was thinking about subscribing to iCloud for the private relay feature but as far as I understand it would only apply into Safari…🤷🏻‍♂️

Any suggestions? Thanks

Basically the title, thanks in advance for any recommendations!

Hi all.

I'm planning to freeze my credit reports soon. In the interest of not opening additional accounts at Experian, Equifax, and Transunion, I was planning on calling them each individually to place the freeze. My question is:

Since they will need my social security number, what is the safest way to call them? Pardon me if this is a stupid question, but would using something like Skype or Whatsapp be better than my regular number on my service provider? When calling banks and making secure phone calls, what do you all do to maximize security?

Of course, I always elect for alternate verification methods when banks ask me for my SSN. Also, I already have signal for my calls with other signal users. Obviously I cannot call the bank on Signal, because they aren't registered Signal users.

Thanks.

From what I understand stopping the free easy access sites is not very difficult but scrubbing from sites like TLO, or that caliber is much harder. Additionally stopping sites like serious XM from running around with your info.

Any help would be appreciated.

Meta is evil. I don't think anyone here would dispute that.

But I also can't dispute how widely used their services are, and what a disadvantage it can present to me in some situations to not have any profile with their services.

(For example, people often share or view these socials with the idea that others who have widely visible and transparent profiles are safer/more marketable contacts, as opposed to a phone number with no background on the new friend. Is it entirely correct? No, but it is how things work to my experience.)

My understanding is that if I want to use these services yet stay privacy minded, I'd have to do something like remove Meta's apps entirely and access the web versions through a browser + obfuscated connection + an email not previously seen by Meta or used anywhere else.

Is this sufficient to keep Meta from gathering any data other than what I intentionally choose to feed them directly, or can even just loading the browser versions give them any substantial information?

Basically, I want to use these services with the lowest profile possible. How do I go about that? I've looked into Barinsta and Hermit browser, but I've read about account suspensions etc. with the first and don't know if the second would do what I intend for it to do.

I've been using Thunderbird for many years. However, lately, it's been struggling to fetch all my emails, taking quite a bit of time and resources. It's also occasionally unresponsive. I manage around 30 email accounts with 100k+ emails. I'm considering switching to eM Client. While I'm aware that their privacy policy is a bit messy and they are not open source, reliability is my top priority at this point. Is this a good idea?

I went to download the latest episodes and it looks like they have all been removed from SoundCloud. I missed out on the last two episodes (305 and 306) and am curious as to what solutions were discussed, particularly anything about anonymous U.S. cash debit cards and international Bitcoin cards. Did anyone happen to catch these episodes?

I'm planning to use VSCodium as my IDE. From the VSCode market place there are multiple extensions from Microsoft that I want to use (for example Python, C/C++, etc).

Microsoft themselves say that these extensions collect telemetery data by default, but that you can disable it using a setting they provide. Normally, I wouldn't trust it, but the thing is these extensions are actually FOSS. So, has anyone ever searched the code to confirm this? What is your opinion on this matter?

I have found myself in a bit of a pickle. I recently used Google Drive/Docs to organize my wedding planning. This folder was private to our parents all year until one parent accidentally opened it up to anyone with a link. He didn’t actually share the link with anyone except another parent.

The problem is that we shared out a couple public Google Docs to guests for random things. My question is: would guests be able to use one of these public docs to access the parent folder? I have done a bit of research and it seems like the answer is no. And that the link to the actual folder would need to be shared, butt I would love an expert’s opinion on it. Thanks!

Since so much of our information is tied to our social media accounts and phone number, I've considered getting a new phone number and deleting social media accounts more often.

I've been using the same phone # and emails for years. I'm planning on getting a new number/email for 2024 and perhaps doing so more often to get a clean slate.

Has anyone tried this have advice?

I'll leave old phone activate for aprox 6 months to ensure it's not needed, but want to find any tips to make this transition easier to perform more often.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/raindropio/ldgfbffkinooeloadekpmfoklnobpien

Specifically, the chrome extension page mentions that it collects 'Personally Identifiable Information' like "name, address, email address, age or identification number"

How safe is this? I suppose its one of the most cherished app in its area so I'm hoping it's playing fair. If not, any other apps like it?

My company is 50+ years old, as are many of it's employees. They have become much more security conscious after a couple hacks and a ransomware attack over the last couple years. 2/3 of the company is wfh. Okta was implemented a while back which forced all the employees without smartphones to upgrade. Recently they have additionally required installation of Authy on our personal cell phones for a specific website that does not support Okta. We get a monthly stipend to compensate us for using our personal cell. I am sure this is way cheaper than supplying and supporting 2k+ employees with a company phone.

Several older (and security minded) employees with flip phones have had to buy personal smartphones in order to login to work systems. Management encourages, but hasn't required yet, us to install Slack, Zoom, and Teams on our phones so that we can be more easily reached, if needed.

AITA for thinking there is something fundamentally wrong with this? Is this a security concern?

I work for a company that was bought out by another company. When I started with the original company I was using my own device for work as there were no company policies for this, no software required to be installed, nothing mentioned by HR or in contract about limitations on this. Almost like a freelance position.

The new company is now sharing their own IT policies which makes nervous as it states that any personal devices need a written exception and to be inspected by IT. I don't know if I have a written exception but I doubt it, and IT has not had physical access to my laptop. I haven't been asked about it yet and I don't want to bring it to their attention but I also don't want to get in trouble for it down the line or continue to access work from my personal device.

So far all I have used it for as far as company accounts are Google suite (browser), slack (desktop app), hubspot (browser), and now Microsoft office (browser).

If I ask for a work computer I'm nervous they will ask about what I've been using up to this point and if I buy a cheap laptop to only use for work I'm nervous they will say it doesn't comply with policy and I will get in trouble or I buy it and they make me send it to them for "inspection" aka what I assume is installing tracking software.

I want to limit their access to my information as much as possible so linking a work laptop with whatever software they install to my home internet also makes me nervous.

I'm wondering: 1. What information my IT department can access through those sites 2. How should I proceed?

Recently I bought a new laptop and one of the first things I did was uninstall Windows10 and install Arch Linux. When booting into the bios though I noticed something strange, I had a message box appear stating Absolute Persistence Technology was installed on the device and could not be removed. Ever!!

Coming from a security background, non professional, some key words caught my eye and I got really uncomfortable. Persistence is a term used in hacking, when you get a shell on a targets machine to communicate back to your computer and you have super user privileges but that shell can never be terminated. This is what we are talking about and sounds like science fiction or a movie of sorts. What company would put this kind of software on their products and why?

A lot of them, here are some links to help better understand what I am talking about:

Absolute Persistence

So I deleted WhatsApp several months ago, having kind of migrated to Signal for most but not all contacts. Bit of a pain because people in my country use WhatsApp as being synonymous with texting - it has become the standard!

Anyway, I've joined a new class online that has a WhatsApp group and it would be very handy to be in that group.

Is WhatsApp a concern, if only being used for a very limited amount of non-private communication?

Or are there issues with it simply running in the background?

I can put it into work mode in Shelter and leave it off most of the time if needs be.

Thoughts appreciated, thanks!

Hey, guys! Do you know any good alternatives for my Sudo for European residents? I have tried out soooo many other apps and they still don't comply with my simple requirements:

- It should work in the EU. The majority of the apps are targeted at North America.

- I want to add 5 numbers. Not only one.

- I want to have only one subscription for all of the numbers. So far in every app I tested you have to pay for every number additionally. And the prices are CRAZY. I mean 45 euros per month for a German number is insane.

The apps I have tried out so far (and they didn't work for me):

[OnOff](https://www.onoff.app/en/) — too expensive, have to pay for each of the numbers.
[2Number](https://www.2number.app) -- doesn't work with sms.
[Blacktel.io](http://Blactel.io) — too expensive.
Hushed — didn't like it.
TextMe — too expensive, have to pay for each of the numbers.
TeleNow — too expensive, have to pay for each of the numbers.
TossableDigits — sms work only in North America

hey i’ve recently deleted one of my google account however i didn’t do anything like emailing google about this

do i have to email them asking them to remove it or do they do it automatically as they are bound to it?

Hi, not sure if this is the right place to ask this but when you stream YouTube on discord, do the streamed videos go to your personal YouTube history? I’ll be very grateful if someone answers me, thank you