After the British spilled the beans with the Online Safety Act 2023 (Effective today), I wondered if there were any leaks I could use to prove forced verification is not the way the internet should be built, parents need to be liable for such things children do, not the server room hosted in Vietnam, I may not agree what the servers contain but this is not how you solve a problem.

Turns out a 4Chan user leaked hundreds of photos by finding a "public firebase storage bucket". It has now been made private and gives an 403 error, but the damage is done, its already in torrents and there is no way to reverse such action.

Someone has already made a location list based on the photos (allegedly, I could not find such metadata in the photos yet).

Just wanted to make an informational post for fun, I cannot show any "illegal numbers" here, sorry.

Meta announced it will stop selling political, electoral and social issue advertising across its platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and Threads) in the European Union starting in early October 2025[^1][^2].

The decision comes in response to the EU's new Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA) regulation, which takes effect October 10, 2025. Meta called the rules "unworkable," citing "significant operational challenges and legal uncertainties"[^2].

The TTPA requires platforms to:

• Label political ads with transparency information
• Disclose who paid for ads and their costs
• Show which elections or referendums ads target
• Maintain ads in a public database
• Follow strict conditions for user targeting[^3]

Companies face fines of up to 6% of annual global revenue for violations[^2]. Google made a similar move in late 2024, also announcing it would stop serving political ads to EU users before the rules take effect[^4].

Meta emphasized that users can still discuss politics and politicians can share content "organically" on its platforms - they just cannot use paid advertising to amplify their messages[^2].

[^1]: Bloomberg - Meta to Stop Selling Political Ads in the EU, Citing Regulation [^2]: AP News - Meta will cease political ads in European Union by fall [^3]: Euronews - Meta halts political advertising in the EU due to 'unworkable' rules [^4]: Economic Times - Meta to halt political advertising in EU from October

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/09/us/politics/james-comey-secret-service.html?unlocked_article_code=1.VE8.w55f.rrC8gPirU8SX

Hey, everyone. If you're looking for a fresh privacy podcast, we recently started a new one called Signal Jam.

Here's a bit about why we made Signal Jam and what we're hoping to do differently.

We even have preliminary ways for you to participate in the project, which you can read about here.

Feel free to connect with us on Proton, Tuta, Signal, or here on Lemmy. Looking forward to your feedback and thoughts!

Privacy.sexy is an open-source privacy tool that helps users implement security and privacy best practices on Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems[^4].

Key features include:

• Hundreds of customizable privacy and security scripts
• Free and transparent codebase
• Reversible changes if issues occur
• Web version requiring no software installation
• Desktop version with additional direct script execution capabilities
• Independent, portable scripts without cross-dependencies
• Extensive testing and community verification[^4]

The tool comes in two versions:

1. An online web version that runs without installing software
2. An offline desktop version with expanded functionality for running scripts directly[^4]

The project is built using TypeScript and Vue.js, with the desktop application created using Electron[^8]. All aspects of the application, including infrastructure and deployments, are open-source and automated through a system called "bump-everywhere"[^4].

[^4]: PrivacyTools - Enforce Privacy & Security Best-Practices on Windows and macOS [^8]: Made with Vue.js - privacy.sexy - Tool to support privacy on Windows, macOS & Linux

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/8611451

Well-said about how the courts treat data privacy and doxxing.

Your thoughts?

It's a nice commentary / news video.

For anyone that might need to hear it. I just installed the flatpak, and when linking it to my Molly app, I saw on the app the option to sync all message history. This is what always bugged me on the desktop client. Seems they finally went ahead to enable this feature.

Is it possible to Spoof Android User Agents without rooting? I have found https://github.com/ray-lothian/UserAgent-Switcher but it requires rooting. Since I'm using GOS I don't think rooting my device is a good idea.

thanks a lot for your help

According to a motion the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed in Sacramento Superior Court last week, Nguyen and Decker are only two of more than 33,000 Sacramento-area people who have been flagged to the sheriff’s department by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, the electricity provider for the region. SMUD called the customers out for using what it and department investigators said were suspiciously high amounts of electricity indicative of illegal cannabis farming.

Am using my redmi note 8 with lineageos built in custom recovery. And my device was rooted. Recently i installed a OTA update and i loose my root access. As i don't own a laptop (i used my friend laptop to flash custom rom and magisk) it's cery inconvenient to lose root on every OTA update.

I researched about it and find magisk don't root android in a deeper level but in a surface level, thats why an OTA update wipes root access.

So recently i was looking at custom recovery like orangefox and twrp fir fixing this issue. For my device orangefox dropped development and rwrp have updates only one a year and last one was yeras ago...

What should i do ? How can i really keep root on an OTA update without a PC or Second device with OTG cable ?

Is there any other root manager that don't allow to lose root after OTA updates ? And is this issue caused by updating the recovery along with the OTA update ? Just so confusing!

Or should i avoid rooting at all ?

If not, what alternatives can i use?

Linux@mstdn.ca - As a Meta employee, I can honestly tell you what we know, and I do not know how we obtain all of it.

• Your full name
• Your full home address
• Your phone number
• Your e-mail
• Your government ID
• Your consumer report history *  The name of every family member
• The name of every friend
• The name of their family / friends
• Your marital status
• If you are faithful to your partner
• Your work history (all of it)
• Your education history (all of it)
• Your travel history (going back years)
• Your birth gender
• Your gender ID
• Your sexuality
• Your sexual preferences
• How often you're having sex
• Your partner's details (all the above)
• Your political ideology
• Your involvement with any group
• If you protest, we know
• If you're unhappy, we know

The amount of information we collect on you is insane.  And we do it all for supposedly marketing and yes, we help the government since they have access to all this too.

So when someone says they want to avoid META or GOOGLE - respect.

Hello everyone, I'd like to set up remote desktop for the work computer of a relative of mine (Her employer gave me permission to do so). I am unsure about the best way to go:

• Should I try to enable port forwarding on the router, make them choose a strong password, and use the built-in Windows service?
• Or is it better to use a free (as in price) external program? My main candidate was Rustdesk, but after a bit of searching I found some controversies, what do you think about it?

If necessary I can resort to a closed-source solution.

Thanks to you all in advance.

My question is simple! How to get maximum (Possible) privacy from ISP in case someone can't or don't want to use a vpn ?

Fir example, In some case tor browser is enough for many but they still need from a privacy from isp on other activities on mobile.

This seems very pointed towards me as I did have a local flight recently so have actually had a boarding pass emailed to me from the airline. How the hell do they know this?

I need to start making plans for when I am gone, much sooner than I thought, and I realized our finances are pretty opaque to my spouse. Our bank account is shared, but there are other sites that only I have access to.

The easiest solution would be to physically write down logins and what needs done, put it in an envelope, and tell my family where that envelope is. I'm not thrilled about that, because I would have to shred and rewrite it every time I update a password or a URL changes, and it'd be vulnerable to nosy guests.

Putting it in a shared Google Doc would be easiest for everyone. But then Google has that data. Even supposing I trust a cloud SaaS provider not to misuse the data (which is a big 'if') I do not trust them to never have a data breach.

Self-hosting seems like the next step, except I expect my home server to be the first thing to collapse once I'm gone. Filing login info with an estate attorney would still require frequent updates. Putting a document on a flash drive risks data loss, but is what I'm leaning towards.

Is there a solution I'm missing?

About

It has always bothered me that privacy has no unified symbol. Every community has their own take on how privacy should be visualized. I want to unify the privacy community across the internet. It is my belief that, with a universal symbol for privacy, we will grow stronger. We will have a symbol to represent us. We will have a flag to fly.

Icon

The icon is a clipart created by librarian Gordon Dylan Johnson which can be found here. The size of the icon is large enough to still fit if the flag is cropped to a square/circular aspect ratio.

Dimensions

The size of the flag is 140 by 90 centimeters. These dimensions are chosen because of the dimensions of a Tor Browser window (1400x900 pixels).

Colors

The color blue (Azure) was chosen because it symbolizes security, stability, and reliability. The exact shade of blue used is the same azure color used by the flag of Europe, because of GDPR.

Design

This flag follows the "Principals of design" for vexillography.

Use it!

Use this flag for group chats, communities, profiles, stickers, patches, articles, wallpapers, real flags, anything you want to! Spread it around so it becomes a global icon for privacy. Even put it on the Wikipedia page for privacy if you can!

I love Charger8232's idea of a Privacy Flag. However, I don't love the design they proposed. In their post, I explain my disagreements.

As a form of vexillographical discussion, I would like to propose another design as the flag under which we anonymously toil in secret (I wish).

First off, nods to Charger8232's design - 1400x900 dimensions, and use of EU's Dark Power Blue (#003399) color. Love it.

Where we differ:

Designs

A shield, representing how we must actively guard our privacy. A lock, obviously, to show we want security with our privacy, and a dove showing that we just want to be left the F alone and peacefully not be subject to a mass surveillance state. We're not trying to be sketchy or do illegal stuff, we just want to be peacefully left the F alone.

Colors

Again, same use of Dark Power Blue, representing freedom and a nod to the GDPR. White representing peace. Black representing how I don't want people to see me. Color of field: Redacted.

Extras

Stripes to make it a bit more visually interesting. A lack of EXIF and meta data as the subtle fait accompli.

The color scheme is similar to that of Estonia. While Estonia is a leader in the EU's digital governance space, this is unintentional. As much as I liked Espresso Macchiato in EuroVision this year, there's no direct nod to Estonia.

I didn't want to just say "uh, I don't like it" and complain without doing something. So here you go.

I have recently been finding myself on a network (cellular) that blocks access to VPN. I have tried Wireguard on multiple ports using IVPN and Windscribe with no luck. Similarly tried OpenVPN and IKEv2.

I also tried using Windscribe’s “stealth” protocol and IVPN’s obfuscation protocol but again with no luck.

I refuse to rawdog the internet like that and was hoping to get advice on how to work around that nonsense.

I am on iOS if that matters.

I've been using Librewolf for more than an year now, and Im using Mullvad Browser (MB) only for log into my e-mail and stuff more personal like that. Since Mullvad gives some very good filters about privacy, i'm using MB for these purposes.

However, i been thinking if i should use Mullvad Browser as my main daily driver browser. However, i need to use a dark mode/reader, since i like to have eyes and for me is super uncomfortable not using a dark mode.

I'm using the dark reader on librewolf, and i know this is make me more finger printable , but i cannot use a browser without a dark mode.

My question is if, either with a dark mode/reader on mullvad browser, this is better than librewolf in terms of privacy and security. Mullvad is more quick than librewolf in update terms , for which i search it. And other thing i know i can do, is create multiple profiles on mullvad and librewolf, to compartmentalize the things i visit / search... (for example, one profile only to check my emails, one for normal browsing, and so on.... )

and btw , on ubuntu, which is the better way in terms of security and privacy, to install the mullvad browser? via .deb ? snap? flatpak?

ty in advance

Anyone else get infinite challenges (when using Firefox + VPN) to prove you are a human when you are just trying to read a link at archive.is?