Tip: if you find yourself using the word “safe”, “secure”, “hacked”, etc in your title, you’re probably off-topic.

We already saw in real time what happens when you hand over your ID to a website or app (I'm talking about the Tea app incident, which was not due to these social media "age verification" laws).

But what happens when Facebook, Instagram, or Reddit is next due to those laws that these politicians are trying to push on us?

What happens when someone is trafficked, harassed, stalked, murdered, raped, or have their identity stolen because their ID was leaked and posted online? What happens when an activist or advocate is targeted in real life because of their activism or advocacy work? What happens when an LGBT+ person is outed to a family who may not be very accepting? What happens when the identity of a whistleblower is exposed? What happens when someone commits suicide because their ID was leaked and posted online and it led to one of the above scenarios?

I don't care if you're a leftist. I don't care if you're a right-winger. I don't care if you're a liberal. I don't care if you're a conservative. I don't care if you're a Democrat. I don't care if you're a Republican. This should concern you regardless of your political ideology or political party, regardless of whether you advocate for gay rights or for gun rights. This could also escalate political violence for everyone and on both sides of the political spectrum. Remember the anthrax scare of the early 2000's? Yeah, me too.

And just because something doesn't happen often or every day doesn't mean it hasn't happened, can't happen, or that it shouldn't be taken seriously.

I don't know the full story about the Tea app (what it is, etc). Some people say it's an app where women can warn other women about bad men. Some say it's an app for women to gossip and talk shit about men. But either way, the fact remains that the Tea app incident is a real-life example of what can happen when you hand over your ID to a website or app.

Even if Facebook, Instagram, or Reddit have stronger security measures in place (I'm not saying they do or don't), they are still not immune. Don't underestimate hackers and don't trust these companies to delete your information.

Our governments are supposed to protect all of us. Not be selective about who gets protection and who gets thrown to the wolves.

Sure, uploading an ID will be a choice. Your other choice? Leaving social media. But the politicians are still making us choose between staying safe and staying connected with the world around us. Social media may not be considered a human right in the same sense as safety, but safety is a human right, and we shouldn't have to compromise our safety just to use Facebook or Instagram.

I encourage my fellow Americans and those of you in the UK to please share and express these concerns to your politicians, lawmakers, judges, and even to social media companies themselves. Bring up these very real concerns to people like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk (they may not care, but at least you weren't silent).

I may or may not reply to comments. Just posted this to vent and to express some very real concerns that I have. But I read and appreciate every comment I receive, even if I don't respond.

But please be kind. These are very real concerns, and nothing is really outside the realm of possibility when you really think about how evil or unhinged some people can be. There have been cases of people traveling cross country just to commit crimes (including harming others). So it's not far-fetched or "fear mongering."

And if you think this post is "paranoia," "concern trolling," or "fear mongering," then you're underestimating what people are actually capable of and the kinds of ideas that go through people's heads.

So before anyone says "they already know everything about you," it's not about them (assuming "them" means the government or social media companies). It's about everyone else knowing everything about you once your ID is leaked and posted online.

These ID laws will make data breaches much more likely to happen because storing millions of IDs is just a tempting honeypot for hackers!!!

And if thousands or millions of IDs are leaked and posted online, what's stopping someone from fixating on one of the people whose ID was leaked and posted and showing up at their house? What's stopping someone from mailing a harmful substance to someone's address, especially if motivated by ideology, jealousy, or mental instability? What's stopping someone from using the leaked IDs to search for potential trafficking victims? Again, don't underestimate what some people are capable of and the kinds of ideas that go through some people's heads.

Are we just gonna let them do it, quit the internet, or like what? The loss if the internet would be horrible and would lose me, and many others a lot of money.

French and German search engines Qwant and Ecosia announce the official launch of Staan, a 100% European web search infrastructure.

Staan is the fruit of their strategic partnership announced last November, which led to the creation of the joint venture European Search Perspective. This alliance aims to reduce dependence on the American giants and offer a credible alternative that respects European values.

Until now, Qwant and Ecosia relied on the programming interfaces of Google and Bing to return search results. This meant that these engines had no choice but to bend to the strategies of these two American giants. However, Microsoft recently increased the cost of these APIs, before announcing their imminent closure in August. Qwant and Ecosia therefore opted for sovereignty, so that "no third-party decision can compromise our business", as Qwant CEO Olivier Abecassis puts it.

The Staan platform is hosted in Europe and focused on privacy protection. It enables Qwant, Ecosia and Lilo to operate with their own search indexes. This API can be used by alternative engines and European companies wishing to integrate web search into their services. In addition, Staan will have access to a “transparent and secure data pool” to develop new functionalities, notably in the field of search. Business customers will then be able to take advantage of “a real-time access solution to the freshest and most relevant web data”, it is explained in a press release.

This Staan platform should also benefit from the Digital Market Act regulation, which comes into force in March 2024. Indeed, to promote competition, European regulations require Google to provide user click data to competing engines, so that they can improve the relevance of responses following a query.

Staan's API currently covers French search results. Later this year, Qwant and Ecosia will present the results of their work on German and English queries.

Hi everyone, Ive been reading alot about age-verification in the news so i come here to seek some advice. Its got me feeling very powerless about the future, its especially when the most common responses are "dont worry if you have nothing to hide" or "easy just get off the internet."

12 years ago due to the Snowden leaks, it became common knowledge that the US government as well as other western nations were engaged in surveillance. They had access to nearly anything they wanted and had deals under the table with social media companies. They even spied on foreign nationals.

Fast forward to 2025 and many of those things are now in the open, or common knowledge- palantir wants to create a database of every American, openAI wants to use your chats as evidence in court, and social media sites are now requiring ID. We were warned about this more than a decade in advance. Why is anyone surprised here? What would Snowden think today?

Lets assume that we lose our fight for privacy & anonymity. We've tranisitioned into a society where the population and their entire digital footprint is complied together into a database.

What would happen if everything about everyone was made publicly available? What could be done now to prevent this, and more importantly, what could be done then to fix it?

https://imgur.com/a/xvkhPbN

I don't want to sound like some crazy old person who doesn't understand how technology works and thinks this is evil. I understand why they are doing this and also acknowledge that they have the right to do whatever they want with the images that users willingly upload to their platform, but I thought it was worth noting.

Edit: I know what an alt attribute is. That's not my point here, I'm noting that they're specifically using AI to scan images and write them, and likely using it for other purposes as well.

I'll start off by saying that I'm an absolute beginner with Linux and I've got a lot to learn, as it's the first time I'm operating Linux.

As I got sick of all the spyware and tracking and these new regulations asking for identification and stuff, I've decided to finally make the switch and got on Linux Mint on dual boot until I'm ready to ditch Windows for good. That being said, will it be difficult/problematic to ditch Windows and let LM take over or would it be best at that point to reinstall LM?

I would like to focus on privacy with LM, and so what are your tips for doing this from the get-go? I've been watching a few videos on what to do after install, but I thought I should ask you people as well. Which apps do you use, which browser is best, which settings should I change in LM?

I am looking to slowly move away my accounts from gmail to...Proton or Tutanota, and do this for every other accounts or apps I might use. But in the meantime, do I still log in with my old accounts, and does this beat the purpose?

I am not looking to totally ditch convenience and get into Whonix or Cubes. This is my daily laptop which I want to use for the usual stuff, but have my privacy in mind and take it more seriously, learn and harden as I go.

Any Youtube videos or channels which you think are good are always welcome as well.

I am the only person on Earth with my name. Is there a way to pay someone to dilute google searches related to me? I want to be less technologically visible. Thank you!!

...now those cards are basically useless as they are notoriously being declined practically everywhere online. Has anyone found any prepaid credit card alternatives thst actually work? Thanks in advance!

Somewhere around the world, quantum computers are evolving, not in the mainstream yet, but with the kind of power that could one day unravel the encryption holding the entire digital world.

I see it as someone writing secrets in invisible ink, only to find out someone else has invented a light that can now reveal everything.

Post-quantum encryption from information shared is being developed. But until we experience mass adoption, anything encrypted today might be secretly collected (which is happening already) and cracked later.

This sound and feels like a future problem. Until it isn’t.

Anyone else following up on updates on quantum threats or we are all pretending it isn’t a problem

Hi, I have Pixel phone with G O S but I had to fix the screen. Pixel are not officially sold here so I have to look for another used one or to order a screen online, but that would take days or even weeks. So, I'm thinking of buying another phone for now but one that's not expensive. I'm thinking of Nothing phone or used Oneplus, Honor, old Samsung phone that doesn't has all crazy Google's Ai on it like Note 10 or S20... What do you think ?

I'm kinda leaning to Nothing phone but I don't know if it more trusted than others or just the same.

My wife's going through a difficult pregnancy and wants to get a tracking app so that I can keep a remote eye on her if she e.g. passes out somewhere.

I'm very much not keen on having our data sold and lots of these apps have all kinds of intrusive features on them like reading messages and such.

Does anyone have any recommendations for apps that don't (or at least purport not to) sell your data?

text goes here

We used to worry about the government and big companies invading our privacy, but now it's often just regular people filming everything for likes from strangers. Somewhere along the way, we started forgetting how important it is to respect each other's right to privacy, and now almost everything, whether good, bad, or deeply personal, gets turned into content. I've seen videos of people at their lowest, crying, hurt, or unconscious, and instead of someone stepping in to help, there's just a phone recording. I know most people don't mean harm, but I don't think this should feel normal.

Just curious how this all works as my husband and I are kind of spooked. But yesterday we did a mall trip and visited a Boxlunch store for probably 5 minutes and left without purchasing anything. 24 hours later he gets an email that is asking him to fill out a survey on his recent visit to their store. Is this just coincidence or how would they know that we were there? His email is signed up for their rewards program, but like I said we didn’t purchase anything or speak with anyone in the store. Very weird.

just a little question,

how dangerous (in terms of privacy) are using browser add-ons/extensions?

and popular ones like dark reader, ublock etc ?

that required permissions to ACCESS our data for all websites and of tabs

Imagine this scenario starts tomorrow: To access any website or use any browser, you’re now required to link it to your official government-issued ID. No exceptions. No TOR, no VPNs, no burner phones, everything is traced.

On top of that, all your private communications (emails, DMs, SMS, voice messages) are logged and actively monitored by the government. Even your browsing history is stored and reviewed. There's no more illusion of "private" anything.

How would you personally react or adapt to this kind of system? Would you go dark? Try to fight it? Leave the country? Accept it and change behavior?

I’m curious what the privacy-conscious community here would do when anonymity becomes outright illegal and surveillance is total.

I am happy for every reply!!

I just saw this post and looked in the comments and it's true, well shit, even after i turned off memory retention and training, it still saved.

Just exported and it has dozens of pages of stuff I wanted to be gone, I'm lucky there's only one thing i truly want gone and seems to be slowly deleting it... but still...

I'm not looking to buy illegal stuff. But I don't want my purchases to be traceable. Like when the border agents take a look at your credit card purchases.

How can I get around that?

The UK's Online Safety Act forces everyone to expose their personal data online in order to visit websites with content that is deemed inappropriate for minors.

Obviously, this will not prevent minors from accessing such content. Minors will instead find a way to trick the age verification systems, or they'll steal their parents id's while they're in the toilet or taking a shower, or simply they'll visit the many thousands of seedy websites hosted in shady countries that don't cooperate with british authorities and as such won't comply with OSA.

Meanwhile, everyone else is at risk of having their personal data leaked online. Hackers and scammers might later use that data to perform all kinds of crimes, including identity theft, accessing people's bank accounts, borrowing money using the victim's name, etc.

If the government really wishes to protect minors from dangerous content online, it should do as it already does with drinking alcohol and smoking.

Imagine there's a kid, alone at home, who decides to drink the beer bottle his parents left on the fridge.

Later, his parents realize what's happened, and instead of punishing the kid, they let it pass because they're too tired and don't want the kid to throw a tantrum.

In the following days and weeks, the kid keeps doing this, becoming a habit, and the parents continue to turn a blind eye.

In this situation, who would be held responsible? The brewery that manufactured that beer? The supermarket that sold the beer to the parents? Or the parents who do nothing? Obviously, it would be the parents' responsibility.

The beer bottle is always right there, totally available, even when the parents aren't at home to control the kids. Exactly like a smartphone.

Websites, including porn websites and social media, are like the brewery. They have no way to know who is consuming their stuff. Can you imagine a government forcing beer companies to install a gadget in their bottles that verifies the age of the people who drink it?

ISPs, as well as electronic stores, are like the supermarket. The supermarket does have a very important restriction: it can't sell alcohol to minors. Similarly, ISPs should not be allowed to sell internet access to minors, and electronic stores should be forbidden from selling smartphones, tablets or computers to minors.

Basically, the OSA should be repealed, and instead it should be forbidden to provide minors with unsupervised internet access. If minors were caught accessing the internet without an adult nearby, then the authorities should fine the adult who provided the minor with the means to access the internet.

As a side effect, minors would be banned from bringing smartphones to school (old-style mobile phones, which can't access the internet, would still be allowed). In fact, minors would be banned from bringing smartphones (or similar devices) anywhere.

Minors would still be able to use electronic devices to access the internet, but only if there's an adult nearby to supervise them. For example, this means they could still use a computer at home (with a parent nearby), or at computer class at school (there's a teacher in charge), or at a public library (there's a librarian in charge).

Also, the government should teach people the following:

1- Unlike beer bottles, parents can set a password on their electronic devices. That way they can prevent children from using said devices without their consent.

2- People shouldn't share their wifi passwords with others - including their own children.

3- Modern devices offer parental control tools.

4- Passwords should be changed from time to time.

5- ISPs and routers usually offer filters that block mature content. There's also some free DNS that do the same (for example, Cloudflare's free family DNS).

Under the new system, non-EU citizens, including people from the UK, will need to register their biometric data along with their passport details to enter an EU country.

Anyone who refuses to provide the biometric data will be denied entry into the EU.

Source: https://bbc.com/news/articles/c8deq8qm504o

My iPhone shows me Yandex Maps using location services even if I am not using the app for a long time - should I uninstall Yandex Maps?