Wenn Tech zur Religion wird: Warum gute Prinzipien ohne Kontext zu Dogmen werden – und wie Orientierung und realistische Schritte mehr Menschen mitnehmen. 👇

kuketz-blog.de/das-toleranzpro…

#datenschutz #opensource #tech #privacy #fedilz #sicherheit #security

Das Toleranzproblem der Tech-Szene: Menschen mitnehmen statt belehren

^{www.kuketz-blog.de}

rolandturner.com/Why%20We%20In… @fossasia

#FOSSASIA #FOSSASIA2026 #Bangkok #HardwareHacking #ReverseEngineering #EmbeddedSystems #NetSec #Firmware #RightToRepair #DigitalSovereignty #Privacy

Why We Invited a Space Engineer to Break Into Your ISP Router

The 'black box' in your hallway represents a fundamental power imbalance. Join us at FOSSASIA 2026 to learn how to tear down, audit, and repurpose ISP hardware.

^{Roland Turner}

At Tuta, we scrutinize every request for handing out data in detail - the shocking news: In 2025, we had to reject 75% of all requests!

While Big Tech just waves through a massive amount of requests, we make sure to ONLY hand out data if legally obliged.

Because #privacy matters. 🔒

➡️ tuta.com/blog/transparency-rep…

To my understanding, Signal requires that you have a physical phone to use the desktop version. Is there any way to scan the QR code without a physical device? I'm trying to make an anonymous Signal account.

My idea:

1.) Set up Android VM on Linux laptop

2.) Use laptop camera to scan the QR code on my desktop

“What do you have to hide?“

Everything.

Full stop. Period.

Every. Thing.

What I had for breakfast is my choice to put out in the world.

Who I love, who my friends are, what we talk about, the books I read, the websites I visit, my favourite animal, my choice of shoelaces.

It. Does. Not. Matter. How. “Big”. Or “Small”.

Every. Thing.

It’s all up to me to decide who I want to share anything with.

#privacy #surveillance

Hey y'all, was considering giving Zulip a try. I've got a group of friends that do everything from play games together, share memes, and organize medium-ish sized events that require a fair amount of coordination.

I was considering doing a self-host and was curious if doing this through a VPS service would work?

I was also maybe wanting to host somewhere I could also do a CMS and maybe a foundary instance.

As far as the CMS goes it would be a simple blog for sharing music and things.

Foundary is a VTT similar to roll20.

Thanks in advance!

Update:
I wanna thank everyone for the advice, I'm shipping the bunk phone back for refund today and ive got my eye on a few from swappa and back market for when I get the money to buy.

I'll probably try out graphene but after looking into crdroid I'm pretty stoked about it having all the customization I've been wanting for ages. Which ever feels cleaner to manage and easier for the family to pick up will probably be the go to.

So I fell for the classic blunder and ended up with a pixel that's not OEM unlocked despite being advertised as such. After a few hours of searching it looks like the only way I'm getting an OEM unlocked pixel is full price from Google itself. I don't have $400 for a new phone, I bought the one I have for $150 in 2019.

Are there any cheaper ways to get control of my phone?

Russian authorities have begun restricting access to Telegram, one of the country’s most popular social media apps, as the government continues to push everyday Russians toward its own tightly controlled alternatives to foreign tech platforms.

On Tuesday, the government said it was restricting access to Telegram for the “protection of Russian citizens,” accusing the app of refusing to block content authorities consider “criminal and terrorist.”

Russia’s telecommunications regulator Roskomnadzor said in a statement that it would continue to restrict the operation of the Telegram messenger “until violations of Russian law are eliminated.”

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/10/europe/telegram-ban-russia-web-block-latam-intl

On a Linux, you can securely erase data or hide erasure after the fact by overwriting the affected location on disk with new data. This new data could for instance be all 0s or randomly generated numbers. There are several programs that can do this on Linux.

I always wondered how to do this on my Android phone without accidentally f*cking up my data because of how Android partitioning works. I mean... Have you seen an Android block device list? (This is NOT critique! Android's partitioning methodology is one of the reasons for it being so secure an OS, apart from process isolation/containerization. I think they call it "siloing"? Android devs/enthusiasts, please correct me!)

Then I discovered Extirpater. Check it out and let me know what you think! It was archived not too long ago.
gitlab.com/divested-mobile/ext…

DivestOS Mobile / Extirpater · GitLab

A free space eraser

^GitLab

Australia's Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind determined in 2024 that Bunnings breached privacy laws by scanning hundreds of thousands of customers' faces without their proper consent.

A review of that decision by the Administrative Review Tribunal of Australia has now found the opposite

The retailer did not break the law by scanning customers' identities, but should improve its privacy policy and notify customers of the use of AI-based facial recognition technology, the ruling said

Petty typical stuff by this point. The privacy-invading company wins, pissweak government makes a few privacy "recommendations" but stops short of enforcing anything

Bunnings wins fight to use AI facial recognition tech to combat store crime, opening door for other retailers

Bunnings was reasonably entitled to use AI facial recognition technology to combat crime and staff abuse in its stores, the Administrative Review Tribunal finds. 

^{Luke Cooper (ABC News)}

I will be upfront with this, and say that I've never been a huge fan. But I did reinstall a Matrix server, and some clients to see if it'd gotten better in the year or so since I've last used it.

This just... Kind of feels like a more centralized XMPP with group chat folders that sort of function? The spaces feature is neat, but I've tried 4-5 clients, and every single one of those throws all of them into the same screen as the DMs by default, and I can't find a way to change that.

Am I missing something here? Like. I want to at least see what people like here, I just can't.

I have never had a LinkedIn account, both out of general anti-data-vacuuming-social-media, and specifically anti-whatever-the-fucking-corphead-psychos-are-doing-on-LinkedIn tendencies, and managed to find a decent job out of uni just fine (software field). I'm now looking for a job again and the number one piece of advice I'm being given by concerned parties is "get on LinkedIn".

I'm curious how many people into the whole "privacy" thing have had to make this choice, and which way you went with it.

Do the advantages (which it seems mainly boil down to "networking") outweigh the icky feeling I'd get making an account? Of course only I can actually answer that question, but it sums up my conundrum.

Pretty sure I don't have to say this but let's just be clear..

On #Mastodon we DO NOT WANT your ID or any other PERSONAL verification!

You can even use a disposable email if you like!❤️

#PRIVACY MATTERS!

#Discord

France launches "LaSuite," an open-source office suite for digital sovereignty, reducing reliance on foreign proprietary software. 🖥️
Built on Matrix/TChap, LiveKit/Visio, Grist, and Drive—all MIT-licensed for any organization to deploy. 🇪🇺

🔗 sinologic.net/en/2026-01/franc…

#TechNews #OpenSource #France #French #DigitalSovereignty #FOSS #Matrix #Privacy #EU #Security #Software #Linux #SelfHost #Government #Europe #Data #IT #PublicSector #Microsoft #Office #Tech #Cloud #LibreOffice

France chooses Open Source to secure European Sovereignty.

According to many European media outlets, the French government has just announced its commitment to a busines

^{Elio Rojano (Sinologic)}

For Safer Internet Day, @fastmail explains why your search engine matters just as much as your email provider when it comes to privacy, and why they recommend Kagi to their users.

fastmail.com/blog/safer-intern…

#Kagi #Search #Fastmail #SaferInternetDay #Privacy

Safer Internet Day: Why your search engine matters more than you think

You switched to private email, but what about your search engine? Learn how to complete your privacy stack with tracking-free search.

^Fastmail

This email arrived with impeccable timing.

"Don't worry" you say?

I'm not worried, I'm absolutely ELATED that my account is scheduled to be deleted. Thank you, bye #Discord !

For reference: theverge.com/tech/875309/disco…

#DeleteDiscord #BigTech #privacy

cross-posted from: sh.itjust.works/post/55057321

Hey yall

Had to get an all new furnace and heat pump installed. I opted for the Honewell thermostat. I don't want this thing on my wifi. I don't need to have it connected right?

“They” are saying it has to be on wifi so it can see the outdoor temp to talk to the heat pump. Bullshit i say.

Each time a new privacy-invasive
feature like facial scanning is implemented, if people in majority comply and accept to use it, it will soon become normality, and other options will be marginalized or even removed entirely.

If each time a new privacy-invasive
feature is implemented people opted to refuse it, it would soon be discontinued.

Each individual opposition to privacy-invasive features matters.

It is an act of self-protection but,
perhaps even more importantly,
it is also an act of protest.

A protest against the normalization of mass surveillance and the loss of privacy rights.

The fact that there are other cameras around doesn't mean that more cameras or additional scanning is not making things even worse.

If we do not refuse,
if we do not fight for our privacy rights,
we will lose them all.

#Privacy #MassSurveillance #AgeVerification #FacialRecognition #HumanRights #DigitalRights

cross-posted from: sh.itjust.works/post/55042223

Getting pixel 9, graphene?

Hey y'all! So we are changing phone providers and they are forcing us into getting a new phone. I have an s23 which I hate anyway, and can get a pixel 9 or 10 now. I want the 9 since it seems better for me.

My question is, should I install graphene on it right away? I don't wanna have to reset it again down the road. And I don't care about warranties, if it dies I can afford another one.

Graphene seems to support the 9 and 10 from what I'm seeing

I wish I could force every legislator
in favor of Age Verification to watch this amazing talk by Carissa Véliz,

So that they understand the dangers
of the surveillance infrastructure they are currently putting in place.

You should watch it too: youtube.com/watch?v=xSPRouBvgF…

#Privacy #Democracy #HumanRights #AgeVerification #MassSurveillance #Fascism

Every morning, I do a multiple DNS Leak test just as a precaution. Today, I did the leak test and all my IPs were different. They were the same IP block, just different. This made me suspicious and I set about trying to track the problem down. Turns out, there was a misconfiguration in the VPS. Worked yesterday, different today. I guess it was ghosts or gremlins in the machinery.

I got to thinking, for you guys who download a lot of Linux ISOs, might be a good idea to check daily. Even though you are setting behind a VPN, it's still worth the minute it takes to fire off multiple DNS Leak checks just for a sanity check.

Yahoo reduced free storage from 1TB to 20 GB in 2025, in May it will be only 15 GB. Surprised? 😮‍💨

Yahoo's move is a reminder: Big Tech doesn't want to offer free products, it wants to lure you in with the free offering.

Check here how Tuta Mail compares to Yahoo and why you should choose #privacy: ➡️ tuta.com/best-yahoo-alternativ…

How do folks manage the balance between having a more private social media experience with the fediverse versus a fully public one? I'm starting to run into some conflict with how I use the fediverse like I would my Instagram for example. I've always had private accounts because I only want to share with people I know. That doesn't seem to be an option here so it does limit the type of content I would be willing to share publicly. Thoughts?

#fediverse #privacy #biokevin #socialmedia #forkiverse

Following the Australian precedence, the UK, France, and Spain want age checks for social media.

😡But age verification and ID checks destroy everyone's #privacy. 😡

Learn what countries are planning a social media ban for teens and fight #AgeVerification 💪
👉tuta.com/blog/age-verification…