Privacy

First they came for adults site and social media; now they are already discussing about putting vpns and app stores behind age verification.

EFF is against age gating and age verification mandates, and we hope we’ll win in getting existing ones overturned and new ones prevented. But mandates are already in effect, and every day many people are asked to verify their age across the web, despite prominent cases of sensitive data getting leaked in the process.

A major expansion of the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) has taken effect, legally obliging digital platforms to deploy surveillance-style systems that scan, detect, and block user content before it can be seen.

A few enterprising hackers have started projects to do counter surveillance against ICE, and hopefully protect their communities through clever use of technology.

Artificial intelligence took center stage at this year's CES gadget show, but not always for the right reasons.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/41447467

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/41447466

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/41447443

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/41447441

It's a tool to maximize privacy and security settings on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Learned about it from Naomi Brockwell.

I used to self-host because I liked tinkering. I worked tech support for a municipal fiber network, I ran Arch, I enjoyed the control. The privacy stuff was a nice bonus but honestly it was mostly about having my own playground. That changed this week when I watched ICE murder a woman sitting in her car. Before you roll your eyes about this getting political - stay with me, because this is directly about the infrastructure we're all running in our homelabs. Here's what happened: A woman was reduced to a data point in a database - threat assessment score, deportation priority level, case number - and then she was killed. Not by some rogue actor, but by a system functioning exactly as designed. And that system? Built on infrastructure provided by the same tech companies most of us used to rely on before we started self-hosting. Every service you don't self-host is a data point feeding the machine. Google knows your location history, your contacts, your communications. Microsoft has your documents and your calendar. Apple has your photos and your biometrics. And when the government comes knocking - and they are knocking, right now, today - these companies will hand it over. They have to. It's baked into the infrastructure. Individual privacy is a losing game. You can't opt-out of surveillance when participation in society requires using their platforms. But here's what you can do: build parallel infrastructure that doesn't feed their systems at all. When you run Nextcloud, you're not just protecting your files from Google - you're creating a node in a network they can't access. When you run Vaultwarden, your passwords aren't sitting in a database that can be subpoenaed. When you run Jellyfin, your viewing habits aren't being sold to data brokers who sell to ICE. I watched my local municipal fiber network get acquired by TELUS. I watched a piece of community infrastructure get absorbed into the corporate extraction machine. That's when I realized: we can't rely on existing institutions to protect us. We have to build our own. This isn't about being a prepper or going off-grid. This is about building infrastructure that operates on fundamentally different principles:

Communication that can't be shut down: Matrix, Mastodon, email servers you control File storage that can't be subpoenaed: Nextcloud, Syncthing Passwords that aren't in corporate databases: Vaultwarden, KeePass Media that doesn't feed recommendation algorithms: Jellyfin, Navidrome Code repositories not owned by Microsoft: Forgejo, Gitea

Every service you self-host is one less data point they have. But more importantly: every service you self-host is infrastructure that can be shared, that can support others, that makes the parallel network stronger. Where to start if you're new:

Passwords first - Vaultwarden. This is your foundation. Files second - Nextcloud. Get your documents out of Google/Microsoft. Communication third - Matrix server, or join an existing instance you trust. Media fourth - Jellyfin for your music/movies, Navidrome for music.

If you're already self-hosting:

Document your setup. Write guides. Make it easier for the next person. Run services for friends and family, not just yourself. Contribute to projects that build this infrastructure. Support municipal and community network alternatives.

The goal isn't purity. You're probably still going to use some corporate services. That's fine. The goal is building enough parallel infrastructure that people have actual choices, and that there's a network that can't be dismantled by a single executive order. I'm working on consulting services to help small businesses and community organizations migrate to self-hosted alternatives. Not because I think it'll be profitable, but because I've realized this is the actual material work of resistance in 2025. Infrastructure is how you fight infrastructure. We're not just hobbyists anymore. Whether we wanted to be or not, we're building the resistance network. Every Raspberry Pi running services, every old laptop turned into a home server, every person who learns to self-host and teaches someone else - that's a node in a system they can't control. They want us to be data points. Let's refuse.

What are you running? What do you wish more people would self-host? What's stopping people you know from taking this step?

OC write up by @h333d@lemmy.world

via this 404 media article: https://www.404media.co/inside-ices-tool-to-monitor-phones-in-entire-neighborhoods/

paywall bypass: https://web.archive.org/web/20260108141914/https://www.404media.co/inside-ices-tool-to-monitor-phones-in-entire-neighborhoods/

The U.S. government publishes volumes of detailed data on the money it spends, but searching through it and finding information can be challenging. This guide covers the key databases that store information on federal spending and contracts, government solicitations for products and services, and the government's "online shopping superstore," plus a few other deep-in-the-weeds

An interesting paper, which gives an overview on a few decentralization solutions while also pointing out their limitations. It aims at suggesting a reference framework for a decentralized internet, as was its purpose was initially. Before the age of Evildoers. Before the age of Zuckerberg.