Privacy

The US government is considering seeking the break-up of the world's biggest search engine, Google, which it accuses of causing "pernicious harms" to Americans.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has been considering so-called remedies since a landmark court ruling in August which found Google illegally crushed its competition in online search.

If the DOJ pushes ahead with the proposed remedies - and they are accepted by the judge in the case - it would represent arguably the biggest regulatory intervention in the history of big tech.

Google has pushed back hard against the proposals, describing them as "radical" and "sweeping" and claiming they "risk hurting consumers, businesses, and developers."

As reported by Bloomberg Law, the class action complaint accuses the Assassin’s Creed publisher of sharing personally identifiable information (PII) with Facebook company Meta.

According to the complaint, players who use the Ubisoft website to buy a game on the Ubisoft Store or use it to subscribe to Ubisoft+ are having their PII sent to Meta through its Pixel user tracking software.

“Defendant does not disclose on the website that PII users’ personally identifying information would be captured by the Meta Platforms, Inc tracking Pixel utilised by defendant, and then transferred to Meta, thereby exposing the subscribers’ PII to any person of ordinary technical skill who received that data,” the complaint reads.

After almost 2 years, Privacy Guides has added a new Hardware Recommendations section to their website.

Thanks to Daniel Nathan Gray and others for implementing this new hardware guide

ISPs are forced to block DNS request to certain hosts, they also monitor your DNS requests, and sometimes aren't updated that or are slow.

Which DNS servers do you use or would recommend to others?

I'm getting IP-banned using yt-dlp. It seems that this is a known issue. Have any of you run into this, and if so, what has been your solution?

I currently use a VPN via a VPS. I am able to view youtube via the web client and use youtube-dl without VPN, but I am only unable to get through using the CLI on the VPN. I have also tried fiddling with some CLI args (like --extractor-args "youtube:player_client=web") but that is also unsuccessful.

My next step is to try signing up for mullvad to see if I can get around it that way, but would like to hear if this is affecting existing mullvad users.

Open to hearing other solutions as well. Thanks!

I self host a bunch of things on my home network and since i dont have a static ip i use duckdns so i can access it via the greater web and set up ssl etc. Works great for my laptop and other people but on my phone where im using rethink dns to filter web access the duckdns domain doeant resolve (its not getting blocked it just not resolving at all). It resolves on cloudflare and ive set that as the fallback for rethink but still doesnt resolve any advice/help would be greatly appreciated.

I have a bunch of hard disks that have come to the end of their useful life, I was thinking about physically destroying them, but that seems like a lot of work.

https://github.com/martijnvanbrummelen/nwipe

Nwipe and shreados are very popular. What are your thoughts on the effectiveness of nwipe?

chat.positive-intentions.com

github.com/positive-intentions/chat

I'm excited to share with you an instant messaging application I've been working on that might interest you. This is a chat app designed to work within your browser, with a focus on browser-based security and decentralization.

What makes this app unique is that it doesn't rely on messaging servers to function. Instead, it works based on your browser's javascript capabilities.

Here are some features of the app:

• Encrypted messaging: Your messages are encrypted, making them more secure.
• File sharing: Easily share files using WebRTC technology and QR codes.
• Voice and video calls: Connect with others through voice and video calls.
• Shared virtual space: Explore a shared mixed-reality space.
• Image board: Browse and share images in a scrollable format.

Your security is a top priority. Here's how the app keeps you safe:

• Decentralized authentication: No central server is required for login, making it harder for anyone to gain unauthorized access.
• Unique IDs: Your ID is cryptographically random, adding an extra layer of security.
• End-to-end encryption: Your messages are encrypted from your device to the recipient's device, ensuring only you and the recipient can read them.
• Local data storage: Your data is stored only on your device, not on any external servers.
• Self-hostable: You have the option to host the app on your own server if you prefer.

A decentralized infrastructure has many unique challenges and this is a unique approach. Ive taken previous feedback and made updates. Its important to note, the app is an unstable proof-of-concept and a work-in-progress. Its important to understand at this early stage in the project, there will be breaking changes. It is not ready to replace any existing apps or services. While the app is aiming to be an encrypted and secure chat system, the project is not mature enough to have been reviewed by security professionals and should not be considered encrypted or secure. it is provided for testing/review/feedback purposes.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

The live app

About the app

Even more about the app

Docs

Subreddit

Apple and the satellite-based broadband service Starlink each recently took steps to address new research into the potential security and privacy implications of how their services geo-locate devices. Researchers from the University of Maryland say they relied on publicly available data from Apple to track the location of billions of devices globally -- including non-Apple devices like Starlink systems -- and found they could use this data to monitor the destruction of Gaza, as well as the movements and in many cases identities of Russian and Ukrainian troops. At issue is the way that Apple collects and publicly shares information about the precise location of all Wi-Fi access points seen by its devices. Apple collects this location data to give Apple devices a crowdsourced, low-power alternative to constantly requesting global positioning system (GPS) coordinates.

Both Apple and Google operate their own Wi-Fi-based Positioning Systems (WPS) that obtain certain hardware identifiers from all wireless access points that come within range of their mobile devices. Both record the Media Access Control (MAC) address that a Wi-FI access point uses, known as a Basic Service Set Identifier or BSSID. Periodically, Apple and Google mobile devices will forward their locations -- by querying GPS and/or by using cellular towers as landmarks -- along with any nearby BSSIDs. This combination of data allows Apple and Google devices to figure out where they are within a few feet or meters, and it's what allows your mobile phone to continue displaying your planned route even when the device can't get a fix on GPS.

With Google's WPS, a wireless device submits a list of nearby Wi-Fi access point BSSIDs and their signal strengths -- via an application programming interface (API) request to Google -- whose WPS responds with the device's computed position. Google's WPS requires at least two BSSIDs to calculate a device's approximate position. Apple's WPS also accepts a list of nearby BSSIDs, but instead of computing the device's location based off the set of observed access points and their received signal strengths and then reporting that result to the user, Apple's API will return the geolocations of up to 400 hundred more BSSIDs that are nearby the one requested. It then uses approximately eight of those BSSIDs to work out the user's location based on known landmarks.

In essence, Google's WPS computes the user's location and shares it with the device. Apple's WPS gives its devices a large enough amount of data about the location of known access points in the area that the devices can do that estimation on their own. That's according to two researchers at the University of Maryland, who theorized they could use the verbosity of Apple's API to map the movement of individual devices into and out of virtually any defined area of the world. The UMD pair said they spent a month early in their research continuously querying the API, asking it for the location of more than a billion BSSIDs generated at random. They learned that while only about three million of those randomly generated BSSIDs were known to Apple's Wi-Fi geolocation API, Apple also returned an additional 488 million BSSID locations already stored in its WPS from other lookups.>Apple and the satellite-based broadband service Starlink each recently took steps to address new research into the potential security and privacy implications of how their services geo-locate devices. Researchers from the University of Maryland say they relied on publicly available data from Apple to track the location of billions of devices globally — including non-Apple devices like Starlink systems — and found they could use this data to monitor the destruction of Gaza, as well as the movements and in many cases identities of Russian and Ukrainian troops.

"Plotting the locations returned by Apple's WPS between November 2022 and November 2023, Levin and Rye saw they had a near global view of the locations tied to more than two billion Wi-Fi access points," the report adds. "The map showed geolocated access points in nearly every corner of the globe, apart from almost the entirety of China, vast stretches of desert wilderness in central Australia and Africa, and deep in the rainforests of South America."

The researchers wrote: "We observe routers move between cities and countries, potentially representing their owner's relocation or a business transaction between an old and new owner. While there is not necessarily a 1-to-1 relationship between Wi-Fi routers and users, home routers typically only have several. If these users are vulnerable populations, such as those fleeing intimate partner violence or a stalker, their router simply being online can disclose their new location."

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/05/apple-and-google-deliver-support-for-unwanted-tracking-alerts-in-ios-and-android/

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10958052

Vanguard, the controversial anti-cheat software initially attached to Valorant, is now also coming to League of Legends.

Summary:

The article discusses Riot Games' requirement for players to install their Vanguard anti-cheat software, which runs at the kernel level, in order to play their games such as League of Legends and Valorant. The software aims to combat cheating by scanning for known vulnerabilities and blocking them, as well as monitoring for suspicious activity while the game is being played. However, the use of kernel-level software raises concerns about privacy and security, as it grants the company complete access to users' devices.

The article highlights that Riot Games is owned by Tencent, a Chinese tech giant that has been involved in censorship and surveillance activities in China. This raises concerns that Vanguard could potentially be used for similar purposes, such as monitoring players' activity and restricting free speech in-game.

Ultimately, the decision to install Vanguard rests with players, but the article urges caution and encourages players to consider the potential risks and implications before doing so.

Fighting against surveillance has never been easy. But in the past year it has been specially tough in France. This talk is about shedding light on the many situations where the French State used surveillance to increase repression, mainly against activists, during the last months. Not to despair of this, but willing to provide a sincere overview to the rest of the world, La Quadrature du Net proposes to depict this situation as a satirical tale, with its own characters, plots and suspense. We want to show the political tension going on right now in France and how the checks and balances are lacking to stop this headlong rush to a surveillance state.

Looking back to France in 2023, what do we see? Implementation of new technologies such as drones, DNA marking or new generation of spywares. Also, an intensification of political surveillance, either by law enforcement deploying disproportionate means of investigations towards environmental activists or intelligence services using cameras or GPS beacons to spy on places or people that they find too radical. It was also the year of the “8 December” case, a judicial case where among other things, encrypted communications of the prosecuted persons were considered as signs of "clandestinity" that reveal criminal intentions.

On top of this, we also had to deal with the legalization of biometric surveillance for the Olympics and massive censorship of social networks when riots erupted in suburbs against police violence.

This talk is about showing the reality of the situation at stake right now in France, and how it could influence the rest of Europe. At the end, we hope to raise awareness in the international community and start thinking about how, together, we can put pressure on a country who uses its old reputation to pretend to be respectful of human rights.

Source: https://media.ccc.de/v/37c3-12309-a_year_of_surveillance_in_france_a_short_satirical_tale_by_la_quadrature_du_net

French version: https://video.lqdn.fr/w/rXmBKD6NcfxWxJEPHUZc4Z

German version: https://video.lqdn.fr/w/315ZAQFMTMG7wqiMDdGvsi

cross-posted from: https://links.hackliberty.org/post/609883

This BBC interview has a #Cloudflare rep David Bellson who describes CF’s observations on internet traffic. CF tracks for example the popularity of Facebook vs. Tiktok. Neither of those services are Cloudflared, so how is CF tracking this? Apparently they are snooping on traffic that traverses their servers to record what people are talking about. Or is there a more legit way Cloudflare could be monitoring this activity?

This guide isn't a "what not to buy" list. It acknowledges that no internet-connected toy can be entirely child proof because tech companies have yet to prioritize children's safety in their designs.

Some banks will annually mail a paper “welcome” letter to all customers purely for the purpose of collecting bounced mail ultimately to verify if anyone has moved without telling them. The letters never state that’s the purpose.. they take that opportunity to talk about their service in arbitrary ways. Some banks even charge customers a fee for their cost in doing that. If you ask the banker about it they readily admit that it’s an address verification technique.

That’s it.. just a PSA so folks are aware, as it is a bit sneaky.

Some national postal services (e.g. USPS) sell your mail forwarding information which is how you get tracked to your new location by various entities even when you did not inform them of your new address. So obviously a good defensive measure is to never use the mail forwarding service. Select the entities you want to know your new address and inform them directly. But then to get some immunity to the sneaky trick in the 1st paragraph, perhaps give the next resident a stack of addressed envelopes and stamps and ask the next resident to ~~forward~~ (remail) for you.. or just ask them to trash your mail instead of returning it.

Tech legal expert Eric Goldman wrote that a victory for the plaintiff could be considered "a dangerous ruling for the spy cam industry and for Amazon," because "the court’s analysis could indicate that all surreptitious hook cameras are categorically illegal to sell." That could prevent completely legal uses of cameras designed to look like clothes hooks, Goldman wrote, such as hypothetical in-home surveillance uses.

Chat Control, the new EU law project to weaken messaging systems and get rid of E2E encryptions so as to scan in clients sides the content of the messages (but only for children safety, of course).

After the Tchap project based on Matrix, the French Prime Minister asks anyone in the gouvernement to use Olvid, the only app validated by the ANSSI, with metadata encryption and no centralised architecture nor contacts discovery. But only the front-ends are open source, not the back-end.

Source: https://www.politico.eu/article/france-requires-ministers-to-swap-whatsapp-signal-for-french-alternatives/