this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2026
365 points (99.7% liked)

Technology

87680 readers
2553 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/70348978

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 114 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (17 children)

I can see a promising market for 'dumb' point-and-shoot digital cameras reemerging.

  • Doesn't automatically upload your pictures to train AI on, no internet-based privacy risks whatsoever

  • No AI nanny telling you that your pictures are too naughty

  • Never needs updates, can never be enshittified by new updates

  • No risk of the government getting their hands on your pictures, unless they physically confiscate the device

  • Can never be hacked without physical access to the camera

  • Doesn't listen to you or watch you or otherwise spy on you

  • Most models have easy to change user-replaceable batteries

  • Most models are compatible with SD cards for easily upgradeable storage

  • Can take advantage of a larger lens and more adjustable focus/zoom to take better pictures (Even a relatively cheap digital camera could potentially take better pictures than the ultimate flagship phones that cost 4-figures.)

[–] detren@sh.itjust.works 32 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It has already reemerged as part of the retro trend among young people.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Those kinds of cameras didnt disappear.

But Canon already enshittifies their bodies some, with links to the canon.cloud subscriptions in-camera (which is a front for RAW training if you read the ToS), a subscription for linked editing software, and some feature crippling to push them.

There is actually healthy competition in the space, though.

[–] bcgm3@lemmy.world 13 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

I still use my Canon SD1000. 20 years and it's still going! The resolution is lower (only 7.1MP), but the photos still look really nice. And that was a relatively cheap camera for the time.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Magnum@infosec.pub 11 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Or you could use an open camera app

[–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 31 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

For now. Until Google says those apps aren't "verified" or whatever and blacklists them. Until the next Android update makes it scan and upload every photo file anywhere on the device, not just ones used or made in particular apps.

[–] willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 4 days ago

We should consider divorcing Goggle from Android via something like GrapheneOS or /e/OS.

load more comments (13 replies)
[–] vala@lemmy.dbzer0.com 41 points 4 days ago (5 children)

You can uninstall it and install this so that Google can't get it back on your system.

https://github.com/daboynb/Safetycore-placeholder

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] sik0fewl@piefed.ca 27 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Aren’t viruses and spyware illegal?

[–] benjirenji@slrpnk.net 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Technically it's neither. Viruses spread and spyware sends your data to an attacker. This app does neither. The third party feature however does make it easier for spyware to identify sensitive content on your phone, but then you have a problem anyway because you gave a spyware app access to all your media.

[–] foodandart@lemmy.zip 7 points 4 days ago

I can see actual digital cameras are going to become popular again...

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 23 points 4 days ago (1 children)

what the fuck? I had no idea about this. I never opted into this.

[–] willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

No shit. The billionaires at the top worry about public safety, would you believe it? (giant fucking sarcasm tag goes here for all my asperger ftiends)

Who owns the (fully paid up) phone that's in my hands right now? I try to tell myself I do, but...

Yea, I am not a happy camper.

[–] minorkeys@sh.itjust.works 18 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

If we weren't so fucking weak and unorganized, we'd be burning their companies and their homes to the fucking ground.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 52 points 5 days ago (6 children)

Reportedly, the app uses an on-device machine learning model to classify the content.

Using your shiny new phone to train AI...

For now its only supposed to check Google Messages, so not if you use a different text app.

But one vulnerability already is side loaded versions with super high version numbers so they won't be auto updated. Those will scan everything and do whatever with it. Considering the apps point is to scan for nudes, likely sending all your nudes to the hacker.

[–] JiveTurkey@lemmy.world 17 points 5 days ago

The dummy version is an empty app.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] Miller@lemmy.world 47 points 5 days ago

Sphynx cats trigger it and you get an unwarranted alert that Google is very disappointed.

[–] story@lemmy.zip 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

hey folks i got graphene, do i need to worry about this or is this what the sandbox is for?

[–] Kewlio250@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 days ago

Google cannot install apps in Graphene without explicit, app by app permission (due to the sandboxes Google play). We are safe

[–] glitchdx@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago (2 children)

just hoping my current phone survives ling ebough that my next one can be a linux phone

[–] bitjunkie@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

Meanwhile, in 2357 AD…

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

pls post at least 1 paragraph of the article into the post body, to get a quick overview what it's about.

[–] crunchpaste@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Time to start shooting nudes on film I guess.

[–] kadu@scribe.disroot.org 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

You can develop black and white film at home using coffee. Developing nudes this way sounds kinda hot.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] dsilverz@catodon.rocks 11 points 4 days ago (3 children)

I once stumbled upon this app automatically installed on the phone I happen to have paid for (because at this point I doubt I could call this piece of metallic tile "my phone" and suing Google Inc. for them to refund me this phone would be as successful as if I tried to push and move a certain Mountain View building from its place with my own muscles). Shortly after that, it seems to have vanished from the list of apps as mysteriously as it initially appeared, either it uninstalled itself or it was changed names.

In any case, as soon as I realized that presence and realized I wouldn't have an "uninstall" option without turning on options that would straightforwardly break banking apps and government apps (gov.br the Brazilian app for everything citizen-related) I was compelled to use, I started filling the phone's gallery with all sorts of potentially-triggering stuff I either find online or (mainly) make myself: dark art including FNAF-like jump scares, haunted/cursed artifacts and occult/ritualistic imagery, photos and videos depicting snakes and scorpions, lots of Memento Mori including photos of cemeteries and tombstones, archaeological skeletons, buzzards eating animal carcasses in the wilderness, as well as media of my own cut wr... I mean, uhm, media of my own cute wrathful owl I sculpted on Blender. Yeah, several different 3d rendered scenes and short animation videos as well, especially scenes in which she's performing chases and huntings... Not to mention the plethora of owl photos and videos, many of which are birdwatching of them catching and eating prey on nature, in potentially gory settings (i.e. the unfiltered, untamed nature who doesn't care about our anthropocentric definitions of good and evil).

So if Google decides to start "protecting me from (my own) sensitive imagery", their clanker is essentially going to have a hard time having to go through gibibytes of media and potentially wiping the whole device as I made sure to fill the entire storage (even non-media things too, such as using provoking nicknames for fictional contacts like a contact card for "Inanna", as well as odd descriptions for bank transactions such as "my soul belongs to Ereshkigal") with purposefully sensitive content. If they do that, I'll then have something more concrete to sue them for: religious intolerance, as it's all representing of my left-hand path spirituality.

And with all this I leave this one absurdist idea on how to try and boycott the corporate nanny (and surveillance). A phone gallery full of sensitive items (not nudes, but dark/provocative art purposefully built to trigger similar nannying responses) will hopefully overwhelm their servers, shall they offload the computing to their data centers. If this doesn't overwhelm their servers, at least the techbros and their clankers are going to have an interesting time when scrolling through legal-yet-disturbing content they hoarded from Android users' phones.

!technology@lemmy.world

[–] schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Came for technology news, stayed for the Mesopotamian undergods.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] borari@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 4 days ago (3 children)

It’s not looking for stuff like you’re describing, skeletons, graves, birds, whatever spoopy “dark” stuff you put on there. It’s looking for nude people, then actioning/alerting if it thinks minors are in the images. You definitely don’t want to honeypot this ai bro.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] plz1@sh.itjust.works 6 points 4 days ago (2 children)

So...

  1. They really don't care about that stuff
  2. They are using your own phone's processing power to scan, not theirs. I'm sure they have a phone-home mechanism, but they have no vested interest in scanning server-side when they can do it phone-side.
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] WillieShen@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

I think it can be removed, at least for my phone, in the settings > Google or just use adb.

If they really care about users' security, they should make Graphene OS's GMSCompact and explicit permissions the new standard instead of restricting what apps can they use and forcing invasive system apps. And centralized censorship and requiring an account is not what makes apps secure. Source available and reproducible build is.

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Apple already uses machine vision for photo searching, that weird auto categorization it does and such. They have for years.

I would bet the photos app already classifies nudes, but silenty, mostly so it doesnt add your nudes to an auto album.

[–] tidderuuf@lemmy.world 14 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I've got a Pixel 9 I keep for development and uninstalled that system app a few months ago. It's still gone. Maybe updates are reinstalling it but saying that it cannot be uninstalled or removed is a lie.

[–] Mihies@programming.dev 16 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It says in the article title that it keeps reinstalling itself, not that it can't be removed.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›