Privacy#1
Privacy is a big deal to me. The mere thought that your everyday tools could be spying on you, no matter if it’s on behalf of a snooping government or a malicious hacker group, pisses me off. Seriously, don’t do that, it’s rude!
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Delete Facebook and Google
Two sites to link to whenever someone starts talking about deleting their Facebook account, or quitting Google. Talk is cheap, you know. I wish I could get out of both rackets, but it’s not possible because of work. I will, however, move my email from Google soon, possibly to HEY when they support custom domains.
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Growing up online without knowing it
From an older (February, 20190) piece in The Atlantic, about kids finding out that their parents has been sharing their life on social media since their inception:
For several months, Cara has been working up the courage to approach her mom about what she saw on Instagram. Not long ago, the 11-year-old—who, like all the other kids in this story, is referred to by a pseudonym—discovered that her mom had been posting photos of her, without prior approval, for much of her life. “I’ve wanted to bring it up. It’s weird seeing myself up there, and sometimes there’s pics I don’t like of myself,” she said.
Every parent I know does this. They do it out of pride of their child, family, or just because they want to share their life (mostly the good parts) on social media, just like everyone else. It’s just as fake as most other things that go up there, filtered by choice and design, but it leaves a mark for a human being that’s not yet a person, and hasn’t made the choice. That’s a tricky disposition, if you ask me. By all means share, but do it privately, in groups through secure channels.
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Twitter hack was an inside job, could’ve been a lot worse
If you saw Elon Musk, Barack Obama, and more tweet bitcoin scams recently, you saw the result of a social engineering hack targeting verified Twitter accounts primarily. Vice has the full story.
“We used a rep that literally done all the work for us,” one of the sources told Motherboard. The second source added they paid the Twitter insider. Motherboard granted the sources anonymity to speak candidly about a security incident. A Twitter spokesperson told Motherboard that the company is still investigating whether the employee hijacked the accounts themselves or gave hackers access to the tool.
I’m amazed and horrified that the scam worked, collecting over $100,000 worth of bitcoin. Please be more careful, and don’t trust so easily, okay?
Things could’ve been worse though. What if a hack like this was used to spread disinformation, rather than just grab cash from gullible suckers that thinks Elon Musk can magically duplicate bitcoins for free? Come election time, get ready to not trust anything, verified badge or not.
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Are your apps crashing today? Blame Facebook
The Facebook SDK is crashing a bunch of iOS apps today, including popular ones such as Spotify and Pinterest. Luckily you can do something about it, by enabling a VPN or a firewall app that blocks the sneaky code that tries to talk to Facebook. The Verge swears by Lockdown Apps, a free firewall for iOS, so if you’re having issues, give it a go. The VPN costs money, but there’s a trial. It’s likely Zenmate – which I like – will get the job done too, although I haven’t tried any of these for this particular problem as I’ve yet to experience it.
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Guide to deleting your social media accounts
Wired has a guide on how to delete your accounts on various social media platforms. It’s not as easy as you might think.
Wanting to delete your account is one thing, but actually being able to hit the delete button is another story. Social media outlets make money off of you and your information, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they don’t want to let you go. Because of this, the biggest networks have made it overly complicated to delete your account. But if you are set on getting rid of them, here’s what you’ll have to do.
⚡️ Related: My Social Needia essay, and the services I’m quitting.
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Another reason not to use Zoom
If you needed yet another reason not use hyped videoconferencing service Zoom, then this is it. They’re launching end-to-end encryption for calls (yay!), but only for paying users, whom are all criminals it seems.
From the Wired story:
“Free users for sure we don’t want to give that,” Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said in a company earnings call on Tuesday referring to end-to-end encryption, “because we also want to work together with FBI, with local law enforcement in case some people use Zoom for a bad purpose.”
This is stupid in so many ways. Good riddance, Zoom.
Alternatives for your online conversation needs: Jitsi (open source and free videoconferencing tool), Telegram and Signal works too. The latter has a nice blur feature, if you need that.