Privacy is a legend

*15 new emails*

We have updated our privacy policy
We have updated our privacy policy
We have updated our privacy policy
We have updated our privacy policy
We have updated our privacy policy
We have updated our privacy policy
We have updated our privacy policy
We have updated our privacy policy
We have updated our privacy policy
We have updated our privacy policy
We have updated our privacy policy
We have updated our privacy policy
We have updated our privacy policy
We have updated our privacy policy
We have updated our privacy policy

Swedish privacy!

Data privacy is a thing of past...

When Facebook says they care about your privacy lol

So, recently, a person in the US was arrested for stalking people.

The evidence was some data from google, a work computer and from a VPN provider.

Let's take a quick look at that VPN provider. It (PureVPN) says on their privacy policy page that they do NOT store logs.

Guess from what VPN provider the FBI got those logs? Yes, PureVPN!

Althouh I'm happy they got this creep off the street, it still means that PureVPN has been lying to its entire customer base.

I personally hope that their reputation will be destroyed now because this should never happen.

A screenshot I took from their privacy policy page is attached below.

Keep your eyes open when choosing a VPN provider!

Had a conversation with someone a little while ago. I opened my email app (TutaNota) and he asked what the hell that email thingy was. Explained the encrypted/privacy reasons.

"Why would you encrypt everything?"

Because I have stuff to hide. Do you?

"Nahh I just use outlook, I have nothing to hide".

Told him to email me all his usernames/passwords, bank statements, porn preferences, emails, messages etc etc.

"But that's private data!".

Exactly.

"But I thought you meant like crime/illegal stuffs etc"

Nope. I just asked if you had anything to hide, you interpreted that as having anything non-lawfully to hide. I never even asked anything in relation to non-lawful stuff.

Because, having something to hide doesn't mean it's criminal/illegal, it means you'd like to keep that stuff private.

Website: We care about your privacy and don't sell your information to third parties.

*inspects Privacy Badger*
*notices a truckload of Google/facebook trackers/ad thingies*

Yeah why don't you go fuck yourself.

Hello guys. So after I posted the rant about me blocking Google and Facebook through my hosts file, some people commented with the idea of creating a gitlab page with more privacy tips etc.

Well, that is turning into a project (actual website) that I initially started alone but @ewpratten joined the 'team' as frontender!

He'll be doing the front end and I'll be doing the backend :).

I think this will be my first ever (active) collab so I'm pretty excited =D.

for (email in inbox) {
if ( email.contains("policy") ||
email.contains("privacy") ||
email.contains("GDPR")) {
email.delete();
}
}

The best privacy policy update meme

*steps into the coffee shop

"WE'VE UPDATED OUR PRIVACY POLICY!!!"

Privacy Policy done right

Suddenly everyone is updating their privacy policy.

Those massive privacy leaks we call error reports...

RIP Privacy

Clearly Mozilla is the villain here for prioritising privacy and personal freedom over censorship, control, and surveillance. Oh, our parental controls don't work! WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN! wtf

*in a chat with a fellow devRanter who is aiming more and more towards privacy things*
*hmmm shall i tell him about my Firefox privacy addons... *
*nahh let's not get too intrusive*

3 minutes later

Him: hey bro, what Firefox addons do you have?

😄😊😂

I tried DuckDuckGo like two years ago and my opinion was “meh, I don’t like the results”.

Yesterday @Root made it clear that the sole amount of data collected changes the whole perspective of tracking.

I went to shower thinking about that and as I was standing there enjoying warm water...

It hit me.

I liked google results and disliked DDG not because DDG was worse.

I liked google results because they were CRAFTED for ME to LIKE them. They exploited my confirmation bias, the strongest of all biases.

I took my other phone which is android, has a different sim that isn’t tied to my identity (don’t ask, this is Russia), was never connected to my WiFi and of course has no google account tied to it.

I tried googling stuff.

The results was just like what DDG gets you, the only difference was google amp were on top.

The fuck. One of the wokest moments ever.

I just got a text from T-Mobile telling me about their updated privacy policy and that I can “opt out.” So, naturally I do exactly this.

After a little bit, I land on their “Do not sell my data” page and discover that, not only does it have 175+ trackers,
it doesn’t even fucking work. Also, on the desktop version of the site, the very control allowing the user to opt out of having their data shared/sold doesn’t even render.

These are all absolutely inexcusable.

This can annoy the hell out of me. When people ask me if they can have your Facebook or whatsapp or something and I'm like 'sorry I don't have that' and they ask why and you explain because privacy reasons and they go like 'oh you're a little paranoid are ya?'.

There's a motherfucking big difference between wanting control over your data as much as possible and being paranoid.

Fucking hell.

*Email*
"We updated our Privacy Policy"
"We updated our Privacy Policy"
.
.

*opens devRant*
**Rants on Privacy Policy**

-_-

Of course they want all my privacy for themselves..

So I just booted up my laptop.

WE'VE UPDATED OUR PRIVACY POLICY.
WE'VE UPDATED OUR PRIVACY POLICY.
WE'VE UPDATED OUR PRIVACY POLICY.
WE'VE UPDATED OUR PRIVACY POLICY.
WE'VE UPDATED OUR PRIVACY POLICY.
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WE'VE UPDATED OUR PRIVACY POLICY.
WE'VE UPDATED OUR PRIVACY POLICY.

I agreed to all of it.

And continued my day.

Have a nice day everyone.

P.S no I'm not talking about emails

A dating site for devs/sysadmins (etc) with privacy in mind.

Just a quick update (been a little) on the privacy website!

Although both the frontend and the backend need quite some work, I managed, with the help of some other guys, to get everything (only for the IM section yet for now) loaded from the database instead of hardcoded! Yes, that also means that the tiny icon colors are either red or green based on database values :).

Going to keep working on this tomorrow in the hopes I can also get some other subjects ready.

Thanks!

Internet Version 2, with technologically enforced privacy and neutrality.

Which asshole designer and stupid website owners decide to embed 110 trackers on a single page!!
I mean sure some ads add their own trackers....but THIS is beyond shit
R.I.P Privacy

Was programming on the privacy site REST api.

Needed a break and started searching for a good movie or documentary.

Found a documentary about big data/mass surveillance.

I now have loads of motivation for programming on this again as this showed me the importance of secure services/software.

Alright, I just wanna start off by saying that I'm a huge privacy guy. I hate all kinds of data collection companies like Google/Facebook/Amazon and all that. Yet I'm forced to have a Google account for certain reasons.

But the thing that I want to say is that I often talk to people to express my concerns about privacy. And most people agree and say that "yeah sure that's some scary shit" but don't actually do much about it.

And the thing is. If you just browse through all of the options in your Google account. You can turn off and remove almost all data collection/ad serving and identification options entirely.

And yet purple complain about that Google sees what you buy and shit. Turn everything off. Get and adblocker and get noscript. The single best browser add-on out there. It's almost that easy to get at least acceptable amounts of Internet privacy.

Please, don't ever ignore the significance of in Internet privacy. And the potential issue of net neutrality. Don't be ignorant. Don't be the client.

For the privacy conscious people under us, take a look at the search engine searx.me.

'but I don't believe it respects privacy when it's not open sour.... ' - it's entirely open source.

You can even install it on your own server!

So I said I'd rant this yesterday but a long night of server management came in the way!

Yesterday @trogus mentioned in a comment that he thinks everyone deserves a place where they feel like home and this is that place for me along with some sub-places which derived from here.

So in this linux/foss chat yesterday I was trying to get into an IRC chatroom (all people there (or at least a lot) are also like minded on privacy/security). I don't want to use email signup if not absolutely neccesary (don't judge me, everyone there own thing) and I found out very late (after 20 minutes of instructions from a fellow devRanter) that this thing required email signup. I didn't wanna do that so I said that and started typing a whole essay of why I'd rather not do that and what my reasons are (privacy partly) but then the guy said: "haha you got it man".

For one second I forgot that I don't have to explain myself over there on stuff regarding privacy that a lot of people would find paranoid. Man, that feels like being home :).

Hello devRanters! A new update on the privacy website as I've had time to work on that last weekend.

For the picture: everything except for the images (although the URI's are in the database) is coming directly from the DB!

Also got a thingy working which can show one app on a single page including it's pro's/cons etc that you see on the main page but also (still have to write that part though and no screenshots yet as I've only done the backend!) sources (links to proof etc), a description and a guide on how to use that app/service!

I'm finally getting somewhere :)

My coworker requested I add a bunch of tracking to our product.

I've previously tried explaining to him (and honestly the rest of the company) about privacy issues stemming from tracking, such as by their beloved Venmo. Venmo tracks absolutely fking everything you give it access to, from location data to your entire facebook, twitter, foursquare, etc. feeds, and sells ALL of it to third parties. It's scary. but! this guy simply does not understand, and/or does not care, and marches right on into all the surveillance, loudly singing the song of convenience to all who'll listen. (Nobody else in the company cared, either. :/)

ugh.

Anyway, I'm conflicted.

I have to install some tracking, but I can probably come up with an excuse to cut most of it out and gimp their surveillance. It'll still be useful to us, but it'll limit the amount of data the tracking company can sell to third parties.

but they'll push this guy pretty hard on it, and he's as technically-inclined as a smudged glass of warm, stale beer. "Better for your conversion!" they'll say. "How much tracking do you want?" he'll reply. "@ashkin, why can't you do this right now? What else do you need to make this happen?" he'll firmly inquire. and so I'll be forced to make it happen...

ergh

“Essential cookies”...

Your privacy is compromised

So now I'm working on my first collab with a fellow devRanter on a privacy website thingy! Excited and want to start working on it right away.

BUT OH NO I'VE GOTTA GO TO WORK IN 15 MINUTES TO STAND BEHIND A TABLE PACKING MOTHERFUCKING BOXES ALL DAY, YEAH NO THAT SOUNDS FUCKING COCKSUCKING EXCITING. (okay I can pay rant but still).

I need a hug 😞

I just wanted to share a quote that I think is completely magnificent.

"Saying that you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say."

- Edward Snowden

Trend of the day:
1. Facebook is really compromising user privacy, will delete my account!
2. Post about deleting Fb account to twitter, instagram, etc
3. "Ok google, what is privacy?"
4. Find a random app in play store and allow access regardless

Although I do give some privacy related advice here and there on here, I'm planning on hiring a server dedicated to devRant regarding privacy/tiny simple tools.

I've got the folloing in mind:

- Host the privacy website
- Put a pi-hole server on it for everyone to use
- Own IP lookup API which would display it in a few data formats.

Any other ideas?

!!privacy
!!political

I had a discussion with a coworker earlier.

I owed him for lunch the other day, and he suggested I pay him back either with cash (which I didn't have), Venmo, or just by him lunch the next time (which I ended up doing).

I asked about Venmo, and he said it was like paypal, but always free. that sounded a bit off -- because how are they in business if it's always free? -- so I looked it up, and paid special attention to their privacy policy.

The short of it: they make money by selling your information. That's worth far more than charging users a small fee when sending $5 every few weeks. Sort of what I expected when I heard "always free," but what surprised me is just how much they collect. (In retrospect, I really shouldn't have been surprised at all...)

Here's an incomplete list:
* full name, physical address, email, DoB, SSN (or other government IDs, depending on country)
* Complete contact list (phone numbers, names, photos)
* Browser/device fingerprint
* (optional) Your entire Facebook feed and history
* (optional) all of your Facebook friends' contact info
* Your Twitter feed
* Your FourSquare activity
(The above four ostensibly for "fraud prevention")
* GPS data
* Usage info about the actual service
* Other users' usage info (e.g. mentioning you)
* Financial info (the only thing not shared with third parties)

Like, scary?

And, of course, they share all of this with their parent company, PayPal. (The privacy policy does not specify what PayPal does with it, nor does it provide any links that might describe it, e.g. PayPal's "info-shared-by-third-parties" privacy policy)

So I won't be using Venmo. ever.

I mentioned all of this to my coworker, and he just doesn't understand. at all. He even asks "So what are they going do with that, send me ads? like they already do?"

I told him why I think it's scary. Everything from them freely selling all of your info, to someone being able to look through your entire online life's history, to being able to masquerade around as you, to even reproducing your voice (e.g. voice clips collected by google assistant), to grouping people by political affiliations.

He didn't have much to say about any of them, and actually thought the voice thing was really cool. (All I could think of was would happen if the "news" had that ability....) All of his other responses were "that doesn't bother me at all" and/or "using all of these services is so convenient."

but what really got me was his reaction to the last one.

I said, "If you're part of the NRA, for example, you'd be grouped with Republicans. If they sell all of this information, which they do, and they don't really care who buys it or what they do with it... someone could look through the data and very very easily target those political groups."

His response? "I don't have to worry about that. I'm a Democrat, and have always voted Democrat. I'll tell anyone that."

Like.
That's basically saying every non-democrat is someone you should be wary of and keep an eye on. That's saying Democrats are the norm and everyone else is deviant and/or wrong.

and I couldn't say anything after this because... no matter what I said, it would start a political conflict, and would likely end with me being fired (since the owner is also a democrat, and they're very buddy-buddy). "What if they target democrats?" -> "They already do!" or "What if democrats use it against others?" -> "They deserve it for being violent and racist, but we never would" (except, you know, that IRS/tea-party incident for example...)

But like, this is coming from someone who firmly believes conservatives are responsible for all of the violence and looting and rioting and mass shootings in the country. ... even when every single instance has been by committed by democrats. every. single. one.

Just...
jfl;askjfasflkj.

He doesn't understand the need for privacy, and his world view is just... he actually thinks everyone with different beliefs is wrong and dangerous.

I don't even know how to deal with people like this. and with how prevalent this mindset is... coupled with the aforementioned privacy concerns... it's honestly *terrifying.*

Programming on the privacy website together with 404response, this is awesome!

It's great to have someone who's good at frontend while you suck balls at it so that I can fully focus on the backend :D. (ewpratten if you still want to you can join 404response, he can explain you everything he's doing and how you can help)

Hai devRant! Working on the privacy app and want opinions on the page for details on specific apps (as in, applications so web/app/mobile or even embedded?!).

Yeah I know that the aligning is deffo not perfect but hey, gotta start somewhere :). Detail: everything you see here (the content and actually also the icon path) is rendered from the database already.

Tips/opinions?

Gotta say, I find it awesome that I can connect with some devRanters through encrypted channels.

It's awesome to talk to devRanters with the same mindset through channels that offer a very high level of security/privacy.

Thanks!

I am trying to understand something for a while. devRant is full of privacy advocates and to be honest, part of it is almost taken by a group of people that call other people random swear words people because they are using a particular product of a company.

I will raise some points and will try to discuss them with other people in comments.

I will stick with Google. Since it looks like it's the most hated one. A company that has built one of the most intelligent infrastructure, the most popular mobile operating system and of course, the best search engine currently available.

The problem everyone sees is the privacy. Google tracks the search history to give users a better experience and show relevant ads. You might not need this "better experience". In case you don't know, you can turn off personalized search any time to make sure Google doesn't track. Same goes with Google Chrome, you can turn off all the data it is sending to servers in settings. You can simply not sign in if you don't anything to be synchronised.

An argument is Google should be opt-in rather than opt-out. But the general users are not tech-savvy. And yes, going to settings and turning on personalised search is a lot of work for a huge amount of people. Trust me, I worked in IT before. If they find other search engine giving them a good experience without changing anything in the settings, they will just simply move to that engine.

What interests me most if how people back DuckDuckGo. First of all, not all parts of DDG is not open source (it's fucking not, you can argue all day). Parts of it is closed because of licensing issues.

That is perfectly fine to privacy community. But it's not when Chrome is closed source for almost the same reason. I mean when you're using DDG, you are supporting a US-based company that has privacy all over its face and using closed source application on their server. Have you not learned anything from history?

You might be wondering about my obsession with Google. It hurts me when I see a giant company whose popular software is open source is bashed like this. Google has made huge contributions to open source communities. Chromium, Android, Kubernetes, Angular, GoLang, TensorFlow etc.

And PRISM, how do you know that DDG is not part of it? it's US-based after all.

I just saw an article that used a video with a title "TNW - Aral Balkan - Free Is A Lie | The Next Web" while asking us to switch to DDG. Ummm....DDG is also free right?

Maybe we should raise concerns with the US gov first rather than Google.

Hello again devRanters! This is linuxxx again. A quick update regarding the privacy site!

Right now we're up to the following:

Ewpratten
- Converting what we have right now on frontend to Bootstrap.
- Working on a page with a description as to what this is going to be exactly.

linuxxx (me)
- Converted the static stuff we used before to a simple MVC based PHP web application.
- Created a DB scheme for the custom CMS I am going to write for this.
- Starting to work on the custom CMS right now!

We'll update as soon as we've got a well working description/introduction page :)

We won't be creating rants every day/new tiny feature/change or anything but as this is our first productive night, it seemed like a nice idea to update what we already got done/started on :).

Stay tuned!

Just wanted to say a 'thank you' to all people who bear with my privacy stuffs! I know quite some people who installed messaging apps, signed up to privacy services and so on, solely because --> I <-- want to communicate in private and I realise (I've always realized that though) that that can be tough sometimes.

Also a thank you to those people for not requiring me to get data fed into the big companies :).

Thanks!

Privacy at its best...

Zuckerberg: "We released a dating feature with security and privacy in mind" 😂

devRant is truly amazing, a social network where I don't have to give up on privacy by giving out my number to confirm that I am legit when I'd use something as a VPN to protect my identity (unlike twitter facebook and google)

Thanks for giving a fuck about privacy and not giving a fuck about my data

I find it so infuriating when someone uploads a lot of data containing other people's data as well without asking those people if that's alright with them. (Contact information, address book, etc).

That you don't care about that/privacy is your choice, even your goddamn right but then please don't take other peoples right to privacy/their own choice away in the fucking process.

Removed my Facebook account about Month ago. Sister was pretty sad because I'm the one person she can tag in everything. Asked me why I deleted it and I told her it was because of privacy concerns. "Then why don't you make an end to end encrypted social network?". I'd actually consider this...

I want to be PROGRAMMING on the freaking privacy site already, not having to search for icons, download them in the right color/format etc.

Fucking hell. (although finding good/fitting icons is a funny challenge though :P)

So today I learned i can pay my property taxes online. The way you pay is:

1. Enter address (street #, I live in an apt)
2. It will show all matches **including the owners full name**
3. If you click view, it shows the full account history...

Sorry for being late, stuffs came inbetween!

I have done a few privacy rants/posts before but why not another one. @tahnik did one a few days ago so I thought I'd do a new one myself based on his rant.

So, online privacy. Some people say it's entirely dead, that's bullshit. It's up to an individual, though, how far they want to go as for protecting it.

I personally want to retain as much control over my data as possible (this seems to be a weird thing these days for unknown reasons...). That's why I spend quite some time/effort to take precautions, read myself into how to protect my data more and so on.

'Everyone should have the choice of what services they use' - fully agreed, no doubt about that.

I just find one thing problematic. Some services/companies handle data in a way or have certain business models which takes the control which some people want/have over their data away when you communicate with someone using that service.

Some people (like me) don't want anything to do with google but even when I want to email my best fucking friend, I lose the control over that email data since he uses gmail.

So, when someone chooses to use gmail and I *HAVE* to email them, my choice is gone.

TO BE VERY CLEAR: I'm not blaming that on the users, I'm blaming that on the company/service.

Then for example, google analytics. It's a very good/powerful when you're solely looking at its functions.
I just don't want to be part of their data collection as I don't want to get any data into the google engine.

There's a solution for that: installing an addon in order to opt out.

I'm sorry, WHAT?! --> I <-- have to install an addon in order to opt out of something that is happening on my own motherfucking computer?! What the actual fuck, I don't call that a fucking solution. I'll use Privacy Badger + hosts files to block that instead.

Google vs 'privacy' friendly search engines - I don't trust DDG completely because their backend is closed/not available to the public but I'd rather use them then a search engine which is known to be integrated into PRISM/other surveillance engines by default.

I don't mind the existence of certain services, as long as they don't integrated you with data hungry companies/mass surveillance without you even using their services.

Now lets see how fast the comment section explodes!

Hurr durrrrr MA prIVACY

Ooh my f**king god! These privacy emails are getting out of hand now!!!!! I blame Europe for spoiling my inbox.

Not to say anyone here is right or wrong about this, but I just do t get the whole privacy paranoia. Yes, I get that our rights are being violated. Yes I know I need to be aware and concerned.

People use specials rims, VPN software, etc... The bottom line is every keystroke, SMS, voice call, search text, historical reference... every piece of digital communication is recorded (At least in the US).

The sad reality is I can be as angry as I want, but unless I forego using tech or leaving the house, there is nothing I can do about it.

I await your comments, both positive and negative.

privacy vs personalization?
What do you choose?
I choose DDG

Currently working on the privacy site CMS REST API.

For the curious ones, building a custom thingy on top of the Slim framework.

As for the ones wondering about security, I'm thinking out a content filtering (as in, security/database compatibility) right now.

Once data enters the API, it will first go through the filtering system which will check filter based on data type, string length and so on and so on.

If that all checks out, it will be send into the data handling library which basically performs all database interactions.

If everything goes like I want it to go (very highly unlikely), I'll have some of the api actions done by tonight.

But I've got the whole weekend reserved for the privacy site!

Alright so the security blog is coming up soon (as in, days probably) and I'm working hard together with 404response on the privacy site.

I do want to gain some insight into visitor numbers and so on but OF COURSE, commercial/closed source options are a no-go for me!

I am thinking about maybe using Piwik with all the privacy options enabled Also self hosted obviously. What do you guys/gals think?

Just managed to setup a tiny/simple privacy-friendly analytics system.

You basically call an api from your backend with the api key and all the headers you received from the browser (php and Apache or nginx in my case) and the analytics api gets useful stuff out of that data without sacrificing privacy.

I get a little bit more insight into my websites usage and the client isn't sacrificing identifiable information!

I've been wanting to make this fucker for fucking months.

*runs into underground bunker*

wew i'm safe!

*door creeks open*

someone whispers: "Psst, we've updated our privacy policy"

Someone says "privacy"
I'm like "sorry what was that?"
😂

Seen more about GDPR, privacy and policy here than in my mailbox.

VPN? What do you think guys?

My Privacy vs Security poster won the Best Poster award at a National Level conference! :D

So we send a quote out to a client to update his website to make it compliant with the new privacy guidelines: SSL encryption, removing external libraries, removing Facebook Plug-ins, all that stuff. We didn't get a response.

On Monday, he called in a panic. "The website does not work, fix immediately!"

I check out the server, what do I see? An SSL cert installed the Friday before... Client decided to do it himself, on a Friday, without testing. He broke something, but cannot tell me exactly what he did.

And somehow he thinks all that is my fault :D

Since I started caring about privacy so much my mom thinks that I have something to hide.

Hell yeah I have.

> Open private browsing on Firefox on my Debian laptop
> Find ML Google course and decided to start learning in advance (AI and ML are topics for next semester)
**Phone notifications: YouTube suggests Machine Learning recipes #1 from Google**
> Not even logged in on laptop
> Not even chrome
> Not even history enabled
> Not fucking even windows
😒😒😒
The lack of privacy is fucking infuriating!
....
> Added video to watched latter
I now hate myself for bitting

Fucking phone company just sent me a notification, CCing all other business customers they have in Sydney. I am going to sign all those customers to a porn newsletter, and then advise them about the privacy breach.

Wanted to get the privacy site cms REST API ready for programming again but hadn't put it on gitlab yet.

After some nervous searching I found it again 😅

This weekend I hope to get very far :)

So a friend of mine saw that I used DuckDuckGo.

Friend: "why do you use ddg? it has bad results! "
Me:"because I care about privacy,google collects a ton of shit when you search."
Friend:"yeah I don't care I just want to game..."
Me: 😱🤷‍♂️😶

Most people think like that sadly...

Happy data privacy day!

My biggest hurdle:
Having to install Windows because some old application only runs on Windows.
No, i do not want to sign in.
I AM SURE

Installer: How about signing in?

Edit: Now it asks me about privacy options. As if i even had a choice..

Unpopular opinion, privacy is dead.

Discussed my Internet privacy campaign - Google-free, encryption where possible, didn't even mention VPNs - with 2 people and they've both asked, "why, what are you hiding?"

So apparently my university is doing a privacy promotion event... if only I had the time to go..

"I have nothing to hide."

I admit, I did utter these disgraceful words once. But I now take privacy seriously.

What is really sad and potentially dangerous is the fact that younger people do not give a fuck about privacy. Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram - these people use these apps and do not pay ANY attention to what might be the consequences of their actions.

The more data they own, the more they own you. We should start a privacy basics course in high school. Things could get out of hand in the future, as if they already aren't.

Guy using VPN:
why would anybody use tor unless he hides something?

Me (using Tor):
why would anyone use VPN unless he hides something?

In my opinion there is no difference in using Tor than in using VPN, it's all about privacy. I would consider Tor as an free alternative for your everyday privacy needs, if you can't afford VPN, or am I wrong?

With the recent mark zuckerberg hearing, a ton of websites have actually changed their privacy policies and terms of service, to be much more transparent, so it did have a good impact, but the thought that it took that, to implement those changes is infuriating

Firefox focus ;) privacy anonymity and no ads from default.

All these 'We updated our privacy policy" mails remind me on how many (unnecessary) sites I am actually registered on...

Instagram just imported my birthday from my Facebook, which btw, was not specifically linked when I used to post on Facebook.

Mark Fucking Fuckface Fuckerberg's team is destroying Instagram now. Ffs. 😒😒

Why is everyone okay with this invasion of privacy? And when is telegram launching an image sharing platform?

"Google control is not privacy #savelocal news" this was flying over Google io

Keeping your Webcam ON would help us preserve your privacy.
Thanks for Cooperating :)

What the fuck is privacy?

-Facebook (2004-present)

I've been reading a lots of posts about the "Age of No Privacy" and how our most personal information is spread and abused.
Well, obviously those complaining didn't have the displeasure of being born into an Ashkenazi Jewish family.
I had a small medical procedure, and my entire family (spread across 4 continents) became aware of it, created a WhatsApp group to discuss it (with message traffic that would shame any war room), and then my younger cousins asked that we post photos.
Of what?! My fucking colon? How about I stream the whole process live on Facebook, you crazy little shits?!
My point is - we violate the privacy of our close friends and loved ones daily, giving very little thought to what sort of information should or should not be forwarded. I'm not opposing to the battle against great evils, but maybe we should start by not committing small evils daily.

To register for Facebook's hacker cup.

Fuck you 1:
I need a Facebook account

Fuck you 2:
I need to enter my address and phone number mandatorily. Because they'll send me a t shirt if I win one. It's not like anyone would not win a t shirt or not want one right? So fucking slurp away at all their privacy data any way.

Here's my address for you facebook

No 666, fuck you street, privacypolis, fuckington offville.

LinkedIn description "Privacy enthusiast"

Wow! Google's update in its privacy policy is impressive. Still too lazy to read it though. I trust Google. LOL

This rant has been one that I've been wanting to rant about for a while now. Me being drunk as fuck right now (mind, stay awake!) doesn't really help, but meh.
At least Wanblows was able to install its "features" properly... Except it wasn't, being the featureful ShitOS it is.

I want to rant about privacy. Not about "nothing to hide, nothing to fear". That's been ranted about plenty by the MIcroshaft-loving folks as well as the privacy-aware opposition. Rather, I'd like to rant about the privacy-concious.

I am a privacy-concious-person, with his current status quo being that he doesn't yet know a privacy-concious solution to every data-intrusive "common solution" out there. So I tend to value privacy next to De Lijn while sharing location data to Google with Google Maps. Point is, I do not know privacy-concious solutions to everything out there yet. So I use the convenient over the privacy-aware.
(after review while drunk I was unable to make sense of this)

In the privacy-aware circles I tend to see that it seems to be black and white. You share your data with Google, yet you oppose data collection by local institutes? WRONG!!! YOU MUST BE A TINFOIL HAT!!!
No, seriously I don't want to share my data with Google. Just that they're the only realtime navigation platform with decent UI out there that I know of right now.

Privacy isn't all black and white here. I block any intrusion that I'm able to, anything else I abide to, while awaiting a good alternative that does respect my privacy which I would gladly use instead. That does not imply that "I have nothing to hide". I do, and I have a lot to hide.

So that makes up the black and white nature of privacy, which is a fallacy. Another one is the whole idea of "I have nothing to hide" to begin with.

If you have nothing to hide, would you be comfortable with sharing your location data (IP address, habits, common trends, etc) with me? To share your information with me, to have your contacts share your info with me, without your consent? Of course you wouldn't. But that's what's happening right now.

Last week I sent a pic of Nestle Crunch chocolate to my friend in Whatsapp. Today he told me that he got an ad in Instagram for Nestle Crunch!! Holy crap!
We were trying to figure out how did it happen because we never discussed about the chocolate other than that image. Then I realized that Whatsapp and Instagram was owned by the same fucking company - Facebook!!!

I've stopped using Facebook, Instagram for a very long time and I have ad blockers on every electronic device I touch. So I never understood the gravity of people losing shit over privacy, until today. This indeed is creepy and it hit me real hard. I'm now reading all rants with "privacy" tags and methods to harden my devices to repel from those buggers.

Privacy

'I have nothing to hide'

in the last 20 hours i have heard this lie three times from three different people.
I just don't understand them. Everytime the topic privacy comes up (a lot of the times it isn't even me who starts talking about it) they I say this.

Would you want someone following you at all times, looking through your window, recording everything you say and writing all the information he gets about you into a notebook, potentially selling this information to others?
I really hope that you don't want this.

Privacy is a human right and it should stay that!

Privacy is a part of freedom and while freedom may be pretty difficult to define, privacy should always be a part of it.

Introducing. Snapchat privacy invasion. You can see where your added friends are if they do not disable it (enable ghost mode).
Good job :)

Oh come on... Does even ecosia need to craft their truth. First party trackers aren't that better than third-party...
At least there is only one url to block. Easy.

Fuck I hate bloated app permissions but I guess todo lists that know who you most likely to chat to when taking a dump is what we get for demanding everything for free. I get why Snapchat wants so much, I just find it fucking ironic that this is from a company that founded itself on the concept of privacy 🤦‍♂️

I feel I should open a github repo, for people to contribute privacy policy parts into, have say folders like "google analytics" and then whenever people encounter those in the wild, add examples there, so people could fetch together a full privacy policy for free, as all those new cashgrab websites are just fucking insane. But I am not really sure, if that would find any contributors tbh sadly.

P.S: I seem to have developed now a third sense, when the devrant post cooldown is down, so I can rant more lol, because whenever I feel like posting the thought or rant, the cooldown is just about to expire

On the bright side, with all these privacy update emails, it has given me a chance to unsubscribe from all the shitty newsletters that I subscribed loooong back and to delete unwanted spam accounts that I don't use anymore.

Thanks GDPR!

"We updated our privacy policy"

-expression, english. Usually used in place of "we gave zero shits about our users privacy" or "we str8 up boolin on u lol".

Me half a year ago: I want to work at Google one day.

Me now: I want to get more privacy and to get rid of all Google / non private services.

Right now I am trying to switch to signal but it's hard to convince my friends, which also use Instagram Facebook and Snapchat to use signal because they don't give a fuck about privacy and can't be bothered to install an app which taks less time to setup than a fucking Facebook account.

Facebook:
Privacy: not sharing user data with competitors

*enters random page*

To continue, you must accept all cookies or click here to see our Privacy Policy.

*clicks to see privacy policy*

*in privacy policy page*
To continue, you must accept all cookies or click here to see our Privacy Policy.

Fuck GoDaddy man... Paid extra for the privacy feature thinking I wouldn't get harassed by phone. Think again! Got tons of calls from India in two days. What a rip off...

I guess they're selling our info or something...

What service do you guys use? I want to move my domains, any recommendation?

I wont take privacy laws seriously as long as my pizza delivery service needs a fucken phone number as mandatory field.

Privacy....

Today I had to give the privacy speech to my family as to why I don't want to use WhatsApp (where my family has a group discussion). It was pretty difficult in the beginning because they used a lot of the "You shouldn't care if you have nothing to hide." rethoric.

But in the end most of them understood my point of view, and I even got my aunt to install Signal to try it out. I have hope that some day all of our family discussions will be completely private.

So the US Congress decided that the online privacy of it's citizens do not matter. What steps do you guys take to maintain your privacy ? I can't even convince my friends to stop using fb messenger and move onto Signal.

@dfox @trogus Hi, I was just wondering how to find the privacy policy? If I am missing it, sorry!

My question is about who owns the rants. It doesn't matter either way, I am just curious.

Preparing my presentation about privacy and mass surveillance with some coffee. :)

Hello No!!!

Thats good enough to know that personal data is collected.

Okay so today I opened a link to buy a screen for my Raspberry pi on my phone(Chrome browser) and was simultaneously using FB on my Laptop in mozilla.

And that very moment I had ads on FB to but that screen.

Now I know it's nothing new, but at the moment of realization it just felt so creepy.

Privacy literally doesn't exist anymore!

Should I care about privacy anymore ?

I had to switch to windows from Ubuntu in my laptop because of driver related issues.
Everytime I use Windows , I feel uneasy because of the data it collects but at the same time I am happy that I can play a couple of video games , my battery life is better and my display is better.

I own an Android phone , and no matter how many add ons I use , or VPN , I know that Google gets sufficient amount of data to know a lot about me.

It's getting harder and harder to keep my data private and it's becoming inconvenient as well.

In my country almost everyone I talk to uses Whatsapp. I removed my Whatsapp account for a few days and I barely talked to anyone and it was not a good feeling.

My point is , is fighting for privacy worth it ? How much inconvenience are we ready to accept ? Can I do anything to keep my data private and still use convenient services ? Please enlighten me .

I'm at a Dutch Meet-up about security and privacy. Quite interesting. Any Dutch ranters here as well?

I'm really loving Facebook's new design standards they fit so well their latest marketing and rebranding pipe dream to be viewed as a company that respects privacy.

They don't have to protect your info if you can't submit it 😂

Recently I flashed Android 9 (Pie) on my Nexus, but to this day I still haven't logged into Google from it. One reason is because I don't know my password and I didn't git clone my password store yet (where it's contained). Another reason is because I want to reclaim my privacy and not be a data battery for a Matrix of convenience that feeds itself with my personal information. Eh, it sorta works out I guess. Yalp is an amazing alternative to the Play Store, and even offers its own shadow accounts to use along with Google Play.

One problem though, while I've noticed that I could log in with my own account to get all my premium apps (couple hundred euros worth, so not easy to just discard) it apparently violates Google Play's ToS to do so from a third-party app. So I'm a bit hesitant to do that. Do you know of any viable alternative way to preserve my privacy yet install, keep and have validated those premium apps? I could download them from e.g. BlueStacks and export the apk's, but that'd be tedious and wouldn't be able to get those apps validated on my phone unless I log into Google there as well (which kinda defeats the purpose). Any suggestions?

I made a New Year's Resolution to take more of an interest in my Internet privacy. Feel like it's something I should have done a long time ago. I've stopped using Google search (DuckDuckGo instead), moved away from my Gmail account (Tutanota instead) and stopped using Chrome (Firefox/Firefox Focus instead). I've had my Gmail account since they first announced it and you could only sign up if someone invited you. It felt good to delete 7000 emails and what I estimate must have been 13-14 years of Google/YouTube searches. Currently experimenting with VPNs, considering paying for ProtonVPN soon.

If you need 10TB of User data to make a marketing strategy, you might be in the wrong business. When I was young we used our imagination to make good marketing ;-P

I don't understand privacy advocators.

Am I the only one who wouldn't give up practicality in exchange for "potentially more secure"?

I don't understand so much what the deal is with people who avoid Facebook, or don't trust Google or Microsoft, just in the basis of "privacy" or "security".

Websites tracking you to serve ads? Well, it's pointless because I very rarely buy something from the internet or let myself be influenced, ads are waste of time, just use an adblocker.

I can pretty much upload my whole life or documents on Google drive, even if I made it public no one would really care or read it all. It's like that GitHub project you uploaded but never documented, so no one cares. I usually use alternative software not because of "privacy" but because it has features other software doesn't have.

In reality you realize people aren't that interested in your life more than their own life.

I just woke up this morning to an email saying that someone from chile logged into my instagram account and I'm not actually what set me of the most.

The fact that my password was leaked, the fact I literally never got notified that I had a Instagram account I never wanted or the you have to disable most privacy settings, just to reset your password.

Like holy fuck, I disabled all options I could find on firefox concerning privacy/tracking and it still tells me I should disable some privacy settings.
So I enabled chrome again (fucking system app) and it worked on first try. Just as expected...

Anyway, fuck instagram and thank you dear hacker for telling me that I had a worthless to delete.

So this new fitness tracker includes "tone of voice" analysis, and I'm supposed to believe you're not recording every word I say all day long? Riiiight. I know what's in my production log files, and I only work in the textile industry.

starting to use everything on Incognito, with a VPN, and (thinking) of switching to TOR.
a heck of a privacy that will be, but the cost of the Speed(Bandwidth) will be terrible.

So enlighten me here. Am I the only one that doesn't lose his absolute shit when it comes to privacy?
I know that some companies are collecting data, and to a certain extent, I'm fine with it as long as the trade-off is good.
I like that Google is "learning" who I am and what I like, cause now, I only see news and articles relevant to my interests, and search predictions are much better. Same with targeted Ads. On an off chance that I'm not using Adblock I like seeing products that I might like, which I otherwise probably wouldn't even know existed.
Except for Microsoft. I have no idea why, but that's where I draw the line.

Facebook in 2030: we deleted our privacy policy

My app's privacy policy!

Start to read the book from Jaron Lanier "Who owns the Future". And suddenly realize that the company which offering us "free services" is trying to build a superior model of machine learning and read all of our behaviour.

Thus, i start to logout my facebook, twitter, instagram and all of my social media. But, i'm not the lucky one who could fight this "selling data practices", because I still use devices with "Android OS". My privacy stolen & sold is inevitable. What a Digital Life!

I want to switch to an encrypted email service. My question, what if the service provider suddenly decides to close down the email service.

I feel like it's too risky to move all my emails to them.

Watch a privacy video. See how Google use all your datas. Switch on DuckDuckGo. Feel private. Can't find how to go home drunk. Switch to google.

Next level privacy 😂

Say what now

I start shaking and getting nervous when there is something I really, really want to say.

Today in school we started talking about Amazon Alexa and privacy.
This topic concerns me a lot and I started talking in front of the whole class about Google and things they do to spy on you. After about 30 seconds of me talking I started shaking because there was so much I wanted to say and with so much enthusiasm and also a bit of anger.

Been using Snapchat for a while.
But yesterday I uninstalled it. Since morning, while using YouTube, I've been getting advertisements to install Snapchat. Where is the privacy?

To everyone freaking out about how bad Microsoft buying GitHub would be for "privacy". I want you to know that GitHub already uses Google and Facebook analytics on their site.

Unholy league of anti privacy

When your boss wants to use the client's infos about it's clients without anyone's permission, and doesn't understand why it's against basic privacy laws

F*cking morons complaining of privacy yet busy posting practically everything from pictures to finger prints and weird f*cking full details on social networks and some weird online places and platforms...😑🤕😤😤😤 (best safety, never go online)

"We value your privacy, that's why we want you to agree to all of these tracking cookies."

Fucking GDPR, is getting on my nerves now, can't go anywhere without encountering a cookie wall.

facebook in 2025: “we deleted our privacy policy”

Last night me and my friend were on a WhatsApp call discussing how we should practice algorithms and data structures more. We texted the logistics after and he sent me a calendar invite on google. I swear to god this morning I had adds talking about data algorithms all over YouTube but I have never googled this issue in the near past 🤔 this can’t be a coincidence...

maybe, that's a minor update to your policy, but it's a major update to my privacy. No, thanks.

Fuck this shit! Roommate just barged in at 3:30AM, his gf in tow. They went to bed like I am not here and he is snoring like a chainsaw. I never understood how can she sleep next to him while he snores like that. I have earplugs and active noise cancelling headphones on. I can still hear that motherfucker loud and clear. How the fuck is she not awake?!

But more importantly, 50% of this fucking room is mine, what makes him think he can just have his girlfriend over while I am here is beyond me. Like, sure, if I am not here go ahead but when I am here I would like some privacy, I guess the plank wall that I made in the middle of the room is not an obvious enough clue that I want privacy and I don't want to be disturbed :-/

Can't wait to have enough proof of his bullshit to get the block manager to throw him out.

Edit: To add to the snoring problem: I had a girlfriend who would snore, less than my roommate but still loud enough that I was awake the whole night when I went to sleep at her place... I HATE SNORING ... And when I went home for some holidays and my brother snored even for a second I kicked him off of his bed (because why not, he is an asshole to me like 99% of the time - and so am I to him :D //sibling love//)

Brave Browser was found hardcoding referral links to partnered Crypto sites, even if you manually type the URL.

Since then , they have fixed the bug but it's hard to trust Brave again.

Privacy is built on trust. I have recommended Brave to my friends and family and seeing news like this , makes me skeptical about the company.

Just a little message from my girlfriend for all ya privacy folks

That moment when you change your username because you a get a bit too paranoid of your stalker-ish manager finding you here

But i start to get why so many people want to divide their online footprint into as many instances as possible, the less is know, the less traceable you are

!Rant
The new bill passed the house for ISP to be able to sell data. This get me ticked off. I already ausme that ISP did it under the table. Doesn't make it right. Now it legal for them to breach our privacy. At what leave do i need to run my own internet just to feel safe. VPN can sell the data, ISP can sell data about you. I spend my life teaching how to protect people online and now I can't even say they are safe at home from someone with wrong intention. A quote​ comes to mind.
"Dear lord I need to see some change, because the man in the mirror is wearing a mask"
I shouldn't have to feel every time. I boot my PC, that I need to remind my self that what I'm doing now is being sold so someone can lable me. When will the common man learn to protect their privacy online; And where is the line in the sand?

It not all bad, this event has given me the itch to code. Just to spin some heads I'm going to make a script to make random Google query across the widest array of topics, so my profile is full of contradiction.

The few who read this have a nice day!

I think the " we've updated our privacy policy" is a meme now

Hey guys, does someone knows if Twitter colludes with other websites and/or services to collect data, because I thought that privacy-wise, Twitter wasn’t as bad as Facebook as I just use Twitter to follow youtubers and Donald Trump(to keep up with his craziness) and never post anything. But I just got a Python Machine Learning ad just. And it’s spooky because I’m currently (trying to be) learning Deep Learning and Google knows it (🤬🤬 you udemy ads) but Twitter!!?? Do they have a way to link my account??

Just funny to see how a lot of campanies send emails because of their changed privacy policies.

Some explain it to you and are quite pleasing (e.g. Tapatalk), but most are quite neutal about it and add sugarcoated reasons for updating their policies (besides that they're forced by law).

Quite funny to watch how every coorp explains the same thing in their way.

-----

Maybe we can make this post into a collection of funny, weird or otherwise remarkable mails regarding this policy update.

-----

Image: Some of those mails and the content of the Tapatalk one:

Is Signal the best messenger for privacy and security loving people?

Ugh, all these mails about updated privacy policies really annoy me.

Luckily it'll be over soon.

being a sheep over the last years I just recently started to overthink my software choices in terms of privacy. but hell it's far from easy!
just now I realize how dependent I am from all of these services. I mean no problem ditching Facebook for example, it's not essential to me. but what about WhatsApp and GoogleDrive? I'm using these services on a daily basis...
any advices on what software or providers to use alternatively? especially browser, messaging app, email provider and cloud service?
please keep in mind that although I am willing to bring sacrifices I by no means want to neither could live like Richard Stallman. so an argument like "sell your MacBook because macOS is spyware" is not that helpful to me - more like what can I do to increase my privacy within the boundaries given to me. I have to find some sort of compromise. so curious about your advices, stories and opinions right now!

Am I the only one who genuinely appreciates all the updated privacy policies and opt-in notices I'm getting? The GDPR seems like an unequivocally good thing, to me.

I hate how people automatically assume anything coming out of China is spyware. Because the US and EU have such good reputations for preserving privacy right?

I really like how there is something new everyday that you can do to protect your privacy even more 😄

ARGH!
Since that privacy cookie policy change thingy, every goddamn site pops up the dialog asking about it.

I just want to fucking read the page, quickly; get off my screeeeeeen!

There should be a standard to add something that lets the browser tell the page if you accept cookies or not, and which options to use; or at least make all the sites use a specific attribute for the elements of the div, so it can be automated (I know this is a dream).

To all the privacy concerned gals and guys: How do you shop online?

Twitter:
Your Privacy just for "balloons"

Salespeople telling clients "Your site doesn't need a privacy policy/cookie policy since you don't actually sell anything on your site."

Wrong wrong wrong WRONGITY WRONG WROOONNGGGG!!!!!

Client to PM to me: "Well Jim said we don't need those on this site."

Me: "Well Jim is misinformed, since we use Google analytics, Facebook Pixel, and contact forms, you need to have both a privacy and cookie policy."

PM to client: "We'll find you a template you can use to get started, it'll cover most of what you need."

Me to PM: "we will do no such thing, we can send them a few links explaining why they need these, but they should consult a legal professional and cover their asses for their own business practices. I can provide any technical details they may need like what data the cookies collect if necessary."

PM to me: "well I'll just find something for them then."

*In my head* please just go crawl in a hole and die.

me after watching snowden(2016) yesterday : "Holy shit, government is going to fuck our privacy!!"

me after watching the circle today: "Holy shit big private companies are going to fuck our privacy!!"

My office senior watching me "Holy yeah boss is going to fuck your privacy"

European Union is really awesome with the new privacy regulation.

#Apple #FaceID
Yet another step towards the God's eye in Fast & Furious. Since it requires a 360 scan of a face, CIA just requires a photo to find anyone in the planet who's using an iPhone X [Stands for Expensive]. There's a reason why Apple ditched the fingerprint sensor.
RIP #Privacy 😶