Tip: if you find yourself using the word “safe”, “secure”, “hacked”, etc in your title, you’re probably off-topic.

Reading an article on the recent suicide bomber at the Vegas Trump hotel, I was struck by this:

Tesla engineers, meanwhile, helped extract data from the Cybertruck for investigators, including Livelsberger’s path between charging stations from Colorado through New Mexico and Arizona and on to Las Vegas, according to Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren.

“We still have a large volume of data to go through,” Koren said Friday. “There’s thousands if not millions of videos and photos and documents and web history and all of those things that need to be analyzed.”

Wow. And I thought Facebook and Google were the worst about vacuuming up data. Sounds like a lot of data on anyone driving a Tesla.

Aware that my mobile provider still gets data on me, but I'm using a dumbphone with Signal so at least it's fairly limited and to my comfort levels. I tried some Google projects like LineageOS (without play services) and GrapheneOS, but have just realised the App creep there is real and I end up with Apps installed and Google Play Services eventually installed. I'm a bit bummed because I use to love phones and was excited about new phones back in the day, especially when you could load custom ROMs etc. I've just come to terms last year that I can't find a happy medium with my data privacy on mobile and just went with a dumbphone..

Just what to know how that EU law works

Hi,

For a year, I used to work as a Data Engineer for a company that sells or licenses “your data” to other companies to resell, large companies to add to their databases of customer information, marketing and advertising agencies, and small brands trying to market via direct mail or digitally.

“Your data” refers to any information about you, such as demographics, hobbies or characteristics based on transactional data, education, homeownership, literally every data point associated to you. The company had that data for almost everyone, and if it didn’t it would consider modeling the data based on demand.

From the legal standpoint, the company did everything correctly. Ethically, absolutely not.

The data science team would work on models to predict GPA or income based on other attributes associated to that ID. It also licensed the data off to other companies to use and resell. No matter how hrs you try to clear your digital footprint or identity the company would find a way. IP addresses, home addresses, mobile ids, networks, literally the identity model would know who you are and output anything about you for companies and advertisers to annoy the heck out of you. So yeah the company made money through your data and making it available for the AdTech space.

So many things made me quit, but my questions are:

1. Will the US ever ban the sell of personal data? Like I mentioned, “your data” is technically the company’s when you agree to the ToS, but I guess what I’m saying is that would it ever be illegal now for company’s to use it that way. Not sure if this is how it works in EU.

2. What are your thoughts on whether it’s ethical or not?

This company sucks, glad I don’t work there anymore. Don’t even get me started with how we handled support tickets to delete data or identity.

I use a Pixel 6 every day and I bought it pretty much when the phone came out, enthusiastic about its price-point and feature-set (I had an iPhone SE before that was falling apart). I've been really enjoying the phone and Android as a whole for the past few years but after learning more about general privacy and Google as a whole, I'm starting to worry a bit about how secure the information on my phone really is (I know, google phone and not liking google is a bit of a conflict of interest). I'm enjoying a lot of the Google-developed features but I'd really prefer they not poke around my personal photos and videos.

At some point once my phone begins to run slow, I'll probably replace the battery and switch to a lighter-weight, more privacy oriented form of Android, but I don't quite want to make the leap just yet considering my phone still runs perfectly fine like the day I got it.

All that to say, are there any apps or combination of apps that I can use to take pictures and store them in a manner that won't be viewed by Google? Would disabling Camera, Google Photos, and Files with open source alternatives do the trick? Are all my photos invisible to Google as long as I don't back them up on Google Photos (which they already aren't).

I get the ol saying that "when things are free, you're the product", but is there a way to make me not the product when things aren't free? Thanks in advance for the help

I would say 75% of websites now require some sort of 2fa. Just happened with the Walmart site. And these sites are now switching to not remember the device so each time you reboot you have to do it again. I've even had it happen with Steam playing video games when I use the app.

So if our password, no matter how long is no longer the only way to access a site or app, why have passwords at all? I have noticed some sites are even doing this allowing you to bypass the password and go right to the emailed or texted code. TBH that does not seem more secure, it seems less secure. At least WITH a password you have to put it in. If I lose my phone and someone can bypass the screen lock they will have access to any account that uses email or sms

Why not just make USB fingerprint readers to have plugged in instead of dealing with 2fa the way it is now? Or maybe a retinal scanner? The thing that annoys me is I go to Walmart and log in, I have to get the code. If I'm not logged into my email, I wind up having to wait for a text with the code so I can log into my email so I can get the code to log into Walmart. It's tedious.

I installed adguard today only to findout that my HP printer make request to accounts.google.com every 5 seconds. I guest it is account checking stuff, but it got me thinking about paying more attention to these kind of devices. Any recommendation?

It's still the iPhone 16 Pro/Pro Max with iOS 18.2, right?

And then what next? Latest smartphones with HarmonyOS? Or GrapheneOS?

Im looking for the cheapest best discord burner numbers. I want one that isn't a monthly plan and more of a 25 cent to a dollar price range per number. What are my best options?

So recently I found out that virustotal makes things public once put into the site. Now I mainly used it to put in urls and I always copied the url of what I want scanned but I didn't know I was supposed to clean the url. I don't know what do because I've put in multiple sites and contacting support is difficult but j don't even know what I should search and what I should tell them? What should I do?

does there exist a wiki or something where it lists all the benefits of privacy and what happened to those who didn't care about it,i have a feeling that in order to make it more enticing to be private we need to give them reasons to be and not because big tech it is creepy or things. i want people to see how it will benefit THEM.

What options are there?

I was curious one day and searched my name up on Google to see the results and I had found a old post(made by someone who I can not contact) with my full name in the caption. With this result if you dig through you can find a lot of personal information about me. Now I do a lot of things online since I work with people that do content and there have been weirdos I’ve came across that have found my full name (through weird digging I know) and I’m afraid if they happen to find this specific result they’ll know this information. There probably nothing I can do about it but if there any hope!!

My GPS has been acting weird and getting calibration needed font. But maps need AR core calibrate GPS. Is it necessary or usual google bs? Any way im forced to install the AR service amd GPS is calibrated.

Hello, I want my account removed, all my data completely wiped, and I want everything about me to be completely forgotten.

OpenAI support: No way to do that.

Guys, even if you delete your account, your phone number will be in their system, your AppleID and Google is permanently linked.

They link your account to a more permanent identifier, phone number, apple and google accounts.

All they do is profiling.

You were worried about the NSA collecting your metadata? Ha Ha, OpenAI is just doing that forming a profile of you with every single prompt.

THERE IS NO DELETING.

We thought Google was evil, OpenAI is making Google look like rookie.

I bet they all have their shortcomings, but if you have a recommendation or any comment at all please feel free to leave it below.

Help! I’m completely panicking.

While organizing an unused email inbox, I came across an X account that had been suspended two years ago and completely slipped my mind since then.

Back then, I had set the account to protected, had zero followers, and used it to write openly about work complaints and personal stress with friends.

I want to delete the account, so I’m planning to file an appeal. However, I’m really worried that if the account gets reinstated, the protected setting won’t be preserved. If the content of that account gets leaked, it would cause serious problems.

I deeply regret my actions. Even with a protected account and no followers, I should never have written such personal diary entries on an untrustworthy platform like this, especially after Elon bought it!

If anyone has successfully unsuspended a protected account, could you let me know if the protected setting remained intact after reinstatement?

Hi all, apologies if this has been asked before but had trouble finding anything with the search function.

I used to use strava and found it motivating to generate summaries of how far I had run each week/month/year, how much my pace was improving, etc. I also liked being able to add photos to the run - scrolling back to remind me of the nice scenery I'd seen because of my fitness routine created a positive feedback loop.

Anyway, I am wondering if you know of apps (for phone, I don't have a fitness watch) that I can use for the same purpose but either stores data locally on the device, or at least keeps it encrypted /doesn't sell it.

I'm no pro athlete so don't need complicated breakdowns of splits etc, really just track the routes, distances and times. I'm happy to pay for it but would prefer not to have an ongoing subscription for something that simple.

Thanks!

I’m referring to profiles that google ms facebook etc build about us. Is there NO way of finding out what they entail about us individually?

I had a really creepy coincidence(?). I was talking to a friend on laptop using FaceTime. I was telling how somebody threw a dead cat away on the grass and that was really sad. After the call, I open YouTube on the web and seeing videos with dead cats ... I mean.. thank you for recommending, really useful.

Do you think Apple feeds data to YouTube? Have you had experiences like that?

I realized that I have shared to much and my digital footprint is to big and so i started cleaning up recently. But I realized "whats the point?" My phone is unrooted, its still have whatsapp (I need it for schools), its still have all the samsung bloatware, its still have google play (I need it for my mobile game, and the play pass) And its a samsung phone to and I see people here talkinga bout Custom ROM and what not. Is it even worth it to continue "trying to clean" my space? Like alt account, not revealing infos, all sounds kinda redundant when your phone can tracks you, and you live in a country where privacy is dead I honestly dont rly care about privacy at first until I get fear of getting doxxed. Especially with how much I reveal.

Should I continue trying to clean this up, or is it useless?