Read the article! The change isn’t live yet…and you can likely disable it once it drops.
“While an exact date is still unknown,” Bard says, “all signs point towards Bard’s arrival in Google Messages sometime in 2024. It could be a matter of weeks or months, but it’s definitely coming.” Meanwhile, what we’ve seen thus far remains buried deep inside a beta release and subject to change before release.
Is this written by an alien? Do you not have family you call, or a job? This is the stuff that makes the privacy community look like a joke, this is not realistic. This is just roleplay.
You can just use VoIP to call people it’s not a big deal and you don’t need to go the extreme ways which are being mentioned in the video you can also just spoof a lot of your device information, use a different OS etc. Minimizing privacy risks is always good but you don’t need to take it that crazy serious if you’re just a normal individual like me and you. We are low-value for big companies the more power, known you are the more steps you should take to protect your privacy.
In the beginning of the video she explains this isn’t for everyone. Throughout the video she discusses tradeoffs. Seems pretty clear she understands the difficulty of this.
Do you not have family you call, or a job?
Once again, this was explained in the video. WiFi is everywhere these days and there are people who don’t leave home often. These are simply tradeoffs some folks might be willing to make. It really depends on an individual level and cons of this approach were made clear in the video.
This is the stuff that makes the privacy community look like a joke
Good thing you don’t speak for the entire community and this is just an opinion. This video details possibilities and can be fun to learn new things from. Seems oddly aggressive, to me, to say this over a simple video.
This is not realistic.
Speak for yourself. People lived without phones for many years. Doesn’t seem too far fetched to live with WiFi only connectivity. Once again, tradeoffs.
In the beginning of the video she explains this isn’t for everyone. Throughout the video she discusses tradeoffs. Seems pretty clear she understands the difficulty of this.
Yup, unless you have a problem with authority, or investigative journalists
If you can’t practice what you preach, then the advice is just roleplay imo. So if you aren’t legitimately considering doing this yourself, then this is exactly what I mean by unrealistic.
I got a 42% score, but I really feel that this is because it does not take into account the fact that people have different threat models. I don’t really care that Meta has a photo of my coffee that I shared to my friends. Pretty much my only criteria for me when sending stuff on unsecured chats is if the app got hacked, would I be ashamed if it got public.
Well, Bob, that’s the point. Your “threat model” is just… wrong. It’s like going to a factory stating you only care for phisical protection ignoring the chemical hazards.
That’s not o photo of your coffee, that’s where you live your socioeconomical group, your believes, your political inclinations, your social network, your daily routine…
I heard from someone that used to work on the military side of things of data collection. He said a few years ago Amazon came in with their servers and set up their tech and then had to teach the gov side about data collection and all that. I wouldn’t be surprised if Gov just started contracting out their spying.
At the risk of playing devils advocate, are they not allowed to subscribe to newspapers without a warrant? This is publicly purchasable information bought by a (checks notes) agency with the expressed mission if gathering as much data as possible.
If Rep Wyden wants to prevent this, the first - and most important - legislative action is to prevent its collection and sale, not some anti-TLA circle jerk about the NSA buying it on the open market.
This was my first thought. All of our data is already on a marketplace for companies to buy and sell. What is stopping any government agency, federal or smaller from simply participating in this?
We need to fix the root of the problem if this is to be stopped.
As a mobile app developer I promise that you want to have push notifications that are capable of doing meaningful work on your phone. Apps are often entirely dead but a push notification from a central server will still get you X/Y/Z functionality.
Companies abuse this to then track you, and harvest endless amounts of information but the alternative is your phone no longer notified you of anything and the majority of background functionality for your apps dies entirely.
What I wish would happen is that mobile OSes have another set of location/network permissions for push notifications.
Turning on the iPhone’s Stolen Device Protection is simple—it’s just one small toggle in your phone’s settings.
There is one crucial detail that the article doesn’t mention: Find My iPhone must be enabled to enable SDP. That is to say, enabling Find My (along with biometric authentication) is a prerequisite for SDP.
I made the switch when I got a new phone. So I kept both the old phone with android and the new phone with GrapheneOS. There was a transition period when I would bring both phones with me, just in case. Now my old phone is my “whatsapp” phone which I keep at home and turn on rarely. During the transition period I used my old phone number whenever I needed to provide my phone to use a service, but eventually I transitioned that to a VoIP. But, even then, many services will reject VoIP phone numbers, so I still make use of the old one.
I had to request a special scanner from my bank because the banking apps do not work with GrapheneOS. And I had to make sure that nothing important goes into my gmail anymore because google would request that I used my old phone 2FA in the most inconvenient moments, and also I don’t want to access google from my GrapheneOS phone.
I think that there are many annoyances that can and probably will happen if you try to jump right into GrapheneOS after having previously relied in the google/meta ecosystem. If you attempt to switch too quickly you might inadvertently lose access to your bank, and you might become suddenly unable to communicate with family and friends. My government’s online identification system requires that I use their app, which runs on google services, so I still have to use my old phone for that. And I have encountered situations in which the only reasonably convenient way to proceed is to download an app. For example, recently I registered for a gym that would then require me to use their google-store app so that I could identify myself when purchasing a physical card.
I am not sure as I did not test this one. Maybe you can go in person and get a worker to get you access to the kiosk through your account to print the card. It is one of those massive chains with gyms in every corner. I think that by now they rely on their digital infrastructure and many of their workers are not trained to handle uncommon situations. At least I get that from some of my experiences, but I could be wrong, maybe if I would have called them could have helped me with this. It was just easier to get the app into my old phone, print a card, delete the app.
Does WhatsApp not work at all on Graphene OS or do you just need to enable Google Play services for it to work? (I do understand why you personally may not want to enable the Play services, but I’m just curious about the potential capabilities).
I think that it works, but for it to work you need to enable Google Play services. From what I understand, this is done in a sandboxed manner simulating a fake identity, so it is possible to do this while isolating Google from your phone to an extent. But I think that WhatsApp is in itself problematic and one of the direct offenders that I want to avoid, regardless of its reliance on Google Play services, and so I have not gone through this effort myself.
Many people have the misconception that they’re defeating the purpose of GrapheneOS by using privacy invasive apps but in fact the opposite is true. If you want to use those apps, then using GrapheneOS allows you to protect your privacy from them far better than another OS.
GrapheneOS arguably makes the biggest difference for someone who is going to be using a bunch of mainstream apps including very privacy invasive ones. They need features like Storage Scopes and Contact Scopes more.
You’ll substantially benefit from our privacy and security features without making significant changes to your apps. In fact, you’ll benefit more from features like Storage Scopes, Contact Scopes, Sensors toggle, etc. if you use a bunch of very privacy invasive apps.
Speaking on behalf of myself, and my entire race, I have complete faith in Facebook, Meta, and most importantly Mark Zuckerberg. He has never let us down, and I have no doubt our support and faith will be rewarded when we finally rise up and reclaim earth for all reptilian kind.
This is… exactly my setup too. Works great. The brio is a tiny bit weird in that it appears as two independent video devices in Linux, but choosing the right one is all that’s necessary and it works fine.
If you already have a camera with HDMI output sitting around a capture card can be a great way to get really good image quality for not much money. If 720p is enough I’ve actually had really good success with these incredibly cheap ones: youtu.be/daS5RHVAl2U - I’ve even seen them at places like Walmart and Target under the Vivitar brand so they’re readily available.
If you don’t look around locally for used Sony cameras. Because 1080p is only 2 mega pixels and many of the nicer old Sony cameras have clean HDMI output you can get kind of amazing image quality for very cheap. Some newer model mirrorless cameras got updates to run as a webcam directly off the USB port but they’re likely out of your budget and some require software. (Edit: make sure you check if the model you’re looking at has clean HDMI out - some do, some don’t, and some do with some tweaking. This site has a decent bit probably incomplete list: wasge.es/clean_output/ )
If you want a more traditional webcam and need autofocus something like the Logitech c920 family is probably your best bet but the constant revisions may have added a software install. Most cameras are including software since realistically they’re all basically the same and most of the “features” are added in the software.
If you don’t need autofocus, there are a number of companies taking Sony “security camera” sensors and slapping them in boxes with screw mount lenses. ELP and Mokose are examples but there are others. With enough light these generally look pretty dang good. If you pick one up and decide later to upgrade, it can probably live mounted up high just for playing magic, especially since there are a few 4k ones that will probably let you read the tiniest of text on the cards.
Hmm I need to do some research. I’m not really sure what these are for or what they do, but I’ll look into it, thanks.
Most cameras are including software since realistically they’re all basically the same and most of the “features” are added in the software
Yes, I understand. It’s always been this way, but then the way to do it is to either sell the software, or include instructions on how to retrieve it, not to automatically drop an installer on someone’s PC the moment one connects the device. From my POV, I’m shopping for hardware. If I’m looking for software features, I can shop for those separately.
I’ve heard that Logitech does do the same thing Razer does now, but I’ve also heard they don’t. It’s frustrating not being able to find this information.
ELP and Mokose
I’ll look into this as well. Seems like people have had focus issues though, based on reviews I saw.
You’ve given me some options. I’m sure there’s some cheap brand out there somewhere that doesn’t force the installer, but it’s even hard to find facts about whether they do or don’t.
Hmm I need to do some research. I’m not really sure what these are for or what they do, but I’ll look into it, thanks.
Sorry, probably should have explained. If you have a camera that has an HDMI or other video output they basically convert it to a USB camera.
I’ll look into this as well. Seems like people have had focus issues though, based on reviews I saw.
Most of the models they put out don’t have autofocus at all, you have to physically turn it to focus. Depending on exactly how your setup works that may or may not be viable - overhead cam like for playing magic probably doesn’t move much, but for video conferences where you shift in your chair it might be weird if the room is a bit darker.
If you have a camera that has an HDMI or other video output they basically convert it to a USB camera.
I have an action cam (like a knockoff gopro) that has a pretty good image. So I could use that as a Webcam if I had one of those capture cards?
Also, I forgot to mention: It doesn’t have to read all the text on a card, it just needs to be able to accurately detect which card it is, then Spelltable pulls up the card text from a database.
If it has an HDMI output without too much junk on it yes. Sometimes the HDMI output will have the same interface that’s on the screen, sometimes it will be clean, and sometimes it shows the interface but you can shut it off so it doesn’t matter. You can usually crop out the interface in OBS but you’ll lose some resolution doing that. You should be able to plug it into a monitor or TV and check fairly easily.
I’ll try it. If I can stream with this, I’ll be so pleased. I’ve taken longboarding footage with this thing, and it always looks crystal clear.
I think I’m gonna look for the one at Walmart next time I’m there. This action cam even fits my existing mounting hardware so this will be perfect if I can get it working!
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