Google’s Advanced Protection Arrives on Android: Should You Use It?
Google’s Advanced Protection Arrives on Android: Should You Use It?
With this week’s release of Android 16, Google added a new security feature to Android, called Advanced Protection. At-risk people—like journalists, activists, or politicians—should consider turning on.Electronic Frontier Foundation
Google’s Advanced Protection Arrives on Android: Should You Use It?
Google’s Advanced Protection Arrives on Android: Should You Use It?
With this week’s release of Android 16, Google added a new security feature to Android, called Advanced Protection. At-risk people—like journalists, activists, or politicians—should consider turning on.Electronic Frontier Foundation
South Hillsboro, OR.
Sure, it’s a moon I captured on a slightly hazy night, but I wanted to really test out my tripod and telephoto lens and capture something my cell phone would just repeatedly fail at. Ended up going with a one-second shutter after a two-second timer so my hand wouldn’t mess with the tripod balance, and with ISO 100, I had a long enough window to capture good detail on the moon, at least as much as my 75-300m f/4-5.6 telephoto lens would allow. There’s bigger lenses that do more daring stuff, but this one is mine.
Thanks for seeing some really big sky cheese!
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How to Dress and Undress your Home | To make buildings more energy-efficient, consider curtains, awnings, wall hangings, and other technologies from before houses were designed for air conditioning
How to Dress and Undress your Home
Before the large-scale use of fossil fuels, removable textile layers kept homes warm in winter and cool in summer.LOW←TECH MAGAZINE
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Iranian strikes expose lack of shelters for Palestinian citizens of Israel, residents say
Iranian strikes expose lack of shelters for Palestinian citizens of Israel, residents say
Palestinian citizens of Israel are having to fend for themselves amid ongoing missile strikes by Iran, with the beleaguered community lacking access to shelters and safe rooms due to discriminatory building policies.Lubna Masarwa (Middle East Eye)
Looking for feedback on 5-week degoogling plan
I created a 5-week degoogling plan PDF based on the steps in my book DISENGAGE: Escape the Leash of Big Tech, Scams and Surveillance—Everyday Resistance for the Digital Underdog.
Before I finalize and post it to my site, I'd love some feedback from people who have degoogled or are in the process of doing so.
The final package will be a single PDF, and I've pasted images of the pages below. The final infographic has a link for each product. Please don't worry about formatting issues, I'll get those fixed. But in general, I'm wondering.
- Does this seem motivational/doable?
- Are the tips clear?
- Is there anything that is now incorrect? I wrote the book originally two years ago and updated it in February, so some of my suggestions may already be out of date.
- At the bottom I mention that full instructions for each step are available in DISENGAGE, which is a free book. Is that enough? Or should I instead either note which chapter/page to look at for each step, or directly include links to instructions/tools online?
- The infographic at the end...is it weird to be sideways? I created it a while ago and don't want to have to redo it to fit the orientation. I could offer that separately, OR I could redo the whole PDF to be landscape instead of portrait (which I don't love).
- I'm thinking of turning this into a group challenge (also no cost). If there's enough interest, it could be the checklist, the book, and a Signal group (maybe with a weekly call). I don't know nearly everything about the topic, but I did degoogle myself, and everyone in the group/on the call can share questions and suggestions. What do you think of this idea?
Thanks!
Is Internet Content Too Engaging?
By targeting design rather than content, lawmakers hope to regulate social media without constitutional roadblocks. Here’s why that’s a problem.
Reddit will help advertisers turn ‘positive’ posts into ads
Reddit will help advertisers turn ‘positive’ posts into ads
Reddit is launching a new feature for advertisers, called “Conversation Summary Add-ons,” that slots positive posts from Reddit users right under their ads.Jay Peters (The Verge)
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Polish media outlets supportive of Poland’s national-conservative opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party have published a recording of a private phone call involving Prime Minister Donald Tusk when he was president of the European Council.
They say it shows how he was continuing to interfere in Polish politics – and speaking in a dismissive and vulgar way about certain parts of Poland – while holding his supposedly neutral EU position.
But commentators and legal experts, as well as figures from Poland’s current ruling camp, say that the conversation reveals nothing of interest and that the real issue is how it was recorded and came to light. They believe it was produced as part of illegal surveillance conducted under PiS using Pegasus spyware.
On Friday and Saturday, right-wing broadcasters wPolsce24 and Republika released audio from two phone conversations involving Roman Giertych, who is currently an MP elected on the list of Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition (KO). One was with Paweł Graś, Tusk’s current chief of staff, and the other with Tusk himself.
Though the recordings are undated, their content makes clear that they were made in the lead-up to the October 2019 Polish parliamentary elections, when KO was in opposition and Tusk was head of the European Council.
During the majority of his conversation with Tusk, which lasts around 16 minutes, Giertych – who at the time worked as a lawyer, including for Tusk and his children – was complaining about the then-leader of KO, Grzegorz Schetyna.
Giertych expressed frustration that Schetyna was blocking his attempts to become an election candidate for KO, saying that Schetyna was trying to suggest that Giertych stand in districts where he would have little chance of winning.
Here, Giertych described the places being suggested by Schetyna (eastern Wielkopolska province and the city of Radom) as “shits” (using the English word), at which point Tusk expressed agreement that they were places “where the fuck-ups are” (“gdzie zjeby są”).
When publishing the material, Republika noted that, at the time, “Tusk was the president of the European Council and, according to EU law, he should not interfere in domestic political disputes. And yet the tapes show something completely different”.
In response to the release of the recordings, Giertych issued a statement in which he said that they were made “as part of an illegal operation conducted against me by the CBA [Central Anticorruption Bureau]” using Pegasus spyware purchased by the PiS government.
PiS has been accused of illegally buying Pegasus and then using it to spy on opponents of its government, including Giertych and Krzysztof Brejza, who was the head of KO’s election campaign in 2019. Extracts of recordings made using Pegasus were then leaked to PiS-friendly media.
“Recording conversations between a lawyer and his clients, not destroying them, taking copies of the conversations from the CBA, passing them on to the media and publishing these conversations are very serious crimes,” wrote Giertych. “Those guilty of all these crimes will be punished.”
Legally, the CBA is supposed to destroy surveillance recordings that do not contain evidence of any crime. Giertych has not been charged with any crime in relation to the content of the recordings.
Przemysław Rosati, the president of Poland’s Supreme Bar Council, says that the newly released recordings “confirm that Pegasus was used for surveillance without a legal basis and unrelated to state security”.
“Monitoring a lawyer’s telephone is an action that directly violates attorney-client privilege and…is simply an abuse of power,” he added.
Foreign minister Radosław Sikorski also commented on social media, writing that he “hopes the media will not get excited about tidbits [contained in the recordings] but will help identify the criminals who recorded and distributed conversations between a lawyer and client”.
Tusk himself has not yet commented on the recordings.
Since replacing PiS in power in December 2023, Tusk’s ruling coalition has launched a number of investigations into the use of Pegasus by the former government.
Last year, prosecutor general Adam Bodnar revealed that almost 600 people in Poland were targeted for surveillance with Pegasus between 2017 and 2022. The interior minister, Tomasz Siemoniak, said that this had included “too many cases” when it was used “against inconvenient politicians, lawyers, judges and prosecutors”.
Subsequently, a former PiS deputy justice minister, Michał Woś was charged with abusing his powers for the alleged illegal transfer of justice ministry funds to finance the purchase of Pegasus in 2017. He denies the allegations.
In February this year, the head of the CBA, Agnieszka Kwiatkowska-Gurdak, resigned from her position after refusing to answer questions during an appearance before a parliamentary commission investigating the use of Pegasus spyware.
What tools are people using to create batches of torrents?
For occasional torrent creation, qBittorrent has Tools > Torrent Creator, but suppose one has hundreds of folders from which to create individual torrents. A quick internet search yields forum posts from more than ten years ago mentioning dead projects. For example, this Reddit post from 2013 mentions qMakeTorrent, which is no longer maintained.
How are people doing this in 2025? I reckon one could write a bash or python script for this, but are there any user friendly tools out there that are built for this purpose and still actively maintained?
GitHub - kz26/qMakeTorrent: an advanced torrent file creator with batch functionality, powered by libtorrent-rasterbar
an advanced torrent file creator with batch functionality, powered by libtorrent-rasterbar - kz26/qMakeTorrentGitHub
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GitHub - pobrn/mktorrent: A simple command line utility to create BitTorrent metainfo files
A simple command line utility to create BitTorrent metainfo files - pobrn/mktorrentGitHub
Apple Researchers Just Released a Damning Paper That Pours Cold Water on the Entire AI Industry
cross-posted from: midwest.social/post/29979054
can't understand why they keep needing more power. like trying to smash through a wall or something.
Apple Researchers Just Released a Damning Paper That Pours Cold Water on the Entire AI Industry
Researchers at Apple have released a damning paper that throws cold water on the "reasoning" capabilities of modern AIs.Victor Tangermann (Futurism)
Trattato di non proliferazione: da quando l'Iran ha un programma nucleare? da Focus.it
Trattato di non proliferazione: da quando l'Iran ha un programma nucleare?
Il programma nucleare in Iran iniziò nel 1954 quando gli Usa fornirono a Teheran un reattore a uranio arricchito, ma il Trattato di non proliferazione cambiò le regole del gioco.Focus.it
Is Internet Content Too Engaging?
By targeting design rather than content, lawmakers hope to regulate social media without constitutional roadblocks. Here’s why that’s a problem.
A useless add-on Russia’s Wikipedia replacement is touting its integrated AI — but the results are underwhelming
A useless add-on
Russia’s Wikipedia replacement is touting its integrated AI — but the results are underwhelmingMeduza
A useless add-on Russia’s Wikipedia replacement is touting its integrated AI — but the results are underwhelming
A useless add-on
Russia’s Wikipedia replacement is touting its integrated AI — but the results are underwhelmingMeduza
LLM agents flunk CRM and confidentiality tasks
Salesforce study finds LLM agents flunk CRM and confidentiality tests
: 6-in-10 success rate for single-step tasksLindsay Clark (The Register)
🍹 Log Out @ Bologna
Lunedì 23 Giugno torna il Log Out!
Log Out è il ritrovo dei Tech Worker che dopo il lavoro vogliono incontrarsi. Un'occasione per socializzare, conoscersi, parlare del nostro lavoro o di qualsiasi altra cosa ci piaccia. Un incontro informale davanti ad una birra, un cocktail o una bibita per scaricare la stanchezza della giornata di lavoro.
Unisciti al gruppo Telegram!
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The Riker Maneuver vs. The Picard Maneuver
- YouTube
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.www.youtube.com
Reddit will help advertisers turn ‘positive’ posts into ads
Reddit will help advertisers turn ‘positive’ posts into ads
Reddit is launching a new feature for advertisers, called “Conversation Summary Add-ons,” that slots positive posts from Reddit users right under their ads.Jay Peters (The Verge)
Troops Deployed to LA Have Done Precisely One Thing, Pentagon Says
I Tried Pre-Ordering the Trump Phone. The Page Failed and It Charged My Credit Card the Wrong Amount
The website failed, went to an error page, and then charged my credit card the wrong amount of $64.70. I received a confirmation email saying I’ll receive a confirmation when my order has been shipped, but I haven’t provided a shipping address or paid the full $499 price tag. It is the worst experience I’ve ever faced buying a consumer electronic product and I have no idea whether or how I’ll receive the phone.
I look forward to learning more about how terrible these phones turn out.
I Tried Pre-Ordering the Trump Phone. The Page Failed and It Charged My Credit Card the Wrong Amount
I got a confirmation email saying I'll get another confirmation when it's shipped. But I haven't provided a shipping address.Joseph Cox (404 Media)
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RNC Sued Over WinRed's Constant 'ALL HELL JUST BROKE LOOSE!' Fundraising Texts
The Johnsons claim that the RNC sent Samantha 17 messages from 16 different phone numbers, nine of the messages after she demanded the messages stop 12 times. Cari received 27 messages from 25 numbers, they claim, and she sent 20 stop requests.
I know my phone gets blasted to hell every election season.
RNC Sued Over WinRed's Constant 'ALL HELL JUST BROKE LOOSE!' Fundraising Texts
The RNC and other Republican groups are violating Utah telecommunications law by continuing to text people incessantly after they've asked them to stop, a new complaint alleges.Samantha Cole (404 Media)
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The "standard" car charger is usually overkill—but your electrician might not know that [32:26]
- YouTube
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.www.youtube.com
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Mass Surveillance and ICE Backdoors in Southern Oregon
The Medford Police Department is building a network of mass surveillance through controversial collaborations with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations and law enforcement agencies across Southern Oregon, according to new documents we obtained. Major components of the surveillance network include the use of automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology, and monitoring of social media through “sock puppet” accounts. Meanwhile, Jackson County is using a third-party lease to make its publicly owned building available to ICE for its Southern Oregon field office, creating another “backdoor” for local government resources to be utilized by ICE despite Oregon’s status as a “sanctuary state.”Our latest trove of public records total 313 pages. Below is an overview of the records, which were obtained through public records requests to the city of Medford, the city of Grants Pass, and Jackson County. We provide a downloadable copy of the records at the bottom of this blog post.
Mass Surveillance and ICE Backdoors in Southern Oregon
The Medford Police Department is building a network of mass surveillance through controversial collaborations with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations and law enforcement agencies across Southern Oregon, according to new documents we obtained. Major components of the surveillance network include the use of automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology, and monitoring of social media through “sock puppet” accounts. Meanwhile, Jackson County is using a third-party lease to make its publicly owned building available to ICE for its Southern Oregon field office, creating another “backdoor” for local government resources to be utilized by ICE despite Oregon’s status as a “sanctuary state.”Our latest trove of public records total 313 pages. Below is an overview of the records, which were obtained through public records requests to the city of Medford, the city of Grants Pass, and Jackson County. We provide a downloadable copy of the records at the bottom of this blog post.
Voting in the threadiverse
Hi,
i want to explore the various way we can highlight content.
Currently, on the threadiverse, we use vote to show our approval, discontent...and we can couple it with a bot for moderation. Or hide post below a certain score...
Some instance completly removed downvote as Beehaw. Piefed is experimenting private vote. On other fediverse software, mastodon, iceshrimp, there is no downvote and we use emojis to express our feelings.
You also have website as slashdot.org/ where you can tell that comment was insightfull or a troll, or funny...
There is also also website that compare software or video as tournesol.app/
- Do you think vote sould be private ? Public ? And why ?
- Are you sastified with the current voting system ? And why ?
- What other interesting software/website that tried something different do you know ?
- What way do you imagine to highlight content and improve search, discoverability ?
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I like the downvotes disabled model.
It also means that the “active” sort algorithm doesn’t promote posts that get lots of “downvotes” -> engagement
Re: Voting in the threadiverse
snoopy@jlai.lu personally, since I create AP enabled software I am on the side of votes being public data. We already have enough issues with votes being out of sync with each other. Mixing in private voting is just asking for trouble.
Emoji reactions are neat, although niche to those softwares that utilise it. They allow for greater expression which is nice. They're useless for deriving value (for ranking purposes) unless you assign value to them.
Following A Whistleblower's Disclosure Detailing How DOGE May Have Taken Sensitive Labor Data, Top House Democrat Demands Microsoft Hand Over Information on DOGE’s Misconduct at NLRB
Today, Rep. Stephen F. Lynch, Acting Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a letter to Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella requesting information and documents in Microsoft’s possession regarding reports that individuals associated with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) attempted to remove sensitive information from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), raising serious concerns of technology-related misconduct.“According to recent reporting by the National Public Radio (NPR) and whistleblower disclosures obtained by Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, individuals associated with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have attempted to use high-level systems access to remove sensitive information—quite possibly including corporate secrets and details of union activities. The whistleblower has also explained how the responsible individuals have attempted to conceal their activities, obstruct oversight, and shield themselves from accountability, including by deleting system logs and opening back doors into the NLRB case management system to send massive amounts of data outside of the agency. Potentially in connection with these efforts, a DOGE engineer reportedly wrote bespoke code that appears designed to remove data from NLRB and saved that code to a repository on Microsoft’s GitHub platform. Given Microsoft’s ownership of GitHub, I request information and documents in Microsoft’s possession regarding this incident,” wrote Acting Ranking Member Lynch.
Recent reporting by NPR disclosed how a DOGE engineer saved code to a GitHub repository titled “NxGenBdoorExtract,” suggesting that the code could have created a backdoor used to extract files from the NLRB’s internal case management system.
The exfiltration of large swaths of sensitive information through backdoor channels raises significant concerns about the legality of DOGE’s actions and its threat to independent federal agencies, as well as Elon Musk’s personal conflicts of interest with this case.
“Notably, the now-former de facto leader of DOGE, Elon Musk, owns and operates companies that have frequently run afoul of NLRB rules. For example, NLRB has taken action against Mr. Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla for its attempts to discourage unionizing efforts, part of Mr. Musk’s ongoing anti-union actions. Mr. Musk’s social media company, X, also faced a complaint from NLRB after an employee was terminated for posting a tweet challenging the company’s return-to-office mandate. These cases raise concerns about Mr. Musk or anyone associated with DOGE having access to NLRB data, as any such access poses a serious conflict of interest,” concluded Rep. Lynch.
Following Whistleblower Reports, Acting Ranking Member Lynch Demands Microsoft Hand Over Information on DOGE’s Misconduct at NLRB
Washington, D.C. (June 16, 2025)—Today, Rep. Stephen F. Lynch, Acting Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a letter to Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella requesting information and documents in Microso…The Committee on Oversight and Accountability Democrats
Following A Whistleblower's Disclosure Detailing How DOGE May Have Taken Sensitive Labor Data, Top House Democrat Demands Microsoft Hand Over Information on DOGE’s Misconduct at NLRB
Following Whistleblower Reports, Acting Ranking Member Lynch Demands Microsoft Hand Over Information on DOGE’s Misconduct at NLRB
Washington, D.C. (June 16, 2025)—Today, Rep. Stephen F. Lynch, Acting Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a letter to Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella requesting information and documents in Microso…The Committee on Oversight and Accountability Democrats
The first trial of its kind: A Russian soldier takes the stand for an execution
Ukraine war crime trial: A Russian soldier takes the stand for an execution
Dmitriy Kurashov is the first Russian soldier to stand trial in Ukraine over a battlefield execution.Joel Gunter (BBC News)
The end of Windows 10 is approaching, so it's time to consider Linux and LibreOffice
The end of Windows 10 is approaching, so it's time to consider Linux and LibreOffice - The Document Foundation Blog
The Document Foundation and LibreOffice support the international campaign @endof10 https://endof10.org/ The countdown has begun. On 14 October 2025, Microsoft will end support for Windows 10.Italo Vignoli (The Document Foundation)
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The end of Windows 10 is approaching, so it's time to consider Linux and LibreOffice
The end of Windows 10 is approaching, so it's time to consider Linux and LibreOffice - The Document Foundation Blog
The Document Foundation and LibreOffice support the international campaign @endof10 https://endof10.org/ The countdown has begun. On 14 October 2025, Microsoft will end support for Windows 10.Italo Vignoli (The Document Foundation)
The Trump Mobile T1 Phone looks both bad and impossible
The Trump Mobile T1 Phone looks both bad and impossible
The Trump Mobile T1 Phone 8002 (gold edition) costs $499, has a solid set of specs, and seems utterly unlikely to exist.David Pierce (The Verge)
Republican National Convention Sued for Sending Unhinged Text Messages Soliciting Donations to Donald Trump’s Campaign and Continuing to Text Even After Trying to Unsubscribe.
“From Trump: ALL HELL JUST BROKE LOOSE! I WAS CONVICTED IN A RIGGED TRIAL!” one example text message in the complaint says. “I need you to read this NOW” followed by a link to a donation page.
Republican National Convention Sued for Sending Unhinged Text Messages Soliciting Donations to Donald Trump’s Campaign and Continuing to Text Even After Trying to Unsubscribe.
“From Trump: ALL HELL JUST BROKE LOOSE! I WAS CONVICTED IN A RIGGED TRIAL!” one example text message in the complaint says. “I need you to read this NOW” followed by a link to a donation page.
Scientists have studied remote work for 4 years and have reached a clear conclusion: working from home makes us happier
Scientists have studied remote work for 4 years and have reached a clear conclusion: working from home makes us happier - Caring Minds United
Scientists have spent four years diving deep into the world of remote work and stumbled upon a powerful truth: working from home genuinely makes usEgna Perez (Caring Minds United)
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America's Years of Lead Are Here - In the wake of the brazen murder of a Minnesote State Representative and her husband, the surge in political violence is hitting a fever pitch.
America's Years of Lead Are Here
In the wake of the brazen murder of a Minnesote State Representative and her husband, the surge in political violence is hitting a fever pitch.Alejandra Caraballo (The Dissident)
F04118F
in reply to Corduroy_Pillows_Making_Headlines [she/her] • • •There will be tougher usecases to migrate. Which, depends on how you use Google.
For example, I've never read Google News but am having trouble replacing Keep for synced, widgeted notes (groceries etc) on phone, as well as GSheets for synced, collaborative excel-like sheets with good mobile UX.
Also, I would bundle mail and calendar in one (it's a single button to import both in Proton and those services are tightly coupled) and check your duplicate browser/chrome mentions
Corduroy_Pillows_Making_Headlines [she/her]
in reply to F04118F • • •Thanks for the tips! Yeah, it's hard to know where to draw the line, but since I'm focused on beginners, I figured these tools/platforms were the basics.
Good idea to bundle mail and calendar. I can do that with a few tweaks. And will fix the extra mention of uninstalling Chrome.
Thanks again!
felsiq
in reply to Corduroy_Pillows_Making_Headlines [she/her] • • •Corduroy_Pillows_Making_Headlines [she/her]
in reply to felsiq • • •PrivacyDingus
in reply to Corduroy_Pillows_Making_Headlines [she/her] • • •Corduroy_Pillows_Making_Headlines [she/her]
in reply to PrivacyDingus • • •