This morning I read that LastPass will restrict free users to only one type of device starting next month. Since this will leave users scrambling for a replacement, folks are understandably pissed off.
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Privacy
The Social Dilemma
The Social Dilemma
“We tweet, we like, and we share— but what are the consequences of our growing dependence on social media? This documentary-drama hybrid reveals how social media is reprogramming civilization with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations…The Social Dilemma features the voices of technologists, researchers and activists working to align technology with the interests of humanity.”
I finally got around to watching this last night. My favorite quotes from the movie:
“I like to say that algorithms are opinions embedded in code.” Cathy O’Neil, data scientist
“The way to think about it is as 2.5 billion Truman Shows. Each person has their own reality with their own facts. Over time you have the false sense that everyone agrees with you because everyone in your news feed sounds just like you. Once you’re in that state, it turns out you’re easily manipulated.” – Roger McNamee, Early investor venture capitalist in Facebook
“It’s the gradual, slight, imperceptible change in your own behavior and perception that is the product.” – Jaron Lainer, founding father of Virtual Reality Computer Scientist
“There’s only a handful of people at these companies who understand how these [algorithm] systems work, and even they don’t necessarily fully understand what’s going to happen with a particular piece of content. So as humans we’ve almost lost control over these systems. Because they’re controlling the information that we see, they’re controlling us more than we’re controlling them.” – Sandy Parakilas, former operations manager at Facebook, former product manager at Uber
More quotes: The most hair-raising quotes from Netflix doco The Social Dilemma
More reading: References from Netflix’s “The Social Dilemma”
My O&O ShutUp10 Settings – 03DEC2020 – Win10 20H2
Contact Tracing Apps
Apple, Google Release Virus Contact-Tracing Tools to App Makers
“Apple Inc. and Google released the first versions of their Covid-19 contact-tracing tools to public health organizations on Wednesday so the agencies can start building applications ahead of the system’s launch in mid-May.”
Contact tracing apps can help stop coronavirus. But they can hurt privacy.
EFF – COVID-19 and Digital Rights
EFF – Apple and Google’s COVID-19 Exposure Notification API: Questions and Answers
Americans split on use of contact tracing apps powered by Apple/Google API
“Americans are divided on whether they would be willing to use coronavirus contact tracing apps powered by the joint Apple/Google API. A Washington Post/University of Maryland poll found an exact 50/50 split between those who would use it and those who wouldn’t.”
So what say you, are you gonna install it?
Food For Thought
As Coronavirus Surveillance Escalates, Personal Privacy Plummets
“Tracking entire populations to combat the pandemic now could open the doors to more invasive forms of government snooping later.”
I am an American constitutional lawyer – and I see our government using Covid-19 to take away our fundamental rights
“Do we really think “it can’t happen here” in America? Could we quarantine the constitution? Are we doing it already?”
How Surveillance Could Save Lives Amid a Public Health Crisis
“Smartphones could be a powerful weapon against the novel coronavirus. But tracking people’s movements would offend many Americans’ sense of privacy.”
Protecting Civil Liberties During a Public Health Crisis
“As our society struggles with how best to minimize the spread of this disease, we must carefully consider the way that “big data” containment tools impact our digital liberties.”
DOJ Wants to Suspend Certain Constitutional Rights During Coronavirus Emergency
“The Department of Justice has secretly asked Congress for the ability to detain arrested people “indefinitely” in addition to other powers that one expert called “terrifying”.”
EFF and COVID-19: Protecting Openness, Security, and Civil Liberties
“The COVID-19 pandemic has made obvious how important the Internet and digital tools are to our lives and how vital it is that we maintain an open and secure approach to them.”
Cell Phone Companies Are Selling Access To Customer Location Data
Motherboard – I Gave a Bounty Hunter $300. Then He Located Our Phone
T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T are selling access to their customers’ location data, and that data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters and others not authorized to possess it, letting them track most phones in the country…
The bounty hunter did this all without deploying a hacking tool or having any previous knowledge of the phone’s whereabouts. Instead, the tracking tool relies on real-time location data sold to bounty hunters that ultimately originated from the telcos themselves, including T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint, a Motherboard investigation has found. These surveillance capabilities are sometimes sold through word-of-mouth networks…
Motherboard’s investigation shows just how exposed mobile networks and the data they generate are, leaving them open to surveillance by ordinary citizens, stalkers, and criminals…
Don’t think it’s a big deal? This could be your Mom’s, wife’s, girlfriend’s, or daughter’s phone…
Weekend Random Stuff…
MS Office Updates Out, Some Already Pulled
How-to update MS Office: Install Office updates
All Office Downloads & Info
Office Standalone Latest Updates
Update history for Office 365 ProPlus – Version 1812: January 3
The updates for Office 2010 have been pulled:
January 2, 2019, update for Office 2010 (KB4032217)
After you install this update, you may experience difficulties in Microsoft Excel or other applications. To resolve this, uninstall the update by following the instructions in the “More information” section.
This update is no longer available.
Updated: WACUP (WinAmp Community Update Project)
Version 1.0.0.3174 released
WACUP (which can be pronounced as wakeup or wac-up or however you prefer it in your native tongue) is designed to work only with the patched Winamp 5.666 release to provide bug fixes, updates of existing features and most importantly new features with the goal to eventually become it’s own highly Winamp compatible media player.
WACUP makes use of the benefits of Winamp being heavily based on a plug-in system so new plug-ins can add additional features as well as allowing replacements to be created which provide better implementations over the plug-ins natively included with Winamp.
Download & Info
Stuff I bookmarked recently. Some off topic, some not:
Apple plasters privacy ad on billboard near Las Vegas Convention Center ahead of CES
“What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone.”
Well played Apple. Never been to CES (can’t afford it) and I didn’t know CES was still a serious thing. Especially since there was a move to reduce or eliminate the best thing about it, Booth Babes!
Los Angeles Accuses Weather Channel App of Covertly Mining User Data
The Weather Channel app deceptively collected, shared and profited from the location information of millions of American consumers, the city attorney of Los Angeles said in a lawsuit filed on Thursday.
Popular Weather App Collects Too Much User Data, Security Experts Say
The app, called “Weather Forecast—World Weather Accurate Radar,” collects data including smartphone users’ geographic locations, email addresses and unique 15-digit International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers on TCL servers in China
Congrats on the new baby. Would you like a DNA screening test?
Every baby born in the United States is given a routine blood test to screen for dozens of inherited medical conditions. Now, the U.S. National Institutes of Health is exploring whether to use DNA sequencing to screen newborn babies for additional genetic abnormalities and disorders…One of the “key ethical issues” when using genome sequencing as a screening tool in newborns (or children in general), she wrote, “is that a comprehensive genetic profile is established without the person’s consent and without a clinical indication…”The issue with genetic information is, that once generated, it cannot be made ‘undone,’ ” wrote Lunshof, who was not involved in Beggs’ study. “If genetic information (that is often probabilistic) is on file, will it be used similar to ‘existing disorders’ and lead to denial of health insurance coverage?”
Move Over ‘Friends,’ Millennials Now Find ‘Seinfeld’ Problematic
Now, one of the most popular and successful TV shows of all time is considered problematic for several jokes that were okay – or a little edgy – in the 1990s that are now offensive to American millennials. The previous victim of this new, politically correct world was “Friends.” Now, “Seinfeld” is getting the social justice warrior treatment.
Blue Moon named official “craft beer” of the Kentucky Derby
Twatwaffles. Blue Moon isn’t craft beer. It is owned by MillerCoors which is owned the Molson Coors Brewing Company, world’s 7th largest brewing company.
Craft beer has the following label:
METALLICA’s LARS ULRICH Interviews JOAN JETT For ‘It’s Electric!’ Radio Show
Joan Jett recently joined METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich for a special edition of “It’s Electric!”, his online radio show on Apple Music’s Beats 1. She reflects on performing with NIRVANA at the 2014 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony, dissects the role of women in glam rock, discusses her 2018 documentary “Bad Reputation”, and more.
I love Joan Jett!
How Apps on Android Share Data with Facebook
Privacy International Study:
How Apps on Android Share Data with Facebook (even if you don’t have a Facebook account)
Article | Attached PDF Whitepaper | Video
We found that at least 61 percent of apps we tested automatically transfer data to Facebook the moment a user opens the app. This happens whether people have a Facebook account or not, or whether they are logged into Facebook or not…If combined, data from different apps can paint a fine-grained and intimate picture of people’s activities, interests, behaviors and routines, some of which can reveal special category data, including information about people’s health or religion. For example, an individual who has installed the following apps that we have tested, “Qibla Connect” (a Muslim prayer app), “Period Tracker Clue” (a period tracker), “Indeed” (a job search app), “My Talking Tom” (a children’s’ app), could be potentially profiled as likely female, likely Muslim, likely job seeker, likely parent.
See page 35 of the PDF for what little you can do to protect yourself.
This means that much of what you see on your phone either is, or could have been manipulated.
If this doesn’t piss you off then you deserve what you get.
Thursday Morning Random Stuff…
Nvidia GeForce Game Ready Driver 417.35 WHQL
Provides the optimal gaming experience for the release of Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) beta in Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition
Download | Release Notes
Google Chrome 71.0.3578.98 for Windows (1 security fix, bugfixes)
Download | Download standalone(full) | Download standalone 64-bit Windows version(full)
Other Software Releases
Tails 3.11
Tor Browser 8.0.4
Stuff I bookmarked recently. Some off topic, some not:
Many apps on your phone are tracking everywhere you go — here’s how to stop them
Your apps are tracking you — here’s how to stop them
How This Supercolony of 1.5 Million Penguins Stayed Hidden for Nearly 3,000 Years
This year, scientists announced an incredible discovery by looking at poop stains in satellite images — 1.5 million Adélie penguins were living and thriving on a little patch in Antarctica surrounded by treacherous sea ice called the Danger Islands.
There is a joke in there somewhere about DC. I just can’t come up with it.
NSFW – Mason Foster, Washington Redskins Defensive Captain
Pure class.
Blocking A Programs Internet Access Via The Windows Firewall
Many programs on your computer access the internet even though they don’t need to. They phone home for a variety of reason including telemetry and checking for updates.
I don’t need or want most programs phoning home for any reason. Still, they try.
With programs getting more invasive I thought it would be appropriate to show you how to block their access to the net.
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