SR74 Thoughts

Here are my thoughts on SR74.

SimpleLogin is the most under-reported privacy tool out there to deal with e-mail tracking.

The Free Plan is plenty for the average person, just make sure you've accurately written down which alias you used in your password manager (like KeePassXC) in case you need to shut down an alias for a new one.

VPN Consolidation

Airline Employee Data Leak via AWS

British Council and Student Data

Teleco Fined in Greece

The Susan Jacobs of these corporations have calculated that paying any fines from willfully ignoring responsible security breach disclosure rather than loose stock market value after responsibly alerting customers.

Oil Cyberattack in Germany

Maybe we can stop using oil if we keep hacking oil companies...

Corsight AI

A company trying to reconstruct your face from DNA and/or your voice recordings with a gait recognition add-on makes total sense when there's only two former top officials from the CIA and FBI. Definitely sus.

Oh yeah — just like how there's nothing to see when the CIA's venture capital branch invested in Niantec for Pokemon Go...

GPU Fingerprinting Study

I've already planned to make my own machines or obtain laptops with no GPUs, so this isn't an issue for me (especially if I'm not doing any intense video editing or other visual data manipulation that would be greatly assisted by GPUs).

However, this is still concerning. This could be an indicator that GPUs could become liabilities as attack vectors (or, at least metadata leakers). Given the GPU shortage that's been going on way before 2019 and that GPUs are inherently more difficult to change than browser viewport dimensions (like what Tor Browser does — also, stop maximizing Tor Browser, Kenny from Mental Outlaw! So stupid — you think you're hot stuff running Gentoo with dwm until you maximize Tor Browser...)

EARN IT is Back, For Some (Stupid) Reason

Time to vote Blumenthal and Lindsey Graham out of office, because apparently we have national politicians who can't perform $1+1=2$ in their primitive brains or even power off their iPhones for a cold reboot, so those people should not any fundamental human rights to even have an opinion on encryption in computer systems (i.e., definitely not “qualified” in the loosest and most liberal sense).

Well, it's time to use your IRL identity to make calls to your local politicians — the only use for your IRL identity in this (morally) degenerate digital age.

Civil Rights Groups Protest Against ID.me

Personally, I don't think the journalistic notion of “algorithms” (like in the New York Times kiddie pool intellectualism), which really means machine learning AI being programmed by clueless people who haven't read anything non-scientific and nothing about ethics/morality since either their respective equivalent of highschool or a required liberal arts class for a bachelor's degree, can ever be delivered justice.

I think the only way to make these bookish programmers working in the back of dark rooms realize the potential impacts of what they're working on is to force them to reenact Devs in a Squid Game-like manner.

The US Government Wants Your Selfies

Gosh, NIST again? We're gonna go full GEC Marconi and Washington Township nuclear power plant on these tools...

Even though it may not be the literal executive branch of the government, I do think the techies in the CIA and basically the entire NSA is sitting in their rooms trying to concoct “lawful abuse” cop outs, complete with impunity, on how to acquire everyone's selfies.

Wait, what? Nate has done overseas military service? Ok, that explains why he'll always be better than Henry.

Somehow, the math isn't adding up: how do contractors receive up to 5 times as much pay as in-house employees, yet the contractors have a significantly lower hire cost for the client?

Anyways, expect the U.S. government to go full Blue Wolf (the facial recognition system Israel forcibly uses on Palestinians).

Phone Data Collection in Canada

I don't trust any public health agency to handle digital data — sounds like Series 3-4 of Utopia is well underway...

Edmonton Police use NeoFace Reveal

Oh no, Anatomy of the State underway...

Google Fonts?

Yes, I guess I won't use Google Fonts when I make my own websites in the future...

Of Course, the Phillipines Is Totalitarian

This SIM Card Registration act is going to push JMP.chat numbers up...

New ProtonMail Bridge

I don't have a need for ProtonMail Bridge (I just use the unofficial ElectronMail client), so I don't even know what the Bridge is for.

Well, maybe you should've have bought the M1 Macbooks before ARM support actually matured, Henry!

Vulnerabilities in Open Source Projects

Google and Microsoft are leeching off of open source projects, not helping them.

Yes, a lot of Google's libraries are open source, but most of the most public facing products/servicies from Google are closed sourced and privacy invasive (like its out of the box Android on Pixels), Google Search, YouTube, Chrome, and so on.

Routers and UPnP attacks

Maybe just get a router which can install OpenWRT.

Supermarket Cameras Guess Age of Alcohol Buyers

Maybe you shouldn't drink? Or ask why people have drinking problems instead of trying to use facial recognition to solve everything (when you shouldn't).

Sugar Ransomware?

This is weird for targeting individuals...