Turning a $44B social media site into FakeAV

from here and here

Fraudulently reporting sites as malware seems like the kind of scam that should be obviously illegal. I'm not sure how the consequences of his actions haven't caught up to him yet.

It's a good thing politicians would never try to spam or scam us

from here and here

Leave it to the "Don't be evil" company to continue to find new ways to be evil. And yes, I know that politicians would in fact try to spam and scam us. The former president and grifter-in-chief already has scammed people by email under the ruse of fighting the election results.

As of writing, there's still time to voice your concerns to the FEC (by email it seems - ao@fec.gov)

Privacy Theatre

from here and here

I guess that we really shouldn't be surprised Apple took the teeth out of it's earlier move to clamp down on invasive ad-tech. They do whatever they feel like they can get away with, and in all likelihood they will be able to get away with this just fine. Their near monopoly position makes it basically inevitable that people will continue to buy their products regardless of their failure to live up to their promise of providing control.

Out with the old, in with the new, choose to opt out and we'll include you too

from here and here

Given Verizon's blatant disregard for their customers' preferences, I think the lesson here is that there's only one kind of opt-out that matters - the one you do with your wallet. Don't give them your business if they can't live up to basic expectations of privacy.

The Old Switcheroo

from here and here

If it sounds like Mark Zuckerberg is pulling a fast one by claiming Facebook won't use face recognition anymore but under their new name they will continue to use it, then you are not alone. It seems a bit like a bait and switch scam.

"Suspicion", you're doing it wrong!

from here and here

It appears that Facebook Marketplace is a trash fire with too many scams and too little oversight. Banning people who volunteer their time and effort to help is just the tip of the iceberg.

An advancement towards the grave, maybe

from here and here (image source)

Apple's CSAM (child sexual abuse material) scanning plans may now be paused, but paused isn't the same as stopped, and if they really think it's an advancement in privacy then it's important to recognize the distinction between paused and stopped.

In no world is adding surveillance where none previously existed an advancement in privacy, no matter how favourably it may compare to what others are doing. Furthermore, if your plan involves trying to work around the problem of encryption then you are once again not advancing privacy because, when it comes to privacy, encryption is not a problem that needs a work-around.

They still plan to go forward with this one way or another. They're just slowing down to consider how to take the bite out of the criticisms against it so that they can still pretend like they care about your privacy.

Automatically enabled for your convenience

from here and here

Y'know what? If I wanted to share my Internet with my neighbors, I'd give them the wifi password. Amazon seems to not understand property or consent here, and I'm not sure how this plan made it past their legal department. The amount of bad will this will create in their customers is going to be mind boggling.

Scumbag spymaster has a particular set of skills

from here and here (image source)

It can't be a coincidence that a company with products like Alexa (that listens to your conversations), Ring (which watches everything and shares footage with police and possibly other agents of the state), and Rekognition (which can power all sorts of biometric surveillance applications) acquired the ex-director of the National Security Agency for it's board of directors. With a member of the Intelligence Community in a position of influence, Surveillance Capitalism has never looked more menacing.

It just works ... for the crooks

from here and here

I wonder if profiting from criminal enterprises has anything to do with Apple becoming the world's most prosperous company. Seems like it must have helped the bottom line at least a little, considering the numbers involved.

Who wants a refund?

from here and here

It's one thing to spy on allies and adversaries alike, but it's something else entirely to turn a profit while doing so.

Guard that hen house well, Mr. Fox

from here and here (image source)

There couldn't possibly be a conflict of interest in Amazon writing the very rules governing the use (and therefore potential sales) of their products. Surely they would never behave so unethically.

A bag isn't big enough for this much scum

from here (image source)

Hard to believe all the shit AT&T is trying to pull. Harder still to believe they've managed to get away with it for so long. Hopefully that's coming to an end.

I feel safer already

found on Reddit

While you should use some kind of anti-virus, never forget that (just like every other security measure you use) it needs to be worth the time/effort/cost. If something is as bad as the thing it's supposed to stop - don't use it.

What's good for the goose is when the feds take a gander

from here and here

There's a certain irony in the government trying to maintain the secrecy of their efforts to get into our secrets. We don't yet know what legal arguments the Department of Justice used to try and get into Facebook Messenger's encrypted messages, but hopefully the ACLU will get the details unsealed.

Does this seem legit to you?

from here (source image)

As amazing as this sounds, Facebook plans to ask users to help it identify fake news.

How exactly are the people who were essentially targeted by social engineers supposed to know who the social engineers are? If people knew who the right news sources to trust were then Facebook wouldn't need to worry about fake news in the first place. This is, at best, fake effort by people who can't be arsed to actually think about the problem of their users being exploited for malicious purposes.

MOM! Encryption Is In My Way Again!

from here (source article)

More and more I think the FBI should stand for the federal bureau of incompetence. If the feds can't find terrorist chatter when it's out in the open, how can they possibly hope to find it when they get access to encrypted messages? Encryption is just a scapegoat to cover their incompetent asses.

By the way, this isn't about the San Bernardino shooters (who were believed to have discussed jihad publicly but didn't), this is from an earlier incident.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

from here

When Zuckerberg makes observations about how privacy is regarded these days, we should keep in mind that his actions contradict his words. Words which are, in reality, simply an attempt to justify exploiting humanity's desperate need to connect with someone for his own personal gain.

At Least Apple Is Taking Steps To Improve

from here (source image)

Hard to believe PayPal has the gall to put a full page ad in the New York Times when they hand out your email address to everyone you have a transaction with (as if part of the reason we use PayPal isn't because we don't actually trust those people we have transactions with).

No Malware For You!

from here (source image one, two, and three)

A long time ago I arrived at a fairly simple principle about sharing malware: never give malware samples to someone you don't know that you can trust not to do stupid or malicious things with them. The fact that spreading malware is one of the techniques the FBI uses pretty much excludes them being trustworthy in this context.

(Inspiration - thanks to Howard Fuhs for bringing this to my attention)