Privacy

I got Mullvad VPN to try it for a month after years using ExpressVPN, but it drains my battery (iPhone SE, 2nd generation, 2020) into oblivion in a matter of 3-4 hours.

Browsed the Cursed Site™️ and using WireGuard instead of the Mullvad VPN app seems to be the most common solution – but not for me. WireGuard either it doesn’t connect to any location or disconnects after 2-3 minutes.

Anyone got any advice?

EDIT: added more details about the phone model.

Increasingly, the best parties are those where phones are absent.

The cameras 99% of adults carry in their pockets every day, and the powerful surveillance software those cameras connect to, make it easy for anyone to rip any moment -- even our most intimate, silly, goofy, terrible, embarrassing, or happy moments -- and put it online for all to see, stripped of its original context.

The goal — a centralized system with unprecedented access to data about Social Security, taxes, medical diagnoses and other private information — would create a multitude of vulnerabilities, experts say.

Example, WhatsApp, use the whole 25 character profile name limit:

• Bob Moved To Signal.org
• Alice Moved To Signal.org
• Charlie Moved To Signal.org

Say Signal.org, not Signal, so they see it is an app.

Use your about section too.

Same on Discord, Steam, Instagram, everywhere.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/33723368

Archived

European Union privacy watchdogs fined TikTok 530 million euros ($600 million) on Friday after a four-year investigation found that the video sharing app’s data transfers to China breached strict data privacy rules in the EU.

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission also sanctioned TikTok for not being transparent with users about where their personal data was being sent and it ordered the company to comply with the rules within six months.

[...]

TikTok, whose parent company ByteDance is based in China, has been under scrutiny in Europe over how it handles personal information of its users amid concerns from Western officials that it poses a security risk over user data sent to China. In 2023, the Irish watchdog also fined the company hundreds of millions of euros in a separate child privacy investigation.

[...]

The Irish watchdog said its investigation found that TikTok failed to address “potential access by Chinese authorities” to European users’ personal data under Chinese laws on anti-terrorism, counter-espionage, cybersecurity and national intelligence that were identified as “materially diverging” from EU standards.

[...]

TikTok faces further scrutiny from the Irish regulator, which said that the company had provided inaccurate information to throughout the inquiry by saying that it didn’t store European user data on Chinese servers. It wasn’t until April that it informed the regulator that it discovered in February that some data had in fact been stored on Chinese servers.

[...]

Cross-posted from "Millions of Apple Airplay-enabled devices can be hacked via Wi-Fi - Ars Technica" by @[email protected] in [email protected]

Source: Oligo Security

Gun Owners for Safety called the secret program that spanned nearly two decades “underhanded.”

If you do not have access to the entirety of the article, it was reposted here: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/169335

Meta is making a few notable adjustments to the privacy policy for its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. In an email sent out on April 29th to owners of the glasses, the company outlined two key changes. First, it’s giving Meta AI a more frequent view of the world. “Meta AI with camera use is always enabled on your glasses unless you turn off ‘Hey Meta,” the email said, referring to the hands-free voice command functionality.

So unless you turn that convenience-minded feature off, Meta will frequently be analyzing whatever’s captured by the built-in camera. If you simply want to use the Ray-Ban Metas as a “normal” camera without any artificial intelligence thrown in, you’ll have to disable “Hey Meta” and stick to the physical controls.

Second, Meta is taking after Amazon by no longer allowing Ray-Ban Meta owners to opt out of having their voice recordings stored in the cloud. “The option to disable voice recordings storage is no longer available, but you can delete recordings anytime in settings,” the company wrote. In its voice privacy notice, Meta states that “voice transcripts and stored audio recordings are otherwise stored for up to one year to help improve Meta’s products.” If the company detects that a voice interaction was accidental, those recordings are deleted after a shorter 90-day window.

The motivation behind these changes is clear: Meta wants to continue providing its AI models with heaps of data on which to train and improve subsequent results. Some users began noticing these policy changes in March, but at least in the United States, Meta says they went into effect as of April 29th.

Earlier this month, the company rolled out a live translation feature to the Ray-Ban Meta product. And just yesterday, Meta rolled out a standalone Meta AI app on smartphones to more directly compete with Open AI’s ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and other AI chatbots.

The company is reportedly planning a higher-end pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses for release later in 2025. The current glasses lineup starts at $299, but the more premium version could cost around $1,000. Meta is set to report its Q1 2025 earnings later on Wednesday, and the company is likely to address the tariff chaos that has roiled markets in recent months.

Archived

• The agency said that before DeepSeek’s chatbot was removed from app stores in South Korea, the company was transferring user data to firms in China and the U.S. without consent.
• The findings were released in relation to an ongoing investigation into DeepSeek, and the company has been sent corrective recommendations.

South Korea’s data protection authority has concluded that Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek collected personal information from local users and transferred it overseas without their permission.

The authority, the Personal Information Protection Commission [PIPC], released its written findings on Thursday in connection with a privacy and security review of DeepSeek.

It follows DeepSeek’s removal of its chatbot application from South Korean app stores in February at the recommendation of PIPC.

[...]

During DeepSeek’s presence in South Korea, it transferred user data to several firms in China and the U.S. without obtaining the necessary consent from users or disclosing the practice, the PIPC said.

The agency highlighted a particular case in which DeepSeek transferred information from user-written AI prompts, as well as device, network, and app information, to a Chinese cloud service platform named Beijing Volcano Engine Technology Co.

[...]

When the data protection authority announced the removal of DeepSeek from local app stores, it signaled that the app would become available again once the company implemented the necessary updates to comply with local data protection policy.

That investigation followed reports that some South Korean government agencies had banned employees from using DeepSeek on work devices. Other global government departments, including in Taiwan, Australia, and the U.S., have reportedly instituted similar bans.

• In December, an investigation by Tom's Hardware found that Recall frequently captured sensitive information in its screenshots, including credit card numbers and Social Security numbers — even though its "filter sensitive information" setting was supposed to prevent that from happening.