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Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused

arstechnica.com

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Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused

#141

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jononomo wrote: post #140
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> money is fungible To an extent, depending on the fraction of the budget you're contributing.

No, it doesn't depend on the fraction of the budget you're contributing. Money is fungible even if it is only $0.01.

> it doesn't depend on the fraction of the budget you're contributing. Money is fungible even if it is only $0.01

Practice versus theory. If I'm donating 50% of an organization's budget, I get to say what my 50% does as well as the other 50%. That's power. (If they don't comply, I pull my funding. Assuming the other half is diffuse.)

Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused

#142

Post by therealdrag0 »

upofadown wrote: post #39
polygamous_bat wrote: post #27

I believe I am not the only one here whose blood boils at such a news story. Thank you EFF for investigating this. My question is, what can we do to fight such oppressive surveillance mechanisms as individuals? Beyond the standard donation to EFF and such. In my rage I want to see the Fog Data Science people prosecuted and the police depts which unquestioningly used their product stripped of their post, but what powe…

The root problem here is the commercial exploitation of personal data. How can you deny law enforcement access to data that is, for all practical purposes, available to anyone? The solution to this particular problem is political. The USA needs federal privacy laws.

“How can you deny..” I mean you just can right? A lot of lines are arbitrarily drawn, and drawing a line there is better than none. The categorical difference in power is one justification for the line being there. (Not saying there aren’t also justifications for more privacy still)

Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused

#143

Post by [deleted] »

hda2 wrote: post #139
kajecounterhack wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like the obvious answer is no. But if can see that they are doing important stuff, and you're letting your hangups over unrelated political issues keep you from donating to their awesome work, I'd say that's a mistake. They have a 4/5 from Charity Navigator for spending their money effectively.

> I'd say that's a mistake I wouldn't. If the EFF really wants my financial support, they can split their org into two; one that focuses exclusively on defending our digital rights (to whom I would gladly donate) and one that focuses on social justice. This mentality of packaging the bad with the good is precisely what got the US where it is now.

[deleted]

Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused

#144

Post by Jiro »

kornhole wrote: post #78
robk wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t followed them enough but is it possible to support them without supporting other charitable causes of a political persuasion I don’t support? I fully support everything directly related to their cause but it gets me very upset when charities are supporting other various agendas around gender/immigration for example that are unrelated to their main goal.

Once you start following them I think you will find that they are very focused and have been quite successful at not diffusing into other areas.

They denounced Richard Stallman.

Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused

#145

Post by kajecounterhack »

hda2 wrote: post #139
kajecounterhack wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like the obvious answer is no. But if can see that they are doing important stuff, and you're letting your hangups over unrelated political issues keep you from donating to their awesome work, I'd say that's a mistake. They have a 4/5 from Charity Navigator for spending their money effectively.

> I'd say that's a mistake I wouldn't. If the EFF really wants my financial support, they can split their org into two; one that focuses exclusively on defending our digital rights (to whom I would gladly donate) and one that focuses on social justice. This mentality of packaging the bad with the good is precisely what got the US where it is now.

> This mentality of packaging the bad with the good is precisely what got the US where it is now.

Well this is inevitable. People just don't have time to be involved in every issue, so you find the parties / organizations / representatives that _most_ represent you, and that's what you get. There's never going to be an org or politician that perfectly represents you; you have to pick which people/orgs will most help shape the world to be the one you want to live in.

Also, if among free speech & digital rights supporters you're in a minority that doesn't like stuff like, iono, gender equality... well you can find other ways to express that point of view. I seriously doubt EFF's work is changing peoples' minds about that anyway; their involvement in some of those issues is more reflecting how most EFF constituents feel.

Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused

#146

Post by hammyhavoc »

robk wrote: post #10
charles_kaw wrote: post #7

The root of this investigation was the EFF. If you make tech money, you can toss $50 their way without any hesitation. https://supporters.eff.org/donate You'll get some cool swag and, more importantly, ensure that they continue their excellent work.

I haven’t followed them enough but is it possible to support them without supporting other charitable causes of a political persuasion I don’t support? I fully support everything directly related to their cause but it gets me very upset when charities are supporting other various agendas around gender/immigration for example that are unrelated to their main goal.

Do you have more info on this specifically with the EFF? First I've heard of it, but admittedly lived under a rock in terms of news for a long time.

Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused

#147

Post by hammyhavoc »

hda2 wrote: post #139
kajecounterhack wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like the obvious answer is no. But if can see that they are doing important stuff, and you're letting your hangups over unrelated political issues keep you from donating to their awesome work, I'd say that's a mistake. They have a 4/5 from Charity Navigator for spending their money effectively.

> I'd say that's a mistake I wouldn't. If the EFF really wants my financial support, they can split their org into two; one that focuses exclusively on defending our digital rights (to whom I would gladly donate) and one that focuses on social justice. This mentality of packaging the bad with the good is precisely what got the US where it is now.

This is how I feel about Mozilla.

MZLA used AI to generate wallpapers for Thunderbird that nobody asked for, somebody is in a salaried role doing it that's funded by donations. What a complete waste of money considering the AI isn't even FOSS, and they are promoting it on the Thunderbird blog. That's without even getting into the arrogance displayed by a big name from their camp on AI ethics. Did all kinds of mental gymnastics to say he was a very talented artist for typing text into Discord.

Open source email clients don't need marketing gimmicks, they need substance.

BTW, did you know the same person in that role is now introducing a Thunderbird podcast? Who asked for a podcast for a FOSS email client? Nobody.

Dude has proven once again that Mozilla should just focus on making great software as they close-to-zero credibility left after working with Meta and shambolic PR disaster after PR disaster.

FWIW, even though I'm a huge FOSS evangelist, I switched to Vivaldi and Gmail, because fuck that.

Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused

#148

Post by raxxorraxor »

kajecounterhack wrote: post #12
robk wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t followed them enough but is it possible to support them without supporting other charitable causes of a political persuasion I don’t support? I fully support everything directly related to their cause but it gets me very upset when charities are supporting other various agendas around gender/immigration for example that are unrelated to their main goal.

Seems like the obvious answer is no. But if can see that they are doing important stuff, and you're letting your hangups over unrelated political issues keep you from donating to their awesome work, I'd say that's a mistake. They have a 4/5 from Charity Navigator for spending their money effectively.

My problem with these unrelated political issues is that they directly collide with the rights the EFF traditionally tried to defend. Nobody is talking about net neutrality anymore and activists actively try to convince suppliers of net infrastructure to drop the target of the day. These political issues do not converge very well and old liberties are regularly undermined.

I know I am painting with a broad brush here, but I am at a point where I want it severed into something else.

Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused

#149

Post by kornhole »

bogomipz wrote: post #134
kornhole wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a word, yes. Some relatively rare phones such as Pinephone and Librem have actual power switches, and maybe some others actually go off. The vast majority of consumer phones appear off but are still calling home to the mother ship. Many diagnostic test have been done and published to prove this. If you really need it, I could probably go find them for you.

Thanks. I'm guessing this is when happened when hardware vendors stopped making phones with removable batteries then? I would be really interested in any links you might have yes. I did a cursory search but came up with little more than a stackexchange question.

Both Ithings and Google devices have a find my phone feature that works even when the phone is off. That is something you can test yourself if you have one. Obviously for this to work, the phone is sending its location even when it is supposedly off. It seems that the company in this reporting is not getting data from Goopple yet, but those who are really concerned about not being followed are careful with this and use different operating systems. https://www.xda-developers.com/iphone-findable-turned-off/

Re: Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused

#150

Post by curtainsforus »

kristopolous wrote: post #113
curtainsforus wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How can that system be justified? The 'bad guy' is whoever is the aggressor. Everyone has a right to life; if someone starts shooting at you, or swinging a bat at you, you have the right to defend yourself, and if you kill the aggressor in self-defence, so be it. I've heard from an internet lawyer that it's possible in principle for two people attacking each other to both have grounds for self-defence, too, if both…

It's a cognitive trick used to assign a label. All you need is a frame of mind, a professed sincere belief and it's done. Most wars of aggression were sold as self defense. Jonathan Swift even poked fun of this in the 1700s. It's a really old trick. The problem is some people get extended the credulity of self defense and others aren't. Could I declare self defense against a police officer? Why not? Aren't they just…

>Could I declare self defense against a police officer? Not according to contemporary american law, but you should be able to!
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