Notices by Ryan Baumann (ryanfb@digipres.club)

@dannycolin yes, I do actually believe I’m entitled to use my web browser without it newly-defaulting to constantly broadcasting my location, and that turning the feature off should turn the broadcasting off. Those expectations were violated and I felt that other privacy-conscious Firefox users would like to be aware of this new behavior and how to actually disable it.

If Mozilla doesn’t need my consent to enable it by default, I certainly don’t need their consent to publicly complain about it.

I think "constantly broadcast my location to a 3rd party by default and don't tell me about it or what's happening with that data and then keep doing it when I think I've disabled it" is pretty obviously a terrible privacy default

After checking about:config, "Hide weather on New Tab" sets the config value "browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.showWeather" to "false", but leaves "browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.weatherfeed" as the default of "true". So, my suspicion was correct, #Firefox is still sending your location off every 30 minutes to get the weather in the background by default even if you disable this new widget: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/components/newtab/lib/WeatherFeed.sys.mjs #infosec #privacy

@zackbatist @Osmose they absolutely need to link to that from the weather section of the support page “learn more” currently links to from the weather widget

@dannycolin good to know that this is actually MY problem that I personally need to fix for everyone because I’m the one who raised it, and not Mozilla’s for shipping a feature to wide release in this sorry-ass poorly-documented state. And fixing the docs doesn’t fix the underlying pref behavior or defaulting to being newly enabled without consent on every install

Furthermore, would "hiding weather on new tab" actually stop this feature from still regularly sending my location to AccuWeather? Great question! I have no idea

Mozilla, reading the room extremely well, seemingly just recently flipped the switch to enable-by-default sponsored weather results from AccuWeather in every new Firefox tab you open. Clicking "Learn more" takes you here, with zero information on if your location is sent to AccuWeather every time you open a new tab: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customize-items-on-firefox-new-tab-page

Probably only noticed because I normally have a blank new tab page but this showed up after updating Firefox!

July 28th, 253 BCE—#OTD #OnThisDay Kleanax writes to Zenon concerning some mules he's hoping to smuggle alongside Apollonios' mules so that he can avoid paying export and transit taxes on them

https://papyri.info/ddbdp/p.cair.zen;2;59240

Wonder how long before we learn about the first one of these that integrates exploiting and tracking every single #AirDrop device it sees ✨ https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/next-generation-cell-site-simulators-here-heres-what-we-know

As you can see from the lack of details in the EFF article on cell-site simulators, there’s probably going to be some significant lag between US authorities actively exploiting this vulnerability and the public finding out they’re doing it, so act accordingly!

(still haven’t seen any updated “bringing your devices to a protest” guides that even mention the AirDrop vulnerability, let alone give good advice for avoiding exposure)

ICYMI, every device with #AirDrop enabled is constantly blasting your email address and phone number out to everyone around you, the vulnerability is at the protocol level and has been there since its inception https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/12/tech/china-apple-airdrop-user-encryption-vulnerability-hnk-intl/index.html

Are people generally aware that these OpenAI clowns are also seriously trying to get $7 trillion to pursue the dream of…building out fab capacity? https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/09/openai-ceo-sam-altman-reportedly-seeking-trillions-of-dollars-for-ai-chip-project.html

We already have something that actually can achieve the human-level performance that keeps being claimed by these charlatans yet not attained, it’s called humans. Imagine what investing $7 trillion in humans could accomplish.

Restarting my thread for #WozADay videos, where I play through the @internetarchive Woz-A-Day collection of #AppleII disk images from @a2_4am in upload order and post the video! You can find the old thread here: https://digipres.club/@ryanfb/110395916573555503

Starting back up right where I left off, with Lewis and Clark Stayed Home (1991) https://youtu.be/TBzTOxmhYB0 #retrogaming #apple2 #AppleII

can I successfully copy a floppy with Copy II Plus v2? only one way to find out https://youtu.be/CZPA7G4YDJQ #WozADay #retrocomputing #apple2 #AppleII

folks, i just look at the #WozADay disk images in the order they’re uploaded https://youtu.be/Dqg7S1wExeA #retrogaming #apple2 #AppleII

Before starting this series, I was completely unfamiliar with this game from the makers of the Oregon Trail…because it was recalled shortly after its release in 1992 (CW for content in video: slavery, potentially offensive portrayals of Black people/speech) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBa9ZmZaCBc #WozADay #AppleII #retrocomputing #apple2

@tchambers FWIW I’ve been mostly happy with whisperX for local transcription: https://github.com/m-bain/whisperX