Notices by Sean O'Brien (profdiggity@privacysafe.social)

Before I begin: I believe US users should have access to apps made by Chinese companies and vice versa.
Network analysis of @deepseek_ai #DeepSeek app has approx 30% of traffic talking to servers in mainland China. More traffic is routed through servers in Germany owned by retailer Taobao

@cwebber @spritely pixel art pls

StickTock.com is approaching 4K #tiktokrefugee videos served today with zero logins and zero #TikTok code or server contact for viewers 🥳

It's a TikTok viewer even @pluralistic would use 👉 https://bitsontape.com/p/sticktock-share-tiktok-videos

As Cory Doctorow @pluralistic explains: "If you're an American (or anyone else, for that matter) who wants to use #Tiktok without being spied on, @privacysafe has you covered: their #Sticktock tool is a private, alternative, web-based front-end for Tiktok, with optional @torproject VPN tunnelling" https://psafe.ly/VZTH3W

https://privacysafe.social/@pluralistic@mamot.fr/113850616524854958

@pluralistic Readers who like what we're doing with the https://sticktock.com #TikTok frontend should follow these accounts, as we have been shipping free web apps for the public *weekly*

@privacysafe

@ivycyber

@bitsontape

@nursecherise

Next up is a client-side password and passphrase generator.

@wordshaper @simon @cwebber I really try not to have this effect on people. But the problem is real and growing.

Try the products yourself - LLM voice transcription is amazingly good and currently offered cost-free or as a software addon in many cases. The energy cost is being shoved elsewhere, as it has been for "the cloud" for decades. But now it's amplified and accelerating. This is great for microphone spying, bad for a free society.

@simon @wordshaper @cwebber We're soon going to be in a deregulation cycle in the US, and trends seem to be pulling that way even in the EU. It's going to be "great" for me since there will be lots of spy tech to dig into and shout about. It will be awful in general for civil liberties and just day-to-day life in a technocratic society.

@wordshaper @cwebber @simon Yes, exactly. There are a few known cases where people got caught doing this with smart TVs and toys as well back then. *However* things have changed dramatically with cloud-based AI / LLMs. That goes for power issues as well. The transcription is fast + cheap and the energy consumption is an externality for the company - it's not a cost incurred by the ad brokers / spies or the mobile device and, if Microsoft gets their way, the servers will run on US-based nuclear.

@cwebber @wordshaper @simon My expertise in this area were so-called "ultrasonic trackers" and there are plenty of known cases of that, with the most notable being Fidzup which faced legal troubles in the EU because of it. I'd like to think we @yaleprivacylab and @exodus had something to do with that for calling attention to it. (shoutout to @nursecherise for the literal hand in this video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xweq1eF_eP4