Notices by Jerry on Mastodon (jerry@hear-me.social)

The #Signal App gets only a 9 out of 10 for #Privacy protection, and it's not just because it requires a phone number.

"While most of Google’s analytics are turned off in the Signal app, it still uses the Google Maps API to handle location data. Calls to Google Maps turn over a bunch of metadata, including the IP you’re connecting from. For a project that’s so invested in privacy, it’s surprising that Signal doesn’t use an open source alternative such as Open Street Map."

They call a Google API with location data and hand over the IP? Seriously?

https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/nothing-personal/signal-privacy-review/#good-and-bad

#cybersecurity

This is funny

Mark Zuckerberg Demos New Facebook AI And It Couldn’t Have Gone Worse

https://kotaku.com/meta-ai-mark-zuckerberg-korean-steak-sauce-facebook-2000626808

#AI #MetaAI

My Pixel 10 warned me that there was a rogue connection made on my phone.

A concerning thing happened today while I was walking through my building. I have a #Pixel 10 Pro XL phone, which may be the first phone to give warnings when the phone connects to a rogue cellphone tower or IMSI catcher. The OS cannot block it; it can only tell you that someone read information, and it presents an alert. It says,

"Your data may be at risk. Device ID accessed. At 6:57 PM a nearby network recorded your device's unique ID (IMSI or IMEI) while using your T-Mobile SIM. This means that your location, activity, or identity has been logged."

I didn't ever get an alert before walking through the building, but this time, during a 30-minute walk through the building, I got about 8 alerts, ranging between 1 and 3 minutes apart.

Using this information from repeated connections, someone can follow my movements and location; they can identify it's me because the IMSI number is unique to my phone, so it can be an indication that someone was collecting all the cellphone information in the area, most likely law enforcement.

It can also mean that I was connecting to a rogue cell phone tower, not just an IMSI catcher, and it was an attempted Stingray attack, likely also law enforcement. If successful, they can try to see and hear what I'm doing on my phone, as my phone won't know that it's a fake cellphone tower.

Be aware that a rogue tower will try to negotiate your phone's connection down to a 2G connection, which is unencrypted, providing them with access to everything that you are doing and saying. Please go into your phone's settings and disable 2G!!

It's been believed for some time that this technology has been used by law enforcement secretly and consistently. This is creepy and unnerving.

Turning off the phone, by the way, doesn't stop an IMSI catcher. Your phone still responds. You need to keep the phone in a Faraday bag if you're really concerned.

It's a good thing that phones are now starting to inform people that they are being watched and that people will begin to see how much of an issue this is. You can assume that your local law enforcement knows where you are all the time.

#CyberSecurity #LawEnforcement #PoliceAbuse #Privacy #surveillance

#Bluesky is no longer available to Mississippi residents.

#Mississippi’s HB 1126 requires platforms to introduce age verification for all users and get parental consent for anyone under 18. Penalties for noncompliance are up to $10,000 per user.

Sites have to collect and store sensitive information from all its users, in addition to the detailed tracking of minors. This is too much of a burden.

It is uncertain if the law applies to small self-hosted sites. The law only says it pertains to platforms that provide social interaction services.

Because of this, hear-me.social, feddit.online, and my-place.social will no longer permit registration or logins from IP addresses coming from Mississippi. Feddit.online already restricts traffic from both the UK and France due to similar laws that I cannot comply with, as NSFW communities can be accessed.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/22/bluesky-blocks-service-in-mississippi-over-age-assurance-law/

#Privacy #AgeVerification

@dalias
True. But short-lived certs aren't going to be enforced, I think, for 3 more years? And still it will be 47 days. So, this is good to have an immediate revocation.

I think only Firefox-trusted CAs can issue a revocation, so there shouldn't be a trust issue when receiving a revocation.

This is a very good thing! And it will be available for other browsers to use.

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/crlite/

#Firefox #certificates #revocation

I really wish people would get the hell off #Substack.

Substack sent a push alert promoting a Nazi blog

https://www.patreon.com/posts/substack-sent-135263203

@jaykuo

Seriously? WTF?

“Cognizant was not duped by any elaborate ploy or sophisticated hacking techniques,” according to a copy of the lawsuit reviewed by Reuters. “The cybercriminal just called the Cognizant Service Desk, asked for credentials to access Clorox’s network, and Cognizant handed the credentials right over.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/lawsuit-says-clorox-hackers-got-passwords-simply-asking-rcna220313

#CyberSecurity #Ransomware #Hacking #SocialEngineering

@bananabob @rimu

Hi.

Which PieFed server are you trying to register on?

Quote from an experienced #Lemmy user who checked out #PieFed:

"... was floored by the features that it has over Lemmy, and that's with it still being worked on"

Curious? You can find a PieFed instance here: https://join.piefed.social/try/

I really like the idea of this #Lemmy community: https://feddit.online/c/dadforaminute@lemmy.world . I wish it were more active.

Most on the Fediverse can follow it at, and post to it at: @dadforaminute

Note. Those on my Friendica instance can't access lemmy.world because the 240K requests per day coming in from Lemmy instances overwhelmed the server and the database, and I had to block Lemmy. Friendica just can't handle it.

#Piefed #MBIN #dad

The stunning amount of development that has been done this month on #PieFed: https://feddit.online/post/776015

It's an amazing, productive, and fantastic group of developers.

And PieFed is seeing incredible growth in both its user base and new communities that have come over from Lemmy, especially from lemm.ee after they announced they are shutting down by the end of the month.

So far, this month, there have been 178 commits, many for major changes. And there's still 10 days to go.

A great video about the Community Moderation Features in #PieFed.

I love PieFed. It has many great features, well implemented, and is easy, and fun, to use. If you want to start a community, it's a great application to start it in. And good moderation features are vital for managing a community.

And every day PieFed is much better than the prior day because the development team, no lie, comes out with new features daily along with bug fixes and improvements. Actually, it's breathtaking speed. I usually pull new updates twice daily. The other day I had to do it 5 times in one day!

Anyway, here's a 7.5 minute overview of the Community Moderation Features.
https://feddit.online/post/718489

#PieFed, a federated #Reddit alternative, may well be the most actively updated volunteer-maintained FOSS application. There are new features (not minor ones either) every day along with a number of bug fixes. And it's rock solid.

I update the software on my Piefed server a minimum of twice a day, and even doing this, I'm always afraid I'm falling behind.

For example, these are the changes made last month: https://link.fossdle.org/post/1605. It's a huge list.

And, as a plus, unlike Lemmy, the developers are not tankies. They are great human beings. I never went to Lemmy because of the developers. I just couldn't.

I'm impressed, and I want to throw some public Kudos and thank yous toward the team.

If you would like to explore PieFed, here's the server list: https://join.piefed.social/try/

@rimu

#Fediverse #FediverseApplications

@kaia Curious why you like them? Or if you're asking about them for other reasons.

I blocked them on this server for unchecked racism back in Dec, 2022. I usually investigate before I block, and I don't easily decide to block, but I don't remember the details about my decision back then.

Do you think the block should be reconsidered?

@BeAware

Howdy.

Since you moved instances, should I block your old one? I'm getting errors in the log:

235:443 state=error: certificate verify failed (certificate has expired) on https://social.beaware.live/inbox","error_class":"OpenSSL::SSL::SSLError","failed_at":1744980800.164205,"retry_count":4,"retried_at":1744981028.3614824}}

#Piefed has a great new feature. When you search for a community, it doesn't just look for communities that your server knows about, but it also looks through the #Lemmy index, via LemmyVerse.net, to find Lemmy communities that you can then bring into the Piefed instance you're on.

https://piefed.social/post/531611

Want to join the #threadiverse? I use Piefed. It's new but powerful. You can find an instance to join here: https://join.piefed.social/try/

@kaia Not what I expected. There seem to be many more COBOL programmers under 35 than I would have guessed, and fewer between 55-60 than I would have guessed. Interesting.

#USPolitics #USPol #Musk

OMG. Based on Wozniak's comments, I would hate driving a #Tesla too. I'd be cursing out #Musk and Tesla constantly. It sounds just horrible. Is it really this horrible?

https://fortune.com/2025/03/07/steve-wozniak-says-tesla-is-worst-at-improving-driver-tech/