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submitted 7 months ago by Sunshine@piefed.ca to c/privacy@programming.dev
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submitted 7 months ago by Blaze@piefed.zip to c/privacy@programming.dev

In the past year, ICE and CBP have descended into utter lawlessness, repeatedly refusing to exercise or submit to the democratic accountability required by the Constitution and our system of laws. These violations must stop now.

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submitted 7 months ago by cm0002@suppo.fi to c/privacy@programming.dev
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Why Privacy is Like Broccoli (www.privacyguides.org)
submitted 7 months ago by Sunshine@piefed.ca to c/privacy@programming.dev
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submitted 7 months ago by cm0002@suppo.fi to c/privacy@programming.dev

FBI Director Kash Patel said Monday that he had opened an investigation into the Signal group text chats that Minnesota residents are using to share information about federal immigration agents’ movements, launching a new front in the Trump administration’s conflict there with potential free speech implications.

Patel said in an interview with conservative podcaster Benny Johnson that he wanted to know whether any Minnesota residents had put federal agents “in harm’s way” with activities such as sharing agents’ license plate numbers and locations.

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submitted 7 months ago by Blaze@piefed.zip to c/privacy@programming.dev

An international group of plaintiffs is suing Meta, alleging that WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption isn't actually private. Lawyers are asking the court to certify a class-action.

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Privacy for me has been incredibly rewarding, but when talking to people who haven't been introduced to privacy, there are occasionally some moments that make it exhausting. One conversation in particular is one that I've had to go through dozens of times, and it always goes along these lines:

  • Alice: Why is your phone in airplane mode? / What's your phone number?
  • Bob: I don't have a carrier.
  • Alice: But you have a phone.
  • Bob: Yes.
  • Alice: How do you not have a carrier?
  • Bob: Phones can come without a carrier.
  • Alice: What do you use it for?
  • Bob: Everything you use yours for.
  • Alice: How do you talk to people?
  • Bob: Messaging apps over Wi-Fi.
  • Alice: What if you don't have Wi-Fi?
  • Bob: Public Wi-Fi is everywhere. If I don't have Wi-Fi, I likely don't need to get in touch.
  • Alice: What about emergencies?
  • Bob: I can still contact emergency services.

Each time it happens, it has a unique flavor. One person accused me of lying and then fraud. I know people are just curious and don't mean to be rude, but it makes me die a little inside every time someone asks. I've begun trying to sidestep the conversation entirely:

  • Alice: Why is your phone in airplane mode?
  • Bob: To save battery.

or:

  • Alice: What's your phone number?
  • Bob: You can contact me with an app called Signal.

People seem to think that a phone automatically comes with a carrier and that it'll stop working if you don't have one. In reality, I'm saving hundreds of dollars per year while avoiding spam, fraud, breaches, surveillance, and being chronically online. People have a hard time coping with those who do things a little differently.

OC writeup by @Charger8232@lemmy.ml

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submitted 7 months ago by nemeski@mander.xyz to c/privacy@programming.dev
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submitted 7 months ago by Blaze@piefed.zip to c/privacy@programming.dev

The company’s default agreement with police departments grants the company license to share people’s license plate data

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LocalSend lets you securely share files and messages with nearby devices over your local network—no internet or third-party servers required. It’s open-source, cross-platform (desktop & mobile), fast, and works fully offline.

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Over the past years, repeated investigations have shown that at least 14 EU Member States have deployed spyware against journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers, activists, political opponents, and others.

Despite the findings of the European Parliament’s PEGA Inquiry Committee in 2023, and the push from human rights organisations, the European Commission has so far refused to propose binding legislation to prohibit spyware. Not only that: it has done nothing. Right now, no EU-wide red lines exist against the use of spyware. This means that victims lack effective remedies, authorities face no scrutiny, and commercial spyware vendors continue to operate with near-total impunity, enriching themselves by violating human rights, and even benefiting from European public funding.

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Hello!

As a handsome local AI enjoyer™ you’ve probably noticed one of the big flaws with LLMs:

It lies. Confidently. ALL THE TIME.

(Technically, it “bullshits” - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5

I’m autistic and extremely allergic to vibes-based tooling, so … I built a thing. Maybe it’s useful to you too.

The thing: llama-conductor

llama-conductor is a router that sits between your frontend (OWUI / SillyTavern / LibreChat / etc) and your backend (llama.cpp + llama-swap, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint). Local-first (because fuck big AI), but it should talk to anything OpenAI-compatible if you point it there (note: experimental so YMMV).

Not a model, not a UI, not magic voodoo.

A glass-box that makes the stack behave like a deterministic system, instead of a drunk telling a story about the fish that got away.

TL;DR: “In God we trust. All others must bring data.”

Three examples:

1) KB mechanics that don’t suck (1990s engineering: markdown, JSON, checksums)

You keep “knowledge” as dumb folders on disk. Drop docs (.txt, .md, .pdf) in them. Then:

  • >>attach <kb> — attaches a KB folder
  • >>summ new — generates SUMM_*.md files with SHA-256 provenance baked in
  • `>> moves the original to a sub-folder

Now, when you ask something like:

“yo, what did the Commodore C64 retail for in 1982?”

…it answers from the attached KBs only. If the fact isn’t there, it tells you - explicitly - instead of winging it. Eg:

The provided facts state the Commodore 64 launched at $595 and was reduced to $250, but do not specify a 1982 retail price. The Amiga’s pricing and timeline are also not detailed in the given facts.

Missing information includes the exact 1982 retail price for Commodore’s product line and which specific model(s) were sold then. The answer assumes the C64 is the intended product but cannot confirm this from the facts.

Confidence: medium | Source: Mixed

No vibes. No “well probably…”. Just: here’s what’s in your docs, here’s what’s missing, don't GIGO yourself into stupid.

And when you’re happy with your summaries, you can:

  • >>move to vault — promote those SUMMs into Qdrant for the heavy mode.

2) Mentats: proof-or-refusal mode (Vault-only)

Mentats is the “deep think” pipeline against your curated sources. It’s enforced isolation:

  • no chat history
  • no filesystem KBs
  • no Vodka
  • Vault-only grounding (Qdrant)

It runs triple-pass (thinker → critic → thinker). It’s slow on purpose. You can audit it. And if the Vault has nothing relevant? It refuses and tells you to go pound sand:

FINAL_ANSWER:
The provided facts do not contain information about the Acorn computer or its 1995 sale price.

Sources: Vault
FACTS_USED: NONE
[ZARDOZ HATH SPOKEN]

Also yes, it writes a mentats_debug.log, because of course it does. Go look at it any time you want.

The flow is basically: Attach KBs → SUMM → Move to Vault → Mentats. No mystery meat. No “trust me bro, embeddings.”

3) Vodka: deterministic memory on a potato budget

Local LLMs have two classic problems: goldfish memory + context bloat that murders your VRAM.

Vodka fixes both without extra model compute. (Yes, I used the power of JSON files to hack the planet instead of buying more VRAM from NVIDIA).

  • !! stores facts verbatim (JSON on disk)
  • ?? recalls them verbatim (TTL + touch limits so memory doesn’t become landfill)
  • CTC (Cut The Crap) hard-caps context (last N messages + char cap) so you don’t get VRAM spikes after 400 messages

So instead of:

“Remember my server is 203.0.113.42” → “Got it!” → [100 msgs later] → “127.0.0.1 🥰”

you get:

!! my server is 203.0.113.42 ?? server ip203.0.113.42 (with TTL/touch metadata)

And because context stays bounded: stable KV cache, stable speed, your potato PC stops crying.


There’s more (a lot more) in the README, but I’ve already over-autism’ed this post.

TL;DR:

If you want your local LLM to shut up when it doesn’t know and show receipts when it does, come poke it:

PS: Sorry about the AI slop image. I can't draw for shit.

PPS: A human with ASD wrote this using Notepad++. If it the formatting is weird, now you know why.

Developer @SuspciousCarrot78@lemmy.world ousc

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submitted 7 months ago by Blaze@piefed.zip to c/privacy@programming.dev
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https://reclaimthenet.org/discord-expands-age-verification-id-system-to-more-regions

Discord’s push to verify users through government ids shows how safety mandates can quietly turn into systems of surveillance

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submitted 7 months ago by Beep@lemmus.org to c/privacy@programming.dev
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submitted 7 months ago by Sunshine@piefed.ca to c/privacy@programming.dev
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https://www.removepaywall.com/search?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ftechnology%2F2026%2Fjan%2F16%2Ftiktok-to-strengthen-age-verification-technology-across-eu

Move comes as calls for Australia-style social media ban for under-16s grow around world, TikTok will begin to roll out new age-verification technology across the EU in the coming weeks, as calls grow for an Australia-style social media ban for under-16s in countries including the UK.

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The UK government, MPs, organisations and public figures are discussing whether there should be stronger rules about children's access to social media - including an Australia-style ban for under-16s.

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The latest update for the popular Nova Launcher app includes Facebook Ads and Google AdMob.

Compare 8.2.4: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/698198/

With 8.1.6: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/673643/

From 2 trackers to 6 trackers. From 30 permissions to 36. And two of the "trackers" are for ad stuff, like Facebook Ads.

I believe the owner also changed. It's no longer Branch, but something called Instabridge Sweden.

By @K0Z@lemdro.id

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DuckDuckGo Launches Public Vote on AI and User Choice (digital-escape-tools-phi.vercel.app)
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