Python Software Foundation has bigger spine than big tech
Back in January 2025, the Python Software Foundation applied for a $1.5 million grant from the US government’s National Science Foundation, under the Safety, Security, and Privacy of Open Source Ecosystems program, to address structural vulnerabilities in Python and PyPI. After a lot of paperwork, their application was approved, but upon receiving the contractual agreement, the Python Software Foundation decided to b … ⌘ Read more
Canada’s Privacy Watchdog Not Consulted on Bill C-8, Enabling Secret Internet & Phone Shutdowns ⌘ Read more
I noticed Google put out this article: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/09/lets-talk-security-answering-your-top.html it’s very current day Google, but the comments under the YouTube video are pretty on point and I saw a few familiar faces there. There is also, unexpectedly, ways to contact Google.
First a form for “teachers, students, and hobbyists”, that I filled politely, as someone who falls under their hobbyist category. It can be filled both anonymously, or with an e-mail attached, to be contacted by them (I chose the second option).
Also a general feedback and questions form, that I was not as polite in and used to send them the following message:
I have already provided some feedback, in the teacher, student and hobbyists form/questionaire, as well as an open letter I’ve recently sent to the European Commission digital markets act team, as I do believe your proposal might not even be legal, given the fact it puts privacy-focused alternative app stores at risk (https://f-droid.org/cs/2025/09/29/google-developer-registration-decree.html) and it was proposed this early, after Google lost in court to Epic Games, over similar monopoly concerns. Why should we trust Google to be the only authority for all developer signatures, right after the European courts labeled it a gatekeeper?
Assuming this gets passed, despite justified developer backlash and at best questionable legality, can you give us any guarantees, this will not be used to target legal malware-free mods, or user privacy enhancing patchers, like the ones used for applying the ReVanced patches? I have made a few mods myself, but I am in no way associated with the ReVanced team. I just share many peoples concerns, Google Chrome has been conveniently stripped of its manifest v2 support, that made many privacy protecting extensions possible and now you’re conveniently asking for the government IDs, of all the developers, who maintain these kinds of privacy protections (be it patches, or alternative open-source apps) on Android.
German government comes out against Chat Control
https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/citizen-protest-halts-chat-…
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45506143
Points: 505
# Comments: 158 ⌘ Read more
My open letter, to the European Commission digital markets act team:
Hello,
I am joining other developers, concerned about Googles new plan, to approve every app and effectively destroy most of the competing 3rd party stores this way. The biggest one of these alternative stores, most known for their focus on user and developer privacy, already states, this would make it impossible for them to operate: https://f-droid.org/cs/2025/09/29/google-developer-registration-decree.html
Even communities like the XDA forum, where new developers are often introduced to the world of Android development, would likely be strongly impacted, as making, publishing and installing Android apps is made less accessible.
I am not just writing on their behalf, I run a small website myself (https://thecanine.ueuo.com/), that both provides legal modifications, for some android apps - for example adding an amoled dark theme, to the most popular XMPP chat client for Android, or increasing one of Androids keyboard apps height. This all comes after Googles previous changes to the Android operating system, that prevent users from installing old apps (old to Google, can mean only a couple of months, without an update - https://developer.android.com/google/play/requirements/target-sdk and the target version gets increased every year). I rely on apps developed by a single developer, even for things like making the pixel art presented on my website and sideloading as a way to make these apps work, before developers can catch up to Google’s new requirements - if Google is allowed to slowly kill these options, us digital artists will soon lose the tools we need to create digital art.
Dutch judge to Facebook: stop secretly disregarding your users’ settings
And here we have yet another case of the EU’s consumer protection legislation working in our favour. Dutch privacy and consumer rights organisation Bits of Freedom sued Facebook over the company’s little trick of disregarding a user’s settings under a variety of circumstances, such as when a user opts for a chronological, non-profiled timeline, only to have Facebook reset itself to the pro … ⌘ Read more
Bunny.net (previously BunnyCDN) keeps doing great things (like this free European non-logging JS CDN), but it would be even better if they also replaced the Disqus comments in their blog with a more privacy-friendly alternative. ⌘ Read more
Oh man, if the EU actually rolled out this horribd idea called ChatControl that actually threatens the security and privacy of secure e2e encrypted messaging like Signal™, fuck me, I’m out 🤦♂️ I’ll just rage quit the IT industry and become a luddite. I’m out.
It was nice to start a walk in the woods with sunshine. The last times it was all soupy. It was quite windy, autumn is certainly here. Soon, the leaves will begin to turn. https://lyse.isobeef.org/waldspaziergang-2025-09-11/
We use all the Microsoft programs at work - Teams and Outlook especially.
After all kinds of technical problems with Teams, that sometimes go unresolved for over a year, Microsoft shifted their priorities away from fixing things and towards adding an annoying AI Copilot button, that just takes up space and all it does, is loads the website in Teams, so I disabled it. Soon they just add it back, but in a different row of icons, therefore it’s now a different button, you have to disable (I think they added yet another one, to the Teams, on my work phone and I had to disabled that too). Not too long after, the desktop one just enabled itself, because of “an error” and I can disable it, but doing so activates a popup, that begs you to turn it back on, every once in a while. You can’t disable the popup and can only click “Yes” or “Not now” on it. I still keep it disabled, out of principle, but yesterday I noticed yet another Copilot button, this time in the top right corner of my Outlook and this one cannot be disabled, on the business version of Outlook and even on the personal one, it’s only possible to do it through hidden privacy settings, by prohibiting the program from connecting to Microsoft servers, for extra “features”.
There’s people complaining about it online, so it’s clear nobody really wants it, but at this point Microsofts position is that you will have at least one useless AI button on your screen, at any given time, and you will be happy. And yes, their AI sucks and if I absolutely have to use AI for something, there’s already 2 better options, we have access to, at work.
It frustrates me that people who refuse to deal with Google, Apple or Microsoft for reasons of privacy or freedom are seen as the weird ones. The level of tracking, surveillance, advertising, hedonism, and societal fear being imposed on us is not normal. Those who reject the modern digital dystopia are not being radical or extreme; they’re trying to return to what should be normal.
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Joining the Clippy profile picture club, now that I finally finished my custom one.
Media
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@movq@www.uninformativ.de Thanks, it’s mostly following the Louis Rossmann thing https://youtu.be/2_Dtmpe9qaQ - a symbol of protest, against the rapid enshitification the Internet is facing, accelerated to the extreme, during this year. It has reached a point where something really has to be done about it all. Obviously not just everyone changing their profile pictures, but also cataloguing all the consumer rights violations, invasion of privacy, censorship,… to shove it in the face of as many government officials, as possible.
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@lyse Hm, I don’t think so, the requested page was a Linux-specific post. 🤔 I sometimes wonder if privacy-oriented browsers might do this on purpose, to create garbage data? 🤔 No idea.
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@movq@www.uninformativ.de That’s an interesting idea. For privacy, I’d just omit the Referer altogether. But maybe this helps talking to misconfigured HTTP servers that reject requests without such a header. No clue.
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HTTP referrers are quite broken, aren’t they?
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@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Hm, I don’t think so, the requested page was a Linux-specific post. 🤔 I sometimes wonder if privacy-oriented browsers might do this on purpose, to create garbage data? 🤔 No idea.
👋 Hello @douglasdop@we.loveprivacy.club, welcome to We.Love.Privacy.Club, a Yarn.social Pod! To get started you may want to check out the pod’s Discover feed to find users to follow and interact with. To follow new users, use the ⨁ Follow button on their profile page or use the Follow form and enter a Twtxt URL. You may also find other feeds of interest via Feeds. Welcome! 🤗
👋 Hello @douglasdop@we.loveprivacy.club, welcome to We.Love.Privacy.Club, a Yarn.social Pod! To get started you may want to check out the pod’s Discover feed to find users to follow and interact with. To follow new users, use the ⨁ Follow button on their profile page or use the Follow form and enter a Twtxt URL. You may also find other feeds of interest via Feeds. Welcome! 🤗
How to Enable iCloud Private Relay on Mac
iCloud Private Relay is a fantastic privacy feature that is part of the iCloud+ subscription that helps to protect your internet activity and browsing by obfuscating your IP address (via using a temporary IP address) and encrypting your DNS lookups, so that third parties can’t see what websites you’re visiting. The end result is that … Read More ⌘ Read more
How to Enable iCloud Private Relay on Mac
iCloud Private Relay is a fantastic privacy feature that is part of the iCloud+ subscription that helps to protect your internet activity and browsing by obfuscating your IP address (via using a temporary IP address) and encrypting your DNS lookups, so that third parties can’t see what websites you’re visiting. The end result is that … Read More ⌘ Read more
Signal uses Windows’ DRM to counter Recall snooping
Microsoft’s Recall feature, which takes screenshots of the contents of your screen every few seconds, saves them, and then runs text and image recognition to extract information from them, has had a rocky start. Even now that it’s out there and Microsoft deems it ready for everyone to use, it has huge security and privacy gaps, and one of them is that applications that contain sensitive information, such as the Windows Signal app … ⌘ Read more
Where is “Hide My Email” on iPhone & iPad?
The “Hide My Email” feature on iPhone is incredibly useful, allowing you to create random unique email addresses that forward to your real email address inbox. This feature can help protect your privacy by allowing you to sign up for apps or services without sharing your real email address, while enhancing security from phishing attempts, … Read More ⌘ Read more
Where is “Hide My Email” on iPhone & iPad?
The “Hide My Email” feature on iPhone is incredibly useful, allowing you to create random unique email addresses that forward to your real email address inbox. This feature can help protect your privacy by allowing you to sign up for apps or services without sharing your real email address, while enhancing security from phishing attempts, … Read More ⌘ Read more
Microsoft unveils the new Start menu for Windows 11 users
I think one of the more controversial parts of Windows 11 – aside from its system requirements, privacy issues, crapware, and “AI” nonsense – is its Start menu. I’ve heard so many complaints about how it’s organised, its performance, the lack of customisation, and so on. Microsoft heard those complaints, and has unveiled the new Start menu that’ll be shipping to Windows 11 soon – and I have to say, there’s a ton of g … ⌘ Read more
Plug, Boot, Vanish: How I Turned a USB Stick into a Portable Privacy Fortress ⌘ Read more
9 Sources of Security & Privacy Threats in LLM Agents ⌘ Read more
EU fines TikTok token amount of €530 million for gross privacy violations
A European Union privacy watchdog fined TikTok 530 million euros ($600 million) on Friday after a four-year investigation found that the video sharing app’s data transfers to China put users at risk of spying, in breach of strict EU data privacy rules. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission also sanctioned TikTok for not being transparent with users about where their personal data was be … ⌘ Read more
W3C Standardizes Mozilla Developed Spying Technology
“Privacy Preserving Attribution”, first deployed in Firefox, is designed to make it easy for a browser vendor to collect large amounts data from users. ⌘ Read more
How to Allow Opening Apps from Anywhere in MacOS Sequoia, Sonoma
Have you ever downloaded an app to your Mac and been unable to open it? Typically if this happens you’ll get some kind of alarming message, stating something to the effect of “App Not Opened. Apple could not verify (app name.app) is free of malware that may harm your Mac or compromise your privacy” with … Read More ⌘ Read more
Thanks again to our outgoing sponsor: Nova Custom
We’d like to thank our outgoing sponsor, Nova Custom, for sponsoring OSNews! Nova Custom, based in The Netherlands, makes laptops focused on privacy, customisation, and freedom. Nova Custom laptops ship with either Linux, Windows, or no operating system, and they’re uniquely certified for Qubes OS (the V54 model will be certified soon), the ultra-secure and private operating system. On top of that, Nova Custom laptops come with Dasha … ⌘ Read more
A threat model for opposing authoritarianism
A decade ago, I published a book on privacy “Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security, and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance.” In the book, and since then, in articles and speeches, I have been dispensing advice to people on how to protect their privacy. But my advice did not envision the moment we are in – where the government would collaborate with a tech CEO to strip-mine all of our data from government databases and use i … ⌘ Read more
@eapl.me@eapl.me This is one of my concerns too. The moment you post publicly ciphertext, you open yourself up for future attacks on the ciphertext, which you really want to avoid if you can. If you have a read of the Salty.im Spec you’ll note we went to great lengths to protect the user’s privacy as well as their identity and make it incredibly hard to guess at inboxes. It’s still a WIP, but I’d love to see it progressed even further – I truly feel strongly about a purely decentralised messaging ecosystem 👌
Windows Recall returns, and its companion feature does not keep data on-device
Remember Windows Recall, the Windows feature that would take a screenshot of your desktop every three seconds, stored them in a database, and then let you search through them at later dates? The feature has been hobbled by implementation problems, security issues, and privacy troubles, and has been released in preview and pulled since its original unveiling. Well, it’s back in … ⌘ Read more
Nova Custom: this week’s sponsor
Nova Custom, based in The Netherlands, makes laptops focused on privacy, customisation, and freedom. Nova Custom laptops ship with either Linux, Windows, or no operating system, and they’re uniquely certified for Qubes OS (the V54 model will be certified soon), the ultra-secure and private operating system. On top of that, Nova Custom laptops come with Dasharo coreboot firmware preinstalled, which is completely open source, instead of a proprietary BIOS. Nova Custom c … ⌘ Read more
👋 Hello @mullerenergyco@we.loveprivacy.club, welcome to We.Love.Privacy.Club, a Yarn.social Pod! To get started you may want to check out the pod’s Discover feed to find users to follow and interact with. To follow new users, use the ⨁ Follow button on their profile page or use the Follow form and enter a Twtxt URL. You may also find other feeds of interest via Feeds. Welcome! 🤗
👋 Hello @mullerenergyco@we.loveprivacy.club, welcome to We.Love.Privacy.Club, a Yarn.social Pod! To get started you may want to check out the pod’s Discover feed to find users to follow and interact with. To follow new users, use the ⨁ Follow button on their profile page or use the Follow form and enter a Twtxt URL. You may also find other feeds of interest via Feeds. Welcome! 🤗
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👋 Hello @robertskict@we.loveprivacy.club, welcome to We.Love.Privacy.Club, a Yarn.social Pod! To get started you may want to check out the pod’s Discover feed to find users to follow and interact with. To follow new users, use the ⨁ Follow button on their profile page or use the Follow form and enter a Twtxt URL. You may also find other feeds of interest via Feeds. Welcome! 🤗
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👋 Hello @robertwon@we.loveprivacy.club, welcome to We.Love.Privacy.Club, a Yarn.social Pod! To get started you may want to check out the pod’s Discover feed to find users to follow and interact with. To follow new users, use the ⨁ Follow button on their profile page or use the Follow form and enter a Twtxt URL. You may also find other feeds of interest via Feeds. Welcome! 🤗
👋 Hello @edwardvah@we.loveprivacy.club, welcome to We.Love.Privacy.Club, a Yarn.social Pod! To get started you may want to check out the pod’s Discover feed to find users to follow and interact with. To follow new users, use the ⨁ Follow button on their profile page or use the Follow form and enter a Twtxt URL. You may also find other feeds of interest via Feeds. Welcome! 🤗
👋 Hello @edwardvah@we.loveprivacy.club, welcome to We.Love.Privacy.Club, a Yarn.social Pod! To get started you may want to check out the pod’s Discover feed to find users to follow and interact with. To follow new users, use the ⨁ Follow button on their profile page or use the Follow form and enter a Twtxt URL. You may also find other feeds of interest via Feeds. Welcome! 🤗
👋 Hello @robertriz@we.loveprivacy.club, welcome to We.Love.Privacy.Club, a Yarn.social Pod! To get started you may want to check out the pod’s Discover feed to find users to follow and interact with. To follow new users, use the ⨁ Follow button on their profile page or use the Follow form and enter a Twtxt URL. You may also find other feeds of interest via Feeds. Welcome! 🤗
👋 Hello @robertriz@we.loveprivacy.club, welcome to We.Love.Privacy.Club, a Yarn.social Pod! To get started you may want to check out the pod’s Discover feed to find users to follow and interact with. To follow new users, use the ⨁ Follow button on their profile page or use the Follow form and enter a Twtxt URL. You may also find other feeds of interest via Feeds. Welcome! 🤗
[ANN] Monero, Arti, and I2P Apps for TrueNAS Scale
As part of our efforts to support critical cryptocurrency infrastructure and privacy, MAGIC Grants has implemented Monero, Arti, and I2P apps for TrueNAS Scale.
Link: https://magicgrants.org/2025/03/11/truenas-monero-arti-i2p.html
u/SamsungGalaxyPlayer (Reddit) ⌘ Read more
[ANN] MT #343: Marketing Monero to Save Souls from Technological Totalitarianism w/ Monero Master
In this episode Douglas Tuman interviews Sean Bradford about Monero, Christianity, and privacy-focused marketing initiatives. Sean Bradford, who recently emerged in the Monero community, discusses his various projects including the Monero Masters podcast and surveillance resistance campaign.
Links:
[ANN] More vitamins for Monero with Carrot - part 2: History
Before I go deeper into technical details regarding important aspects of Carrot with further posts, I present you, as something like an “interlude”, a history of Monero privacy technologies. One aim is to show you how we arrived at the point where we are now with FCMP++ and Carrot.
Link: https://farside.link/libreddit/r/Monero/comments/1j745kf/
u/rbrunner7 (Gith … ⌘ Read more
[AFH] [0.13 XMR] Anonymous Web development for landing page - No Logs, No Tracking, Just Code.
I offer minimalist landing pages, personal portfolios, and business profile websites with a strong focus on privacy and anonymity. No tracking, no Google Analytics, and no sensitive data collection. delivery can take times depending how complex the website is.
Link: https://xmrbazaar.com/listing/QyQR/
AdditionalRabbit31 (XMRBazaar) ⌘ Read more