[ANN] MRL recommendation: Ban spy node IP addresses from connecting to your node
The Monero Research Lab (MRL) has decided to recommend that all Monero node operators enable a ban list of suspected spy node IP addresses. The spy nodes can reduce the privacy of Monero users. cuprate developer Boog900 discovered these spy nodes and created an IP address ban list. Developers and researchers associated with MRL (list names) have indicated their approval of this list by signing it with their PGP keys.
Links:
👋 Hello @funbreaker@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 @funbreaker@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! 🤗
Monero Observer Artistic Saturday Top 5 - Week 49, 2024
Previous Artistic Saturday weekly reports can be found in the [art] 1 section.
![‘Monero … ⌘ Read more
[ANN] Privacy and Anonymity in Monero
I have a written a blog post on how Monero uses Cryptography (ECDH, Pedersen Commitments, Schnorr Signatures, Ring Signatures etc) to add privacy & anonymity on the blockchain. I have covered most of the cryptography used except for RangeProofs (Bulletproofs) which I plan to cover later in a separate post. Do let me know if you find any mistakes or if something isn’t clear.
Link: https://risencrypto.github.io/Monero/
risensteam0 (at) protonmail (do … ⌘ Read more
[ANN] [CCS] Full-Chain Membership Proofs (FCMP) explainer video released!
Full-Chain Membership Proofs boost sender privacy by expanding the anonymity set from 16 to 100M+, eliminating vulnerabilities in ring signatures. With forward secrecy, transaction chaining, and Outgoing View Keys, Monero remains the most private and fungible cryptocurrency.
Links:
- https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=jc8Kc0WogAI
- [MO report](/vostoemisio-ccs-proposals-animated-videos-fcmps-what- … ⌘ Read more
[ANN] Community communication about the spy node ban list
The Monero Research Lab (MRL) has decided to recommend that all Monero node operators enable a ban list of suspected spy node IP addresses. The spy nodes can reduce the privacy of Monero users. cuprate developer Boog900 discovered these spy nodes and created an IP address ban list. Developers and researchers associated with MRL (list names) have indicated their approval of this list by signing it with their PGP keys.
Links:
Cake Labs releases Cake Wallet v4.21.2 and Monero.com v1.18.2
Cake Labs1 has released Cake Wallet v4.21.2 / Monero.com v1.18.22 with onboarding flow improvements, coin control bug fixes and enhancements, and various other changes.
Better onboarding flow (PIN screen before wallet creation/restoration)
Migrating our Monero nodes to SSL
Better privacy and security for users who leverage our node
Send all when selecting using coin control (for Monero) ... ⌘ [Read more](https://monero.observer/cake-wallet-4.21.2-monero.com-1.18.2-released/)Monero Observer Artistic Saturday Top 5 - Week 47, 2024
Previous Artistic Saturday weekly reports can be found in the [art] 1 section.
MoneroTopia 2024 conference kicks off in Mexico City
The 2024 edition of the 4-day annual MoneroTopia 1 event has just started2 in Mexico City (Huerto Roma Verde, Colonia Roma venue3) with more than 175 Monero attendees, 100 vendors and an unknown amount of locals expected to show up4:
As we kickoff #Monerotopia24 we want to give a shoutout to our Privacy Tech Sponsors. A huge thanks for their support!
[LTH] [0.15 XMR] Convert isometric token image from Wordpress to Monero icon
A new privacy focused hosting platform which only accepts Monero as a currency needs a conversion of this isometric logo of Wordpress, to be exactly the same however, using Monero color scheme and icon: https://file.io/clebBxqHX9UV
Link: https://bounties.monero.social/posts/160/
n/a ⌘ Read more
m-a-x-c creates Monero churn timing tool
m-a-x-c1 has created Monero Churn Timer 2 - a Python script that generates randomized wait times for XMR transactions and can potentially help users increase their privacy by scheduling churns:
The way it works is as follows: after receiving Monero, you would use the Monero Churn Timer to generate a random wait time. You would then set a reminder to “churn” (i.e., send that transaction to yourself at a new address) after the specified … ⌘ Read more
[ANN] BetGlide.net - a new Monero (XMR) sportsbook
Inspired by similar projects, we wanted to make a sportsbook with Monero as its native currency, but make it a little bit more full featured and easier to use. No other sportsbook in the world provides our unique combination of respect for your privacy, features, and customer support. Come check us out. (Not currently available in US/EU. See terms).
Link: https://betglide.net
BetGlide.net ⌘ Read more
Rucknium completes first milestone for statistical research CCS proposal
Rucknium1 has completed2 the first milestone for their latest CCS proposal to conduct statistical research to improve Monero’s privacy 3:
I have completed Milestone 1. [..] I evaluated the possible privacy impact of allowing permissionless querying of nodes’ fluff-phase transaction pools. Using techniques from the “topology inference from cascades” research literature, th … ⌘ Read more
[LFF] Monero meetup group in Barcelona (Spain)
Hello I am running the Monero meetup group in Barcelona (Spain) and looking for support to organize a in-person event before end of the year. The idea is to spread the word in the city about XMR what it is and why privacy is important. I am aiming for a more social networking environment to gather privacy enthusiasts but open to sugestions. I would like to ask here if you guys could help with some funds to rent a space if needed.
Link: [https://www.meetup.com/es-ES/monero-meetup-barcel … ⌘ Read more
midipoet submits CCS proposal for ‘policy and regulatory framework’ research
midipoet1 has submitted a new CCS proposal2 looking to work part-time on policy and regulatory framework research within the Monero Policy Working Group 3 for 6 months:
I think its relevant to Monero currently and might allow the broader ecosystem to understand better how regulatory pressure is impacting privacy and data protection rights.
Total funding: 332 XMR ... ⌘ [Read more](https://monero.observer/midipoet-submits-ccs-proposal-policy-regulatory-framework-research/)[ANN] Understanding Jamtis: A New Addressing Scheme for Monero
By simplifying how addresses are shared, speeding up wallet synchronization, and ensuring more reliable output detection, Jamtis represents a big leap forward in usability—without sacrificing Monero’s commitment to privacy and security.
Link: https://kewbit.org/understanding-jamtis-a-new-address-format-for-monero/
KewbitXMR (Github) ⌘ Read more
Monero Observer Artistic Saturday Top 5 - Week 40, 2024
Previous Artistic Saturday weekly reports can be found in the [art] 1 section.
![‘Privacy tools’ … ⌘ Read more
[ANN] Anyone notice more newborn Monero nodes recently?
I’ve perceived an increase in the number of newborn nodes syncing the blockchain from my nodes. Maybe after the Chainalysis video showed the privacy risks of using remote nodes over clearnet, more people are setting up their own nodes.
Link: https://lemmy.cafe/post/8489209
Rucknium (Github) ⌘ Read more
pluja launches experimental ‘AI-driven’ weekly Monero podcast
pluja1 has announced2 the launch of XMR.FAN 3, an AI-driven experimental weekly podcast that aims to deliver the latest insights and news from the world of Monero and privacy:
I’ve been experimenting with Google’s NotebookLM, voice generation (elevenlabs/piper), and other AI tools (SD, flux…). I discovered that these are really useful to produce very decent weekly news overviews, so I made this websi … ⌘ Read more
Privacy Watchdog Group Attacks Mozilla for Firefox User Tracking
Because “Privacy Preserving Attribution” doesn’t actually “Preserve” Privacy. ⌘ Read more
EFF: Calling for Genocide of Jews is OK, but Republicans Protesting is a Crime
The Electronic Frontier Foundation pushes extreme Leftist politics while pretending to fight for privacy and free speech. ⌘ Read more
Satellite1 PCB Dev Kit: Voice-Controlled Smart Home with Advanced Audio and User Privacy
Satellite1 PCB Dev Kit: Voice-Controlled Smart Home with Advanced Audio and User Privacy ⌘ Read more
Firefox: The Data Collection, Advertising Browser
Listen now (22 mins) | Mozilla has been taken over by an anti-Privacy, pro-Advertising, pro-AI cabal. ⌘ Read more
Mozilla Caves to Criticism, Unblocks Firefox Extensions in Russia
Two days after blocking anti-Censorship, pro-Privacy Firefox Extensions in Russia, Mozilla has reversed course. ⌘ Read more
Erlang Solutions: Top 5 Tips to Ensure IoT Security for Your Business
In an increasingly tech-driven world, the implementation of IoT for business is a given. According to the latest data, there are currently 17.08 billion connected IoT devices– and counting. A growing number of devices requires robust IoT security to maintain privacy, protect sensitive data and prevent unauthorised access to connected devices.
A si … ⌘ Read more
Even though I wonder how they finance it (reading their post suggests, there will be a paid option later), DuckDuckGo’s AI Chat is probably a good privacy-friendly way to try out the different LLM models for chats. You don’t have to register, you don’t have to pay, you don’t have to change settings that your chats aren’t saved or used for training. ⌘ Read more
How to Opt Out of ChatGPT Using Your Training Data While Keeping Chat History
ChatGPT defaults to using your chat history and chat interactions as training data for the ChatGPT service and AI model. One of the most obvious reasons for this is that prior interactions with ChatGPT can be used to refine the Large Language Model and to improve the service, but there are obviously some privacy and … [Read More](https://osxdaily.com/2024/04/12/how-opt-out-chatgpt-training … ⌘ Read more
XMPP Providers: monocles.eu
Available since
Aug 21, 2021
·
Website: DE | EN | ES | FR | HE
Service
Cost: Free of charge
Legal notice:
DE | ENBus factor:
3
persons
Organization:
Commercial person
… ⌘ Read more
XMPP Providers: wiuwiu.de
Listed since
Jun 30, 2017
Service
Cost: Free of charge
Legal notice:
DE | ENBus factor:
unknown
Organization:
Server
Server / Data
location:
🇩🇪
No [professional hosting](https://providers.xmpp … ⌘ Read more
XMPP Providers: trashserver.net
Available since
Jan 1, 2012
Service
Cost: Free of charge
Legal notice:
DE | ENBus factor:
1
person
Organization:
Private person
Server
Server / Data
location:
🇩🇪
Professional hosting[Green hostin … ⌘ Read more
XMPP Providers: wiuwiu.de
Listed since
Jun 30, 2017
Service
Cost: Free of charge
Legal notice:
DE | ENBus factor:
unknown
Organization:
Server
Server / Data
location:
🇩🇪
No [professional hosting](https://providers.xmpp … ⌘ Read more
XMPP Providers: monocles.eu
Available since
Aug 21, 2021
·
Website: DE | EN | ES | FR | HE
Service
Cost: Free of charge
Legal notice:
DE | ENBus factor:
3
persons
Organization:
Commercial person
… ⌘ Read more
XMPP Providers: trashserver.net
Available since
Jan 1, 2012
Service
Cost: Free of charge
Legal notice:
DE | ENBus factor:
1
person
Organization:
Private person
Server
Server / Data
location:
🇩🇪
Professional hosting[Green hostin … ⌘ Read more
Cool news from: https://signal.org/blog/phone-number-privacy-usernames/
How to Stop iPhone Apps Snooping via Push Notifications
Apple is well known for being a privacy centric company and building tons of security and privacy features into the iPhone and iPad to control things like location tracking and app tracking, but some big name app developers are coming up with creative ways to pry details about your device. One such crafty method of … Read More ⌘ Read more
Profanity: Profanity 0.14.0
Apologies for the late blog post.
We have good news though! Two weeks ago we released Profanity 0.14.0!
13 people contributed to this release: Daniel Santos, @DebXWoody, @H3rnand3zzz, @ike08, @MarcoPolo-PasTonMolo, @mdosch, @pasis, @paulfertser, @shahab-vahedi, @sjaeckel, @techmetx11, @thexhr and @jubalh.
Also a big thanks to our sponsors: @mdosch, @LeSpocky, @jamesponddotco and one anonymous sponsor!
We introduced a new /privacy command which should make it easier to find all pri … ⌘ Read more
GitHub achieves ISO/IEC 27701:2019, 27018:2019, and CSA STAR certifications
GitHub’s Information Security and Privacy Management System (ISPMS) has been certified against ISO/IEC 27701:2019 (PII Processor) and 27018:2019 standards, as well as the Cloud Controls Matrix (CCM). These standards and frameworks are internationally recognized for security and privacy program best practices. ⌘ Read more
Google Says It’ll Scrape Everything You Post Online for AI
Google updated its privacy policy over the weekend, explicitly saying the company reserves the right to scrape just about everything you post online to build its AI tools.
Google can eat shit.
Metadata from a single picture can destroy your privacy
What someone can learn from your Image EXIF Metadata, and how to secure your photos ⌘ Read more
@prologic@twtxt.net I get the worry of privacy. But I think there is some value in the data being collected. Do I think that Russ is up there scheming new ways to discover what packages you use in internal projects for targeting ads?? Probably not.
Go has always been driven by usage data. Look at modules. There was need for having repeatable builds so various package tool chains were made and evolved into what we have today. Generics took time and seeing pain points where they would provide value. They weren’t done just so it could be checked off on a box of features. Some languages seem to do that to the extreme.
Whenever changes are made to the language there are extensive searches across public modules for where the change might cause issues or could be improved with the change. The fs embed and strings.Cut come to mind.
I think its good that the language maintainers are using what metrics they have to guide where to focus time and energy. Some of the other languages could use it. So time and effort isn’t wasted in maintaining something that has little impact.
The economics of the “spying” are to improve the product and ecosystem. Is it “spying” when a municipality uses water usage metrics in neighborhoods to forecast need of new water projects? Or is it to discover your shower habits for nefarious reasons?
GitHub Copilot is generally available for businesses
GitHub Copilot for Business is officially here with simple license management, organization-wide policy controls, and industry-leading privacy—all for $19 USD per user per month. ⌘ Read more
Although there are definitely reasons to hate Windows, there are also reasons to like Windows 11: Linux GUI apps, Android apps, winget package manager and improved window tiling. It would be even better, when one wouldn’t need to toogle all the privacy and telemety settings first… ⌘ Read more
**RT by @mind_booster: Who’d a thought. Golly gosh. Apple “privacy is a fundamental human right” .. but ….
“Apple Is Tracking You Even When Its Own Privacy Settings Say It’s Not, New Research Says”
https://gizmodo.com/apple-iphone-analytics-tracking-even-when-off-app-store-1849757558**
Who’d a thought. Golly gosh. Apple “privacy is a fundamental human right” .. but ….
“Apple Is Tracking You Even When Its Own Privacy Settings Say It’s Not, New Research Says”
[gizmodo.com/apple-iphone-ana…](https://gizm … ⌘ Read more
While I’m all for people moving away from platforms like Twitter and embracing more freedom- and privacy-centric systems such as Mastodon, I do worry that many of them might be doing it purely for ideological reasons and may have no interest in maintaining the respectful atmosphere Mastodon is well-known for.
RT @joinmastodon@joinmastodon
Monetization usually means ads, changing the website to have people see more ads, invading people’s privacy to make sure they’ve seen ads… A single website also means one organization is in complete control. If they do what you don’t want them to do, you’re out of luck.
🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/joinmastodon/status/1586886723858042880 ⌘ Read more
JMP: Privacy and Threat Modelling
One often hears people ask if a product or service is “good for privacy” or if some practice they intend to incorporate is “good enough” for their privacy needs. The problem with most such questions is that they often lack the necessary context, called a threat model, in order to even begin to understand how to answer them. Understanding your own threat model (and making any implicit model you carry more explicit to yourself) is one of the most important steps you can take to im … ⌘ Read more
JMP: Privacy and Threat Modelling
One often hears people ask if a product or service is “good for privacy” or if some practice they intend to incorporate is “good enough” for their privacy needs. The problem with most such questions is that they often lack the necessary context, called a threat model, in order to even begin to understand how to answer them. Understanding your own threat model (and making any implicit model you carry more explicit to yourself) is one of the most important steps you can take to im … ⌘ Read more
The Circle
Some years ago, I started reading the novel “The Circle” by Dave Eggers. I never finished reading it, but today I watched the movie. It has an important message about privacy, transparency and surveillance and shows that there’s a thin line in-between those. I can definitely recommend watching it, although I sometimes wasn’t impressed by the acting. ⌘ Read more
TeamViewer installs a suspicious font, apparently only for browser fingerprinting: https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/teamviewer-font-privacy.html