If you don’t know me, I make frequent write ups about privacy and security. I’ve covered some controversial topics in the past, such as whether or not Chromium is more secure than Firefox. Well, I will try my hand again at taking a look at some controversial topics.
I need ideas, though. So far, I would like to cover the controversy about Brave, controversy around Monero and other cryptocurrencies, and controversy around AI. These will be far easier to research and manage than Chromium vs. Firefox, for example. I’d like to know which ideas you have!
Which controversial privacy topics do you know of that you would like to see covered?
PLEASE DO NOT ARGUE ABOUT THEM IN THE COMMENTS!
Please save any debate for if/when I make a write up about the topic. Keep the comments clean, and simply upvote ideas you would like to see covered. I won’t be able to cover everything, so it helps bring attention!
Above all else, be kind, even if you don’t agree with an idea or topic :)
Whether phones are listening or not
What is the redacted part in the rationale to ban Tik Tok
A note on the latter, it is presented as national security threat. They won’t say what it is. I presume because some of the shit they don’t want a foreign power doing is sth they very much do themselves.
The answer for 1 from EFF: Is my phone listening to me?
Wasn’t there a leak recently where an executive said they were listening?
See, I am not the guy who will stop thinking for myself because experts say there is no evidence of sth. I am not saying that there is real time eavesdropping at all times, but I have not seen convincing arguments that a working microphone cannot be used for pushing ads by simple and widely available mechanisms. In fact, the sheer amount of people who complain about this should be considered evidence in itself, especially when they never had thought of a given topic before discussing it with someone. I have considered phone proximity and shared IP address but they don’t seem to make an exhaustive explanation. I think that some stories point to Meta doing this extensively, and that disallowing microphone access for Meta products alleviates the effect. Many privacy communities I believe they are infested by spooks and trolls pushing disinformation narratives, and one of them is that phones are NOT listening as a smart thing to say and/or believe. I might as well think that this is itself can be related to the redacted part in the rationale to ban Tik Tok. Having said that, I think that the only feasible to do this technically is by a regularly updated list of keywords, rather than other ways that would leave a processing or networking footprint.