Presented to users as confidential and anonymous, data collected by smartphone apps are in reality sold on by traders in a vast global marketplace. The Data Broker Files investigation by a team of German journalists reveals a highly lucrative and unregulated system that is an infringment on our privacy and a clear and present danger.

Director

• Maximilian Zierer
• Florian Heinhold
• Rebecca Ciesielski

Country : Germany

Year : 2026

Currently, we already have some companies that offer us privacy-focused products, such as Proton, Tutanota, Mullvad, and others, but a short while ago I found one that I've never seen anyone talk about called Ice Privacy. From what I've researched, they've been on this path since 2019 and currently have two services. The first is Ice Drive, a cloud drive that gives out 10GB for free (although I heard they reduced it to 3GB) and focuses on privacy, with features like end-to-end encryption and two-factor authentication. They store your files with zero-knowledge encryption, and they also offer lifetime plans. The other product is Ice VPN. I admit I haven't researched this one as much, but from what I've seen, it's a VPN that promises to keep as little user data as possible (something like MullvadVPN), and the data they do obtain is stored with 256-bit encryption. Their company is located in Gibraltar (a British Overseas Territory located in Europe), which has good privacy laws. The point of this post is to ask you guys if you've ever heard of Ice Privacy? I understand that when it comes to privacy, it's good to choose companies that have been on the market for a long time and have the trust of their customers, but for a company to grow, someone needs to take the first step and use their products. I'm not saying we should just go out and use all their products and join the company's ecosystem, but rather that we should add it to our arsenal of defense weapons regarding privacy. The only thing I didn't find interesting is the fact that they don't have Mastodon accounts or a community on Lemmy, and although they have subreddits for IceDrive and IceVPN, they aren't mentioned on the company's website (that is, if they are actually official).

Knowing this information, will you give them a chance? If you've ever used any of their products, what did you think?

Links for those who want to know more about the company:

Company page: https://ice.gi/

IceDrive privacy policy: https://icedrive.net/legal/privacy-policy

IceVPN privacy policy: https://icevpn.com/legal/privacy-policy

New PeerBox version available on Codeberg. Lots of improvements have been made. Thanks to everyone who took part in the open beta over the weekend, it helped us a lot. After many hours of work on this new version, PeerBox is on a solid trajectory. The first plugins are also on their way and will be published soon. All your feedback is very useful, and help on development would be very welcome :-)

cross-posted from: https://libretechni.ca/post/1263630

New York’s state budget could pass within days. Buried deep in the text is a provision that has nothing to do with balancing the books. Part C of the budget bill would require every 3D printer sold in New York to run surveillance software that scans every design file you create, and blocks anything an algorithm flags as a potential firearm component . A separate provision would expose researchers, journalists, and educators to felony charges simply for possessing or sharing certain design files.

...deleting records could cause big problems. Referential integrity across database tables simply wouldn’t allow it... it would cause a resonance cascade.

So, to get around the problem, a lot of places simply "overwrite" records when they are deleting them. They replace certain fields with garbage so the structure of the data remains, but the human elements are no longer present. At the heart of those "certain fields" are email addresses, the most widely used identifiers on all the web. And that, dear reader, is how we got to this cursed discovery.

I saw a discussion on the internet where someone mentioned that they deleted users in their app by overwriting their email addresses with $somethingRandom@deleteduser.com. Mmm, I thought - I wonder how common of a thought process that is? I bet whoever owns deleteduser.com gets loads of emails!

I decided to check it out, but to my genuine surprise - no one owned deleteduser.com, so now I do.

Source [web-archive]

NovaFuture is proud to announce the official release of PeerBox! A 100% P2P messaging system for Linux, fully open source. Runs on SSH over Tor for maximum security. No account required, no spam possible. Please share the word.

I just wanted to link to this awesome channel, as I think his videos are educational and very encouraging to help people increase their privacy rather than shaming or scaring them into privacy by making extreme changes. He's also done videos on VPNs, various privacy policies, dumb phones, cookies & fingerprinting, etc. He hates ads and sponsorships, so that's another +1

Plus his blender animations are simple and cute, kinda like Miis!

cross-posted

The House on Friday voted by unanimous consent to extend a controversial surveillance program until April 30.

Earlier in the morning GOP leaders had pushed for either a five-year renewal or the 18-month renewal President Trump had demanded, but both votes tanked.

The stop-gap measure was pushed through and Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was set to expire Monday, now heads to the Senate.

The tool allows U.S. intelligence agencies to intercept the electronic communications of foreign nationals located outside of the United States.

Hi there, everyone.

I'm willing to stop using devices if necessary but I'm curious if there's any early information on how the OS is supposed to verify, who this gets passed to and how they would restrict access to the entire internet that would allow discussion on methods to circumvent this attempt.

I guess the OS could restrict the passing of information or it could be done via a check at the ISP but the fact that they're saying even mom and pop OSes do this check, it seems unlikely they'll be prepared to deploy something like that. If it's done at the ISP, I guess a packaged "passing" ID could be provided, whatever that entails.

I know this is in it's very early stages and nothing has been worked towards yet for satiating this requirement but has there been any discussion anywhere on how this might be handled?

I suspect the subsequent act will be banning VPNs so that we're not connecting to the WAN outside of our country. Perhaps this could be defeated by simply leasing a VPS in a foreign country to run a private VPN. I've read that the data looks identical to streaming a game so it might get by the geo-restriction.

I know there are no answers yet, I'm just looking for some discussion on how this might play out and how we could get around it.

Thanks for your time!

This appears to be part of the "Parents Decide Act" announced earlier in April by Gottheimer, as just one step in the process. So expect a lot more to come. Some bullet point plans from it:

- Require operating system developers like Apple and Google to verify users’ ages when setting up a new device, rather than relying on self-reported ages.
- Allow parents to set age-appropriate content controls from the start, including limiting access to social media, apps, and AI platforms.
- Ensure that age and parental settings securely flow to apps and AI platforms, so content is tailored appropriately for children.
- Prevent children from accessing harmful or explicit content - including inappropriate AI chatbot interactions - by creating a consistent, trusted standard across platforms.

Currently, the bill is only in the introductory stage so it hasn't yet passed and become law, so if this is important to you in the US you may want to speak to your representatives.

Source [web-archive]

I am sorry, but isn't it 99% not about "children protection" but general surveillance for everyone wrapped up in a "pretty" package that plays, again, on fears as the parenting and unforeseen future backed up with the "time-saving" features for those who are in a hurry within the same system?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.bestiver.se/post/1049348

Comments

For advocates like Lucy Parsons Labs’ Martinez, however, the ultimate solution to ALPRs is the complete abolition of them, not measures made with the intent to improve the existing system.

“I don’t care if they’re secure or not, I don’t want them in my backyard,” Martinez said. “What we’ve seen with these surveillance technologies is that the harms are so great and that all of the ways people have tried to rein them in are so ineffective. If you care about civil liberties, if you care about human rights, if you care about all of these things, you’re going to end up in a place where the answer is ‘we have to just tear these things up.’”