Welp, this was bound to happen, wasn't it? I'm pretty sure they're referring to this application, which I stumbled upon a while back. If I remember correctly, the app "allows" (or implicitly forces) the user to store a government issued identity: able to attest to an age-restricted website, whether or not the user is of age.

It does this, supposedly by "just" sharing an age-bracket with the website; but here's the kicker: the Union, in its generosity, has granted their citizens an in-app option, to withdraw this signal from the websites it has been provided to. What this means in practice, is the app storing one's government-issued identify, also ties back to every account requiring "age-verification"...

So now, every device containing the app, has the owner's government-issued identify on it, together with connections to every age-restricted service. And considering the apps are maintained by the Union, or member states (through their own implementations), creating a backdoor to the application's contents... I mean to "observe app usage", would be absolutely trivial.

Again, I've read it a while back, so some things might've changed, and my memory might be spotty; but I'm quite sure it's along the lines I've described.

Welp, this was bound to happen, wasn't it? I'm pretty sure they're referring to this application, which I stumbled upon a while back. If I remember correctly, the app "allows" (or implicitly forces) the user to store a government issued identity: able to attest to an age-restricted website, whether or not the user is of age.

It does this, supposedly by "just" sharing an age-bracket with the website; but here's the kicker: the Union, in its generosity, has granted their citizens an in-app option, to withdraw this signal from the websites it has been provided to. What this means in practice, is the app storing one's government-issued identify, also ties back to every account requiring "age-verification"...

So now, every device containing the app, has the owner's government-issued identify on it, together with connections to every age-restricted service. And considering the apps are maintained by the Union, or member states (through their own implementations), creating a backdoor to the application's contents... I mean to "observe app usage", would be absolutely trivial.

Again, I've read it a while back, so some things might've changed, and my memory might be spotty; but I'm quite sure it's along the lines I've described.

It seems the mods have decided otherwise, whereas a dedicated community can set its own rules. Like I said in the body, I'm not interested in constantly being bombarded with political posts; ideally only when I explicitly choose to visit such communities.

One would almost start to think the lawyers were out for the settlement money...

Great, more hoops to jump thr... I mean... an "advanced flow", for gaining the privilege of installing apps of your choosing

Golden shower thought

It's been like that for quite a while. I remember deleting all big-tech accounts in 2019, and shortly after, Facebook started requiring login for full public page access. Therefore I created a burner account using a 'this person does not exist' picture, which provided me short-lived access after manual review. For account recovery, I was required to supply additional selfies (or even video-selfies?), but at that point I gave up.

But you need to be in close proximity (~15m max) to stalk a victim? You might as well just follow them around physically then. Perhaps when the victim is in a private location, eavesdrop on their conversation or locating their position within there, might be a possibility. But ear raping would, of course, constitute the most significant danger of all. Also WhisperPair, not WhisPair?

Ah, the good ol' revolving door politics

I don’t turn my face towards houses while I’m walking if I notice a doorbell camera

I do that haha... In all seriousness, I've recently quit my job as mailman, in part because of this. Year after year I saw the number of doorbell cameras increase, and so grew my discomfort of my job requiring me to expose myself, to these privacy-hostile situations. The worst case scenarios were semi-detached houses: since the doors to the paired addresses are right beside another. Between the entries there's often (decorative) separation, requiring some acrobatics to shortcut to the next address. If the second address would have a doorbell camera, while requiring me to sidestep between the obstructions, I could either: A) face the door and have my face right up to the camera, or B) turn my back to it and spin back into position. I did the latter, and I HATED having to adapt my seemingly simple job to this extend, just to protect my dignity.

The Netherlands technically requires a sign which indicates camera surveillance, besides having to direct cameras in such a way that they cannot capture the public sphere. But have a guess at how much enforcement there is in this regard...

And the next patent will be about a controller, not actually being plugged into the console, but merely giving gamers the illusion of affecting the gameplay...

So that's why Australia initially included GitHub, on the list of "social-media" platforms to be banned under 16?