Your pal Al 🪴📝

Literal internet of shit

This is also my favorite Halloween song (spooky, scary)

What is the Tor Network? A detailed guide to online anonymity Learn how the Tor network enhances your privacy and anonymity. Discover secure browsing, bypass censorship.

🔒 Data Privacy Week: Stay anonymous with @torproject.bsky.social!
Protecting your privacy online is more important than ever.
📖 Read our guide now: blog.flokinet.is/2025/01/28/w...

Wikipedia Prepares for 'Increase in Threats' to US Editors From Musk and His Allies The Wikimedia Foundation says it will likely roll out features previously used to protect editors in authoritarian countries more widely.

Wikipedia is rolling out anonymity features piloted in countries with authoritarian governments in the US & is making a change to not show editor IP addresses in response to a global "increase in threats" from Elon Musk, Heritage Foundation, and governments

www.404media.co/wikipedia-pr...

Internet Freedom Workshop: Tor、Tails、OONI - OONI-Research Join us on February 23rd, 2025, in Taipei, Taiwan, for a full-day event focused on online privacy, censorship circumvention, and monitoring. Hosted in partnership with the Open Culture Foundation, OON...

Attending #RightsCon? So are we!
Join our full-day event dedicated to online privacy, censorship circumvention, and censorship monitoring, on Feb 23 or any of our other sessions and talks:
🗓️ Sign up here: ooni-research.ocf.tw/docs/en/blog...

What the Supreme Court hearing about age verification could mean for you The court's decision could set a new precedent for free speech online.

I've seen people dismiss the Pornhub bans, sometimes couching their dismissal in an anti-porn stance. What I don't think they realize is that the people pushing this stuff conflate porn with LGBTQ people and sex education and are part of Project 2025
mashable.com/article/free...

The Matrix (Film / DVD: 1999)

The millennial experience is growing up with the internet, and watching it go from a free, open, democratic, and eclectic ecosystem to a wasteland of five websites controlled by billionaires, and now seeing it quickly fill up with AI-generated slop.

I want our World Wide Web back.

Leaking on the clock: What your sources need to know Last week, Eric Trump tweeted a screenshot of an email that circulated through the Trump Organization by Washington Post reporter David Fahrentholt. Although the tweet sensationalized Fahrentholt’s em...

FOR JOURNALISTS: SecureDrop provides strong security through its use of offline encryption and the Tor network, but sources still need your help to protect themselves, especially in monitored environments.

Find out more:

[There are huge differences between flashing an ID at a brick and mortar location versus an online company storing and processing personally identifiable information associated with your viewing of adult content]

sometimes banning things works when it comes to moderation and other related things but history shows us that the #tiktok response is playing out exactly how banning things usually plays out: defiance, hacks, and work arounds.

| Knight First Amendment Institute

WE’RE HIRING! The Knight Institute seeks a Policy Fellow, Research & Policy Program Coordinator, and Administrative Coordinator. Think you’d be a fit? Read this 🧵 and our website for more info & application instructions. knightcolumbia.org/page/work-wi...

News Outlets Batten Down the Hatches for Trump’s Return Media organizations are taking unusual steps to prepare for what they fear will be a legal and political onslaught from the new administration.

"Reporters and editors at national newspapers are increasing their reliance on encrypted communications to help shield themselves and their sources from potential federal leak investigations and subpoenas." www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/b...

Advice column: Will I face increased scrutiny for using Tor? People may have tried to scare you away from the anonymity-preserving Tor Browser. … Use it anyway!

People may have tried to scare you away from the anonymity-preserving Tor Browser. … Use it anyway!

Seattle in the winter. Photos taken on a Sony RX100 #seattle #pikeplace #sonyrx100 #photography

oh boy, some good stuff in here

However you feel about TikTok in particular, it seems ominous that SCOTUS is poised to announce First Amendment strict scrutiny can be overcome by a daydream and a sneeze.

The fact that the TikTok panic did not lead to a data privacy law is shameful. But I suppose it also makes transparent the goal of the whole thing: to ensure Americans are monitored, controlled, and manipulated only by American companies.

When those winds change in the direction of oppression, having control over what you've said or given to that platform could be life-saving. It could keep you out of jail. We don't have models for that right now, not really. But we desperately need them.

Privacy and agency over our data matters—is one of the forefront issues for online life—because every single corporate owned social platform will make decisions that harm people in the name of money and power.

Candy Crush, Tinder, MyFitnessPal: See the Thousands of Apps Hijacked to Spy on Your Location A hack of location data company Gravy Analytics has revealed which apps are—knowingly or not—being used to collect your information behind the scenes.

New: How advertising on thousands of popular apps is used to fuel location data brokers. Done by @josephcox.bsky.social in conjunction with @wired.com

www.404media.co/candy-crush-...

oh boy, some good stuff in here

Please, science, I *need* to know what my dog is dreaming about.

Whereabouts of Espacio Público's Executive Director, Carlos Correa, remain unknown. - Media Defence The whereabouts of Carlos Correa, remain unknown. According to witnesses, Correa, was allegedly intercepted by hooded officials on Jan 7, 25.

#Venezuela: The whereabouts of Carlos Correa, ED of Espacio Público, remain unknown. On 7 Jan, he was allegedly intercepted & forced into an unmarked van by hooded officials. We stand with Espacio Público and strongly urge the State to guarantee his safety and disclose his location.

bit.ly/3C0c4gK

Wikipedia BADLY needs to revise its position to allow signed-in users to connect from VPNs, proxies, and Tor. Editors are going to be targeted, and being pseudonymous is not enough to protect people who write about some of the most controversial topics.

Salt Typhoon Stirs Panic in Washington The full extent of the hack is not yet public, but it has hardened anti-China consensus.

sadly cruel censorship did not allow me to use the best quote I got on background for this, "we're existentially fucked"

foreignpolicy.com/2025/01/07/c...

Hackers Claim Massive Breach of Location Data Giant, Threaten to Leak Data Gravy Analytics has been one of the most important companies in the location data industry for years, collating smartphone location data from around the world selling some to the U.S. government. Hack...

So what if we have collected a record of every person's movements and then stored that record online in a database that someone can hack? What's the worst that can happen? www.404media.co/hackers-clai...

Instagram blocked teens from searching LGBTQ-related content for months Posts with LGBTQ+ hashtags were hidden under Meta's “sensitive content” policy which restricts "sexually suggestive content"

Internet freedom advocates need to fiercely scrutinize laws that ban/limit access to porn. What we see in practice is that these laws are used to ban everyday LGBTQ content under the guise that being queer or trans is inherently explicit or pornographic.
www.usermag.co/p/instagram-...

🏳️‍🌈

Transparency Reports Get Telegram transparency reports.

So Bluesky people, I need your help! If you have #Telegram, please contact the Telegram transparency bot t.me/transparency and get data for your country. Please share a screenshot here or as an issue there github.com/Te-k/telegra...
Please share!