The discoveries above are a mere drop in the ocean of Wikileaks content that are now known to the world. Please keep in mind that most of the leaks are closed to a decade old. Simply following the tips or avoiding the software mentioned doesn’t guarantee safety from these attacks, or attacks like them. Our advice is to avoid mass surveillance by avoiding proprietary software.

In this short post we kept it focused to technology and left out the disgusting mechanations of the war machine. If you’d like to learn more, we highly encourage you to research Wikileaks and Julian Assange.

Although we must peer into the shadows, the world is better off with this knowledge. Bless those brave enough to speak up and may God protect them all.

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Hey peeps, I'm creating a list of powerful content creators fighting the good fight and spreading solutions in Europe. this doesn't have to be related to technology

Do y'all know anyone? Who should I follow?

Please let me know. Send a comment to our chat.

@takebackourtech_chat

⛔️ Samourai Wallet Founders Arrested by DOJ for 'Money-Laundering'
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In another perversion of justice, the Department of Justice has indicted the founders of Samourai Wallet, the premier Bitcoin wallet with featues that improved the privacy of BTC transactions.

DOJ alleges that Samourai facilitated more than $100M of money laundering transactions. Samourai's domains have been seized, their apps will be taken down from the Play Store, and the founders Rodriguez and Hill have been arrested, one in New York, and the other extradited from Portgual.

They also allege that the founders knowingly facilitated money laundering. They use off-hand Twitter posts of Samourai welcoming Russian oligarchs and private Twitter DMs of Samourai focusing on black/grey economies, as well as marketing materials for investment pitches that mentioned 'Dark/Grey' market participants.

The takedown of Samourai is a troubling note as we observe international pressure to take down privacy tools that interact in any way with the dark net, even if the extent of interaction cannot be proven.

Some users speculate that the founders knew the takedown was coming, a big reason for the push towards decentralized coordination of Whirlpool transactions which would allow Whirpool transactions even if the main coordinator servers went down.

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Like I have said so many times, Google & Apple's centralized services give them the ability to roll tech out to hundreds of millions of people and change our societal norms. This is another example of big tech / government collusion to normalize biometrics at airports. Sadly, most people will go along with it. A few, those who avoid centralized abusive software services will be able to avoid it.

Any US user of crypto should listen to this podcast. Aaron lays out important facts about CBDC adoption and why it feels like we are less than a year away from its rollout.

Today is starting off a good day. First the international criminal court is pursuing arrest warrants for Israeli leadership for crimes against humanity. We will see how this plays out - justice is welcomed

Julian Assange has also been given the right to appeal his extradition on the grounds of free speech.

⚡️Apple & Google WiFi Surveillance Can Track Death & Destruction
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Chances are, if you’ve used Google Maps or Apple Maps, you’ve contributed to one of the biggest surveillance databases in the world.

Known for their accuracy, big tech maps can locate your phone within a few meters and even indoors.

No, these big tech maps aren’t using GPS - they’re using WPS or Wi-Fi positioning system.

These WPS systems collect millions of WiFi networks and tag them with locations.

Researchers in Maryland discovered through a flaw in Apple’s WPS that they could gather at least 2B (2 Billion) WiFi location points by requesting WiFi networks at random.

That’s enough points to cover the world’s populated areas, notably China was nearly empty except for a few thousand points. Looks like even the CCP can’t opt out of this surveillance.

We did the work for them.

When you use Google or Apple maps, your phone will send the nearby WiFi networks along with their signal strength to the WPS. The WPS will look up these networks in a database that has hundreds of millions of networks along with their location. The calculation is then performed on the server for Google location’s service, and on the phone for Apple location’s service - which sent a list of 400 additional WiFi points back.

And this is how you get a precise location for your phone. Any new WiFi networks you scanned are potentially added to the WPS databases.

Apple & Google have made their users the instrument of their surveillance.

And the things you can do with this surveillance are harrowing. The researchers were able to see how many WiFi access points went offline in Gaza due to the constant bombardment that caused the deaths of 40,000 civilians.

Similarly the researchers were able to see the damage from the August 2023 Maui fires, and the emigration of people from Ukraine to escape forced conscription.

Apple, Google and any organization they choose to share this WiFi data will have incredible capabilities. Don’t worry though - because these companies care so much about privacy - they give you a way to opt out.

Solutions

Add _nomap to the end of your WiFi SSID (name), Google and Apple promise not to index Wifi networks ending with those names.

Turn off your WiFi network and use ethernet cable.

Read primary source material here.

Get the latest updates on our mailing list: Above Phone

Above Book: Learn about our privacy laptop: https://abovephone.com/book

Above Suite: Use our privacy services: https://abovephone.com/suite

#TBOT #AbovePhone #WiFi #Surveillance #Big_Tech
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⚡️Microsoft Recall, Stealing Everything You've Ever Typed
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Microsoft recently introduced an upcoming feature of Windows 11 that will be rolled out soon with Copilot+ called Recall. If you’re a current user of Windows 11, this isn’t active for you yet, but it will be in the near future.

As a brief summary, Recall will continuously take screenshots of your PC every 5 seconds, creating a searchable database of your activity. It will also store everything you have ever typed in plain text, yes, including sensitive passwords that are copy and pasted.

We recommend you do everything you can to avoid Recall when it is implemented, and to disable it in Windows 11 in the near future.

In case you’re not convinced yet, you may want to switch to an open source OS, like Linux, in order to avoid 0 day exploits and privacy breaches that will likely occur on Windows due to Recall.

Recall is a PR Nightmare

Unfortunately, Recall is one of the many problematic new implementations of AI in mainstream operating systems.

Similar functionality will be coming to Apple, considering they have opted to work with Google’s Gemini AI and will soon implement invasive, AI based scanning of the private data located in the unencrypted messages on your smartphone and PC in the near future.

In case you are not convinced yet, here are some more reasons to avoid Recall:

Cybersec: Microsoft claims that Copilot+ runtime processes data locally, but because its database is stored in plain text, it will make any Windows based PC vulnerable to remote access by hackers.

One practical use case of this would be an InfoStealer trojan, which steals usernames and passwords and can easily be modified to support Recall.

User Reaction: Recall has rightly been met with overwhelmingly negative reactions from Windows users, who naturally fear the coming privacy breaches and severe potential for misuse by bad actors. For any Windows users still out there: this was inevitable.

Implementation: Recall is, quite frankly, a PR nightmare unfolding in real time for Microsoft. To make matters worse, the feature will come enabled by default, despite Microsoft calling it an “optional feature."

Legal Jargon Manipulation: Microsoft's vague, misleading descriptions of Recall are decidedly sketchy. They continue to use terms like "snapshots" instead of "screenshots," in order to cover their tracks and downplay Recall’s intrusiveness.

Update as of 6/13/24: Because of recent public backlash, Microsoft is now making Recall an optional feature that you have to willingly opt-in to, instead of being enabled by default. They are also adding encryption via Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security and are encrypting the search engine database.

Still, we wanted to capture the previous stages of development before Microsoft could sweep the roll-out of this extremely problematic feature under the rug.

Whether or not this convinces you to feel safe and secure while handing over your private data to Recall and Windows, is another story.

#TBOT #Recall #Microsoft #Windows11 #dataprivacy #Surveillance #Big_Tech

Primary sources here.

Get the latest updates on our mailing list: Above Phone

Above Book: Learn about our privacy laptop: https://abovephone.com/book

Above Suite: Use our privacy services: https://abovephone.com/suite
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⚡️Photojacked - US Government Sues Adobe
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Adobe, the software company behind Photoshop, enraged artists and creatives everywhere with their new terms of service earlier this June. All users of Adobe products were forced to accept the terms before they could do anything - even uninstalling the program.

The new terms implied that Adobe would scan users content at any time, using AI. It also gave Adobe a complete license to use the content users created, sharing it and selling it to whomever they wanted.

Despite the public backlash, Adobe doubled down by clarifying the terms on a June 10th blog post. The post emphasized that ‘You own your content’, even though Adobe had a extremely permissible license to the content. They also promised not to train ‘Generative AI’ on customer content, and that the licenses would be ‘narrowly tailored to the activities needed’.

US Department of Justice Sues Adobe

Trusting a big tech company with your private data is like putting your head in the mouth of an crocodile.

After all, this is exactly the path that Meta took when it updated its General AI terms to allow for the use of photos and comments to train its AI models, such as the Meta Llama 3. That means your personal pictures train Meta’s AI. This model is now integrated into Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, and Messenger, and is nearly impossible to opt-out of.

Only people living in the EU could opt-out under the GDPR, but Meta has previously used dark patterns in their apps to prevent users from leaving easily. This includes re-directions, long confusing legal text, having to explain yourself, and provide additional information. It appears that they’re trying to directly obfuscate legal language by using fancy jargon—making it extremely difficult to withdraw consent.

This type of behavior is normal with companies like Meta and Adobe. This past week Adobe was sued by the US Department of Justice for making it difficult for people to cancel their paid subscriptions. A year long investigation uncovered deceptive business practices that hid information about a huge cancellation fee (50% of the remaining subscription cost) when signing up, creating more obstacles for users through the cancellation process.

Users of Adobe products are in a difficult spot. They’ve built their whole careers around a single software suite which is now being used as leverage to get them to comply with endless demands.

Solutions

This wouldn’t be a #TBOT article without solutions. There are many photo editors and creative tools on Linux.

Here’s a list of software and resources you can use instead of relying on Adobe:

GIMP (Photo / Bitmap Editing) GIMP Books

Krita (Digital Illustration)

Inkscape (Vector Illustration)

KolourPaint (Simpler ‘Paint’ like editing)

DarkTable (Photo Editing)

You can also cancel your Adobe subscription while avoiding the 50% cancellation fee. No joke.

Go to ‘cancel your subscription’. You will see a screen with the cancellation fee. Hit the continue button.

They will offer you a new plan to avoid the cancellation fee. Choose the cheapest one to switch to a new plan.

Here's the loophole: You can cancel any plan for free within two weeks. Cancel the new plan within this period and get your money back for the first month of the new plan.

You've now successfully avoided the fee.

Users who are invested in the Adobe ecosystem struggle to see how they can replace the hydra of Adobe applications. We’re not sure of the right answer either, but at some point Adobe users will have to decide what bursts the abusive software dam.

Until then we can wait for the Adobe terms of service update that comes with an additional cherry-on-top and pinky promise that they won’t train their AI on your photos.

Read more here.
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