⚡️Apple Sheepishly Requires a Warrant for Push Notification Data After Being Exposed
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Privacy: That's iPhone (no, that's bullshit)

For anyone who's been following Senator Ron Wyden's letter to the Department of Justice exposing that law enforcement and foreign counties have been requesting push notification data - within the past few days Apple has added a warrant requirement for that data.

Google has had that requirement previously, but what does it really say about a company when they make it so easy for law enforcement and foreign governments to request your data? To me it means they are a surveillance company first and foremost.

Link here:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/13/23990706/google-apple-court-order-required-push-notification-ron-wyden-letter-surveillance-e2e-encryption

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⚡️Google Maps Is Ending Location History - That Doesn't Mean The End of Sensorvault
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Most of you that follow this channel are aware of Sensorvault, Google's geolocation surveillance database that collects usage data from Google Maps (through Google Location Services and the Google Maps app).

Geofence warrants have now become one of the leading types of law enforcement request for data, 25% of Google warrants are Geofence warrants. All investigators have to do is pick a place and time to see how many phones were in the area.

In a recent Google announcement - updates were announced for local timeline histories, suggesting that location data would only be uploaded during a backup. These changes will roll out in 2024, a change which the Electronic Frontier Foundation has lauded as a big win for users.

Most of our information on Sensorvault and what location data Google collects is a result of the 2022 case US v Chatrie, in which Sensorvault was used to narrow down suspects in a bank robbery.

A Google product manager made a declaration in this case that alleged:
- Google's location history is the only form of location data that Google believes to be responsive to a geofence request
- Location History information can be searched in response to a geofence request, searched across all LH data in a timeframe, within geographic parameters
- Web & App Activity data is also recorded, some of these entries contain location information. Stored WAA data is only approximate to a square kilometer, so this data is too coarse to be 'responsive' to the warrant in their case

In 2019, one-third of active Google users had LH enabled on their accounts. Google estimates 'numerous' tens of millions, but this number could easily be several hundred million or even a billion devices - Google has around half of the global market.

Google uses interesting language here and makes the distinction of geolocation data that is not sufficiently granular to be responsive to and searchable. This type of data would require association with a specific user account, and be able to pinpoint user's location within a particular radius.

Most now are aware of Google's willful geolocation data collection that occurs through Google Location services, and an ecosystem of apps that use Google Location Services.

Even though Google is making these changes to Google Maps & location history, these changes do not rule out the possibility of additional geolocation databases that do not fit the standards for a 'geofence' warrant but have different use cases. According to Google's definitions, there could be other geolocation data that is being collected but not attached to a specific user account.

Google mentions the separate service and databases for Web & App Activity, and Google Location Accuracy which gathers data from WiFi APs and cell towers.

This other data and other databases could be attached to an pseudo-unique data point, such as an IP address, unique like a device identifier, or a combination of multiple datapoints. As always, Google has complete control over the many different data streams that come from devices such as operating system and app level logging - which it can use to rebuild incomplete data.

There is a lot of legal-speak in their declaration that leaves plenty of room for more geolocation based surveillance. It wouldn't be the first time Google's privacy protection features turned out to be bogus, such as Chrome's incognito mode which continued to track its users. Google ended up paying the largest internet privacy settlement in history at $392M.

Should we and organizations like the EFF give Google the benefit of the doubt?

Is this the end of Sensorvault, or have they just gotten better creating loopholes?

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⚡️The Difference Between Suspend & Hibernate
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Have you ever used the suspend feature on your Linux laptop? You may have noticed the option to hibernate as well.

These power management processes are handled by ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface), a n open standard used for power management across Windows and Linux PCs.

There's a subtle difference between hibernate and suspend. During suspend the computer will save its memory to RAM while cutting off power to most of the machine. The computer will use a tiny amount of battery power.

In hibernate, the complete machine state is saved to the disk, typically in a swap file. This method fully powers off a computer. When you turn it back on the state is restored from a disk, and you go through the computer's bootloader. With hibernate you need to make sure you have a big enough swap file to handle the full potential size of the computer's state. Many people recommend 1.5x the size of RAM.

Waking up from a suspended state is going to be faster than hibernation, however the computer can stay in hibernate longer without battery.

Are you team #hibernate or team #suspend - and why?!

references: 1 2 3

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⚡️Who Invented Email?
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I was recently introduced to the work of V.A Shiva Ayyadurai, systems scientist, outspoken activist and the inventor of email at 14 years old. He was the first to coin the term in 1978 and create an email system based it on the inter-organizational paper-based mail system that used pneumatic tubes. Its from this system where we adopted the email headers From/To/CC.

His copyright for email was recognized in 1982, which I was able to find on the US Copyright Office database.

In 1971 Raymond Tomlinson was working on the Department of Defense's ARPANET, later on he received credit for creating email.

From Dr. Shiva's site:

John Vittal, one of Tomlinson's contemporaries and another "internet pioneer," unequivocally described these early simple systems as rudimentary and incomplete:
“The very simple systems [including] SNDMSG... did not integrate the reading and creation functions, had different user interfaces, and did not provide sufficient functionality for simple message processing.” [John Vittal, 1981]

Tomlinson, by his own admission, said his modification was a "no brainer." Fourteen-year-old Shiva Ayyadurai, in contrast, wrote 50,000 lines of original software code that implemented numerous features and functions to replicate the entire interoffice mail system, with a very easy-to-use-interface enabling anyone to use the system. This is email --- the email we all know and experience today.

This is not to say that someone else would not have created email, given the march of technology history to integrate computing with office automation. However, the fact remains, Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai was the first to do it. The conflation of Tomlinson's modification to SNDMSG as "email," is a deliberate marketing campaign to enhance the brand value and reputation of Tomlinson's employer, Raytheon/BBN, in the lucrative cybersecurity market (see below).

What do y'all think? I'm quite a fan of him and how he fought for his creations and how outspoken he is on corruption. He was kicked out of India for exposing the main scientific body, and he has been calling out false prophets like Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Trump which is a move I applaud.

A recent TFTP interview with him here: https://thefreethoughtproject.com/podcast/podcast-dr-shiva-ayyadurai-false-heroes-the-swarm-how-the-elite-rule-the-world

I'll be reaching out to Dr. Shiva for an interview! I'm interested to hear his take on the future of the internet, the impending tyranny, and what we can do to stop it

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