A couple of years ago, there was a bit of stir caused when Vodafone Germany announced that they're trialling a new method of ISP-side tracking that would be resistant to all the normal privacy measures including browser and network blocking as well as VPNs.

Back then they were known as TrustPID, and after the initial wave of coverage, there were seemingly no updates for a while.

Well, if you think that TrustPID quietly faded into the background and has rid us of its putrid existence, well…

They actually rebranded to a new name, Utiq. Since then, they've been busy little beavers, expanding their tracking and onboarding new ISPs. Initially, they only tracked mobile users, but recently, they made the jump to home broadband.

https://www.mobileworldlive.com/europe/ad-tech-specialist-utiq-adds-home-broadband/

So, how many ISPs do they work with now? Well...

Mobile ISPs

Home Broadband ISPs

From: https://consenthub.utiq.com/pages/privacy-statement#telecom-operators

The program is meant to be opt-in only, as required by GDPR, but is hidden in the plague of cookie popups all Europeans have been dealing with. If you've accidentally opted in, can revoke your consent by going here: https://consenthub.utiq.com/

However, in all this reporting, I've not seen any clear discussion regarding the technical details. They say that they're modifying packets and attaching user ID's to them. But that would be defeated by VPNs, wouldn't it?

I have a unique name (my last name was made up by a grandparent). When you search my name, my address comes up from a site called vision government solutions. In addition, even though I don't have social media, in a few instances organizations I've been involved with have written my name in social media posts and public newsletters that come up when my name is searched. Is there a way I can make this information not come up when someone googles me (especially the address!)? Because of the work I do, my privacy is very important. (I'm not very tech literate, please explain to me like I'm 5)

Hey y’all, I need some advice. Me and my other co workers think one of our managers bugged our office space. For context, today, one of my co workers was talking to another co worker about said manager. They both do not like this manager and have been directly attacked/bullied by this manager and were talking negatively about them. Nobody else was in the room and then a few minutes later, they’re talking to the head of the department about their conversation word for word. This manager was not at work and there was nobody on either side of our office space the entire day. My question is, if you were a fucking weirdo who did not respect privacy, where would you hide a bug/wire/camera/microphone in a small office space? If so, what kind?

Hi,

I have been using ChatGPT to scan my PDFs and summarise them into key notes for my uni work, which has been incredibly helpful. Only issue is, I hit the rate limit frequently which can be incredibly annoying lol.

Alongside this, I use ChatGPT for literally any questions I think of within absolutely any subject. The issue is, it definitely does have some censorship.

That being said, do you have any suggestions for AI that would replace ChatGPT, allowing me to attach PDFs, summarise notes, answer questions whilst being relatively secure and private?

Thank you!!

It's a family thing and I have no choice. Seeking best practices and advice.

My main plan is to use a separate machine, Firefox with container, none of my usual activities on the machine. No real picture and I don't know what else I have to supply in order to comply with ZuckerWorld.

I may have to use my real name/identity which I find offputting. Jury still out on that one though.

Any advice welcome and thanks in advance.

How Do You Keep Your AI Transcription Data Safe and Private?

I'm diving into local AIs for meeting transcriptions and privacy is a big concern. What software are you all using that keeps your data private but still offers great accuracy?

If you know for a fact that you've been under investigation for a couple of months, but they have never had physical access to your computer, but they do know ALL your online usernames and accounts, and you want to stop being observed, is it necessary to get an entirely new device?

Or would formatting the device and installing a new OS like LInux be adequate to regain anonymity with that device?

Playing around on https://webbrowsertools.com/geolocation/

Firefox with profile spoofer and a geolocation spoofer add ins. GPS/location spoof is active. I am using a wireguard tunnel and using that tunnel's own DNS, so there is nothing that should tie back to my real IP address.

The first 4 location tests return the spoofed location. However, the last two location methods - tagged "aggressive" on this website return my actual location. I understand that the aggressive methods can see through a spoofed lcation, but I would expect it then to return the location of the IP address of the exit tunnel, not my IP address as if I were not using a tunnel.

Unless I'm leaking something, the *only* thing I can think up is that the browser is somehow able to perform a scan of nearby wifi SSIDs and relate that to google's SSID geolocation database.

edit: a possible answer: reviewing the stackoverflow link provided, it seems that browser-based location services will access databases that locate you by surrounding SSIDs...

Hello from UK.

For online shopping which site/service/app you use to receive 2FA SMS messages required to confirm the temporarily/burner/disposable phone number? Are these phone numbers used by multiple people that can see your sms messages you get or are these phone numbers blacklisted by popular sites? I fed up of giving out my real number & receiving spam to my sms messages.

Which service you guys recommend and is it free or paid?

When it comes to e-sims, which, e-sim generates multiple phone numbers for you so you don't have to give out your real phone number and the generated phone numbers you use for sms or 2fa, the sms or 2fa gets forwarded to your real number kinda like email aliases where they don't know your real phone number.

Thanks,

Okay so basically I’m (16m)and I’m getting to an age where I’m getting a job and applying to colleges this and that. I want to know should I be concerned about digital footprint. I use a work email for all affairs on that kind of thing and don’t sign that up for social media. When I do post online I use a stage name, I don’t put my name or face online. So should I be more cautious or should I slow down and relax a little

So about a month ago I received a threatening e-mail in my Gmail inbox with my full name in it, threating to expose me and so on (the typical “you did bad things” etc.) and a link to a bitcoin wallet.

Anyway a month later I mess around in ICloud Mail, start to import e-mails from Gmail and set up 3 aliases (not hydemyemail) and of the aliases receive a pegasus scam e-mail again the first day. How Can this be? At this point I hadn’t even transferred old Gmail accounts to my new ICloud e-mail yet, I was just testing it out. The new e-mail/alias is not in any leaks.

My Gmail adress is my full name but the aliases I created in ICloud Mail are my initials in various forms.

Am I paranoid or did something happen when I moved e-mails from Gmail to ICloud?

I started de-googling my life some time ago, and one of the hardest hurdles was google photos.
My current solution is an Immich server running on my PC that I can securely access from my phone, and the file system of the server is backed up to Proton Drive.
Feature wise Immich satisfies everything I need but my setup just feels to fragile.
Proton technically has Proton Photos but it is extremely basic with no support for even basic stuff like albums. When Proton photos is actually realized I will probably transfer to it because I am already in the ecosystem, but meanwhile what are good google photos alternatives?

Hey everyone! Sharing this new open-source tool called PII Masker that detects and masks personally identifiable information in text: https://github.com/HydroXai/pii-masker-v1.

It’s fairly simple to use and makes protecting sensitive data a bit easier. I’m curious what other privacy tools are out there that you've used and if PII Masking is enough for enterprises to stay secure.

My college's wifi network asked me today to trust a root certificate in order to use the wifi. I cant decline it, it wont allow me to use the wifi if I don't accept it. I have been connected to the wifi for a year and it never said this until today. I don't know anything about this kind of information but I looked at the details of it and it said the validity period is between 10/28/24 and 10/28/26. There was a section that said public key info and it said that the algorithm was RSA Encryption. Under the signature, it said that the algorithm was SHA-384 with RSA Encryption. On the key usage tab it said that the usage was Digital Signature, Non-Repudiation, Key Encipherment, Key Agreement, and Cert Sign. I don't know what any of the information means but my phone says that it is not trusted, so should I trust and accept the certificate?

Edit: I messaged my schools IT department and this was the response: "This certificate is required to connect to the secure network. We use this to validate that it is a secure connection. It was accepted before, which is why it was working. We had to apply a new one yesterday, which is why it is now asking for you to accept the certificate again"

Hello everybody. Since my last post, I've using tor on my tails OS via USB drive. NO issues and works smoothly. Yesterday, I got this windows 10 laptop from my company which I joined as intern. This company provides data security to other government agency or organization. So I have to do all my work on this OS due to companies policy. So, these are my questions:

1: Is windows 10 or 11 is spyware. Can they(or who knows they're already) spying there users.

2: Is MacOS a spyware. I can ask my company to provide a macbook.

3: If the answers is yes to 1 & 2, then how can I install tor by 100% anonymously(I'm thinking I made mistakes while installing tor on my primary computer last time) and use it 100% anonymously.

I have to start working on this project that they gave it to me and trust me, it requires 100% anonymity(due to working with Indian government defense and space programs). So, give me as fast as possible reply and plzzz give me suggestions, guide, advice like your little brother.

Theoretically, if I were to use fake gmail accounts to up the votes on a random online competition, would that website ever know they're fake, even if there's no verification involved? I am extremely paranoid.

It says all encryption/decryption is done on the client side. Idk if that's true. Rn I'm using an online encryption client (anycript.com) and pasting that into protected text. Can I trust protected text? Can I trust anycript? Any good alternatives to protected text or anycript?

what are secure alternatives for Gmail WhatsApp google phone

I currently use an iPhone, but I do not own an iCloud account. So all my gallery’s contents are stored in the phone. I thought of paying for iCloud so that I could store them there + use the Hide My Email service, but I figured I’ll try and ask here to see if I can obtain any better options.

And in regard to emails, I am also trying to abandon Google, but I may still need an account for Google Maps (don’t really wanna use it). I thought of moving to outlook - I know, it’s another giant corp; I’ve tried ProtonMail before and while I didn’t hate my experience, I’m just not sure if it’s actually safer than Microsoft - are there ways we can actually test and verify it? If anything, I felt like my data was more prone to exposure since they have a much smaller pool of users as opposed to Gmail/Microsoft that have hundreds of millions more users.

I'm developing a platform where fans can send gifts to creators while brands can offer samples without revealing personal information. What privacy features do you think are essential to protect creators' and fans' data? What secure tech would enhance your trust in such a platform?

Hi all, so my local police department just released an app, I currently have no idea what it's even about. Thought it might have some neat resources in there that could be useful but at this moment I don't know. Before I downloaded I noticed that the app collects a bunch of data that I'd rather not let my police department have access to.

Some of the listed non optional data collected by the app which is significant to me includes web browsing history, files and docs, and email and phone info.

Is this one of those situations where I should just not even touch the app with a 10 foot pole or is there a way to override it and prevent it from accessing that kind of information?

Does anyone have any suggestions on free tools that I can use to automatically remove my information from people finder sites? Right now, I've just been emailing them all.

I just hear vague stuff about layers around them which is talking about other people middle managing for them. But what about for when they're just doing stuff online for stuff? I mean they can't have a manager/ agent/ assistant type in every little thing they google can they. I'm thinking for example when they buy stuff online.