Yet. Some exec at Microsoft is thinking “the problem is that PCs aren’t locked down like phones and there’s nothing stopping you from running an alt OS on the desktop yet.” If they can’t force everyone to use their AI crap they’ll lobby the US Government and give Donald Trump some fake award, and before you know it desktop Linux will be a crime just like fixing your own tractor is a crime.

Trump steaks.

Trump and his cronies would have guessed. They wanted these people disappeared and tortured without trial. It’s part of their campaign of terror against the US population.

The usual theory is that they found it useful for blackmailing powerful people.

Mamdani. I wouldn’t be picky but Cuomo made it a deliberate act of disrespect to get his name wrong.

Since they give no indication of how they’re doing it or what information they’re gathering, no one can really explain. It may be some kind of traffic analysis where an AI provides heuristic recognition of probable VPN traffic.

I see they’re promoting something called the Helium network. What’s the relationship between that and Meshtastic? Are they completely different things?

Bill Gates walked into the meeting “riding high” because he acquired patents for malaria treatments. Reality beats satire every time.

Bill Gates will never be a good guy.

Your posts are a bit confusing to read because you don’t capitalize Windows To Go. Capitalizing it would make it easier to understand.

I’d use a Kill-a-Watt or similar to check how much power it uses, before deciding whether it’s worth installing anything on it. Also check how much noise it makes, unless you have a separate room for servers. Enterprise servers aren’t always a good fit for home use.

Yes, as I understand it, by “stock” Android OP meant any of these OEM-supplied Android installations as opposed to a custom version you’d install yourself. Although the “stock” Androids are different from one another, they all share the same relatively poor baseline privacy because they all send data to Google, on top of which they may also send data to the phone manufacturer and the cell network provider and possibly other organizations. This contrasts with custom versions of Android like GrapheneOS which are designed to be better for privacy and send less data to Google.

Binary on fingers really comes into its own when you need to order 1023 beers over heavy background noise. Except when there’s a mix-up and you end up with -1 beer.

Can Google still see contacts if not using their contacts app?

Probably. Android has a contacts database with which your contacts app interacts. And Google Play Services, which you can’t disable in stock Android, has access to everything, including this database.

Plus they can use location to see who you meet up with, and get their info and their contacts’ info from their phones. One way or another, Google can build up a pretty thorough profile of your social circle.

Your location, contacts, nearby devices, nearby WiFi, search history, voice query recordings, which apps you install and use and when, a log of activity on your phone, your advertising profile, which accounts you set up on the phone, possibly facial recognition for photos you take, who you call and message (if using default apps) including which phone numbers you connect to, events in your calendar, browsing history (if using default browser) and YouTube activity (if using the YouTube app).

Those are the main ones that are usually mentioned in articles about this. Some of it won’t apply if you use only open source apps and no Google apps. But some of it is baked into the OS and the Play Services, and difficult or impossible to avoid.

OP explicitly says stock Android, not a Custom ROM.

What are your “other precautions”?

The thing about this one is no one seems sure of the source (it appears to be from multiple sources, including infostealer malware and phishing attacks), so you don’t know which passwords to change. To be safe you’d have to do all of them.

Some password managers (e.g. Bitwarden) offer an automatic check for whether your actual passwords have been seen in these hack databases, which is a bit more practical than changing hundreds of passwords just in case.

And of course don’t reuse passwords. If you have access to an email masking service you can not only use a different password for every site, but also a different email address. Then hackers can’t even easily connect that it’s your account on different sites.

A password manager is still a good idea, but you have to not use a hacked one. So only download from official sites and repositories. Run everything you download through VirusTotal and your machine’s antivirus if you have one. If it’s a Windows installer check it is properly signed (Windows should warn you if not). Otherwise (or in addition) check installer signatures with GPG. If there’s no signature, check the SHA256 OR SHA512 hash against the one published on the official site. Never follow a link in an email, but always go directly to the official website instead. Be especially careful with these precautions when downloading something critical like a password manager.

Doing these things will at least reduce your risk of installing compromised software.

And the backing of Peter Thiel, a billionaire with a surveillance empire just ripe for use in political oppression.

Presumably once YouTube finishes rolling out age verification, all these age restricted videos will require logging in to view them and anonymous front end apps will be locked out.