freedickpics

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58
'Dumbphones' Are Not Private (lemmy.ml)
 

Whenever people ask about ways to make their smartphones more private or which is the most privacy-respecting phone to get, there's always a few people confidently asserting "all smartphones are spy tools, get a dumbphone with no apps if you want to be private". Which is ridiculous advice for a few reasons

  • Dumbphones usually run either proprietary operating systems or outdated forks of Android. They're almost never encrypted. They rarely get security updates. They're a lot more vulnerable than even a regular Android phone

  • With dumbphones, you're usually limited to regular phone calls or SMS/MMS messaging. These are ancient communication standards with zero built-in privacy. Your ISP can read any text message you send and view metadata logs of any phone calls you make. In lots of places (like Australia where I live) ISPs are actually required to keep logs of your messages and phone calls

With even a regular Android phone you at least have access to encrypted messaging apps like Signal or Session so your conversations aren't fair game for anyone who wants to read them. Of course there are better options. iOS (not perfect but better than most bloatware-filled Android devices) and a pixel with GrapheneOS (probably the best imo) are much better options; but virtually anything out there is going to be better for privacy than a dumbphone

Police drone tracks Walmart theft suspect in real time in c/privacy@lemmy.ml
[–] freedickpics@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago

Friendly reminder police in the US are legally allowed to steal money and possessions from you

Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted – Pre-Order Trailer in c/games@lemmy.world
[–] freedickpics@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago

Lame that there's no Mac version. If the original game could do it in 2009 with a smaller dev team why not now?

Cirrus app dev informing the app will stop working on certified android devices in '26/'27 in c/privacy@lemmy.ml
[–] freedickpics@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago

It's also absurdly lacking in features compared to Android/iOS (never mind app support) and the dev team is so small they can barely maintain existing device support. VoLTE is still unsupported in the majority of devices. The OS doesn't even have basic security features like drive encryption

I like UBPorts a lot but I think the alternative/FOSS smartphone market is too fragmented between it and SailfishOS/PostMarketOS that none of them will emerge with enough adoption to be real competitors to the iOS/Android duopoly. Didn't mean to be overly negative. Just my two cents

What would stop you from switching to a flip phone (or dumbphone) in 2025? in c/technology@lemmy.world
[–] freedickpics@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago

Security/privacy. With a dumb phone you're restricted to standard phone calls, SMS messages, and (sometimes) email. All of which are ancient standards that weren't built with security in mind. Your network provider likely keeps logs on your calls and texts

159
Kmart Australia Illegally Used Mass-Facial Recognition in Stores (www.abc.net.au)
 

Over the two years until July 2022, Kmart captured the facial data of "tens or hundreds of thousands" of customers at store entrances and return counters

[...] after a three-year investigation, privacy commissioner Carly Kind found Kmart's use of FRT was disproportionate, and the company did not gain consent to use it on shoppers

As part of the finding, Kmart has been ordered not to repeat the practice in the future, and will have to publish a statement on its website within 30 days explaining its use of FRT and the regulator's finding against it

TL;DR: As usual for this sort of thing, Kmart faces no real consequences (not even a fine ffs!). Meanwhile the Australian government is pushing forward with its mandatory age verification laws in spite of (or because of..) huge public backlash. I hate this country

Australians soon facing age checks when viewing adult websites [& search engines, social media, file sharing, etc, etc] in c/privacy@lemmy.ml
[–] freedickpics@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago

This is the real problem. As more and more countries push for laws like this I think sites will just adopt blanket age-verification for simplicity's sake instead of having to constantly keep track of which countries/states in countries require it