#privacy

See tagged statuses in the local bookrastinating.com community

Unpopular opinion: The alarm over in is overblown and if they had added it without putting the setting prominently in the Settings view but tucked it away in the about:config, I doubt anyone would be talking about it. The concerns about opt-in vs opt-out and communication are legitimate, IMO. PPA is arguably a potential privacy improvement for the industry. After reading more about how it works, I'm not mad about it. I just wish it had been communicated better.

audit of websites and apps finds three-fourths use dark patterns to trick consumers

The two types of dark patterns found to be most frequently used were "sneaking practices" and "interface interference"

Sneaking practices = "obscuring or postponing the sharing of information that might influence consumers’ purchasing choices"

Interface interference = "tactics which hide critical information or “preselect” choices, pushing consumers to make decisions favorable to a given company."

My favorite dark pattern is where you opt-out of something, or never opt-in, and they do the thing anyway.

https://therecord.media/ftc-audit-finds-dark-patterns-global

PSA: Voting on polls in Matrix chat **is not anonymous.** When you vote on a poll, your client sends a Matrix event specifying which event you chose. This event it tied to your account. Element by default does not display this info, but if you run `/devtools` and switch on developer mode, you can see the poll response events, who sent them, and what time they were sent. By inspecting the source code of the poll and the poll response events, it's fairly easy to see who voted what, and when. (Element even has a built-in tool for viewing this source code.)

For most polls this probably isn't a problem, but if you need a poll to be anonymous, use something else.

(This isn't meant to be a dig at Matrix or Element, I use Matrix for chat daily and will continue to do so. Just be aware of the …

New ALPR Vulnerabilities Prove Mass Surveillance Is a Public Safety

Automated license plate readers (ALPR) can fingerprint citizens' vehicles and can track citizens' travel patterns.

Some ALPRs themselves don't appear to be designed with much in mind either; having pretty high vulnerabilities like insufficiently protected credentials. Or every camera having Wi-Fi on by default and using the same _hardcoded_ password.

There's also the issue of a potential breach or failed administrative controls surrounding disclosure of information (like when an Ohio police department gave a driver's ALPR scans to a total stranger, without even validating the requestor's identity.)

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/new-alpr-vulnerabilities-prove-mass-surveillance-public-safety-threat