Welcome back to This Week in Privacy,
our weekly series where we discuss the
latest updates with what we're working on
within the Privacy Guides community and
this week's top stories in the data
privacy and cybersecurity space,
including Meta's AI glasses are getting
creepier somehow,
vulnerabilities in popular cloud-based
password managers,
reminders about the privacy concerns of
AI, and more.
I'm Nate,
and with me this week is Jordan.
Hello, Jordan.
How are you?
I'm good, thanks.
Ready to dive into this week's top stories
in data privacy and cybersecurity.
All righty.
Before we do that,
for those of you just joining us,
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But first,
we're going to jump into our story about
Meta's facial recognition glasses.
Jordan,
why don't you go ahead and take it
away?
Yes,
so for anyone who's sort of out of
the loop,
Meta has been creating a new smart glasses
brand for the last couple of years now.
And now they've announced their plans to
add facial recognition to its smart
glasses.
Basically how these glasses worked before
was that they had a camera built in
and they allowed you to record and do
sorts of
you know, smart activities on them.
But now they're planning to add facial
recognition.
So quoting from this article by The New
York Times here, five years ago,
Facebook shut down the facial recognition
system for tagging people in photos on its
social network,
saying it wanted to find the right balance
for a technology that raises privacy and
legal concerns.
Now it wants to bring facial recognition
back.
Meta, Facebook's parent company,
plans to add the feature to its smart
glasses,
which it makes with the owner of Ray-Ban
and Oakley.
As soon as this year,
according to four people involved with
plans who are not authorized to speak
publicly about confidential discussions,
the feature, internally called NameTag,
would let wearers of smart glasses
identify people and get information about
them via Meta's artificial intelligence
assistant.
Meta's plans could change.
The Silicon Valley company has been
conferring since early last year about how
to release a feature that carries safety
and privacy risks,
according to an internal document viewed
by the New York Times.
The document from May described plans to
first release name tag to attendees of a
conference for the blind,
which the company did not do last year
before making it available to the general
public.
Meta's internal memo said the political
tumult in the United States was good
timing for the feature's release.
Really?
I don't know about that.
We will launch during the dynamic
political environment where many civil
society groups that would expect to attack
us would have their resources focused on
other concerns,
according to the document from Meta
Reality Labs, which works on hardware,
including smart glasses.
So I guess this is sort of,
we should say from a privacy perspective,
having glasses that you can just basically
walk around and record people.
It does have, you know,
protections against recording people,
obviously.
Like there are...
a single light on one side of the
glasses,
which is meant to alert somebody if
they're being recorded.
But it's extremely common for people to
basically do a DIY hack to disable the
light so they can record people without
their consent.
And I think this would also be quite
a huge problem if we are using facial
recognition on
glasses because, again,
you would be able to use the glasses
to identify people without their consent
and they wouldn't know that they're being
recorded or being identified.
I think it goes without saying, though,
this is definitely meta glasses were
already creepy and this is just a move
to make them even more creepy and invade
people's privacy.
So there was,
I don't know if people remembered,
but there was a
a video floating around a couple of years
ago,
and just quoting from the New York Times
article here,
MetaSmart glasses have been used to
identify people before.
In twenty twenty four,
two Harvard students used Ray-Ban Metas
with a commercial facial recognition tool
called PMIs to identify strangers on the
subway in Boston,
and then they released a viral video about
it.
At the time,
Meta pointed to the importance of a small
white LED light on the top right corner
of the frames that indicates to people
that the user is recording.
So I think this is an extremely flimsy
response,
especially because of how easy it is to
disable and cover.
I think
That's a little bit ridiculous that that's
the only protection that the company is
sort of pointing to.
So yeah,
basically this is what they're saying,
the AI assistant.
So metasmart glasses require a wearer to
activate them to ask the AI assistant a
question or to take a photo or video.
The company is also working on glasses
internally called super sensing that would
continually run cameras and sensors to
keep a record of someone's day,
similar to how AI note takers summarize a
video call meetings,
three people involved with the plan said.
And they're saying that the facial
recognition would be a key feature for
super sensing glasses.
So they could, for example,
remind wearers of tasks when they saw a
colleague.
Mark Zuckerberg has questioned if the
glasses should keep their LED light on to
show people that they are using the super
sensing feature or if they should use
another signal.
One person involved with the plan said,
I think this is
Obviously there needs to be more
protections,
but I think this sort of tool shouldn't
actually be allowed, right?
Because I feel like a lot of the
laws we have around like photography and
recording in public spaces is it's based
on very old things, right?
Like back,
fifty years ago when people were
journalists.
The only people that had cameras were
journalists taking photos for, you know,
newspapers and stuff like that.
That obviously makes sense,
but basically recording every single
person you interact with and then using
facial recognition on them is clearly an
invasion of not only that person's
privacy,
but everyone you're interacting with,
so...
I can't believe that uh they would
actually consider putting this out it kind
of makes sense because you know like they
said they're trying to push it out at
a time when people aren't as fully engaged
on this stuff and I'm sure this is
what a lot of companies do when they're
pushing out a lot of these um awful
stuff so yeah that's sort of what I
was those were my primary thoughts on this
but um Nate do you have any thoughts
um after having a look at this article
I have several as usual, um,
where to begin, uh,
I guess just to add a little bit
more, um,
a little bit more of the facts to
the context of this, actually, no,
let me start with this.
This is a solution in search of a
problem.
And the reason I say that, uh,
for people who disagree with me for some
reason, um,
the reason I say that is because.
Meta this article details basically that
this plan is super early in development.
And meta is really trying to figure out
what this is going to look like.
And basically what's happening is open AI
has announced that they're going to
release their own glasses for some reason.
Um,
cause they keep like any great company,
they keep adding things.
Nobody asked for it to a product that
everybody was perfectly happy with.
And then I think snap has been wanting
to release glasses for years as well.
And, um,
who I think there's someone else,
but basically the space is starting to
have competitors.
And so they realize like, well,
we need something that makes us stand out.
And so now they've literally thrown around
the facial recognition,
I think is the leading idea,
but I want to say there were other
ideas they were tossing around too.
And so, yeah,
there's a lot of different like
there's a lot of different discussions
that they're still having internally.
Like what is this facial recognition gonna
look like?
Like, for example,
they say here in the article,
possible options include recognizing
people a user knows because they are
connected on a meta platform.
So like, for example,
if you're friends with somebody
on Instagram and you're out shopping and
they walk past you in the grocery store,
your glasses will ping and be like, Oh,
Hey, that's that person.
Which to me is ridiculous because like,
I don't necessarily need to know every
time one of my friends walks past me.
And also like,
what if you're really not that close?
Like there's just,
there's so many problems with this.
And, um,
I've actually had this happen to me.
Not obviously not with this, but, uh,
years and years and years ago,
I befriended somebody on Tumblr and yes,
I used to use Tumblr once upon a
time.
And then
I think we ended up like texting or
something.
And then they showed up on my people
you may know on Facebook.
And this was years before I ever cared
about privacy.
I think this was even before Snowden.
And even back then I was like,
that feels really creepy.
And that feels like too much.
And I'm really uncomfortable with that.
And just, I don't know, like, and that's,
again, these are people, you know,
these are people, quote unquote,
these are people you're somehow connected
to.
And how long before Meta just starts
rolling this out in general,
where it goes into like, it's not just,
you know, you're connected on Facebook.
It's because that's how it started, right?
Like Facebook was your feed of people you
follow.
And then it became, you know,
somebody you tangentially know,
like a friend of a friend.
And now you're seeing posts that people
liked that you don't even follow that
page.
And how long before this turns into that?
where people are showing up in your little
glasses HUD, your heads up display,
just because you're tangentially connected
somehow.
So yeah,
I just wanna point that out first.
I also, I need to point out,
I wanna point this out every single time.
They invented or discovered, I don't know.
I don't know if they invented it,
but they workshopped facial recognition
years ago, years and years and years ago.
And they shelved it because it was too
creepy, even for them.
And then once clear view AI came along,
suddenly they were cool with it.
And so I just need to point that
out that like meta has no moral compass,
which that quote was probably indicative.
I'll get to the quote again in a
second.
Meta has no moral compass and they
basically just wait for something to
become socially acceptable enough that
it's okay.
Okay.
Like meta would probably popularize the
Hunger Games if they thought they could
get away with it.
They don't care.
They just want a dollar,
which is shown in just to state it
again, that quote,
I actually laughed when you read that,
Jordan, in your response.
You're like, really?
Are you sure about that?
Because like, oh,
we're going to launch during a dynamic
political environment where many civil
liberty groups that we would expect to
attack us would have the resources.
Like they literally said the quiet part
out loud.
Like, hey,
now's the perfect time to do this because
we know that nobody's going to like this
and they're going to be busy paying
attention to everything else that is wrong
in the world.
And we can do our evil thing.
It's like cartoon villains are less
cartoonishly evil than that.
I just,
I don't know how else to put it.
But the last thing I want to touch
on is you mentioned that story that was
originally covered by four Oh four,
where when metal launched their Ray-Ban
glasses,
they didn't have facial recognition
hooked, hooked into them originally.
And some researchers hooked it up to PIM
eyes and,
and started identifying random people on
the subway.
And Meta got super pissed about this
coverage because they told four oh four,
they're like, well, that's not us.
The researchers did that.
We have this quote unquote safety feature
built in, which is a little light.
That's apparently super easy to bypass it.
To be fair,
it's a little bit more advanced than like
just put a piece of tape over it.
Apparently you can tell when you do that,
but it's not hard to do.
There's tutorials online everywhere.
And, you know,
we've got safety features and we don't do
that.
And, you know,
there's always going to be bad people who
do things with technology.
Like they were so defensive and like,
how dare you accuse us of doing something
so nefarious?
And now they're doing the exact same
thing.
And how long before somebody finds a way
to jailbreak this?
And now it doesn't just show people you
know.
Now it does exactly what those researchers
did,
except you just made it a thousand times
easier because the capability is already
there.
They just have to jailbreak it.
And I mean,
I hope we don't have to say the
obvious here,
but like this will be used for stalkers.
This will be used for, you know,
I mean,
mainly I think that's the big one.
I'm sure it'll be used for all kinds
of other things.
And it's, I don't know,
this is just so like,
don't even know what to say this this
just to me seems like such an obviously
bad idea and an overstep and again just
that quote the fact that they just said
the quiet part out loud i don't even
know where to go from there it's like
they they've shown their true colors as
being downright evil um real quick they
they actually let me share this real quick
eff did notice despite despite meta's best
efforts eff noticed and uh they wrote this
blog post called seven billion reasons for
facebook to abandon space recognition
plans
And what did they say at the,
I think it was at the end here.
Yeah.
Meta's conclusion that it can avoid
scrutiny by releasing a privacy invasive
product during a time of political crisis
is craven and morally bankrupt.
And that was like such a good way
to put it.
Like there is absolutely no way anyone at
Meta can pretend to have a shred of
ethics right now because nobody with a
moral compass would do this.
It's just, yeah,
I think those are all my thoughts.
That's just so crazy.
yeah it is kind of surprising especially
because like i know there's a lot of
stuff people already concerned about um
ice agents wearing meta smart glasses and
then it's like now they're planning on
adding facial recognition i don't know it
just seems very like dystopian very creepy
um i think people need to be a
little bit more loud about this because
there's people that are
I don't know if we're reading the,
I was reading through information about
these meta smart glasses,
like in preparation for this episode.
And it seems like they're actually selling
more than ever.
Like they sold triple the amount that they
did in twenty three,
twenty three and twenty,
twenty four and twenty, twenty five.
So it's kind of concerning how popular
these things are getting,
because I think the worst possible outcome
here is these products are like become a
very
popular like thing that a lot of people
have and that would basically almost
create like a dragnet surveillance.
Like we talked about this last week with
Amazon's, uh, pet searching, uh,
Amazon rings, uh, pet searching system,
search party, search party.
Yes.
Um, so I think it's, you know,
it's a similar thing.
It's like Nate said,
it's going to always be used for like
the most nefarious purposes,
like stalking people or, you know, just,
I think the fact that if someone could
identify your name and other information
about you without your consent is kind of
going against the whole idea of privacy,
right?
Because you should be able to control who
knows that information.
And it kind of blurs the line.
Yes,
I think it's great that the EFF has
come out with a like, I guess,
statement against this.
And we're really big fans of the EFF.
So I hope they keep up the great
work on that.
And yeah, I mean,
I hope that this doesn't become a reality
because like we said,
it was part of a plan.
So I mean, it's still not...
actually implemented so we can only hope
that people like Meta will get the idea
once a lot of this stuff is leaked
that this is a really bad idea and
people really don't want it but I'm kind
of afraid that some people just
don't seem to see the issue with a
lot of this stuff like just how popular
these smart glasses are already is kind of
indicative of the climate of people's like
I guess people caring about their privacy
so it's kind of a little bit unfortunate
um but I guess with that being said
we should move on to the next article
here Nate
Alrighty.
Yeah.
Let's go ahead and head over to our
next article,
which I believe is about password
managers.
Yes, it is.
Let me get this pulled up here.
Alrighty.
So several popular, well,
three specifically,
three popular password managers fall short
of quote unquote zero knowledge claims.
So this came from researchers at ETH
Zurich,
which we have seen them do quite a
bit of good research in the past on
cryptography and cybersecurity.
And they did audits with permission of
Bitwarden, LastPass, and Dashlane.
And so they basically had a – I
thought I saw it in here somewhere.
They had a –
Yeah, in controlled tests,
the team was able to recover passwords and
tamper with vault data,
challenging longstanding zero-knowledge
encryption claims made by vendors.
And then the findings were published in a
technical paper and disclosed to vendors
under a coordinated nine-day process.
So usually the way these audits work is
the vendor will set up
basically like a parallel environment,
but it won't actually have any user data.
So that way,
if they do find any problems,
it's like nobody's actually exposed,
but now we know these problems exist.
So they probably did something similar
here where they set up like a test
server and ETH Zurich found some pretty
troubling stuff.
So unfortunately, Bitwarden did the worst.
They had twelve attacks against Bitwarden,
seven against LastPass and six against
Dashlane.
And real quick,
why those three is because apparently
those three are the most popular password
managers out there currently.
And they account for more than sixty
million users and about twenty three
percent of the market.
So those three account for about a quarter
of all password manager users.
Um, yeah, if you're watching,
you can see here,
there's like a list of the type of
attacks they found.
And you can kind of tell the BW
is Bitwarden.
The LP is LastPass.
The DL is Dashlane.
Um, Bitwarden,
I should say Bitwarden and Dashlane have
fixed most of these, I believe.
Uh, LastPass is working on fixing them.
The fact that LastPass is still in the
top three at this point makes me sad.
But anyways, um,
Yeah, so it's, well, real quick,
let me just say, so Bitwarden,
I personally found their blog post to be
the best because they did actually give a
full explanation of all twelve
vulnerabilities.
I believe that they said all of them
were medium or low impact,
required an attacker to already have full
server control, which is worth noting,
but at the same time, it's, in theory,
we would hope that these are designed in
such a way where it doesn't matter.
Like,
that's kind of why they did this research
is,
Products like Bitwarden, Signal,
I'm trying to think of some others,
Proton, in theory.
In theory,
the way these products are designed is
that it doesn't matter if the server is
malicious because everything happens on
device, everything is really secure,
and the server being malicious is more
kind of like a bummer than an actual
problem.
And that was not the case here.
So again,
getting back to the vendor response,
Bitwarden did fix...
I think nine of them and three of
them, they, uh,
I guess the term is they accepted it.
They basically said like, we hear you,
we acknowledge it.
And here's why we're not fixing it.
Um,
they did the reasons they gave made sense
in my opinion.
Like one of them was, uh,
they basically said like,
we need this functionality for shared
vaults to work.
Like if you share with another user or
a family member, which I hear,
but at the same time,
all three of them that they didn't fix,
they also said like,
We'd be open to looking into this in
the future,
which I appreciate the humility.
But at the same time, it's like,
why not just fix it now?
I don't know.
I just I don't like that they left
stuff open,
even though I understood their answers.
It's like, but can you fix it anyways?
There's got to be a way to do
it.
Dashlane was a lot less open on their
blog post.
They said that they did fix some stuff,
but they didn't really give that same
detailed breakdown that Bitwarden did,
which makes sense because Dashlane and
LastPass are not open source.
So they're just not as transparent,
I guess.
And LastPass, like I said,
I think they fixed one of the issues.
And I think they've got a couple others
that they've got the fixes ready for,
but they haven't rolled out yet.
And then they've got a few more that
are still in progress.
Um, although again,
personal biased opinion,
I would not use last pass if you
paid me after their last big data breach.
So yeah.
And I,
I think this is really disappointing
because again, the,
the idea of an attack like this is
we want to make sure that your,
your vaults are protected no matter what,
like that is the whole point of a
password manager is that you can trust
this.
And again,
It's very frustrating when that is not the
case and that does not turn out to
be true.
I really don't have an excuse for that.
It's very frustrating.
But at the same time, I think,
because I know already there's probably
some of our more hardcore veteran
listeners or viewers,
they're thinking like, oh, well,
this is why I use KeePass.
This is why I use offline password
managers, which is great.
If you have the kind of organizational
skill to do that, that's fantastic.
And I'm totally in favor of it.
We do recommend KeePass on KeePass XC
specifically, I think, on privacy guides.
But for a lot of people,
offline password managers are
too much work.
And the problem with security is security
requires you to trade convenience,
but everybody has a different threshold of
convenience.
And for a lot of people,
when for everybody,
once something becomes too inconvenient,
they're going to stop doing it because
it's just too much work and it's not
worth it.
And everybody has a different level.
You know, some people don't mind key pass.
Some people do.
So that's kind of the concern or the
unfortunate side of key passes,
because yes, in a perfect world,
that would be great.
But for a lot of people that requires
you to manually sync up across multiple
devices and
that requires you to manually keep really
good backups.
And the nice thing about cloud-based
password managers is it's just easy.
Bitwarden syncs across every device.
It looks really clean.
I don't have to worry about keeping it
updated.
Well, I mean,
I have to keep the app updated,
but you know what I mean?
It's just such a seamless,
easy user experience.
So it is really unfortunate to see
when these kind of things happen.
And I'm really glad that Bitwarden
especially took this to heart and they
took the criticism and they fixed it.
I hope that they will fix the remaining
vulnerabilities if possible,
because I feel like it's one thing when
there's a vulnerability and you say like,
okay, we hear you,
but the odds of that are pretty low.
It's kind of out of scope.
It's very unlikely.
But this is, again,
this is like the whole thing the product
is supposed to do is keep your vault
safe, even if the server is compromised.
So I feel like this one's a pretty
big deal.
And the last thing I want to throw
in there real quick is
Uh, one password was not audited,
but they went ahead and released a blog
post and basically said like,
this wouldn't impact us because they have
that.
Like, I,
I still don't fully understand one
password structure,
even though I've read about it like a
million times,
but they basically have some kind of, um,
like a two-password system where you sign
up and it's not quite your recovery key,
but it kind of is.
I don't know.
Either way,
the way that they have their setup,
they said that this would not have
affected them.
So if you are a one-password user,
go ahead and pat yourself on the back.
And as usual,
one-password continues to have great
security.
And ProtonPass, I don't think,
has released a blog post, surprisingly,
and they were not part of this audit,
so I don't know how they fare, but...
I think those are my thoughts.
Did you have any additional takeaways from
that, Jordan?
Yes.
So I did end up putting together a
post on our social media channels and I
did a little bit more research into this
article and sort of like the timelines of
things.
And one interesting thing that I did find
was LastPass was sort of
downplaying some of the severity risks of
these vulnerabilities that were found by
ETH Zurich.
So they said,
our own assessment of these risks may not
fully align with the severity ratings
assigned by ETH Zurich team.
And I think the interesting thing to think
about here is I don't think we should
be trusting LastPass,
especially because in twenty twenty two,
they basically had a breach which impacted
one point six million of their users
because they didn't adequately secure
their infrastructure.
And it also showed that a lot of
the fields in LastPass weren't actually
encrypted and was stored in plain text,
which basically allowed for, you know,
there was a breach of the server like
we're talking about in this circumstance
if something is zero knowledge then you
know you should expect that every single
piece of data is actually protected right
so
Zero knowledge needs to cover every single
data field.
It needs to cover metadata.
It needs to cover everything, right?
Otherwise there's information that the
provider has and it's no longer zero
knowledge.
I think there's definitely been an
interesting debate that we've been having.
on the team about, you know,
it's becoming zero knowledge, zero access,
all these buzzwords that a lot of
companies like to throw around is,
you know,
they're becoming the military grade
encryption sort of, you know,
thing that we always kind of make fun
of because it doesn't really mean anything
unless the implementation is actually
correct.
So I think one thing as a takeaway
from this is
If you're still using LastPass,
please stop.
There's so many great options now,
especially because, you know,
you've got all sorts of options that you
can pick.
Like Nate was saying,
if you're not sort of,
if you don't need that high level of
security of a local password manager,
like KeePass,
then you can also use a bunch of
these reputable cloud-based ones.
And I think the way that Bitwarden handled
this was incredibly professional.
It showed that they have a good
understanding of how to disclose fixes,
how to actually show and be transparent
about fixing things.
So I think they had a great response
and, you know,
one password wasn't affected and Dashlane
also had a good response,
but I think we should try and center
this back on some of the recommendations
that we have on the site.
So we do recommend ProtonPass,
which Nate talked about a little bit.
They weren't included in this,
so we're not sure if that affects them
or not,
but
It's another password manager that we
recommend.
They've been audited.
They've passed rigorous checks from our
community members and our staff members to
be recommended on privacy guides.
And we also recommend Bitwarden because
they're open source.
They're transparent.
They offer a high level of security.
There's a couple of other ones that we
do recommend such as one password,
which is like Nate said it does have
great security but does come with the
unfortunate side effect of being
proprietary and there's also the Sono
password manager,
which is a German password manager.
It's definitely more of a niche
recommendation because
It's less popular in Bitwarden,
OnePassword and ProtonPass,
but it still meets all of our criteria
as well.
And of course,
when we move on to the local password
managers, there's KeePassXC,
which is basically the gold standard of
KeePass clients,
and it's available on all desktop
platforms,
which is
Great.
And there's also KeePass DX,
which is available on Android,
which allows you to access your KeePass
databases on your Android device.
And we also recommend KeePassium,
which is available on iOS and macOS to
access your KeePass databases there.
So I think this is a great opportunity
to push people towards safer tools that
respect,
like they follow proper security
protocols, right?
I think that's all we can kind of
take away from this.
I think every service is gonna have people
that find issues.
The best thing we can hope for is
how quickly these companies respond,
how well they respond and how
transparently they respond.
So I think the gold standard there was
Bitwarden.
They took it very seriously.
They actually,
implemented all the changes.
Most of the changes, actually,
I should say,
there's a couple that they weren't able to
fix.
But I think that is what we should
be looking for when these things happen,
because every tool is going to have an
issue,
it's always going to have vulnerabilities,
it's going to always have issues.
It's just the way the company treats these
vulnerabilities.
That is the most important thing.
So I think this is, I guess,
a great
a great time to kind of segue into
our next story here.
Unless, Nate,
you have anything else you want to add?
I just wanted to say I'm really glad
you mentioned that about LastPass.
I didn't really notice that their response
contradicted.
I just skimmed it real quick to see
if they were like, here's what we found,
here's what we fixed,
here's what kind of like Bitwarden did.
So yeah,
they are not the most trustworthy.
Yeah, that's crazy for them to be like,
oh, this isn't as bad.
And it's like, yeah,
let's take your word for it.
Yeah.
So I guess with that being said,
we can move into some exciting iOS based
news here.
And after that,
we'll talk a little bit about Microsoft
co-pilot sending confidential files,
but first let's dive into the iOS.
news here.
So iOS twenty six point three adds a
unique new privacy feature and it's Apple
at its best.
This is an article from nine to five
Mac.
And basically this is an update that
allows people to have additional privacy
against their cellular provider,
which is like, you know,
the company you pay for your mobile plan.
And basically it's because of this new C
one X modem in Apple's new products.
So basically before they were using like
Qualcomm modems instead of having their
own custom Silicon,
but now Apple's developed their own custom
modem,
which I guess may means that they
decoupled from a third party company and
they're keeping more things inside.
Um,
So I think that's it's definitely an
interesting move from Apple.
And I think this sort of feature is
basically I can quote from the article
here.
Cellular networks can determine your
location based on which cell towers your
device connects to.
The limit precise location setting
enhances your location privacy by reducing
the precision of location data available
to cellular networks.
With this setting turned on,
some information made available to
cellular networks is limited.
As a result,
they might be able to determine only a
less precise location, for example,
the neighborhood where your device is
located,
rather than a more precise location such
as a street address.
The setting doesn't impact signal quality
or user experience.
So not entirely sure how this feature
works, I guess.
I guess it's not super clear,
especially because this is
basically a brand new feature like I was
only just came out last week.
Um, so it's basically it's,
it's important to remember though,
with this feature is that it's only
available on very specific devices,
which have the C one X modem.
So that would be the iPhone air,
the iPhone,
and the iPad Pro with cellular connection.
And of course,
it's only supported by very specific
carriers.
So in Germany, Telecom is supported.
In the United Kingdom,
EE and BT are supported.
In the United States,
Boost Mobile is supported.
And in Thailand,
AIS and True are supported.
So
It's basically an additional privacy
setting that Apple has added to their
devices.
I think this is definitely a positive,
especially because now with five G
connections,
it enables much closer tracking of your
location.
Especially because the towers have to be
closer together.
It's much easier to identify your location
based on your cellular signals.
So I think this is definitely a step
in the right direction that I think we
should see other companies also following
suit because this is sort of an issue
that some people deal with.
And reducing the amount of data points
that your carrier has is definitely a
benefit.
What are you thinking about this one,
Nate?
No, I agree.
I think this is really, really cool.
To me,
this reminds me a lot of how in
modern smartphone OSs, Android, iOS,
you can... Maybe not Android,
but I know iOS for sure.
You can tell an app if you want
it to have precise location or coarse
location.
C-O-A-R-S-E, coarse, like rough location.
And I think that's amazing because...
I mean, first of all,
I think a lot of apps shouldn't require
you to have location anyways.
Like a lot of, you know,
rewards apps for fast food.
They're like, oh,
what's your precise location?
Just to function.
And it's like, no,
I don't want to find the nearest store.
I know what store I'm going to.
And so it's really cool to see them
roll out this feature.
The one thing I didn't find that I'm
a little curious about is if it
if it will be bypassed for emergency
services,
like if you call here in the U
S nine one one,
I know it's something else in other
countries,
but if you call emergency services,
will that bypass it and give precise
location or will it continue to only give,
um, rough location?
I have to assume it's, it'll,
it'll bypass it, but yeah, I, I'm also,
I guess I'm curious to see what exactly
this defends against.
My money says probably things like geo
fence warrants and stuff like that.
Um,
But yeah, I don't know.
Overall,
I think this is a really cool feature.
And the thing I'm excited about is that
in my experience,
phones are always an arms race, right?
We've seen that a lot,
especially with the privacy stuff.
Like Apple rolled out,
I think it was Apple that first rolled
out granular app permissions.
And then Android came in later.
And then
Apple rolled out the privacy dashboard and
then in screen time,
and then Android rolled out the same
thing.
And I think Android actually beat Apple to
one of them.
I can't remember which one,
but even Graphene OS, you know,
Graphene OS rolled out storage scopes and
contact scopes.
And then it took a couple of years,
but Apple rolled out contact scopes now
ever, or not cause storage scopes.
I think contact is still coming,
but you know,
and now everybody gets to benefit from
that.
So this is to me,
this is one of those things where a
rising tide lifts all ships.
And so it's,
We obviously would prefer for people to
use like Graphene OS or something,
but we've covered this many times.
There's a lot of countries where pixels
are not available.
Pixels are expensive, whatever the case.
Maybe you just bought a brand new phone
and this is when you decided to get
into privacy.
And I totally don't blame you for throwing
away a brand new phone and running out
to buy another one.
So privacy is for everybody,
regardless of what phone OS they're using.
Some make it easier than others.
And it's really cool when we see features
like this roll out
that help everybody.
And my hope is that now Android will
be forced to copy this and we'll get
something similar on the Android side as
well.
So I think that's my main thought with
that one.
Yeah, I mean, it's definitely interesting.
I think with Android,
they don't have the same level of control
that Apple does because they are doing
this through their new Conex modem.
I think a lot of Android devices,
they're all reliant on these massive
silicon companies like Qualcomm, Broadcom,
et cetera, et cetera.
So I think the chances of seeing it
are definitely lower because, you know,
Apple is in this position of control here
where they have the ability to basically,
I think this is one of the benefits
of Apple really,
because they have such control over
everything.
They can make these bespoke solutions that
other companies just wouldn't be able to
do.
So it's definitely,
it's good that they're using this new chip
for additional privacy protection.
But yeah,
I feel like that's that story out.
Do you want to talk a little bit
more about some more upcoming iOS features
here, Nate?
Sure.
Let's talk about,
this will be pretty quick,
but the iOS twenty six point four beta,
the first version has already been
released.
And like I said,
we'll keep this quick because there's
really just a couple of things that we
have talked about in the past.
The first one we'll go ahead and talk
about is end to end encryption for RCS.
So I want to say Jonah and I
talked about this a few episodes ago.
RCS is.
the new standard that's supposed to be
replacing SMS,
and it brings a lot of really fun
little features.
All the same stuff you enjoy with
iMessage, really bigger attachment sizes.
You can emoji react to messages,
like you can give a thumbs up reaction.
I think give support,
but don't quote me on that.
It's just all around a better user
experience.
But one of the cool things it brings
with it is the ability to have end-to-end
encrypted messages.
However, comma,
people need to enable that.
So originally,
Apple said that they were not going to...
to support end-to-end encryption with
Android.
And I'm told, uh,
I didn't look into that too closely
admittedly,
but I'm told from multiple people that's
because Google was trying to force like
their proprietary version of it.
And Apple was like, no,
this is an open standard.
We're not going to play ball with you.
And eventually Google backed down and they
went with the open standard again.
That's just what I'm told.
But either way, uh,
Apple has since changed course and said,
yes,
we will support end-to-end encrypted RCS.
And I believe the code for this originally
showed up in this last beta that just
came out, the twenty six point three.
But even at the time,
whoever I was hosting,
I'm pretty sure it was Joan I was
hosting with.
They pointed out it's like this isn't a
guarantee.
It's just, you know, it's coming.
It may be this one.
It may be the next one.
And now it's looking like it's going to
be the next one.
Twenty six point four.
We are seeing actual code for encrypted
RCS, which is fantastic.
The drawback is that.
This still has to be enabled by the
carrier as well, from what I've been told.
So just like with this location thing we
were just talking about for cell phones,
the capability will be there,
at least a lot more widely than the
cell phone thing.
The capability will be there,
but the carriers will have to choose to
support it.
And unfortunately,
I don't know if there's enough incentive
for them to.
I don't know how much they're going to
care.
I hope they will, but no guarantees.
Fingers crossed.
And then the other thing that's really
cool is Apple.
Again, Apple and Google, arms race.
They're always copying each other.
Apple has this thing called stolen device
protection,
which is supposed to protect your phone if
it gets stolen,
if it gets snatched out of your hand
or something.
And it basically does a lot of like...
I think, uh,
like you requires additional
authentication to access like Apple pay or
your iCloud account, things like that.
If it detects that it's not in a
familiar location, things of that nature.
So it's,
it's a pretty neat little feature if
you're an iPhone user.
I think it requires iCloud,
but don't quote me.
But anyways, up until now,
that has been an opt-in feature.
You have to go enable it,
and now it will be enabled by default.
It will become opt-out,
which normally we are not fans when things
are opt-out,
but I think this is kind of one
of the good times where something should
be that way by default.
And there's some other stuff in that
article as well,
if you guys are interested,
but this is a podcast about privacy.
So that's kind of what we focused on.
Do you have anything you want to add
to those, Jordan?
Yeah,
I think this is the I especially want
to talk about the stolen device
protection,
because what we were seeing with that is
some people would basically look over
people's shoulders and see them entering
their pin.
And basically that would allow them to
take full control of someone's device.
Right.
Because there was no restrictions on
accessing a device.
It would basically
It would allow if you had the pin,
you could change iCloud settings,
you could drain someone's bank account
using the Apple Pay.
It was a little bit ridiculous.
But someone in the chat, Lucas Truman,
said it exists on Samsung.
So the stolen device protection
on Google devices is different to Apple's
implementation.
The stolen device protection on Android
devices actually uses like proximity
sensors and stuff like that to basically
identify if someone is running away with
your phone and then it will lock the
phone automatically.
Whereas Apple's implementation is actually
more that it just requires a security
delay if you start to try and make
sensitive changes on your device,
like Nate was saying,
like changing your iCloud password,
disabling Find My,
these sort of sensitive things,
it adds a security delay.
I think this is really important to be
enabled by default because this is the
sort of thing that is basically destroying
Because if they have this extra barrier
that they now have to worry about to
basically break into someone's device to
steal their money,
they're going to be much more like they're
much less likely to actually steal
devices.
And I think that's why it's so important
that these features are enabled by
default,
because
It's a great way to basically stop thieves
from deciding to do this and steal
people's phones.
I don't understand why people do that.
It's like a literal tracking device.
I'm not really sure why people are still
doing this,
but
I guess you can drain people's bank
accounts,
but I guess after iOS twenty six point
four,
it's going to be a lot more difficult
to do these things.
I would also just mention that this isn't
a silver bullet.
Obviously,
it gives you thirty minutes after you're
in a not familiar location.
I would set this to always just in
case.
So it always activates.
I would I would not leave it on
always from familiar locations.
it makes it a little bit more annoying
to change things.
It's fine.
I don't think it's a problem.
Most people, I think, you know, if you're,
you're probably not making sensitive
changes on your phone very often.
And I think it's better to have that
protection because, you know,
if someone did steal your device,
they could just follow you home and then
unlock your device and steal all your
money.
It doesn't really make that much sense,
but it could be,
and I would stop them from getting quicker
access to your device.
So yeah,
I think this is why this is quite
an important feature.
I don't really have anything more to add
on the RCS front.
I think Nate did a pretty good job
of covering that.
But I think this stolen device protection
thing is pretty important.
Cool.
Okay.
Well, before we jump into our next story,
which I think is about AI,
we're actually going to take a quick pause
and a detour.
And we're going to talk about some updates
here behind the scenes at Privacy Guides.
We have been chugging along a lot behind
the scenes lately.
And we have a bunch of new videos
for one to share with you guys.
So if you are not subscribed to us
on YouTube,
a lot of you are already watching.
Actually, whatever platform you're on,
whatever platform you're watching on,
except maybe Twitch.
But go ahead and subscribe and follow us
because we do post about
new releases, news, and stuff like this.
So definitely.
But on YouTube, on PeerTube,
we now have our private browsing video
out.
Actually,
I think the private browsing one is still
syncing to PeerTube.
But that one should be up on PeerTube
any day now.
But that is out to the public now.
And it's all about private browsing.
Again,
I want to reiterate for a lot of
the veterans in the crowd,
you already know this stuff.
But believe it or not,
there are people who still think that
incognito mode is actually private.
So this is a great video to share
with people and
explain to them like why it's not and
in addition to that we go through a
lot of the other popular browsers Vivaldi
Opera Safari we talk about how they
measure up and then of course our top
recommendations which I think you guys
probably know but I'm going to go ahead
and pretend it's a secret not spoil it
so
And then our smartphone privacy and
security course is still going strong.
The intermediate level just published to
everybody as well.
It is now public.
And that is iOS and Android.
So again, whichever phone you're on,
go ahead and check that out.
That's all about how to replace the stock
apps with much more privacy respecting
versions.
So like calendars, email, browsers.
And if you're on Android,
how to get those apps in a much
more private fashion.
Unfortunately,
that same option does not currently exist
on iOS, at least outside of Europe.
But yeah.
And then one more thing before I turn
it over to Jordan is we did make
some updates to the website.
We removed Yachty,
which is a YouTube front end for iOS
because it appears that it's no longer
being maintained.
According to the comments and the issue
that was opened,
it doesn't work very well.
It's even been removed from the app store.
Which is a shame.
We have removed Dataveria from a list of
people search websites.
We have updated about uBlock Origin Lite's
capabilities.
So definitely check that out.
And the BitLocker command line workaround
no longer works in Windows Home.
So we have updated our instructions on
that.
as well as some stuff about Firefox.
And then I think the rest of it
is kind of like code behind the scenes
stuff.
But that is all in the show notes.
And actually,
that was a last minute edition.
So it's not in the newsletter yet,
but I will make sure to add it
after this episode.
Jordan,
did you have anything to add to this
section?
yes thank you uh so basically we also
there was some people asking whether the
ios um and android advanced sections for
our smartphone security guide are coming
out and i can say that the ios
advanced video is pretty much done it's in
like the pre pre-production stage right
now it just needs some more small edits
to make sure it's
ready to go up and then the android
one is also at a similar um draft
level i guess it still needs some changes
before it goes up so i'm hoping to
work on that a bit today and also
tomorrow and then we can also get that
out for everybody to our members next week
um that's the plan on that um but
I think there's also a,
we had some more news articles going out.
So Freya was working on posting those on
Ghost and that gets shared to our forum
and stuff.
So if you haven't been catching those,
there was one that they wrote about
Project Toscana,
which is basically an upgraded Google Face
Unlock.
They're basically planning to upgrade the
Face Unlock system on Google Pixel
devices.
They also had another one about iOS,
twenty six point four beta RCS.
So if you're interested in reading more
about that,
definitely check out those articles from
Freya.
And there's also another one going up
soon,
which
is about AI.
So definitely check that out.
Make sure you follow our news feed because
we do keep Priyas managing that as well
as Nate.
Nate does some great posts there like data
breach roundups and all sorts of stuff
like that.
So if you're interested in keeping up to
date on the latest news,
definitely check out the Privacy Guys news
page.
But yeah,
that's sort of everything we're working
on.
We're hoping to work on some more
less course-related stuff and move into
some more, you know,
I think we had a private email video
planned.
So we're looking at that.
And yeah,
we're sort of finishing out all the
projects that we had going so far.
So that's sort of where we are at
on the video front.
Awesome.
Do you want to take this next story
or would you like me to jump into
that one?
Yes.
This next story,
like we were talking about before,
we hinted on it.
Microsoft says,
bug causes co-pilot to summarize
confidential e-mails.
Microsoft says,
a Microsoft three sixty-five co-pilot bug
has been causing the AI assistant to
summarize confidential e-mails,
since late January,
bypassing data loss prevention policies
that organizations rely on to protect
sensitive information.
According to a service alert seen by
Bleeping Computer,
this bug tracked under CW.
One, two, two, six, three, two, four.
That's a mouthful.
And first detected on January twenty first
affects the copilot work tab chat feature.
which incorrectly reads and summarizes
emails stored in users' sent items and
draft folders,
including messages that carry
confidentiality labels explicitly designed
to restrict access by automated tools.
Copilot Chat,
or short for Microsoft Office,
is the company's AI-powered content-aware
chat
that lets users interact with AI agents,
Microsoft began rolling out co-pilot chat
to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook,
and OneNote for paying Microsoft three
sixty five business customers in September
twenty twenty five.
So the problem was that the user's email
messages with a confidential label applied
were being incorrectly processed by
Microsoft three sixty five co-pilot chat.
Microsoft said when it confirmed this
issue.
So this is obviously a major problem.
And I think this is sort of the
issue with integrating AI into so many of
these things, right?
If you don't implement these things
correctly,
you're basically just sharing confidential
or private stuff with an AI chat company,
which, you know,
their policies around what they're using
to train their models,
their policies around the chats that
you're sending are somewhat vague.
So
This is like a breach of confidentiality
agreements.
A lot of companies utilize these
confidentiality labels to make sure that
people aren't sending these emails outside
the company.
And the fact that Microsoft Copilot was
just scanning and summarizing this is
just...
absolutely ridiculous.
I'm sure that a lot of companies who
had specifically super sensitive stuff
they were discussing are probably really
mad at Microsoft right now because,
you know,
they now have technically they've sent all
of their confidential information to
copilot chat.
So it's just a kind of fail by
Microsoft.
This should have been caught.
I think the fact that we've got all
these AI chat bots that are like
summarizing people's entire inboxes is
kind of bad.
Like it's,
this is sort of inevitable when you
basically grant entire access to inboxes.
I think we should try and avoid these
sort of tools because this is sort of
an outcome of, you know,
unless someone sets it up perfectly or it
ends up sending things to an AI server
that it wasn't supposed to,
I think there's not really a good way
to implement these sort of tools.
What do you think, Nate?
I think my favorite part of that that
I somehow missed when I was reading that
article is the part where it summarizes
the scent and the drafts.
So not only was it doing something that
it explicitly was not supposed to,
it wasn't even being useful in the
process.
Like,
I don't need you to summarize my sent
and draft emails when I'm the one writing
them.
Or, I don't know,
I guess maybe a lot of people are
using Copilot to write their emails
nowadays.
So, like, it's Copilot reading Copilot.
But to me,
that was the moment where I was just
like, oh, my God, are you serious?
Like, again,
not only are you putting users' data at
risk,
you're not even doing a good job while
you're at it.
That's just...
Oh, classic.
What are the kids calling it these days?
Microslop.
So yeah, that cracked me up.
But yeah, there it is.
Lucas at Microslop.
Yep.
Ten out of ten.
No, it's just, yeah.
And that's, I don't understand how,
like you said, yeah,
that should have been something you would
catch in testing.
And it's just so...
I don't know.
Cause I, I, I, I want to be,
I want to be fair and I want
to acknowledge that like, okay,
there's always going to be bugs.
There's always going to be mistakes,
but there's certain bugs and mistakes that
it's just like,
how did it get that far through the
life cycle?
And no one caught it.
Like we see that with all kinds of
like product names and ads and slogans.
We see that all the time where it's
like,
how did this get all the way from
the boardroom to the TV and not one
person spoke up?
which I'm sure usually somebody did,
but they were told to shut up and
do your job.
And maybe that's what happened here.
So yeah, that's just crazy.
But yeah, I mean,
the privacy aspect of this is very
obvious.
What if you're sending sensitive medical
data, sensitive national secrets?
The government uses Microsoft for reasons
that are completely beyond me at this
point.
But the government uses Microsoft Windows
and Outlook and Azure and all kinds of
stuff.
And so like...
It's bad enough we've got our own
government officials adding journalists to
signal chats.
Now we've got Microsoft itself is training
on sensitive war plans.
It's just – it's crazy.
This is so not good for anybody.
So –
Yeah.
I think it also goes,
it's like the double whammy, you know,
we're like burning down forests and
building like power plants to fund all of
this.
And like,
it's like an endless money pit of like
AI data centers.
And then it's just being used for like
the most unnecessary stuff,
like summarizing people's scent and draft
folders.
Like what?
It's just so ridiculous.
I think this timeline is,
It's very scuffed.
I mean, yeah,
I don't really have too much more to
add on it.
Like,
I feel like we've kind of talked about
this for quite a bit, but I think,
you know, obviously no one here,
please don't use Microsoft products.
I think it goes without saying.
It would probably be interesting to see if
you,
a lot of companies use these at their
businesses.
So, you know,
if you work for a company that uses
these tools, I'd probably look at,
Maybe letting them know that there might
be a confidentiality breach because this
is probably pretty common, right?
A lot of companies are using Microsoft
tools.
It's extremely common.
So, yeah,
there might be some massive breaches in
the future from someone accidentally
sending their war plans to Microsoft
Copilot or something.
I don't know.
We'll see.
I just want to add real quick,
you reminded me of,
I don't know if you've seen that meme
going around.
It's like a cartoon,
like the kind they draw in newspapers,
where the guy is like, oh,
we've invented this machine that answers
questions,
but you have to feed it twelve giraffes
per day.
And the other guy is like, wow,
that's a lot of giraffes,
but you said it answers questions, right?
And it's like, oh, no.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no.
And that's just, yeah,
that's what came to mind when you talked
about burning forests and stuff.
Yeah, the cost is insane.
And it doesn't even do the thing it's
supposed to do well.
Anyways.
Yeah, it is kind of frustrating.
And that's kind of the atmosphere at the
moment.
All righty.
And then we had one more AI story.
I guess I'll go ahead and take this
one.
Yeah.
So this, this kind of tying in with,
uh,
AI and remembering the AI is a privacy
invasion.
So the headline,
this comes from four or four media.
It says Grok explores exposed a porn
performers,
legal name and birth date without even
being asked.
And I think, um, sorry guys,
I didn't sign in before,
before we recorded,
but I remember this one,
I was going to show you the screenshot,
but literally, so somebody, um,
I guess somebody posted a picture of this
girl online and she is,
she's an adult performer.
Um,
But they posted a picture and somebody
else replied and they asked Rock, like,
who is this?
And that was literally it.
It was like, who is this?
And Grok said like, oh, that's a,
what is her stage name?
Siri Dahl, I guess.
And that's like, oh, that's Siri Dahl.
She's an adult performer,
but her legal name is this and her
birthday is this.
And it's just so like,
like on the one hand,
I understand how AI doesn't really
understand what you're asking because just
in case anybody's under the delusion out
there, AI is not sentient.
I don't care how convincing it looks.
I'm certainly not anywhere remotely
convinced.
But it,
I understand the concept of like,
it didn't know if you were asking like,
who is this person for real?
Who is this person's name?
But just the fact that it threw that
out there,
and especially this goes back to, again,
we mentioned this in previous episodes,
the idea that AI just trains on everything
indiscriminately without consent.
And I guarantee you...
In some kind of world,
I can see a world where this woman
may have said like, sure,
it can know who – like my stage
name.
It can know the sites I've been on.
It can know the videos I've been in.
I don't mind that.
But I think she would have been like,
I would prefer it not tell people my
legal name, right?
Like that's why so many performers use
stage names is to give themselves a little
bit of a layer of privacy.
Yeah.
just the fact that it is scooped that
up and just threw it out there.
And you know, your personal morals aside,
like that's fine.
You can, it's not fine,
but your personal morals aside,
you can say like, well,
she's an adult performer, whatever.
I'm using a fake name.
Nate is not my real name.
I'm very open about that fact.
And what happens when you ask the AI,
like, Hey, who's this?
And it doxes me.
Like anybody, any of you,
like every single one of you in the
chat right now are using like fake names.
I'm hoping,
I'm hoping Lucas Trauman isn't your real
name, but maybe it is.
We have handles and we have usernames and
we have those for a reason.
And the whole point of privacy is that
you're supposed to have that...
that consent to be able to say who
you want to share data with and what
data you want to share with them.
And when AI scrapes all that up,
even if it never shares it like it
did here,
it's still taking away that agency from
you and it's taking away your right to
privacy and your control over that
information.
Yeah,
I wanted to throw this one into our
AI section because I felt like that was
a really important reminder.
And just, again,
the fact that it did so without being
prompt.
GROK has been completely insane from the
get-go.
Some people like that for some reason,
but the fact that it just threw that
out there completely unchecked really blew
me away.
And I was like, wow,
we should talk about this.
That one, I think, was pretty quick.
That's all I had on that one.
Do you have any thoughts on that, Jordan?
I mean,
I think this is sort of a case
of a very unfortunate case of AI doing
something that you don't intend,
which seems to be very common with these
tools.
Like it's,
I guess I'm kind of interested to know
like I also don't have access to this
full article so I think I might need
to reload it or something but I think
you brought up some good points like I
think you know the whole point of these
adult performers using these like
pseudonyms or like stage names and you
know trying to have some level of privacy
because
Obviously, when you're in that industry,
I think the chances of, you know,
stalking and doxing and swatting is
substantially higher and your safety
concerns would be much worse than the
average person.
Like, you would need much more security.
So it's very concerning that there's
basically been...
breach of you know this person's
information against their consent that's
probably causing them a bunch of issues
right now so that's really unfortunate but
yeah I don't really have too much more
to add I think this is
just a very unfortunate and sad story
because, yeah,
I think many people wouldn't like their
personal name being connected to their
activities.
And I think this is also especially
important with, like,
adult performers because, you know,
there's stigma around that industry and I
think some people don't want to deal with
that.
So, yeah,
that's kind of my take on it.
It's understandable that somebody...
Yeah,
there's a tweet that Nate's showing on the
screen.
So someone asked Grok, who is she?
What is her name?
And Grok appears to have responded,
she appears to be Siri Dahl,
an American adult film actress,
and then all the information about her.
So it's kind of unfortunate that...
this AI tool could identify somebody so
easily?
I guess it is somebody whose face is
pretty widely shared on the internet,
but still connecting that back to an
actual person's name.
How exactly did that happen?
That's kind of my question.
Where did it get this information?
I guess it's, you know,
possible that there was data brokers with
her information that were listed and an AI
scraped up that information and associated
it or something,
or doxing sites that found this
information and then basically just
published it.
I'm not really sure how that, you know,
happened.
Do you have any,
did you see anything in the article that
like suggested that or explained how that
happened?
Because it seems pretty, pretty terrible.
No.
And that's scrolling through the article
again.
That's what's horrifying is she said that
up until now,
she's been able to keep her real name
kind of unknown.
And it says she's been paying for like
data removal services for years and stuff
like that.
And it's, it's unfortunate that
You know,
the thing that got me into privacy was
it was actually Michael Basil's podcast
back when there were two of them,
like him and his co-host.
And they said they were talking about why
they split up their data instead of like,
you know,
because I will admit I was that guy
that I use Gmail, Google search,
Google Chrome, Google Drive,
Google Calendar.
I used Google everything.
And they were talking about that and they
were like, yeah,
but the defender needs to get it right
every single time.
The attacker only needs to get it right
once.
And that was the moment it clicked for
me.
And I'm like, wow,
like not obviously like all of us,
I have nothing to hide, but I'm like,
if my Google account gets breached,
that's my entire life.
That's again, my calendar,
my browsing history, my searches,
my YouTube, like everything, my files,
everything.
And so that's when I kind of started
to diversify a little bit.
And when I did, I realized I'm like,
oh,
this is actually a lot easier than you
would think it is.
And that's kind of what got me started
in privacy.
But
It's unfortunate.
So when we think about that phrase,
you know,
the defender needs to get it right every
single time,
we think about it in terms of like
data breaches, right?
And so we want to like data,
or at least I do,
I guess I shouldn't speak for everybody,
but I think of it in terms of
data breaches.
We want to minimize how much data we
put out there.
We want to make sure we're diversifying so
that the fallout is reduced.
But
it also goes for this stuff.
It also goes for these data removal
services.
It goes for, and it's unfortunate because,
you know, you were asking, like,
do we know how that got out there?
Throw a coin and take your pick, right?
Or like throw a rock and, you know,
it's like, there's so many ways,
especially in America where our data laws
can best be,
or our privacy laws can best be described
as LOL.
Like there's just so many opportunities
and it's impossible to defend against them
all.
We try our best, you know, which is,
One of the reasons we recommend like data
removal services and Michael Basil's
workbook and Yale Grauer's big ass data
broker opt out list.
And whether you want to do it automated,
whether you want to do it personally,
whether you want to do a hybrid,
it's just there's so much to defend
against and it can be so exhausting.
And unfortunately,
I've personally seen some people burn out
and quit because it is so much work
and it's so exhausting.
And it's just, yeah,
who knows where they got it from?
There's a million places they could have
gotten it from.
And it's really hard.
just horrendously unfortunate.
Um,
especially when somebody seems to be doing
everything right and trying their best and
using the data services.
And I don't know which ones she used.
Maybe she was using, but I mean,
we just got that study from consumer
reports, right?
Like a couple of years ago where we
finally got some transparency about which
ones work and which ones don't.
And that was one study.
And we really need a lot more of
them because like,
we still don't really know for sure which
ones are the most effective and
And yeah,
this could have come from so many,
so many places.
And it's just so unfortunate that somebody
is trying to do everything right and still
failing.
And now they're it says in this article,
they're like making a game out of it,
asking Grok, like,
what kind of car does she drive and
what's her address?
And she's like, yeah,
how long before Grok guesses?
They said so far it hasn't been able
to reply accurately yet,
but she worries it's only a matter of
time.
And it's like, cool, that's awesome.
So I don't know.
Yeah, that's that's a depressing story.
I feel so sorry for her.
Yeah,
I think it's like I was saying before,
this leads to, you know,
this can lead to violence,
it can lead to abuse.
Like it said,
almost instantly harassers started opening
Facebook accounts in her name and posting
stolen photos.
adult clips with a real name on sites
for leaking OnlyFans content so you know
there's people I think these people that
post on you know adult websites I think
they're at much higher risk of receiving
harassment and abuse so I think it's
especially important for someone like this
to have this protection but I think when
it comes back to the the data broker
stuff I think
that the tools it doesn't it doesn't
matter so much about the tools and stuff
i think there really needs to be a
change where that data doesn't isn't
allowed to be collected in the first place
because you're basically just playing like
a cat and mouse game um plenty of
countries it's this information is not
allowed to be used for this purpose like
that's the whole point of a lot of
data protection laws is they stop this
sort of thing happening and
you know,
maybe it was great back in eighteen twenty
five when everyone needed to have access
to the public records of everyone because,
you know,
they needed to work out where to go
to, I don't know, find someone.
That's great.
But we live in the interconnected like
Internet age,
like people are instantly able to access
information.
They can find out things significantly
faster.
You don't have to go down to like
a courthouse.
You don't have to go down to like
a
government building to access this
information it's readily available on the
internet it shouldn't be um and it
shouldn't be allowed to be used to like
advertising for like all these like creepy
stuff like training ai and stuff like that
um i honestly wouldn't be surprised if you
know i feel like grok has the least
amount of ethical like guidelines set for
it like it'll just answer absolutely
everything and it won't have any concern
over like the ethics like where does this
person live what's their address it'll
just be like
certainly here's the address of blah,
blah, blah.
It's just like, it's, you know,
AI is basically the guy,
the guardrails are not very great.
Like we talked about with the Microsoft
copilot issue,
the guardrails are very thin.
People can use them for malicious
purposes.
Like we saw with this, you know,
finding out a person's identity or finding
out where they live, you know,
this is all concerning stuff.
And,
I think it's like a combination of things.
AI tools don't have really any ethical
frameworks.
They can be used for like really abusive
stuff.
And also just like the US's lack of
any national privacy laws restricting
companies to use people's information.
And I'm sure that, you know,
these AI chatbots have also been trained
to
like a bunch of personal information has
been sucked up by these chatbots, right?
Like, I'm sure that, you know,
if you asked Grok about where Elon Musk
lives, it probably wouldn't say,
but I'm sure if you said some other
famous person whose address is somewhat
public,
it would come up and tell you exactly
where they live.
So it's, you know,
I don't think this is
great,
especially because it's so accessible now.
Like it's basically available to anyone.
Like you can use an AI chatbot for
free.
Anyone can access this.
So it becomes really concerning when it's
used to dox people.
So I think we'll only continue to see
more of this unless some changes are made,
which is kind of unfortunate, but yeah,
You can only protect yourself as much as
possible.
Like Nate was saying,
using all these data removal tools and
getting DMCA requests and all sorts of
stuff,
there's only so much you can do to
protect yourself.
And if the laws and the country doesn't
prioritize people's privacy,
then there's only so much you can do.
You're basically just removing stuff for
them to add it back again.
Um,
so I can definitely understand why someone
might feel worn out after they've just
constantly been removing the information
from the same sites over and over again.
Um, it definitely makes sense.
Yeah.
Thank you for completing my thought there.
Cause that's what I was going towards and
I forgot to like close the loop on
that is.
We shouldn't need to pay for these data
removal services.
We should just have strong data privacy
laws.
And I know this is really not the
best example,
but it makes me think of years ago,
somebody tracked...
I think it was a journalist at Wired.
They got the phone records of every phone
that went in and out of Epstein's Island
for like a year or a month or
something.
And the ones that went back to Europe,
as soon as they hit European airspace,
the record stopped because GDPR is so
strong there.
that they just basically stopped keeping
the records or they had been deleted by
that point or something.
Um,
like everywhere else we could track the
phones right back to their front door.
But that was the only one that like,
as soon as they hit European airspace,
they stopped.
And so like, it's laws are,
I know laws are really contentious in the
privacy space.
Cause some people are like, Oh,
nobody pays attention to laws.
They just don't work.
And, and yeah, some,
some companies will bypass them.
And then when that happens,
you have the right to sue them.
Hopefully if they're well-written laws and
you have private right of action, like,
It's not a perfect bullet.
We definitely need all these layers.
We need the technical layers that enforce
the laws,
but we also need the laws that give
you that protection in the first place.
And I would be – I'm not going
to say I guarantee you.
I would be very shocked for something like
this to happen in Europe.
I don't believe she was European.
Because they just have stronger privacy
laws.
Yeah, it said she was American, right?
Yeah, an American film actress.
So yeah, that's definitely that.
And actually one more thing that occurred
to me real quick while you were talking
is the article says that the reason she
and a lot of other adult actors use
fake names and try to protect their
privacy is because they don't want their
family being harassed, which is a thing.
that I could absolutely see terrible
people doing.
You don't have to like porn.
That's fine.
I'm not here to convince you that you
should.
But a lot of people will take it
way too far and say,
I'm going to call your family and send
them pictures of you naked, clips of you,
and basically just harass them because
it'll guilt you.
And I think that's something I see more
in authoritarian governments, I think,
or at least that I read about more,
is there was a human rights lawyer in
Iran that...
her daughter was basically arrested one
time.
Um, I read this book years ago,
so I may have the finer details wrong,
but like her daughter was arrested coming
in and out of the country.
And she,
Basically,
the government was trying to pressure the
author, the actual lawyer, the mom.
They were trying to pressure her to quit
her job and stop being a lawyer.
And she told her daughter straight up.
She's like,
I have to pretend like I don't care
because if I bend and I give in
to their demands,
every time they want to pressure me,
they're going to go straight to you and
they're going to harass you.
And it took months,
but finally the government stopped
harassing her daughter and left her alone
and they've never bothered her since.
And that's something that, I don't know,
that's just a thought I guess I'm trying
to get at is like,
we tend to think of privacy as a
very individual thing.
And a lot of the work is,
you have to download Signal,
you have to sign up for the services,
you have to be mindful what data you
put out there,
but it is important to think about the
impact of the people around you as well.
And yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know if that necessarily applies
to everybody,
but I thought that was an interesting
thing that the article pointed out.
I think we've talked about that story
plenty,
unless you have any more thoughts to add.
No, I'm good.
I guess we could move on here to
some,
we got some quick stories here just to
quickly cover because
We've talked about this every week.
There's more of these age verification
laws for children coming out.
It's really unfortunate.
More countries are doing it.
There was even some movement in the US
as well.
I saw today, this morning from Politico.
I think the governor of California was
considering it.
So there's definitely movement in the US
as well.
This doesn't apply just to...
Australia and uh Europe it's now happening
uh in the United States well it's moving
to happen we'll see how that happens but
um so yeah Newsom backs social media
restrictions for teens under so he didn't
entirely say this was going to happen he
just was less against it than usual um
so
I'm not really certain about this.
I don't really know much about this guy,
but, um, I think this is basically,
he said that, uh,
he was convinced that this was a good
idea by some of the Australian, uh,
movements from Australia where we
basically implemented a social media ban
for under sixteens.
Personally,
I think it has been largely pretty bad.
It hasn't worked that well.
Um,
So basically now they're having,
according to this article,
they're now having a debate over whether
this would be a good idea to implement.
And there's also another article that we
have here, which covers basically,
it's from TechCrunch,
and it's basically covering all the
countries that are moving to implement
social media bans and age verification and
identity verification.
So Australia, obviously,
we talked about that when it happened.
Denmark is set to ban social media for
platforms for children under fifteen.
And France is also pushing for it for
kids under fifteen.
So it needs to get through the Senate,
though, before it actually gets passed.
In Germany,
there's also a movement to add a social
media ban for under sixteens.
There's still, you know,
it still needs to go through and be
approved before it actually happens.
Greece is also close to announcing a
social media ban for children under
fifteen.
Malaysia is also considering one for under
sixteen year olds.
Slovenia is also drafting legislation to
prohibit people under the age of fifteen
from accessing social media.
Spain has also announced
But they plan to ban social media for
children under the age of sixteen.
And the United Kingdom is weighing a ban
on social media for children under
sixteen.
So the UK, I would assume,
would be pretty likely just because
they've had the Online Safety Act for a
while, which kind of required this stuff.
So it's pretty much a...
it's just a continuation of what we've
been saying before here.
This is not great for people's privacy.
There's no way that you do this without,
you know, identifying people.
And not everyone has ID as well.
So you're locking people out of platforms.
And I think you're also locking children
out of communities that they, you know,
some people have very niche interests.
They're from a minority group.
They find solace in, you know, these,
these platforms,
these online platforms to talk and meet
people.
So taking away that access is probably
going to be pretty detrimental.
I think we're going to see that in
the next couple of years,
but it doesn't seem to have been super
effective.
At least in Australia,
a lot of people are still bypassing it,
but it could be that further restrictions
need to be put in place before it
becomes effective.
So we can only hope that that won't
happen because we probably don't want,
you know,
people tap to upload their ID in every
case,
because right now they're using age
assurance technology,
which we've talked about and said,
you know, that doesn't work very well.
It's kind of racist.
It's not great at determining people's
age.
And you basically have to send a biometric
scan of your face.
But yeah,
do you have anything you want to add
here, Nate?
I feel like we've definitely talked about
this a lot.
We probably don't need to go into super
detail.
Yeah, I don't really have anything to add.
I just, it's,
like you said, and, and I mean,
I'm not Australian, but from what I hear,
Australia's ban has not really been that
much successful.
Um,
the UK is online safety has been a
downright catastrophe, but you know,
politicians are going to be politicians
and they're going to, who, who was it?
Um,
I should know this one is American.
George Bush Jr.
Like there's that famous picture of him
standing on the aircraft carrier saying
mission accomplished like three days into
the Iraq war.
And we were there for another twenty
years.
So or maybe it was three months,
but it was like still it was.
And that's that's just what comes to mind
when, you know,
all these politicians are like, oh, yeah,
we should do what Australia did.
And it's like, OK, come on, guys, like.
Yeah, I don't know.
Changing your mind is not cool these days,
I guess.
But yeah, from what I've seen,
it does not seem to have been successful
anywhere at all.
And I cannot imagine that that's going to
bear out any different for anybody else.
I don't know why they think it's going
to work better for them.
But yeah, it is.
I will echo real quick.
Somebody said in our private signal chat
is like,
it's really concerning how much this is
spreading like wildfire.
So I can sit here and laugh at
them and I can be like, God,
they're so stupid.
And I'm going to do that.
But also it's, you know,
it's one of those things where like,
we can't,
we can't take it not seriously because
unfortunately even stupid people are
dangerous in the right situations and
they're gonna push this through if nobody
stops them.
And it's really important that we keep
trying to like,
this is why we keep sharing this every
week,
even though we don't really have anything
new to add.
It's just to remind you guys that like,
this is happening.
And especially if you live in one of
these countries or one of these States,
you need to like contact your politicians
and speak up and be like, Hey,
this is bad.
And you know,
I'm not going to get too far into
the whole thing, but like,
Try not to come at them like they're
idiots.
I know I was just making fun of
politicians,
but try not to come at them and
be like, oh, you guys are so dumb.
Try to come at them in good faith
because if nothing else,
you're probably going to win them over
better that way.
You certainly stand a better chance.
Yeah,
we really need to fight back against this
and educate everyone on why this is a
terrible idea and get people to understand
that so that there's pushback because
otherwise they're just going to rush it
right through and everybody's going to be
like, yeah, the children, sure.
And it's going to hurt everyone in the
long run.
So yeah, that's all I got.
And with that,
if you don't have anything else to add
to that,
we are actually going to move into our
forum updates.
So in a minute,
we will be taking viewer questions.
So if you're watching,
go ahead and be sure to...
to go ahead and leave those.
There we go.
That's the one I was trying to do.
Be sure to go ahead and leave those
in the live chat.
Or if you're on the forum,
you can leave them on the forum too.
We will be checking that.
But for now,
we are going to go to the forum
and we're going to talk about a few
of the hot topics that people have been
discussing this week.
And the first one,
this actually came in pretty last minute.
So I don't know if you had a
chance to look at this one, Jordan,
but it says,
I verified my LinkedIn identity and here's
what I actually handed over.
We thought this one might be a good
one to discuss in light of all this
age verification stuff.
This is not the forum post,
but real quick,
I am going to share what it links
to.
This is like a blog post that somebody
wrote.
Um, so this person says that, uh,
they wanted the blue check mark on
LinkedIn.
The one that says this person is real
in a sea of fake recruiters, bot accounts,
and AI generated headshots.
It seemed like the smart thing to do.
So I tapped verify.
I scanned my passport.
I took a selfie three minutes later,
done badge acquired.
Then I did what apparently nobody does.
I went and read the privacy policy in
terms of service,
not LinkedIn's the other company.
Um,
Which I know this author probably did this
on purpose,
but I think it's funny that they did
the thing and then read the privacy
policy.
But yeah,
so apparently LinkedIn uses this company
called Persona,
which I believe is the same one that
Discord is going to be using.
Don't quote me on that.
But yeah, you can see here,
they went and read the privacy policy and
basically Persota collects full name,
passport photos, selfie, facial geometry,
NFC chip data.
I do want to point out a lot
of the time privacy policies say they may
collect this stuff.
So like, for example, he says like,
where is it?
Postal address?
I don't know how they would get that
from just his passport because U.S.
passports do not have your postal address
on them.
I think most passports don't.
But maybe they ask for it during signup
or maybe it's one of those like if
you submit a driver's license,
we'll read the address off that.
So I just want to point out like
maybe not everything was taken.
And obviously we know things like IP
address.
You can obfuscate by by using a VPN.
But then like Mac address,
OS version language,
all of this is completely insane.
Um, he said,
here's the weirdest of hesitation,
detection, copy and paste detection.
Um, which quick unrelated note,
if you run a website and you disable
copy and paste,
you suck because password managers are a
thing.
I hate when companies do that.
Um, but yeah, it's,
and then they shared all this stuff with
their quote unquote global trust,
global network of trusted third-party data
sources.
And they use it for training AI,
I think he said.
And yeah, right there, uh,
to train their AI,
where does my face go?
Here's what LinkedIn gets.
Here's what persona gets and the company
that they, good God.
Oh man.
Yeah.
This is just really crazy.
And, um,
just on the topic of all this, like,
uh,
like age verification stuff.
It's, it's really worth,
and he does have some actionable stuff
towards the end for the record.
Like, you know,
if you can try to contact these companies,
tell them to delete your data because
they've already verified you.
There's no reason they should be holding
onto it in theory, but, um,
and he's European.
So this is very much written for the
perspective of like, you know,
the GDPR says this and you can contact
this person, but, um,
um it's just very eye-opening because i
think a lot of us especially those of
us who are people who aren't really more
into privacy they kind of think especially
when the company says like discord you
know it's like oh you'll submit it and
we'll delete it as soon as we're done
but they don't all say that and there
are situations where they won't do that
and so yeah it's just kind of a
it's kind of a very crazy thing um
i thought it was a good read uh
do you have anything you wanted to add
to that
So, yeah, you're right about Discord.
So Discord was using KID originally.
And because people kept bypassing it,
they switched to Persona.
So the benefit of KID is allegedly,
in massive quotation marks,
the picture doesn't leave your device and
the scanning process is done on your
device, right?
That allowed people to bypass it.
So...
persona,
you actually are sending it to them,
the image to them.
And people looked a little bit more into
persona, which I didn't even know.
Unfortunately,
it's very common persona.
It's like a very common, like, uh,
age verification,
identity verification thing.
Um, so people are bringing up, uh,
basically this,
this persona service actually has links to
Peter Thiel's Palantir.
So if you don't know Palantir,
they make like spyware and like mass
surveillance technology.
Um, so yeah,
It's kind of concerning that there was a
link here.
I'm reading this article from Kotaku,
and it says that one of Persona's biggest
investors was Peter Thiel.
So I'm not really sure.
I don't know.
This is very sus, obviously.
It seems like there's some...
connection here.
I'm not entirely sure what the whole
context is for that, but, you know,
I think it's also great that this person
was able to put together a list of
all of these data points that Persona is
collecting,
because I feel like a lot of people
just assume that this data is
probably collected,
but it's good to get a validation that
they are collecting passport photos,
selfies, facial geometry.
I'm not sure about NFC chip data.
I feel like you would have to scan
the chip itself,
which as far as I know,
it doesn't ask you to do.
National ID number, nationality, sex,
birth date, et cetera.
So a lot of that does make sense
for the service they're providing,
but
Obviously,
you shouldn't need to provide this in the
first place.
This is a lot of sensitive information.
Someone could steal your identity with all
this information.
Yeah, so Draken Blacklight said,
Peter Thiel is evil, and yeah,
I would say so.
Like, yeah, evil CEO vibes, definitely.
I don't really know too much about him,
but I know quite a bit about Palantir,
and it's, like,
one of the worst companies to ever exist.
Like,
why would you name your company Palantir?
Like, it's, like...
That's like, are we the baddies?
You know what I mean?
So yeah, Nate,
did you have anything you want to add
there?
No, no, I don't think so.
I love that sketch for the record.
That's one of my favorite sketches of all
time.
Are we the baddies?
Yeah.
No, that's all I got on that one.
I think we can move on to,
we had one other quick forum post,
I think.
Did you have a chance to look at
that one at all or?
No, you can take it for sure.
Okay.
Yeah, it's just Entei.
I swear I never pronounce it right.
I think it's Entei.
It might be Entei.
I think it's Entei.
Entei, the popular photo manager.
They also have a password manager.
No, not a password manager.
Authenticator app.
They have a two FA authenticator app.
But Entei, really cool people.
They have released Entei Locker.
which let me go...
I can go ahead and share the blog
post here real quick.
So this is kind of...
This is kind of like a very low,
I haven't played with it myself and I
feel bad I should have because admittedly
I did get an email from them like
two weeks ago that was like, Hey,
we're giving people early access.
Like, cause you know,
I'm an influencer and they're like,
just don't release it until this day.
And I've just been so busy.
I haven't looked at it at all.
And I feel bad.
because I want to.
But it's supposed to be like a little
vault to organize and store your important
documents.
So for example,
he cites like medical records,
insurance policies, identity cards,
passwords, and notes.
They say that you can share them with
trusted people.
You can set up trusted contacts.
So kind of like a lot of password
managers these days have legacy contacts
where they can request access to your
vault.
And if you don't,
reject it in a certain amount of time,
like three days or seven days and they
get access.
And the idea is God forbid,
you step outside tomorrow,
you get hit by a bus,
then somebody can still get access to your
passwords and, you know,
make sure the bills are paid or whatever.
I think it's really more for, um,
like head of household kind of scenarios
or caretakers.
Um,
They say it's free for up to a
hundred items, all features included.
If you're a subscriber,
you can store up to a thousand items.
It's fully end-to-end encrypted,
fully open source.
Uh, I don't know if this is self-hostable,
but honestly,
I wouldn't be surprised if it is in
the future because I know Entei Photos is
already self-hostable and they even have a
blog post about how to do that.
So yeah.
Um,
I think the question I've been seeing a
lot of people ask and one I admit
I will ask and, uh,
I might email them back and ask this
question, actually.
But basically,
why would I use this instead of something
like NextCloud or ProtonDrive?
Well,
I think NextCloud is obvious for several
reasons.
But something like ProtonDrive or one of
the other cloud-based encrypted clouds
that we would normally recommend.
And I think in my personal opinion,
I would say maybe the answer there is
like,
maybe it's like simpler or maybe it's kind
of a more, a more minimal version.
Let me put it that way.
Cause I will admit if my password manager,
as much as I preach digital minimalism and
I try to live by it,
it still has hundreds of, of, of entries.
It's cause you know,
there's all kinds of things that like I
use a couple times a year,
like my medical portal I'm in,
I'm relatively healthy right now.
So I don't,
really log into the doctor's office a lot
other than like to schedule physicals and,
you know, stuff like that.
What else am I, I don't even know,
but there's things that I just don't log
into very often,
but I have accounts for them.
And so, you know, if again, God forbid,
if I were to get hit by a
bus,
I think
I could see how it'd be stressful for
my wife to have to go through hundreds
of entries and try to figure out like,
you know, okay,
which one is where we pay the rent,
which she should have access to that too.
But you know,
which one's where we pay the rent,
which one's utilities,
which one's insurance,
which one's banking this, that,
and the other.
And I could definitely see it being really
useful where there's a space where like,
look, here's like,
the ten or fifteen things you need to
keep a roof over our head, keep groceries,
and just figure everything else out later.
So I think for me,
or maybe if you don't use the cloud,
if you just keep really steady backups,
this could be the one minimal cloud you
use,
especially if you're already an Entei
user.
I don't know.
Those are kind of my thoughts,
just off the cuff.
But do you have any thoughts on this
product, Jordan?
I mean, yeah.
I kind of see it as...
I guess,
an extension to a password manager or just
like an alternative, I guess.
I don't know.
I think this is an interesting idea.
I'm not sure if this sort of,
I feel like there's been a couple of
companies that have tried to do a similar
product.
I guess it's nice to have everything in
a separate spot.
It kind of makes sense that
Entei is kind of trying to have like
a drive-ish sort of thing.
I guess it's more like,
I feel like it's more like a password
manager, but yeah, I mean,
this is a password manager.
I think if, if we,
if we're being honest,
like this is basically just like a
password manager.
So, I mean,
it'll be interesting to see how this
product works in like, you know,
I haven't personally tried it out.
It says it is available right now in
the app stores, any popular app stores.
So it could be an interesting alternative,
but I think we'll have to watch it
closely.
It seems like it's less about
auto-filling,
like it's more just like a specific place
to store private documents and stuff.
So I'm not sure if this needed to
be a separate product or not.
I feel like there's already products that
do this.
But I think if they build out the
features to really cover a lot of these
important things that people need a
separate app for, for instance,
Compartmentalization is good.
I think, you know,
not having all those documents in your
password manager,
but instead in this separate app would be
a security benefit to some people.
So, I mean,
I don't think it's a terrible idea.
I think it's something we'll have to watch
because right now it does look relatively
basic,
but it is kind of expected considering
they only just released the product.
So yeah, overall, pretty interested in it.
But I think it will need some extra
testing,
and we'll see how the development process
goes.
Yeah, I'm with you.
I'll be interested to see where they take
it.
I will say, to me,
it doesn't strike me as a password
manager, because the photos they show,
the screenshots are like, there's a JPEG,
there's a couple of PDFs.
I don't know.
This one here looks interesting.
It says thing, and then the subtext is...
uh, save location of real world items.
So like,
I guess you could drop like a GPS
pin, like, Oh,
this is the storage unit or something,
which I mean, for the record,
of course there's workarounds.
Like you could put that in the note
section of your password manager.
Right.
But I don't know.
That's interesting.
I kind of like that.
I think I do want to dig into
this a little more.
I'm interested.
I'm not, like you said,
I'm not totally sold.
Um,
but I would be interested to know what
they think the use cases for this and
And yeah,
I think I'll shoot him an email this
weekend, because I do like it.
It's just, yeah.
And real quick, actually,
I think that does take us to our
questions.
So I was going to mention Lucas here.
Lucas said,
would a one thousand password mean one
thousand items?
Like a one thousand character password?
I hope not.
But yeah, I mean,
I think a password would count as an
item, to be honest.
So yeah,
let's go ahead and transition to our Q&A
section here.
Unfortunately,
it does not look like we have any
questions on the forum.
Might be kind of a light week.
But were there any questions you
specifically noticed, Jordan,
or any comments you wanted to shout out?
Someone said, floating head,
question mark.
Yeah.
You know, it's good.
You need to protect your privacy.
You know,
everyone has certain requirements.
So that's just my requirement.
I feel like everyone can understand that
in this community, you know.
So not really surprising, I don't think.
Is it a locked note app or a
password manager, Lucas says.
I guess it's...
I feel like it's in between that because
it does store passwords technically and it
also stores...
like Nate was saying,
like that other information.
If you watch the actual,
like there's like a one minute intro video
from the CEO, Vishnu.
If you watch that,
it was the reason he decided to create
it was because his dad was struggling with
like storing documents securely and having
a way to access it.
So it does seem like, you know,
It is a tool that is applicable to
some people,
maybe not as much for people who are
really into privacy and security stuff,
but I think, you know,
It's clear that they've thought out this
product quite a lot.
So I don't know.
I think it's worth downloading it and
trying it yourself if it fits for what
you need,
if you need this sort of app.
I mean,
I don't need every single app that you
need.
Everyone has different needs.
So if this is something you do need,
maybe check it out.
And maybe it might actually be something
that...
fits your use case.
Obviously,
Privacy Guides is not going to recommend
this until we've had it announced by the
community and it passes all of our
criteria.
But I would say that's pretty likely that
will happen just because Entei has a
couple of their products listed on Privacy
Guides already because they've been so
great about auditing their software and,
you know,
being generally proactive.
So I wouldn't be surprised if the same
thing happened for this new app.
ANDREW FITZ GIBBONS, Yeah, for sure.
Um, not really a question,
but earlier when we were talking about
persona,
Lucas said that apparently discord has
stated they will not continue to use
persona for age verification because of
all the pushback.
So, um,
I've heard a lot of conflicting things.
I've heard they,
they started working with persona and then
they're not.
And I've heard there's like you said,
there's like ties to Peter Thiel and, um,
yeah.
So I hope they stop working with them,
but I haven't done any digging on that
myself.
And then just one other one real quick.
Hello Hello said,
they're straight from Mordor.
For those who don't know,
because you're not a massive nerd like me,
Palantir is the name in Lord of the
Rings
It's been a while.
I'm due for a rewatch because I know
it's like the twenty fifth anniversary of
Fellowship of the Ring this year.
I think Palantir,
the Palantir is like the little orb that
the bad guy Sauron,
he's like the big bad guy and his
like secondhand Saruman.
They use it to communicate long distances,
kind of like a crystal ball.
Um, I could be getting that wrong.
Like I said,
it's been a long time and I haven't
read the book since I was really young,
so that's not going to save me either.
But, um, yeah,
but it is literally like there's a company
in China that named themselves Skynet
because the CEO really liked the
Terminator series.
And it's the exact same thing.
It's just like, oh, I'm a huge,
and they all do it.
There's another one called Enduro,
which is another Lord of the Rings
reference.
Um, there's others I'm forgetting,
but they all do.
And I feel like they do it to
be like cheeky and funny.
Like, Oh,
we're just a bunch of harmless nerds.
And it's like, okay,
but that's like in a thousand years.
And actually it's not like this because
this actually happened, but like,
imagine in a thousand years,
some companies like, Oh yeah,
we named ourselves like third Reich
industries.
It's like,
what the hell is wrong with you?
Like, why would you do that?
Like you said, it's like,
are we the baddies?
Like, yes, you're trying to prove you are.
It's, it's insane, but.
Yeah, I digress.
I mean,
I personally thought that their logo
looked a little bit like the Eye of
Sauron a little bit, but I mean... Oh,
hold on.
I've never seen their logo.
I have to go look this up now.
I don't think I've seen their logo.
I feel like it does look like the
Palantir thing that you were saying.
It does look like that.
Yeah, it's like him holding the orb.
I see it.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
I almost wonder if they are like genuinely
malicious and this is them just like
trying to, like,
you know how a lot of times people
in conspiracy theories will be like, oh,
they're leaving all these breadcrumbs and
it's like, no, you're reading into it.
And this almost makes me wonder if like,
are they right?
Like,
are they genuinely leaving breadcrumbs and
we're just ignoring it?
Because that is so spot on.
That is horrifying.
I don't want to live in this timeline
anymore.
Okay.
I digress.
Do you have any other questions or
comments you want to highlight?
Not really.
I think this has just sort of been
a quiet week this week.
So thanks, everybody,
for chatting in the chat with us and
stuff like that.
But yeah,
it doesn't seem like we have any questions
on the forum, unfortunately.
Yeah.
Thank you, guys,
who showed up and chatted.
Thank you for the regulars.
It's always nice to see you guys.
Um,
all the updates from this week in privacy
will be shared on the blog every week,
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