• 2 Posts
  • 76 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • I mean, some parts of the protocols we use for the Internet need to be in the clear to work, DNS comes to mind. If you want that kept private as well you need to use something like tor.

    Not really. We also have DNS over HTTPs, DNS over TLS, and DNSCrypt which are all becoming more popular. But that’s still application level data that I’m not really talking about.

    But regardless, what people generally actually care about keeping secret is the content, not the protocol.

    A lot of information can be gleaned from protocol metadata though. Source, destination, which applications are being used, maybe more depending on protocols. Not exactly information I want to be easily available to the public, but also not exactly critical either.



  • “Generally, our users choose the encryption that they apply to their communications to suit their specific application or need,” says a spokesperson for SES, the parent company of Intelsat. “For SES’s inflight customers, for example, SES provides a public Wi-Fi hot spot connection similar to the public internet available at a coffee shop or hotel. On such public networks, user traffic would be encrypted when accessing a website via HTTPS/TLS or communicating using a virtual private network.”

    Can’t decide the side of the fence I am on for this. Of course the vast majority of Internet traffic across the world is unencrypted. Anyone could be on the line between me and this Lemmy instance, just as they could if there was a satellite between us. However, you’re also broadcasting it to like 25% of the globe and not even making any kind of physical infrastructure efforts.

    Quest can’t entirely guarantee nobody will snoop a fiber line, but they do bury them.





  • Thanks for including the mirror, OP.

    Companies that obtain mobile phone location data generally do it in two different ways. The first is through software development kits (SDKs) embedded in ordinary smartphone apps, like games or weather forecasters. These SDKs continuously gather a user’s granular location, transfer that to the data broker, and then sell that data onward or repackage it and sell access to government agencies.

    The second is through real-time bidding (RTB). When an advert is about to be served to a mobile phone user, there is a near instantaneous, and invisible, bidding process in which different companies vie to have their advert placed in front of certain demographics. A side-effect is that this demographic data, including mobile phones’ location, can be harvested by surveillance firms. Sometimes spy companies buy ad tech companies out right to insert themselves into this data supply chain. We previously found at least thousands of apps were hijacked to provide location data in this way.

    I really despise these practices. I don’t know how people can build these tools with a clear conscience.