• @[email protected]
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    1616 hours ago

    One thing I’m noticing in these comments, and in a lot of comments threads is the “well yeah, duh. Everyone already knew that” and while I’m definitely in that camp and have done that myself, I am starting to wonder if there is danger there.

    Like, this is a significant breach of privacy and trust and the kind of thing that we should be up in arms about. But we already assume the government is doing the worst movie villain shit imaginable, so when we have evidence of it we shrug it off as just another Tuesday.

    Yeah, waters wet. We should still be alarmed when we see a puddle of it somewhere it shouldn’t be. (I don’t know if that analogy actually tracks but I’m sticking with it).

    • @[email protected]
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      413 hours ago

      You’re not wrong, but these days the number of members of the public that truly cares (to point of taking action) about privacy is an extreme minority.

    • Kirsche
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      11 hours ago

      Puddle has been wet for a while, infact, it’s practically almost an inland ocean, why do you think we’re funding drone wars? Ai computing? Quantum computers? tactical robotics? Surveilence companies like Pegasus, Blackrock, Palantir, Even our our domestic surveilence is getting a larger check than defense. It’s a very deliberate “funding” of institutions that ultimately give the police an upperhand, not saying that the police are directly funding these institutions, but rather the state, although not much when it comes to anything outside the defense budget.

      There’s a reason why privacy advocates are for alternative tech, and that’s because since 9/11, corporations have become “lobbied” for lack of a better word, to include backdoors and implement certain tech to aid a surveilence state, such as the removal of headphone jacks, the endorsement of useless and extremely vulnerable tech that’s more energy wasting, blutooth products (yeah i have a problem with it, everyone should), fingerprint sensors, front and back facing cameras, artificial intelligence (yes even the older models.), and even going as far as to add metadata to photos that give your exact geolocation data.

      Don’t even get me started on the invasive software that comes with the tech, like auto generated albums, or auto editing photos, the such, it pisses me off that we let these things happen. Alternative tech makes it much harder to intercept such vulnerable information, ofcourse, it won’t completely stop it, but it mitigates how much they can swipe under your nose.

      Not only that, but check upon the “Blue Shield Act,” it explains the motive for corruption within the american institutions of police, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. It’s the common trope for the kinds of psychopaths that would be okay with doing the job in the first place. If there’s one thing that makes their job easier, it’s definitely going to be you in cuffs staying silent, so why try to steer away from cutting corners? We’re the law, what we say is final. Until it isn’t ofcourse…

      But that’s the problem, as you state in your comment above, this abuse of power is shrugged off, almost as if a normal behaviour, expected. It’s digusting to see it even when i grew up around the same mentality. But hey, at least their method clearly seems to be working, we’re practically silent seeing as they still have the confidence to fuck with our lives.

      Just remember, it’s final until it isn’t.

      Blue Shield/Blue Wall/Blue Code https.//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_wall_of_silence

    • @[email protected]
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      316 hours ago

      I think you can just assume at this point the US government does not care about the constitution or it’s people and will use any means necessary to collect data on those who wish to counter its growing authoritarian nature.

      If you go to a protest, only take a burner phone or no phone at all. If you must take your phone, turn it off and Faraday cage it.

      The US has become a failed state. Leave if you can. Things will only get worse before it completely implodes.

    • @[email protected]
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      617 hours ago

      Reminds me of:

      Samsung: “Apple Bad! They removed headphone jack and the charging brick.”

      Also Samsung one year later: “sAvE tHe eNvIrOnMeNt 🤡”

    • @[email protected]
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      -317 hours ago

      Just a friendly reminder that China is still much worse than any flawed democracy when it comes to freedom

        • @[email protected]
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          214 hours ago

          Agree! I have family in China, Hong Kong, and Saigon, and you are correct evil is still evil just in different ways!

      • @[email protected]
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        014 hours ago

        Have you ever been to China? (I have, family is from there and lives there, Hong Kong, and Saigon). Because their crime rate is a hell of a lot lower than ours. Even Hong Kong, had like 5 homicides late year… (China is trying to take over the island). They have cameras EVERY. WHERE. Therefore, you can’t get away with crimes. Sucks it has to be that way… but don’t do a crime and don’t have to worry, common sense.

        America is horrid right now, tear gassing peaceful protesters, hitting them with rubber bullets which some victims have been lost eye site because they were hit in the face, no affordable healthcare options, MASSIVE FALSE information, govt approving bills that only help the rich, etc. The thing that is the worse is that if we cannot use tear gas in WAR why the FUCK are we using it as a weapon for our own people… the policing force and govt is now being the citizens enemy!

        Yes, China is horrid for workers but like the previous comment “evil is still EVIL!” Is it that much better in America when we have people living paycheck to paycheck, homeless, can’t afford anything, etc. most of us still can’t afford damn healthcare… so China vs America… BOTH ARE FUCKING EVIL in their own ways! Our country is a laughing stock, people are flooding out and NO ONE is visiting or wants to come here anymore. We are the ONLY country with a DECLINE in tourists… not even China had a decline… that’s embarrassing!

        Basically, evil is still evil not matter the degree!

        • @[email protected]
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          10 hours ago

          Yes, I’ve been there multiple times. I have seen people who went to jail for sending a political meme on a private WeChat group because Xi felt insulted. Even in the US which is in a huge democratic backsliding for years, it’s nowhere that bad. In China there’s also “massive false information” but the thing is, it’s all government-run propaganda only and the rest of the world’s media is blocked. In the US, you can read Al Jazeera if you don’t like the American media narratives. In China you can’t. In USA, you can use Lemmy to laugh about Trump’s fake tan. In China Lemmy is blocked and even if it wasn’t, laughing at Xi gets you in jail. There’s no political freedom in China, even if it’s in shambles in the US now, let alone countries with a working democracy like Switzerland.

          Hong Kong is not mainland China, you picked one of the only two places (alongside Macau) that doesn’t have a censored internet in China. Regular Chinese need to pay $30 for a visa/entry permit to Hong Kong. Hong Kong has a different system than Mainland China. When taking about China, I am talking about mainland China and not a special administrative region of Hong Kong, obviously.

          Regarding the economy (I’ve never mentioned it and it has nothing to do with democracy but ok), many people in China also can’t afford health care and are living paycheck to paycheck (or worse). China is not just Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. Do you think 120 yuan pension is enough in the Chinese village near Chengdu? That’s what grandparents of one of my Chinese friend make. Asked her if that’s enough, she laughed and replied “of course not!”. Do you think they were able to before retiring, working their whole lives as farmers? Do you really think such people don’t live paycheck to paycheck and it’s USA-exclusive issue than China doesn’t have? Do you know how many months of a median wage you need to work for a house in any major city in China vs in the US (spoiler: it’s even longer than in the US).

          Summing up: the political freedom is still lower in China than in any flawed democracy (as I stated before), and China also has its economic issues which you seem to neglect. Yes, USA has those too, but it’s still among the richest countries in the world. You would be better off in many European countries if you’re poor but not in China.

  • jeromyokc
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    415 hours ago

    Saw a job posting yesterday to assist a contractor with installing a system used by police to monitor school camera feeds directly “to support law enforcement”. jesus fuck man

  • @[email protected]
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    23 hours ago

    Exclusive BREAKING NEWS: After careful consideration by the World’s top scientists from 1000+ top Universities, it turns out that WATER, H2O, the Wet Wet is, in fact, wet.

    • @[email protected]
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      823 hours ago

      No fucking way! I’m gonna need about 100 articles about that, all explaining the exact same thing, but slightly too dumbed down to the point that it doesn’t actually tell me anything.

    • @[email protected]
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      115 hours ago

      Where is the “water isn’t really wet” guy!?

      Your comment is 8 hours old. He should be here by now!

  • @[email protected]
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    422 days ago

    So basically, one could go to ICE protest and troll with fake conversations about attack points and watch them scatter to control nonexistent issues.

    • bthest
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      You could then troll them even harder by giving them a real threat to scatter over.

    • @[email protected]
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      142 days ago

      might be better to have a bunch of gibberish with a few named places.

      They might think it’s code and deploy there, and you’re not actually making a legitimate threat they could come after you for somehow.

      • bthest
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        217 hours ago

        They’ll arrest you for looking at them.

      • @[email protected]
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        115 hours ago

        Put pictures up of the team America characters and type, “derka derka, allah jihad. 103 blah St.”

        When they get there, they’re confronted with nothing and the joke is obviously a joke.

        Not that it would save you.

  • @[email protected]
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    1532 days ago

    Even though most of the comments here point out the obvious that phones are a risk, this kind of journalism is still important for spreading awareness and documentation of illegal surveillance for the record

    • @[email protected]
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      342 days ago

      Yeah lemmy is mostly a left echo chamber, which is generally a net positive. But someone like my cousin who still gets their news from Facebook but might want to protest now they are thinking about their views would benefit from this journalism

      • @[email protected]
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        132 days ago

        Eh, it’s a center-left chamber at best. As evidenced by the extreme reaction to the far-left echo chambers.

        • @[email protected]
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          Disagree, it’s pretty far left. Reddit was center-left, this is where those too far left for Reddit came as it shifted a little to the right with the top-down reaction to the API change.

          You refer to .ml, but that’s not really left, it’s a tankie instance, which is closer to fascism than socialism. I see far more people on Lemmy idolizing communism/socialism than any other extreme ideology.

          • @[email protected]
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            122 hours ago

            Aren’t the devs of Lemmy Marxist leninist or something and .ml is one of their instances?

            • @[email protected]
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              118 hours ago

              That’s what they claim, but their moderation practices feel a lot more on the tankie spectrum than marxist leninist.

          • @[email protected]
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            132 days ago

            You’re oversimplifying (and so was I, to be totally fair). The Reddit exodus has lots of reasons. I think it has more to do with one’s thoughts on corporatization and technocultural knowledge which does correlate with left-leaning politics. I’m sure there are many who are just sick of platforms giving Trumpists tacit approval (I think this is the primary driver for people leaving twitter) but that Venn diagram is not a perfect circle.

            .ml has tankies, and there’s plenty of fair criticism to direct at Dessalines and the mod team for generally cultivating a culture of knee-jerk anti-Western thought (and the inverse, more importantly) but it’s not “closer to fascism” because it leans authoritarian and drapes itself in USSR/CCP aesthetic. But it’s mostly a FOSS instance with well-deserved bashing of US imperialism and state-sponsored terrorism.

            • @[email protected]
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              62 days ago

              Tankies are pretty close to fascism, and tend to support regimes like in Russia the same as regimes in China. For them, the motivation doesn’t seem as motivated by economics as itvi government structure, since modern Russia is very far from socialist ideals. Basically, anything that goes against US interests is the priority, not economics as it would for your average socialist.

              • @[email protected]
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                32 days ago

                I think you’re losing some nuance but yeah “anything that goes against US interests is the priority” is a real problem in some leftist spaces (I was banned from /r/latestagecommunism for suggesting that maybe the things we hear about North Korea aren’t just Western lies to discredit a true Communist state.) Of the “big three” I see the most of that on lemmygrad so I don’t bother.

                But there’s a scale of uncritical support and I think people use “tankie” a little too broadly to dismiss people rather than consider the different facets of belief. Online discourse sucks.

                • @[email protected]
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                  21 day ago

                  Agreed 100%. People also use “Nazi” way too liberally, and it’s really off-putting and cheapens the term for actual Nazis.

                  And there’s only so much nuance I’m going to put into a comment, but for “tankie,” I generally mean those who support authoritarian regimes because they stand up to the US, not because of their actual ideology. Supporting China, Russia, and NK in the same breath is nonsensical, especially since only one of those is actually somewhat communist and one is explicitly not. I get it, there are a lot of reasons to dislike the US, but that doesn’t make Russia and NK “good.”

                  And yeah, online discourse sucks, probably because we self-organize into echo chambers. Reddit was less bad when I joined, but pretty much any reasonably popular SM is problematic now.

          • @[email protected]
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            2 days ago

            Democratic market socialism is a perfectly moderate ideology (too moderate, because often it lets the market win over and the democracy decay). You can also consider weekends, paid leave, women’s vote, public education, healthcare, public media and social security as socialist policies. It is one of the main political currents founding the EU and in South America. Only in the US is it used to describe radicals or as an insult.

            I’m even reluctant to point this out to magats now, because they never get the point and may even get it in their head that these are the things to destroy wherever they exist, just because they’re socialist in origin.

            • @[email protected]
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              12 days ago

              Sure, democratic socialism is center left, I’m talking about actual socialism, which gets promoted here quite a bit. Reddit was mostly dem socs and welfare state proponents, Lemmy takes it a bit further.

              • @[email protected]
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                32 days ago

                Yes, but that is no reason to disparage socialism itself. In authoritarian socialism, it is the authoritarian part that sucks.

                • @[email protected]
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                  12 days ago

                  Democratic socialism isn’t socialism though, it’s capitalism with lots of government services.

                  The authoritarian part is pretty much baked in to “real” socialism since you need something to control the means of production until society is ready, and that hasn’t yet happened. Yes, there are other theorized structures, but they’re unproven.

                  Tankies (i.e. many of those on .ml) are into the authoritarian part, whereas people here are more into democratic socialism, which is another thing entirely.

          • Cethin
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            It depends on where you draw the line for “the center.” I’d agree it’s leftist for America, but it’s center-left on a global scale. You’ll usually get some push back if you promote true leftist politics. Usually more agreement than dissent, but still some.

            • @[email protected]
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              12 days ago

              Sure, the US does skew right. I do think Lemmy is pretty far left even compared to areas like Europe that are further left from the US. It’s kind of hard to gauge whether people are serious about things like “guillotine the rich” (or Luigi references) or exaggerating, but you don’t see that type of talk on popular subreddits (even before the crackdown), at least I didn’t, and coming to Lemmy was a bit of a shift left from what I already saw as “center left.”

              I am a bit left of center in the US and pretty centrist on a global scale, and I lean fairly libertarian. I’m left of most libertarian candidates in the US, supporting things like UBI as an alternative to welfare programs. So I think I have a decent perspective on what’s left and right.

              • Cethin
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                11 day ago

                I am a bit left of center in the US and pretty centrist on a global scale, and I lean fairly libertarian. I’m left of most libertarian candidates in the US, supporting things like UBI as an alternative to welfare programs. So I think I have a decent perspective on what’s left and right.

                I started at your position a long time ago, when I was a teenager. I realized libertarians are full of shit, and eventually discovered a better descriptor of my beliefs was anarchist (in particular, social anarchist). I think the government shouldn’t be telling people how to live or what they can or can’t do. It should be there to protect people (emphasis; not corporations).

                Libertarians (in the US at least) are really just anarcho-capitalists. They want freedom for businesses, but usually at the expense of freedom for people. They don’t want protection for people from exploitation. They want businesses with enough money to be able to exert their authority as far as possible, to the extent of blocking competition and effectively creating slaves. (They’ll argue they don’t agree with slavery, but what’s the difference between your employer owning your ability to live and slavery?)

                • @[email protected]
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                  31 day ago

                  anarchist

                  I have serious practical concerns with anarchism, but that is certainly the ideal.

                  I started life as a conservative, mostly because I bought into the lie that they actually wanted smaller government. Ron Paul got me excited because he actually wanted smaller government, but seeing him get trashed by the establishment pushed me out. Around that time I found Penn Jillette (libertarian anarchist), and he really resonated with me.

                  I dislike the Libertarian Party, but I have liked individuals within it, and that generally seems the most likely party to actually make a difference (i.e. get on a debate stage so people can hear a different perspective). My ballot is all over the place though, with a mixture of Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, and sometimes a random third party if the candidate is good.

                  But yeah, I just want to be left alone, and if we need a government (I think we do), it should be limited to protecting us from each other and ensuring everyone has the necessities. Other than that, business should be largely unrestrained and unprotected (limited liability should end after a certain size, execs should be arrested if they break the law, etc), and there should be strong support from government to protect privacy. Consumer protections should largely be unnecessary if the market is sufficiently competitive, and ending protectionism should provide that, but consumer protections should be provided by the AG leading lawsuits against companies.

                  I think “classical liberal” is the better term for me, but “libertarian” gets the message across pretty well, and I identify with the NAP underpinnings of the ideology. I’m registered with the party to increase the stats of third parties to hopefully encourage electoral reform (end FPTP), not because I think they’re great.

          • @[email protected]
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            -11 day ago

            I left because of the api changes and the excessive censorship (rip r/watchpeopledie my beloved) and it’s general hatred towards ita mobile website

            • @[email protected]
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              21 day ago

              The API changes were the last straw for me too, but I had been searching for a while because it felt very much like an echo-chamber. Lemmy does too, but at least the API is open.

        • @[email protected]
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          By “far-left” you mean the pro-Russia and pro-China segment of this place? They seem more like government mouthpieces than people who actually support leftist policies (which don’t represent the policies of the Russian or Chinese government.

          This place is also full of Blue MAGA liberals which I’d classify as right-wing at this point, so it seems there’s a whole spectrum of beliefs represented here.

          • @[email protected]
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            02 days ago

            also calling people blue maga is very disengenious, they arnt right wingers so please dont associate with them.

            • @[email protected]
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              They certainly are right-wingers when the support candidates and policies that are wholly right wing. I don’t care if they think they’re leftists just because they’re voting Democrat. They’re just deluding themselves. This is the origin of the adage “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” The Democrats haven’t represented the left in decades and now they’ve moved so far right that they’re aiding in genocide, fucking the working class, and prancing around the campaign trail with Dick Cheney

        • @[email protected]
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          32 days ago

          the so-called left wing one are usually the ones we block , but they seem more like right wingers.

            • @[email protected]
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              262 days ago

              Idolizing authoritarian governments isn’t “left” no matter how much they might think it is.

            • A Wild Mimic appears!
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              102 days ago

              You ignore 50% of the political compass here - authoritarianism sucks just as much as fascism or unbridled capitalism.

              • @[email protected]
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                -12 days ago

                At the extreme, sure. Authority/Anarchy isn’t a binary selection. (Fascism is an authoritarian position, specifically it’s a right-nationalist movement centered on cultural identity)

                • @[email protected]
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                  120 hours ago

                  Pretty sure the one thing to say about fascism besides it being authoritarian is that it wants corporate control. Mussolini was debating calling it Corporatism.

                • A Wild Mimic appears!
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                  42 days ago

                  And that is exactly the situation in Russia: it’s an

                  • right-nationalist (“rescuing” suppressed people from the evil Ukraine - that one is super ironic because it’s exactly the same argumentation Germany used with the Sudetendeutsche)
                  • authoritarian (arrests for holding up empty pieces of paper, drafting for the war - but only in the poor areas far away from Moscow) regime
                  • centered on cultural identity (anti-gay laws, “restoring the CCCP”, persisting propaganda comparing the Ukraine war with WW2, "we have to defend ourselves from NATO)

                  It’s pretty late, so i don’t repeat the exercise for China or bring up more examples - i’m pretty sure that if you try to counter my points someone else will give you more examples.

              • @[email protected]
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                32 days ago

                Hexbear is specifically the shitpost refuge of displaced terminally-online /r/chapotraphouse diaspora and it’s hard to parse the layers of irony and in-joke and I’m not invested enough in that community to try and fairly represent it here. I’m not surprised that people have an aversion to it but the amount of space it takes up in some people’s head here is bonkers. The goals and culture are very different than .ml.

  • @[email protected]
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    172 days ago

    Could AI be used to create a bunch of useless chatter in the airways that they would have to sift through and waste their time? Maybe use AI for actual good.

    • Uriel238 [all pronouns]
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      IMSI spoofing is a product of wireless telephony being an ancient (way-pre-internet) technology, and we’re long in an era where law enforcement (or in this case law-enforcement coded) investigators don’t have to obey laws, such as assuring due process, and unreasonable searches disqualifying evidence. Instead they’re hunting political enemies, and every prisoner of the United States is now a political prisoner.

      It also means we don’t have to obey the law, and can start using all-frequency jammers in and around protests and ICE actions to level the playing field. (It will also interfere with regular infrastructure, but it’s not like ICE or the current regime gives half a fuck about that.

      All-frequency jammers are older tech and easier to build than IMSI spoofers, and are highly illegal since so much of our commerce and communications depend on radio. But the current [FCC] has also been captured and is failing to do its job.

      Any Amateur Radio enthusiast will know how to make a jammer. And current battery technology would assure you could make a handful that are portable and powerful enough to shut down blocks and blocks of municipal communication. This is playing pretty hardball, but then ICE isn’t playing by the rules.

      • @[email protected]
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        121 day ago

        From an RF enthusiast,

        Wideband jamming will get a lot of attention very quickly and is extremely easy to triangulate with handheld hardware and a couple of hours of training. I’d recommended against doing that.

        • bthest
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          Hide them and trigger them remotely.

          Alternate between multiple devices and relocate every time you use it.

          I bet you could waste a lot of their time with this.

        • Uriel238 [all pronouns]
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          320 hours ago

          At the point you already have a tense paramilitary operation clashing with protests in what is escalating towards lethal violence, I’m not sure finding wideband jammers will be the priority of responders in the area, at least not the first few times.

          Though in times of peace and order, wideband jamming is, yes, a big no-no.

        • @[email protected]
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          321 hours ago

          I understand it would be totally easy to triangulate if it were a single jammer, but would it be possible to triangulate a mesh of maybe half a dozen jammers. It seems like a headache to try to triangulate that because your signal strength would be all over the place.

      • @[email protected]
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        422 hours ago

        It also means we don’t have to obey the law

        Not true. Even pre ICE. Law enforcement is allowed to lie to you, but you cannot lie to them. The playing field is not level.

    • @[email protected]
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      31 day ago

      Yes/no.

      The data processing capabilities they have will far FAR outweigh anything you can effectively achieve with AI spam at your scale.

      Even if you got thousands to participate, it wouldn’t really be all that much.

      Remember, these are agencies already doing data processing on social media, meaning they’re already setup to analyze billions of messages a day.

      Texting is so low volume it’s almost comical, and people that are trying to poison the well stand out and become easy to filter.

    • Lexi Sneptaur
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      82 days ago

      If you’re in Washington as in this article, and need a lawyer after being arrested at a protest, the phone number is 206-OK-TRY-ME

      • FauxFax
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        572 days ago

        A lot of great info, but "If you choose to answer questions, be sure to tell the truth” is a mistake. Remember, anything you say “can and will be used against you.” Key word, against. Nothing you tell them will be used to help you. Remain silent.

        • @[email protected]
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          272 days ago

          Also don’t forget to actually verbally invoke your rights, being silent doesn’t invoke it in the US

          the Court held that, unless and until a criminal suspect explicitly states that they are relying on their right to remain silent, their voluntary statements may be used in court and police may continue to question them. The mere act of remaining silent is not sufficient to imply the suspect has invoked their rights even when the suspect actually intended their silence to have that effect.

          Something like: “I hereby invoke the 5th amendment right to silence, and I want to talk to a lawyer”

          Practice memorizing numbers so your experience goes smoother.

          @[email protected]

        • lemmy_acct_id_8647
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          172 days ago

          Nailed it. Am I being detained? Name and badge number? Am I free to go? This are the only questions to ask.

          The only statement you give is one word after they say you’re not free to go: lawyer.

          Call for a lawyer and don’t say another word.

        • Cethin
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          12 days ago

          It’s correct. If you choose to answer questions, you should tell the truth. That should be preceded, in bold, “don’t fucking answer questions! If the police talk to you, shut the fuck up.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 days ago

    I mean…is that not assumed to be the default? Cell phone surveillance is pretty much just business as usual in this country is it not?

    • @[email protected]
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      1312 days ago

      This is illegal without a warrant. And judges have been denying broad sweeping warrants that would cover such situations.

      • @[email protected]
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        317 hours ago

        The US Government only gives a shit when they are caught. You’d have a damn hard time trying to prove mass surveillance to a court even though we all know they do it.

        • @[email protected]
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          2 days ago

          It honestly doesn’t care about “illegal” much either 😅

          Edit: for themselves of course! Everyone else…

        • ☂️-
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          122 days ago

          never did. us three-letter-agencies have been buying data to get around pesky laws for a while now.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 days ago

        pardon me, sir, but this is illegal withou-

        click

        hey! Uncuff me! This is illegal!

        car door shuts

        Hey! Let me out of this car!

        vroooooom

        Where are we going!? You can’t take me to jail!

        arrives at jail

        Dear family, they call this place prison, it looks like prison, and I’ve been issued what they’re calling a “lawyer”, but impossible as that may be considering they didn’t have a warrant, I can only deduce that I’ve been kidnapped by a vigilante to a remote location pretending to be a prison!

      • @[email protected]
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        332 days ago

        Pretty sure this kind of thing has been illegal since before Edward Snowden became a whistleblower, tbh. The US Government hasn’t cared about people’s privacy and the laws surrounding it for decades.

        • @[email protected]
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          32 days ago

          It’s sad that people like you completely giving up are exactly why we are in an authoritarian slide.

              • lemmy_acct_id_8647
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                1 day ago

                I think they don’t give a fuck if they’re violating the law. Why don’t you get tf out of here with your self righteous bullshit kiddo.

                Fucking infighting bullshit.

                • @[email protected]
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                  11 day ago

                  Wow, you really quickly forgot how you started this of with a condescending apathetic statement.

                  It’s endearing that you think that even matters anymore

  • @[email protected]
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    202 days ago

    IMSI catchers. It’s known at least for 10 years now, that they get used on protests in US.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 days ago

    Please dont take your fucking phone to a protest. Buy a burner if you must.

    You will be tracked. And spied on. And facial recognitioned. Etc.

    • lemmy_acct_id_8647
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      192 days ago

      I honestly thought this was common knowledge but obviously I was wrong. I get the need to video and document but damn. Don’t use your daily driver folks.

      • dejected_warp_core
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        62 days ago

        Hot take: Let the press document things, and leave the burner-phone stuff to security professionals. The press more or less requires attribution, so let them front that risk. Meanwhile digital anonymity starts at point-of-sale and is not easy for just anyone to pull off. The overwhelming majority of people are just better off just showing up “naked”.

    • @[email protected]
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      21 day ago

      Amen!

      Digital camera + SD card (about $100) and save the little plastic container that came with the SD card in case you have to swallow it.

    • @[email protected]
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      52 days ago

      In some countries, like Greece, you can’t use an unregistered phone number.

      Since phone numbers are tied to people’s identities, does it really matter whether you use a burner or your main?

      • @[email protected]
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        Then don’t take a phone. If you’re an organizer who needs to communicate, get a wifi/bt only tablet, look up mesh networks that use bluetooth and wifi, learn encryption and learn code words.

        It’s trivial to jam any wireless network. All jamming is it to flood the rf range with loud static. But you can still take measures to keep from being spied on.

        Edit: also look into if MAC address spoofing. Not entirely sure which models of phones support that, officially or otherwise though.

        • @[email protected]
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          62 days ago

          I used to watch The Hated One, who has also made similar recommendations for strikes. He has suggested the use of Briar, as it can fallback to Bluetooth connectivity.

          However, I mostly wanted to point out that burner phones is not the answer for everyone. People need to be familiar with their local laws to stay safe.

          • @[email protected]
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            72 days ago

            BRIAR IS NOT ANONYMOUS

            Its for censorship resistance, but, in order for the mesh network to be able to identify each other’s device and initiate connections, by design it transmits your bluetooth MAC address to all your contacts, even those added via the internet.

          • @[email protected]
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            62 days ago

            Isn’t Bluetooth a bad idea because it’s bouncing off nearby phones and reporting your position?

            Honestly, I think it’s best to put it (preferable a burner phone and not your everyday phone) in a faraday bag and don’t use it unless absolutely necessary and if you want to take photos/video, buy a 2000s era digicam from eBay.

        • Curious Canid
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          42 days ago

          We got some Meshtastic radios that we use for protests (as well as for protests). They solve most of the problems quite neatly.

          • @[email protected]
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            32 days ago

            As long as it’s a self contained communication version and doesn’t require using the meshtadtic phone app

            • Curious Canid
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              115 hours ago

              I’m getting a T-Deck, but I don’t feel too bad about using Bluetooth on a phone, as long as everything else is disabled. It isn’t hard to track, but it will be a distant third after cell and Wifi in terms of what the authorities will be tracking. Not ideal, but an acceptable compromise for now.

  • m3t00🌎
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    102 days ago

    if you’ve ever used a radar detector you know, people drive like they are always being watched. not often in my experience. doubt these dolts are real sophisticated. fear is their main weapon.

    • @[email protected]
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      322 hours ago

      I don’t understand the entire first half of your comment. The only explanation I have for how well received it was would have to be the last two sentences which resonated with people.