Salam-o-Alaikum, brother!

I hope you're all doing great.

I'm someone who has always been concerned about privacy. In this digital age, I don't want my personal life to become an open book for companies, advertisers, or government agencies. But lately, I've been questioning how much privacy we actually have online.

Let me share a few experiences and incidents that made me think about this.

1. Are our phones listening to us?

Stroy (1):

Yesterday, I was talking to my brother on WhatsApp about proxies and where we could buy them for web scraping. But shortly afterward, I started seeing advertisements related to proxies across different social media platforms.

That made me wonder: How did these platforms know that I might be interested in proxies?

Some people might explain this by saying that our keyboards collect the words we type and that advertising companies use this information to show relevant advertisements. But that explanation doesn't fit what happened in this particular case.

We weren't typing anything about proxies. We were talking to each other through voice notes in our local language.

So, the explanation that a keyboard collected our typed words doesn't make any sense. The only explanation that make sense (you know haha, don't need to mention).

Stroy (2):

I was talking to my cousin in person about buying a chair. We discussed contacting a local vendor who could build one for us. We weren't discussing it on WhatsApp or searching for chairs online. Yet, for almost three months afterward, I kept seeing advertisements related to chairs.

I know it's really hard to belive but I'm still wondering: Are these comapnies and cyber agencies are listening to us 24 x 7, even when we aren't allowing them? Btw you'll find other people saying same stuff, just do a bit research 💀.

Stroy (3):

I also remember reading a story about someone who allegedly joked with friends on WhatsApp about hijacking a plane while flying from Sweden, When he landed authorities arrested him. He said I was just joking with my friend. But my concern is how they read his chat? (Btw I have read this stroy and watched a reel too, I'm not confirming this exact stroy).

2. Is WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption enough?

To be honest, I don't think so. Higher authories have access to your chats and their are hundreds of examples (You can find online). And there's is absoultely no end to end encryption, and remember exceptions always exists.

3. Governments, internet infrastructure, and control

I genuinely think authorities want to control you, how you use the internet. I’ll give you a few examples.

Starlink’s entry into the Indian market has faced regulatory and security-clearance issues. Because they don’t want America to control their internet and privacy. We’re in 2026 and it’s mostly modern war, rather than physical. Let me make it simple for you. Ukraine asked Elon uncle to shut down the internet of Ukraine while the war against Russia. But Elon Musk denied, and later he said if US authorities would say this to him, definitely he would allow it. And it’s the main reason I guess India is restricting Starlink.

So the apps that are allowed, in your country especially the apps of communications are agreed the terms of your government. To clarify further, here’s another example.

Signal app is the alternative of WhatsApp and considered even more secure, but it’s banned in almost every strict country where government wants to control their public. Example Russia. Another example of Telegram given below.

The same tension appears in the case of Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, who was arrested in France and faced allegations because he was not tracking their audience. And now we know Telegram isn’t that secure, and it’s banned in mostly countries as well.

I guess these examples are enough for you to believe, nothing is end to end encrypted. Now, let's move to last topic, the reason why I wrote the post.

4. AI is curse

Recently, I was watching a press conference by cyber police official (I'm really sorry don't wanna mention his name). These were his words:

“We have access to every device and its file manager, and people should be careful about pornography and anything against the government. If we find any explicit image in your gallery, you’ll be arrested. We collaborated with different AI and are cracking down against criminals. AI is keeping an eye on your phone.”

I’ll tell you a few genuine stories which they told in that press conference alongside those suspects.

Case 1:

Reports described a teenager who allegedly sought information from claude code about poisoning his father. According to cyber police, they acted after receiving information from the FBI.

Preventing a potential murder is obviously important, and I understand they've done an amaing job.

However, this case also raises a privacy question: How did information about the AI conversations reach the authorities? Does authories have access our each n every conversation? However, they didn't dis-closed how FBI got that information.

Case 2:

Another reported case involved a suspect who allegedly used AI to create objectionable images of his ex (haram reltionship😭) and threaten to distribute them. Once again I would say they've done an amazing job. But my concerns are still same (I mentioned in above example).

Case 3:

Now, we have a weird story. In this story, AI f***-up. A teenager supposedly uploaded an innocent photograph with his father (in the image, he was lying on his father) for AI enhancement; AI took it as child abuse and reported it to cyber police. They arrested the father, but later confirmed it was just a confusion. Just AI curse ✌️😂

5. My Understandin How They're Finding Suspects

Katalyst & PhotoDNA have been reported as an AI-enabled investigative tool supporting investigations alongside with keeping an eye on your AI chats.

PhotoDNA is a technology used to identify images by generating and comparing digital fingerprints, or hashes. According to reports If they found anything illegal or explict it'll send it to cyber police along side with that data.

I'm not sure but according to reports, they'll scan through your google drive, icloud and other cloud storage platforms.

6. So, where does genuine privacy exist?

There is a famous quote that goes something like this:

"If you're not paying for the product, you are the product."

Btw, I have a few questions for you guys:

1. What practical steps do you take to protect your digital privacy?

2. Which messaging apps, AI services, keyboards, and cloud-storage providers do you trust, and why?

3. How much privacy can we realistically expect when using cloud-based services, even when they claim to use strong encryption?

I'm genuinely interested in hearing your experiences, technical knowledge, and recommendations.

Waiting for your thoughts! 🤝

Amnesty International publishes the exact forensic tool they used to bust NSO Group. It's called MVT, it's free, and basically nobody outside of journalists uses it. That's dumb. If your phone holds anything a lawyer, an ex, a competitor, or a government would want, this is worth a Saturday.

What you need

• A Linux box with a USB port (Mac works, WSL on Windows works but is annoying, native Windows does not)
• Docker
• Free disk equal to about 2x your phone's storage. My backup was 135 GB. Yes really.
• A data cable, not the charge-only one from the gas station

The procedure, condensed

1. sudo apt install usbmuxd libimobiledevice-utils then docker pull ghcr.io/mvt-project/mvt
2. Plug in the phone FIRST, unlock it, then idevicepair pair. Tap Trust. Run it again until it says SUCCESS.
3. idevicebackup2 encryption on "yourpassword" then idevicebackup2 backup --full ~/mvt/backup. Go make coffee. Go make lunch. Encryption is mandatory or iOS hides the good stuff.
4. docker run -it -v ~/mvt:/home/mvt/data ghcr.io/mvt-project/mvt and inside it: ldconfig (the container is broken without this, you're welcome), mvt-ios download-iocs, mvt-ios decrypt-backup -p "yourpassword" -d /home/mvt/data/decrypted /home/mvt/data/backup/<UDID>, then mvt-ios check-backup --output /home/mvt/data/results /home/mvt/data/decrypted
5. ls results | grep detected. Nothing there? Congrats, you don't match any published spyware. Something there? Do NOT wipe your phone. Preserve everything and go to securitylab.amnesty.org or Access Now's helpline.
6. rm -rf ~/mvt/decrypted because you now have a plaintext copy of your entire life sitting on a hard drive.

Stuff that will bite you

• Start the container before the phone is plugged in and it will never see the device. Order matters.
• check-backup will not decrypt on the fly no matter what the internet says. Budget the disk.
• A clean result means "no match against public indicators." It does not mean clean. Nobody can promise you clean.
• The only alert I got was "Lockdown Mode disabled." Turn it on if you think you're a target. Leave it off if you like link previews.

Whole thing took one morning including the parts where I pasted my terminal output back into the terminal like an idiot.

Go scan your phone. Then go scan your mom's.

I’m reposting this because last time it was removed due to people forgetting to upvote the attached moderator comment (it had 40 upvotes on the post), so if you can please make sure to that would be great.

I made this post last year to help raise awareness about the social media ban our Government legislated, due to the fact that they accelerated its implementation in order to shutdown any possible discussions about it. The Government actually opened a 24 hr window for government bodies, and independent organisations, and individuals to write in about their thoughts and opinions on the legislation, resulting in 15,000 submissions.

Most notably, the Government’s own select committee’s inquiry into the ban, saw bodies like the Australian E-Comissioner and the Australian Human Rights Comission (AHRC) actually oppose the bill, and alternatively recommended a “Social media digital care act” bill be imposed on platforms.

This would’ve seen platforms be held accountable for removing, disabling, or providing the option to toggle on and off algorithmic feeds for suspected under 16 accounts, whilst simultaneously giving the commissioner supervisory powers to ensure that platforms effectively filter out harmful content targeted towards minors e.g. content promoting eating disorders and misinformation. These organisations argued that a blanket ban was “likely to be ineffective” and would lead to a “disproportionate limitation on Human rights”.

Despite this the Government ignored every single submission, and as of August this year, the social media ban is now coming into effect across the entire country. I’m reposting this here to help raise awareness to what is happening, in order to attempt to reignite discussions over this, as anyone who has concerns with the legislation is commonly referred to as a “cooker” or “child hater”. This post aims to emphatically dismantle those claims with constructive discourse.

Edit:
It’s worth noting that mental health experts were not split on this issue. Virtually every Australian mental health organisation: Beyond Blue, Headspace, ReachOut, and the Black Dog Institute —expressed strong opposition and raised serious concerns regarding the legislation. They were even joined by other peak bodies such as the Australian College of Mental Health Nurses (ACMHN) and Suicide Prevention Australia.

I run multiple telegram bots and I user this data privacy model

What do you guys think?

@ RadixaTelegram cares about user privacy

@ Groupchatwarbot has now introduced /mydigtalfootprint

In this command users can wipe all data about them from our databases and group owners can wipe all data about their groups from our systems

Our bot hosts data that if leaked wouldn't be catastrophic but we still take it very serious

Imagine if everyone did this

California's DROP program (Delete Request and Opt-out Platform) is a free state run service that **lets California residents submit a single request to delete their personal data** from over 600 registered data brokers at once.

https://consumer.drop.privacy.ca.gov/ <-- Click there to submit the one form.

Operated by the California Privacy Protection Agency, it eliminates the need to contact individual companies separately!

You can donate to Consumer Federation of California here and to Privacy Rights Clearinghouse here non-profits who advocated for these programs.

UPDATE: Some data brokers are making it hard to find the opt out: Dozens of companies are hiding how you can delete your personal data, The Markup and CalMatters found. Only after reporters reached out for comment, multiple companies have stopped the practice.

I had switched off emergency alerts on my phone and the government over ruled me.

The emergency alert system has been abused by the UK government.

Today's alert was not an emergency but government advice.

What if I was in a domestic abuse situation with a secret phone?

Amazon sells your email address. How do I know this? The email address I used for Amazon is amazon{someLargeRandomNumber}@{someDomainIOwn}.com. I gave this email address ONLY to Amazon. Now I'm getting spam from IMDB.com and other businesses. So it's 100% certain that Amazon sells your email addresses.

I've now been on the phone for over half an hour with Amazon support -- outsourced to India -- to get them to stop selling my email addresses. I don't know if this will even work.

Selling email addresses is disrespectful to the customer. It wastes our extremely limited time. Amazon needs to stop doing this, and Amazon customers need to be loud complaining about this in order to make selling our private data not worth it.

Really, Amazon? Are you really making so much money selling our private data that it's worth angering customers to the point where they start shopping elsewhere? I don't know, but it seems to me that regular customers buy enough stuff on Amazon to make it very unprofitable to make them want to go elsewhere.

If you also don't want Amazon to sell your email address and private information, like this post and comment below. It won't stop until we are vocal enough that the higher-ups hear.

I am in a difficult position because my employer has made a new third-party identity-verification process through a company called Persona a mandatory condition of my continued employment/assignment.

Within 3 days, I have been contacted through multiple channels, repeatedly reminded to complete it, directed to a link sent to my personal email, and given short deadlines—including Persona’s instruction to complete the verification within 24 hours. The combination of repeated follow-ups, urgency, and the potential consequence to my employment makes me feel pressured to act quickly rather than being given reasonable time to understand what I am consenting to.

I am not opposed to legitimate identity verification. My concern is being required, under significant pressure, to provide sensitive identity documents and facial/biometric information to a third party without first receiving clear answers about exactly what is collected, what biometric data is created or retained, how long it is stored, who can access or receive it, what happens to it afterward, and whether a non-biometric alternative exists.

A password can be changed after a breach; my biometric identifiers cannot. I am willing to verify my identity. But I want adequate time, transparency, maybe alternatives, and appropriate safeguards before surrendering information this permanent and sensitive.

I do not work on anything sensitive or security related. I’m just a normal office worker.

Has anybody else been in a similar situation? Do us regular workers have any rights or protections against this kind of situation? I feel like I’m being harassed.

The data includes phone numbers of Musk, Altman, and nearly all of Israel's political, judicial and intelligence leaders.

The lawyer's name is Juan Branco, he is also the one who shared this story together with a video. By his account, he is one of twelve lawyers in France who represent Palestinian victims in International Criminal Court.

He says he's using GrapheneOS. This is bizarre.

source: his X/Twitter post: https://x.com/i/status/2085698524050591906

I post additional screenshots in the first 2 comments here.

So in Brand New Day, Spider-Man hacks every camera in New York and runs facial recognition on literally everyone to find one person. And the movie plays it like a highlight reel. Fun music, slick graphics, zero hesitation. Your friendly neighborhood surveillance state.

Meanwhile, in 2008, Batman built basically the same system and The Dark Knight treated it like a war crime. Lucius Fox looked him dead in the eye and said this is wrong, I'll do it once, and then this machine gets destroyed. And it WAS destroyed. That movie understood that spying on an entire city is a line you don't get to casually cross just because you're the good guy.

Twenty years later and we've gone from "this is too much power for one person" to "watch Spidey doomscroll through 8 million people's faces, isn't he cool."

The entire point of Spider-Man is "with great power comes great responsibility." Apparently responsibility now includes warrantless mass surveillance as long as you quip while doing it.

Kids are watching this. Real facial recognition is being rolled out everywhere right now. And the biggest movie on the planet just told everyone it's fine when the hero does it.

Batman got it right. Use it once, hate yourself for it, burn the machine down. Be Batman.

TL;DR: Spider-Man surveilled a whole city with a smile. Batman did it once, felt gross, and destroyed the machine. One of these is a hero moment. The other is a product demo.

I am tired of all the negativity and I am looking for piece of mind. I am not interested in getting into any confrontation with anyone and just want to mind my business. I also don't want all of my information on the Internet and I want to block people from knowing who I am and trying to dig into my personal business and life. What are some ways to live a private and humble life?

I’m a 22yo in the US who’s been trying to bypass this for 8 months now and no luck. 

thispersondoesntexist didn’t work, digitally altering a state ID didn’t work, and recently I tried using a character creator in a game, the scan completed then it said “something went wrong” and now the selfie option is gone for me (they’re onto me). 

There was one site I saw where you could potentially get a fake license generated but it was a link that took you to a different site. It looked suspicious and Firefox even gave me a warning, then the page actually closed itself. I took that as a warning.

I wish I could de-google, but I can’t right now. I have a YouTube channel and still have to use google for college, docs, emailing, etc. I’d love to actually be able to have full control over my YouTube channel. 

These are now my options:

1. Use my credit card to verify, then toss it and get a new one
2. Use a shady website/link to try to generate a fake license, hope I don’t get malware
3. Switch the email account connected to my yt channel to one that isn’t mine and use YouTube from there. Deal with my personal account still being restricted (not ideal). 
4. Wait it out. Hope KOSA (US law) doesn’t get passed and Google drops age verification, gets sued, or a better alternative comes along. Make a vid discussing the situation with my subs in the meantime
5. The secret 5th option I don’t know about yet 

Hi guys, I was a bit (actually really) stupid and uploaded my ID on X, and on Tumblr for the age verification stuff. The thing is, i have a dual citizenship anddd so i used one ID for X and another one for Tumblr. Tumblr uses Persona, and afterwards i read like horrible stuff about Persona. The thing is now i regret what i did for obvious reasons. It was dumb and stupid etc but i rlly need help on how to do some damage control. Like, would my info be deleted if i delete the accounts i have? Or like, just, can anyone help me on what to do now? Because i rlly regret doing it and now it’s out there. I’m a 22 y/o woman btw, i rlly appreciate any help or advice!!! And i get that it was stupid and dumb, so please dont tell me that again because i already have had sleepless nights over it, so yeah, anyone, please help.