Hacker News with Generative AI: Privacy

Google is allowing advertisers to fingerprint you (ghacks.net)
Google has announced a change to its advertising policies that will allow advertisers to use digital fingerprinting starting February 16, 2025.

Privacy, Google, Advertising, Digital Fingerprinting

11 points by lr0 6 hours ago | 0 comments

GrapheneOS: Private and secure mobile OS with Android app compatibility (grapheneos.org)
GrapheneOS is a privacy and security focused mobile OS with Android app compatibility developed as a non-profit open source project.

Privacy, Security, Open Source, Android

22 points by saikatsg 9 hours ago | 8 comments

Ask HN: Google forcibly enabled Gemini in our Corp Org. How to disable? (ycombinator.com)
Google is playing strong arm tactics trying to get ahead of their competition. Our users logged in yesterday to see Gemini enabled in Gmail.

Google, Corporate IT, Gemini, User Interface, Privacy

30 points by exabrial 12 hours ago | 16 comments

GM banned from sharing driving and location data with insurance companies (techcrunch.com)
We regularly hear stories about companies that are selling your sensitive personal information — including your location data — to the highest bidder. The latest culprit appears to be General Motors.

Privacy, Automotive Industry, Data Security, Consumer Protection

29 points by belter 13 hours ago | 5 comments

GM parks claims driver location data was given to insurers, pushing up premiums (theregister.com)
General Motors on Thursday said that it has reached a settlement with the FTC "to address privacy concerns about our now-discontinued Smart Driver program."

Privacy, Automotive, Insurance, Lawsuits, Data

59 points by pseudolus 14 hours ago | 55 comments

FTC Statement in the Matter of Snap, Inc.'s AI Chatbot [pdf] (ftc.gov)

FTC, Artificial Intelligence, Chatbots, Privacy, Regulation

3 points by impish9208 15 hours ago | 0 comments

General Motors Is Banned from Selling Driving Behavior Data for 5 Years (nytimes.com)
The Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday that it had reached a settlement with General Motors that would ban the automaker from providing drivers’ behavior and geolocation data to consumer reporting agencies.

Privacy, Law, Automotive, Business, Data

183 points by mmooss 23 hours ago | 171 comments

Elon Musk leaks private direct messages (twitter.com)

Elon Musk, Twitter, Privacy, Leaks, Social Media

15 points by possibilistic 1 day ago | 2 comments

Google.com search now refusing to search for FF esr 128 without JavaScript (ycombinator.com)
Google.com search now refusing to search for FF esr 128 without JavaScript

Google, Search Engines, Privacy, Web Browsers, JavaScript

92 points by superkuh 2 days ago | 79 comments

Your Exercise Gear Reserves The Right To Track And Sell Data On How You Smell (techdirt.com)
A new Consumer Reports study unsurprisingly finds that popular exercise equipment makers collect way more data on users than is necessary, then sell access to that data to a wide variety of dodgy and largely unregulated data brokers and middle men, who in turn generally play fast and loose with it.

Privacy, Fitness, Data Privacy, Consumer Reports, Data Brokers

9 points by hn_acker 2 days ago | 0 comments

NSA Warns iPhone and Android Users–Disable Location Tracking (forbes.com)
Our phones know where we are and they know where we have been—the problem is they have a nasty habit of sharing that information with others. And the latest location tracking nightmare to hit phone users shows the threat remains, despite new protections built into our iPhone and Android devices. NSA has warned users how to stop this secretive tracking—and you need to make this change now.

Privacy, Cybersecurity, Mobile Devices, Android, iPhone

8 points by taimurkazmi 2 days ago | 2 comments

Don't Use Session (Signal Fork) (soatok.blog)
Last year, I outlined the specific requirements that an app needs to have in order for me to consider it a Signal competitor.

Privacy, Messaging Apps, Open Source

67 points by xena 3 days ago | 12 comments

Proof of location for online polls (ip-vote.com)
Information about a device's physical location can be inferred by measuring the time it takes for signals to travel between the device and a known server location.

Privacy, Online Voting, Security, Location Data

108 points by c-riq 3 days ago | 86 comments

Allstate used GasBuddy and other apps to track driving behavior: lawsuit (arstechnica.com)
Texas has sued insurance provider Allstate, alleging that the firm and its data broker subsidiary used data from apps like GasBuddy, Routely, and Life360 to quietly track drivers and adjust or cancel their policies.

Privacy, Lawsuits, Insurance, Data Tracking, Mobile Apps

137 points by athousandsteps 3 days ago | 188 comments

Google’s OAuth login doesn’t protect against purchasing a failed startup domain (trufflesecurity.com)
Millions of Americans can have their data stolen right now because of a deficiency in Google’s “Sign in with Google” authentication flow. If you’ve worked for a startup in the past - especially one that has since shut down - you might be vulnerable.

Security, Google, Startups, Privacy

497 points by simiones 3 days ago | 285 comments

Proton: We're giving away over $1M to support a better internet (proton.me)
This year’s Lifetime Account Charity Fundraiser was a record-breaking success, generating over $1 million to directly support organizations fighting for privacy, freedom of expression, and human rights worldwide.

Privacy, Human Rights, Nonprofits, Fundraising, Internet

146 points by teekert 4 days ago | 44 comments

How to turn off Apple Intelligence on your iPhone (theverge.com)
It’s getting increasingly difficult to avoid AI when you open up your phone or laptop — as soon as I started this article in Google Docs, I was immediately offered some AI assistance to write it (which I didn’t take). And with the rollout of Apple Intelligence, that now applies to iPhones, iPads, and Macs, too.

Privacy, Artificial Intelligence, Mobile Devices, Apple

39 points by laktak 5 days ago | 29 comments

Facebook blocks links to Pixelfed, a federated Instagram alternative (bsky.app)

Social Media, Privacy, Decentralization

178 points by boramalper 5 days ago | 66 comments

Superior Internet Privacy with Whonix (whonix.org)
Whonix gives your desktop Maximum privacy and anonymity on the Internet More reliability and security than any other tool on the market!

Privacy, Security, Anonymity, Operating Systems

41 points by doener 5 days ago | 11 comments

Qubes OS: A reasonably secure operating system (qubes-os.org)

Security, Operating Systems, Privacy

175 points by doener 5 days ago | 115 comments

Chatham House Rule is suddenly everywhere in the Bay Area (sfstandard.com)
At the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, starting Monday in San Francisco, 8,000 insurance providers, pharma investors, and execs from Open AI, Amazon, and Meta will announce mergers, discuss advances in AI diagnostics and gene therapies, and puzzle over FDA scrutiny and compliance issues. But many of the sessions and “what’s next” debates will follow the Chatham House Rule — a gag order that prevents attendees from attributing information to speakers or sharing names or affiliations of other guests.

Healthcare, Conferences, Privacy, Artificial Intelligence, Business

132 points by mrry 6 days ago | 252 comments

Homomorphic encryption in iOS 18 (boehs.org)
You are Apple. You want to make search work like magic in the Photos app, so the user can find all their “dog” pictures with ease. You devise a way to numerically represent the concepts of an image, so that you can find how closely images are related in meaning. Then, you create a database of known images and their numerical representations (“this number means car”), and find the closest matches. To preserve privacy, you put this database on the phone.

Privacy, Image Recognition, Security

372 points by surprisetalk 6 days ago | 205 comments

PrivTracker – Private BitTorrent tracker for everyone (privtracker.com)
PrivTracker allows to share torrent files just with your friends, nobody else.

Privacy, BitTorrent, Sharing, Community

189 points by prvt 7 days ago | 37 comments

ChatGPT knows which country I'm in, despite conversation memory set to 'off' (imgur.com)

ChatGPT, Privacy, Artificial Intelligence, Location Data

6 points by nomilk 7 days ago | 12 comments

Homomorphic Encryption in iOS 18 (boehs.org)
You are Apple. You want to make search work like magic in the Photos app, so the user can find all their “dog” pictures with ease. You devise a way to numerically represent the concepts of an image, so that you can find how closely images are related in meaning. Then, you create a database of known images and their numerical representations (“this number means car”), and find the closest matches. To preserve privacy, you put this database on the phone.

Privacy, Mobile Security, Machine Learning, Image Recognition, iOS

10 points by vsgherzi 7 days ago | 0 comments

Securely Disposing of Smart Devices (rapid7.com)
So, what did you get for Christmas this year?

Security, Privacy, Technology, E-Waste

12 points by mooreds 8 days ago | 5 comments

On Google’s Policy Change Towards Fingerprinting (lukaszolejnik.com)
While I once hoped 2017 would be the year of privacy, 2024 closes on a troubling note, a likely decrease in privacy standards across the web. I was surprised by the recent Information Commissioner’s Office post, which criticized Google’s decision to introduce device fingerprinting for advertising purposes from February 2025. According to ICO, this change risks undermining user control and transparency in how personal data is collected and used.

Privacy, Google, Web, Advertising, Regulations

48 points by MasterPI 8 days ago | 60 comments

Candy Crush, Tinder, MyFitnessPal: Apps hijacked to spy on location (wired.com)
Some of the world’s most popular apps are likely being co-opted by rogue members of the advertising industry to harvest sensitive location data on a massive scale, with that data ending up with a location data company whose subsidiary has previously sold global location data to US law enforcement.

Privacy, Mobile Apps, Data Security, Advertising

187 points by gnabgib 8 days ago | 108 comments

See the Thousands of Apps Hijacked to Spy on Your Location (404media.co)
Some of the world’s most popular apps are likely being co-opted by rogue members of the advertising industry to harvest sensitive location data on a massive scale, with that data ending up with a location data company whose subsidiary has previously sold global location data to US law enforcement.

Privacy, Security, Mobile Apps, Advertising

37 points by diogenes_atx 8 days ago | 12 comments

How to delete your Facebook account (theverge.com)
You may be wondering how to delete your Facebook account now that fact-checking is no longer considered important, and Meta’s changing its definition of what constitutes Hateful Conduct. It’s easy to do, and we’ll show you how. But you should download all your stuff first.

Social Media, Privacy, Facebook

117 points by battle-racket 8 days ago | 109 comments