Privacy

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εxodus analyzes Android applications in order to list the embedded trackers.

A tracker is a piece of software meant to collect data about you or your usages. So, εxodus reports tell you what are the ingredients of the cake.

εxodus does not decompile applications, its analysis method is legal.

Cross posted from https://lemmy.today/post/49243488

Cross posted from https://sh.itjust.works/post/44409906

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/44409898

In case you were trying to rearrange your schedule to attend this important meeting, it has once again been removed from the agenda and there is a possibility the entire criminal justice subcommittee meeting will be cancelled (again).

Keep emailing your council person, checking for updates, and keep spreading information about this. There is way too much crazy stuff to keep up with, and they definitely don't make it easy to follow what is actually going on in your own city, but the ordinance itself is still on the table.

This is not inevitable as long as we refuse to let it go, and refusing to accept this is not "standing in the way of progress." Progress is when society benefits from the technology it controls, not the other way around. If we have no say in how this first of its kind technology is being used in our own community, then who is controlling it and who is benefitting?

The House on Friday voted by unanimous consent to extend a controversial surveillance program until April 30.

Earlier in the morning GOP leaders had pushed for either a five-year renewal or the 18-month renewal President Trump had demanded, but both votes tanked.

The stop-gap measure was pushed through and Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was set to expire Monday, now heads to the Senate.

The tool allows U.S. intelligence agencies to intercept the electronic communications of foreign nationals located outside of the United States.

If passed, the bill would apply across the U.S., unlike the state-level laws already around.

The U.S. has been quietly building up a set of state-level laws that push operating system providers into the age verification plague.

California's AB 1043, signed in October 2025, requires OS providers to collect age data at account setup and pipe it to apps through a real-time API. It kicks in on January 1, 2027.

Colorado is working on something nearly identical. SB26-051 (which we covered when it was still a proposal) passed the state Senate 28-7 on March 3, 2026, and is now waiting on a House vote to become law there too.

However, these are just state-level laws. A new federal bill, H.R.8250, introduced on April 13, 2026, by Rep. Josh Gottheimer, with Rep. Elise M. Stefanik signing on as cosponsor, has us intrigued.

The official title of the bill reads, "To require operating system providers to verify the age of any user of an operating system, and for other purposes." But that's a mouthful; the short version is "Parents Decide Act."

If you go by the full title, the bill is pretty self-explanatory; it is going to require every operating system provider to verify the age of its user who wants to use their OS, and vaguely enough, for any "other purposes."

It has been referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and currently sits at step one (Introduced) of five in the legislative process. No bill text has been published; there's no summary, no subject tags, and no related bills attached to it.

That means right now, the only thing formally known about H.R.8250 is its title, its sponsors, and where it got sent.

Gottheimer's office published a press release on April 2, 2026, announcing the bill 11 days before it was formally introduced. That press release was unavailable for a while, but it is now back up.

According to the announcement, the bill would require OS developers to verify user age at device setup, allow parents to set content controls right there, and have those settings flow through to apps and platforms on the device.

Apple and Google were the companies Gottheimer named as the intended targets, with the framing centered entirely around phones and tablets.

But here's where it gets interesting for anyone outside the Apple and Google ecosystem. Gottheimer's press release framed this entirely around commercial mobile platforms. The official bill title, as you saw earlier, does not.

If the bill text matches the breadth of that title, Linux distributions and other open source operating platforms would sit squarely within its scope. And a federal bill passing would mean one nationwide compliance requirement replacing the current state-by-state situation.

The representative also voiced support for several groups, which include the likes of:

Meta Parents Network
Common Sense Media
FairPlay

Evidently, things are getting more absurd with each passing day, and I can't wait for the day when access to anything electronic is locked behind a gate, guarded by the most decent and righteous upholders of the law. /s

This is a concept still in the making. I came across a few people discussing it, and I found next to nothing about it online. I thought it is important and I post it here to give it some traction.

The core idea that appealed to me is that it extends the idea that the processing power and bandwidth of modern devices is not used for our own sake, but to better funnel behavioral data to corporations.

So it is not just "so stupid design" that "we don't even feel devices are 10x faster than 15 years ago", but deliberate design to use the hardware capabilities for the sake of other people's computers.

The countercomputing philosophy asks, down to the chipset, what is the most repairable, reusable component, that can help the user fortify their computing and harness it as independently as possible.

It is obviously a thought that resonates with the right-to-repair movement, privacy, and other politics related with renewable energy, but with a particular focus in selecting each and every component so that we own the hardware and we can use it as we see fit. Other links can be drawn to the smallnet initiatives such as gemini protocol, alternative nets like Reticulum, and of course open hardware.

The retro angle can offer flexibility to movements to rely on simpler components and adjust their needs, something that will also lead to greater independence >from Nvidia and the like.

As I said, there are very few people discussing this idea right now, and you can't find much online, but it is worth to "look out for" possible developments in the future.

Author @whydudothatdrcrane@lemmy.ml

I found this, it's about the data broker loophole. The problem is, in the US we have 4th Amendment protection against warantless searches. Many other nations, have a similar right, by another name. Canada has Section 8 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

These are more and more bypassed by data brokers. The government purchases data from data brokers. Data it could not get without a warant in the past.

Maybe this is not as much a problem yet in Canada as in the US? I'm not sure, hope some Canadians can say how it is? But here in the US, it's a massive prob now.

Related: We Built a Surveillance State: What Now?

I'd like to procure some fitness tracking devices for myself and my partner. Something like FitBit to track heart rate, sleep schedule, etc. Ideally, they do not require 3rd party data collection or services in any way. I'm open to manual steps and/or self-hosting software as needed.

Can anyone here recommend specific brands or devices?