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Search - "#spy"
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- Hello! Gordon's pizza?
- No sir it's Google's pizza.
- So it's a wrong number?
- No sir, Google bought it.
- OK. Take my order please ..
- Well sir, you want the usual?
- The usual? You know me?
- According to our caller ID, in the last 12 times, you ordered pizza with cheeses, sausage, thick crust
- OK! This is it
- May I suggest to you this time ricotta, arugula with dry tomato?
- No, I hate vegetables
- But your cholesterol is not good
- How do you know?
- Through the subscribers guide. We have the result of your blood tests for the last 7 years
- Okay, but I do not want this pizza, I already take medicine
- You have not taken the medicine regularly, 4 months ago, you only purchased a box with 30 tablets at Drugsale Network
- I bought more from another drugstore
- It's not showing on your credit card
- I paid in cash
- But you did not withdraw that much cash according to your bank statement
- I have other source of cash
- This is not showing as per you last Tax form unless you got it from undeclared income source
-WHAT THE HELL? Enough! I'm sick of Google, Facebook, twitter, WhatsApp. I'm going to an Island without internet,where there is no cell phone line and no one to spy on me
- I understand sir, but you need to renew your passport as it has expired 5 weeks ago..42 -
Holy mother of god, 100K!
Honestly what happened? Upvote sprees or something?!
I left devRant with 95K this morning 😱
I'll do a bigger rant later, just came out of work, most of the day went well but last hour was more stressful than anything so gonna go home (have a coffee on the way) now and prepare an emergency security blog article (something happened in the security/spy world).
Thanks peoples!24 -
Dude: Come on man, Google and/or Facebook are not actively listening to us, I mean, we're not terrorists.
Me: Ok, Google
Google Asistant: How can I help you?
Dude: ._.4 -
Wow, just wow.
The Dutch national security spy agency and also their military one are complaining that the organisation that was brought to life to check if they don't spy on innocent people (and execute illegal hacks and overstep their surveillance powers etc) is investigating too much and asking too many technical questions relating to ongoing operations.
Well, this shows that this is necessary apparently! I'm glad this organisation is doing their job.
Oh, the irony.13 -
Hello! Is this Gordon’s Pizza?
No sir, it’s Google’s Pizza.
Did I dial the wrong number?
No sir, Google bought the pizza store.
Oh, alright - then I’d like to place an order please.
Okay sir, do you want the usual?
The usual? You know what my usual is?
According to the caller ID, the last 15 times you’ve ordered a 12-slice with double-cheese, sausage, and thick crust.
Okay - that’s what I want this time too.
May I suggest that this time you order an 8-slice with ricotta, arugula, and tomato instead?
No, I hate vegetables.
But your cholesterol is not good.
How do you know?
Through the subscribers guide. We have the results of your blood tests for the last 7 years.
Maybe so, but I don’t want the pizza you suggest – I already take medicine for high cholesterol.
But you haven’t taken the medicine regularly. 4 months ago you purchased from Drugsale Network a box of only 30 tablets.
I bought more from another drugstore.
It’s not showing on your credit card sir.
I paid in cash.
But according to your bank statement you did not withdraw that much cash.
I have another source of cash.
This is not showing on your last tax form, unless you got it from an undeclared income source.
WHAT THE HELL? ENOUGH! I’m sick of Google, Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp. I’m going to an island without internet, where there’s no cellphone line, and no one to spy on me …
I understand sir, but you’ll need to renew your passport … it expired 5 weeks ago.16 -
"I don't care if the government spies on me, I have nothing (criminal) to hide."
Uhm... but... if you have nothing criminal to hide.... then why'd they have to spy on you/collect your data...?
After all you didn't do anything illegal...58 -
Me: "We are gonna move away from Google services."
Him: "Ok. Just make it EXACTLY like Googles services. I won't use anything with less features."
Me: "Look, I can offer you something with more privacy and security under european law. It may not be EXACTLY like Google. If I could do that I wouldn't be here obviously."
Him: "As long as I'll work here I'll not work with something less than Google."
Inner me: AAAARGHHH FOR FUCKS SAKE!! I'LL STICK THOSE GOOGLE SERVICES UP YOUR ARSE SO THEY CAN SPY ON YOUR FUCKING GUTS!"
Me: "Well, in this case I'm glad that you are not alone to decide that."21 -
If someone wants to put a Sticker on their camera so noone can spy on you...
How about piping this image to your cam?7 -
I'm getting ridiculously pissed off at Intel's Management Engine (etc.), yet again. I'm learning new terrifying things it does, and about more exploits. Anything this nefarious and overreaching and untouchable is evil by its very nature.
(tl;dr at the bottom.)
I also learned that -- as I suspected -- AMD has their own version of the bloody thing. Apparently theirs is a bit less scary than Intel's since you can ostensibly disable it, but i don't believe that because spy agencies exist and people are power-hungry and corrupt as hell when they get it.
For those who don't know what the IME is, it's hardware godmode. It's a black box running obfuscated code on a coprocessor that's built into Intel cpus (all Intell cpus from 2008 on). It runs code continuously, even when the system is in S3 mode or powered off. As long as the psu is supplying current, it's running. It has its own mac and IP address, transmits out-of-band (so the OS can't see its traffic), some chips can even communicate via 3g, and it can accept remote commands, too. It has complete and unfettered access to everything, completely invisible to the OS. It can turn your computer on or off, use all hardware, access and change all data in ram and storage, etc. And all of this is completely transparent: when the IME interrupts, the cpu stores its state, pauses, runs the SMM (system management mode) code, restores the state, and resumes normal operation. Its memory always returns 0xff when read by the os, and all writes fail. So everything about it is completely hidden from the OS, though the OS can trigger the IME/SMM to run various functions through interrupts, too. But this system is also required for the CPU to even function, so killing it bricks your CPU. Which, ofc, you can do via exploits. Or install ring-2 keyloggers. or do fucking anything else you want to.
tl;dr IME is a hardware godmode, and if someone compromises this (and there have been many exploits), their code runs at ring-2 permissions (above kernel (0), above hypervisor (-1)). They can do anything and everything on/to your system, completely invisibly, and can even install persistent malware that lives inside your bloody cpu. And guess who has keys for this? Go on, guess. you're probably right. Are they completely trustworthy? No? You're probably right again.
There is absolutely no reason for this sort of thing to exist, and its existence can only makes things worse. It enables spying of literally all kinds, it enables cpu-resident malware, bricking your physical cpu, reading/modifying anything anywhere, taking control of your hardware, etc. Literal godmode. and some of it cannot be patched, meaning more than a few exploits require replacing your cpu to protect against.
And why does this exist?
Ostensibly to allow sysadmins to remote-manage fleets of computers, which it does. But it allows fucking everything else, too. and keys to it exist. and people are absolutely not trustworthy. especially those in power -- who are most likely to have access to said keys.
The only reason this exists is because fucking power-hungry doucherockets exist.26 -
Twitter: We use your tweets to analyze your preferences and target ads for you..
Facebook & Whatsapp: We monitor your posts, locations, private chats and target ads for you..
Google: We spy your mails, sms, location, pretty much all your activity and tailor ads for you..
All of them combined: No one can beat us in breaching privacy and bombarding you with ads..
Amazon: Hold my beer 🍺5 -
!(short rant)
Look I understand online privacy is a concern and we should really be very much aware about what data we are giving to whom. But when does it turn from being aware to just being paranoid and a maniac about it.? I mean okay, I know facebook has access to your data including your whatsapp chat (presumably), google listens to your conversations and snoops on your mail and shit, amazon advertises that you must have their spy system (read alexa) install in your homes and numerous other cases. But in the end it really boils down to "everyone wants your data but who do you trust your data with?"
For me, facebook and the so-called social media sites are a strict no-no but I use whatsapp as my primary chating application. I like to use google for my searches because yaa it gives me more accurate search results as compared to ddg because it has my search history. I use gmail as my primary as well as work email because it is convinient and an adv here and there doesnt bother me. Their spam filters, the easy accessibility options, the storage they offer everything is much more convinient for me. I use linux for my work related stuff (obviously) but I play my games on windows. Alexa and such type of products are again a big no-no for me but I regularly shop from amazon and unless I am searching for some weird ass shit (which if you want to, do it in some incognito mode) I am fine with coming across some advs about things I searched for. Sometimes it reminds me of things I need to buy which I might have put off and later on forgot. I have an amazon prime account because prime video has some good shows in there. My primary web browser is chrome because I simply love its developer tools and I now have gotten used to it. So unless chrome is very much hogging on my ram, in which case I switch over to firefox for some of my tabs, I am okay with using chrome. I have a motorola phone with stock android which means all google apps pre-installed. I use hangouts, google keep, google map(cannot live without it now), heck even google photos, but I also deny certain accesses to apps which I find fishy like if you are a game, you should not have access to my gps. I live in India where we have aadhar cards(like the social securtiy number in the USA) where the government has our fingerprints and all our data because every damn thing now needs to be linked with your aadhar otherwise your service will be terminated. Like your mobile number, your investment policies, your income tax, heck even your marraige certificates need to be linked with your aadhar card. Here, I dont have any option but to give in because somehow "its in the interest of the nation". Not surprisingly, this thing recently came to light where you can get your hands on anyone's aadhar details including their fingerprints for just ₹50($1). Fuck that shit.
tl;dr
There are and should be always exceptions when it comes to privacy because when you give the other person your data, it sometimes makes your life much easier. On the other hand, people/services asking for your data with the sole purpose of infilterating into your private life and not providing any usefulness should just be boycotted. It all boils down to till what extent you wish to share your data(ranging from literally installing a spying device in your house to them knowing that I want to understand how spring security works) and how much do you trust the service with your data. Example being, I just shared most of my private data in this rant with a group of unknown people and I am okay with it, because I know I can trust dev rant with my posts(unlike facebook).29 -
What is the difference between USA and USB?
One connects to all your devices and accesses the data, the other is a hardware standard!3 -
A faster, better YouTube they said, 'YouTube needs permissions to Contacts, Location, SMS, Microphone, Device ID and information', they said. :/
I'm good with a slower, worse YouTube.22 -
I was learning about packets and I was trying pirni (like Wireshark for iPhone) on my local network. I found a packet of my my roommate about a recipe of fancy a fancy dish
me: *enters the kitchen* Bro you need to see this I got this sick recipe of $fancyDish that I really wanna try
le roommate: THERES NO WAY ARE YOU FREAKING KINDING
I know its wrong to spy on peoples trafic but it was worth it hahaha7 -
- Hello! Gordon's pizza?
- No sir it's Google's pizza.
- So it's a wrong number?
- No sir, Google bought it.
- OK. Take my order please ..
- Well sir, you want the usual?
- The usual? You know me?
- According to our caller ID, in the last 12 times, you ordered pizza with cheeses, sausage, thick crust
- OK! This is it
- May I suggest to you this time ricotta, arugula with dry tomato?
- No, I hate vegetables
- But your cholesterol is not good
- How do you know?
- Through the subscribers guide. We have the result of your blood tests for the last 7 years
- Okay, but I do not want this pizza, I already take medicine
- You have not taken the medicine regularly, 4 months ago, you only purchased a box with 30 tablets at Drugsale Network
- I bought more from another drugstore
- It's not showing on your credit card
- I paid in cash
- But you did not withdraw that much cash according to your bank statement
- I have other source of cash
- This is not showing as per you last Tax form unless you got it from undeclared income source
-WHAT THE HELL? Enough! I'm sick of Google, Facebook, twitter, WhatsApp. I'm going to an Island without internet,where there is no cell phone line and no one to spy on me
- I understand sir, but you need to renew your passport as it has expired 5 weeks ago..11 -
People: I will never put one of those smart speakers in my home! You're basically just putting in a microphone that will spy on you!
Also People: Hang on I have to grab my phone/high-fidelity microphone/high resolution camera/GPS tracker/Data Aggregator and make sure I have it with me literally everywhere I go, because who knows when I will want to comment on a cute picture of a cat!?13 -
"I'll stop using Windows, Google, Youtube, Facebook, etc and move to a fucking hipster unsupported linux distro, so that they can't spy me in my top secret activities such as watching porn and browsing /r/me_irl"
sigh...33 -
Me: Can you lift an elephant with one hand?
Bing: You really can't because even the strongest human cannot lift an elephant that has one hand.
Yahoo: Elephant FC vs Oklahoma City - today 15:00GMT.
Baidu: 你不能 你不能 that is how you can.
Yandex.ru: Americans killed the Elephant whilst pointing hands at Russian spy.
DuckDuckGo: Elephants have privacies too and lifting one can bridge DDG policies.
Ask.com: Lifting an elephant is a Metaphor.
AOL.com: No result yet. Subscribe to our Newsletter to get latest updates.
Google: (google.com) wants to access your location.5 -
Soooo, after raising my issue regarding microsoft's massive invasion of privacy and removing control from the user a couple of my friends, ahem I mean "aquaintances", said this to me:
"Get a mac! So clean, lightweight and user friendly and won't spy on you".
Clearly people who never looked at their list of background processes and installed little snitch. I swear, every couple of minutes something is trying to phone home to Apple.
Now I've been pretty open to all platforms (Win/Mac/*NIX/misc) until recently but this has reached a point it is no longer funny.
When I get a moment I'm gonna shove linux so far up that machine's arse Steve Jobs is gonna feel it in the ether!14 -
Being a backed developer is like being a spy. You are only known by your failures. You will never get to know a good backed developer or a good spy.2
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Although im more of network engineer than a developer, I feel safe and welcomed here. I swear im not a spy!11
-
Fucking cloud providers always trying to steal your shit and spy on your things, fucking prying eyes. That's why i've decided to go back hosting my own private cloud from home. Running on some very energy efficient shit: dual core intel atom cpu (so slow that it can't fucking run windows normally), 16gb of ram, because why the fuck not? and 1tb 2.5"hdd, along with unlimited data - 100/100 Mbit/s internet connection with a server response time less than 95ms just to backup my shitty Iphone selfies and cat pics, host some very important files and regularly back up my contacts. This shit runs CentOS, Nginx, https, bitch! This platform is more trustworthy than your shitty dropbox or whatever other shit they offer you. I can choose whether i back-up my shit from local network or over internetz, Costing me no more than 25€ annually(just to keep the machine on 24/7/365).14
-
Web advertising has really gotten out of hand.
Most news sites dedicate more real estate to ads than actual content. Even worse, sites like Bloomberg scroll like a janky piece of shit because of all the gaddamn ads constantly loading resources, and phoning home to help the fucks spy on me.
Marketers ruin everything.6 -
Australia passes anti-encryption law
More like "Have a backdoor" and please tell us about that. So that we can spy on people keeping on the stake of individual and national security
https://thehackernews.com/2018/12/...14 -
I have a Windows machine sitting behind the TV, hooked to two controllers, set up as basically a console for the big TV. It doesn't get a lot of use, and mostly just churns out folding@home work units lately. It's connected by ethernet via a wired connection, and it has a local static IP for the sake of simplicity.
In January, Windows Update started throwing a nonspecific error and failing. After a couple weeks I decided to look up the error, and all the recommendations I found online said to make sure several critical services were running. I did, but it appeared to make no difference.
Yesterday, I finally engaged MS support. Priyank remoted into my machine and attempted all the steps I had already tried. I just let him go, so he could get through his checklist and get to the resolution steps. Well, his checklist began and ended with those steps, and he started rather insistently telling me that I had to reinstall, and that he had to do it for me. I told him no thank you, "I know how to reinstall windows, and I'll do it when I'm ready."
In his investigation though, I did notice that he opened MS Edge and tried to load Bing to search for something. But Edge had no connection. No pages would load. I didn't take any special notice of it at the time though, because of the argument I was having with him about reinstalling. And it was no great loss to me that Edge wasn't working, because that was literally the first time it'd ever been launched on that computer.
We got off the phone and I gave him top marks in the CS survey that was sent, as it appeared there was nothing he could do. It wasn't until a couple hours later that I remembered the connectivity problem. I went back and checked again. Edge couldn't load anything. Firefox, the ping command, Steam, Vivaldi, parsec and RDP all worked fine. The Windows Store couldn't connect either. That was when it occurred to me that its was likely that Windows Update was just unable to reach the internet.
As I have no problem whatsoever with MS services being unable to call home, I began trying to set up an on-demand proxy for use when I want to update, and I noticed that when I fill out the proxy details in Internet Options, or in Windows 10's more windows10-ish UI for a system proxy, the "save" button didn't respond to clicks. So I looked that problem up, and saw that it depends on a service called WinHttpAutoProxySvc, which I found itself depends on something called IP Helper, which led me to the root cause of all my issues: IP Helper now depends on the DHCP Client service, which I have explicitly disabled on non-wifi Windows installs since the '90s.
Just to see, I re-enabled DHCP Client, and boom! Everything came back on. Edge, the MS Store, and Windows Update all worked. So I updated, went through a couple reboots-- because that's the name of the game with windows update --and had a fully updated machine.
It occurred to me then that this is probably how MS sends all its spy data too, and since the things I actually use work just fine, I disabled DHCP Client again. I figure that's easier than navigating an intentionally annoying menu tree of privacy options that changes and resets with every major update.
But holy shit, microsoft! How can you hinge the entire system's OS connectivity on something that not everybody uses?6 -
A client literally just told us "I don't wanna be telling you what I want / require / need. I just want you to give me the best you got."
Like wtf.
The worst thing is they've got but loads of money so we really have to take them serious. They were born rich and probably had a servant as a child who did everything for them without them asking to, and they'll continue to get away with it because they'll continue to be rich and there'll be people like us trying to kiss their ass for some of that money. I hate myself for doing it. They want a system to basically spy on their customers, and I'm a huge advocate of privacy, but I'll still do it for the money. Fuck this world.6 -
Red flags in your first week of your software engineering job 🚩
You do the first few days not speaking to anyone.
You can't get into the building and no one turns up until mid day.
The receptionist thinks you're too well dressed to work in this building, thinks you're a spy and calls security on you.
You are eating alone during lunch time in the cafeteria
You have bring your own material for making coffee for yourself
When you try to read the onboarding docs and there aren't any.
You have to write the onboarding docs.
You don't have team mates.
When you ask another team how things are going and they just laugh and cry.😂😭
There's no computer for you, and not even an "it's delayed" excuse. They weren't expecting you.
Your are given a TI PC, because "that's all we have", even though there's no software for it, and it's not quite IBM compatible.
You don't have local admin rights on your computer.💀
You have to buy a laptop yourself to be able to do your job.
It's the end of the week and you still don't have your environment set up and running.
You look at the codebase and there are no automated tests.
You have to request access every time you need to install something through a company tool that looks like it was made in 2001.
Various tasks can only be performed by one single person and they are either out sick or on vacation.
You have to keep track of your time in 6 minute increments, assigned to projects you don't know, by project numbers everyone has memorised (and therefore aren't written down).
You have to fill in timesheets and it takes you 30 minutes each day to fill them in because the system is so clunky.🤮
Your first email is a phishing test from the IT department in another country and timezone, but it has useful information in it, like how to login to the VPN.
Your second email is not a phishing test, but has similar information as the first one. (You ignore it.)
Your name is spelled wrong in every system, in a different way. 2 departments decide that it's too much trouble, and they never fix the spelling as long as you work there. One of them fixes it after you leave, and annoys you for a month because you haven't filled out the customer survey.6 -
I just signed up to get this off my chest.
Dear Windows, you god damn moronic, ugly, unuseable abomination of an excuse for an OS. I wonder how we could end up here in this situation. You suck, in every way imaginable. I didnt choose Linux or Mac, you made me do it.
I know no other OS that can screw you up this bad when setting up. My friend is an experienced windows user and the last install took him 2 days. I just spend the last day trying to get this uncompatible sucker installed. I manage to set up an hackintosh quicker than I was able to install Windows the last three times I checked, you scumbag.
Your error messages suck ass, there is nothing I cant figure out given enough time, except your useless hints and pathetic attemps to get anything done on your own.
And you are fucking slow. Just why, do you keep installing stuff I didnt ask you to. Now I got this ugly ass Bing-Toolbar because I missed a damn checkbox in an .exe, which could have also been an exploit, you never know.
You are cluttered with useless stuff. I dont care about you lame ass app store, idc about your cortana annoying spy assistant and I certainly dont care about your forced updates.
Just sit back and feel your PC getting slower every day by background processes. Watch your productivity decline while dealing with their brain dead privilege and file system.
You ugly malformed mutation of software. When I look at your UI I feel disgust while wondering how you can fail with the most basic principles of UX.
How pathetic, badly supported, bug ridden and dangerously unsecure can an OS be you ask while trying to navigate through the settings, a pile of legacy software debt this garbage pile was build on. And your shell... what a sick joke.
I hate you Windows. For screwing other OS with your asshole boot manager, hardware driver requirements and making people send me .zip and .docx. You should be embarrassed to charge money for this unfunctional junk, but you do, a lot.
I really try to see the positive here. You got all the software, but thats not on you, thats because all those poor suckers are trapped with you and the effort to change is too big.
This OS is the most disappointing thing technology could come up with today. I would rather set myself on fire than work with this pain in the ass software professionally. I mean if you are a serious developer at some point you have to admit that you just cant develop on windows. You will get fucked 5 times as often as any Mac or Linux user. Fuck you, Windows.
Hey Microsoft, thanks for Typescript and VSCode and all the other good things you have done. But burn in hell for what you have done to all of us with this piece of shit OS.10 -
I've just realised it might be a bad idea to use my real name on devRant.
I use it everywhere online. Work "agree" to leave my social alone... but I'm still sure they spy on me.
Whoops. Hi?4 -
I am really getting sick of recruiters contacting me with "great opportunities" then when I ask questions about the post they just give me the answers they think I want to hear. I know when you're lying because if you knew the answer you would have led with that. At least say you'll find out more and then give me a follow up response.
Recruiter: Would it be possible for you to deliver hacking training?
Me: You mean pentesting?
R: Yes, that.
Me: Well, what will it be used for? Breaking into peoples networks and spying on them?
R: Yes, they'll want it to be able to spy on people.
Me: Well, that's unethical, I'm only interested in defensive security practices.
R: Yes, they'll only want it for ethical reasons like defence and against bad guys.
Me: *dirtiest look I could muster*
I mean there's gullible and then there's what ever it is you think I am.2 -
Concerning my last rant, some explanation:
In short:
Skype and security agencies spy on all the people.
More context:
To the extent, that Skype employees suffer mentally from excessive porn.
That's what large amounts of users did on this platform the last two decades.
So the affected had to bring their case to national, maybe even super national courts.
Which gave in to their claim.
Thus bringing the employees into another salary category, so, compensating the damage done.
What sounds like a unions topic reveals large scale mass surveillance of everybody without exception.
And describes some effort in machine led (picture) recognition.2 -
RANT:
Google is just a steaming pile of shit!!
I've recently installed LineageOS onto my phone and wanted to degooglify my life.
So my current Smartphone doesn't have any GApps installed and I get along fairly well.
Should I need anything, I should just be able to use it in my browser right?
RIGHT?
Nono!! As soon as I want to log into a third party Service using Google (older acccounts with the other choice only being Facebook) I need to "verify my identity". And the only option are my old smartphone who still have Gapps on it but are slow and don't accessible when I'm away!
For those who say: "Google is just beeing secure. They don't want anyone to steal your account.". I USE 2FA AND HAVE BACKUP CODES.
BEFORE DEGOOGLING MY DEVICE IT NEVER ASKED SUCH A THING!!! WHAT A PILE OF SPYING SHIT!!!
And the best part, after I remotely started my PC at home and just want to take a screenshot of the message for this post before just using a working session, the message didn't appear.
Somehow google decided that me logging in 15 mins later (same ip) proves my identity?!?!?!
IF THIS CAN BE ATTRIBUTED TO AI. FUCK THIS SHIT. GOOGLED SHOULD BE TREATED LIKE AN ONLINE CASINO BECAUSE THE CHANCE OF JUST GETTING LOGGED SEEMS COMPLETELY RANDOM!!!
(I also had this prior when using my smartphone browser. There I couldn't "circumvent" this and I was at home. But having this shit on my browser which should've a session is unacceptable.)7 -
Startup-ing 101, from Fitbit:
- spy on users
- sell data
- cut production costs
- mutilate people's bodies, leaving burn scars that will never heal
- announce the recall, get PR, and make the refund process impossibly convoluted
- never give actual refunds
- claim that yes, fitbit catches fire, but only the old discontinued device, just to mess with search results and make the actual info (that all devices catch fire) hard to find
- try hard to obtain the devices in question, so people who suffered have no evidence
- give bogus word salad replies to the press
This is what one of the people burned has to say:
"I do not have feeling in parts of my wrist due to nerve damage and I will have a large scar that will be with me the rest of my life. This was a traumatic experience and I hope no one else has to go through it. So, if you own a Fitbit, please reconsider using it."
Ladies and gentlemen, cringefest starts. One of fitbit replies:
"Fitbit products are designed and produced in accordance with strict standards and undergo extensive internal and external testing to ensure the safety of our users. Based on our internal and independent third party testing and analysis, we do not believe this type of injury could occur from normal use. We are committed to conducting a full investigation. With Google's resources and global platform, Fitbit will be able to accelerate innovation in the wearables category, scale faster, and make health even more accessible to everyone. I could not be more excited for what lies ahead".
In the future, corporate speech will be autogenerated.
(if you wear fitbit, just be aware of this.)14 -
A puzzle, just for fun.
Two friends, (a)lice and (b)ob are communicating through a channel encrypted with random numbers XOR'd together, like so:
keyA = randint(1024, 1024**2)
keyB = randint(1024, 1024**2)
msg = randint(1024, 1024**2)
You, an interloper, have watched all these communications, siphoning the packets as they went.
When alice sends a message to bob's mailbox, she does it like so:
mailBoxB = keyA^msg
Bob's mailbox receives the mail automatically, and applies his own key, sending it back to alice's mailbox:
mailBoxA = keyB^mailBoxB
Next, Alice's mailbox notices the message, and automatically removes her key and sends it back to bob's mailbox. All of this, the first message, the second, and the third, happens in milliseconds, the back and forth.
mailBoxB2 = mailBoxA^keyA
Finally, bob's mailbox removes his key, and deposits the now unencrypted message in his box, for him to read in the morning:
mailBoxBFinal = mailBoxB2^keyB
As as a spy, you know the first packet sent to bob, had a value of 589505.
The packet bob sent back to alice, after applying his key, has a value of 326166
The message sent *back* to bob after alice removed *her* key, had a value of:
576941
What are the values of keyA, keyB, and what is the value of the msg?4 -
I don't think it's a coincidence that my internet disconnects for a few seconds when i click link to porn sites.
Happy everytime time :/10 -
Riddle:
Alice and bob want to communicate a secret message, lets say it is an integer.
We will call this msg0.
You are Chuck, an interloper trying to spy on them and decode the message.
For keys, alice chooses a random integer w, another for x, and another for y. she also calculates a fourth variable, x+y = z
Bob follows the same procedure.
Suppose the numbers are too large to bruteforce.
Their exchange looks like this.
At step 1, alice calculates the following:
msg1 = alice.z+alice.w+msg0
she sends this message over the internet to bob.
the value of msg1 is 20838
then for our second step of the process, bob calculates msg2 = bob.z+bob.w+msg1
msg2 equals 32521
he then sends msg2 to alice, and again, you intercept and observe.
at step three, alice recieves bob's message, and calculates the following: msg3 = msg2-(alice.x+alice.w+msg0)
msg3 equals 19249. Alice sends this to bob.
bob calculates msg4 = msg3-(bob.x+bob.w)
msg4 equals 11000.
he sends msg4 to alice
at this stage, alice calculates ms5.
msg5 = (msg4-(alice.y)+msg0.
alice sends this to bob.
bob recieves this final message and calculates
the sixth and final message, which is the original hidden msg0 alice wanted to send:
msg6 = msg5-bob.y
What is the secret message?
I'll give anyone who solves it without bruteforcing, a free cookie.15 -
I start shaking and getting nervous when there is something I really, really want to say.
Today in school we started talking about Amazon Alexa and privacy.
This topic concerns me a lot and I started talking in front of the whole class about Google and things they do to spy on you. After about 30 seconds of me talking I started shaking because there was so much I wanted to say and with so much enthusiasm and also a bit of anger.13 -
Emails from devRant contain spy pixels 🙂
Okay now, I know it is SendGrid's doing and I only assume good will from devRant devs. But they also need to understand that anonymity and user privacy are crucial qualities of the devRant platform and they're essentially what makes it work.
I thought that developers' attention should be drawn to this.11 -
While on topic of google collecting too much data, is there an chromium like android os, that doesnt spy on its user? Adroidium?13
-
So I went to take a look at Mozilla's "privacy not included" guide.
That's some good comedy right there, fucking rubber ducks that spy on you.
Jesus fucking christ -
Thank you, Google and Facebook, for organising my information. Godddd I wouldn't have the time and dedication to do it myself!!
-
Noop
18k+ upvotes.
Not a single post.
He's the total inversion of a narcissist. Hes a ghost.
He must be the most boring person on earth or the most interesting/mysterious.
Like, what is he hiding? No posts, no comments. Just upvotes.
My bet: Hes an international fugitive or a spy. Get em!
Who else wants to baselessly speculate about long time users who keep to themselves and or highlight their favorite mime?9 -
Debating on whether to quit my job.
Part of the reason it's hard for me to make a decision is there are a lot of good things about my job:
- almost all the projects we work on are blue sky; no technical debt anywhere
- great teammates; people help each other out and generally there's a good vibe
- reasonable boss; he's totally fine with me managing my own schedule, and since I get my work done, he basically never questions when and where I work
- about 1 hour of corporate meetings each week
- best healthcare I've ever had; basically everything is paid for
- 3 weeks PTO & all major US holidays
- free food; generally healthy office snacks and such
So why would I want to quit this environment?
- I hardly get to code anymore. About 2 years ago, I got asked if I would mind helping spec out projects. Since then, I've moved from writing code related to projects to helping my teammates understand the business situation so they can build the right thing.
- I'm in lots of meetings. So we have very few meetings for the company itself. We have a bunch of customer meetings, though. And progressively, I've getting pulled into meetings where there's really no reason for me to be there, aside from "we should have a technical person present."
- The sales people are getting tired of turning down clients that our product isn't targeted for. So they're progressively pushing to make products in those areas. Unfortunately, I'm the only one on the engineering team has any experience in that other tech stack. Also, the team really, really don't want to learn it because it's old tech that's on its way out.
- The PM group is continuously in shambles. Turnover there has averaged 100% annually for about 5 years. Honestly, IMO, it's because they're understaffed. However, there has been 0 real motion to fix this other than talk. This constant turnover has made it so that the engineering team has had to become the knowledge base for all clients.
- My manager has put me on the management track, but has been very slow to hand off anything. I'm the team supervisor, and I have been since the beginning of the year formally. When the supervisor quit last year, it basically became obvious to me that I was considered the informal supervisor after that. However, I can't hire or fire; I can't give a review; I don't have any budget; I can't authorize time off. So what do I do now? Oh, I'm the person that my boss comes to ask about my co-workers performance for the purpose of informing promotion/termination/pay increases. That's it. I'm a spy.4 -
I've alway pronounced it sequel but everyone I know swears it's SQL, so I say that now to fit in.
I feel like a spy, lying to my closest friends everyday...2 -
Malwares are nasty applications, that can spy on you, use your computer as an attacker or encrypt your files and hold them on ransom.
The reason that malware exists, is because how the file system works. On Windows, everything can access everything. Of course, there are security measures, like needing administrator permissions to edit/delete a file, but they are exploitable.
If the malware is not using an exploit, nothing is there to stop a user from unknowingly clicking the yes button, when an application requests admin rights.
If we want to stop viruses, in the first place, we need to create a new file-sharing system.
Imagine, that every app has a partition, and only that app can access it.
Currently, when you download a Word document, you would go ahead, start up Word, go into the Downloads folder and open the file.
In the new file-sharing system, you would need to click "Send file to Word" in your browser, and the browser would create a copy of the file in a transfer-partition. Then, it would signal to Word, saying "Hey! Here's a file that I sent to you, copy it to your partition please!". After that, Word just copies the file to its own partition, signals "Ok! I'm done!", and then the browser deletes the file from the shared partition.
A little change in the interface, but a huge change in security.
The permission system would be a better UAC. The best way I can describe it is when you install an app on Android. It shows what permission the app wants, and you could choose to install it, or not to.
Replace "install" with "grant" and that's what I imagined.
Of course, there would be blacklisted permissions, that only kernel-level processes have access to, like accessing all of the partitions, modifying applications, etc.
What do you think?7 -
Build my own phone and support the Zerophone project by writing code.
Seriously what the fuck is going on with the development of major companies smartphones. Every year all there is are larger displays, better and more cameras, faster processors and some more 'AI' thrown into the mix.
What the heck am I supposed to do with a phone costing multiple hundreds of euros but locked down with an OS spying on you. The processing power available is hardly ever used because most people just use apps like Instagram, WhatsApp or other messaging services.
I get why larger screens are useful but at some point it gets ridiculous.
Better cameras are useful to some degree as well but there's a limit to it.
If you really want to get into photographing then please buy an actual camera.
Another aspect I'd of course like to talk about is privacy. It's hardly existent on IOS or Android smartphones with Google services. Of course one can install different ROMs like Lineage OS but if I already pay multiple hundreds for a device then I'd prefer it working for and not against me.
And dare you break a single part of your phone. You can't really repair it yourself anymore and one can't even change its battery. Most people either have it repaired or just buy a new one and throw it away. There is so much electronic waste, very difficult and expensive to dispose of, just buried in the ground somewhere.
Summing up: I don't really know where the development of smartphones is heading. A phone is a device you carry around with you almost everyday so I'd like it to be tailored to me and not spy on me.
I hope the Librem phone will be a success and other open source phone projects will gain more attention. I want a phone I can repair myself and tailor the software running on it to my needs. I'd like to write messages, listen to music, make calls, run a WiFi hot-spot on the phone and maybe play some tiny games on it once in a while.6 -
TIL indians live on the "satisfaction" plane hence saying yes to things they can't do to satisfy you, but also dissatisfy people as a form of attritional warfare, which is their specialty.
I was watching the trump v Kamala debate and was reminded of a bunch of tactics I've had used against me by an Indian lead dev, who I ignored the behaviour of and didn't think she was actually hostile to me until it was too late. but it made me feel so bad for him and I got an epiphany. it seems like the tactics are the same, so I got curious if there was an Indian art of war
Interestingly the AI said yes but directed me to the wrong book. I did find the right book eventually. it exists. the Chinese stole ideas from it to write their sun tzu art of war, but it's basically a Machiavellian manual before Machiavelli was alive. very cool
also turns out China is behind everything. I remember ages ago I got in a fight with a schizoid programmer friend of mine because he knew China was taking over everything and he wanted them to win, and I was rooting for team India because they were far less miserable than the Chinese. don't make a deal with the Chinese. guy was stupid. they treat people like irrelevant meat
China seems to be connected to everything that's going on right now.
- they're infiltrating Canadian politics, get international students to change Canadian election outcomes (200k/30m people who weren't citizens but got bussed to voting centers and just used proof of address to vote. they changed outcomes of 4 elected officials in one province, and local Chinese people are saying they get threats about their family back in China if they don't do what China tells them to -- but our elected government just keeps quiet on it and then goes to China for new orders during "climate conferences" and uselessly gives them a bunch of our fucking money)
- there was issues with the Chinese buying up real estate in Canada and just leaving them empty. it's probably still happening even though Canada eventually imposed a tax on leaving empty real estate around that you're not renting out. they're still buying up properties, and we have an increasing housing shortage as a result. one of my old apartments a white guy, who was suspicious and shifty, bought the unit and forced us to move out citing code violations (you can't kick someone out otherwise here because of very strong renter's protections). they never introduced who bought the place, but they did have 7 ALL CHINESE SPEAKING IN CHINESE people come in and measure everything at the apartment. so they're definitely still buying up real estate
- are behind the green agenda (our politicians seem to take orders from them under this guise)
- seem to strangely have had camps where they let migrants pass through the South Americas to get into united states, were very closed off and hostile to anyone snooping so it was up in the air what they were doing there. after people came to snoop the camps up and disappeared
- are who USA is competing with in the AI race, the whole AI narrative is literally a fight between the west and China
and there's a super smart systems guy who thinks they were behind the world economic forum and I'm increasingly starting to believe it
all electronics coming from China should be a concern. it isn't
there's tons of Chinese trying to enter open source software to install backdoors. they're nearly successful or successful often. same with that DDoS on DNS years ago
there's rumours they've been running Canada since the 80s, via infiltrating Canadian tech companies to steal their software and are the gatekeepers for a lot of underground stuff
I'm starting to believe even the COVID virus was on purpose. I didn't before. there was a number of labs that had that virus, a lab leak happened around Ukraine 6 months prior to the "Olympics outbreak" (seriously that was PERFECT timing for a lab leak if you wanted to do a bioweapon on purpose -- you would hit every country at once!), but there was also a lab in Canada that had it and some reporters were upset about it because the lab didn't seem to care about our national security and was letting suspicious Chinese nationals work at it, and for some reason there's been discovered a BUNCH of illegal makeshift Chinese labs in California with super vile stuff in them
and what the fuck was that Chinese spy balloon fiasco anyway. you can't shoot it down? I think that was a test to see how fast and readily the west would defend itself. or maybe they wanted to see the response procedures
and then on top of it many people think the opioid epidemic is all china. china makes the drugs. it would also fit perfectly, because in the 1800s or whatever the British empire had entirely decimated china for decades by getting them addicted to the opioid trade. eventually the British empire merged with USA and now USA is basically the head of the new British empire
I think we're at war with China and literally don't fucking know it13 -
!rant
Hello guys, a spy here. Working as a software tester, currently doing automation with Robot Framework, learning some Python on the way. Came to read about dev things. I really like it so far.2 -
In continuation with https://devrant.com/rants/1911995/...
Here it's worse than Australia
https://m.economictimes.com/news/... -
It just came to me.. an error in a computer program is called a bug.
A listening device used to spy on people is also called a bug.
A computer bug can be used to spy on people. IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW, PEOPLE! 🤯
(yes, I know the story of why it's actually called a bug. Still, I find that very entertaining.)1 -
rant.type = Rants.PrivacyAdvice;
Just for the ones using chrome and did not inspect their settings for a while: I just discovered, that there is a "Clean computer" point at the end of the settings where an option can be set where to send system settings, processes, malicious software, your life, you, your family, your house, everything to Google. Also why the fuck does Google start developing there own virus scanner now... Just WTF!!!8 -
(I'm not completely sure of what I'm saying here, so don't take this too seriously)
Settling on a language to write the api for ranterix is hard.
I'm finding a lot of things about elixir to be insanely good for a stable api.
But I'm having a lot of gripes with the most important elixir web framework, phoenix.
Take a look at this piece of code from the phoenix docs:
defmodule Hello.Repo.Migrations.CreateUsers do
use Ecto.Migration
def change do
create table(:users) do
add :name, :string
add :email, :string add :bio, :string
add :number_of_pets, :integer
timestamps()
end
end
end
Jesus christ, I hate this shit.
Wtf are create, add and timestamps. Add is somehow valid inside the create, how the fuck is that considered good code? What happens if you call timestamps twice? It's all obscure "trust me, it works" code.
It appears to be written by a child.
js may have a million problems. But one thing I like about CJS (require) or ESM (import) is that there's nothing unexplained. You know where the fuck most things come from.
You default export an eatShit() function on one file and import it from another, and what do you get?
The goddamn actual eatShit function.
require is a function the same way toString is a function and it returns whatever the fuck you had exported in the target file.
Meanwhile some dynamic langs are like "oh, I'll just export only some lang construct that i expect you to specify and put that shit in fucking global of the importing file".
Js is about the fucking freedom. It won't decide for you what things will files export, you can export whatever the fuck you want, strings, functions, classes, objects or even nothing at all, thanks to module.exports object or export statement.
And in js, you can spy on anything external, for example with (...args) => debugger; fnToSpyOn(...args)
You can spoof console.log this way to see what the fuck is calling it (note: monkey patching for debugging = GOOD, for actual programming = DOGSHIT)
To be fair though, that is possible because of being a dynamic lang and elixir is kind of a hybrid typed lang, fair enough.
But here's where i drop the shit.
Phoenix takes it one step further by following the braindead ruby style of code and pretty DSLs.
I fucking hate DSLs, I fucking hate abstraction addiction.
Get this, we're not writing fucking poetry here. We're writing programs for machines for them to execute.
Machines are not humans with emotions or creativity, nor feel.
We need some level of abstraction to save time understanding source code, sure.
But there has to be a balance. Languages can be ergonomic for humans, but they also need to be ergonomic for algorithms and machines.
Some of the people that write "beautiful" "zen" code are the folks that think that everyone who doesn't push the pretty code agenda is a code elitist that doesn't want "normal" people to get into programming.
Programming is hard, man, there's no fucking way around it.
Sometimes operating system or even hardware details bleed into code.
DSLs are one easy way to make code really really easy to understand, but also make it really fucking hard to debug or to lose "programming meaning".7 -
My parents showed me how to play "Spy Hunter" on their Pentium III Windows 98 machine when I was 2, and I started installing games. Fast-forward to elementary school there was a game design afterschool class where we learned to use "Scratch" to drag-n-drop pieces of code used for animating and creating games. I wanted to do "real coding" so I got an internship at a local company, learned HTML, Java, JavaScript, and Python. Now, I'm developing games in Unity engine, and making mods on SourcePawn. The consumer is becoming a creator.
-
Net neutrality is tyranny disguised as freedom.
Anti-net neutrality is freedom that is wrongly perceived as greed and tyranny.
Who pushes the net neutrality agenda? The same companies who spy on you, emasculate and degenrate society, pro-big government.
Yes ISP's are monopolistic and greedy. But it can change and it will change once the market is truly free from government regulations who nurtured the monopolies in the first place. Just be patient.
Governments can't rule society forever. Freedom is stronger. Civilization moves forward to Minarchism, then to Anarchism.
Long live the free market4 -
Woah! Is that an ad I spy!
@dfox is this a bug or a feature?
Or is my machine just haxed right now?2 -
What is the most detailed and spy-ish web analytics u know?
I want to do some testing and want to know if anything besides GoogleAnalytics is worth looking..2 -
Routers connect multiple networks and stuff together. The router at your house connects your devices to a bigger network.
1. Are these "routers" the same
2. Would my router carry packets intended for someone else, you know maybe just shuttling them across or something?
3. If so can I spy on them with my router potentially ?9 -
I know that Ubuntu used to spy on it's users prior to 16.04. Is this still a thing? Does it still spy and feed the data to Amazon?
-
first of all sorry for my english, its not my first language
hello, i am an aspiring programmer and im honestly just a really big newbie, im learning vb dot net and ran into an issue that i had. So basically i was using the WinActivate function from autoit with FindWindow(using the title of the window) to supply WinActivate the hwnd. Heres my issue: When the window is NOT minimized so selected or behind other windows the WinActivate function works completely fine, but when the window is minimized it doesnt work, i have read on the documentation that neither function cares wether the window is minimized or not so i came to the conclusion that it might have a different title when minimized? The window is the league of legends client by the way. What can i do to solve/debug this issue, perhaps spy++ could help me? how would i use this, i could upload the visual studio project if someone wants to help me out in that way. WinActivate((FindWindow(Nothing, "League of Legends"))) this is what it looks like.12 -
This is my hell right now.
Android Jetpack compose Instrumentation test with koin di, mockito, coil in a module with 20 other modules.
"Cannot mock/spy coil imagerequest"
Whats yours?1 -
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What started as a frustrating setback in my journey with Bitcoin quickly evolved into a transformative learning experience that would forever alter my perspective on the cryptocurrency landscape. It began with a devastating loss - the result of a sophisticated hacking attempt that drained my digital wallet of its entire Bitcoin holdings. In that moment of despair, I felt utterly powerless, my dreams of financial freedom slipping through my fingers. But rather than succumb to defeat, I resolved to uncover the root causes of the attack and fortify my approach to managing my digital assets.
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