/tech/ - Technology

GrapheneOS cannot be fully trusted because it runs on Google's proprietary hardware stack, which remains a critical vulnerability. While GrapheneOS markets itself as a privacy-focused alternative, its security is undermined by the fact that it operates on devices like Google's Pixel smartphones—hardware designed and controlled entirely by Google. Unlike other OEMs, Google does not merely integrate off-the-shelf components; it designs its own processors (e.g., Tensor chips) and develops the closed-source firmware and software that power them. Other manufacturers receive binary blobs from chipmakers, which they cannot modify, but Google retains unilateral authority to embed hidden functionalities or surveillance mechanisms directly into the hardware-software ecosystem.

This means Google could inject malicious code into the processor’s firmware—code that operates independently of Android (and thus independently of GrapheneOS itself). Such malware would run at the hardware level, bypassing the operating system entirely and evading detection. If Google exploits this capability in its proprietary GApps, the same logic applies to the foundational software controlling its processors. Since GrapheneOS cannot audit or modify these closed-source components, users are left exposed to potential backdoors.

If you trust GrapheneOS on Pixel devices, you must also trust Google’s closed-source hardware stack—the very same infrastructure that could enable pervasive surveillance. In that case, there is no meaningful distinction between GrapheneOS and stock Android; both rely on Google’s opaque technology. Conversely, if you reject GApps and Google’s data harvesting, you cannot reconcile that distrust with reliance on Google’s hardware. To truly deGoogle, you must abandon devices where the manufacturer controls the silicon itself.

Is there any reason to stick with jpg/png formats over things like webp/avif. Atleast for webp software support that once was not there now is. I'm not just talking about web, but in general bulk storage also.

Suckless seems like a great way to transition from rice to programming.
A good set of training-wheels for the bicycle of the mind.
However there's something extremely pathological about not wanting well designed and implemented features.
It's like cachexia from voluntarily avoiding healthy fats.

This isn't to advocate feature creep, which is ugly and doesn't add to the design of the system.
In rejecting big systemic components which integrate they may even make things more complex.
This is something like having a small standard library, avoiding RPC, or even loose coupling of components.
Implementing these can reduce duplication, and reduce complexity, while allowing more to be achieved.

Everywhere the minimalist takes something rich and make it small.

Let me tell you a little secret about flip phones: They run the same hardware as smartphones, just in a different form factor. They're even more proprietary black boxes than the average smartphone and its hard to get even basic specifications. I know because I have one. I'm trying to replace the old version of KaiOS it runs with PostmarketOS; unfortunately, the bootloader is locked. At least with a cheap Android phone you can replace Android with something else.

So, I'm a musician, who wants to have a musical career (a lot of communist musicians had stable careers) and meanwhile stupid porkies tell me that "no, we'd prefer if you were replaced, prole, because there if no place for people like you" and I hear, not only music, but other art, computer science, programming etc. will be replaced by AI. How do we stop this, so people are still prosperous in the real socialst societies?

what masks would you recommend to someone that will attend a gathering during which he will be recorded from all angles? itt we discuss such things, potential ways to mask ourselves in a way that makes it as hard as possible for future algorithms to: a. reconstruct the face; and b. match the face with already existing databases.

bonus points if the mask allows the person to view clearly without exposing too much of the eye area

where to get free uncensored deepseek online? huggingchat used to have it but now that's dead. I know I can run it locally on my own machine, but that's slow and I'm a mooch. what elase can I say?

I haven't personally seen this phenomenon yet, only saw someone on fedi joke about it, but have there been ads targeted toward AI training web crawlers yet? Like something illegible to human users but specifically made so the LLM would do an ad read their products when prompted for something (optionally) related? Or since a lot of bourgoises have went full koolaid about AI, trying to market to the AI as a consumer demographic itself?

Finally, tangible interfaces will retvrn. The age of touchskkkreens is over.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/12/24294634/hyundai-vehicle-controls-more-buttons-focus-groups-annoyed-touchscreens

Comrades, we need a thread on privacy. Any decent activist should try ways of staying anonymous on the web and prevent being tracked by governments and corporations.General tips===* Use free software as much as you can.* Use GNU/Linux and keep it up-to-date, to be sure that you don't have unpatched security exploits* Don't use Flash Player, use youtube-dl instead for watching streaming videos online* Do not use Google, use DuckDuckGo or StartPage instead* Use a password manager like Keepass or for GNU/Linux users keepassx. Create new passwords for every site that you visit and use a strong password as a master password. A tip for easy remembering of your master password is to use a sentence. "i fucking love cookies and tits!" with extra capital characters etc. is easier to remember than some random characters and long enough to prevent brute force attacks of any kind.* Use the Tor Browser Bundle if you really want to stay anonymous.Firefox====* Go to Preferences -> History and set History to "Never remember history". * See for additional tweaks: https://github.com/amq/firefox-debloat and https://vikingvpn.com/cybersecurity-wiki/browser-security/guide-hardening-mozilla-firefox-for-privacy-and-securityAdd-ons-----------* Use uBlock Origin for preventing tracking etc. Bonus: use hard-mode to manually whitelist external domains on sites. Don't use uBlock but be sure to use uBlock Origin https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-hard-mode* HTTPS Everywhere* DecentralEyes: prevents CDN hosting from tracking you (Google for Jquery etc.)* Self Destructing Cookies: only allow cookies that you choose to allowOS==* Encrypt your hard drive or home partition at least* If you use GNU/Linux, you can try to restrict systemd or syslog from logging. * Use a distribution which takes security seriously. Also, be sure that you don't install a lot of things outside the repository. It will cover most of your needs.Real life tips===* Pay with cash if you canFeel free to provide tips to each other comrades!