Also, given that the Exposure Notification System(ENS) binary is pushed to your phone, and subsequent updates, and settings/config possibly chnaged on an update; even if we could see the source that they show us, they can push any subsequent changes at any time. They can enable(opt-in) ENS on your behalf behind your back without your permission.
To control what comes in to a L5, is it possible to use the firewall settings and block all of Google’s incoming anythings? And, to set what is allowed, all else can pound sand?
ICYMI: FLoC is Dead. But Topics Won’t Fix Google’s Ad Targeting Problems. [protocol.com]
Google is replacing “FLoC” with “Topics” as its tracking method in Chrome but privacy advocates aren’t fans of it (neither are we)…DuckDuck news Feb 2, 2022.
I think cell renters are losing the right-to-privacy battle. Google’s actions has made it clear it will devour all privacy barriers and we’ll get what they want us to have whether we like it or not. In time, we will like it. Too many already do.
~s
Oh. Hey, someone is still paying attention to this thread?
Yeah, a bunch of stuff sure has happened, hasn’t it. Ha. Ha.
Well, since we’re here, I might as well say something, because hey, looks like I was right to be worried about not being able to do anything without some app, even where I live.
Considering how governments and the mainstream media have been treating the idea of universal vaccine checkpoints, it seems incongruous how little news I hear there about mandatory use of contact tracing apps and services. As in, I heard almost nothing in 2021, and not for lack of trying. Considering what else the trauma of 2020 has led them to do, I’d think people would have gone along with it, even gotten mad at anyone who didn’t. If there was enough of a push, which there wasn’t.
But thinking about it from the standpoint of a social engineer tasked with getting everyone to take part in the solution chosen for us, it starts to make sense.
If I sound angrier than I have been. It’s probably because I am. Because oh man, have I learned a lot.
And the worst part is having to be scared to talk about it.
I mean, generally speaking, it seems like you can just add this to your hosts file. You can also use iptables commands to block or selectively open ports. The librem 5 shouldn’t have the GACT to begin with, since that’s proprietary.
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If I add this as you suggest to the Host file in Windows desktop, what does it do? I’m checking PURE/OS (desktop) to see if it uses Hosts files too.
I’ve no idea what GACT is and how it’s good that L5 “shouldn’t have the GACT to begin with…” Does that mean it does have the GACT?
Off now to search the 'net for GACT - might even have to Google it too 
~s
Thanks @especiallydirect, @anubis @kieran and others.
If Pure OS is the L5 O/S, and I assume it has Firefox for it’s browser, and if correct, will that prevent Google from forcing us into categories and labeling and driven to see ads, sites and embedding other Google approved stalker tools?
~s
“Google-Apple Contact Tracing”
When I say GACT, like I said earlier in this thread, I mean it as shorthand for “whatever it was exactly that Google and Apple put on everyone’s phones that allows these contact tracing apps to work”.
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PureOS comes with the “web” browser, many sites wont load in it. You can apt install firefox, then once its installed add in the privacy-badger add-in into firefox.
The “thing” that they add is called “Enhanced Notification Service” (ENS). Its an OS module, not an app.
Each US state tells google/apple the url of the states “notification service” then the OS update is pushed to each apple & google(android) phone in the state without the users permission. Upon update the phone prompts the user to “opt-in” to the notification service. They claim you can opt-in or not. Of course…anything controlled by software that has external authorities in controll can (at a time of thier choosing) opt-in on your behalf, and update the ENS to be as invasive as they want to be. Especially when its /for the public saftey/ as in this state of michigan con-job for victims of crime. https://www.michigan.gov/mdhhs/0,5885,7-339--537127--,00.html Its nothing les than a generic /survellebce/ system that can be used in any possible way that the state wants.
I’ve never robbed anything. But if I were going to commit a robbery, I think I would leave my smart phone at home at least while doing it. If a liquor store gets robbed and there were ten cell phones in the area of the robbery, all they’re going to get as suspects are ten innocent people. Either that or they’ll catch a guilty person that would likely not be mentally competent to stand trial. No one in their right mind would commit a crime like that with Google or Apple right there spying on them.
I think you’d be surprised how few people are cognizant of the fact that they’re carrying a tracking device.
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Or care until it’s too late
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If Pure OS is the L5 O/S, and I assume it has Firefox for it’s browser, and if correct, will that prevent Google from using their TOPICS and/or FLoC stalkers? (I know what they are and history of both).
~s
- PureOS is the L5’s OS.
- The default browser is GNOME Web.
- Firefox-ESR is also available.
- FLoC and TOPICS were/are intended by Google for its Chrome browser, as I understand it.
- Most other chromium-based browsers have stated they won’t implement those. (If they’re left with the choice.)
- FLoC and TOPICS are not features of non-chromium browsers. (Unless something changes.)
- Websites (if they’re Evil™) might implement collection of the FLoC and/or TOPICS data from Chrome users as they visit those websites.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLoC
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Google is best thwarted in Firefox by using the extensions NoScript and/or uBlock Origin to simply disallow any Google script, or Google’s AMP from running. (Or Facebook, or…etc.) With NoScript, scripts only run if you deliberately enable them. You pick and choose.
And as @especiallydirect said, using a Hosts file to intercept and redirect to 0.0.0.0 any unwanted connection to any specific website or service is also very effective. I believe they need specific URLs, and don’t work with wildcard strings, if I’m not mistaken.
Many pre-configured Hosts files designed with different anti-tracking goals in mind, by well-known privacy-advocating devs are available online and can easily be copied into your own Hosts file in your filesystem (on each device). They prevent trackers from reaching their destination by redirecting them to 0.0.0.0 (which equates to “oblivion”).
That is also how the Pi-hole application works, but it does it for any and all devices on your home network (including streaming devices, IoT, etc.) without having to add and edit Hosts files to each device (which is not possible with streaming devices, IoT, etc.). And the block lists get updated regularly.
It’s how tracker-blocking apps on Android and iOS work, too.
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I think tracking generally works from the inside out, rather than outside in. That is, the tracking originates from your device, if the script is allowed to run. A firewall’s default configuration is usually to prevent unwanted incoming connections and allow outgoing as appropriate, in any case.
However, a hacker intrusion is definitely an incoming event.
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I think you misspelled “will”.
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Just turn off your GPS when you’re not navigating. That’ll make you invisible to tracking. That wouldn’t work for any Android phone with Google software on it. It wouldn’t work for an Apple phone. But with a Librem 5, all they’ll see is you pop in to existence somewhere occasionally, navigate to somewhere else, and then disappear. Just know that you’ll be tracked on those rare occasions when using navigation. If nothing else, the cell sites can triangulate to get your location.
That’s interesting.
So if I understand it right, what Google and Apple have done to everyone’s phones doesn’t necessarily cause it to exchange cryptographic keys with other phones.
So even as it looks like one crisis is drawing to a close, or at least reaching a point that the panic is unsustainable, this thing that Google and Apple have done could remain relevant forever, being able to be used again when it’s time for another crisis, of any kind. I’m further convinced that refusal to use anything but custom ROMs or proper Linux distros was the right decision.
Do you have any links that might expound on this further? I wonder if its possible for this “notification service” to install apps on its own, which would explain the Massnotify incident, but it’s not like that would have been the only way for that to happen.
The ENS is part of the operating system of both Google-android and Apple-iPhone. It was pushed to all US phones of those types last Summer. Any software(app or OS-framework) can be updated, changed, /new features/ added, new /back-end/ capabilities of the ENS servers at any time. Basically its a survellence platform, that can be used for any purpose that the owners want it to be used for. i.e. some person donates to a trucker-convoy to protest authoritarian Gov. edicts…That person can be labled (not as an infected person from a biological virus) but as a suspicious/person who is potentially able to infect others with thier ideas. So any other person who comes into contact(within 2meters/6feet for over ? 15 min) with the suspect could be considered as having “contact” and could also come under suspision, enabeleing???other features??? like turning on the microphone, going through address books, emails, texts. helpful search terms “Exposure+Notification+System” Goolge contact tracing API. i.e. https://covid19.apple.com/contacttracing
https://www.macrumors.com/guide/exposure-notification/
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-apple-exposure-notification-1111379/
https://medium.com/macoclock/understanding-contact-tracing-technology-or-exposure-notification-system-for-users-and-b69d950235e
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/01/tech/apple-google-contact-tracing/index.html
Dont be fooled by the weasel-words “non-attributable”, “privacy-preserving”, “opt-in”
If thats on your phone, authorities can “opt-in” on your behalf from remote.
If thats on your phone, it can be updated, and “features” enabled like turing your microphone on.
If the back-end servers now can make the associations between “contacts” with enough accuracy to send you and SMS text message to call your doctor for an appt to take a test, they /know/ who you are. If they know who yo are they can correlate to stored patterns of life or start building a pattern of life on you.
Its a survellence platform.