Is there a privacy-focused accurate speech-to-text option for android?

Ideally it would run locally on device with no required connection to the internet and would allow dictation into other apps.

Thanks for any recommendations in advance.

Google recently announced it would acquire Israeli-American cloud security firm Wiz for $32 billion. The price tag — 65 times Wiz’s annual revenue — has raised eyebrows and further solidified the close relationship between Google and the Israeli military.

Wiz was established only five years ago, and all four co-founders — Yinon Costica, Assaf Rappaport, Ami Luttwak, and Roy Reznik — were leaders in Israel’s elite military intelligence unit, Unit 8200. Like many Israeli tech companies, Wiz is a direct outgrowth of the military intelligence outfit. A recent study found that almost fifty of its current employees are Unit 8200 veterans.

Unit 8200 also spies on Americans. Whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency regularly shared the data and communications of U.S. citizens with the Israeli intelligence group. “I think that’s amazing…It’s one of the biggest abuses we’ve seen,” he said.

For the Israeli government, the utility of these private spying firms filled with former IDF intelligence figures is that it allows it some measure of plausible deniability when confronted with spying attacks.

Google has invested heavily in Israel, first opening offices there in 2006. Longtime CEO Eric Schmidt is known to be a vocal supporter of the controversial state. In a 2012 meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he declared that “the decision to invest in Israel was one of the best that Google has ever made.”

Adam Jones reads “AI” politically:

“Data centres function as an increasingly central part of the nervous system of an imperial, techno-capitalist order. Democratic politics holds the right to question their present and future existence.”

I don't have Facebook or anything Meta.

But what can or will happen to people who let Meta train its AI with their data, selfies, locations, and behavior patterns etc? Thanks in advance

Regeneron is to pay $256 million in cash to acquire "substantially all" of 23andMe's assets, including its massive biobank of around 15 million customer genetic samples and data.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/29758710

Google is not entitled to my personal banking information or any other PII! WTF if I go to a store and want to buy I will.

EU High Level Group (established by EU commission) recommends forcing all devices in the EU to be sold with ”integrated Law Enforcement access” (page 21, recommendation 25) and sanctioning non-EU approved messaging services (recommendation 33)

Hey,

So I’m working on a website for a company. It is meant as a bit of an ad for the browser they are making which is anti-detect. The website shows potential ways other websites can use information from the browser to track you.

In order to make that work I use ipinfo and iphub as they are commonly used to get the ip adres based on the IP adres.

I recently moved from google analytics to a self-hosted umami solution in order to make the website more private. But the API’s are a little difficult for me. I don’t know what they do with the IP adresses I send their way. How do I address that appropriately?

Thank you!

(I’m not gonna put the link here because it promotes proprietary software which is seemingly against the rules)

I found this great, easy guide to secure a Chevy Volt. I haven't yet tried it, but still wanted to share.

I already use Tuta as my email provider. I already have a domain I can use with it (bought privately). What privacy implemcations does it come with.

The main reason is because I would like to be able to keep the same email address for longer and not have to change when/if I change providers.

I've checked out PrivacyGuides itself, the new oil and SSD. These all seem a bit too advanced/complex to me, I want something simple and secure, preferably open-source too. Any help would be appreciated.

I have started to send GDPR art. 17 data deletion requests to some companies using https://yourdigitalrights.org/ . Mostly, to avoid my e-mail leaking in a data breach. However, the template contains a line stating:

Please note that I do not consent to any personal data which is part of this request to be used for any purpose other than fulfilling this request, except in the case of a suppression list, which you may keep in order to ensure that you do not collect any of my personal data in the future.

This means that my e-mail address is still stored (from what I can find sometimes hashed, sometimes in plaintext) in their database. As far as I can find, they are not required to delete it from the suppression list if I ask, but still; isn't it extremely counter-productive to explicitly state that it's okay for them to store it in a suppression list (where it can still leak)? Is there any downside to stating in the request that I wish for it to be deleted from there as well?

So, I was about to make an account at an online shopping platform and was considering putting a fake name. Is this too much paranoia, or is it okay?

Hey there all.

I have recently had my Phone repaired by EE.

It had a Black screen of death.

The phone is a Pixel 8A. I Would rather not flash any other custom rom onto this phone, and I'd rather just stick with plain android, that it came with.

I already went through e/os and failed to install, but used GrapheneOs & Calyxos for a while.

I found. agood DNS service online. The DNS service is DeCloudJs .

I want to know if I stick with this dns what other methods can I use to make this phone a Hardened phone. A privacy friendly phone. A safe phone.

What are my best options, and settings, etc?

With DeCloudUs DNS is this enough? Even if on stock?

Thank you.

https://decloudus.com/

Just a little storytime about Vinted.

I just wanted to register on Vinted to sell some second-hand stuff, because I haven't had much success elsewhere. I would have never imaged that they will reject my addy.io alias. After a couple of annoying e-mails detailing how to register an account, I was left with the answer on the screenshot after trying to get an explanation why the domain I am paying for (not some random free gmail address) is not worthy of their services...

Is there anything I can use coupled with a VPN to block device fingerprinting, like software I can use on my phone.

Ill be frank, I am attempting to circumvent Reddit ban evasion. We all know they are some punk ass removed and they ban people for very frivolous reasons.

If anyone has some guidance. I've attempted using a VPN, and a browser incognito mode and still I've been banned. Been through countless handles with tons of emails from AOL based to gmails to yahoo to Proton emails, still banned. As of now I have been provoked and just want to stick it to them. Because fuck em.

Despite this Reddit has very wide expanding anonymous communities that I grew quite accustomed to. I am not in person social person but I really need a sense of community which is what I used Reddit for. However, a few years ago I said something ridiculous and since then its like I've been on a list

Hi everyone! I know im not good with technology. I brought a surface pro 8, 3 years ago. I obviously understand that was a mistake and i should have listened to programmer cousin. Its gonna be slighty difficult to install linux on it.

I've researched several youtube videos, but i was wondering if anyone had any tips?Obviously the attachable keyboard has to work and i want the touch screen to work. The surface appealed to me when i brought for those features.

With all the privacy concerns of windows, i want to commit to switching my operating system! Thank you everyone for their help with all my privacy questions. Ive been getting into foss and learning kotlin.

As open source as Android is, it is very difficult to find a decent browser, let alone one that is privacy focused and also usable on daily.

• Almost all web searches point to site that shows stuff like : Chrome, Edge, Opera....etc. So this doesnt help.

• Play Store is full of shitty browsers. If you skip the usual DDG, Chrome, Edge, Opera...etc then you will see either:

a) browsers from random Chinese company (Via, UC Browser)

or b) browser that is coupled with other products, e.g. a video downloader with built in browser.

• After the recent fiasco with Firefox and their ToS, I saw a lot of posts saying IronFox / Water Fox is better. I've never heard of these Foxes variants before.

So I tried the following on Android:

• DDG: only good if you do basic search. It lacks a good adblocker. So very annoying if you are on a site with shit tons of popups.

• Brave: not a fan of the in your face AI tools. Overall it works ok though

• The Foxes variants: IronFox seems to be very good on privacy. It has its own DNS and most of the security is on by default. However, same as all Foxes, IronFox just doesnt play well on Android. There is a slight lag when you try to switch tabs.

• TOR: This would be the safest. But the poorest in terms of usability.

• Chrome w/o account or Chrome run from private space. Surprisingly, Chrome is still the one browser that runs the smoothest.....

Any input is appreciated.

Lots of education to be had just by learning about how they caught this guy. Reused passwords, user names, etc.

Every now and then I hear about the whole "internet is forever" thing. I've made attempts at digital privacy and such, but always eventually fall of - convenience wins out, or I just forget things enough, or

What triggered this is some post about ChatGPT's questionable practices, and one of the top comments that read "Assume that anything you write online will be stored forever and then read at your funeral". Another person agrees that everyone should operate like this. I've gone looking and found variations who say you should never post anything you wouldn't put on a postcard, or wouldn't be willing to show your boss or your grandma, or wouldn't want attached to your name and address. People who say they never use the internet for anything remotely personal, or that they keep strict boundaries between private and online life. I literally can't comprehend it.

I have trauma-dumped on ChatGPT before I got rid of my account. I keep resolving to not get personal with it again and literally can't help myself at times. Earlier today I was playing with it, generating fanficky scenarios with favorite tropes for fun - at present, I'm trying to limit myself to only fun stuff like that, or factual questions for ChatGPT, moving more personal work to my glitchy local LLM. Before this though, I have a long-standing issue of oversharing basically anywhere. I don't have much social media - mostly Reddit and Discord, the latter I keep trying to use less because people say it's bad for digital privacy. Even then, these arguments were being brought against ChatGPT and other AI - hardly an open online forum, but it still counts like writing on one.

I've made attempts at digital privacy in the past

But those kinds of injunctions - assume everything you write is not only permanent, but will be used against you/shared with everyone/tied to your name and address regardless of any precautions, makes the whole business even more hopeless. At least one alternative is a kind of school-of-fish theory; that's sort of what I've been working with. Sure it's out there, and it's permanent, but there's enough legwork involved to trace it to YOU, specifically, that no one would actually care to do so because you're one or two tiny data points among billions, so it's as good as anonymous. Better if you compartmentalized so an outsider would fine it even harder to trace back to you. Not truly anonymous obviously, but close enough; to give pause or exercise some discretion but also not worry excessively. Worry more about what you're sharing with whom, the actual users. This stops working if you're assuming that everything is going to be used against you, or attached to you. It makes posting basically impossible. If you're like me and would rather nothing be read at your funeral, not even the shit you MEANT to publish for public consumption, you're left with zero outlets for communication.

So of course, only ever be surface level. Never be honest, or open, or vulnerable. Never ask for help or advice or acknowledge if something is wrong Never confide to anyone. Never share a testimony or an experience. Never tell anyone what you like, or how you think, or who you are. Be an island and a vault.

If there's no one IRL to fill those needs, then perish.

At this point in life, I think I'd actually prefer that.

Because on top of a decade of chronic oversharing, I very much still WANT to put more of myself out there right now. That's the worst and biggest issue I have that makes this whole worry so painful. I've thought about looking for penpals or accountability groups but worry about privacy and the platforms. I've wondered about just joining other Discord groups since I've already handed over enough info but can't be bothered.

Literally the entire reason I (think I) do this is because I have no one IRL. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. I have one, singular social contact and if I go NC with them, I'll have virtually no one. It's not like I can use them to fulfill any of those needs anyway without being told "just don't think about it" or "you're lying and making everything up". And "common sense of the internet" says one SHOULDN'T look online for any kind of relief. Don't ask for reassurance on Reddit or Lemmy or social media, it's personal. Don't look for penpals or online friends, remember your DMs will be saved and broadcasted. Absolutely never touch any kind of mental health board or group, if you can't afford therapy or no one around you is competent then you should just self-destruct harder like they did in the old days (seriously these always feel overlooked in these kinds of privacy/internet-is-forever discussions). Can't even use AI as a substitute because that also counts as "writing online" that you should be afraid of having saved. 

I literally can't fathom being private on the internet at this point. I don't understand how people who think like that survive. I'm probably going to end up continuing on exactly as I please because it's better than rotting. Even with sharing everything I feel like I'm dying of loneliness and I don't care how dramatic that sounds. Same for "I don't see the point of living if I can't chat and overshare with people on the internet".

This is something I can't figure out, because my understanding is that no matter what OS you install, unless you bought your Mac with cash, your serial number and credit card are now connected...and will always be spilling data about you.

Thanks for any advice...I'm wondering if it's worth it to install a new OS.

I have a very old Facebook account i haven't touched for no less than 10+ years. I had decided to just let it decay under the reasoning that old data is worse than useless to them, but now in light of Facebook announcing they'll take it all to train for LLMs if you don't opt out, i am unsure if to continue leaving that account to rot, or if to recover it, opt out, then doing the delete procedure. What would you say is the best choice?

I need your opinion on this problem:

My personnal infos are on the web, is it better to try to have them removed or simply ignored it?

Basically I'm wondering if trying to remove it would not make me shine outside of the crowd more than juste leave it and act as simple citizen

And, warning, these infos are not compromising but they are personnaly infos