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Joined 4 months ago
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Cake day: January 7th, 2026

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  • It turns out reCAPCHA has been a privacy nightmare from the beginning: from silently monitoring user activity in the background, to sending payment information to Google; in order for an AI to assess the data, and return a risk-score to the website. But that apparently wasn’t bold enough, and now an effective 2FA is required, which provides additional telemetry to Google (but not to the website or app: which is obviously the privacy concern). So get ready to 2FA with Google upon registration, login, updating your cart, and payment; or to skip the hassle, you should just let an approved “shopping assistant” make purchases for you (“that drive a projected 25% increase in average order value”). I don’t even own a modern Android or iOS device, so how am I supposed to solve these?


  • Camera surveillance is simply no longer compatible with use in spaces, structurally inviting the general public, due to advances in technology. You cannot physically limit what’s being captured by an image sensor: it captures everything, and filtering (including removable masking) is only able to happen after collection. Which could also mean the data itself, or derivatives thereof, may be stored indefinitely; and could, at any time in the future, be used as evidence against members of society.

    The only meaningful strategy to prohibit this, is to physically remove these surveillance systems: so personal data isn’t collected to begin with. Don’t even get me started, about the GDPR supposedly protecting citizens against this type of surveillance: it pushed for modernization of the systems, legitimized the “collect but protect” approach, created physical backdoors for the government to get ahold personal data being collected, and incentivized member states to piggy bank off of it.

    But I’m glad the cracks are beginning to surface, and ordinary folks starting to grow uncomfortable around modern camera surveillance too, because that’s the only reasonable response to it.