privacy - GadgeteerZA

5 quirky self-hosted services to manage your relationships, adventures, and more

2025-02-092025-02-09 Danie

Screenshot of AdventureLog's country list feature showing partially visited countries like Andorra, Argentina, and Cambodia with flags.

I’ve been a part of the self-hosting ecosystem for a long time, and let me tell you, it’s filled to the brim with all sorts of fun and interesting projects. On the practical side of […]

ChangeDetection.io is a private self-hosted website change detection and price monitor service

2025-01-052025-01-05 Danie

The image shows a laptop displaying a website called "CHANGEDETECTION.IO", which appears to be a website monitoring service. The foreground is dominated by the laptop screen, showing a website with images and text indicating a price drop on products. The background is a teal color with large white text advertising the service as a 'self hosted open source website watcher'. A cartoon alarm bell is in the bottom right corner, adding a sense of urgency. The website on the laptop screen shows a price drop banner, possibly indicating a sale or promotional event.

Monitor web pages for changes (such as watching prices, restock notifications), to deep inspection such as PDF text support, JSON and XML monitoring and extensive text triggers. Get notifications when a website updates. The service […]

Follow updates across the web in a feed that only you control, even if the site does not offer an RSS feed

2025-01-032025-01-03 Danie

Open RSS offers feeds that are a much healthier alternative to the intrusive, algorithmic feeds on websites that harm and manipulate us. But several sites, including Tumblr and Craigslist, have removed their RSS feeds, so […]

Openreads: A Private and Open Source Mobile App To Keep Track of Your Books as an Alternative to Goodreads

2025-01-032025-01-03 Danie

The image shows a smartphone screen displaying reading statistics. The background is a muted teal color, providing a calming contrast to the data presented on the screen. In the foreground, various charts and progress bars dominate, meticulously tracking the user's reading progress throughout the year. The top shows the title, "Awesome statistics Reading challenges", indicating a focus on achievement and progress.

Reading books, digital or a physical copy, is one of the best things one can do for fostering personal growth, knowledge, ideas, and experiences. In the fast-moving digital world of 15-second short videos, there is […]

Most users don’t own their social profiles nor domain names or any other presence on the Internet

2025-01-012025-01-01 Danie

The image shows a house key being offered and being accepted by another. There is a large red circle and line superimposed on the image, symbolizing a prohibition or cancellation of such a transaction. In the foreground are two hands, one offering a key with a small house charm, and the other trying to receive it. The background features a blurry but clearly visible "SOLD" sign, suggesting a real estate transaction. The colour of the “SOLD” sign seems to be purposefully off, giving it a faded look, as if it's been there for a while.

I’m busy listening to episode 147 Tornado of the Darknet Diaries podcast, where there was some interesting commentary about what we think we “own”, especially on the Internet. We register a profile on X, Facebook, […]

Home Assistant’s new hardware voice assistant answers to ‘Hey Jarvis’ and can work offline

2024-12-202024-12-20 Danie

The image shows a small, square device, possibly a smart home gadget, resting on a surface. The background is a gradient of soft blue and orange hues, creating a calm and modern atmosphere. In the foreground, the device is the primary focus, with its sleek, white design and subtle glowing circle on the top drawing the viewer's attention. A thin cable is connected to the device, suggesting it is powered or connected to a network.

There’s a new voice assistant in town, and this one can work locally in your home without phoning home to its corporate overloads. This week, the popular hobbyist smart home platform Home Assistant officially launched […]

EFF Launches Digital Rights Bytes to Answer Tech Questions that Bug Us All

2024-12-112024-12-11 Danie

The scene is set in what appears to be a retro-style diner, viewed from the outside through a large window. The foreground is dominated by the window frame itself, while the background features a teal wall with the words "DIGITAL RIGHTS BYTES" prominently displayed in a stylized font. Inside the diner, three anthropomorphic animals—a penguin, a cat, and a dog—are seated at a counter, each enjoying a different treat. The counter is a simple teal color, and the overall color palette is muted and nostalgic. The penguin, cat, and dog seem to be engaging in friendly conversation. The penguin, wearing a bow tie, appears relaxed and content as it sips a milkshake. The cat looks cheerful, holding what seems to be a small sundae. The dog, wearing a sailor hat, has a slightly inquisitive expression, indicated by a thought bubble with a question mark above its head. Also, there is a silhouette of a figure in a hat visible outside the diner in the upper right corner; its presence hints at an unseen element beyond the window, adding a slightly mysterious touch to the illustration.

Yes, politicians and Big Corporates do twist narratives to suite their own agendas. EFF is aiming to try to give more objective and honest answers to technology questions, especially those which affect users’ privacy and […]

Location data firm helps US police find out when suspects visited their doctor

2024-12-102024-12-10 Danie

The image shows a detailed aerial view of a city at night, possibly in a suburban or residential area. The foreground is dominated by a detailed map, showcasing the intricate network of streets, buildings, and even small parks or green spaces. The background is dark, emphasizing the nighttime setting and highlighting the illuminated buildings as small points of light, creating a sense of depth and scale. Five white markers are placed on the map, drawing the viewer’s attention to specific locations within the city. The markers seem evenly distributed, suggesting a planned or strategic placement.

A location-tracking company that sells its services to police departments is apparently using addresses and coordinates of doctors’ and lawyers’ offices and other types of locations to help cops compile lists of places visited by […]

This Website Shows How Much Google’s AI Can Glean From Your Photos

2024-12-032024-12-03 Danie

The foreground is dominated by a slide projector, its plastic casing a pale off-white. A slide is in place, showcasing a nighttime scene with what seems to be a cityscape in the background. The image on the slide is dark, a purplish hue, with tall structures barely visible against a starlit sky. The number "E12" is handwritten on the top-left corner of the projector. The scene within the slide suggests a view of a city at night. The image is somewhat grainy. We cannot infer much about the people who might have taken the photo—their racial characteristics, age, economic status, lifestyle, or activities. The emotional tone of the photo is quiet and contemplative. The lack of clear details means it is impossible to guess at any specifics regarding the photographer and image creation time. The light source appears to be artificial, suggesting an indoor environment. The slide itself appears slightly dusty or smudged, which is not easily noticeable at first glance. The color saturation in the image projected onto the slide appears to be altered due to age or processing of the image. The image quality isn't very sharp, making some of the details in the cityscape difficult to discern. There is a subtle reddish-pink glow along the top edge of the slide within the projector, possibly from the internal light source.

Software engineer Vishnu Mohandas decided he would quit Google in more ways than one when he learned that the tech giant had briefly helped the US military develop AI to study drone footage. In 2020, […]

Cape has been selling a privacy-focused cellphone service to the U.S. military, now offering to high-risk members of the public

2024-11-212024-11-21 Danie

Smartphone screen showing title Dashboard. Below that is text stating Good morning, you are rotating personas every 6 hours. Below that it lists the previous persona rotations with the date and time of each.

Cape runs its own mobile core, all of the software necessary to route messages, authenticate users, and basically be a telecom. Ultimately, this gives Cape the control to do more privacy-enhancing things, such as periodically […]

Tag: privacy