I went to ship a package at FedEx. They asked for my ID. I asked why, and they said it was to validate the shipping address. I told them my address isn't a part of the shipment, since it was my partner's package. Was told the partner would have to come in and ship it then. Left and just went to a USPS. Figured y'all would wanna know.

Great recent video from Rossman, titled "If you don't want to be recorded... now you know how we feel..."

What are your thoughts on it?

For people in countries where they are starting to use photos for age verification, what happens when none of your computers have cameras?

I ask this cause I've heard that they're stopping new accounts from being made on September and basically go full force in January 1st 2027.

So I want to know your thoughts about this situation that's going on here so far.

First things first: I value my privacy, and I’m definitely not the type of person who would say, “I have nothing to hide—they can go ahead and monitor me.” I also have two young children, and I’m not quite sure how I feel about the debate over age verification and social media bans. I think it’s now undisputed that algorithm-driven dopamine hits have a negative effect on teenagers—and even children. Of course, it’s primarily my responsibility as a responsible and educated parent to teach my children how to use digital media in a healthy way. But I, too, would try to keep my children away from Instagram and TikTok for as long as possible. Many parents may not even be aware of the dangers, or they may be so overwhelmed by the challenges of parenting that they rely on screens far too early and for far too long as a parenting aid or as a break for themselves.

Doesn’t the absence of a social media ban perhaps even promote inequality, since there are children with and without social media accounts in the schoolyard, and a ban would eliminate that inequality? On the other hand, I also understand that it sets a precedent and opens a door that—once open—could be abused for other purposes. All the commentators I’ve read, for example, condemn age verification—which is, after all, necessary to enforce such a social media ban—because child protection is always seen as nothing more than a flimsy pretext. Why is that?

I'm genuinly curious, let me know what you think.

My country is likely to do the same and I need to know how to do it

...even if I use Mozilla Firefox forks with uBlock Origin and strict privacy settings. All I want is Outlook or Gmail to not track my fingerprint data in the best efficient way possible. I'm slowly changing my old Outlook and Gmail accounts to safer services like Tuta or Proton.

In the meantime, I still have to use my services. It's a hassle for me to jump into multiple browsers, so I wonder if even with the most secure configuration I helps to protect my data. I mean, at least I'm not using Chrome nor Edge now...

UC San Diego Professor Aaron Schulman and team discovered a universal vulnerability installed in more than 2,000,000 cars across the US. Cars can be unlocked and disabled by anyone within Bluetooth range who uses the exploit.

The KARR alarm system (parent company Acrisure Protection Group) is installed in a majority of cars sold at southern California dealerships.

Unpatched KARR systems broadcast a static Bluetooth address (even when "disabled"), suitable for tracking individuals.

https://today.ucsd.edu/story/2-million-cars-with-anti-theft-systems-installed-by-dealers-are-at-higher-risk-of-theft

Delete Request and Opt-out Platform (DROP) - privacy.ca.gov

Free data removal platform for individuals who live in California!

Proton declined my prepaid card.

Most "I de-Googled" posts show the wins. I'm more interested in the honest version: the swaps that survived contact with daily life vs the ones you rolled back because they were too painful, broke something, or nobody around you would cooperate.

For me the ones that stuck:

• Search Google -> DuckDuckGo, never looked back
• Mail Gmail -> Tuta on a custom domain
• Browser Chrome -> hardened Zen + Mullvad Browser
• VPN -> Mullvad, self-hosted on my own gateway
• Passwords / 2FA -> Bitwarden, YubiKeys + Ente Auth
• OS Windows -> Arch

And the honest friction: Chat is where privacy meets other people's willingness. Signal works for some of my circle, but family flatly would not leave iMessage, so I stopped fighting it. That compromise taught me more than any tool did.

So what stuck for you and what didn't? Especially interested in the swaps you abandoned, and whether the reason was the tool or the people around you. I think the failures are more useful to talk about than the wins.

Anyone else put tape on the back of their dls to stop merchants from scanning them?

Is there a definitive guide for the best frictionless travel fone setup? Eg what accounts, apps, content, data, pics videos, how many days worth

So that when crossing borders even if agents inspect it or plug it in to their cellebrite grayshift terminals and even do a data dump nothing to see and appears boring, mundane, plausible, frictionless and you safe guarded your privacy enough too.

Sure you can hand over a blank fresh wipe or graphene os distress wipe or refuse but you'll then just get red flagged and pulled in for even more invasion and your other electronics examined too. You might get your devices seized too anyway and denied entry plus black listed unless a citizen. It's just smarter and better to be prepared in advance for a frictionless boring experience instead.

So, I am doing renovations at home. My wife and I really want to buy a dumb TV for our PS5Pro, or to play films from laptop. I was shocked that there is actually no dumb TV with adequate capabilities. Even better, there is no dumb TV in my country at all. So, I guess the only way is to buy some smart TV and lobotomize it. We selected the Samsung QE55S95H as our primary target. Any advice and caveats regarding it? Are there any tricks besides the standard "disable ACR and block it in the firewall, add PiHole"? My guts (as a Software Engineer) says that is much more to this(

I want to print family foto albums (layout options). I have a printer at home but do not like the quality of the photo's. There are sensitive pictures of the children. I'm also worried about quality control witnessing our pictures. Only one corrupt person in the system can do the harm.

Preferably in Belgium, EU is fine.

To cover digital privacy remarks: our pictures are on Icloud but I'm gradually transferring them to a family member their Nextcloud. We only share pictures via Signal.