Archive: https://archive.is/PhiXk

Archive.org link

Some key excerpts:

Court filings unsealed last week allege Meta created an internal effort to spy on Snapchat in a secret initiative called “Project Ghostbusters.” Meta did so through Onavo, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service the company offered between 2016 and 2019 that, ultimately, wasn’t private at all.

It’s Meta’s in-house wiretapping tool to spy on data analytics from Snapchat starting in 2016, later used on YouTube and Amazon. This involved creating “kits” that can be installed on iOS and Android devices, to intercept traffic for certain apps, according to the filings. This was described as a “man-in-the-middle” approach to get data on Facebook’s rivals, but users of Onavo were the “men in the middle.”

Facebook ultimately shut down Onavo in 2019 after Apple booted the VPN from its app store.

Prosecutors also allege that Facebook violated the United States Wiretap Act, which prohibits the intentional procurement of another person’s electronic communications. Onavo could also be considered straight spyware, but also seems to fall under the definition of wiretapping, according to prosecutors.

The court filings show chats and emails that depict Zuckerberg as being directly involved in these communications.

Prosecutors allege Project Ghostbusters harmed competition in the ad industry, adding weight to their central argument that Meta is a monopoly in social media.

The US’s latest attempt to chill speech online, KOSA-a bill to effectively force everyone to identify themselves to online platforms-is picking up steam and looking like it will pass the Senate.

I haven't used an Android device since my last one, the Galaxy S8. Beautiful hardware, beautiful design, but it was plagued with animation stutters and dropped frames. I switched to an iPhone and an iPad around 6 years ago. And the animations were buttersmooth. It was almost unthinkable to achieve such a fluid interface on any Android phone I had ever used, flagship or otherwise.

Now I am curious about how it is now. Especially after a 2-3 years of use. Does your phone or tablet stutter when you scroll, open an app, switch to another app, start multitasking etc etc? One thing I especially remember was opening certain apps like big games or Office apps. When I'd tap on the app's icon, there would be a half a second delay. But in that infinitesimally short period of time I would question whether the phone registered the touch or not. I would then reach with my finger again but the app would launch right before my second tap. That was constant and infuriating. Does that sort of stuff still happen on Android?

Thanks (:

The department joined 16 states and the District of Columbia to file a significant challenge to the reach and influence of Apple, arguing in an 88-page lawsuit that the company had violated antitrust laws with practices that were intended to keep customers reliant on their iPhones and less likely to switch to a competing device. The tech giant prevented other companies from offering applications that compete with Apple products like its digital wallet, which could diminish the value of the iPhone, and hurts consumers and smaller companies that compete with it, the government said.

Edit: DW changed the link after they published the piece. Sigh. Updated.
Edit2: again. What the fuck.

Because they're not answering my support queries, and I've been having connectivity issues since the last two versions or so. Most of the time they've been pretty good, but if their desktop client can't sync to their servers it's of no use to me. Is anyone else having this problem?

EDIT: I would downgrade, but they recently changed the version numbers, so that's adding to the confusion!

EDIT EDIT: I was considering going back to Thunderbird, but then the question of course is where to host my email (and please don't suggest that I self host, that's really beyond my capabilities!). Also, I think I read that K9 mail was supposed to rebrand to Thunderbird for Android, but it seems like it hasn't happened yet. I just found this as well, about the supposedly forthcoming Thunderbird Sync:

We plan to support syncing of your email account definitions, credentials, signatures, saved searches, tags, tasks, filters, and most major preferences across multiple installations of Thunderbird on PC.>

Interestingly they don't mention calendars . . .

Not paywalled, you can just click "No thanks" on the popup.

“While no one predicted this specific outcome, we shouldn’t be surprised,” added the investor Benaich. “If antitrust regulators make [mergers and acquisitions] prohibitively difficult, we should expect these bizarre semi-exits to become more common.”