'Careless People' Is the Book About Facebook I've Wanted for a Decade, but it is Banned “Careless People, by Sarah Wynn-Williams, is the book about Facebook that I didn’t know I had been waiting a decade to read. It’s also, notably, a book that Facebook does not want you to read; Wynn-Williams is currently under a gag order from a third-party arbitrator that prevents her from promoting or talking about the book because Facebook argued that it violates a non-disparagement clause in her employment contract.” Well of course now everyone will try to get hold of this book and read it. Nothing promotes a book better than a gagging or banning order. It implies there is some truth in it that someone does not want to get out. We've all known for a long time, at least since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, that Facebook has done some despicable things. Their efforts at fact checking etc was all part of the PR to try to disguise the questionable ethics that seemed to be ruling the roost. If we just think back to the very beginning why Mark created Facebook, it was questionable from the get-go. I still have a video clip where Mark is interviewed, and he clearly states the user's data belongs to the user, yet that data got sold and reshared elsewhere. To this day, WhatsApp has in its T&Cs that metadata will be shared upstream to Facebook and other partners. They are not trying to hide that fact. Out of all the Big tech companies, it is Facebook (Meta) that I have the least liking for. This is mainly for the repeated transgressions of privacy over many years. I can even stomach a company like Google using data (like reading our GMail) if they are not actually on selling or resharing that data like FB does. As far as we know, no other company has crossed the line like Facebook has. So of course I'll be interested in this book now too. I know it won't change much because at the end of the day, the only way a company like this feels anything, is if its users dessert its platform. That is just not likely to happen with Facebook in the shorter to medium term. “When I wonder if the company knows that its platforms are being taken over by the worst AI slop you could possibly imagine, if it knows that it is directly paying people to flood these platforms with spam, if it knows it is full of deepfakes and AI generated content of celebrities and cartoon characters doing awful things, if it knows it is showing terrible things to kids. Of course, it does. It just doesn’t care.” See

404 Media

'Careless People' Is the Book About Facebook I've Wanted for a Decade

I've reported on Facebook for years and have always wondered: Does Facebook care what it is doing to society? Careless People makes clear it does not.

#technology #Facebook #privacy #banned

Lessons from open source in the Mexican government “The adoption of open-source software in governments has had its ups and downs. While open source seems like a “no-brainer”, it turns out that governments can be surprisingly resistant to using FOSS for a variety of reasons. Federico González Waite spoke in the Open Government track at SCALE 22x in Pasadena, California to recount his experiences working with and for the Mexican government. He led multiple projects to switch away from proprietary, often predatory, software companies with some success—and failure.” More open source progress, although it also faced its challenges. The lessons learnt are especially interesting. The first lesson mentioned is especially true: The regulations around open source helped a lot, "because it gave a legal framework to explain to people why we were doing stuff", but it was not enough. South Africa's own open source project had similar Cabinet level policy signed off, but the entire project floundered in the late 2000s. What is worrying is that Mexico may face a similar challenge, as they've also had a change of administration. In South Africa's case, and a number of key political leaders changed, and suddenly the focus was elsewhere. Our lesson learnt was you need to progress as quickly as possible to secure your ground before changes come. Don't ever assume you've gained the high ground. Unfortunately in government, a change of leadership, often means no continuity in projects as the change wants to prove their own new visions, and are not keen to make a previous leaderships projects a success. That, and Big Tech will apply pressure at a political level, and not at an IT level, where they will typically meet their match. So far, BRIC of the BRICS countries have all made very good progress on their own open source projects, but S has sadly lagged behind. I'm still hoping the success of these projects will rub off on S too, one day. See

LWN.net

Lessons from open source in the Mexican government

The adoption of open-source software in governments has had its ups and downs. While open sour [...]

#technology #opensource #Mexico #government

OxiCloud is an open source lightweight alternative to NextCloud NextCloud is great, but it tends to be heavyweight and packs a ton of extra functionality in. OxiCloud may be worth considering if you are looking for something a lot lighter and faster. OxiCloud requires a minimum of 512 MB RAM, and I see it has a Docker installation too. Its focus though is very much on performance and speed. Just note some features are still on the roadmap (which NextCloud already has) such as WebDAV support for desktop integration, basic file versioning, simple file sharing with links, etc. It has three contributors and the code has been updated in this last week, so it is being actively developed. The project has been around for only a month, so it is also quite new, hence why those features are still to be added. See

GitHub

GitHub - DioCrafts/OxiCloud: ☁️ OxiCloud server, efficient and secure way to save all your data

☁️ OxiCloud server, efficient and secure way to save all your data - DioCrafts/OxiCloud

#technology #opensource #storage

Mini rolling robot takes virtual biopsies — And it's all in the shape “The team, led by engineers from the University of Leeds, say this is the first time it has been possible to generate high-resolution three-dimensional ultrasound images taken from a probe deep inside the gastrointestinal tract, or gut. It paves the way to a transformation of the diagnosis and treatment of several forms of cancer by enabling ‘virtual biopsies’ — non-invasive scans that provide immediate diagnostic data, allowing doctors to detect, stage, and potentially treat lesions in a single procedure: eliminating the need for physical biopsies.” Very interestingly, the big innovation seems to be around changing the shape (the oloid shape) so that the device can manoeuvre far better. The important outcomes of all of this is that immediate results can be obtained for determining colorectal cancer, and the process may be more comfortable for patients. See

Mini rolling robot takes virtual biopsies | University of Leeds

A tiny magnetic robot which can take 3D scans from deep within the body, that could revolutionise early cancer detection, has been developed by res...

#technology #health #cancer

Wow, this is a 25-year-old Palm Pilot still being used in 2025 “They were the original distraction-free technology before we even needed such a thing. You didn’t spend the money on a Palm Pilot to play games or scroll social media. You spent the extra money on a Palm PDA because you had a job to do. Palm Pilots were the original productivity monsters, keeping us on schedule and connected through lightweight email programs and RSS feeds.” I don't think many of the youth today could visualise a really distraction-free and advert-free piece of technology. Today notifications keep popping up, adverts clutter pages, as well as pop-up cookie notices. I remember using a Palm Pilot myself, and I used to sync my notes, e-mails, etc with my desktop PC. A Palm Pilot was one of the really early productivity devices, being able to run all sorts of 3rd party downloadable apps. I remember, too, the early database apps, I think mine was called HandyDB. This is PURE productivity at its best. Technically, with the Pebble watches making a comeback, there is no real reason why Palm Pilots could not also do so. Big Tech would of course hate this as they still want to sell newer flashier devices to you, that can pop up all sorts of messages and disclaimers. And look at this: “Surprisingly, the 25-year-old rechargeable battery still works well, holding a charge for over a month.” See

Android Police

I still use a Palm Pilot in 2025, and you should, too

So many products offer to help us disconnect, but sometimes you need to look to the past

#technology #retro #PalmPilot

Signal vs WhatsApp: Signal is still the most private by a long way Users adding an incorrect user by mistake to a group is no reflection at all on the security of any app. This happens across all apps, as the user is the issue, not the app. I had long ago deleted the WhatsApp app off my phone, mainly because of its metadata collection, and the sharing of that data with their upstream 'partners' including Facebook and others. This is clearly stated in WhatsApp's T&C's. 'In a statement, a WhatsApp spokesman said it relies on metadata to prevent spam and “keep the service safe from abuse”.' This is just not true, in that this is not the reason why WhatsApp collects metadata — their T&C's state it is to be shared elsewhere. Yes, both Signal and WhatsApp keep the message content secure, and use the same encryption protocol. But WhatsApp is also collecting your location continuously, when you message who, for how long, when you wake up, when you go to sleep, where you shop, etc (and of course shares this with your consent). This is not Signal's business model, nor do they obtain your consent to share this data. WhatsApp/Instagram/Facebook are all about targeting users for advertisers, and sharing data for that targeting (and of course being US owned they have to share that data under the CLOUD and Patriot Acts with the US government as well when requested). What came out of the US Congressional hearing this week was also interesting to hear — the CIA have Signal installed on their desktops, and they use Signal themselves. I'm not saying at all that Signal is perfect, as it still requires a verified phone number. So the user is still always identifiable (unlike other messengers such as Threema, SimpleX, Matrix, Session, etc). It is about what data is collected, and what data is shared with anyone outside of the organisation. Between WhatsApp and Signal, Signal is the clear winner here. For this reason, there is no WhatsApp app on my mobile phone. If organisations want to ensure better privacy, they should use Signal (like the CIA does) or go a step further and self-host a service like Matrix on their premises where they fully control the data as well as the user access verification. WhatsApp was a very good app (I used to use it) before they got bought out by Facebook, and it is that business model that has ruined it. See

TechCentral

Signal vs WhatsApp: messaging app war heats up after US security blunder

Signal has been growing in popularity in Europe, the US and elsewhere as an alternative to WhatsApp.

#technology #metadata #privacy #messengers

Here's Everything You Can Do With the Ports on Your Monitor There is more to life than just HDMI, that's for sure. It is well worth reading this linked article before buying any new monitor or graphics card. Something interesting I learnt is that with DisplayPort there is the possibility of MST or Multi-Stream Transport where you can daisy-chain multiple monitors together with DP cables using only a single port on your GPU. Also, it's important, as it is with USB-C cables, to get HDMI cables that match the version of HDMI that the monitor supports. See

How-To Geek

Here's Everything You Can Do With the Ports on Your Monitor

Any port in a storm? No, you need to pick the right one!

#technology #monitors

8 Tiny Utilities to Make Your Linux Experience Even Better Some quite useful utilities here to: * prevent the screensaver coming on * adjust screen colours for night or low light * hide the mouse cursor when inactive * passing data through a UNIX pipe * a powerful filter tool for reading and searching lists * have multiple copy buffers * add intuitive trackpad gestures I have noticed though on KDE that there is a Clipboards Content icon by default on the toolbar, and you can quickly copy a few different snippets of text, and then by just clicking on each one it will put it back into the buffer for quick pasting. So, in this way you can copy a login ID and then password, go to another page, and paste them one after the other. See

Make Tech Easier

8 Tiny Utilities to Make Your Linux Experience Even Better - Make Tech Easier

Linux is an operating system that you can customize to your needs. Learn how to use these tiny Linux utilities to improve your system performance.

#technology #Linux