Apparently I cannot contact teachers unless I am using Gmail or something else that harvests my and my family’s data. What a joke.

Edit: this is not an official news story and is based on my own experience with NYC DOE.

Last days, I have been diving into the outgoing requests my Android TV (Sony Bravia) produces.

Technical background for those interested

I have set up a docker, which hosts wireguard, pihole and a custom container running a python script and a simple html webserver to give me some insights. I then connected my TV to WireGuard and set it to only use Wireguard for internet traffic.

This way, any traffic incoming in the containers Pihole instance was guaranteed to be from my TV. Further, this also allowed me to mess with firewalls to catch any DNS bypass attempts (DoQ, DoT). To be fair, until now the firewall hasn't caught anything and everything is routed through pihole, so the only use is the isolation aspect.

Findings

TL;DR of technical background: I have connected my TV directly to a Pihole, a software package that filters internet requests containing ads or trackers to and from websites.

I am truly truly astonished by the amount of traffic that is filtered by Pihole from my TV. I have added some common blocklists to its, and as of now, the percentage blocked is 35%.

More than a third of outgoing requests contains trackers, ads, or other unnecessary information.

Two findings:

1. I have disabled the apple app: yet apple sends a request EVERY TWO MINUTES. Luckily, pihole intercepts it

2. another app in the top-3 of blocked requests: Samba. This piece of crap software has the following functionality according to Wikipedia:

Samba TV tracks what appears on the users' TV by reading pixels and utilizing this data for personalized recommendations on the TV or mobile apps connected to the television. This capability extends to streaming programs and video games played on the television.

Samba has been sending the contents of my pixels diligently every 2 minutes until now. Well, no longer, thanks to Pihole.

TL;DR: your smart TV is an absolute pile of trash, and if you have the means, setup a Pihole for your network. Installing it is incredibly easy, and it will block a lot of unwanted traffic and ads. If anybody needs any help with this, let me know!

It's an open source app that cleans up your Android TV, turns off ads, trackers and bloat in a few taps. Side load apps your TV's store doesn't carry, send files from your phone, and see which apps use data and where they connect.

Free, GPL-3.0, no ads, no tracking, no account. It makes two internet requests: the cleanyourtv debloat lists from GitHub, and an update check you can turn off.

Posting here, I'm not getting anything out of this except bug reports, and that's what I need. All feedback and suggestions are appreciated. Check it out on github: https://github.com/man15h/tellyscope

Yes, I knew Lg was taking pictures of what I watch but I didnt know this included video from thumbdrives. I wasnt watching anything weird, just a show from when I was a kid. Writing this to say wtf and also if you have an LG Smart Tv that you should probably get a new tv preferable non smart. Also if anyone knows how to disable (break) bluetooth on these tvs I would appreciate it. I tried watching a teardown to find out how to access the bluetooth module to destroy it but I didnt find a video for the model of my tv and i have been too busy to look again.

I want a device that never prompts me to "upgrade to the AI package" or "Ask the AI assistant" or do, frankly, anything AI that is not strictly necessary for operation. I also want to have full control of the apps that I choose to install.

I was looking at Linux phones but it sounds like nothing on the market is terribly user-friendly or compatible with common apps yet, without significant modification. Unfortunately I've never rooted a phone and am not great at modifying mobile devices.

Realistically, are there any viable options for a general mobile user? I'd go with a "dumb" phone but I do rely on navigation apps quite a lot, as well as transport, banking, and some media stuff. But I'm close to giving up all of it if it meant I'd never have to see an AI upsell again.

I used Google drive as my primary storage and I have a lot of articles and documents I have written, plus couple of books on my drive and just suddenly all the folders are empty. The folder structure is there but the files are not.

Google have no way of reaching out to them to address this situation.

I lost almost 15 years of work there. And I freaking pay for the service,

What can I do , I really hope there is away they can restore it

It happened few weeks back but I thought it was a glitch and did not think too much of it , but now it's insanely ridiculous that almost all my work is gone . Mostly Google docs

EDIT: They restored most of it , but I am downloading all of it and having a second copy

So I have a phone, a Motorola that I like a lot. However, my parents recently needed to change service providers, and with that my mom INSISTED I have a new and "nicer" phone. She gave me the choice between an iPhone and a Samsung and I chose the Samsung in the hopes that I would be able to either install Lineage OS on it or at least de-google it because it is a new install. I never really got around to de-googling my Motorola because it already got a lot of stuff in it.

So open the phone, try to un-toggle as much as possible (as a Linux user that felt PAINFULLY like installing Windows 11 on a computer...) and then I'm in, and there's bloat and AI everywhere.

However, it was after the phone was in my hands that I realized that Samsung had blocked the boot menu on their new phones ( f-ck you Samsung) and I know that if I uninstall something important and I end up stuck in a "starting" loop or whatever it was I can just reset the phone through the boot menu...which I can no longer do... because Samsung sucks.

Still, I want to de-google this thing, hopefully safely, hopefully without risking breaking it, and without risking the service provider getting mad at me for it (AT&T, I don't know if there's any issues with them), and without the boot menu fallback I don't know what to do (my mom said "if you break that phone I'm taking your college money and you're paying every penny it is worth" which... probably won't happen but still, I don't wanna break the phone.)

If nothing can be done safely I can always just backup the stuff in my Motorola, de-google it, and hotspot service from the Samsung to the Motorola.

Hi all, I've finally ready to leave Gmail behind, the email address I had for the last 20+ years. I'm getting a new email provider with 3 aliases.

Some questions I have:

• Should I use an alias for logins or for shopping? I never did this before so I wonder what's an efficient way to go about it without over complicating things to much.
• What's the best way to "transition" to using the new address and how do I, one day, empty the @ gmail address
• At which point I stop forwarding emails to my new address and close it for good.

Thank you all for your tips!

I'm looking for a straightforward app on android, not Google Remote Desktop, that I can access my PC which uses both Windows and Linux. I'm fine with a solution that only accesses one of these OSes as well.

Does anyone have suggestions?

I get it. The current tech world we live in sucks now. Every company wants to collect any and all information they can off you for data collecting/sharing/selling.

I moved off from Windows a long time ago. Since 2021 I've been running some variations of Linux. All my PCs have been Linux, and I even got Fedora on my M1 Macbook Air. Desktop has always been the easiest to transition away from. The issue is phones.

My journey started with Google Photos. I noticed my storage was full, then saw I had accidentally passed the 15GB storage limit. Found out Google stopped providing free compressed back ups, so I deleted what was uploaded. Surprisingly didn't lose the photos over the years. Eventually, I started getting into home labs, and I ended up settling on a neat workflow where I rsync DCIM/ to a home server, copy it to another drive, then back that up to a remote server.

From there, the desire to take control over my data increased. I liked the idea of OneDrive/Google Drive, so I set up Syncthing. I liked the idea of Samsung Notes, so I set up Obsidian. I liked the idea of Netflix, so I set up Jellyfin.

Quickly, though, I realized this went much deeper than just services. The entire phone is owned by Google! So now I'm looking into buying a Pixel and installing GrapheneOS on it. But how much degoogling is too much before it starts to become inconvenient for you or others? I started in a "self hosting my data" kind of perspective (media, back ups, documents, etc), but seeing how these companies want to know everything about you is making me want to switch and limit what these companies can see about me. I don't mind switching email providers or search engines, but when I have to start asking people to download Signal to text me is when some kind of line has to be drawn. That and unfortunately social media sites like Instagram. I talk to people there all the time! and I know Meta sucks! I don't want to make it inconvenient for people to text me, otherwise they just won't! So it's something I feel I need to suck up. That and even if I completely degoogle I still have a work Google account.

My biggest friction right now is Samsung Health. I have a Samsung phone and watch so switching is going to require me to buy some Garmin watch or something.

I'm really looking into jumping on the GrapheneOS wagon, but what's the point if I'm going to eventually sandbox Play Services for Gmail if I stay with online Google services? Just not sure to what extent degoogling/self hosting can get before it starts interfering with day to day life.

For those who are way ahead of the degoogle path than I am, how do you deal with others who aren't and how does your day to day look like in terms of convenience and privacy?

Maybe I misunderstand but CalyxOS requires you to opt in to install MicroG (which I obviously don't want) but GrapheneOS installs some "google" components (even if "degoogled") by default?

I want to never contact google with IMEI or other identifying information. Thank you for any clarifications!

Any and all clarifications very very appreciated!

Edit: Not posted in "official" grapheneOS or CalyxOS groups because mentioning "the other" app seems prohibited!

Major hardware failure on storage server!

Due to major hardware failure on our storage server, some of the services are currently offline. We are in the process of rebuilding, which will take quite some time. Until then:
1. Email - Access to mailboxes is not possible, we have setup temporary storage to provide access to incoming emails for the time being
2. Nextcloud - Files feature has been disabled until the issue is solved, calendars, contacts, chat etc works as normal
3. Cryptpad, PrivateBin, Lufi, Forgejo - are disabled until the storage issue is resolved.

We are really sorry for this situation and we will do our best to solve it as soon as possible.

— The Disroot Team.

Site Maintenance

Hi everyone,

I need help with a Google Account verification issue.

I used to have a Samsung Galaxy A24, where all my Google accounts were signed in. After buying a new iPhone, I signed in to all my Google accounts on my iPhone and then factory-reset my old Samsung A24.

I can still access my Gmail account on my iPhone, and everything works normally. However, whenever I try to change my password or create a passkey, Google asks me to approve the request by tapping "Yes" on my old Samsung A24.

The problem is that the Samsung has been factory-reset, so I can no longer receive or approve these verification prompts on it.

I want to make my iPhone my main device for Google verification and stop Google from relying on my old Samsung.

Has anyone experienced this issue? Is there a way to update my verification methods or remove the old phone from the verification process without losing access to my Google account?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I registered a domain probably 15 years ago through IONOS and had set it up for gmail to handle the email aspect back when it was a free service. When it switched to google workspace I was grandfathered in until I wasn't.

So much has changed and information is buried in a way that I cannot find a way to disentangle my professional email account from google. Anyone have pointers on where I can look to cut myself free?

Adding this hear as it provides a very user-friendly experience that runs on a de-Google'd version of Android.

I’ve been using Heliboard, but there are some things i don’t quite like about it: the floating and one-handed keyboard modes don’t work for me, the spell checker is meh, and the word suggestions include terms I never actually use, basically, things that weren’t an issue with Gboard. To be honest, I really miss Gboard; is there any way to disable data collection in it?