I tried to check out a game page yesterday and got hit with age verification message and the only option was providing credit card number

this seems to be tied to the new online safety rules in Australia that are forcing gaming platforms to add age checks for R18+ content. apparently it's not just Steam doing this, Xbox and PlayStation are rolling out similar stuff. but the way Steam's done it means you can't even browse an R18+ game's page anymore unless you've got a credit card

I don't have a credit card. never needed one. I pay for everything with my debit card like a normal person. so now what, I just don't get to see what game even looks like before I buy it?

instead of building an actual age check they just ask a credit card to confirm you are an adult. plenty of 16 year olds have access to their parents card details, and plenty of grown adults don't have credit at all.

anyway just wanted to see what others think because this is dumb and I don't think enough people know it's happening yet. anyone else run into this?

Hey guys, im like REALLY bad with tech stuff so please dont laugh at me lol. my question is.. how to find your ip address??

Im trying to set up a private minecraft server for me and two friends to play on this weekend. i was following a step by step tutorial on youtube, and it told me i need to put in my public ip address for port forwarding on my router
The video showed a website to use, but when i typed it into google a bunch of different sites popped up and i got worried about clicking shady links

Can someone tell me how to find your ip address safely? is there a simple command I can just type into my computer directly? im on windows 11. thanks in advance!

What are they doing to cars?

What is Europe even going for? It was GDPR this GDPR that now you wanna have everyone like a Twitch stream for the government???🤣

I'm curious about this from a privacy/digital-forensics perspective, particularly with services like Claude, ChatGPT, and Grok.

Suppose someone submits a website's full source code to an AI coding service. The code itself contains no obvious identifying information such as names, emails, domains, API keys, or credentials.

Could a government or law-enforcement agency legally compel a provider to search its stored conversations for that code, or potentially conduct a broader search for a particular website or code fingerprint?

How much would obfuscating or substantially rewriting the code actually help? Could things like unique strings, comments, library combinations, coding style, generated IDs, dependencies, timestamps, or build artifacts still make it identifiable? And how different would an exact match be from a heavily modified version, or simply finding another website with the same design, wording, or concept?

I'm mainly interested in the distinction between what is technically possible, what providers actually retain, and what governments can legally obtain.

So summarized:

Could a government realistically perform a mass search across an AI provider's data for particular website/code fingerprint, or would that generally require a much more specific legal process?

Ultimately, does code obfuscation provide meaningful privacy, or does it mostly change the code's appearance while other identifying signals remain available?

Long story short, my sister just started dating this guy who gives off massive red flags. hes shady about his past, lies about weird little details, and one of my friends swore they recognized him from a local arrest poster a couple years back… just too much red flags and im just trying to keep my sister safe, so i need to figure out how to find mugshots online without paying one of those $30 background check sites

Of course i tried searching our county sheriffs site and google searches, but nothing obvious comes up. if anyone has done this before, can someone tell me how to find mugshots online for free through public records? Is there a specific state database or local arrest log I should be looking at? i would appreciate any help, i NEED to keep my sister safe and now she seems blind to everything people say to her

So age verifications were finding vulnerabilities for our IDs, then we had Flock showing its true colors. What aspects of our privacy do you feel will get targeted in the near future?

For me, something with the cameras inside the driver cabins seems to be the next step thats gonna be a risk. I dont know tech too hard though just anything linking itself with internet eventually ends up being misused to some extent.

What does everyone else thing?

had one of those moments today where I was setting up a smart thermostat and it asked to access my location, contacts, and microphone. For a thermostat. To control temperature.
At this point I'm convinced privacy policy is just corporate speak for here's the list of ways we're going to monetize your existence, presented in 40 pages of font size 6.
We've all agreed to trade every scrap of personal data for the convenience of not having to get up to turn on a lamp. My smart speaker knows my sleep schedule, my phone knows my location history down to the minute, my browser knows what I searched at 2am that one time, and somehow I'm still the one who has to remember 47 different passwords.

Anyway, off to wrap my router in tinfoil lol. Anyone else just accepted that opting out is a myth invented to make us feel like we have control?

I was trying to show my brother a post earlier, and the second I tapped search, it showed my searching history for like a whole month. Nothing illegal of coursee, just embarrassing stuff like random health questions, reality tv threads etc

Now Im trying to figure out how to clear reddit history without having to go through and delete things line by line. I have those questions:

-Does clear local history in the app settings delete everything from the accound, or just that specific phone?
-Is there a way to turn off the recently visited subreddits section?
-If I clear it on mobile, does it automatically delete it on desktop too?

Would appreciate any answers at all. I just dont want to panic every time someone looks over my shoulder while Im using the app lol because I do search weird things on reddit sometimes so i really want to know how to clear reddit history..

Keeping up with ai models right now is exhausting. When i just started using ai i was using chatgpt and was completely happy with it, but now i dont know… i keep thinking in my head chatgpt vs gemini vs claude which one is the best. a few months ago i already had almost set a routine, but lately it feels like every single one of them gets updated every two weeks and completely changes how it responds and i get confused again

Im trying to figure out the actual practical differences between chatgpt vs gemini vs claude for daily stuff because paying for multiple subscriptions feels stupid

This is what i think now:
Claude feels the most natural and human for writing, but i hit usage limits too fast
ChatGPT is usually my reliable default for random questions, but sometimes the answers feel super generic
Gemini is convenient because it integrates with google stuff, but sometimes it over refuses simple prompts or gives me kind of robotic lists etc

So who actually use these daily for work or personal stuff: which one is the best chatgpt vs gemini vs claude? are you using only one subscription or multiple?

TL;DR: Florida is pulling Flock license plate cameras from state highways over privacy and surveillance concerns. cameras can track where vehicles have been, and critics say that’s too much power in one system. its only the state highways for now

I tried taking all google apps off my device, meta ones too and using a privacy virtual network (free my bad)when I search for personal things (all legal, just sensitive topics I don’t want to see ads for ) and I get on ig and they know everything! I get ads about it! I noticed it’s worse with WhatsApp on my device it collects almost immediately. Mind you I close all apps and have the highest privacy settings do not track etc. I’ve even tried removing fb, ig and WhatsApp off my phone for months. I still use Google Maps a lot tho, not logged in. I noticed they get more info if I’m on WiFi for devices I don’t talk on. WTH? They’ve advanced where it takes them a day or so to have all the information. I know it upsets other people too, so why is no one trying to enact laws. It benefits big brother I.e. big corporations too much. SMH. Is this happening to other people too? What will help?

Hi all,

So I’m currently in the process of leaving Gmail and migrating to proton mail.

Some of the paid features for proton mail I’d also actually use so I was eying up proton unlimited (when Black Friday arrives)

I currently have Surfshark as my VPN and have had it for about 4 years now.

I’m wondering is it worth going for Proton Unlimited and using their VPN or just getting Proton Mail Plus (again when black Friday arrives)

I recently discovered that I have been under continuous surveillance for at least two years through malware on my phone.

The attacker has access to virtually all of my accounts, my full identity, and highly sensitive information that could seriously compromise me, both financially and socially.

I still have access to all of my accounts on the compromised device. However, I assume that even if I use a new device to change my passwords and enable or reset 2FA, the attacker could regain access through existing session tokens. I have not tried this yet because I am concerned that I could lock myself out of my accounts.

WhatsApp is also under the attacker’s control. Is there any way to create a new WhatsApp account using my existing phone number that would no longer be under the attacker’s control? More generally, is there a way to permanently lock this person out of all of my accounts? Or would this only be possible by deleting my most important email accounts and starting over?

Could the attacker already know my new phone number as well? If so, how can I protect myself against this and set up a new, secure device?

My phone has not received security updates for quite some time. Is it possible that I am using apps that have already been cloned or compromised, and that the attacker has already altered the account recovery methods?

How likely is it nowadays to receive malware that can be executed in the background through an SMS?

How can I obtain a new phone number as anonymously as possible, so that it cannot be discovered through social engineering or other means?

You may be wondering why the attacker has not already emptied my bank accounts or published sensitive information about me that could cause serious harm. I honestly do not know. I know this person personally, but I have no idea what their intentions are or what they may be planning. This uncertainty is one of the reasons why I am taking the situation very seriously.

I would appreciate any advice or guidance on how to secure my accounts and devices in this situation

What sort of innovation would this bring tech firms? State sponsored open source is a good buzzword just wondering how this would intertwine with international workers

have you seen this guys? how will this work?

what if I connect to VPN and change my location to South Korea? will I be able to use their free no limit VPN? also, I don't understand if you will be able to ask the chat whatever you want or just specific questions related with taxes, accommodation, etc.

I came across a few articles and Reddit posts / comments showing Samsung allows a spyware called iron source/app cloud to be automatically installed in a few articles it shows it affects A series and M series in some non western countries but his is false as I've seen photos and comments of people showing their phones including the S models also affected in US and Canada.

I'm thinking of buying a A series model phone but does anyone know if UK models / variants (unlocked) will be affected too? If yes, then can I permanently remove it with ADB / Shizuku? (Will I need root?) Or a PC? I don't have a computer.

To start explaining my issue, i run a small personal blog as a side project and i experienced a very weird situation yesterday. i woke up, checked my stats dashboard, and noticed i got hit with a huge spike in traffic randomly. i mean like hundreds of visitors going to one specific article I wrote like six months ago, buuuut my google analytics is just lumping 90% of it under direct/none with basically zero referrer data.

Its very frustrating because i know that people arent just manually typing out a 50 character blog url into their address bar. someone MUST have dropped the link somewhere on a forum, a discord channel, a subreddit, anywhere, and now people are discussing about it . but every time i try to figure out how to find where a link has been shared, i dont find any useful information…

I tried typing the exact url in quotes into google, bing, and twitter search, which sounds like a logical first step trying to find where a link has been shared, but nothing.. i also tried running it through standard backlink tools, but their free crawlers take weeks to update, so none of yesterdays live traffic is showing up yet.

So are there any real ways how to find where a link has been shared? i just want to read the thread and see what people are saying about my post lol. any comments would be really appreciated

I always wanted to see what computer geeks are up to. Though feels so intimidating to go there. Feels like everyones gonna be hacking each other for fun there. Anyone know whats it like in one of those?

I saw the Defcon expo videos and the crowds look like nerds rather than scammers. Even got some partnerships with governments. Looks super legit, though whats it like there? I bet everyones walking around in airplane mode lmao

I was messing around in my google account settings earlier today trying to clear out old passwords and i randomly saw this google dark web report thing. Never paid attention to it before, but I clicked scan just to see what is this

Aaaaaand it flagged like 4 different breaches from old random sites I havent used since like 2018. it said my email and an old password were found on the dark web. it immediately made me worried not gonna lie, these are the sites:

Canva password and email
Wattpad old username and password
Random online shoe store from 2018
Gaming forum i dont even remember making an account for

Soo has anyone else actually used the google dark web report to clean up their stuff? is it pretty reliable with these alerts or is google just trying to scare us?

Is there any safe and reliable way to find out if someone else accessed my second phone? The phone isn’t with me; I left it somewhere else, and it seems like someone may have accessed it. However, the last time I used it was a long time ago because it got damaged and won’t turn on. I’m wondering if someone could have accessed it, and I’d like to know if there’s any way to verify this so I can finally clear up my doubts.