this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
50 points (100.0% liked)

Privacy Guides

16796 readers
1 users here now

In the digital age, protecting your personal information might seem like an impossible task. We’re here to help.

This is a community for sharing news about privacy, posting information about cool privacy tools and services, and getting advice about your privacy journey.


You can subscribe to this community from any Kbin or Lemmy instance:

Learn more...


Check out our website at privacyguides.org before asking your questions here. We've tried answering the common questions and recommendations there!

Want to get involved? The website is open-source on GitHub, and your help would be appreciated!


This community is the "official" Privacy Guides community on Lemmy, which can be verified here. Other "Privacy Guides" communities on other Lemmy servers are not moderated by this team or associated with the website.


Moderation Rules:

  1. We prefer posting about open-source software whenever possible.
  2. This is not the place for self-promotion if you are not listed on privacyguides.org. If you want to be listed, make a suggestion on our forum first.
  3. No soliciting engagement: Don't ask for upvotes, follows, etc.
  4. Surveys, Fundraising, and Petitions must be pre-approved by the mod team.
  5. Be civil, no violence, hate speech. Assume people here are posting in good faith.
  6. Don't repost topics which have already been covered here.
  7. News posts must be related to privacy and security, and your post title must match the article headline exactly. Do not editorialize titles, you can post your opinions in the post body or a comment.
  8. Memes/images/video posts that could be summarized as text explanations should not be posted. Infographics and conference talks from reputable sources are acceptable.
  9. No help vampires: This is not a tech support subreddit, don't abuse our community's willingness to help. Questions related to privacy, security or privacy/security related software and their configurations are acceptable.
  10. No misinformation: Extraordinary claims must be matched with evidence.
  11. Do not post about VPNs or cryptocurrencies which are not listed on privacyguides.org. See Rule 2 for info on adding new recommendations to the website.
  12. General guides or software lists are not permitted. Original sources and research about specific topics are allowed as long as they are high quality and factual. We are not providing a platform for poorly-vetted, out-of-date or conflicting recommendations.

Additional Resources:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] FutileRecipe@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Not a fan of how they say "we didn't say it's a backdoor," but have "secretly share" in the URL and article title.

[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A backdoor would imply some sort of external control I'd think, a much broader potential for harm.

Being able to command a device to send you info or perform tasks is different than the device sending info of its own accord.

[–] FutileRecipe@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

A backdoor would imply some sort of external control I'd think...

Yes, technically a backdoor listens: https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/backdoor

Being able to command a device to send you info or perform tasks is different than the device sending info of its own accord.

In this context, where it's implied to send without the owner's knowledge (ignoring the fact it's documented), not really. The article screams "gotcha!" when in reality it didn't, so they're trying to backtrack and downplay their initial response. But I do appreciate their update, it's just got a PR spin to it.

Edit: if the article was initially written as more of a "did you know" and/or expanding on existing documentation, wouldn't be an issue. It's the "it's secretly stealing" that implies malice which is part of the definition of malware... that'shares a category with backdoor. So splitting hairs in the name of PR.

[–] FiskFisk33@startrek.website 5 points 1 year ago

there is an important difference between sending data and accepting remote control