Tag Archive for: Resist

Proton VPN maps VPN usage to resist censorship

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In the wake of sudden oppressive censorship, citizens flood to VPN services so they can unblock restricted platforms, apps, sites, news, and content. Because of this, popular cybersecurity company Proton has launched a new site to monitor those usage spikes to act as an alarm bell when sudden censorship takes place.

It’s been quite a while since the internet stopped being the open and free space we all knew and loved. Authorities worldwide are increasingly imposing full or partial internet shutdowns in times of crisis or geopolitical conflict. In 2022 alone, the web went dark 187 times across 35 countries—an all-time high for internet shutdowns that 2023 will likely beat.

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Philadelphians welcomed PhilTel’s first free public phone as a small way to resist big tech

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A group of about 20 tech-savvy engineers and programmers gathered Saturday afternoon at a Philadelphia bookstore to celebrate the installation of an old-fashioned public pay phone.

Organizers of the project hope the phone, which is free to use for calls in North America, is the first of many in the city and will help spur a restoration of the public communications infrastructure that has been eroded by cell phones carried by most Americans.

But there’s more to PhilTel, the project launched this year by Mike Dank, a 31-year-old software engineer who lives in Springfield, Delaware County, and Naveen Albert, 21, a senior computer engineering major at the University of Pennsylvania.

» READ MORE: The return of pay phones in Philly? One hacker wants to make it happen.

To PhilTel supporters interviewed at the installation, the effort to restore public phones represents resistance to society’s thoughtless adoption of technology they believe could be turned on a dime into a tool of oppression, economic growth for growth’s sake despite the environmental impact, and the planned obsolescence that induces many consumers to buy new cell phones every few years.

“There’s a lot of stuff sold to us and pushed to us that we don’t need,” said Michael Somkuti, a computer network engineer who lives in Philadelphia.

Somkuti, 25, is a regular at Iffy Books, which is on the third floor of a mixed-use building at 319 N. 11th St. and where the phone was installed in a hallway right outside the store. Iffy Books opened in July 2021 and specializes in books and events on hacking, gardening, and generally “empowering people to be less reliant on big tech companies,” its website says.

Steve McLaughlin, the owner of Iffy Books, where he hosts workshops on things like bleeding control basics, programming, and circuit-building, described the new phone as “an experiment with a shared resource.”

The inspiration of PhilTel came from a project in Portland, Ore., where an engineer named Karl Anderson installed the first Futel phone in 2014, according to the Oregonian newspaper. Futel now has eight phones in that city, and one each in four other cities, including one as far away as Detroit, according to…

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Pop-up Android adware uses social engineering to resist deletion – The Register

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The Register

Pop-up Android adware uses social engineering to resist deletion
The Register
A malicious Android app that downloads itself from advertisements posted on forums strongly resists removal, security firm Zscaler warns. The dodgy Android utility poses as "Ks Clean", an Android cleaner app. Once installed, the app displays a fake …

and more »

android security – read more

Holy selfie: Photographer couldn’t resist taking one with Pope Francis

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Pope Francis is too modern for some, a breath of fresh air for others. That modernity includes, among other things, an embrace of technology and customs – such as the selfie – that are part of the deal.

In this case, a Reuters photographer takes a break from his usual role to take an unusual – but not unprecedented — picture with the Pope.

Reuters explains:

Reuters photographer Max Rossi takes a selfie with Pope Francis while flying over the Atlantic Ocean Feb. 12. “It’s not every day you get a selfie with the pope,” Rossi says. “I took this photo high above the Atlantic en route to Mexico. I asked Pope Francis to have a selfie with me for my family. My argument was simple: It’s common to see people asking for a selfie with him. To my delight, he said yes. People around me congratulated me. Comments from my colleagues about this selfie were all pleasant although some regretted not having asked the same question.”

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Network World Paul McNamara