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The Almighty Buck Businesses Electronic Frontier Foundation Open Source

DuckDuckGo Donates $100,000 Among Four FOSS Projects 36

jones_supa writes As is the search engine company's annual habit, DuckDuckGo has chosen to advance four open source projects by donating to them. The primary focus this year was to support FOSS projects that bring privacy tools to anyone who needs them. $25,000 goes to The Freedom of the Press Foundation to support SecureDrop, which is a whistleblower submission used to securely accept documents from anonymous sources. The Electronic Frontier Foundation was given $25,000 to support PrivacyBadger, which is a browser add-on that stops advertisers and other third-party trackers from secretly tracking your surfing habits. Another $25,000 arrives at GPGTools to support GPG Suite, which is a software package for OS X that encrypts files or messages. Finally, $25,000 was donated to Riseup to support Tails, which is a live operating system that aims at preserving your privacy and anonymity.
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DuckDuckGo Donates $100,000 Among Four FOSS Projects

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    Kudos to DuckDuckGo!

  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22, 2015 @10:45AM (#49313179)

    https://duck.co/blog/donations_2015

  • and if you are running Android with the Play store, you are part of the problem.

    AOSP without the Play store is the only ethical solution.

    • by tepples ( 727027 )

      How is Amazon Appstore any less "part of the problem" than Google Play Store?

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        The AC you're replying to said nothing about the Amazon store. At least read what you're replying to, first.

        Believe it or not, there are sources for android software that don't involve Google and Amazon. Like F-droid, for one: totally open source software, no DRM, no lockdown, and software that doesn't data mine your ass.

        • Like F-droid, for one: totally open source software, no DRM, no lockdown, and software that doesn't data mine your ass.

          Last time I checked, repositories containing only free software tended to lack games with substantial production values, apps for lawfully watching notable movies, and apps for scanning paper checks for deposit into your bank account. Has this changed, and if so, when?

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Avoid the Play store and the Amazon app store.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Apps that require proprietary non-android google APIs aren't allowed on the Amazon Appstore.

        Of course, most apps are still closed source, but at least they will run on anything, instead of just google blessed devices.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22, 2015 @11:34AM (#49313341)

    They should focus on Android right now. Your computer likely doesn't have a camera, microphone, GPS and telephone built in, your Smartphone does.

    Currently a smartphone or tablet comes out of the box installed with spyware, some Google's for me some of it is Samsungs.

    DSMLawMo for example, Samsungs 'support' app that reports home how you use the tablet or smartphone (it uses their survey report module), can even take commands across a phone line and do pretty much anything with the tablet or phone:

    Make phone calls, Edit/read/write/fake SMS messages.
    Record audio, get details and approximate locations
    Modify/read/write contacts
    Modify read/read calender events including all confidentials fields
    Clone the screen to a nearby device
    Read/write/monitor internet activity
    Read/Change/Impersonate accounts, including Google and other third party accounts
    Read your list of added dictionary words
    Read logs, modify system settings, control running processes
    Change network settings, wifi, Near Field, Full Network, Bluetooth
    Draw over other apps (i.e. fake a screen)
    Control light, vibration, stop the tablet sleeping
    Add words to the dictionary, Read/control sync settings,
    change search providers
    Run Sysscope

    Sysscope is a deeper piece of spyware.

    You can find this module running on a lot of Samsungs kit, go to settings, 'General' 'Applications Manager' swipe across (right to left) to 'All' and you'll find lots of similar modules. Stop it running, it the tablet or phone will run just fine without it.

    Some apps you cannot kill, Googles location service is one.

    Even before we get to the messaging apps that grab all data and send it remotely and somehow manage to pay for their data centers on tiny incomes.

    On a PC the equivalent is Conduit or similar malware toolbar, on Android phones it comes installed with loads of these by default.

    What is needed is something similar to Cyanogenmod's "privacy guard", so we can withdraw permissions and freeze these unwanted malware. EVEN GOOGLE'S OWN, even Default installed Samsung Malware, we should be able to remove.

    Android and Smartphones are the massive privacy problem these days.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      If you think Microsoft or Apple are any better, both signed up to PRISM. Microsoft in 2007, Apple 2012, (Google in 2009, Yahoo 2008. Facebook 2009, Skype 2011 )

      These are companies that signed as 'Providers', these are "dates when PRISM collection began for each provider". No hacks, not warrants, because legal search warrants had to be dealt with before those dates. That just covers the list up to 2012, lots more since then.

      In 2012 the list of data was:
      Emails,
      Chat videos voice
      Videos
      Photos
      VoIP
      File Transfers
      V

  • by Big Stick ( 318410 ) on Sunday March 22, 2015 @12:18PM (#49313531) Homepage

    another $25,000 donation to Girl Develop It [girldevelopit.com]. What a shame.

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