Enraging. This is what you get asked for when trying to create a child account for Pokemon so they can participate in local in-person events (which require a "Pokemon ID"):

• Name
• Birthday
• Address
• Last 4 of Social Security Number

Age verification performed by Veratad with a blub:

"Per FTC Safe Harbor Guidelines, we must verify your location, determine that you are not deceased, and confirm that you are 18+ years of age and have provided an accurate SSN."

Sorry, kiddo. I guess you can't go play Pokemon TCG at the local game shop because I'm not handing out part of my Social Security Number (specifically the part that every service uses to verify identity when recovering accounts).

This popped up as an option when I signed into youtube just now. How much longer until it's a requirement? Why the heck isn't someone suing these corporations for invasion of privacy?

X/Twitter straight up required me to take a picture of my palm to log in, so I dropped that site. Now youtube and likely other Google sites are "asking" for it.

second edit get fucked and die, this entire subreddit. You're the reason we're at where we are, not the 10 people that replied to me. Keep on keeping on. Dead internet theory, with /r/privacy at the helm

So, we're almost at the end of the year and it's cybersecurity awareness month, or something.

I'm a CS student. I really like networking and coding, and I REALLY fucking hate that every other day there's a new headline about a company we should have easily be able to 'trust' selling or leaking our data. It's the South Park BP episode, but with our personal information.

I have my experience, I know things I'd like to have to protect me online, gaps I think need filled.

But as someone subbed to r/privacy, what are YOU wishing there was to protect your privacy?

Tony Stark, you have bajillions of dollars and super smartz, what's your 'Suit of armor around the world'?

edit Ignore the belligerence in my replies. I'm drunk, my wife just left me, and I'm just looking for a reason to keep coding. I'm mad. Possibly at you. Probably not.

I ask this cause I've been out the loop with age verification bills in the USA a little bit here.

So when I looked up about this legislation and it passed through one chamber,I got extremely concern about this development.

I'm sure a lot of others have talked about the kids act bill(7757) here.

But just want to know you guys feel about it currently.

I shit you not, I will start using my old crt television I got from my grandparents before buying something from LG or Samsung.

Basically the title.

I’ve set up Mealie, Plex (and Plexamp), a family planner (weekly meals, budget, calendar, etc.), and more.

She discovered a fantastic family planning app (on AppStore) that we started using yesterday. However, after reading about the data it collects, I was quite concerned. It gathers our addresses, emails, check-in notes, menstrual cycles, full calendar access, and more. I found a self-hosted alternative that looked very similar to the app she found, explained it to her, and demonstrated how it worked when I set it up.

This led to a conversation that eventually turned into an argument about privacy and accessibility. I am very privacy-oriented, while she essentially says, “I don’t care about sharing personal details with company X; let them see when I have my menstrual cycle, etc.” She mentioned that the family planning app she found looked better and “warmer” and preferred it over the self-hosted one, even though they are essentially the same. To me, it’s baffling that she chooses minor UI details over our privacy.

Any tips on how to persuade her to take her privacy more seriously? Is all hope lost?

So I tried to visit an NSFW sub today and Reddit now keeps asking me to verify my age by providing government ID or a Photo.

How do I get around this? I am not gonna provide my government ID or a photo for an account that I use exclusively to view NSFW subs / topics.

In the U.S. Facebook wants me to upload an ID to keep using marketplace for selling? I've only sold a few things.

And generally, if the user have chosen private account, what's the sense of it if you can find his or her posts anyway just by putting username in the search tab? What's the point in calling it private account if no privacy at all? Is there something to be done to prevent being able posts being findable and unique user name unseen?

How do you protect your privacy and social security number when applying to college? I am unable to freeze my child’s credit due to her age. Apparently I have to go to multiple websites and organizations to apply. Her SSN will be everywhere. Any advice?

Hey all! I often see an assumption that never connecting your smart TV to your Wi-Fi was not enough, since the TV could simply connect to a neighboring open Wi-Fi. I configured a router with an open Wi-Fi, connect the WAN port to a mirroring switch, and monitor it through Wireshark in the hope to see a rogue TV connecting to my honeypot free open Wi-Fi. I had 6 TVs plugged in with no ethernet or Wi-Fi set up with the honeypot right next to it.

I now have a 2.1Gb packet capture to sift through. So far, I checked if any IP that would have been given by my router's DHCP and found two false positive (another router doing constant ARP (both routers had the same DHCP range) and a few reset packets from an unknown device with no MAC address that I can't identify... but it had no active connection to the web, so it doesn't really matter in the end).

I also checked TLS handshake, TCP/UDP traffic and DNS calls and couldn't find any TV to connect to the open Wi-Fi. So unless I failed at identifying traffic in there somewhere, I haven't been able to prove that any device would freely connect to an open Wi-Fi.

If anyone have tips on how I could spot rogue packets or connections, I'm all ears! I have an arsenal of TVs to my disposition and would really like to be able to prove if Smart TV (or other smart devices) really do connect to open Wi-Fi networks or not.

Does anyone know of a good site with information about which candidates in the upcoming US midterm elections are strong on civil liberties/privacy?

I know there are similar voter guides for pro-choice candidates, anti-choice candidates, pro-gun candidates, anti-gun candidates, etc. (where one can see how candidates are rated regarding those issues based on a specific town/county/postal code), but I can't really find a good source for a guide focused on pro-civil liberties.

The closest I could find is Project for Privacy and Surveillance Accountability, which seems to focus more on pro-fourth amendment issues (which are important! But clearly the site doesn't address politicians who support the identity verification garbage because fucking Dick Durbin is given an A rating), plus it only has information for incumbents.

Before anyone who's right-wing says "vote Republican" or anyone who's "left" wing says "vote Democrat," both parties have members who are great on this issue (e.g. Democrat Ron Wyden or Republican Rand Paul) and members who are absolutely garbage on this issue (e.g. Democrat Blumenthal or Republican Blackburn).

My company is rolling out a financial wellness platform and HR keeps saying it’s confidential.

I’m probably more skeptical than most people, but “confidential” can mean a lot of things.

Can they see that I signed up?

Can they see whether I connected an account?

Do they get individual information or just overall participation numbers?

What happens to the data if I leave the company?

Can I delete everything later?

The service includes budgeting tools and access to a financial planner, which sounds useful. I just don’t want my employer knowing how much debt I have or what I spend money on.

Has anyone looked into this with a workplace financial platform? What questions should I ask before signing up?