Cops ain’t really buying anything. More probably they are directing the spend of taxpayer money on some vibe-coded garbage ass app one their friends made for a100x markup along with a long-term training and support package.

Could it be that he observed that the so called “agentic” operating systems (current versions of Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android) are essentially screen-scraping everything people do, and funneling it to the intelligence apparatus? Security researchers have been squawking about this for a while, and even recently the Signal Foundation CEO pointed it out. Or is that too mundane? Is it much worse? Intelligence gathering tools like Microsoft Recall are an intelligence agency’s wet dream.

The election interference thing certainly doesn’t strain credulity, but wouldn’t he be able to disclose something so wildly illegal? That is the whole point of congressional oversight.

Long before Tesla existed, the Hurst tool (aka Jaws of Life) was created. It’s like a giant can opener for cars, and firemen love to use it. The lack of door handles, locked doors, and even smashed and jammed doors,don’t really stop firefighters from getting in. This has been a thing since the 80s at least. Also, Teslas do have mechanical door handles on the inside, so occupants can open doors without power, but these factoids don’t make for good rage bait.

Mullvad VPN works well on Android and has some DNS based ad blockers & content filters in the VPN app (though off by default iirc). Mullvad browser is not ported to Android.

That said, it’s important to understand that VPNs don’t provide privacy in any absolute sense. They can (maybe) obscure data about your browsing habits from your ISP. But they won’t stop all the other, more effective tracking exists nearly everywhere else on the web.

Harris did pretty bad during the Primary back in 2020

Harris actually dropped out months before the primaries in 2020. She was something like 16th most popular candidate at the time she withdrew. She was a pretty unpopular AG in California at the time and likely would not have even won her own state primary.

Agreed. Wrong word choice. And its an important, major correction. Not a small one. :-)

I don’t know about intentionally designing that. It would violate contracts and have to be a hidden, but broadly conspiratorial activity. I have some professional experience in consumer electronics, and I remember when TPMs started becoming a required component for CE. It took several years to become commonplace; a slow transition from security by obscurity to sensible practices when devices started to be internet connected.

Nevertheless, from my experience, I’d say the TPMs aren’t there for user security, they are there to keep Hollywood movies safe.

+100. People forget, or chose not to pay attention to the fact that Google sensor vault data was key evidence in convicting the January 6 insurrectionists (who were exonerated to become ICE). Surveillance capitalism doesn’t care which side you are on.

Just to clarify… my question wasn’t “do sleepers exist” it was should we continue to call them sleepers when they have broad access to the administrative branch of the US government.

And then, unless you jumped through hoops to disable it, your PC sends the key to Microsoft so they can just keep it linked to your account.

You’d probably also have to jump through the hoops to disable windows recall too.

Are they really sleepers any more?

I don’t… think I’m a bot?

Your comment reminded me of the Black Mirror episode - Hang the DJ. (if you haven’t seen it, it’s brilliant). Also, I don’t think I’m a bot pushing a Netflix agenda, but who can tell these days.