Cyberlyra

RE: @evacide@hachyderm.io

Fifteen years ago a Ph.D. student I worked with, Sarah Brayne (now prof at Stanford), was conducting her fieldwork at the LAPD into this new phenomenon, "predictive policing." It was early in the Big Data days. She came back with stories of this company, Palantír, backed by the CIA's Venture Capital wing (yes that's a thing apparently) that the LAPD was using to target pre-crime. They would purchase data sets from pizza delivery companies and other data brokers online and scan license plates in predominantly black and Latinx neighborhoods, use stop-and-frisk to stuff the database, and combine personal data across systems and domains to target who they thought was likely to offend next. Ironically, as the LAPD was fresh from a series of bias and corruption scandals, they wanted to bring in computers to help them de-bias the force.

"As foretold by prophecy" is accurate as that eye-opening moment foretold a lot of what was to come, despite so many of us screaming into what felt like the void for years.

I would love to know what we should be doing now to roll back this internet-surveillance-capitalism-data-economy-fuelled nightmare.

#Samsung is shutting down its text messenging app and forcing people onto #Google for SMS and MMS. At #techreclaimers we have been discussing alternatives to avoid Google. Several Reclaimers recommend Fossify Messages and Fossify Contacts as a good alternative, others have used Textra, and we'd all love to know about more options that keep your data private and sovereign.

If you're stuck, check these out and let us all know how you found the switch.
If you're a super user already, share the knowledge! What do you use?

https://www.fossify.org/apps/
https://www.reclaimcontrol.tech

@TheBulletin@social.techreclaimers.club

Mood: Remember when the #Boeing capsule failed so the #NASA #astronauts stayed up a few extra months at the #ISS?

When they left in June '24, Biden hadn't debated Trump yet.

When they returned in Feb '25, DOGE was already in full force...

It's only a 10-day mission but let's hope #Artemis II crew recognizes the Earth they return to...

Last month I visited Berkeley to speak about the Opt Out project and the video has just been posted online! Check it out!!

How to Opt Out: Lessons from 14 Years of Evading Surveillance Capitalism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilXLiH6Rdx0

#optout #reclaimtech

#News sites run software that detects every visitor's clicks, scrolls, and shares. That's how they know which stories get our attention, which sell to more eyeballs, and which do not. That's how they know how many more of a certain kind of story, about a certain someone, they should run.

Sometimes a certain event grabs all the headlines above the fold. Sometimes people aim to grab all the headlines above the fold. Sometimes individuals game the news so that it is all about them. Newsrooms, running on clicks, follow suit.

Withhold your clicks. Withhold your attention. Look away and engage elsewhere. You don't need a single story rabbit hole. Don't feed the beast, and do not give them what they are looking for.

#optout #digitalresistance

(read more about "clicks not pulitzers" and the shift in online news toward attention via: https://press.princeton.edu/books/ebook/9780691200002/metrics-at-work-pdf-1 )

If you've never met an #astronaut they are incredible humans. Generous, kind, whip smart, 360 thinkers, both brilliant in a team and terrific in leadership, exceptionally skilled, and genuinely good, big-hearted people to boot. Thanks to my time working with #NASA I am convinced they actually do represent the best of us.

All four of the #Artemis astronauts flying on this lunar mission are extraordinary human beings. Godspeed to them, whenever they launch.

If you're working on the #cybercleanse this week and the data map is dragging you down, did you know you can look up all the SSO's that you use via Google? Apparently you can here:

https://myaccount.google.com/connections

A great opportunity to look these up and disentangle from Google, one login at a time.

See if you can log in to the service and direct your account to a new masked email address and password. Save these in your password manager and -- voila!

Does anyone have these for Facebook or for Apple?

"This is not a story about how AI works. It’s not about whether it is going to become sentient, make us rich, or redundant. It is a story about power. It is about how politicians became distracted by a shiny new thing, and failed to understand – or chose not to ask – what it might cost. It is not about whether AI will help itself to your job. It is about whether the people who make AI are helping themselves to your country."

Every story about AI should start this way.

See this piece linked by @emilymbender@dair-community.social

@emilymbender@dair-community.social

All these ads for virtual agents show your personal, tireless secretary, always an AI generated attractive and serious looking young woman. I was starting to wonder if #AI assistants would ever be #gendered masculine, let alome middle aged...

... Turns out yes, they are. When they're a hot middle aged male LAWYER.

:smh: #gender #fuckai #digitalresistance

A #haiku

what if I just need
to sleep for seventeen hours,
not get it all done?

Thanks to @markhurst@mastodon.social for having me on Techtonic this week!! You can listen to me wax poetic about the #optout project and #techreclaimers here:

https://techtonic.fm/episodes/2026-03-23-janet-vertesi-founder-of-the-opt-out-project/

@TheBulletin@social.techreclaimers.club

Check out this recording of my recent 🔥 🔥 talk at the Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7juOynisls

How to identify and name the dangers of the political economy undergirding #AI and how to spot the decoys distracting us from the massive land grab taking place under our noses.

Paper version, forthcoming at FAccT, is online as preprint at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.16106

Signed up to conduct a Tech Reclaimers public Teach-In at the Summer of Ludd in NYC! It's gonna be EPIC!

Mark your calendars #nyc for either June 29 at 4pm or June 30 at noon ... More info coming soon!

#summerofludd #techreclaimers #optout #bigtech #digitalresistance

Happy Star Wars Day to one and all!!!

If you're following along on the #optout #cybercleanse with #techreclaimers , this weekend we are onto Day 2--Switch up your browser!

If you are on Chrome, Safari, or Edge - time to get off.

If you already use a privacy centric browser, try another one out for fun.

There are SO many great browsers out there and switching costs are exceptionally low.

https://www.optoutproject.net/better-browsing/

Ok everyone, gas up! We've only got a few days before they short the energy markets again!

No tyrants, no oligarchs.
Join the digital resistance
https://www.reclaimcontrol.tech

Gratulálok és egészségedre, Magyarország!!

Looking forward to #TakeBackTech in Atlanta this weekend! Don't miss:

- Our totally 🔥 debate on "The AI Question" on Saturday afternoon, featuring many privacy and data justice luminaries
- My #TechReclaimers #optout workshop at 11:45 on Sunday: "GOODBYE GOOGLE: Collective and Individual Techniques for Abandoning Big Tech"

The whole schedule looks tremendous - thanks to Media Justice for an incredible event!

https://www.takebacktech.com/workshops#sunday

For the next 21 weeks the Tech Reclaimers are going to walk thru the #cybercleanse one week (instead of day) at a time!

join in via @TheBulletin@social.techreclaimers.club or join our Signal or Discord groups by visiting https://www.reclaimcontrol.tech

Week 1 is GET READY: make sure you have the hardware you need. I recommend an external drive to save your stuff locally, but you may also have your eye on repurposing an old laptop or switching up your phone operating system. Make sure you have what you need to proceed.

#optout #techreclaimers #digitalresistance
https://www.optoutproject.net/cleanse-day-one/

Chag sameach to all who celebrate :)