Toronto Free-Net

04/22/2021

Still smarting from last month's dump of phone numbers belonging to 500 million Facebook users, the social media giant has a new privacy crisis to contend with: a tool that, on a massive scale, links Facebook accounts with their associated email addresses, even when users choose settings to keep them from being public.

Facebook Email Search v1.0 can process 5 million email addresses per day, researcher says.

09/09/2020

Toronto Free-Net is moving its servers to bigger digs and can offer colocation in a shared rack, at the premier carrier hotel, downtown.

TFN is a non-profit, so the price is extremely reasonable. Starting at: 1 rack unit = $100 setup + $100+HST/month

Contact Iain:

* voice: 416 665 6259
* email: tfna-colo at torfree dot net

Photo credit: https://unsplash.com/

07/07/2020

Circa 1964 Livermore Data Systems "Model A" Acoustic Coupler Modem, live demonstration. Q&A: http://www.phreakmonkey.com/2009/05/1964-livermore-data-systems-...

04/20/2020

You may see this viral image floating around Facebook.

DO NOT DO WHAT IT SAYS TO DO IN THE PIC, IT WILL NOT PROTECT YOU, IT WILL MAKE THINGS WORSE.

Instead: make a screenshot, or take a text version and paste it into a Notepad file, of all the companies that ratted you out. Now you have a Sh*tlist.

DON'T "clear history"... block the individual companies, (sigh) one-at-a-time. This will *only* stop advertisers from seeing what has been uploaded so far.

DON'T "turn off future activity"... that will NOT stop companies from ratting you out to Facebook , it will just "disconnect" the activity from your profile. The companies will still be sending it! But now, only Facebook knows who you interact with... it's just the advertisers who don't get to see that now. Facebook can still change their mind later, or your info can be stolen by cybercriminals who break into Facebook, or Law Enforcement can demand access.

DO stop dealing with the companies mentioned in your Sh*tlist. Contact them individually and get them to delete all your information. (In Canada, you have the legal right to demand this under PIPEDA.) If they want to know what's up, just tell them "You are a user of Facebook Tools for Business, so I am done with your company. Want my business back, stop using Facebook Tools for Business." If they refuse to comply, you can escalate the matter by filing a complaint with the Privacy Commissioner.

DO check your Off Facebook Activity every once in a while, and make a new Sh*tlist if there are new companies there.

It's our job to kill Facebook Tools for Business. This is an unacceptable and treacherous end-run around giving us the power to just Block this kind of thing right from this website, by reversing the direction of the flow, being a passive receiver of information, before collating it, rather than actively gather it via Facebook Connect, cookies, or other things you could be blocking with browser-based tools.

04/19/2020

Due to various security and privacy concerns about the Zoom videoconferencing service, Toronto Free-Net recommends everyone investigate and teach themselves how to use free-software, open-source alternatives, like Jitsi Meet to host their video meetings.

Some volunteers at the Free-Net have been using the Jitsi desktop software for their own personal communications needs since it was called "SIP Communicator", and we have no reason to doubt Jitsi Meet.

(If you have any other suggestions for alternatives to Zoom that are not Jitsi Meet, please post them below. Free-Net will evaluate them and post a recommendation, if it can.)

Join a WebRTC video conference powered by the Jitsi Videobridge

02/27/2020

Mac users who use Safari are going to be vexed from time to time as certain websites seem to not work, or throw scary but ultimately meaningless security warnings, when Firefox continues to work on those sites just fine.

As ever, Toronto Free-Net recommends Firefox+Ghostery+uBlock Origin as your primary web browser.

Safari will no longer trust TLS certificates that last longer than 13 months. Yes, you read that right. IT and DevOps are spitting blood.

02/23/2020

In the Great Fire-Sale of your privacy, For-profit corporations are only on your side until they are not. These guys promised "never to sell your data"-- instead, they sold the whole company.

Toronto Free-Net is a not-for-profit corporation. We couldn't sell this company to someone even if we wanted to, because *you* own it.

Just in time for RRSP season, changes to a popular piece of Canadian tax software means some customers might not like where or how their private data is being used.

09/08/2019

Cybersecurity Tip:

Text messages, (SMS), to your mobile phone asking you which party you support in the upcoming election, or other election-specific questions, are likely an information probe, designed to let the party know which ridings they have to micro-target in order to swing the election in their favour.

Even an angry response telling them something rude, while it might be emotionally satisfying to you in the moment, could provide a political party you don't like with valuable riding-level market information.

The best reply to such a probe is to take a deep breath, count to 10, delete the message, and go do something nice for the party you *do* support. The last thing you need is for your mobile number to be on a list somewhere, even if it is a hard no.

Vanish like a hole in the internet; give them NOTHING.

(P.S. please Like, Comment and Share this post to increase its "Organic Reach" and avoid Facebook suppressing its distribution in order to demand money from TFN for fake engagement from Clickfarms.)

07/25/2019

FBCLID is a threat to your privacy. F.B. Purity stops it in its tracks.

On top of a well configured combination of Firefox, uBlock Origin, and Ghostery, Toronto Free-Net recommends installing F.B. Purity for those of you who wish to remain on Facebook.

(Toronto Free-Net has no relationship with Mozilla, uBlock Origin's author, Cliqz, or the author of F.B. Purity)

07/04/2019

Hi folks,

We are making several security and scalability improvements.

One consequence that is visible to users: one can no longer get away with specifying "torfree.net" when trying to ssh or to telnet into a shell account, e.g. to use Pine to read mail. Ditto when trying to upload files via ftp. One must now use the shell server's official name: "shell.torfree.net".

The name "torfree.net" only points to our web server.

We created the name "shell.torfree.net" over a decade ago, in 2008, and we have consistently directed people to it ever since. But, inevitably, people discover shortcuts, such as "torfree.net", and get accustomed to using them. (We even fall into this trap ourselves.)

So, if you or someone you know is unable to connect with ssh, telnet, or ftp, check the domain name.

Thanks! :-)