If the linked article has a paywall, you can access this archived version instead: https://archive.ph/zyhax
The court orders show the government telling Google to provide the names, addresses, telephone numbers and user activity for all Google account users who accessed the YouTube videos between January 1 and January 8, 2023. The government also wanted the IP addresses of non-Google account owners who viewed the videos.
“This is the latest chapter in a disturbing trend where we see government agencies increasingly transforming search warrants into digital dragnets. It’s unconstitutional, it’s terrifying and it’s happening every day,” said Albert Fox-Cahn, executive director at the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. “No one should fear a knock at the door from police simply because of what the YouTube algorithm serves up. I’m horrified that the courts are allowing this.” He said the orders were “just as chilling” as geofence warrants, where Google has been ordered to provide data on all users in the vicinity of a crime.
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Why, would you look at that - apparently surveillance is fine and dandy, as long as it’s the US doing it. Fucking hypocrites.
The article LITERALLY says the opposite
Someone with enough reading comprehension to take that tone would have understood it was criticism of the federal government’s hypocrisy and that critics complaining is not the same thing as a law or the courts agreeing.
You did not provide enough context in your original statement to distinguish between sarcasm and sincerity. Any sufficiently good old stupid statement is unrecognizable from parody.
It’s not even op. Maybe we can all learn a little something here.
I mean…nobody else seems to be having trouble dude…
Jokes on you I’m already on the DoD blacklist because I played War Thunder and got spammed with 40 year old “classified” NATOPs by the forums.
lol WT has done more espionage than most countries
If War Thunder adds Space Combat we’ll find out about Area 51 in 3 weeks.
The fact that that KEEPS HAPPENING is so fucking funny
“But sir, downloading viewings for ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ could blow up the entire Internet!”
“Why bother? By now everyone on the planet has already seen it twice.”
“You worry too much son, Google already responded to the subpoena with a link to the data, so go get it! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ”
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://m.piped.video/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
The kind of things why I use NewPipe…
I dont think newpipe would protect from this since it still contacts the yt servers to pull the video. Peertube or a VPN would stop this though.
I just found out that Lemmy is not allowing (or has rate-limited, or whatever) VPN connections to post or react.
Not a fan of that at all.
Edit: it’s my instance being on Cloudflare, not Lemmy as a whole. My mistake.
Could be your instance. World is behind cloudflare after all.
World and NordVPN. Recommend another instance?
The instance my account is on, dbzer0, was set up by a former mod of the piracy subreddit. Can’t say for certain, but I’d expect that VPNs would work with it. The admin really seems to know his shit.
Now you’ve really piqued my interest. This may be the winner.
Having trouble verifying my email. Gonna see if it works without VPN.
Lol they denied my application. Nice.
Edit: it was my own carelessness. Damn.
Hmmm. Im on monero.town obviously and its not behind cloudflare, but i don’t have any specific recommendation. Easy way to tell if an instance is behind cf is to run a ping instance.tld from command line. If the average is like 20-40ms its likely cloudflare.
I appreciate that.
Some instances, like mine, do not require an email address to join .
I’m on a VPN without issue
World seems to be blocking NordVPN. Recommend another instance?
I use mullvad which hasn’t given me any issue
That’s my next stop after this contract runs out.
Using RiseupVPN with no problem 👍👍
VPNs protect your from geting caught torrenting, but it cant protect you from the US-goverment.
First of all most of the advertized VPN’s are Honeypots and/or back/bugdoored by the NSA.
And even if they where not…so much of the internet runs on servers/services/isp’s that are related to american companys that Timing attacks are possibe (for example your ISP logs and shared your encrypted traffic and the NSA then compares Timing patterns of requests with other services).
Right, but if Google is collecting your IP address to give to the government, then using a VPN would put another step in their path, and they would have to go to the VPN provider to try to figure out who it was.As long as that VPN provider is in another country like proton VPN and does not keep logs Then there’s a good chance that they won’t know who it was that requested the YouTube video
I mean what makes u think that proton isnt just another NSA operation.
It could be, that’s definitely true. At some point, you either have to trust something or self-host everything, though.
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Use any VPN as if it where compromized.
Never used them, so not sure.
What if unicorns are real but invisible and we can’t touch them?
I can make up outlandish “facts” too.
there’s a teapot that I think you’d be quite fond of, orbiting the earth right behind the moon just where we can’t see it
Damn! That would be epic and well played for sure. Not advocating.
Nice rare instance!
You have no clue how vpns work and shouldn’t be giving anyone advice on tech. You are full of shit. I’m not even gonna be polite about it because you are spouting nonsense with complete confidence.
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LibreTube*
Lovely. Wonder what the videos were?
Dream face reveal
ASMR videos of a parent proud of me
When companies tell you they respect your privacy and you should give them your data, you tell them it doesn’t matter. Because policies can change, and at the end of the day, your privacy isn’t always up to an single company.
Wait. This was last year, so not the capitol riot. What happened in January last year? I’m in a decent mood today. Just going to skip looking deeper into this one. I have Factorio to play!
Just another reason to not have a YouTube account. If you use Newpipe, you can subscribe to feeds anyway without any YouTube account.
Until youtube pulls a twitter move where eventually everything will only be available under a login. Wait and see.
everything works until it doesn’t.
Isnt NewPipe still making calls to YouTube from your IP? I think you’d need to also configure it to use an Invidious or Piped instance.
And a reason for platforms to implement zero trust models. I mean they need to hand out data to 3rd parties, they dont benefit from that?
SimpleX for the Win.
The headline made me think of back when phone networks were just starting to be fast enough to watch YouTube on data, a guy at the job I was working was caught watching videos of young girls in supposedly lacking state of dress splashing in inflatable pools or something along those lines. Dunno what happened to him but everyone thought he was a nice guy the day before and then suddenly everyone was grossed out by his mere existing.
My immediate concern though is do they account for people who were tricked into watching like with Rick rolling?
Are the problem with the people who watch the video, or the people who create, or host the videos?
A little bit of everyone? Watchers create demand for creators, which creates demand for hosts. If any link in this chain breaks, then the little ecosystem dies.
Though that’s both difficult and reductive. Punishing hosts drives watchers to shadier hosts, with creators following. Punishing creators just creates space for other creators to fill the gap with unpredictable content (be it more of the same, better, worse, or other). Punishing watchers is resource intensive to do well, so the focus has to be on the really bad stuff to get anything done. And conjures articles like these when done poorly.
Good thing I have history turned off so I can watch “How to make an AK47 from scratch” in peace :D
They still somehow track your history despite that turned off
Notably with recommendations
For anyone wondering what the videos were:
In a just-unsealed case from Kentucky reviewed by Forbes, undercover cops sought to identify the individual behind the online moniker “elonmuskwhm,” who they suspect of selling bitcoin for cash, potentially running afoul of money laundering laws and rules around unlicensed money transmitting.
Is this measure worldwide, or only for United States?
In the first line of the article
Federal investigators have ordered Google to provide information on all viewers of select YouTube videos
Federal, so yeah just the US for now.
The US isn’t the only federation in the world but it’s Forbes so yes of course it’s the US.
What videos where meant?
The videos are not very relevant to the topic of privacy and our freedom.
Today it might be “extreme anarchy: how to make homemade bombs and guns”. On the surface, its a great idea, go stop those people.
However, next year it could be something rediculous like “how to rip CDs”. Clearly you must be pirating, time to fine you $500 or put you through a more costly legal battle trying to prove grandpa’s 20 years of CDs were all obtained legally. Wow look at all the free money we just made because most will eat the $500 over hiring a lawyer. What else can we “fine” for?
The idea that the government could use your internet history against you, with no other factors, is as absurd as wire tapping someone and waiting for them to say something they don’t like.
I think this comment is possibly one of the best times to use: 🤓
My dude only asked what the videos were lol
🤓🥸🤓
Today it might be “extreme anarchy: how to make homemade bombs and guns”. On the surface, its a great idea, go stop those people.
How is one supposed to go about creating a multi national gun manufacturing titan if you can’t make a few pipe shotguns?
If you’re goal isn’t to harm a of bunch people or damage other peoples stuff, I dont care. Exploding stuff is fun.
*legal
*legally
Fixed it for you
Another reason to use piped or invidious
When you’re getting honey dicked by YouTube…
