vocalounge.cafe is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
A Mastodon instance specializing in Vocaloid, UTAU, and anything relevant to vocalsynth culture.

Administered by:

Server stats:

37
active users

#privacy

41 posts31 participants8 posts today

You might as well throw your Echo and Alexa-powered devices in the trash like you should have done years ago.

arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/0

Cory (@pluralistic) with a banger of a post:

pluralistic.net/2025/03/15/alt

And this factoid:

"Congress hasn't passed a consumer #privacy law since 1988, when the Video Privacy Protection Act banned video store clerks from disclosing which VHS cassettes you brought home."

In this photo illustration, Echo Dot smart speaker with working Alexa with blue light ring seen displayed.
Ars Technica · Everything you say to your Echo will be sent to Amazon starting on March 28By Scharon Harding
#Amazon#Echo#Alexa
Continued thread

Isn't it curious that as the @eff and many sources reported last year that a JUST released ruling makes the cops NUMBER ONE approach to solving high profile crimes super duper illegal?

And we really think the cops didn't just take the lazy approach and use the proven tools they may still have access to do an illegal investigation?

Literally the hardest part in all of this for the cops is making up a good story about how "people of interests" get on the radar.

A pretty good overview of the significance of Amazon's #greed and #fuckery. Part of it is the usual by now #AI bullshit.

> Pluralistic: Amazon annihilates Alexa privacy settings, turns on continuous, nonconsensual audio uploading (15 Mar 2025) pluralistic.net/2025/03/15/alt by @pluralistic

pluralistic.netPluralistic: Amazon annihilates Alexa privacy settings, turns on continuous, nonconsensual audio uploading (15 Mar 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Mastodon friends, I've heard a few suggestions of companies moving from US cloud providers to those based in the EU, due to risks with the Trump administration/Cloud Act, etc.

Has anyone come across any businesses that have made the leap recently? Feel free to DM or message on Signal, mattburgess.20

After Amazon's news this week,
I feel the need to share this advice from my Privacy Guides article again:

Notify guests if you are
using a smart speaker 🔇

If you are using a smart speaker device in your home such as Amazon's Echo (Alexa), Apple's HomePod (Siri), Google's Nest,

Inform your guests about it when they enter your home ⚠️

These devices have the capacity
to record all conversations, and there has already been instances of accidental privacy invasion reported about this 🔓

Even if you don't mind yourself,
offer your guests to UNPLUG your smart speaker while they are visiting you 🔌

privacyguides.org/articles/202

www.privacyguides.org · Privacy is Also Protecting the Data of Others
More from Em :official_verified:
Replied in thread

@pluralistic

#Privacy #SurveillanceCapitalism #Amazon's #Alexa

(2/n)

... for a copyrighted work:

pluralistic.net/2024/05/24/rec

That means that once Amazon reaches over the air to stir up the guts of your Echo, no one is allowed to give you a tool that will let you get inside your Echo and change the software back. Sure, it's your property, but exercising sole and despotic dominion over it requires breaking the digital lock that controls access to the firmware, and that's a...

pluralistic.netPluralistic: They brick you because they can (24 May 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Replied in thread

@pluralistic

#Privacy #SurveillanceCapitalism #Amazon's #Alexa

(1/3)

👉Amazon annihilates Alexa privacy settings, turns on continuous, nonconsensual audio uploading👈

Is this globally?

How e. g. in the EU.
US laws don't apply there.

"If the #Echo is your property, how come Amazon gets to break it? Because we passed a law that lets them. Section 1201 of 1998's #DigitalMillenniumCopyrightAct makes it a felony to "bypass an access control"...

pluralistic.net/2025/03/15/alt

New Privacy Guides video 📺✨
by @jw

If you've wondered about
the difference between:

Privacy,
Security,
and Anonymity :neocat_foxmask:

And why some privacy-focused
services are worth using even when they don't provide perfect anonymity, watch this!

It's truly an amazing short video!
Everyone should watch it 👇

privacyguides.org/videos/2025/

Amazon is going to be disabling the privacy feature that processes voice commands locally on Echo devices at the end of this month. Instead, all voice commands will be sent to Amazon's cloud for processing.

I have already followed my own steps to remediate this:

1. Unplug Echo Device
2. Throw Echo Device in Trash
3. Done

📣 Announcing Altbot 2.0: The Privacy & Green Update 🔒💚

Exciting news! After months of development, Altbot 2.0 is officially launching with major improvements to privacy, efficiency, and description quality.

What's new in Altbot 2.0:

  • 100% local AI processing for true privacy - unlike Google Gemini which saves data for training, Altbot 2.0 retains ZERO information about you or your images using the powerful Ovis2:8B model running on my custom AltTron server equipped with an A5500 GPU and expansion capacity for two additional GPUs
  • Full GDPR compliance with clear informed consent - I've implemented comprehensive privacy measures including transparent data handling policies, user rights protection, and minimal data collection practices that exceed GDPR requirements
  • Better quality descriptions across all 11 supported languages thanks to a newly developed translation layer specifically optimized for local LLM models
  • Significantly more energy efficient with a new feature that shows you exactly how much energy was used for each request! This efficiency comes from using a server-grade GPU optimized for lower power consumption, and 36% of the energy consumed is from clean sources mainly nuclear power (thanks to being based in Georgia)

The only data Altbot 2.0 records:

  • That a request happened
  • How long it took to complete
  • What type of media it was (image, video, or audio)
  • What language was used

No images, no content, no personal data saved - ever.

For those who don't know, Altbot has been helping make the Fediverse more accessible by automatically generating alt-text descriptions for images. The project has grown beyond anything I imagined, now serving thousands of users across the network.

Support Altbot's Future 💝

To bring these privacy and efficiency improvements to life, I had to invest in a more powerful server than initially planned. The server costs exceeded my budget by around $900, which I've covered out of pocket. Who woulda thought that competing with a $1.98 trillion dystopian mega corporation would be expensive? Shocking, I know.

I've set up a Ko-fi fundraising goal to help recover these costs and support ongoing development: Ko-fi.com/micr0byte

Your contributions will help ensure Altbot remains:

  • Free for everyone
  • Continuously improved
  • Sustainably maintained

Even small donations make a huge difference and motivate me to keep enhancing accessibility across the Fediverse!

This milestone represents a commitment to ensuring accessibility doesn't come at the cost of privacy or environmental impact. I'm incredibly proud of what we've built together.

As Altbot continues to grow, I'm open to sharing more about this journey with anyone interested in accessibility, ethical AI, or Fediverse projects.

For press inquiries: inquiries@micr0.dev

Feel free to boost or reach out!

Ko-fiBuy Micr0byte a Coffee. ko-fi.com/micr0byteBecome a supporter of Micr0byte today! ❤️ Ko-fi lets you support the creators you love with no fees on donations.

This week we’re tackling some common misconceptions with privacy, security, and anonymity!

Often privacy and anonymity are used interchangeably. However, there are distinct differences between the two. In our latest video, we aim to explain and discuss the differences, so you can make better decisions on your privacy and security journey.

privacyguides.org/videos/2025/