← Feed

Posts

• Post #4273424

  Are you in or near Linz on Sunday and interested in how to get rid of Big Tech? Great, please save the date: August 2, 2 p.m. Together with @servus@social.servus.at, my friend Lisa (with her background in security) and I (with my background in privacy) will be doing the upcoming Digital Independence Day with a focus on everyday security and privacy basics at @WillyFredHaus@social.servus.at. More on the event: https://events.diday.org/events/c9f9216c-e4bc-4218-8c79-26c2f467c59b -- #DigitalIndep...

• Post #4122572

  Privacy is about so much more than just keeping information secret. Privacy is also about being asked for permission before others use technology to interfere with our lives. And about having a "no" accepted. As long as some believe that they can do anything their technologies are capable of, without respecting other people's boundaries, those technologies will always be a problem rather than a solution. -- #privacy #DataProtection #IrresponsibleTech

• Post #4097720

  So, let's see if I got the logic right: The slop bros suggest we should just walk away if we disliked their slop machines so much. But if we walk away and ask them not to follow, they will throw a tantrum because we must not exclude them. Ahm, yes, makes perfect sense...

• Post #4084934

  Please stop posting about how you're running a slop machine on local hardware under the privacy hashtag! The technology is built on massive privacy violations, no matter where it's running! If someone claims that running their slop machine locally is privacy-friendly, their notion of who has a right to privacy is obviously limited to themselves! -- #privacy #DataProtection #LLMs #SlopMachines #StopTheSlop #Slopposition #AI [sic!]

• Post #4080982

  That it can be built doesn't mean it should be built. That it exists doesn't mean that it has to be used. That it works doesn't mean that it is good. That it is free doesn't mean that nobody is paying a price.

• Post #4060081

  A friendly reminder: When you're building some tech for others to use, please start thinking about privacy before you write even one line of code! Believe me, treating privacy as one of the last boxes you have to check before your tech goes live almost always causes trouble. And it probably will make everyone involved - including you - miserable. Building privacy-respecting tech gets easier the sooner you start thinking about it. -- #privacy #DataProtection #GDPR #ResponsibleTech

• Post #4012828

  Next time you hear someone complain about how "privacy brought nothing but those pesky cookie banners", please remind them that those banners wouldn't be necessary if companies weren't so eager to track everything we do online. Ah, and please tell them that many of those banners are intentionally designed to be as pesky as possible just to nudge everyone to click "accept". -- #privacy #DataProtection #PrivacyMyths

• Post #3983086

  The look of utter confusion on some people's faces when I tell them that I don't work with slop shops... As if they were completely new to the concept of making business decisions based on ethics rather than on revenue.

• Post #3966695

  Time to celebrate a win - and I'll be doing that by sharing it with you! I got the opportunity to present my first rather explorative work at this year's Critical Legal Conference in London. With "Tipping the Scales - The Weight of Legislative Challenges to Privacy Laws" I'll be experimenting with physicality as a way to communicate how legislative actions like mandatory identification and chat control will affect everyone of us. For me, this will be new, so I'm espe...

• Post #3912005

  Next time someone tries to convince you that their local slop machine is "privacy friendly" and "fully GDPR-compliant", ask them to try this: Take a glass of water. Pour it into the sea. Extract the same water from the sea again. The same goes for our data once they're fed to a slop machine. There's nothing privacy friendly about the complete loss of control over our information. Running a slop machine locally doesn't change anything. -- #privacy #DataProtection...

• Post #3827575

  Instead of banning spy glasses because they're a clear violation of privacy law, the EU apparently chose to grant their manufacturers an exemption from the removable battery mandate instead. Why is it so hard for politicians to choose our rights over business interests for once? Rhetorical question, I think I know the answer already. -- #privacy #DataProtection #GDPR #smartglasses

• Post #3791241

  A question to those of you with a degree in computer science or any other field related to technology: Did you take mandatory (!) courses on ethics and/or responsible technology?

• Post #3781341

  Next time someone tells you that new technologies are always great, ask them how they'd feel about using thorium infused toothpaste.

• Post #3761479

  "But the LLMs won't just go away, right?" Says who? The technology is ecologically and economically unsustainable. The people who are most enthusiastic about the slop machines are those who are trying to extract money by building or using them. The rest of us has to deal with the fallout somehow while others reap the benefits (in fictional valuations, not actual profits, mind you). The technology is a failure. What is keeping it alive is tech bro fanaticism paired with capitalist...

• Post #3649685

  "I don't care about privacy because I have nothing to hide" always misses the point. Privacy is about being able to decide for yourself what others know about you and what they're allowed to do with what they know. Privacy is about setting boundaries to technology and those who are building it. Privacy is about having a say in who should get to shape our future. A handful of billionaires (and an especially vile trillionaire)? Or us? -- #privacy #DataProtection

• Post #3631795

  To be fair, the slop machines have indeed changed my work. I'm spending much more time on explaining why I don't use them and others shouldn't use them either than before. -- #StopTheSlop #Slopposition #LLMs #AI [sic!]

• Post #3622217

  A friendly reminder to exercise your privacy rights whenever you can. If many of us claimed our rights frequently and insistently, we could at least make disrespecting our privacy as arduous and expensive as possible. -- #privacy #DataProtection #GDPR

• Post #3603308

  Our politicians keep calling for "European alternatives to US-based AI [sic!]" and are willing to throw our money at data centers just to build "our very own" slop machines. Politicians, listen up! I have an alternative for you: stop fetishizing a flawed and harmful technology! We don't need it. We don't have to have it. Dare to be smarter than the hype (for once) and make resisting it the European alternative! -- #StopTheSlop #Slopposition #AI [sic!]

• Post #3589170

  Do you think we need more privacy? Well, so do I! Maybe we should talk? I'm looking for collaborations, projects, and ways to promote privacy and privacy literacy (ideally offering some compensation). If you are (or your organization / company is) thinking about or already doing work on privacy-related issues that might benefit from my tech-critical, socio-legal perspective and experience in privacy education and outreach, please do not hesitate to reach out! -- #privacy #DataProtection #GD...

• Post #3464937

  The Austrian state secretary for digital transformation appears to suffer from the current heat wave combined with severe slopitis. His latest strategy for digital sovereignty: somehow relocate Anthropic to Europe. People at Anthropic HQ must be rolling on the floor laughing, that is, if they even heard anything about our politician's great new idea. 🤦‍♂️ -- #StopTheSlop #Slopposition #Austria #politics

• Post #2492858

  The debate around age restrictions on social media is evolving into calls to ban VPN services. What a surprise. Not. Instead of addressing the real issue - techno capitalism gone wild - they intend to take away what little tools we have to defend our privacy against it. The politicians subscribing to this surveillance madness have made themselves techno capitalism's enablers. None of them can ever again rightfully claim to work for the people - for us! -- #privacy #surveillance #politi...

• Post #2387666

  On Saturday, I'll be talking at AMRO about why the European Commission's plan to soften privacy regulation for slop machines is a bad idea that will harm us all eventually. If you're in Linz at 10:00 a.m. and interested, please come and join the discussion. If you're not around, there will be a live stream (at dorftv.at). Also, please have a look at all the other great contributions to AMRO! Festival programme: https://radical-openness.org/en/program/2026 -- #A...

• Post #2278457

  Slop-Zombie: "You're nor using any AI [sic!] at all? But how do you manage to get stuff done?" Me: "I've been doing stuff for almost four decades now. Without any slop machine. So I'm confident that I'll get along without them for another few decades." Slop-Zombie: 😳 -- #LLMs #StopTheSlop #Slopposition

• Post #2232749

  @feed "AI literacy" as in, "make them dependent on our tools while they're still young, so that they will have to pay us once they're older."

• Post #2126823

  Dear politicians, your push for surveillance is wrong! Not just morally, but also from a strategic perspective. In a geopolitical environment shaped by digital warfare, the data you collect on citizens will become a threat. Adversaries will try to weaponize those data, and sooner or later, they will succeed. A transparent society is vulnerable to all sorts of malicious influence. Privacy supports resilience! Data you don't have cannot be used by or against anyone! -- #privacy #DataPr...

• Post #1568481

  What the slop machines are really good for: offloading the costs of suppressing skilled labor onto society. Nothing new. Nothing unprecedented. Just the newest phase of unchecked capitalism. -- #LLMs #StopTheSlop #Slopposition

• Post #1482504

  I'm still waiting for someone to name a single improvement to society brought by (and requiring) the slop machines. And I mean to society, not just to their lazy individual existence. That they don't have to write their own emails any more doesn't count! -- #LLMs #StopTheSlop #Slopposition

• Post #1357368

  If you're in Linz on May 16th, please come and hear me talk about how bad the European Commission's "Digital Omnibus" is for us. I'd love to see you there! Also, please have a look at all the other wonderful contributions to this year's Art Meets Radical Openness festival taking place in Linz from May 13th to 16th. https://radical-openness.org/en/programm/2026/fodder-machine-european-commissions-plans-facilitate-building-generative-models-our -...

• Post #1277203

  To all the LLM bros who are invading my precious feed, I really don't care if your slop machine runs locally. The technology is still built on utter disrespect for humans, their dignity, their environment, and their privacy. Running it on your hardware doesn't make it ethical! And please stop using the privacy hashtag to brag about it. You're just wrong there! -- #LLMs #StopTheSlop #Slopposition #privacy (but for real)

• Post #1277202

  While I listened to yet another talk by a textbook startup bro yesterday, I noticed that he kept highlighting his own accomplishments which were, at best, very loosely related to the topic he was supposed to talk about. This triggered me, but I couldn't tell why exactly. This second, it came to me. I just don't like it when the messenger thinks they are more important than the message they are supposed to convey.