Practical privacy for busy people. Doxxing defense • data brokers • breaches • AI scams • age/ID checks. Follow for daily privacy wins.
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Joined March 2023
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Get started here: 7 quick upgrades that make you a harder target 🧵
Easily solved by not putting tik tok or meta apps on your phone. Use a browser if you need to access those apps.
Claude Code just found proof that every app on your phone is listening to your conversations. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat. they're using what you say out loud to build your feed. i have the data to prove it.
i've suspected this for months but last week something happened that made me finally check.
i was on a call with my friend and told him i'm thinking about breaking up with my girlfriend. didn't text it. didn't search it. just said it out loud with my phone on the table. two hours later she opens TikTok next to me and her entire feed is breakups. "signs your relationship is over." "how to heal after a breakup." she looked at me and said "why is TikTok showing me this." i said i don't know. but i did know.
i connected my iPhone to my MacBook and ran Claude Code that same night.
it scanned every app's background microphone activity for the last 90 days. not just the apps that asked for microphone permission. apps that were supposed to only have access to photos or location but were activating the microphone anyway.
what it found:
→ TikTok activated the microphone 347 times while the app was "closed" in the background
→ Instagram → 211 background activations
→ Facebook → 189
→ Snapchat → 94
every activation lasted between 3 and 15 seconds. enough to catch a sentence. every one of them tagged a keyword and cached it locally on the phone with a timestamp.
Claude Code pulled the full keyword cache:
→ "breakup" — tagged 4 hours before her feed changed
→ "moving out" — from a conversation with my mom last Tuesday
→ "wedding venue" — from a call with my sister about her engagement that i never searched once
→ "protein powder" — said it out loud to my roommate, had ads for it within an hour
→ "flight to tokyo" — mentioned it at dinner, saw travel ads the same night
those keywords were sitting in a local cache on my phone organized by app with timestamps. TikTok had the most entries. Instagram was second. every single keyword matched a conversation i had out loud near my phone.
the scariest one was "wedding venue." my sister told me she's getting engaged on a private call. i never searched it. never typed it. within a day my explore page had engagement rings and venue tours.
then Claude Code checked a second phone in the same room. my girlfriend's. same keywords. same timestamps. both phones were picking up the same conversation and tagging it independently.
i asked Claude Code how to shut it down. it mapped every app's microphone access and built a permission audit.
what i did:
→ revoked microphone access from every app that doesn't need it to function
→ disabled background app refresh for TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat
→ turned off "Hey Siri" which keeps the microphone in passive listening mode 24/7
→ revoked "nearby interaction" permission which uses ultrasonic audio between devices
Claude Code confirmed all four apps lost background microphone access after the changes. i checked her phone too. same steps. took about 3 minutes per phone.
within 48 hours both our feeds went completely random. generic content. nothing personal. nothing from our conversations. that's when i knew for sure it was real.
the full step by step and the prompt are in the first reply. takes 3 minutes. save it so you don't lose it and send it to anyone who's ever said "my phone is definitely listening to me." it is. now you can prove it and shut it down.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
2 days before, OP claimed to have found spyware on his "wife's phone":
x.com/starmexxx/stat…
Now, in this post, he talks about his "girlfriend":
x.com/starmexxx/stat…
OP has a history of fake AI content:
"Spy camera" found in hotel room: x.com/starmexxx/stat…
Spyware on "friend's computer": x.com/starmexxx/stat…
OP selling AI products: x.com/starmexxx/stat…
Flagged as AI: x.com/i/grok/share/b…
Secrets of Privacy | Make Yourself a Harder Target retweeted
Had a sophisticated fraud attempt on my AP team last week.
Scary good…
The fraud tactics are the same, but AI has removed friction on the evidence layer. We were deeply researched, very convincing emails, and near perfect documentation (invoice, bank change requests, etc)
This is a dumb take. US arenas that border Canada have played the Canadian national anthem for decades, even when not playing a Canadian team.
There is ZERO reason the Buffalo Bills should sing the Canadian National Anthem at their home opener...
The only acceptable reason to sing that anthem would be if they were playing a Canadian team, but they don't play any Canadian teams unlike in the NBA, NHL, etc.
Imagine a CFL team playing the United States National Anthem for a game. Canadians would be rightfully upset and confused.
Incredibly idiotic decision by the Bills...
Big Law is sleepwalking into a disaster. AI tools in the hand of in house lawyers can easily reduce the need for outside counsel by 50% today.
Some companies like the prestige of using big law firms (and it’s a way to reward friends with company dough).
But the trajectory won’t be stopped.
BREAKING: Wall Street investment banks are asking large law firms to cut fees, arguing that associates billing for long hours is not sustainable given the AI rollout.
Morgan Stanley and Citi want to set up new payment arrangements, and Goldman is pressing its lawyers to share how much time the technology is saving.
Average associate hourly billing rates are $798 at the largest law firms, up 33% since 2023.
When are Mackenzie Bezos and Laurene Jobs donating to the go fund me?
Why does a router need to detect and record motion?
Comcast has introduced a new motion-detection feature in its Xfinity Gateway routers, but a footnote in the advisory says law enforcement could access the data without you even knowing.
Read more: cnews.link/comcast-xfinity-s…
The drop in quality of Claude work product that people have been complaining about lately makes a lot more sense when you realize how their AI fingerprinting works.
OpenAI’s new smart speaker is an IQ test.
Many of you will fail.
NEW: OpenAI’s device - a human-like smart speaker -
will look like a doughnut and be the size of a hockey puck. It meant to be held. It has a camera, speakers, microphones, lights and, most notably, moving parts to show interactivity. It’ll be $300-400. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Doxxing can happen at any moment, usually when you least expect it.
Best to prepare now. Link below to get started. 👇
Watch | Days after the #JantarMantarprotest ended, several women who participated say they are facing coordinated online harassment. A report by The Hindu documents allegations of doxxing, rape and death threats, and the circulation of personal information, raising fresh concerns about online safety and the targeting of women protesters.
thehindu.com/videos/how-wome…
Your doxxing risk, assessed in minutes.
doxxscore.com/Your
The job search process is terrible enough and now scammers have entered the scene.
There’s also a scam where the purpose of the interview is to steal your biometrics. Link to that in the replies.
🚨 Job Scam Alert: Interview Software Used to Deliver Info-Stealing Malware
MistEye has identified a job scam campaign targeting Web3 professionals. Threat actors are impersonating recruiters and luring victims into installing a malicious application disguised as an AI meeting tool called “Relay”.
The malware targets both macOS and Windows users, attempting to steal sensitive data including browser credentials, wallet-related information, Keychain data, Telegram sessions, and more. We analyzed the samples and revealed how this attack chain was built.
Please remain cautious when installing software during online interviews or recruitment processes. Avoid executing unverified applications and carefully review unexpected installation requests or system password prompts.
Read the full analysis 👇
slowmist.medium.com/threat-i…
The Job Interview That Steals Your Face
secretsofprivacy.com/p/fake-…
This is correct. As currently designed, the duress signals you have something to hide and cover up. That’s going to lead to more scrutiny and headaches .
Secrets of Privacy | Make Yourself a Harder Target retweeted
All it took was one clip for the foam party girl to become the main character of the internet this week. She didn't sign up for that. Nobody usually does, but in today's era of ubiquitous video and global social media, it can still happen.
So if a stranger filmed you right now and it hit 5M views, how fast could someone find your name, job, and address?
Most people have never checked. They assume they're anonymous until they're not, and by then it's too late to do anything but react.
Here's how to make yourself harder to find, before you ever need to:
Start by searching yourself the way a stranger would. Reverse image search your own photos (Google Lens, PimEyes) and see what's already connected to your face. Google your name plus your city, your name plus your employer. Whatever comes up in five minutes is what a stranger would find in five minutes.
Check the people-search sites next. Start with Whitepages, Spokeo, BeenVerified, and the dozens like them. Most of them are pulling your address, phone number, and relatives from public records and selling it back to anyone who looks. Opt out of as many as you can. It's tedious, but it's the single highest-leverage thing you can do.
Go through your tagged photos and public posts. Anything with your face, your workplace, your neighborhood, your daily routine is a data point someone can stitch together. You don't need to delete your life. Focus on not making the pattern easy to see from the outside.
Lock down what's public versus private on your socials. Put some thought into why you're making something public.
And know the reporting process on the platforms you use before you need it. If something ever does happen, you don't want to be learning how to report doxxing in the middle of a crisis.
The foam party girl didn't get a choice in going viral. You don't get a choice in that either. The only thing you control is what's waiting to be found when someone starts looking.
