We knew this was coming, but now the clock is running.
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We knew this was coming, but now the clock is running. From Privacy International:
"Yesterday the Trump Administration announced a proposed change in policy for travellers to the U.S. It applies to the powers of data collection by the Customs and Border Police (CBP)."
"If the proposed changes are adopted after the 60-day consultation, then millions of travellers to the U.S. will be forced to use a U.S. government mobile phone app, submit their social media from the last five years and email addresses used in the last ten years, including of family members. They’re also proposing the collection of DNA."
PI linked to and summarized a Federal Register entry describing the proposed requirements:
-All visitors must submit ‘their social media from the last 5 years’
-ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) applications will include ‘high value data fields’, ‘when feasible’
‘telephone numbers used in the last five years’
-‘email addresses used in the last ten years’
-‘family number telephone numbers (sic) used in the last five years’
-biometrics – face, fingerprint, DNA, and iris
-business telephone numbers used in the last five years
-business email addresses used in the last ten years.The Federal Register entry says comments are encouraged and
must be submitted (no later than
February 9, 2026) to be assured of
considerationFederal Register entry: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-12-10/pdf/2025-22461.pdf
@briankrebs I don't think they realize that 1984 wasn't an instruction book.
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We knew this was coming, but now the clock is running. From Privacy International:
"Yesterday the Trump Administration announced a proposed change in policy for travellers to the U.S. It applies to the powers of data collection by the Customs and Border Police (CBP)."
"If the proposed changes are adopted after the 60-day consultation, then millions of travellers to the U.S. will be forced to use a U.S. government mobile phone app, submit their social media from the last five years and email addresses used in the last ten years, including of family members. They’re also proposing the collection of DNA."
PI linked to and summarized a Federal Register entry describing the proposed requirements:
-All visitors must submit ‘their social media from the last 5 years’
-ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) applications will include ‘high value data fields’, ‘when feasible’
‘telephone numbers used in the last five years’
-‘email addresses used in the last ten years’
-‘family number telephone numbers (sic) used in the last five years’
-biometrics – face, fingerprint, DNA, and iris
-business telephone numbers used in the last five years
-business email addresses used in the last ten years.The Federal Register entry says comments are encouraged and
must be submitted (no later than
February 9, 2026) to be assured of
considerationFederal Register entry: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-12-10/pdf/2025-22461.pdf
@briankrebs note to self add Rick Roll to social media before travelling next
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@briankrebs
It's almost as if all that hero-worshipping of North Korea in Trump's first term of office led him to decide to close the US border and only allow the US citizens he's deporting out and Nigel Farage in.@Stevenheywood @briankrebs Looks like even Nige has cooled off a bit lately - after being snubbed maybe.
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We knew this was coming, but now the clock is running. From Privacy International:
"Yesterday the Trump Administration announced a proposed change in policy for travellers to the U.S. It applies to the powers of data collection by the Customs and Border Police (CBP)."
"If the proposed changes are adopted after the 60-day consultation, then millions of travellers to the U.S. will be forced to use a U.S. government mobile phone app, submit their social media from the last five years and email addresses used in the last ten years, including of family members. They’re also proposing the collection of DNA."
PI linked to and summarized a Federal Register entry describing the proposed requirements:
-All visitors must submit ‘their social media from the last 5 years’
-ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) applications will include ‘high value data fields’, ‘when feasible’
‘telephone numbers used in the last five years’
-‘email addresses used in the last ten years’
-‘family number telephone numbers (sic) used in the last five years’
-biometrics – face, fingerprint, DNA, and iris
-business telephone numbers used in the last five years
-business email addresses used in the last ten years.The Federal Register entry says comments are encouraged and
must be submitted (no later than
February 9, 2026) to be assured of
considerationFederal Register entry: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-12-10/pdf/2025-22461.pdf
@briankrebs Great way to cut travel into the U.S. down to a small trickle of people who simply must come for whatever urgent reason.
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@briankrebs
Why didn't they just require everyone get chipped also?@RealGene @briankrebs they already did the chips in the covid vacine
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@BLTpizza @briankrebs That's right. The doofus who made this deal doesn't care about the implications: they are not his cross to bear. But what is the criteria that will be used? Who will be banned from entry? Who will be punished? Based on what? Gender? Immigration? Opinion? Are visitors seriously considering handing over their DNA and entire family, email, and social media history for a decade to the people who just murdered another civilian in cold blood?
If the US doesn't want us to visit anymore, we won't visit. TV is nice for watching football.
If the US doesn't want to buy from us, we won't buy from them. Sorry, not sorry, Amazon.
It's that simple. -
@briankrebs wait, thats awesome! that means they are still not capable of finding this out on theirselfes!
@koratex @briankrebs They can, they're just placing the burden on the individuals now. But I think the more sinister thing is that they are going to use this to disallow those with viewpoints contrary to the regime narrative (ie, people with a fact-based understanding of the world). They'll also deny entry to those from disadvantaged backgrounds. If you don't have the luxury of a smartphone, how can you have a social media presence? And of course that's suspicious if you don't provide that info.
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I feel for anyone in the travel, tourism and hospitality industries, which make up ~ 10M jobs and ~ 3 percent of the nation's GDP. From the U.S. International Trade Administration (trade.gov)
"Inbound international travel to the United States plays a vital role in the Nation’s economy and promotes cultural exchange and understanding. Travel and tourism is the largest single services export for the United States, accounting for 22 percent of the country’s services exports and 7 percent of all exports in 2023. The travel and tourism industry contributed $2.3 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2022 (2.97 percent of the country’s GDP), supporting 9.5 million jobs."
@briankrebs I keep thinking about how Florida has repeatedly shot themselves in the foot.
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We knew this was coming, but now the clock is running. From Privacy International:
"Yesterday the Trump Administration announced a proposed change in policy for travellers to the U.S. It applies to the powers of data collection by the Customs and Border Police (CBP)."
"If the proposed changes are adopted after the 60-day consultation, then millions of travellers to the U.S. will be forced to use a U.S. government mobile phone app, submit their social media from the last five years and email addresses used in the last ten years, including of family members. They’re also proposing the collection of DNA."
PI linked to and summarized a Federal Register entry describing the proposed requirements:
-All visitors must submit ‘their social media from the last 5 years’
-ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) applications will include ‘high value data fields’, ‘when feasible’
‘telephone numbers used in the last five years’
-‘email addresses used in the last ten years’
-‘family number telephone numbers (sic) used in the last five years’
-biometrics – face, fingerprint, DNA, and iris
-business telephone numbers used in the last five years
-business email addresses used in the last ten years.The Federal Register entry says comments are encouraged and
must be submitted (no later than
February 9, 2026) to be assured of
considerationFederal Register entry: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-12-10/pdf/2025-22461.pdf
@briankrebs
sounds familiar to me...
have seen similar in another palantir country 😳😳 -
I'm British, white, male, aged 60-ish.
Prior to February 2016 I typically visited the USA 3 times a year for up to six weeks.
Since February 2016 I have visited the USA twice in a decade, for a total of 10 days.
Entering the USA as a foreigner, with a Republican POTUS in the White House, *never* felt safe, but under Trump it looks diabolically dangerous. (And to a glance I resemble "one of them": I'm not female or dark-skinned.)
@cstross @briankrebs I am Canadian the last time I was over that border was in the mid 80s. My sons were in a swim tournament just across the border. I never felt safe in america even back then.
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@briankrebs and coupled with immigration law having provisions that classify any kind of omission on an immigration, visa, or entry form as potential immigration fraud and grounds to disqualify the individual from ANY future status = anybody that forgets one email address or social media account they’ve had years ago is suddenly easily turned into an “illegal immigrant” and passed into the jurisdiction of ICE for deportation and potentially a permanent life ban from the US.
@mariyadelano @briankrebs being deported by ICE is the least worst option. Its the in country shootings, death camps or illegal rendition to el salvador that would not be ideal because you forgot to include your microsoft online account that was force made when you attempted to log into your laptop with a local account.
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@briankrebs I have never travelled to the US and never will. I wouldn't know what to do in a fascist country.
@librarianbe
I've lived here all my life and I surely don't know what to do now. I have plans for travel out of the country (NL and BE) in spring, but if citizens are also required to surrender all this data to the CBP to leave or re-enter, I may have to rethink those plans. -
We knew this was coming, but now the clock is running. From Privacy International:
"Yesterday the Trump Administration announced a proposed change in policy for travellers to the U.S. It applies to the powers of data collection by the Customs and Border Police (CBP)."
"If the proposed changes are adopted after the 60-day consultation, then millions of travellers to the U.S. will be forced to use a U.S. government mobile phone app, submit their social media from the last five years and email addresses used in the last ten years, including of family members. They’re also proposing the collection of DNA."
PI linked to and summarized a Federal Register entry describing the proposed requirements:
-All visitors must submit ‘their social media from the last 5 years’
-ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) applications will include ‘high value data fields’, ‘when feasible’
‘telephone numbers used in the last five years’
-‘email addresses used in the last ten years’
-‘family number telephone numbers (sic) used in the last five years’
-biometrics – face, fingerprint, DNA, and iris
-business telephone numbers used in the last five years
-business email addresses used in the last ten years.The Federal Register entry says comments are encouraged and
must be submitted (no later than
February 9, 2026) to be assured of
considerationFederal Register entry: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-12-10/pdf/2025-22461.pdf
@briankrebs Moving closer to requiring mark of the beast....
I learned about sleeper cells in the country and Cold War-era Soviet training site near Vinnytsia, Ukraine, where the Soviet KGB built a mock “American town” to train spies in everyday U.S. life and culture practicing things like driving cars, shopping, cooking, talking with “neighbors,” and other civilian routines to prepare them for infiltration into the United States. This “town” was reportedly constructed around 1959 and used through the 1960s so KGB operatives could rehearse how Americans lived by interacting in a setting modeled after American small towns complete with people playing roles like police officers, businessmen, bankers, and neighbors.
Why do I bring this up?
Because reading into these CIA docs my first impression was we need to shut down the country to foreigners. Then I learned that the purpose of Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations were for America to lose it's freedoms and democracy. Which they largely accomplished post 9/11 with airport security, enhanced surveillance, etc.
So although whatever Trump and the IC think they are trying to do.. it will only have the reverse effect. Playing right into playbook of foreign adversaries. America losing it's freedom and being beacon to world by offering the same freedoms.
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We knew this was coming, but now the clock is running. From Privacy International:
"Yesterday the Trump Administration announced a proposed change in policy for travellers to the U.S. It applies to the powers of data collection by the Customs and Border Police (CBP)."
"If the proposed changes are adopted after the 60-day consultation, then millions of travellers to the U.S. will be forced to use a U.S. government mobile phone app, submit their social media from the last five years and email addresses used in the last ten years, including of family members. They’re also proposing the collection of DNA."
PI linked to and summarized a Federal Register entry describing the proposed requirements:
-All visitors must submit ‘their social media from the last 5 years’
-ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) applications will include ‘high value data fields’, ‘when feasible’
‘telephone numbers used in the last five years’
-‘email addresses used in the last ten years’
-‘family number telephone numbers (sic) used in the last five years’
-biometrics – face, fingerprint, DNA, and iris
-business telephone numbers used in the last five years
-business email addresses used in the last ten years.The Federal Register entry says comments are encouraged and
must be submitted (no later than
February 9, 2026) to be assured of
considerationFederal Register entry: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-12-10/pdf/2025-22461.pdf
https://futurism.com/future-society/trump-adviser-larry-ellison-shadow-president
Larry Ellison's shadow presidency in action.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/12/larry_ellison_wants_all_data/
https://fortune.com/2025/09/28/larry-ellison-ai-surveillance-oracle-tiktok-deal-social-media/
https://blogs.oracle.com/jobsatoracle/oracle-ai-world-2025-accelerating-the-ai-age
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/09/trump-says-tiktok-should-be-tweaked-to-become-100-maga/
https://gizmodo.com/tiktok-s-latest-suitor-is-oracle-a-company-with-close-1844759645
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/former-cia-boss-joins-oracle-399524
Oracle was originally a CIA project
https://medium.com/@mostsignificant/codename-oracle-3fa5e2ccf3dbhttps://gizmodo.com/larry-ellisons-oracle-started-as-a-cia-project-1636592238
https://www.sfchronicle.com/tech/article/project-2025-oracle-19654875.php
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@briankrebs @anja Soon this will apply to American citizens.
@meltedcheese @briankrebs @anja Agreed. I would expect that to either leave or return.
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I feel for anyone in the travel, tourism and hospitality industries, which make up ~ 10M jobs and ~ 3 percent of the nation's GDP. From the U.S. International Trade Administration (trade.gov)
"Inbound international travel to the United States plays a vital role in the Nation’s economy and promotes cultural exchange and understanding. Travel and tourism is the largest single services export for the United States, accounting for 22 percent of the country’s services exports and 7 percent of all exports in 2023. The travel and tourism industry contributed $2.3 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2022 (2.97 percent of the country’s GDP), supporting 9.5 million jobs."
None of this is about making America great again. This is a systemic dismantling of American power and prestige on all fronts, domestically and internationally, destroying existing alliances for both security and economic.
There's only one reason for all of this and it is to leave the US vulnerable to her enemies.
Until Americans accept this fact, the partisan divisions that have been exploited FOR THIS PURPOSE will hasten its destruction.
There are only a few people happy about that. I think that is the defining line between us and them.
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We knew this was coming, but now the clock is running. From Privacy International:
"Yesterday the Trump Administration announced a proposed change in policy for travellers to the U.S. It applies to the powers of data collection by the Customs and Border Police (CBP)."
"If the proposed changes are adopted after the 60-day consultation, then millions of travellers to the U.S. will be forced to use a U.S. government mobile phone app, submit their social media from the last five years and email addresses used in the last ten years, including of family members. They’re also proposing the collection of DNA."
PI linked to and summarized a Federal Register entry describing the proposed requirements:
-All visitors must submit ‘their social media from the last 5 years’
-ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) applications will include ‘high value data fields’, ‘when feasible’
‘telephone numbers used in the last five years’
-‘email addresses used in the last ten years’
-‘family number telephone numbers (sic) used in the last five years’
-biometrics – face, fingerprint, DNA, and iris
-business telephone numbers used in the last five years
-business email addresses used in the last ten years.The Federal Register entry says comments are encouraged and
must be submitted (no later than
February 9, 2026) to be assured of
considerationFederal Register entry: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-12-10/pdf/2025-22461.pdf
@briankrebs I don't remember a number of those things even if I wanted to.
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We knew this was coming, but now the clock is running. From Privacy International:
"Yesterday the Trump Administration announced a proposed change in policy for travellers to the U.S. It applies to the powers of data collection by the Customs and Border Police (CBP)."
"If the proposed changes are adopted after the 60-day consultation, then millions of travellers to the U.S. will be forced to use a U.S. government mobile phone app, submit their social media from the last five years and email addresses used in the last ten years, including of family members. They’re also proposing the collection of DNA."
PI linked to and summarized a Federal Register entry describing the proposed requirements:
-All visitors must submit ‘their social media from the last 5 years’
-ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) applications will include ‘high value data fields’, ‘when feasible’
‘telephone numbers used in the last five years’
-‘email addresses used in the last ten years’
-‘family number telephone numbers (sic) used in the last five years’
-biometrics – face, fingerprint, DNA, and iris
-business telephone numbers used in the last five years
-business email addresses used in the last ten years.The Federal Register entry says comments are encouraged and
must be submitted (no later than
February 9, 2026) to be assured of
considerationFederal Register entry: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-12-10/pdf/2025-22461.pdf
@briankrebs As far as I am concerned this will work as designed - I won't be visiting the USA.
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We knew this was coming, but now the clock is running. From Privacy International:
"Yesterday the Trump Administration announced a proposed change in policy for travellers to the U.S. It applies to the powers of data collection by the Customs and Border Police (CBP)."
"If the proposed changes are adopted after the 60-day consultation, then millions of travellers to the U.S. will be forced to use a U.S. government mobile phone app, submit their social media from the last five years and email addresses used in the last ten years, including of family members. They’re also proposing the collection of DNA."
PI linked to and summarized a Federal Register entry describing the proposed requirements:
-All visitors must submit ‘their social media from the last 5 years’
-ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) applications will include ‘high value data fields’, ‘when feasible’
‘telephone numbers used in the last five years’
-‘email addresses used in the last ten years’
-‘family number telephone numbers (sic) used in the last five years’
-biometrics – face, fingerprint, DNA, and iris
-business telephone numbers used in the last five years
-business email addresses used in the last ten years.The Federal Register entry says comments are encouraged and
must be submitted (no later than
February 9, 2026) to be assured of
considerationFederal Register entry: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-12-10/pdf/2025-22461.pdf
@briankrebs well I guess I am not going to the US anytime soon soon.
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We knew this was coming, but now the clock is running. From Privacy International:
"Yesterday the Trump Administration announced a proposed change in policy for travellers to the U.S. It applies to the powers of data collection by the Customs and Border Police (CBP)."
"If the proposed changes are adopted after the 60-day consultation, then millions of travellers to the U.S. will be forced to use a U.S. government mobile phone app, submit their social media from the last five years and email addresses used in the last ten years, including of family members. They’re also proposing the collection of DNA."
PI linked to and summarized a Federal Register entry describing the proposed requirements:
-All visitors must submit ‘their social media from the last 5 years’
-ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) applications will include ‘high value data fields’, ‘when feasible’
‘telephone numbers used in the last five years’
-‘email addresses used in the last ten years’
-‘family number telephone numbers (sic) used in the last five years’
-biometrics – face, fingerprint, DNA, and iris
-business telephone numbers used in the last five years
-business email addresses used in the last ten years.The Federal Register entry says comments are encouraged and
must be submitted (no later than
February 9, 2026) to be assured of
considerationFederal Register entry: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-12-10/pdf/2025-22461.pdf
@briankrebs Wer dort bisher noch rein privat und ohne familiären Kontext reisen wollte, hat eh schon länger ein emotionales Problem.
Gli ultimi otto messaggi ricevuti dalla Federazione
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@cwebber Thanks for sharing. To my ears, it rhymes with this response to the Microsoft-copilot-github encroachment: https://githubcopilotinvestigation.com/
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@cwebber@social.coop exactly. AI can only exist because of human-made content from the Internet, and because humans have been talking with each other over the internet for roughly 30 years at this point, and most of these conversations have been archived somewhere.
So what would happen if this archive disappears? Maybe not the physical medium of the Internet, but the fact of humans speaking with each other over the Internet and recording their conversations, that can disappear. Less and less often people are asking questions of other humans in forums like Reddit or Stack Overflow, and more and more often humans ask questions to AI apps where the conversation cannot be used as more training data as this would create a destructive feedback loop in the signal that the AI is built to predict, which can lead to the AI behaving erratically.
(I originally wrote the above on my blog post from last August, I'm saying this to not plagiarize myself.)
It is kind of like the Internet is a forest of natural content. AI companies have now cut down the forest without planting new trees. They have all the raw material now and are trying (and failing) to profit from it, but in 5 years that information may become out-of-date, will any humans be asking new questions of each other on platforms not mined for content by AI companies? If not, these LLMs will rapidly become more and more innacurate over time.
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Recently, "defund ICE" was the moderate position.
Now, "prosecute ICE" is the moderate position.
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@cwebber Already the forums for VOIP software and embedded stuff (Arduino etc) are fully enshittified - they were toxic enough pre-AI) and folk have simply stopped contributing there (I think this happened just *before* LLMs became popular, so the quality of whatever does go to the training sets isn't going to be much good).
I suspect another factor is when people are getting paid for their work *and* depending on their employers upselling SaaS or other commercial services, they are less inclined to share stuff with the competition (I had to figure out my PJSIP trunk and securing it for myself, most of my findings are tooted here on Fedi as I'm not even sure where else to put them)
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This blogpost makes an astoundingly good case about LLMs I hadn't considered before. The collapse of public forums (like Stack Overflow) for programming answers coincides directly with the rise of programmers asking for answers from chatbots *directly*. Those debugging sessions become part of a training set that now *only private LLM corporations have access to*. This is something that "open models" seemingly can't easily fight. https://michiel.buddingh.eu/enclosure-feedback-loop
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A bunch of people are about to be thrown under the bus by Trump.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/01/greg-bovino-demoted-minneapolis-border-patrol/685770/
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Floppy disk sweaters! Floppy disk sweaters!! https://digitalpreservation-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/knitting-through-digital-decay-a-collection-of-digital-preservation-jumpers-no-one-asked-for-but-478c48009521
