Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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Tails no longer recommending balenaEtcher (tails.net)

submitted 3 days ago by xela@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

185 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I am shocked by this - the quote in below is very concerning:

"However, in 2024, the situation changed: balenaEtcher started sharing the file name of the image and the model of the USB stick with the Balena company and possibly with third parties."

Can't see myself using this software anymore...

(page 3) 50 comments

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[–] Rozz@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 3 days ago (6 children)

What options are there for flashing to SD cards? Something that works on Mac too would be nice. A gui is preferred.

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[–] llii@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 3 days ago

Thank you for pointing it out.

[–] kaidezee@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Honestly, if you're using Windows, then you most likely already sent any and all of your secrets to Microsoft anyway. Including that you installed Tails.

[–] TheImpressiveX@lemm.ee 6 points 3 days ago

Doesn't the official guide recommend using GNOME Disk Utility anyway?

[–] PrivateNoob@sopuli.xyz 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Ahh too bad because balenaEtcher just werks for me.

[–] Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If you actually read the post, you would have known, it does work, but there are some privacy concerns with it:

“However, in 2024, the situation changed: balenaEtcher started sharing the file name of the image and the model of the USB stick with the Balena company and possibly with third parties.”

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[–] bour@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 days ago

The MX Linux live USB maker should work well on Debian based distros.

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 3 days ago

Glad I saw this. I downloaded the tool on recommendation from a forum post when I was reviving my homelab. I’ll nuke it for sure.

[–] DaTingGoBrrr@lemm.ee 3 points 3 days ago

balenaEtcher never worked for me. No image that I flashed has been usable to boot. The RPi imager has been working flawlessly

[–] Lemmchen@feddit.org 4 points 3 days ago

I've been avoiding it ever since the Balena moniker change.

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