Privacy Incidents – Real-world examples of why your photos need protection

I've had a wonderful experience self-hosting Ente photos, I choose it because I like end-to-end encryption and the clients are really high quality. It's one of the most polished apps I use, which is really important to me for photo management.

One smart feature is in the selector, you can lock the selected photos for handing your phone to someone, so they can only see the selected photos without your pin/fingerprint.

I recently traveled and non-technical family members were able to easily upload and download to the shared album, on my domain, without making an account or downloading an app.

That Steve Saari (one of the stories in the OP) seems to get around:

U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Steve Saari from Duluth, Minnesota of Echo Company 2 battalion, 7th Marines poses for combat footage (2007): https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/marine-lance-c...

Steven Paul Saari Jr. of Duluth pleads guilty to making bomb threats (2013 or 2017): https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/charter-cable-custome...

Steve Saari is detained and maltreated by ICE (2026): OP, The Intercept, Democracy Now, etc.

Super interesting that archive.org does not have the Duluth News Tribune article archived. So we actually do not know if that article was in fact published in 2013 - search page actually has the link as "2017". Very interesting to read in the Duluth story that:

"According to the criminal complaint, Saari made telephone threats to Charter Communications in Rochester, Minn., and Duluth on July 10, 2012. A Charter supervisor said Saari said something to the effect of, "I guess I'm going to have to deal with the Duluth office by kicking down the door and blowing it up."

"When police arrived, Saari was in a black Jeep outside the building. Police knew Saari was a military veteran and that he had a permit to carry a handgun. They cordoned off the area -- blocking off Garfield Avenue -- and contacted Saari on his phone. He complied with instructions to get out of the vehicle and surrender.

Saari has since given up his permit to carry a handgun."

I agree with the spirit of the message. It’s just that the latest post on the website is about denying entry to someone who supports Hezbollah and believes Nasrallah is a spiritual leader.

As someone native to that region, I’d say denying them entry was the right decision.

"I created an open source app to check if a photo is from an AI or a Camera" 20-jun-2026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48606789

"SnapSafe: Just added encrypted video to my FOSS secure camera app" 29-jan-2026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46805193