I don't understand privacy advocators.

Am I the only one who wouldn't give up practicality in exchange for "potentially more secure"?

I don't understand so much what the deal is with people who avoid Facebook, or don't trust Google or Microsoft, just in the basis of "privacy" or "security".

Websites tracking you to serve ads? Well, it's pointless because I very rarely buy something from the internet or let myself be influenced, ads are waste of time, just use an adblocker.

I can pretty much upload my whole life or documents on Google drive, even if I made it public no one would really care or read it all. It's like that GitHub project you uploaded but never documented, so no one cares. I usually use alternative software not because of "privacy" but because it has features other software doesn't have.

In reality you realize people aren't that interested in your life more than their own life.

The problem isn’t they have your data, it’s how they go about getting your data.

Take Facebook for example,
if person A doesn’t want to use Facebook but one of their Friends use messenger, why should Person A’s contact details be collected?
That’s a break of privacy there that person A has in no way Permitted.

And the buck doesn’t stop there, targeting individuals with big data can change the way people think and feel about a topic for the good or bad.

It’s not a matter of “I have nothing to hide”, it’s a matter of “what can be done with my details”

Take your phones GPS, it’s on I’m sure, watching your every move, don’t believe me? Access your Google account and view your GPS history, even if you’re on an iPhone.

Now from those dots on a map, I can tell where you live, where you work, where you go between those two places, what you eat for lunch if you eat out, when you’re due Home, and when to raid your home when your guaranteed not to be around.
Data can lead to personal information you wouldn’t normally think about, and companies knowing more about you then you know about yourself.

Also @linuxxx will probably have a few words for you 😇

are you kidding?
Google maps recording your data is fantastic, if you were in a place, and you forgot how to get there you can use it to remember how to get there.

It saved me from getting lost once. it makes for a nice reminder of places you've been. and if you really don't like it, it's ridiculously easy to disable.

For me, it's not necessarily an issue of whether or not they use my data, it's whether they are completely transparent in what data they collect and letting me control my own data. This is the reason why I'm a big advocate for the use of free software, because in the absolute worst case, if you can no longer trust whatever they've centrally deployed/published, you can always trust fellow developers (including yourself) to inspect the software and build your own distribution.

Related to this topic, a big offender here is software/services that require a connection to a central, trusted server - most of the latest games, practically all of social media besides Mastodon, and most collaborative apps all depend on a central cloud infrastructure. Sure, the cloud can be used for great things, but it's a real pain in the ass when I can't run the services on *my own fucking hardware.* We've lost much of our freedom at the (relatively small) benefit of not having to enter a hostname to connect.

@tokumei I'd agree but not in the basis of privacy but in the basis of customizability and practicality. it's always nice to have your own selfhosted servers.

You can always most certainly be aware and control what you share with these services. it's pretty clear that google stores every search you ever do, if you don't want them to do that, then hide through 7 proxies using some browser that no one has ever heard of and enjoy your tor-speed connection

@kreijstal you fail to miss the point.

“I” some random stranger on the internet, gets your gmail account (which he general public don’t know how to setup 2FA by the way) identifies in a second where you live, what you do on a daily basis, is in no way concerning to you?

@C0D4 well, at this point, there's hardly anything I can do, but at the same time, it's not like I'm super rich or something, what will they do, steal my kidneys?
They don't need my gmail to do that.

Well, this is rant has some interesting comments.

📌

Let me just point you to a seriously great blog article linuxxx wrote.
https://much-security.nl//...

People aren't interested in your private life, at least you as you being an individual. However, data aggregators for analytics (to optimize ads) and neural networks (which need a constant feed of data) are. So no human will see what pr0n you fap to, but algorithms will fetch your general habits.

It could just be to serve you ads, and sure you can block that.. but that's like blocking climate change by opening your fridge or using a cooling fan. It doesn't solve jack shit.

In reality data is often shared across parties, especially in the nasty circles like Facebook, Google, PayPal and whatnot. They don't care about your privacy, and feed on uncaring people. It makes them money, be that directly or indirectly.

Personally I see the extent at which these systems collect data everyday, and got sickened by it. Right now, Microsoft knows the amount of time I've spent typing this comment and how long I've interacted with devRant UWP - even though I've explicitly disabled the Telemetry services and told Windows in the Registry that I don't want to be tracked. As if Microsoft would listen - I ran Wireshark on the wire, disabled all VPN connections and went to sleep, meaning that the system would become inactive. It sent out ~75k TCP packets out regardless.. filtering for SSDP, ARP etc had been accounted for - all of that was this PC phoning home. And the same goes for all the others. They don't care and would love you to remain uncaring. So you should start to care about your privacy. Nobody else can enforce it for you after all.

Earlier I've seen this image that was so relatable.. can't find it anymore, but it was a spider web, with a bug in it, captivated by the spider.. and the spider kept on telling it that by being captivated in the spider web, it would be safe from other predators. Little did the bug know that the spider actually is the predator that it should be afraid of.

and this big anonymous data is harmful because...

if you don't want Microsoft to know what you do, you can.. not use windows or.. block connections toward Microsoft. And Microsoft knowing you use notepad++ is dangerous in which way...?

I guess most normal users don't really need to occult what they're doing, dont put bank passwords online, and if someone is really after you, taking steps to remove info is not that hard... I wouldn't be paranoid.

@PrivateGER if government turns evil, and suddenly hunts you based on your ebay shopping list, they will probably hunt people like you through other means as well, you'll be illegal anyway.

But yeah I'll give you that's about as reasonable as it can get, there is that risk and I'll take it.

Im just annoyed at software becoming less practical and more annoying based on crap like this.

So.. private chatlogs, private pictures, browsing history, app history, interaction information, keystrokes, .. feeling uncomfortable yet? That's what not only Microsoft - all of them are doing. You know why Facebook wanted to make their own phone? To aggregate data. At the level of the mass data collectors, all that matters is the level of access to your life. Facebook for example is in a bad position.. now don't get me wrong, its users have an average IQ of below 0, and many give their data upon request without thinking twice.. hence why Cambridge Analytica was able to get the data that it got.

But back to the point of data collection. Google builds and owns Android, and has a pretty solid permission system in place, preventing e.g. Facebook from getting the data that users didn't yet approve to. Again, most of them do approve it upon request. But Facebook's phone.. that'd not only give them OS access, that'd give them hardware level access. This can ensure that even when the user configures the OS to act in a certain way, the hardware can disclose data regardless. This is what e.g. Intel's Management Engine is programmed to do.

The reality isn't pretty, and the prediction of 1984 became reality long ago.. it's hard to accept, but that's the way it is. You may think that you've got nothing to hide, but you most certainly do. And until you realize that, all of those big corporations will profit off of you.

"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." - Edward Snowden

FYI Google and Microsoft are actually a very secure companies but not privacy-focused.

@C0D4 if someone has specifically cracked your Gmail password and is looking at Geolocation history then that sounds like a targeted attack by someone with a lot of resources who wants to gain access to you specifically.

If someone was that determined it would most likely be easier and more effective to just hire a PI to discretely follow you around for a few days and take notes on your schedule, vehicle, personal interactions, and other details that could never be gleaned from simple GPS pings.

@linuxxx <— comment so I can find this rant on desktop.

@linuxxx Thanks, found it!

@C0D4 @Root @PrivateGER Thanks for the mention! Get ready for some long comments.

Alright, here we go.

As for your second sentence, privacy is not per definition equal to security.

@C0D4 Your contacts example is great! @kreijstal if you've ever synced your contacts with google or facebook without asking every contact if they were okay with that, this already goes beyond your own privacy and into other people's privacy. "But why would they care?" - that's entirely not the point here. Just the fact that you'd synchronise *their* data without *their permission* should say enough.

His last paragraph also makes a great point and I think you're missing a very important fact here:

Your last statement is mostly true but entirely besides the point: people aren't reviewing this data mostly, algorhithms are.
Algo's can be programmed in many ways:
- Let's detect who has a higher risk for getting a certain disease and warn them about it before it most likely will happen!
- Let's analyse how late you go to sleep and wake up to see if you're getting a good rest!
- Let's analyse how often you look at certain pages to see if we can give you better-fitting ads/recommendations!
- Let's see if we can see who ever outed themselves as not-straight on social media and use facial-recognition based on social media selfies to filter those out in public and stone them to death because being not-straight is not allowed in this country!
- Let's analyse who refused to give up their social media/encryption passwords at the border so we can filter those out because they'll most likely be terrorists!
- Let's analyse all text messages from a certain country and if they contain suspicious words, let's dispatch a drone to their phone-location and make them disappear with a big boom of fire and smoke! (this is an actual certain-agency program)
- Let's see who doesn't agree with our views on political things and place them on a watch list!

The thing is that you are *not* the one who decides what algo's do/decide based on certain data.

(1/*)

Then, let's go to 'general services'.

What do especially Google and Facebook have in common? They will do anything possible to get everything on everyone.

But, you can just not use it?

The fact that you have to actively take measures against their tracking (google analytics, google api's/fonts, facebook's like/comment buttons) is redicilous as if I don't want to use a product, why on fucking earth would I have to *protect myself against it gathering data from me*?

And both companies are known to give other companies access to that data. Only they can not completely control that data once it's out of their hands which can be very bad (look at the cambridge analytica scandal and now this google one as well).

(2/*)

Next up, government surveillance and tech companies.

Did you know that those 'awesome' services often are fully integrated within huge mass surveillance networks? If that doesn't bother you, I'm not sure what to say at all anymore.

The fact that the US/UK/NZ/AU/CA governments have the power to look into anyone's data from the following companies is very troubling:
https://lynkz.me/Mkjlkgp (I wrote this service myself and let me warn you: the second you visit this link, you'll end up on a watch list. But then, since you're on the same social network as I am, that probably already happened. It isn't an illegal picture but it's one from the Snowden leaks which shows at what time companies joined the PRISM collection program from the NSA).

They can do anything with this data they want. And yes, that's many of your services selling you out for years right there.

If you'd like more examples etc, gimme a shout!

@ArcaneEye if insurance companies use data to make better risk assessments and that results in lower premiums for Young, healthy, safe drivers like myself. And higher premiums for higher risk individuals then I am okay with that.