'Never-Googlers' Take Extreme Measures To Avoid Data Tracking (startribune.com) 255
To buy his favorite oatmeal, Gregory Kelly drives to a city 40 miles away rather than sharing his data with an online retailer, or purchasing it from the company's web site, "which he says is riddled with tracking software from Google," according to the Washington Post:
"I'm just not sure why Google needs to know what breakfast cereal I eat," the 51-year-old said. Kelly is one of a hearty few who are taking the ultimate step to keep their files and online life safe from prying eyes: turning off Google entirely. That means eschewing some of the most popular services on the Web, including Gmail, Google search, Google Maps, the Chrome browser, Android mobile operating software and even YouTube. Such never-Googlers are pushing friends and family to give up the search and advertising titan, while others are taking to social media to get the word out. Online guides have sprouted up to help consumers untangle themselves from Google.
These intrepid Web users say they'd rather deal with daily inconveniences than give up more of their data. That means setting up permanent vacation responders on Gmail and telling friends to resend files or video links that don't require Google software. More than that, it takes a lot of discipline.
While there's no data on how many people are avoiding Google, the article points out that DuckDuckGo is now averaging 42.4 million searches every day -- up from 23.5 million a year ago.
But at least one Berkeley tech consultant acknowledged that "the improvement is mostly in the category of self-righteousness." Seeking an office software with better privacy protections, he's now paying $100 a year for a subscription to Microsoft Office 365.
These intrepid Web users say they'd rather deal with daily inconveniences than give up more of their data. That means setting up permanent vacation responders on Gmail and telling friends to resend files or video links that don't require Google software. More than that, it takes a lot of discipline.
While there's no data on how many people are avoiding Google, the article points out that DuckDuckGo is now averaging 42.4 million searches every day -- up from 23.5 million a year ago.
But at least one Berkeley tech consultant acknowledged that "the improvement is mostly in the category of self-righteousness." Seeking an office software with better privacy protections, he's now paying $100 a year for a subscription to Microsoft Office 365.
Huh? (Score:4, Interesting)
Must keep my breakfast secret, lets put it in a WaPo article...
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Also, it's oatmeal. Oats, sugar, cinnamon. Don't worry so much about whether you get exactly the right kind or whether google knows about it.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're snarky, but missing the point.
Small intrusions in personal space and privacy only beget larger intrusions. This is the camel's nose under the tent which will lead to a panopticon -- and every single step of the way will be paved with seemingly innocuous intrusions; and mother fuckers like you saying "it's no big deal, it's only breakfast cereal".
Re:Huh? (Score:4)
I got zero idea how would google know what breakfast cereal I eat anyways, except from this comment of course.
Because I buy it with cash. at a supermarket. it's rice krispies. there's no connection to google what-so-ever there. even if I used a credit card google wouldn't know. letting google know would be an extra effort.
and now - if google has all this data about me, how come they still try to show me ads in thai? I can't read that or understand what they're saying on the ads.
The ad algorithms aren't exactly creepy at all as they're super simplistic (searched for AND BOUGHT swimming trunks 3 weeks ag-> get shown swimming trunks ads for couple of weeks - that's what there is to the algorithm pretty much, apart from "probably male", ip is in country xyz, qualifiers and such). they just have a near monopoly on the ad selling business that's all, acting like the algorithms are super complicated just helps with keeping that.
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Apparently never heard of uBlock or Privacy Badger either.
Good general idea (Score:3)
No need to make a religion out of it.
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Except that it's easy to not use Google. No need to make a religion out of it. Dump gmail, do you really need archives going back to when it was invite only? Dump YouTube - there are better things to do with your time. Dump Google maps - phone ahead to ask for directions and confirm dates and times. Dump Google Translate - learn a second language instead - even a 3-year-old can do it. Dump Chrome. It's not that hard to be Google -free, and makes it easier to take the next step and dump social media.
Asking for a friend, is slashdot considered social media?
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It cerainly is a social media site. It uses Janrain (cdn-social.janrain.com)
Janrain, sometimes styled as JanRain, is a customer profile and identity management (CIAM) software provider based in Portland, Oregon. It was established in 2002. Akamai acquired Janrain in January 2019
According to VentureBeat, "Janrain Engage" enables social sharing, "Janrain Capture" gathers and stores profile data, and allows the sharing of profiles across websites
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It uses Janrain if you allow that. Ordinary users still allow by default, but you should have known better. And no, I don't give a rat's ass about Dice's or BizX's monetization.
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Not that easy.
There's also Google AdSense and Google Analytics which are in about every page ever. And the ocassional Google Docs one runs into. And a bunch of web technologies like GWT. And reCAPTCHA. And Google Maps, which gets embedded into sites quite often. And sites that authenticate via Google. And quite a bunch of other stuff.
So yeah, you can stay away from the main Google products quite easily, but Google has made a lot of effort for inserting itself into pretty much every context, so that really a
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If you run uMatrix (or something similar), you can block those scripts from running.
Also, clearing cache and cookies every day helps to poison data.
Re:Good general idea (Score:4, Insightful)
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Also stop visiting websites.
Re:Good general idea (Score:5, Informative)
Except that it's easy to not use Google.
You're profoundly wrong; it's not easy at all to avoid Google. Thinking that using Firefox or Brave or Edge and not having a gmail account is enough is dangerously naive and complacent.
Look at the web page from where you posted your message: it talks to gstatic.com, google-analytics.com and maybe other Google properties I'm not aware of. Even though you're posting from slashdot.org, using Firefox, you're tracked by Google.
Maybe you're posting from some wireless hotpoint, in a coffee shop somewhere? Do you know what DNS servers are used? Many use Google's DNS, which you can be sure tracks your location and queries.
Maybe you're buying something in a bricks and mortar store, using a credit card? The data ends up in Google's databases: Google has been buying off-line credit card transactions for years now.
I'm afraid at this point the only way to avoid being tracked by Google is to live in a shack somewhere with no utilities at all, and make all your purchases in cash. This is a disgusting situation, and the only possible solution is harsh legislative action against the data suckers. Unfortunately, Google is the number one spender on lobbbyists, so the chances of Congress acting on privacy are pretty much nil.
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Try the Ghostery browser extension.
Well, running ad-blockers/privacy extensions is the bottom ground of privacy. I'm not (yet?) at the point where I drive miles from my home to buy cereal, but I care enough about my privacy to put a certain amount of work into avoiding Facebook, Google and their ilk. Besides installing a bunch of privacy-related extensions in my Firefox (including Ghostery, FWIW) I don't have Facebook or Google accounts, don't use WhatsApp, Instagram, GMail, GMaps, Google search, or other Facebook/Google properties, don't r
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Here's a simple example (double posting because you *still* can't edit comments on slashdot).
This reply page loaded https://www.gstatic.com/images... [gstatic.com]
gstatic.com is Google static content. Slashdot loads the google plus icon from there. That request gets as a referer: "https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14455974&op=Reply&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=nested&pid=59002444"
So that one icon alone is already enough for Google to figure out where I've been to, and who I'm communicating with.
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gstatic.com is Google static content. Slashdot loads the google plus icon from there. That request gets as a referer: "https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=14455974&op=Reply&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=nested&pid=59002444"
Abuse of the HTTP referrer header is one of my personal bugaboos. It allows for tracking individuals on a near invisible basis and is baked into the standard. There are browser extensions that allow you to control it, but it breaks so many sites due to servers intentionally or unintentionally barfing on requests that are made without one. Almost everything behind Cloudflare will completely fail to load if you don't provide a referrer.
Nerer Googlers? (Score:3)
We used to call these people 'crazy people'.
I'm sure he also wears a disguise at that 40 miles away location because they have cameras in the shop and outside.
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My mother used to say "There's always one crazy person on the bus." but I've never seen em.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Is Orifice 365 really better? (Score:3)
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if you want secure email
There's no such thing as secure email unless you encrypt each message before it leaves your device.
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There's no such thing as secure email unless you encrypt each message before it leaves your device.
The message is encrypted in the connection between the device and the server, and then the server only sends the message to the receiving server over an encrypted channel, which then only delivers it to the other client over an encrypted channel. At which point is it not encrypted?
The next article about never-googlers (Score:4, Insightful)
will be the Carbon impact report of not searching for the best price, driving 40 miles to buy a box of cereal, with no instructions on how to get there with a map application, getting lost... /s
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I personally want to know what brand of cereal never-googlers use. Clearly it would be the one with the longest use by date since otherwise it would go off sitting in their underground disaster bunker.
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Some of us did.
Libreoffice? (Score:2)
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Re:Libreoffice? (Score:5, Interesting)
Freedom for whom? And freedom to do what? The GPL is about freedom for the developer first: freedom from some corporation stealing one's code for gain, freedom to make sure the code stays open. But it's also about freedom for the user too. In fact for end users the GPL doesn't really apply at all. It states explicitly that a user doesn't have to agree with the GPL in order to use the software. It certainly doesn't allow a free for all, but it focuses on certain essential freedoms.
For my own good, the GPL is a no brainer. If some corporation thinks it's code they want they are welcome to negotiate a license and royalties.
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Freedom for whom? And freedom to do what? The GPL is about freedom for the developer first: freedom from some corporation stealing one's code for gain, freedom to make sure the code stays open.
You couldn't be more wrong.
The GPL exists to ensure that the end user can modify the software. The whole Open Source thing started because Richard Stallman couldn't modify a printer driver to get a printer to work.
It is not about the economic interests of the developer, it is about the Freedom of the users.
We've reached full... (Score:3)
... idiocracy.
Let's take this gem:
Seeking an office software with better privacy protections, he's now paying $100 a year for a subscription to Microsoft Office 365.
Really? You're going to have your privacy protected by an online connected piece of software and not to mention the windows 10 OS you are using? Man our species is clueless. If you really wanted privacy it's best to use old software on a non internet connected machine, AKA windows xp/7 + office 2003. Have one machine for internet and another for work/privacy.
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B. Why the hell would you let Google AND Microsoft have your information as opposed to just Microsoft?
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I really don't understand why you would trust Microsoft more than Google. I understand why you would distrust them equally—which is why I avoid both whenever possible—but the only good thing about Microsoft is that they have a tendency to screw up the nefarious plans from time to time. Just because Microsoft's telemetry isn't as effective as Google's various trackers doesn't mean they're less evil.
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Re:We've reached full... (Score:5, Insightful)
At least for me, MS and Google are 'differently evil', and MS isn't quite as good at it.
I'm pretty well aware that Windows 10 does tracking, and no, I'm not a fan of it. However, MS is still pretty good about keeping their stuff 'front door evil' - things like defaulting users to get warnings if they don't install apps from the MS App Store or defaulting users to logging into their PCs with an MS Account or auto-downloading appy-apps without the user requesting them.. There's been some back-and-forth about the nature of the telemetry sent to MS even after opting out of all the UI-based options (and I think W10Privacy does a pretty good job of neutering most of those things), but that's the sort of thing MS does at a consumer level.
At a business level, it's a bit more simple - pricing for business licenses for things keep going up in order to squeeze businesses into hosted options - Windows Server, SQL Server, Sharepoint, and Exchange on-prem licensing is pretty easy to find costing more than the servers running them.
That's MS Evil. It's almost trivial to avoid MS entirely if you want. Plenty of folks here at Slashdot do it on a daily basis - run Linux on the desktop, iPhone or Android on the smartphone, use any mail service other than Outlook.com/Hotmail/Hosted Exchange, and barring the handful of websites that run on Azure and the possible requirement to run MS on a work computer, it's entirely possible to avoid MS Evil without a whole lot of compromise.
Google Evil is far more difficult to avoid. Google Analytics is *everywhere*. Google Fonts is *everywhere*. Google DNS is *everywhere*. Adding all the Google domains and IPs to one's firewall would break a whole lot of websites. Someone sending an MS Word e-mail attachment can be opened in LibreOffice pretty easily in most cases, but someone sharing a Google Docs document is going to devolve into a tech support call to the sender, teaching them how to export and quickly landing that document into version hell. Xprivacy on a rooted Android phone is almost shocking with how many permissions requests Google background software sends. I'd mention Google's privacy settings functions, but of course, it's not possible to use them with first party apps.
Speaking of apps, let's discuss how even on Windows, it's possible to remove 'unremovable' appy-apps with a Powershell command or two. Android has no such function without root.
On the business side, companies that don't use AMP get penalized in their Google ranking, no matter how optimized their website actually is, or how fast it actually loads.
I'm not saying MS is a saint here; certainly, they are not. What I am saying is that there are degrees of evil in this business, and I submit that the one that's nearly impossible to avoid is probably the worse one.
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B. Why the hell would you let Google AND Microsoft have your information as opposed to just Microsoft?
... and how about NONE of them?
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Seeking an office software with better privacy protections, he's now paying $100 a year for a subscription to Microsoft Office 365.
Really? [...]
I strongly suspect that line was intended as a joke...
While there's no data on how many people are avoid (Score:2)
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Decentraleyes
Disconnect
HTTPS Everywhere
Privacy Badger
uBlock Origin
uMatrix
Paranoid much? (Score:3)
Google doesn't care about you, Amazon doesn't care about you. If they want to tell me about something I actually want to buy at a good price, I am OK with that.
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When data can be used to profile people with such precision that they can be manipulated, it's not just a threat to that person, it's a threat to everyone. Our government consists of elected representatives and if the electorate can be easily manipulated then one really has to question if the representative government is functioning as it was intended. Think about your sig, then think about how this could be problematic.
Of course, you're not being manipulated. You're much too clever for that. You've just en
Re:Paranoid much? (Score:5, Interesting)
No I'm not, and I intend to keep it that way. But what if war broke out with the Chinese, and they decided to round up everyone who showed support for the Chinese and put them in concentration camps. You know, like they did with the Japanese in WWII, and the algorithm to determine that picked up all your glowing reviews of Chinese restaurants and Chinese martial arts movies because you are a fan of both. As well as all the money you spent at your local Chinese takeaway which turned out to house subversives and so was given a higher weighting in the algorithm? So you, a red blooded patriotic American get rounded up and thrown into a concentration camp because you kept swiping your credit card to buy your chicken chow mein instead of paying cash.
Never happen you say? My wife works for a financial institution in their compliance division, they use these sorts of algorithms all the time to try flag suspicious transactions in all the millions of daily transactions. Are they politically connected, is the transaction over x, or is the sum total of transactions over y over abc period. All that shit. All of it gets collated, and if flagged it gets sent to our countries regulatory body and from there to the UN. ALL FLAGGED TRANSACTIONS. This has been happening for years, it got a LOT worse after 9/11.
You may not be interesting now, but if Osama Bin Laden's second cousins nephew accidentally phones your cellphone you may find you are a lot more interesting, and then they will know exactly where you go shopping, where you fill up with petrol etc.
Re:Paranoid much? (Score:5, Informative)
what if war broke out with the Chinese, and they decided to round up everyone who showed support for the Chinese and put them in concentration camps. You know, like they did with the Japanese in WWII
In the interest of accuracy, it should be pointed out that they didn't round up everyone who showed support for the Japanese, they rounded up everyone of Japanese descent, regardless of whether they showed support for the Japanese or not.
Fintech Learned from Health Insurance (Score:5, Interesting)
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I think George Carlin put it rather succinctly.
Seriously? (Score:2)
'he's now paying $100 a year for a subscription to Microsoft Office 365.'
No need to read FTA, the above statement fully clarifies the rationality of the subject. Idiot.
'Stupid is as stupid does' F.G.
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Why is it stupid to pay $100/year for Microsoft Office?
On the face of it, it's not. But with the caveat that he wants to avoid being tracked, paying a company to do just that to him is stupid. Have you read Office 365's terms of service?
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Personally, I use a copy of Office 2003, but I know that most people don't have access to stuff like that.
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There is a major difference though. You're Microsoft's customer; they're making their money from you, and it's in their interest to make you happy, so you'll pay them more. By contrast, for Google you're the product. Their customers are ad companies, and Google's interest is to make them happy, so they'll pay more. The way to make ad companies happy is to give them more and more accurate info about you - the product. I think this difference alone should be a deciding factor.
Also, note that this doesn't appl
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In theory that works out great, except for the fact that Microsoft double dips. You're the customers and the people they sell your data to are also the customers. Microsoft competes with Google in just about every way possible: search, advertising, cloud, etc.
In fact, with Office 365 individuals aren't even the customers. Microsoft is primarily worried about organizations—corporations, governments, schools, etc. You think they want to be bothered worrying about individuals? They make deals with employ
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In fact, with Office 365 individuals aren't even the customers. Microsoft is primarily worried about organizations—corporations, governments, schools, etc.
Which is why a paid Office 365 subscription is a better guarantee of privacy than using Google because those very groups you mention place privacy very high on their list of requirements so they're not going to want to use a service which sells their data.
The epitome of paranoid bullshit (Score:2)
"I'm just not sure why Google needs to know what breakfast cereal I eat..."
If Google didn't mine and sell that kind of information to support giving away search services to consumers, he might be willing to pay $100 or so per month for a subscription-based equivalent. But the number of people in general who would pay for search would probably be small enough to drive up the cost for those who did pay higher still. It would be the sad story of cable TV replacing broadcast all over again.
"But-but-but..There's
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If Google didn't mine and sell that kind of information to support giving away search services to consumers,
According to Google no such information is being sold to anyone in the first place.
he might be willing to pay $100 or so per month for a subscription-based equivalent.
Not only is this dependent upon a false premise its a false choice. You can sell ads to pay for "free" shit without cyber stalking billions of people.
But the number of people in general who would pay for search would probably be small enough to drive up the cost for those who did pay higher still. It would be the sad story of cable TV replacing broadcast all over again.
What is sad is continued willingness to tolerate Internet search monopolies.
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According to Google no such information is being sold to anyone in the first place.
Irrelevant and naive.
First, you have to trust Google that they really don't sell (or share, see the loophole?) your info. But how can you verify that? Is Google opening all their contracts, their data silos and their internal processes for your, or a trusted third party's inspection? No, so their statements are pretty empty.
Second, even if they don't share your data now, there is no guarantee or commitment they won't in the future. After a few bad financial reports, the CEO may think it's time to monetize t
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Irrelevant and naive.
Irrelevant my ass. The assertion Google sells information is the entire basis of parents argument.
"If Google didn't mine and sell that kind of information to support giving away search services to consumers"
First, you have to trust Google that they really don't sell (or share, see the loophole?) your info. But how can you verify that? Is Google opening all their contracts, their data silos and their internal processes for your, or a trusted third party's inspection? No, so their statements are pretty empty.
Lets see..
Do I trust Google? No.
Is it necessary for me to verify what Google does? No.
Do I have any burden to support MY assertion "According to Google no such information is being sold to anyone in the first place." .. Yes, of course I do: https://safety.google/privacy/... [safety.google]
Those making positive assert
Re:The epitome of lack of knowledge of history (Score:5, Insightful)
In WWII, the NAZI did there best to comb through records to identify Jewish people, so they could be sent to concentration camps for execution. The only reason some of them lived is that the records were imperfect and some brave people were able to forge papers so they could hide the Jewish refugees. As it was, those ever efficient Germans managed to kill 6 million. All that with shit technology.
Fast forward to today, now, with the glory of Facebook and google, you can be categorized and tracked by many different groupings. You may scoff and say, "that would never happen to Jewish people again. I am like, so progressive, I would never pick on such an impressive group."
Fine, even conceding that lack of understanding about the rise of anti-semitism in the world (I am looking at you congresswomen Ilhan Omar https://www.newsweek.com/congr... [newsweek.com]), the thing is that racism, communism, and progressivism is alive and well in the world, and there are just so many new groups to hate. For example:
1. Christians are being hunted and killed in many parts of Africa and Asia https://www.newsweek.com/chris... [newsweek.com]
2. Conservative bloggers are beaten up and attacked in public, with no consequences: https://reason.com/2019/06/29/... [reason.com]
3. Youtube and other large tech companies are de-platforming many popular channels of people who disagree with their viewpoint.
4. Rape Victims are being being doxed by people who disagree with them https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
I can go on and on. See, the names and "reasons" have changed, but the game is still the same. Hate is alive and well, and perpetrated openly and often by those who claim to be anti hate. They scare the shit out of me, as well as anyone who has half a brain in their head. If you think they will never turn on whatever subgroup that you belong.....well, history has a way killing the fickle. The people who paid for Hitler's rise to power thought they could control him too.
So, yes, I see no good end resulting from the categorization of everyone in the world. Sure, you can call me paranoid. But, I am sure I will see you around in the new concentration camps.
People have no memory (Score:2)
'The people who paid for Hitler's rise to power thought they could control him too.'
IBM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Ford
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Categorization is only needed when the attribute being attacked is not readily visible, e.g. the KKK doesn't need a database to identify black people because their eyes can do the job just fine.
So if you are really worried about this, deal with the overt racists first because they are the ones shifting the window of acceptable behaviour and sowing a lot of this racist rhetoric that filters down to the mainstream. By highlighting how those views are held by actual, swastika tattoo wearing Nazis, and how they
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Oh, I see, this is about a Conservative feeling like a victim. OK, then -- no picking on people. That's fair.
We see concentration camps for Latin Americans at the border. We see hate speech from representatives and astro turf groups. We see targeting of Muslim countries for travel bans that do NOT have a history of violence.
People throwing a few milk shakes and hate spouting assholes losing private corporate platforms isn't quite like being exterminated. But hey, we want you to feel safe. Just be nice to ot
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"A milk shake is not an assault."
It is if one throws it at someone.
But it is not terrorism.
I'm one of them (Score:2)
A. I have actual assets that I want to protect.
B. I have a sense of basic dignity that I want to preserve. I don't want a bunch of random strangers knowing anything about me. I have nothing to hide, I just think that my own privacy is worth more to me than some stupid digital trinket that doesn't enhance my life at all.
Google is omnipresent (Score:2)
Sorely disappointed in the comments here (Score:2)
Re:Sorely disappointed in the comments here (Score:5, Interesting)
I feel very old saying this, but it's a very Gen Z attitude to disregard privacy concerns. A lot of these kids lost their privacy before they had a choice or the knowledge to do anything about it. Furthermore, they face extreme social pressure to use these types of services. I noticed that many of the comments you're alluding to have extremely high UIDs.
I do the basics: I use ad/tracker blockers, I don't use Facebook, and I use DuckDuckGo for search. I don't go to any extremes, but I try not to just hand away the keys to the kingdom. My teenage niece thinks these simple measures are extreme encumbrances. As far as she's concerned, I'm a weird Richard Stallman-type tin-foil hat paranoiac.
I don't know how to make these kids care. When my kids are old enough, maybe I'll read them William Gibson books as bedtime stories and hope that works.
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When they are old enough they will be living it, hell, we are living some of it now.
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I don't know how to make these kids care.
Show them the consequences. Fundamentally this is the problem on both sides of the debate:
One side thinks there are no possible consequences for giving up their privacy.
The other side comes up with insanely contrived examples that haven't been born out in history and have no basis to support them (e.g. arbitrarily labeling Google "evil" while being unable to demonstrate consequences of their actions that justify the term.)
A hearty few (Score:2)
I take the opposite approach (Score:4, Interesting)
Instead of giving them too little information, I give them too much. 99% of it bogus.
In statistics, there is one thing that's worse than no data, and that's poisoned data. Data where you can't tell signal from noise, valid data points from constructed ones. This is, by the way, also why political polls are so misleading, people would rather tell you what they think is the common opinion of a "good" candidate than their honest opinion. But I digress.
If you can no longer determine what data points are valid and which ones are not, your whole data set becomes useless and the most sensible thing to do is to throw it out entirely and ignore that data source as input.
Either that or end up with false data. Either is fine by me.
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Am I the only one who sees the irony here? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Nope. Social media is only able to work with what you give them. Facebook doesn't benefit much from knowing my full name is Thegarbz McGarbzface, sitting behind a VPN with cookies deleted every session. But it does let me get a message out.
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To live a practical life, yes. (Score:2)
Correct.
At this point, in the year 2019, it is nearly impossible to avoid being catalogued by some service, somewhere on this planet. Be it public government records or private search history, it is no longer practically possible to live in a forest without some service knowing where the heck you are, even if you leave your smartphone at home and remove the license plate off of your car.
The ones spoken of here in this article are going to ridiculous extremes to try (fruitlessly) to keep their data off of so
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Not worth the hassle (Score:2)
I get the motivation but to me it's not worth the hassle. Sure, if the next Hitler and Goebels get a hold on Google and Facebook we're all screwed, but tracking technology has advanced so far that we'll be tracked 24/7 in a decade or so anyway, no matter if we're on Google it not.
It is compelling to prepare for a lifestyle that avoids any dependency on these megacorps, but driving 40 miles just to get groceries is a bit of a stretch IMHO.
My2 cents.
Mystery (Score:2)
i just became one recently... (Score:2)
Have multiple sandboxes in both my home and work Firefox installations. Amazon, Twitter and Reddit each get their own sandbox while google, gmail and gdrive get to share one. Have 8 sandboxes on my work PC and I believe 13 at home. I *almost* cancelled the gmail account I've had for about 15 years but decided to sandbox that in with the rest of Google.
So - google, Amazon, Twitter and Reddit can read their own cookies all day long :)
I don't use DuckDuckGo, preferring startpage as I feel it's a little more
browser extensions help a lot (Score:2)
resistance....is fu-tile (Score:2)
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You have to wonder how many license plate readers you get scanned by in a 40 mile drive.
Wouldn't it be better to bicycle somewhere closer, wearing a foil helmet, and paying cash?
Re:Hypocritical or just oblivious? (Score:4, Interesting)
True, but all they know is you did a 40 mile drive and nothing else.
Not what you bought, where you bought it, what time you bought it etc. etc. And 40 miles isn't that far, I've lived in the boondocks at times and if you wanted more than a few basic necessities you had to drive more than 40 miles.
Just because you are willing to give up your privacy for the sake of convenience doesn't mean everyone does, it also doesn't mean they are nutters.
What annoys me the most is that people seem to think that all this data collected is only used for good, and perhaps advertising, but it's not.
You talk about the license plate readers, my old neighborhood had only two entrances, and they wanted to put up license plate readers, their argument being that if a robbery was committed they would have more evidence to hand over to the police etc. etc. Which I suppose is true, but that database of my every movement wasn't maintained by the police, it was maintained by a contracted software company, but the security company in the area also had full access to the database.
So let's take Derek, he became a security guard because he kept failing the police psych evaluations, and security guards don't have those. So there's Derek, bored in his car and he takes a liking to my teenage daughter. So he goes into the database and checks up what time I go to work and come home, what time my wife drops her off at school and picks her up. What time and day my wife goes to Pilates lessons leaving my daughter at home alone.
That's not the sort of information I want Derek the unstable armed security guard to have. All so they can record a number plate of a car that may or may not have committed a robbery in the neighborhood, when more than likely it's been hijacked and they will find the car dumped on the side of the road somewhere.
Let's not get started on James, he works for the software company that they contracted for the cameras. They are contracted to maintain thousands of camera's all around the city, in fact it's their specialty. James has a bit of a drug problem, he's not really a criminal himself, but he hangs out with the seedy elements, mostly when he's getting his next stash of xyz and they get to know each other and chatting and, well, friends. So he mentions he has access to this vast database of pictures of cars, so when a car order comes in for a pink Ferrari James is the man! James gets a bag of xyz for free, and they don't have to cruise the neighborhoods armed to the teeth for three days risking arrest to find a pink Ferrari. In fact James can tell them EXACTLY what time to be there and EXACTLY where to be.
Then there's Wendy, works in a bank as a teller, has access to all the client information screens. She's a good Catholic girl, but her boyfriend is a bit of a gangsta which is why she got involved with him, because it was exciting. So he gets her to tell him about people who regularly draw large sums of money, perhaps they are paying their illegal employees who can only deal in cash, who knows, who cares. So he waits outside, watches this cash heavy person get into a car with a number plate of 123 and then he hooks up with James, finds out where they live, and the next time they drive into their driveway with thousands in cash they get robbed.
Now I suppose you are thinking I am typing this with my tinfoil hat on. I'm not, just my headphones. I've worked with these databases, hell I've written some LPR related code myself. That data is all sitting there accessible by hundreds of everyday people. I know it might be hard to believe, but not everyone is made from sugar and spice and all things nice. Especially when some of them would view it as something along the lines of "I didn't rob them, all I
"a software" again (Score:2)
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Do I even need to comment on the absurdity of this?
I can't figure if it needs a sarcasm tag or if it was posted on The Onion.
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I was pretty blunt with the Order of Engineers - either stop them or I will start issuing software engineer certificates for $100 a pop. I gave them 6 months: it worked, because I guess as word got around others also complained. The carts are fraudulent and if you claim to be an en
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