Topic: Technology and comfort taking over our lives. Privacy, a thing of the past? (Read 408 times)

Privacy is very important in the life of every person in the past people had no idea about technology. Sad but true even after ruling the world for so long, people have not done much that we can be proud of. Throughout the time people have learned about the environment around them increased food production, built city-empires and vas vast business fields. But has all this work been able to alleviate the suffering and unrest of the people in the world.

Just to step aside in regards to one of the examples you gave - robot lawn mower - is that something that people actually use? May be common in other countries, though I don't really think that's all too common in the US. Further, for that example I don't really know why knowing your garden structure and such would matter, that'll be on town files and such that people can probably access.

The other ones are TOTALLY fair concerns and people have to notice that they're giving all of their data away for no real reason other then -- it's EASIER FOR ME.

Totally not trying to nitpick the list, just curious on if that's common elsewhere in the world.

In the fight against coronavirus, all means are used - not least modern technology. For example, robots help doctors in infectious diseases wards of hospitals in China. In South Korea, China, Taiwan, and Singapore, mobile apps that track the social contacts of those infected have been instrumental in successfully overcoming the peak of the epidemic.

But what will happen to our personal data, which these robots or applications for smartphones are collecting about us now? Is a balance possible between the effective use of modern technologies in the fight against the virus and at the same time maintaining our right to privacy?
Contact tracing has been used in epidemiology for a long time. In particular, this was also true during the outbreak of SARS in the early 2000s, also caused by the coronavirus. But before this was done "manually": doctors asked patients about their contacts, made lists and monitored the condition of each. Now this is done thanks to signals from mobile phones or from mobile operators, using data via Bluetooth or geolocation.

This topic is not just for someone, but for everyone, including you. Privacy and security are always in par with one another, the moment that you care for life, your friends, and your family, is the moment that you will consider to have a fight when it comes to this matters. As I've said, security and privacy are always intact, they can be either directly proportional, or inversely proportional, but they won't be separated.

This is what I've been actually trying to understand, they can easily breach the your system, cause you are using their software. So internet privacy is somehow, and something you choost to give, and accept. This is also why most of the sites needed you to agree to their license agreement, most with sketchy statements.

On the other hand, I do not personally think that this will cost us something more than what we can risk. It is the same as putting your documents in the cabinet where burglers can steal it personally, the only difference is that we are now storing it on what we call "Private Clouds", and hard drives.

I really didin't think about this. But yeah no privacy left. On the other hand, why would I be interesting for someone? I'm just an ordinary person living my modest life.

Not sure when everyone started to believe the VPN company marketing tactics. If you have a paid VPN, yes you have the best shot of having privacy on the internet, but even with that -- if you're just logging into all of the social media accounts / other sites like normal you'll still be tracked by companies. Maybe some guy at the internet Cafe won't be able to steal your bank password, but the big companies of Google, Facebook, Netflix, and so on will still be collecting TONS AND TONS of data on you.

So yeah.


Agreed. BTC is not better then a coin like Monero for privacy though, and that's just a fact.

Only because we let them do so.

Wrong education and advertisement about privacy and security speaks words here with the VPN situation. VPNs are sometimes worse than not using anything at all. A lot of them actually keep logs of everything you do.

VPNs are the same way we've been wrongfully taught about internet privacy and anonymity as we'll be taught about CBDCs being better than BTC and privacy coins. The vast majority will fall for it.

I wouldn't call targeted marketing such a great thing, looking at some products just once will likely keep them in your recommendation list for a long time. The rise of a lot of different VPN companies shows in my opinion that the is a huge demand for privacy in the internet. People are willing to pay for such privacy and the more our data is getting exploited the higher the demand for security from such marketing companies.

I hope you have heard the term "BIG DATA"
There is no privacy left and all our activity online and offline are traced and recorded in the form of data. This data can be used for good things like targeted marketing or it can be misused at any level.

Pretty much everything snoops on us now. Most of the time the average folk don't even think about it since they rarely get targeted but if you think about all of this, it can really make you paranoid. And most times, it's hard to opt out. For example, employers will find it suspicious if you don't have an account on any of the SM platforms, most interactions would involve using apps which again, requires certain permissions, etc.


I can't wait for these tech giants to get the Standard Oil treatment although I'm not getting my hopes high considering how pervasive their "product" is (we can argue though that WE are the product). Pretty much the most change I've made is switch to Brave. Not very optimistic but hey if Google got my data, why can't I add another browser to the list?

Data are the new oil. And companies are using that. Sooner or latter mentality about it will change and people will use products and services where they dont give out any data. At this point of time there is lite demand fro that. But that will change. Probably already in this decade. If not this then next. 

Great, a listening device that follows you around

I'm basically trying to lower down the tracking as much as possible while still making use of some functions such as chatting and web browsing. I have a few dumb phones & burner SIM cards sitting around but I still have to chat sometimes through either Signal or XMPP - and that requires owning a smartphone. Until a system-wide Tor phone or a more privacy-oriented one (such as Purism Librem 5) comes out, I will try the best from my side to still make use of the tech while having more privacy.

Dumb phones are also really bad with the network signal - and we're probably only a matter of years before 2G and 3G networks shut down as well.

Now going back to the vaccum robots, I was really curious to look these up on Amazon and found this creepy product. Just read this highlight right underneath the images:

Well, those "old" Nokia phones that are actually new stock also have internet access nowadays and possibly even GPS. I honestly do not trust the new models. The best thing you can do is purchase a truly dumb phone like @LoyceV suggested - the main issue is, however, the networking. Not having good signal almost anywhere you go is a pain in the ass.

I've had this happening quite often with some friends of mine. I actually tried it once intentionally: mentioning a random phone model name in the middle of the discussion; guess for what phones have they received ads only hours later.

Old Nokia phones are still available on some stores. I'd like to do that so I wont have to do all the troubles disabling just about everything that collects data which I have no idea if its really going to work.  That fact that they are decieving us to believe they are not going to collect data from us.

Often times though its just for marketing which the ads flashing on our monitors are exactly what we were just thinking of buying. When I just said to my father on the phone that I wanted to buy a yatch just to joke around. The ads just flash about luxurious yatchs.  Well its pointless collecting data from us if they will not use them for its purpose.

But why? The whole point of having a robot for something, is so you don't have to spend time on it!
Do they also install a camera inside their dishwasher?

Why not just buy a 10 dollar dumb phone instead? Without camera and networking, there's not much point in having a smart phone.

@ololajulo
I think we can have protection without having to be exposed at the same time. Wireless is convenient but could be so harmful.


@Gyfts
This pandemic is more than perfect as an example of giving up rights in the name of safety. It gets worse though - if a decade ago storing stuff on your backup hard disk was a thing, today most people store their stuff in some stranger's servers having a strong feeling of security solely from the fact that the company storing their data is large. We aren't stupid not to understand the need of privacy, but comfort has been too overwhelmingly nice to care.


@squatz1
Everyone has something to hide. Whether legal or not, they do. That is why you only tell a few people some things - you'd feel uncomfortable or your life may even change if other people'd know as well. This is another stupid link between the need for privacy and illicit stuff.


@Mpamaegbu
I've had very creepy moments with Facebook before, such as purchasing stuff from a clothing store and, after arriving back home, receiving the cashier as a friend suggestion. The thing is, turning off your location is only a few pixels switching on your screen. You never know what truly goes on behind the scenes. Facebook, Instagram and other similar apps are some of the largest privacy intruders. The least one can change about that is delete their apps and use FB or Insta through some more privacy-oriented open-source apps (you can find them on F-Droid). The best thing one can do, as @LoyceV suggested, is just.. remove your accounts.


@DaveF
Oh yeah, online purchases are definitely something I try to avoid at all costs.. hence why I consider the idea of a cashless society very scary. Amazon's products are also definitely something I will always avoid.


@LoyceV
Robot vaccums and lawn mowers are nowadays connected to the internet as well, AFAIK. Some friends own these and showed me how, miles away from home, they can power on their vacuums and see live how it cleans their home through its camera. Creepy.

True - wired is more annoying than wireless for sure - but I've made this sacrifice myself and turned my entire home into wired-only devices as much as I could. Besides my phones, which are locked into Faraday cages anytime I don't use them as well, and my WiFi router.. I don't think there's anything I do not have wired at this point.

For the phones, I have modded them like a privacy freak that I have become: removed all camera modules, took out the microphones as well from one of them, flashed Lineage and Copperhead OS with no Google stuff on them and I only use open source software. To avoid the location tracing whenever I feel like I should, I carry a Faraday phone bag with me at all times as well.

Now about the accounts, I probably have the most annoying thing ever: one unique e-mail and password for every account I own. Gets annoying as hell when you have to enter login codes sent through e-mail.

There have been many other cases through the years.

Credit card purchase tracking is a big one.
Loyalty cards at stores for tracking.
Ever since cable TV boxes got a bit smarter viewer tracking. Any satellite TV box that is internet connected. TiVos in general.

And soon you can buy your own drone to fly around your place to watch you:
https://www.techradar.com/news/amazon-rings-new-dronecamera-hybrid-will-fly-around-and-record-your-home

-Dave

We already don't have any privacy anymore because we mostly input our real and exact information when registering or making an account on social media and other online platforms. It is why we shouldn't put our exact details such as full name, full address, and additional private information. Also, avoid downloading unnecessary applications on your mobile phones and other gadgets because they can steal your data in your device.

For the most part, you can (still) control this. Stay away from the "Internet of Things" and you're pretty much okay.

That's easy to solve: stop using Facebook. It's even better if you block all their tracking domain names.

I am a bit lost here with the bolded sentence in your comment. How is our exposed details also serving as our protection? If you don't mind, can you throw more light on that.

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Back to the OP, the google location map makes it even scary in exposing us without our consent. You check into a hotel and your location is marked, sometimes on social media especially Facebook. I am always conscious of switching my location off on my phone because of this. You don't want to get whacked for something you don't know.  A lot of crypto holders have been traced to their homes through this. Another is social media sites using data analysis to push adverts to you online with what you might need because of sites you frequent. Facebook does this a lot. Just check up a fitness site, and the next thing Facebook begins to push adverts related to it to you. So scary. We are gradually coming to am end of privacy. Not even the crypto industry which was initially set up to guarantee privacy is keeping it. KYC is now the order of the day with most projects and exchanges.