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Yeah, I’m often thinking “am I sounding crazy right now?” when I ever mention that I care about privacy.
I kind of understand the issues with privacy, but not really. What don’t you want online companies to know and why?
Anything I wouldn’t tell a random stranger. Like who are my friends, their phone numbers, where I live, my full name, my location at all times, etc.
Not nearly tin foil hat enough /s
Suppose a bad actor gets access to this information. Suppose this bad actor has the “political view” that people with your specific profile shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Suppose they have the network to get a small army of really big guys to stand in front of your house on election day. That’s a very superficial example on why you shouldn’t want companies to have any of your data unless it’s necessary.
Not just an example, it happens in black neighborhoods in the South every election. Usually at polling centers or churches instead of individual houses, but if they had the manpower they’d go to houses.
Anything more than necessary. Why do you want them to know? I wouldn’t let a stranger follow me around, so why should I allow a tracking cookie on my browser? It’s scary and offensive.
my personal problem isn’t the fact that they know a lot about me, but the fact that they can sell that information to advertisers and make millions of dollars of something I didn’t give them willingly (sure, knowingly but not willingly)
I don’t think most truly understand that corporations don’t follow a moral compass when it comes to respecting boundaries
While that may be true, I don’t think understanding that companies are evil is enough to convince anyone to care about privacy. I’ve known corporations are evil for well over a decade but I only started caring about privacy at all a few weeks ago. the issue is that privacy feels so unnatainable to average people that it may as well be a myth. how can you even think about if your internet history is private when you don’t even know how to access internet history yourself? even if you do, it’s not like these companies gossip to your friends about your mundane secrets anyway, it’s just some faceless entity filing it away somewhere to probably be forgotten. that’s the perception I had at least, and I know I wasn’t the only one. what really changed my mind about privacy was being immersed in a community of people that cared about privacy and took time to show that it can be achievable and even convenient both to understand the forces and technologies at play and to actually live a more privacy focused life.
you’re only starving yourself of warmth
And that is NOT how pool water works.
who said anything about “water”?
I legit thought it was peanut butter.
Yum!
I think most people are just overwhelmed most of the time and just want to live their lives and feel connected. There’s no immediate pain of giving up personal information just a vague threat of some future danger. We’re bad at caring about those types of things, generally speaking, just look at how we are handling climate change.
I often wonder if this is some sort of lack of self worth thing. Like, people don’t see their data as important because they don’t see themselves as important in the grand scheme of things? Do they thing one person isn’t gonna change anything?
I get algorithms and shit are designed to be addicted and keep you coming back, but is there a deeper part to this?
Or am I just the crazy one? Does all of this not matter? I mean, I know it doesn’t, in the grand scheme nothing matters. But at this time in space does it matter? My friends enjoy TikTok and Facebook and Twitter and whatever else they use. I do end up being the crazed loser? Is the pool full of piss and I’m in water? Or is it a lemonade pool and I’m full of Powerade piss
Nope. It’s just a convince thing. They aren’t aware what can be done with their data and when they are aware they think “there are millions of people using it so why should MY data be that interesting”
If people are given a choice, they almost always will decline if it’s as convenient as accepting.
I’ve told various people over the years how easy it is to move away from tracking and how valuable their data is. They don’t care. Which makes me thing it’s something else at least in part
The problem is: it’s not easy. It’s easy for you because you’re used to it. Most people are not interested in technology at all.
So maybe start with small things that actually improve the experience. Instead of asking “do you want to get away from trackers” ask “do you never want to see ads in your life ever again”. Then show them how to install an ad blocker.
Don’t try to talk about everything at once. You also don’t try to teach advanced chemistry someone who has absolutely no idea and interest in Chemistry. You have to teach them small steps at a time and make it sound intresting and easy.
And it’s not easy when you tell them “it’s easy. You just have to install this, this and this and have to change your whole habit of using your devices by using a different browser and learn a different client for apps. Oh, and most of them aren’t available on the play store and give a warning when you want to install them.”
You have to make them care about their data, you have to make them care about what you tell them. And that’s the hard part
What we don’t realize is the guy in the center drank a lot of Powerade, and is relieving himself in the lemonade pool.
I read a lot of / am highly into cypherpunk ideology. I work hard to protect my privacy.
But I also have shitty bottom rung / entry level jobs. ALL of them use apps with atrocious privacy policies for group messaging and posting schedules.
A) I am a cashier. Why do you need to be able to reach me 24/7?
B) It makes all my effort trying to keep a minimal digital footprint moot when I am forced to share tons of personal info to register. And I am also required to get the app.
C) No corporate manager who also hates their job is trying to listen to my diatribe about why “WhatsApp” is evil.
I am seriously considering buying a prepaid flip phone and pretending that’s my “real” phone for my next job. That’s the only solution I can think of. But I just hate that it’s a problem at every $10/ hour job.
It’s a brave new world, we’re just old men yelling at clouds.
I think a lot of people have an apathetic outlook towards privacy because they’re cynical that anything they can do will have the desired effect. The belief that they can’t possibly outsmart these data hungry corporations without putting in what they consider to be hard work is enough to sacrifice it.
Right.
Like when I excitedly try to explain the cool way the websites can track you as a user even when you’re incognito 😨
People just have a blank stare, like “what’s incognito”
feelsbadman.jpg
Are they able to track us in incognito using our IP ? Please explain a little to a rookie like me 😀
It’s usually a number of different data points about your browser like the user agent string that identifies what browser you use and what OS, screen resolution, language settings, timezone, whether or not you use and adblocker etc… and of course IP addresses
Incognito doesn’t do much beyond not account for your history.
It’s good if you and your mom use the same computer and you don’t want her browser to auto complete with your porn searches. Not for much else.
I agree so much, I got my own vpn on a private vps just to I can make sure there is no logging happening, so that I can live happy knowing that my data isn’t being sold and my webteam workmates were like “What? Why? Have you got anything to hide?”. No I don’t I just don’t want anything to listen in hugh…
But isn’t that way worse in terms of privacy? Your IP stays the same, and if a request for your IP is made it is instantly your clear name. Also you traded your ISP for another ISP, what is the advantage?
Well although it is true that my IP is always the same to the vpn, I make sure there is no logging happening since the vps is setup completely from scratch with wireguard on OpenBSD. A bigger plus for me is that the VPS is in another country rather than the UK since I don’t like the way ISPs here in England sell your information. I also have another VPS for interacting with work servers which only allow whitelisted IPs and my home IP is dynamic.
I hope you don’t mind me asking, but isn’t the point of no logging with VPNs that if there’s a request for the user doing a network request not being able to answer because it wasn’t stored? With your VPS it’s your derver, so the request wouldn’t even be made because it’s obvious its network requests are yours