I *HATE* all the internet spying

[alarmguy]

Im sure you all saw this by now.

All one has to do is Google who owns DuckDuckGo and you will see it is an American in Pennsylvania.
Click here if you cant do a seach on it. )

As far as others criticizing ones efforts to limit using programs/apps/sites that make money off your personal information that is up to you, I mean some people in this world also sell their wives and children for money, they could care less what is done to them, as long as they get "free" money or a product.

Dont fault someone for putting a limit on corporations selling ones personal information AND building physiological profiles of you. This is NOT about paranoia this is about stopping the worlds largest/richest companies from making money off my family. My god, its stupid and dangerous, how much more simple can it be?
If you dont understand that, then your plain stupid )
I dont sell my personal information for so called "free stuff" I rather pay in currency.

This isnt about Social Security cards, this isnt about ID theft, this is simply, for an example, literally, most of googles profits are made off the personal information from you, if you dont care, fine, but dont knock others for not conforming to that business model.

My god, and for ID theft ect, another subject, if you want, its free and simple, contact all FOUR credit bureaus and simply put a lock on your accounts, then no one can take out a loan against your name when the loan company tries to check your credit without an unlock code. SImple, free and can be done online.

 

[Al]

Originally Posted by Garak
Originally Posted by Al
You realize that your ss# is in the hands of dozens of people though right?? And lets not even thik about Credit Cards and cell phones.

I provide the Canadian equivalent of the social insurance number only when required or if it's of some sort of benefit. Irrespective of that, that's not relevant to any of the other privacy concerns. Just because dozens of people have my Social Insurance Number doesn't absolve Google of reading my email. One privacy concern does not make a different one acceptable. I don't have a cell phone, either.

You have no credit card?
Well perhaps living in Canada is a problem. But in the U.S. you are not responsible for unauthorized purchases. And for pennies/day you can get fraud insurance.

What precisely are you worried about?

 

[Garak]

Sure, I have credit cards. I knew going in, though, that the credit card companies would know at which stores I shop and how much I spend. There's no other way for that to work. Credit cards don't work terribly well when they're letting me buy things and they have no idea where or how much.

That being said, I have seen no evidence of my credit card companies trying to sell my information. If anything, they want to sell me more things themselves, rather than provide competing organizations opportunities to make money from me.

What I'm worried about is giving information to companies that they don't need, or them misusing the information they do obtain. Google knows what people search for. That's kind of essential when you're running a search engine. They also know how many search for given search terms, which is useful for ranking purposes. I don't have a problem with that. I don't even have a problem with getting ads for what I search for. That can actually be helpful. I don't mind YouTube giving me commercials that mesh with my viewing interests. It's better than the tampon commercials during late night cartoons on television.

However, Google doesn't need to read my email or govern my attachments. They don't need to be selling my information all over. Nonetheless, they do all of those things. So, I use other search engines, and use Google products as little as I can. Similarly, I don't use Facebook. They abuse the trust of their users. I use free software (and not free by money) and free operating systems. I use appropriate browser plugins to minimize abuse by websites. I am versed in GPG and can use it when it suits me. None of these concerns are new. People have always been worried about privacy. Some didn't mind being in the phone book. Some went unlisted. Some people wrote on postcards. Others were happy when the envelope became readily available.

Facebook's founder is being particularly disingenuous right now. He is talking up the European privacy model, which I have addressed here before, as the solution to North America's problems with social media and the web. When it was being proposed in Europe, he and others fought it tooth and nail. Despite what he says, if he were legislated to immediately turn all users' privacy settings to maximum (and let the users change them if they wish) and to stop selling information except from people who explicitly sign up for information sharing, he'd be fighting it. He doesn't want the European model in the least. He wants to avoid going through what Ma Bell did.

Privacy is a virtue unto itself in a free society. The walls in my home are opaque for a reason. I don't stream myself taking a shower. We can't just use "what am I worried about" as a way to diminish privacy rights. Everyone has seen a naked man, but I doubt you or I are going to shower with a garden hose on our front lawns all summer, simply because it's nothing new or we have nothing to worry about. We vote in booths rather than on billboards. We shower in shower stalls. We use envelopes when we write letters. I'm not sure why society has allowed the combination of data voyeurism and data exhibitionism, for want of better terms, that we see today.

 

[Kamele0N]

@Linctex...if you have android phone...


https://blokada.org

 

[Kamele0N]

Originally Posted by thooks
Originally Posted by billt460
..... a bunch of stuff....



It's people like you who will get it one day, realize that your privacy is worth something, realize that you've been financially damaged because of all the surveillance and YOU are going to be the one screaming about it from the rooftop.



Also....it's not about "advertising".... This is another thing that many people just can't get. Too bad. It's a little too much to explain on an internet forum. Sad that people can't think this through.


I think that bilt460 is just too old to care about his privacy....thats why he is posting in this topic like he is....because whatever our future will be...it wont affect him...

Sorry bilt460...just my 2 EU cents...

 

[Kamele0N]

Another useful add

https://www.eff.org/privacybadger

 

[Silk]

I'll have to revisit my thoughts on this one...

I've always used Firefox with an ad blocker on my PC, but lately it's been locking up, slow to respond, and generally just being a pain. I have Chrome on a tab, so started using that.

My old phone was an early Android Samsung, just for a few phone calls and texts, a few apps (unit conversions, Torque etc) my music and camera. I have a good camera, but these days the screen is too small, a less megapixel camera phone works better. Then I upgraded when my son gave me his old Windows Nokia. The same again, just a little bigger. The phones only go live when I use a map, which is not very often.

So I killed the Windows phone, and upgraded to a new budget Android. Now it comes loaded - Google, Chrome, You Tube, a whole lot of stuff. Now my PC is full of ads, my phone is full of ads, they are certainly tracking me...a new level of surveillance for me. Still not too worried, but now I see what people are talking about, it wasn't a world I was in before.

 

[Kamele0N]

Android phone I have...with a last system update it become unreliable...if I changed my location it was often without a signal...unable to switch between different repetitors (LTE signal was a problem)...android forums are full of topics with the same issues... I got used to that "glitch" and was using "flight mode ON/OFF method for a last 2yrs

It was obvious that they started that with a last update...

But in the same week as I started to google how to root that phone...and when I enabled" developer option"in a hidden menu...all that problems dissappeared

And I did not provide my phone with any additional update...

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted by Silk
I've always used Firefox with an ad blocker on my PC, but lately it's been locking up, slow to respond, and generally just being a pain. I have Chrome on a tab, so started using that.

Make sure your Firefox cache directory isn't overloaded. I always have my Firefox set to delete cookies, history, cache, and so forth whenever I close. One update it decided to revert itself, unknown to me. It was being a bit of a pain at startup. I was going to reinstall, so went to the profile directory to tarball the data, and found it was half a gig, which is totally out to lunch for a browser that's been closed and supposedly deleting data (and I have like five bookmarks, so that's not it). I checked the settings, and found it wasn't deleting everything any longer. I fixed the settings, and all went back to normal.

 

[Silk]

Whenever I've refreshed Firefox (at it's suggestion to speed things up) it's gone and deleted all sorts of stuff, relocated things, and just generally annoyed me. I just decided to open Chrome and use it a week before getting a new phone, and noticed they suddenly know me.

 

[Garak]

Just watch your Firefox profile directory. If it's bloated, like mine was, it'll slow things down. I've never done the Firefox refresh, but rarely been asked. It's never asked on Linux, and only asks on the admin Windows account at the office (which is never used) but never the user account.