Why privacy matters

[alarmguy]

Originally Posted by CKN
Can't believe this thread...........triggers my brain to nonsensical.


Not directed at you or anyone, posted this before, there is a reason why the top 1% to 5% and up to 10% of the people in this world control the politics and hold the most amount of money. Most people close their eyes and minds to things that make them uncomfortable.

The reason I am saying this is here you have the brightest, richest, tech CEOs in the WORLD repeating what I have have been posting in forums (which is repeating their words) but most people just make comments like the above.
All of them agree (the good guys in our country, (the ones who created the whole tech revolution) that they do not understand why people are not concerned.

So here I am presenting you with just one of MANY speeches from ONE of MANY of the brightest inventors in the tech revolution and people will still find a way to discount what he is saying because its the easy way out, for now. The majority of the population are unable to understand much of it because they do not wish too, its uncomfortable.

The reason tech was invented is because the top 1% were able to make themselves uncomfortable, its also why the same companies control everything you do.

Ok, here is the speech, once again, most will close their minds, yet, EVERY single tech CEO in the US will agree with him, if not publicly, privately.

Click below for text and video:
Tim Cook on privacy, go ahead, click and watch - dare you )

‘Our own information is being weaponized against us with military efficiency'

For those who dont like to read click below to go straight to the video:
[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVhOLkIs20A#action=share[/video]

Open your mind ...
....

 

[BMWTurboDzl]

So, I did some reading this past weekend and apparently a lot of web sites are blocking/beginning to block IP's from TOR exit nodes. The rationale is that it is done for security reasons but from what I understand it's not possible to conduct an attack using TOR. So why do it? The only answer is that they've been encouraged to do so. By discouraging "good actors", who wish for anonymity, from using the network default makes it easier to monitor the "bad actors".

 

[uc50ic4more]

Originally Posted by BMWTurboDzl
So, I did some reading this past weekend and apparently a lot of web sites are blocking/beginning to block IP's from TOR exit nodes. The rationale is that it is done for security reasons but from what I understand it's not possible to conduct an attack using TOR. So why do it? The only answer is that they've been encouraged to do so. By discouraging "good actors", who wish for anonymity, from using the network default makes it easier to monitor the "bad actors".


As both public and private web sites are increasingly being held accountable for the content and activity on their sites, I can absolutely see why they'd demand accountable identity from those visiting and using their sites. I am a web developer; and the sites I administer are either static or require an account to use anyhow; but I would require *zero* "encouragement" to block conspicuously anonymous visitors. A VPN is one thing (and will seriously mess up a site who is trying to provide geolocation-based services or information to the visitor) but TOR is quite another thing.

I wouldn't have the means, as an individual or small enterprise, to create and maintain a blacklist of TOR exit node IP's so I suppose Cloudflare and Akamai offering such a service would be a *choice* that web sites can make when they contract Content Distribution Network providers.

 

[BMWTurboDzl]

Originally Posted by uc50ic4more
Originally Posted by BMWTurboDzl
So, I did some reading this past weekend and apparently a lot of web sites are blocking/beginning to block IP's from TOR exit nodes. The rationale is that it is done for security reasons but from what I understand it's not possible to conduct an attack using TOR. So why do it? The only answer is that they've been encouraged to do so. By discouraging "good actors", who wish for anonymity, from using the network default makes it easier to monitor the "bad actors".


As both public and private web sites are increasingly being held accountable for the content and activity on their sites, I can absolutely see why they'd demand accountable identity from those visiting and using their sites. I am a web developer; and the sites I administer are either static or require an account to use anyhow; but I would require *zero* "encouragement" to block conspicuously anonymous visitors. A VPN is one thing (and will seriously mess up a site who is trying to provide geolocation-based services or information to the visitor) but TOR is quite another thing.

I wouldn't have the means, as an individual or small enterprise, to create and maintain a blacklist of TOR exit node IP's so I suppose Cloudflare and Akamai offering such a service would be a *choice* that web sites can make when they contract Content Distribution Network providers.



How does the contents and activity of ones site have anything to do with who's viewing it?

 

[uc50ic4more]

Originally Posted by BMWTurboDzl
How does the contents and activity of ones site have anything to do with who's viewing it?


Most sites do not really distinguish between a "poster" and "viewer". There are simply visitors to web sites that "use" the site including all of its facilities. Eg. there are no "view-only" accounts here at BITOG, although that is what a substantial number of members here do exclusively.

If illegal content were posted on this very site, for example, the BITOG admins might have a legal headache on their hands if they were to not remove and report it promptly; and that headache would get much more severe if they "allowed" that content to be posted (eg. I am "allowed" to post the content of my message right now) by [we have no idea who because all of the traffic came from TOR].

For BITOG, then, blocking TOR nodes might mitigate the risk of someone intent on posting illegal content from fraudulently setting up an account. If you simply want your name and main email address obfuscated, just register a dummy Gmail account, make up a silly name like "uc50ic4more" and provide inaccurate supplementary information. That ought to satisfy your want of anonymity... If, however, you want your IP address to remain a secret, then people's spidey senses start to tingle.

It is a very unenviable position to facilitate communications between private parties but ALSO kinda sorta be responsible for what those private parties say and post (see: YouTube, Napster, The Pirate Bay). Having a user of a web site be at least accountable with their identity both dissuades misuse (hopefully) and provides admins with some recourse if approached by law enforcement or with civil liability.

Apart from all of that, if you ran a for-profit web site, why on earth would you want anyone using it for free? The value exchange with "no-cost" web sites is that you provide information about yourself to them in exchange for the use of their facilities.

But after having said all of that, let's none of us be naive enough to pretend to be unable to imagine [some huge web site]'s legal team throwing a hissy-fit about *truly* anonymous visitors. Hackers, crooks, commies, gangs, etc. induce fear; and the cost involved in mitigating that fear is blocking an extremely small number of users who weren't going to be a part of your revenue stream anyhow. Extremely small number. And what are those users going to do besides compain (anonymously)? And who is expected to rise up and defend the interests of those users?

 

[Garak]

With respect to that, blocking Tor is certainly reasonable for some sites, but silly or even absolutely unacceptable for others. Browsing BITOG in Tor would be odd, but shouldn't be a problem. The idea of being able to log in that way and post is obviously problematic for the reasons you indicated. That applies to a very large amount of websites, of course. Trying to shop on Amazon or do online banking through Tor would be an exercise in futility. Every news site, however, should actually have a robust way to allow anonymous tipping and secure tipping, which aren't necessarily the same thing. The ideal way to do that would be to have an onion server of their own and a publicly posted GPG key, which would eliminate the worry of Tor browsing on the regular web and allow for secure posting all in one fell swoop. The real problem there is that the user base able to actually make use of that is pretty small.

Wikipedia, for instance, allows people to browse from Tor. The naysayers in this thread forget that not everyone on this planet is capable of just typing any URL in their browser and going there unobstructed. Those people with the wherewithal to use something like Tor can get past that. Wikipedia doesn't allow someone to edit from a Tor node, for reasons you indicate.

 

[Pew]

Originally Posted by Triple_Se7en
What business are you in - that needs total prIvacy? If such business does exist, then why are you trying to broadcast it on the world-wide web?


What business are you in that you need to know what somebody else is doing?

Originally Posted by BMWTurboDzl
So, I did some reading this past weekend and apparently a lot of web sites are blocking/beginning to block IP's from TOR exit nodes. The rationale is that it is done for security reasons but from what I understand it's not possible to conduct an attack using TOR. So why do it? The only answer is that they've been encouraged to do so. By discouraging "good actors", who wish for anonymity, from using the network default makes it easier to monitor the "bad actors".


I went to Tor's site just to look around since I haven't looked at that site in years and forgot that I had our company firewall set to block it. LOL.

 

[Garak]

Now you'll have to install Tor at work to check out the Tor website.

 

[Vern_in_IL]

Call the local computer tech, and have a server setup ON SITE, just like Hillary Clinton did.

Right now I own my domain, and use the webhost email I pay for, paying for your email is the best. Free is free for a reason, and do not use your ISP email, it is useless in the long term!

 

[Garak]

I gave a bit of advice to a local tech who wanted to set up his email server on Linux. He had been previously running a Windows server of some sort. The only thing you do have to watch with your own server are attacks and spam. I don't have any idea how bad those have been lately, but it shouldn't be so bad.

Why do you find your ISP email useless in the long term? Of course, I'm setting aside the obvious point of moving to a different city, province, or country where your ISP probably won't follow you.

 

[Garak]

This is a few days old. It's not shocking that they were/are/will be doing this. What is shocking is that people get all offended when they bring a live mic into the house and don't even consider such consequences as remotely possible.

 

[Alfred_B]

Yesterday my phone started assisting me in choosing a restaurant in a conversation even though I had not activated the Google Assistant. Garak's article talks about recorded conversations even though OK Google was not activated.

Yesterday I spoke about pressure washing in the presence of my phone and today I have ads for pressure washers.

Crazy world.

Need to be more careful about what is said and done in front of the phone.

 

[KrisZ]

Originally Posted by Alfred_B
Yesterday my phone started assisting me in choosing a restaurant in a conversation even though I had not activated the Google Assistant. Garak's article talks about recorded conversations even though OK Google was not activated.

Yesterday I spoke about pressure washing in the presence of my phone and today I have ads for pressure washers.

Crazy world.

Need to be more careful about what is said and done in front of the phone.


Not sure what android version you have, this is android 9 from my Galaxy S8.
Go to settings/google/ads
And make sure these are turned off.

While you're there, explore other settings that you may want to disable. By default everything to do with tracking, advertising and sending data back to google is turned on and buried under several layers of various settings.

In the same settings/google scroll down and find "Search, Assistant & Voice", tap on Google Assistant, tap on Assistant tab, scroll down to Assistant Devices. From there turn off these settings.

This will not stop google from spying, but at the very least you won't be bombarded with useless ads and junk.

 

[Alfred_B]

Thanks, I went to these setting and it's incredible the services Google runs on the phone.

 

[alarmguy]

Great post Kritz, I just did that.
Some other things, I noticed you can reset your "advertising ID" I did that after making the changes you mentioned.

Also, one other tip, anyone with an Android phone has a gmail account, in this account, it tracks, traces and stores forever minute by minute, day by day, year by year EVERY SINGLE place you travel with your phone.
You can (or ANYONE) who hacks your account or knows your password can look up, every place you went by date, time and year. All locations are mapped.
So let say someone wants to know where you were on OCT 5th in the year 2015. One just needs to go into your account and put that date in and bingo, a map of the time and place will show everyplace you went.

Scary stuff, anyway, anyone can go into their google (gmail) account, erase all history and turn off location TRACKING.
You can also do this from your phone in the same place you outlined above, go to "Location" then "Location History" delete all your history and turn it off.

Anyway, slowly but surely I am removing (deleting) google from my life. No gmail, (duckduckgo 85% of the time for a search) and Bing sometimes as well as google.

Other things to work on over time are dump my android phone and get an iPhone, also start using my lifetime paid for VPN.
Many do not know that their home internet provider is one of their biggest consumers of their private data.

We think we are an advanced country but our congress fails to do their job regarding privacy, Europe light years ahead of us. Hmmm... imagine that.

Click, one of the most famous and rich people on the planet saying it, people still not listening

 

[terry274]

You can turn off tracking in Google, but I believe that just hides the tracking from you. Google still is able to follow your movement. As for Apple, it has been reported several times how they allowed third parties to listen to private conversations...Apple says they don't do that "any more"

Alarmguy, did you read the comments below the article you linked?

I use Gmail and Google Drive, Contacts and Photos because they work very well. But I periodically clean my Google account as well as use Ublock Origin and Cookiebro on my Firefox browser. On Debian Linux. I also use Brave browser on my Android phone.

 

[alarmguy]

Originally Posted by terry274
You can turn off tracking in Google, but I believe that just hides the tracking from you. Google still is able to follow your movement. As for Apple, it has been reported several times how they allowed third parties to listen to private conversations...Apple says they don't do that "any more"

Alarmguy, did you read the comments below the article you linked?I

.


I'll play devil's advocate here and asked if you watch the video?
As far as your question I went back and read the comments but quite honestly I'm not sure why you're asking?

Google Facebook and many others are the root of all evil in everything that they offer if you're someone who doesn't want your information and the information of your kids and family sold to the highest bidder in the world.

Apple has no part of that.

 

[terry274]

I listened to about half of the video. I trust Tim Cook about as much as I trust Sundar Pichai, which is not very much.
The reason I brought up the comments below the video was some of the comments highlighted the hypocrisy between what Tim Cook said vs. Apples actions in China. Yeah, most of the comments were bickering but a few were worthy.

I'm not anti Apple, I just don't think the upper management at Apple is any more or less ethical than their counterparts at Google.
To their credit I see Apple has reversed their ban on the HKmap.live app.

 

[alarmguy]

Emotional Feelings vs facts, its a problem in forums and in the voting booth, drives me nuts *L* ... but hey, dont misunderstand me, Im far from perfect but I am pretty good at looking at facts once I learn them and then can accept it..

We live in the United States of America, Apple does not collect your data, package it like a mortgage security and put it up for bid, google does.

Fact, Google does, fact, its googles operating method. Give things away for free, sell the persons data. For goodness sakes, you know google scans your emails in gmail, but people just shrug their shoulder and use it anyway because its "free", blows my mind, think we lost the meaning of the word "free" and secretly accept being a "prostitute".

Fact, just about any company that you think you are getting a free service from is doing the same, using your data or selling it, its their income model.
One people accept that, all of a sudden Apple products dont look too expensive using a "model" that does not package and sell your data.

Fact, ENTIRE companies sole income is packaging and selling these "securities" hire the most intelligent people right out of colleges in the USA and around the world to do just this.
Data mining, heck, your internet provider is doing the same, unless you are using a VPN.

 

[Lowflyer]

If you wish more privacy, do more private, instead in the web...