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Privacy nonsense

Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2017 10:51 am
by brent
Before the anti-American, anti-Trump, anti-Republican or anti-anti-Christian people start slamming, here is a good article, from a non-right wing organization, with a balanced word about the Privacy issue circulating the web. The "sky is falling" Christians are screaming. The liberals are screaming. the reality is, nothing has changed. Nothing will.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-phony- ... 1491000504

Re: Privacy nonsense

Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2017 12:34 pm
by Shell
That is a good article. The fact is, the only way you could be totally sure your information wouldn't be out there would be to not have Internet or not have cable. The media has a way of spreading horror stories.

I could get along vey well without cable, and if I had to make a choice, that would be the first thing to go.

Re: Privacy nonsense

Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2017 1:48 pm
by Dan
Is there a way of viewing the full article without signing up? but from the headline and the summary, I agree. Use TOR browser/VPNs whenever possible.

Re: Privacy nonsense

Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2017 2:07 am
by curt
A very interesting topic.

Generally privacy is rather overlooked and I think we are accepting way too much mass superveillance all over the world. Many people will say "I have nothing to hide" and that may even be true. But that is not the situation in which all individuals find themselves. And how certain are we that comming presidents, prime ministers, dictators or private businesses will not someday use our data for the bad?

Re: Privacy nonsense

Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2017 3:27 pm
by Shell
curt wrote:
Sun Apr 09, 2017 2:07 am
A very interesting topic.

Generally privacy is rather overlooked and I think we are accepting way too much mass superveillance all over the world. Many people will say "I have nothing to hide" and that may even be true. But that is not the situation in which all individuals find themselves. And how certain are we that comming presidents, prime ministers, dictators or private businesses will not someday use our data for the bad?
Valid point; I think the only way you could be absolutely sure nobody could access your information would be to just stay off the Internet. However, I do think there are ways to make this problem less likely, although I am not the expert by any means on exactly what that would involve.

Re: Privacy nonsense

Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2017 1:40 am
by curt
You are right about the fact that if you want to be completely certain your data is not out there, you have to just stay off the internet. For most people that is no longer possible or at least it will have very important cosequences. 20 years ago it was a lot easier.

There are tools that will make it less likely that anyone tracks your internet activity. However it is some sort of jungle to find and use them. Some of them will just put your data elsewhere and it only means your data are now in a foreign country and not by your internet provider. Other tools will slow down your connection, prevent you from seeing pictures and video and so on. And some of the most effective tools are used by people commiting very, very serious crimes. You may look suspicious only by using those tools, even if you only use them for going to thepetrazone (no one can see that you only used them for that purpose).

And then one would wonder: is it even fair that I have to cover myself up, use a lot of different tools in order not to have private companies looking into my personal matters or having data collected by government agencies?

Re: Privacy nonsense

Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2017 11:23 am
by Shell
It is true that the Internet is a necessary tool for most people. I get that the government shouldn't be allowed to have free access to whatever information they want, but there are no easy answers. Maybe if the government was required to allow access to their information in return they wouldn't be so quick to want to collect information.

Re: Privacy nonsense

Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2017 1:22 pm
by curt
You are absolutely right about that. But the fact is that it is not even in our own interest as private citizens that much of government data is available. It could be used by foreign governments too for bad purposes.

One should also wonder what would happen if any of the big data collecters decided to actually use our data in a political context. They would have a large amount of data to determine interests, behaviours, opinions and so on. How do I get popular, how do I get people to vote, how do I get them to vote for me etc.?

Some of them would even have a lot of data that could compromise politicians with whom they disagree. There are rumours that Mark Zuckerberg will run for president of the USA. Whether that is true or not there is no doubt that he - along with other of the big players - could use data collected to achieve his own aim.