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  • Showing only topics in ~talk with the tag "privacy". Back to normal view / Search all groups
    1. How do you feel about social media archiving tools such as Pushshift?

      On and off throughout the years, I have attempted to make my online footprint as small as possible, taking steps such as: using pseudonyms on social media creating a new account every year or so...

      On and off throughout the years, I have attempted to make my online footprint as small as possible, taking steps such as:

      • using pseudonyms on social media
      • creating a new account every year or so
      • overwriting old posts with a new message blanking out my original post
      • "deleting" posts after a few days if the account has a higher probability to be tied to my real life

      The last point, I put quotations around deleted because I understand that once I post something, it is not ever really deleted but it adds a barrier of entry to trying to dig into my personal life. Pushshift comes up because, try as I might, I seem to have difficulty getting accounts removed from their searches. Additionally, I think they allow you to download reddit data in bulk so even if I were able to get my name removed from the search results, the data could still exist on someone's hard drive, somewhere.

      From your perspective, are services like Pushshift, that archive people's information without their explicit knowledge, ethical? On the one hand, I think of detestable content that users might post then delete later to avoid accountability. On the other hand, I think of people like me who want to keep their data footprint as small as possible because of the crazies who might utilize this information to do harm.

      8 votes
    2. How do/did all of you feel about posting your age on the internet?

      (Semi-throwaway account because of personal details) This is prompted by /u/Adys comment to /u/Kuromantis. I'm currently 14, and online I've refrained posting my age on my main account (on this...

      (Semi-throwaway account because of personal details)

      This is prompted by /u/Adys comment to /u/Kuromantis.
      I'm currently 14, and online I've refrained posting my age on my main account (on this site and others) to avoid it becoming a point in discussions (most prominently with politics, but any topic).

      • How do/did you feel about posting your age on the internet (in regards to being younger)?
      • Do/did you feel like your decision made an impact on discussions?
      26 votes
    3. Where do you draw the line when it comes to what data collection one can do on you?

      (Presuming it's done purely for statistical purposes of course.) I, like most of us am personally fine with age, sex, city level location and relationship status. I really dislike using real names...

      (Presuming it's done purely for statistical purposes of course.)

      I, like most of us am personally fine with age, sex, city level location and relationship status. I really dislike using real names though since I feel like it ties you to who you are in person, which I really dislike and I support people deciding not to fill them in because in some places even what I've outlined can get you in trouble.

      10 votes
    4. Would you pay for social media platforms and search engines if it meant they would not have any advertising or data collection?

      (Someone posted a thread like this but for triple-a videogames rather than software and people said no so I wonder if software is gonna be different.) If you would or not, why? If you would, how...

      (Someone posted a thread like this but for triple-a videogames rather than software and people said no so I wonder if software is gonna be different.)

      If you would or not, why? If you would, how much? What would be the side effects of this change if it was applied on a mass scale? What would be the potential drawbacks?

      Edit: Can also apply to video-sharing platforms or forums or instant messengers any software as long as it serves a general purpose and complies with what's mentioned above.

      26 votes
    5. Why do people not like telemetry?

      I often see people complaining about telemetry in things like Firefox and the like, but I've never understood why it was a big problem for your privacy. If it's anonymous and helps the developers...

      I often see people complaining about telemetry in things like Firefox and the like, but I've never understood why it was a big problem for your privacy. If it's anonymous and helps the developers do their job, what's wrong with it?

      26 votes
    6. Careem privacy policy

      i was reading careem's privacy policy (yeah using the app from yeah & didn't read privacy policy yet) & i found they collect almost everything & sharing it with 3rd parties & while dragging down i...

      i was reading careem's privacy policy (yeah using the app from yeah & didn't read privacy policy yet) & i found they collect almost everything & sharing it with 3rd parties & while dragging down i saw "access your info" section i found they want from you money to send you a copy of your data (WTF ARE YOU KIDDING ME, YOU STEALING MY DATA & WANT MONEY TO REQUEST MY DATA) so its so mean from careem to get money to give you right its already free & its collect your data so its very bad move so i decided to use Uber within browser (in new profile in firefox) to stop uber from stealing my data in phone & to be more safe what guys you think ? browser in more safer right ?

      EN version(of pic that says careem need money to send you your data): https://i.ibb.co/LYfqFbn/Screenshot-2019-03-30-20-06-52.png

      AR version(of pic that says careem need money to send you your data): https://i.ibb.co/rsnRNzm/Screenshot-2019-03-30-20-11-03.png

      Careem's Privacy policy (in case you not trust me xD): https://www.careem.com/en-ae/privacy/ & Ar version: https://www.careem.com/ar-ae/privacy/

      3 votes
    7. Privacy and Politics

      I was thinking about the intersection of internet privacy and politics. You could even say I was having a bit of a mini-crisis. I like to think of myself as being pretty liberal, but I wondering...

      I was thinking about the intersection of internet privacy and politics. You could even say I was having a bit of a mini-crisis. I like to think of myself as being pretty liberal, but I wondering how that fits into privacy. I was a little upset when I learned that Obama called Edward Snowden unpatriotic. I was kind of thinking that what he did was patriotic. Wasn't the NSA monitoring US citizens without warrants. That's morally wrong right? I think I would be pretty fine with the government monitoring someone if they had a warrant given to them by a non-secret court. I'm wondering if anyone here can give me some insight on this or if anyone else feels/has felt this way.

      4 votes
    8. Why do you lock your smartphone?

      I'm genuinely curious. I'm a late adopter FWIW and am still rocking an older iPhone that doesn't support any face recognition or finger prints. But I don't use a pass code either, and never have,...

      I'm genuinely curious. I'm a late adopter FWIW and am still rocking an older iPhone that doesn't support any face recognition or finger prints. But I don't use a pass code either, and never have, and doubt I ever will. I just don't get it... what are folks afraid of happening if they don't lock their phone? I suppose the "nightmare" scenario would be someone steals your phone and then messages your contacts asking for $. Is that it?

      I've always practiced greater digital security than physical security (counting the phone unlock as physical) as I think it much more likely that a ne'er-do-well would attack some large company than to single me out in person. I mean if the FBI or some hacker is going through my garbage then I probably have larger problems, right?

      For me it's cost/benefit - swiping/fingerprinting/face IDing multiple times a day is not worth the slim chance that my phone is stolen by someone who going to use the info in it for something nefarious. I wouldn't lock my car if I was in/out of 20x a day, I just wouldn't leave anything terribly valuable in it.

      Please let me know why locking your phone is/isn't important to you.

      EDIT: To be clear, I have one banking app and it requires an additional password to get in. It's an app so there isn't a saved password for it anywhere.

      EDIT2: Made this as a comment below, but thought I'd add it up here as well - "I find it strange that people in general seem to be OK with putting up with an inconvenience (even though minor to many) that affects them multiple times a day, but we hold large companies almost wholly unaccountable for major data breaches. "

      EDIT3: This just occurred to me. We lock our phones, but not our wallets/purses. The argument that a pass-code is a protection against identity theft rings sort of hollow when we consider we have much of the same info on an ID card that we keep unprotected. Some states will even list the SSN on a driver's license.

      EDIT4: I'm convinced everyone thinks their personal lives are terribly interesting to strangers and my suspicion is they're not. Only two real cases of bad things happening when a phone is unlocked that I've counted so far: 1) long distance calls 2) pokemon themed contacts.

      EDIT5: That said, sounds like the fingerprint scanner is the way to go for convenient security. I'll be checking that out. Sincere thanks!

      EDIT6: Some folks said that edit 4 came off as condescending. Not my intention. I was trying to tie in the idea of "everyone being the main character in their own story." I'm definitely not implying that people should leave their phones unlocked because others wouldn't find their lives uninteresting.

      I think many have a personal connection to their devices that I do not feel. Intellectually I find that very interesting as this seems less a monetary issue and more a privacy issue. It'd be as if a stranger picked up a lost diary and started reading. I fear my diary would be more like a ship captain's logbook and wholly uninteresting. If I were to have my phone stolen I'd simply change a couple passwords and buy a new one.

      32 votes
    9. Can a company lie in their privacy policy?

      Maybe I'm just not very well versed in this sort of thing but I couldn't find anything online. I've always been sort of paranoid that a company might not be truthful in their privacy policy. Is...

      Maybe I'm just not very well versed in this sort of thing but I couldn't find anything online. I've always been sort of paranoid that a company might not be truthful in their privacy policy. Is there any sort of law to keep them honest or do we just have to take their word on it?

      11 votes
    10. What steps do you take to secure your online use and privacy?

      I do the following: Use a VPN (NordVPN) Use Firefox with a tweaked about:config and the following security extensions: uBlock Origin NoScript HTTPS Everywhere Privacy Badger Decentraleyes Cookie...

      I do the following:

      • Use a VPN (NordVPN)
      • Use Firefox with a tweaked about:config and the following security extensions:
        • uBlock Origin
        • NoScript
        • HTTPS Everywhere
        • Privacy Badger
        • Decentraleyes
        • Cookie Autodelete
        • Skip Redirect
        • CanvasBlocker
      • Run Linux Mint (I know, Ubuntu-based distros aren't ideal but I'm a Linux beginner)
      • Don't have any social media as of a year ago
      • Don't use any Google services, including YouTube, Google Search, or Gmail
      • Use a password manager (KeePassXC)

      The next step would be for me to switch from iPhone to Android running Lineage OS, but money is a bit tight right now. As for day-to-day lifestyle choices, I try to use cash whenever possible and never sign up for things like store rewards programs.

      What's your setup? Do you consider yourself a privacy-minded individual? Are you more concerned with protecting yourself from corporate or government entities?

      46 votes
    11. Giving up on privacy

      I have been an advocate for privacy for a long time, but recently I don't even know why I am doing this anymore. I do most of my browsing through TOR, and that has made me give up a lot of...

      I have been an advocate for privacy for a long time, but recently I don't even know why I am doing this anymore. I do most of my browsing through TOR, and that has made me give up a lot of conveniences. And that's what I miss. I miss not having to think about privacy. I also miss not feeling like I am being spied on. Now I am torn. I don't like companies like Google mining my data, but I also think I am being paranoid (the people in my life have shared this sentiment). I don't want to leave a permanent cache of my mind. But I also feel like doing so won't really affect me. Not to mention that I despise the predatory nature of advertisers, and I hate giving them even more info about me.

      What do I do, Tildes? Have any of you felt this way? How do you balance running from Google while still staying sane?

      46 votes
    12. Do you care about illegal government surveillance?

      Government agencies around the world continue to run a dragnet on a large amount of communications, most of which is sent under the expectation of having a private conversation and yet the vast...

      Government agencies around the world continue to run a dragnet on a large amount of communications, most of which is sent under the expectation of having a private conversation and yet the vast majority of the public seems apathetic to the issue. Why is this? Is it because of an underlying cynicism and belief that you can’t do anything to stop them? Is it because you don’t care and are using the “I have nothing to hide” argument? Do you think that it is too much work to protect yourself? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I hope that we can at least talk about it and maybe I can even convince you to care if you’re willing to hear me out.

      First, lets take a look at what these agencies actually do. There are many to pick from such as the CIA, FBI, MI6, MI5, the NSA, GCHQ, and FSB just to name a few. Their goals are pretty much the same as far as intrusive espionage goes. They all want to gather as much data as possible in hopes of finding political dissenters and protest groups, information on powerful leaders from other governments (usually with a strong potential for blackmail) and terrorists (although they rarely ever find them). Like many tyrannical practices before them, it is done under the guise of national security. This is because people are usually willing to sacrifice their freedoms for more (perceived) security. It is important to note that these agencies do not solely operate domestically. They are global threats and their reach extends far further than you may think. Just because you live in the EU does not mean you are safe from their reach.

      Does it sound like I’m exaggerating here? It can’t be that bad can it?

      Well, lets look at the facts. We don’t know that much about these agencies but what we do know is absolutely terrifying. Whistleblowers like Edward Snowden have shown us that their technology is being used for far more than just hunting terrorists. In fact, the NSA and GCHQ have essentially been running a dragnet on the entire world. Here is an article on the GCHQ showing how they hacked the cell phones of foreign politicians attending the G20 summit in 2009. They did not discriminate, they simply tapped everybody so they could read their texts and listen in on their calls to see whats going on. Here is a similar story where the NSA collected phone calls of Verizon subscribers, only this time they weren’t looking at politicans and suspects, they were either spying on you or people like you. The more recent Vault 7 and 8 leaks showed that the CIA was engaging in similar practices such as developing tools to send information from Smart TVs. Using a code that was written and gifted to the CIA by the UK’s MI5. Even the FBI, a domestic federal police agency has been given the go ahead to hack any computer in the world. Here is some evidence of when they hacked over 8,000 computers in 120 countries using only one warrant (given by a US judge which is NOT valid in any other part of the world) during a child pornography investigation.

      But they’re targeting criminals right? I have nothing to be worried about.

      First of all, that is the same rhetoric being used by the Chinese Government as they continue to develop facial recognition technology (currently being used to take pictures of jaywalkers and post them on billboards), their social credit system and mandatory surveillance apps on the phones of their citizens. All in effort of building a surveillance state.

      This has also not been the case historically. The two biggest enemies of the FBI in the 1960s was the Civil Rights movement and the Anti-War movement. The former article touches on the wiretaps placed on Martin Luther King Jr by the FBI, but its also important to note that they also sent him a death threat as well. The latter link is about the program that targeted both groups. Some modern day examples include the FBI’s survellance of PETA and Greenpeace as well as the NSA and GCHQ’s probe into humanitarian groups such as UNICEF. I also encourage you to read this post written by a redditor about what it is like to live in a surveillance state.

      Ever since 9/11, the motto of US intelligence agencies and many others around the world who feared the same threats was “never again”. Never again would they let an atrocity like 9/11 take place. They would do whatever it took to prevent another disaster from happening and so they introduced the PATRIOT act in congress. This 2,000 page act appeared less than a month after the attacks, and was passed with an overwhelming amount of support. As Michael Moore showed in his mockumentary film Fahrenheit 9/11, a member of congress has openly admitted to not having read the bill as well as many of his colleagues. Concerning parts of this act can be found in here.

      Now lets take a quick look at what happened in 2002. DARPA created a division of US government called the Information Awareness Office, now if that sounds Orwellian than just take one look at their logo. One year later in 2003 this organization started the Total Information Awareness Program which was described as a "Manhattan Project for Counter-Terrorism". The scope of this program was massive for the time and Senator Ron Wyden called it "biggest surveillance program in the history of the United States”. Sounds pretty creepy right? Yea, the American public thought so too, so DARPA responded in a brilliant stroke of genius to rename the program to Terrorism Information Awareness and suddenly nobody cared about being watched.

      Okay, but I’m fine with them spying on me as long it helps them to thwart terror attacks.

      Have you seen the news lately? The terror attacks that these practices are supposed to prevent still occur. There has yet to be one documented attack that has been prevented by any of these programs and I will prove to you why. During Edward Snowden’s tenure at the NSA, the Boston Marathon bombings happened.

      Here we are in 2013 and the second biggest terror attack since 9/11 has occurred. Snowden watched the events unfold on the news while sitting in the NSA’s break room. He made a remark to his colleagues saying that he would bet anything that we already knew about the bombers, and that they had slipped through the cracks with nothing that could be done to stop them. Turns out he was right Russia had warned both the FBI and the CIA about the older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev but when the FBI investigated they found nothing. As Snowden so eloquently put it, “when you collect everything, you understand nothing”. Not only are these practices morally wrong, they are also ineffective.

      One year later in 2014, Snowden decided to leak everything. He objected to the American and British government’s warrantless surveillance and decided that the public had a right to know what was happening. Among the numerous startling documents, he revealed a program called XKEYSCORE. This program works as a sort of search engine for intelligence agencies. Analysts with access to the system will search for keywords like BOMB and PRESIDENT or DONALD TRUMP. It will then give them a list of unsecured text messages, emails, social media posts and so on. In fact just by writing this, I will likely show up among one of these searches.

      Okay, so if they are targeting everybody in the name of safety and they aren’t effective at keeping everybody safe, then why the hell are they still doing it?!

      One word: power. Just imagine the things you could do if you had access to everyone’s texts, emails, Facebook posts, bank records, as well as the legal and technical means to gain root access to any of the billions of devices in the world. Sounds pretty impressive right? Unfortunately for us, it all comes at our expense and without taking the proper steps, our lives are not private in the eyes of the government. After all, you wouldn't let a stranger go through your phone, so why would you let a government?

      I hope this information has been helpful to those of you who are either learning about this for the first time or getting a reminder on the extent of these invasive practices. I hope that you will reconsider the repercussions of these practices and maybe take steps to protect yourself. If there is any interest then I will post a part 2 later with things you can do to minimize this data collection. Its not as hard as you might think!

      For those of you who are still not convinced that governments are a threat to your personal privacy, please drop a comment below so we can get a discussion going.

      By the way, anyone who is interested in their privacy is likely under heightened surveillance due to interests in anonymity and security software.

      25 votes
    13. Why do everyone care about privacy so much?

      Let's take Google, for example. Google tracks where you physically are - why are some people so much against it? It doesn't hurt me, google just uses it to serve me personalized ads. Why are...

      Let's take Google, for example. Google tracks where you physically are - why are some people so much against it? It doesn't hurt me, google just uses it to serve me personalized ads. Why are people so concerned about it?

      Google even tracks, which websites do I visit - again, why should I care? When I want to browse anonymously, I use VPN. If I wanted to do something illegal, I guess I won't use google at all and install tor? I'm not sure what should I do in that case, but I'm sure, there are ways to get away from google's sight when people need to.

      I don't understand, why some people fight for internet privacy so much. Could someone help me to understand it? What's your opinion on privacy and internet tracking?

      29 votes
    14. Tilde Users and Privacy

      While there were numerous reasons for my exit from Reddit, privacy was a large one. This was something that when I joined here I thought was a fairly widespread view. For me my view of Reddit...

      While there were numerous reasons for my exit from Reddit, privacy was a large one. This was something that when I joined here I thought was a fairly widespread view. For me my view of Reddit started to waiver a few years ago when their warrant canary was tripped. I've always been of the idea that the less of what I do online that can be traced back to me, the better. I also abhor the state of privacy online and in the US.

      Despite this, what I thought was fairly universal viewpoint, there have been several threads(like here and here) where people give out identifying information about themselves. This, combined with many people using their real names as their usernames or revealing their real names in the introduction threads, made me realize that this is not an ideal that we all share to the same extent.

      I guess that leads into my question, how privacy conscious are you guys online and what the the general vibe you've gotten from the ~'s community?

      30 votes