How important is digital privacy to you?


Recommended Posts

 

We have all known for years that our digital data is mined. I am not sure many realised that their contacts and messages are  possibly scraped/scanned .....just insert the appropriate term. 

Has it crossed your mind to do the best you can to wipe your digital footprint and start again?  Does it concern you? Would it concern you more if FB was owned by a foreign government and not a harmless looking geek. Why is that?

What will the legacy of Facebook be? Is this the start of a populace fightback. Do enough people give a rats arse? Will government use this opportunity to regain control via legislative means and resume normal programming where they have complete control over peoples lives?

How important is digital privacy to you? 

 

 

 

 

  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've been having this conversation with friends and family for well over a decade. There IS NO SUCH THING AS DIGITAL PRIVACY. If you want something kept private... don't email it. Don't text it. Certainly don't facebook it. Hell... don't even tell your friends.

EDIT: DEFINITELY don't say it on the phone.

 

People are just now finally seeming to grasp what I've been trying to say for many years. Any digital communication leaves a signature on every single node it crosses in transmission. Digital privacy is clean coal. It just plain doesn't exist. Just because you come up with a name for a fairytale, doesn't mean it really exists.

Edited by cfc1016
how could I forget the phone???
  • Like 2
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, cfc1016 said:

There IS NO SUCH THING AS DIGITAL PRIVACY. If you want something kept private... don't email it. Don't text it. Certainly don't facebook it.

This. As paranoid as this may sound...don't even say it over the phone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

About 2 years ago I shut down accounts on FB, Twitter and Instagram.

I bought a motorcycle crash helmet online from a German company, and went on FB immediately afterwards. An advert popped up in my feed for the same helmet, in the same design, from the same store I had just purchased it. We’re talking 20 seconds here. That was it. I shut everything down immediately.

Too Big Brother for me.

I suppose FOH is as close as I get to social media now. ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ehhh... I enjoy the convenience digitizations has brought to my life.  But I fully understand that what made this possible is that our massed information has incredible value.  It's a symbiotic relationship.  On the flip side, being a government employee I've seen how emails have been pulled up years after the fact to crucify people, so I tend to be careful about what I share or profess in public.  And while we are at it, if you digitize it and put it on a device conected to the internet, don't think for a second that a determined government or criminal organization will not eventually gain access to it given time and interest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In effect, FB, Google and others have been given circa 15 years to do as they wish.

I have no problem with provisions of service that are openly agreed to.  

However you can't sign away your rights forever. If one doesnt wish to be on a Google search then as I see it, they have every right not to be as long as they use no Google proprietary product or technology.  Same with all the others. 

That is just my 2 cents. 

At the airport and feisty....:D

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, BlackFriar said:

eventually gain access to it given time and interest.

This is what it boils down to for me. I realize nothing is truly private (even outside digital), but I’m not very interesting from a digital footprint perspective so it doesn’t concern me too much. 

And to the people who are freaked out and deleted facebook or instagram or whatever, do you use a debit/credit card? A check? Have an address? A registered vehicle? An ID or SSN? We are all already catalogued in many different ways. 

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, companies should not be allowed to bury “you’re giving up your personal freedom” on page 337 of the “accept our new rules” page.

Issues affection personal info should be page 1, front and centre.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

43 minutes ago, ayepatz said:

I bought a motorcycle crash helmet online from a German company, and went on FB immediately afterwards. An advert popped up in my feed for the same helmet, in the same design, from the same store I had just purchased it. We’re talking 20 seconds here. That was it. I shut everything down immediately.

Adserver tech. Nothing to do with social media, no need to be member anywhere. They are simply tracking your IP and set cookies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Fugu said:

Adserver tech. Nothing to do with social media, no need to be member anywhere. They are simply tracking your IP and set cookies.

Still worried me enough to get out. Now use VPNs a lot as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

In effect, FB, Google and others have been given circa 15 years to do as they wish.

I have no problem with provisions of service that are openly agreed to.  

However you can't sign away your rights forever. If one doesnt wish to be on a Google search then as I see it, they have every right not to be as long as they use no Google proprietary product or technology.  Same with all the others. 

Google is just about impossible to avoid.  If you use the Chrome browser or an Android phone/computer, you're using Google.  Your home, your business premises, the school of your kids -- all fair game for Google.  Get tagged on a Youtube video or mentioned in a post on Blogger, and your data belongs to Google.  Ditto of you or anyone you do business with uses the Google cloud storage or work/productivity services.  And to think that not so long ago we were all so worried about the Evil Empire of Microsoft...

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is no such thing as at a privacy.  For me, that's a given.

That said, we do not have to make it too easy for them, do we?  I routinely give false information such as birthdays or locations.  I use throwaway webmail accounts.  I use a VPN to disguise my location.  I never store my passwords or tick the "keep me logged in" and "Yes, keep me updated" boxes.  I regularly clean out all the cookies and run two malware/spyware programmes on my computer.  Any service or website I sign up to, I make a conscious decision to keep to the tightest possible privacy settings ... and I revisit them regularly.  I never hand out my private email address to anyone but close friends and business associates.  All of this will not prevent me from having a digital footprint or firms from gathering data on me, but it will make it harder for them.  

And sometimes, it really is worth saying "no, thanks".  The National Health Service is currently seeking blood samples for a genetic databank for rare diseases, and I declined politely even though the issue is dear to my heart.  The reason?  The NHS has a long and deplorable history of selling on data to private their parties without consent or knowledge of patients.  

Lastly, it really tickles the cynic in me to see people jumping up and down in anguish and outrage when they are hit over the head by a data abuse scandal.  Most of them quite happily signed away their privacy (such as it is) and their data to all comers without a second's thought ... and they will go right back to doing so in a few weeks' time once they have forgotten about this latest abuse of trust.  Their lives are clearly so incredibly busy that they cannot spend ten minutes a week to clean up their PC or ten seconds typing in their password, what an imposition!  They bitch about data theft from big companies, conveniently forgetting that they handed the data over to them in the first place.  

We really are a very strange species...

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sometimes I miss the 90s. The delay in information. The anticipation of watching the news at night, or reading the morning paper. Remember looking through the paper for theatre/movie times? 

I remember my first cellphone. A simple Nokia. Phone calls and very basic txt messages. Sometimes I think about going back to that. A simple phone for calls only. 

Technology has advanced and is advancing so fast..we cannot keep up. Regulation can’t keep up. Do we need more regulation? Maybe if we need so much regulation...we don’t need the technology.

Who is I t really for? What is the purpose of these programs? Maybe it isn’t for you...it’s for the corporations to know you. For them to know what you want before you know you want it. 

Nothing is free. It always has a cost.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sometimes I miss the 90s. The delay in information. The anticipation of watching the news at night, or reading the morning paper. Remember looking through the paper for theatre/movie times? R

Anticipation for the news! Could e be any further from that now?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Agree you cannot count on any privacy. If there not mining it and selling it and only keeping it for themselves there is a very good chance most big sites or companies will be hacked and your information will be out anyway.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very important to me.

I don't trust security on any Social Media site, so I never started on FB, Twitter, InstraGram, or any of the other platforms.

Never use my real name on message boards.

I appreciate when I google my name nothing comes up on the 'net.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, tigger said:

This. As paranoid as this may sound...don't even say it over the phone.

Edited my post. How could I forget about the phone?

That's the problem. It has nothing to do with paranoia. It's just how digital transmission of information works. Nothing disappears. Digital privacy is a fairytale.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Facebook, Google, Amazon, et. al. are doing the "Big Brother" sorts of things that we'd all be outraged over if it was the NSA.  They wrap it up in a 'trust us' attitude or bury the notification of it in the fine print, but it is alarming.  Kidnappers look you up on the web these days in order to judge your ransom.  Burglars (the few clever ones) case houses over Google Earth.  If the US was as totalitarian as China we'd all be in labor camps based on our FANG data.

And all of this big data collection is solely to accelerate the consumption cycle.  So not only is it bad civil rights, it's absolutely terrible from a capitalist, economic point of view.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Data mining is no different than the television commercial. The question is, do you want to pay for the services you have? I see most of it as a refinement of the free market. Products are cheaper or free because the cost is being picked up by advertisers. This simply means that there are more opportunities for those that wish to service a segment that is perhaps advertiser free.

I don't have a Farcebook account. Nor did I Myspace or any other. I am certain that I am tracked here but balance the risk verses the reward. A number of years ago, before my friend started this forum, I exited all public cigar forums completely. I just have little time or interest in 'networking' myself.

Yet this is a fun service for a commercial endeavor. So what...! Should it be regulated??? F- no.... that is the curse and the death knell mates... Government regulation. That means mates, that this forum goes, unless it goes hosted in some banana republic where the information will get hacked anyway.

There is no 'free lunch.' What ever happened to that understanding? I can not have a 'grocery member' card that gives me discounts unless I agree to have my purchases tracked. I sometimes get 30 to 50% off my bill... Tracking me is the cost of that savings.

Pay in cash, drop the internet and fill out paper forms. It won't keep people from keeping a record on you. And frankly, the more many of you get up and arms about regulation, the worse the problem will be. The grocery store does not care if I buy my cigars from my friend here. Yet, my government, well, they do!!! Food for thought!

Buying cigars around your government's wishes, well that is the black market folks. Imagine this site gone... Tobacco is evil and we are all evil for partaking in it. Our host here, well he is making it all happen so he is promoting it... Do any of you see where this is going? This site is a prime example on why the internet should remain free. We should be able to communicate with our friends and about our interest here without intervention from government. If the commercial, the 24/24 sale pisses you off, then don't look at it, or post elsewhere... The commercial, pays for the service. It is simple and right in front of you. My carrier likely does something with the information that I spend here. Maybe I get a JR cigar promo in my PigFish mailbox.

If you like Farcebook and use it, take what comes, or move to another service that is more secure. You are the idiot posting the pictures of your vacant house and telling everyone when you are on vacation. Just like I am the idiot posting the pictures of my contraband cigars. The choice is yours.

-Piggy

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

When it comes to digital privacy, "they" can only extract, what you put in willingly. The rest is gleaned by tracking your behaviour..  Dont use your real name unnecessarily on non-essential sites, forums, etc.  To a high degree you can't avoid most measures to capture your info. I'm pretty certain my Android phone is listening in. If I talk to someone about something, then go do a google search about it, the search string practically writes itself.  We've been surveilled far longer than you think.  I started my career in Telco in the mid 90's and the stuff i saw then blew my mind.  What's in place now is hundreds of times more powerful and efficient.  Nearly all of us carry a smarthphone these days. That listens in, has geographic data on you, logs your calls, works along websites and apps for extra data capture, etc. And we do it both willingly and unwittingly.  I myself,  try to minimize my digital footprint to a level where I get some convenience when interacting with sites, people, etc and some modicum of privacy.  It's a constant struggle though.  I'm a tech guy, but I've never really trusted a lot of the various tech and apps out there no matter how easy they may make things for me.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

Community Software by Invision Power Services, Inc.