Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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Question about phones: Am I overreacting? (linux.community)

submitted 2 years ago by vestmoria@linux.community to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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I don't like so called smartphones (flashy devices to mine your data and other reasons) but my regular no touchscreen phone's microphone is no longer working as it should, making conversations difficult.

Enter a smartphone I received as a present, my phobia (for lack of a better word) to smartphones and my (misguided?) obsession with privacy: I don't want to use this smartphone as my default phone because I'm scared the carrier, ISP or google are going to mine my data and trace my calls.

Which might be an overreaction, because each time I use my regular cell phone, the carrier knows when I'm calling from, who I'm calling and how long the call lasts.

So I ask you: how much more data would I be leaking if I use my new smartphone for calls only, compared to a regular, no touchscreen phone?

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[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 3 points 2 years ago

Lol, having separate devices is more convenient?

The smallest camera I can pocket weighs 5x my phone, is about 10x thicker.

GPS, same.

Mp3 player, about the same as my phone.

Computer/web browser? Well, nothing is as small as a phone.

I get all that in a single device with a phone weighing 8oz, measuring 6"x3"x3/8".

Separate devices is better if your use-cases for them have strong independence (e.g. Only use GPS in the car/on motorcycle, only use a camera when doing dedicated photo shoots, etc). If anything I'd say multiple devices is less convenient even then, it's just that those devices work better for those use-cases, making the tradeoff of less convenient worthwhile. I'd much rather use a dedicated camera sometimes (and do), when I'm taking lots of pics and want to go faster.

But for most people, these activities are strongly related, and occur throughout their day. It would be far less convenient to carry multiple devices and have to pull them out and handle for these activities.