this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2024
433 points (95.6% liked)
Privacy
31833 readers
285 users here now
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.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
Chat rooms
-
[Matrix/Element]Dead
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Call me pessimistic, but I do think:
Certainly, we can do a lot to have more privacy, but it is an illusion to think that we have complete control over it. Especially with social media, jobs, and today's technology.
You're right, but that doesn't mean we have to give up completely.
I’ve come to realize most of the privacy hawk arguments are based on imagined risks, and the average privacy enthusiast is an ideologically driven idealist. What is the end goal beyond pumping one’s ego?
Especially internet privacy hawks are the worst. It just doesn’t really matter at all. Unless you are all cash, off the grid, no phone or bank account etc, you will leave a huge trail. Instagram figuring out I like basketball is the least of my worries.
Most aren't going to thwart governments, serious policing, private investigations or very determined individuals. But they will reduce their exposure to advertising and online profiling. We are bombarded with soon many businesses try to constantly sell things and manipulate the way we think and act for thier own profit. Privacy is a series of small acts that can reduce hostile businesses effectiveness.
As an anecdote I once tracked down a person who threatened me. The only things I had were their likeness (whilst wearing a mask!), the car and plates (which were only useful to positively identify the person was correct when I called the phone number and asked 'do you own such and such car with such and such plates') and the fact that the person worked for a law firm (not specific) using only osint.
"only"
Yep. My only real goal is to reduce the amount of advertising I'm exposed to on a daily basis, and to that end it's working...for now.
No cable, no streaming services, no broadcast radio, automated downloads of media, ad blockers everywhere, DNS sinkhole, etc. Thankfully, it's all low maintenance once in place.
while i dont 100% disagree, cambridge analytica is a great example of how profiling our personality to the T can be used against us. thats not including the good points made by other posters here.
LLMs will be able to do more damage in a bigger scale, it only feels imaginary because you can't really see it with your eyes, but would you let me install a RAT on your devices?
I'm fine with pumping my ego, i didn't got asked to participate.