opting out of surveillance capitalism (the "Big Other") New Year's resolution

[redlined]

Tired of the deceit over how and exactly what (all considered by me as "my info") is collected, stored, managed and for sure- monetized.

#DeleteFacadebook is the start and I've resolved to eliminate FB by New Year with google next in my sights for reduce&remove by summer. and these are just the behemoths known globally.. just tired of it all and seeking out alternatives, or in case like google using exactly what I want from them and locking out all else provided with g+ signin enabling clear tracking everywhere...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/tech ... ivacy.html

Personal data is the oil of the 21st century, a resource worth billions to those who can most effectively extract and refine it. American companies alone are expected to spend close to $20 billion by the end of 2018 to acquire and process consumer data, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

Few companies have better data than Facebook and its rival, Google, whose popular products give them an intimate view into the daily lives of billions of people — and allow them to dominate the digital advertising market.

Facebook has never sold its user data, fearful of user backlash and wary of handing would-be competitors a way to duplicate its most prized asset. Instead, internal documents show, it did the next best thing: granting other companies access to parts of the social network in ways that advanced its own interests.

Are you finding reasons to reduce or remove services based on this new(ish) battleground fight for privacy?
What alternatives are you finding and using?
Do we still have such a "right", or even entitlement to privacy?
(which I seem to often freely give away due to tl;dr UA/TOS/Privacy policies and cookie notifies?
When did everything get to be considered opt-out versus opt-in? or am i imagining things?

[BigEasy]

You should understand 1 key thing. Google knows nothing about you. But knows device#xxxxx or browser#yyyyy behaviour. Is it personal data? Think about it.

[Reorx]

The solution is easy for me... I am changing nothing! My wife accuses me of having a tin-foil hat but I never opted in to the things that are intrusive on our privacy. I am slow to adopt new technology unless there is really a good/compelling reason to do so. I let the world at large be guinea pigs / beta testers and see how it works out for them... I do no social media mainly because there is nothing there that interests me. I already have too much crap invading my life without a feed from brainless idiots from facebook or any of the other multitudinus sources... I don't have a fear of missing out on anything. I don't own a smart phone and I don't care about (smart) "apps". I don't have any smart appliances (except maybe my TV in that it can do Netflix) and it'll be a cold day in hell before I have a personal digital assistant. I don't use "the cloud" to store anything and don't plan to any time in the near future. I don't care what topics are "trending". A trend on social media is a micro-fad - "important" today and forgotten tomorrow. I don't care much about regular fads, the micro- versions are even less interesting... I could go on at length...

I'm glad you have seen the light...

Best,

- R -

[redlined]

You should understand 1 key thing. Google knows nothing about you. But knows device#xxxxx or browser#yyyyy behaviour. Is it personal data? Think about it.

google knows much more than that, but yes, that is the gist of it for those who merely use google search or other service such as translate, etc while not signed in to google+. In my case I was invited into gmail during early beta test, same when they developed google voice as replacement for gtalk. only later did I make g+ full account, regardless I am aware google has tons of data on me built up over the years.

as far as if I consider online behaviour (tracking device#xxx and/or browser#yyyy) to be my personal data, well, yes. yes I do. and it's like paparazzi is everywhere one navigates online, refining info collected on my habits and behaviours as tracked and sold/traded with me left unawares.

[redlined]

hi Reorx!

sadly, I was brought into facadebook in 2009 to water someone's garden, lol/not... Got rid of smart phone early in 2017 (although partner still has hers, it stays off until needed) but this merely scratches the surface of database building that all "smart" things (from apps to appliances) collect, report and "get smart" based on your use to personalize the service it provides.

No doubts, the "Internet of Things" (IoT) is growing exponentially, daily, and soon options for common appliances that do not want to connect to internet will become a rarity, if even available. Things from refrigerators & toasters to cars built over the past 10-20 years (which are now all more like a network of computers on wheels, not a car with some tech to make it run better), home security and environment controls, smart meters for ease in reading/billing utilities, all factor into what can and does collect info- leaving who does what with that info as very much a matter for concern. Wrapping my tinfoil hatted head around all of it is an exercise in futility so I will use the digital age option to Opt-Out of everything I can find and it's already grossly staggering what all is wanting a piece of my data pie...

[Pjotr]

The primary line of defence against privacy invasion has, for all practical purposes, been breached long ago.... We can only dream of the amount of privacy we had in, say, 1990.

But there are secondary lines of defence. Without sacrificing too much of modern comfort, we can still sabotage, fragment, hinder and obstruct privacy invasions in many ways.

[Portreve]

If I can manage it, I plan on going with Purism's stuff on my next couple technology upgrade purchases. I am concerned about replacing Google's calendaring and mapping/GPS functionality, which is at present the holdup for me in the smartphone front. As someone who already runs GNU+Linux full time in the desktop, one of their laptops should be idea for me.

[xenopeek]

If you need more motivation for your resolution, the folks over at Purism have posted a privacy & security reading list: https://puri.sm/posts/holiday-reading-list/

[xenopeek]

Or the bleak future painted by Ars that Douglas Adams was right and "Genuine people personalities" are coming to our gadgets: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12 ... onalities/

[redlined]

When I dumped smart phone over a year ago, I learned quick that paper maps and hand written turn by turn directions were very inconvenient (especially just having moved to a big city). So I bought a garmin nuvi for gettin around, preferring garmin from years of using them while in military (personal devices). Also learned they stop funtion when maps get so old (not sure how long, but it seemed to be at the one year after purchase point) and the only way I have found how to update or upgrade the device is thru windows or mac and garmin express software.. need to either find how Linux users are doing it or get my VM experience improved.

I had seen mention of purism before, thought it was more a description for going pure repo only in LM lol. Thanks for that link xenopeek, looks like some good reads, indeed! Been listening to and following Schneier for about 15years now via crypto-gram newsletter and his published books, to me he's the Chuck Norris of computing security (and privacy), so it's good to see him in the list- that click here to kill everybody book was released a month back and I almost didn't set it down going from cover to cover as soon as it arrived. (and what brought to my attention the 'surveillance capitalism' terminology in the first place)

For sure Purism approach is incredible, and affordable, all considered. Having frustrated over a couple HP laptops in the house (worst design ever!) to replace keyboard, hhd to ssd what a headache. Then the false advertising, even in their maintenance manual saying I have 2 RAM memory slots, user accessible, took me completely disassembling the laptop just to see if other memory module plugin was under the mobo somewhere, well it's not, grrrrr.... One slot and one slot only and I do see where the mobo was marked where to soder in the other connector and retaining clips, I got cheated... anyways, it grew my appreciation greatly for well designed laptop and purism's building mobo with specific selected components is spot on for security minded folks due to concerns in supply chain and what can be "included" in the various components. Needless to say, I'm sold on that approach, for sure.

[Reorx]

When I dumped smart phone over a year ago, I learned quick that paper maps and hand written turn by turn directions were very inconvenient (especially just having moved to a big city). So I bought a garmin nuvi for gettin around, preferring garmin from years of using them while in military (personal devices). Also learned they stop funtion when maps get so old (not sure how long, but it seemed to be at the one year after purchase point) and the only way I have found how to update or upgrade the device is thru windows or mac and garmin express software.. need to either find how Linux users are doing it or get my VM experience improved.

My wife and I both have Garmin Nuvi GPS units with lifetime maps. I update the maps about once a year. My wife's laptop dual boots LM and Win7. Updating maps is one of the few times I boot the Win7 partition. I also have an old netboot with a copy of WinXP (YES XP!!) on it that I can use as a backup if need be.

[Moem]

I bought a garmin nuvi for gettin around, preferring garmin from years of using them while in military (personal devices). Also learned they stop funtion when maps get so old (not sure how long, but it seemed to be at the one year after purchase point) and the only way I have found how to update or upgrade the device is thru windows or mac and garmin express software..

Many Garmin devices, and most or all versions of the Garmin Nüvi, can run on free maps from OpenStreetMaps. Point your favourite search engine at those terms and you'll find good information.

[redlined]

When I dumped smart phone over a year ago, I learned quick that paper maps and hand written turn by turn directions were very inconvenient (especially just having moved to a big city). So I bought a garmin nuvi for gettin around, preferring garmin from years of using them while in military (personal devices). Also learned they stop funtion when maps get so old (not sure how long, but it seemed to be at the one year after purchase point) and the only way I have found how to update or upgrade the device is thru windows or mac and garmin express software.. need to either find how Linux users are doing it or get my VM experience improved.

My wife and I both have Garmin Nuvi GPS units with lifetime maps. I update the maps about once a year. My wife's laptop dual boots LM and Win7. Updating maps is one of the few times I boot the Win7 partition. I also have an old netboot with a copy of WinXP (YES XP!!) on it that I can use as a backup if need be.

hi Reorx! yes, very similar here (lifetime maps also added lifetime traffic) and one primary reason I have kept win7 in dualboot with LM19.1 Mate on the house desktop. The thing I found weird was the nuvi stopped working around the one year mark until I did update maps via garmin express. I was on the road at the time and that did not bode well with me, being stranded like that (until I pulled paper map out of glovebox;), so I run garmin express now during the monthly "chore" of booting into w7 to apply updates for OS.

[redlined]

I bought a garmin nuvi for gettin around, preferring garmin from years of using them while in military (personal devices). Also learned they stop funtion when maps get so old (not sure how long, but it seemed to be at the one year after purchase point) and the only way I have found how to update or upgrade the device is thru windows or mac and garmin express software..

Many Garmin devices, and most or all versions of the Garmin Nüvi, can run on free maps from OpenStreetMaps. Point your favourite search engine at those terms and you'll find good information.

Nice! thanks for the tip Moem, searching it out now