💾 Archived View for stack.tilde.cafe › gemlog › 2023-02-09.privacy.gmi captured on 2024-06-16 at 12:26:51. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-09-08)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Recently things got a lot worse. It feels like a bad dream in which you think you wake up but you are now in a worse dream; it keeps happening...
I've been a bit of a privacy nut my whole life. Sure, sometimes I have nothing to hide, but I still prefer to. I have yet to think of a single occasion where being deanonymized was helpful, and oh, so many times when I cursed myself for providing my real name! I don't care about fame...
And so I was pretty annoyed when I realized that my IP address was used to track me. No problem, I will VPN. Cookies? I will install an add-on to block or wipe them. Supercookies? Shit, those Adobe cookies I did not know about - and when I got a look I was horrified. Another add-on. And then there were these DNS leaks. And now the VPN guy in Bulgaria has access to all my traffic. Also, turns out my browser has a unique signature thanks to all the privacy add-ons.
Thank god for Tor - not perfect but at least some hope.
I avoided that for a while but being a responsible parent my better half forced me to get one. I got a flip phone and kept it for as long as I could, but it became really expensive - I paid as much for my flip phone service as the rest of my family with their smart phones. Eventually I gave up and got a tracking device.
So yeah, Google knows where I am and what I do. Easy - don't use Google apps, turn off location services, and check all privacy settings. But it quickly became a job, as there are many, many settings hidden inside deep menus. Every time I thought I was reasonably private, someone would mention a setting I missed. And some settings magically change!
Now obviously a bunch of parties know at least which cell tower you are connected to. But that's not that accurate, right?
I read a long time ago that those Google Maps vans collect WiFi network data. What's the harm in that, I thought? And then I read that Wifi data is collected from above, via airplanes and helicopters. From my panoramic 22nd floor apartment I watched a helicopter going back and forth across a grid in the distance (in 2010 or so). Why was it doing that? Probably scanning for Wifi...
Now when you walk around with your phone, the WiFi receiver picks up surrounding WiFi signals. It knows their strength, and it can triangulate your location to within inches. Location services off? Fuck you anyway.
Why is there an accelerometer and a gyroscope in my phone? The combination can be used to track me with amazing accuracy. What's worse is that when I ride a bus with a bunch of less privacy-conscious sheeple, I am pegged along with all of them - we all share the same accelerometer data.
I won't even talk about the microphone and the obligatory 4 cameras hanging off your phone.
I used to think it was safe to turn off the radio or go into Airplane mode. But no, they found a way to screw me.
When airtags and other 'nearby devices' were introduced, the fuckers quietly snuck in a hidden mesh network. Your phone can call home via nearby phones even if you turn off your internet. Even my Alexa can call Amazon through my neighbor's Alexa devices. Shit.
Apple brags that everything is encrypted and no human can ever see your data (I am pretty sure I read language saying 'human' specifically. However, that is a bunch of shit - they have access to everything you do.
The 'AI processor' is constantly scanning camera and microphone data. It is a known fact that it is capable of facial recognition, and current technology can pretty easily identify the location, facial expressions and emotions associated, weapons, money, and a bunch of other stuff of interest. Hashes can be generated and transmitted - without any humans looking at your data - and stored. Alternatively, a network-wide search for specific hashes can be launched - even if the device is offline via the mesh network. This is undetectable.
Android devices are likely not far behind, although I think Apple is much worse at this point.
I think we should all think seriously about abandoning these tracking devices. I used to think that if I don't install apps and just use it as a phone with everything turned off, it is not unreasonable. But I was wrong, and the only solution is getting rid of the damned phone.
I am considering leaving it at home and using it as a landline in the interim. You know, humans managed to live without a phone attached to them for a long time. When I was a kid only doctors and drug dealers had pagers, and the world was no worse for it.
And if you use it for anything financial, you are really asking for it. I can't think of a worse idea than keeping any private information on a phone.