So, I recently moved about 6 months ago. Have only given my real address and name to the DMV, Phone Company, Internet, and rental property(obviously knows my real address)
Ran Optery and found out that over 80 data brokers have my legit new address already.
Feeling like privacy is just some kind of wet dream at the moment. I do everything right, I think but no matter what the 4 companies I have given my information too will constantly sell my personal data no matter what.
It’s truly sad the direction America is going towards, all for some more money.
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 :)
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What companies are you signed up with?
Every fight between people and corporations is a loss cause if corporations continue to control our elected officials.
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*Comfy EU noises*
LOL! That’s the lie of the century. I’m thinking you dont pay attention to the last handful of years and the legislation the EU is trying to pass? The EU is NOT privacy respecting. They just have a half descent data policy with GDPR, which many US states also have.
Time to look at the larger picture.
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this. this is the privacy truth of the year right here. shout out to all the insane people. we dont deserve them.
They have never said that, did they?
It’s been done, kinda. Guy named Hannu Rajaniemi wrote a dilogy called “Jean le Flambeur.” I think it’s in the second book, The Fractal Prince, the lead character visits Mars, which has a society where everyone has the ability to encrypt and/or sign all interactions; citizens have an organ that facilitates this, making the operations as fluid and natural as speaking. It’s well thought out, well written, and the series is an entertaining read. It reminded me of John C Wright’s “The Golden Oecumene” trilogy.
“Phone company, internet”
Lol, there you go. Your ISP and wireless carrier are THE worst. They also have a lot of your financial info that they sell off. Tracking too. Your carrier routinely pings your phone for get location and records the calls, where you were at the time, how long etc. Unless it’s encrypted, they see and harvest it all.
ISPs don’t have as much liberty but they too track and sell off a fair bit of your life. They also have your financial info as most almost run a background check these days.
USPS sold you out. (If in the US). They literally sell “change of address” updates to marketing companies. You think they survive on selling stamps?
I never updated my address and they have still found me. Personally i think it is mortgage companies.
I guess that is one good thing about renting. Your name isn’t really tied to a property at least as far as public records are concerned.
Well, if you didn’t take all the precautions you took, over a 1000 data brokers could’ve had access to your address, and so much more about you.
And while I most certainly don’t like it, I know that I’m still stopping them from learning even more about me, and my search results are still secure.
Everyone I get to talk to me on Signal is having a secure conversation with me.
Everything to an extent is a win, so don’t give up king.
A real war has risk for all the participants.
Here you bear all the risk, and the counterparty, the internet company for example, bears no risk.
If and when you create the risk for the counterparty, where no risk has existed before, then and only then do you have a right to call it a war. In other words you have to in some way threaten the counterparty and make good on those threats to be at war.
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Unlike most privacy concerned people. I don’t believe that privacy is very useful without anonymity. metadata is at the heart of surveillance and tracking. In this regard I was a little optimistic when tor came out and hoped that many technologies will be build around that. that didn’t happen because you can’t build a business and make a profit by providing anonymity. now half websites are systematically blocking tor exit nodes. it can’t be used safely with torrents. and even briar the messenger built to use tor has been compromised by its developers so that you can’t be anonymous on briar . All in all I share the same frustration and can’t see a brighter future for privacy and anonymity .
Don’t forget that the government owes like 75% of the exit nodes.
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Can you elaborate on the Briar claim? Very curious.
Briar shares your hardware’s Bluetooth MAC address with your contacts even if you haven’t added that contact or connected with that contact using Bluetooth. meaning all your briar contacts even those on groups are storing your MAC address ( a unique device identifier) which makes plausible deniability virtual impossible. I remember reading the devs themselves acknowledge that briar isn’t a anonymous chat app (somewhere in their git repo or the wiki or the blog, can’t remember where exactly), so beware of this aspect.
I never needed hardcore anonymity but I was always sceptical why people think Briar is anonymous when it uses Bluetooth. Now that I know that the MAC is shared even without using Bluetooth, I’m even more confused. Thanks for the info.
First, remember that you’re not fighting this war alone. The most important part is educating people who are curious about it around you.
Second, it’s not about winning; it’s about being the biggest pain in the ass possible for people making money off our privacy.
Keep fighting in the way that suits you best.
This. I don’t think I’m “fighting a war,” but I pay for my own email server, self host a number of services, and am waiting on my pixel 8 now to run Graphene OS on. I can’t be “off the grid” but I don’t have to fuel everyone’s data hoarding machines.
If I may, might privacy be both a personal, individual endeavor and a collective endeavor?
On the personal level, can’t we foil the corporate intrusion by choosing apps in the Fediverse?
And on the collective level, can’t promotion of the Fediverse help?
I’m aware that city and county records often contain my street address and that doesn’t bother me. I’ve got to pay taxes and vote.
But I look at it this way: that’s my front facing public identity. Basically the one I use at work that gets a paycheck. Not private. And yes, that’s a pity and that war is lost, but I lose nothing because of that.
But then there’s my identity that shares the goals of global groups that chafe against injustice and oppression. All that work separated from my public identity by multiple barriers. Personably not perfect privacy — watch The Conversation by Francis Ford Coppola for a discussion of perfect privacy.
Is this kind of approach practical and one that means we haven’t lost?
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Vote.
Which candidate is running on privacy as their main issue?
I don’t know, because I don’t know where you live. I kind of want to assume you’re Murican, since they have no idea that there are other countries where you can vote.
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Revolt then.
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Educate your peers then.
educating is hardly an option anymore. the only way to get people to do anything is to brainwash them
Brainwashing is also a form of education.
fair enough lol
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