Today, you can choose not to drive a Tesla if you don’t want Elon Musk, Inc. knowing everywhere you go.
Tomorrow, you might have to limit where you live because you won’t live in a Google Home and reconsider having 20/20 vision again in exchange for the artificial lens company seeing everything you see.
Privacy is not something you can “vote with your wallet” on. We either protect it as a human right or we lose it altogether.
By the way, if you think the artificial lens bit is hyperbole, think again. Quite a few years ago now I was sitting at dinner with some CEO of some startup that had developed a free tool they said helped people with dyslexia read more easily.
So, as I do, I asked him my favourite question: “how will you make money with this?”
He looked at me like I was rather daft before answering, matter of factly, “well, we know what you’re reading.”
Say no more, my friend. Say no more.
@aral An older UK person I am close to needs to use a heart monitor. The doctors advised us that the best-available tech is the Apple watch and the ecosystem associated with it.
The alternative, non-BigTech solution was obviously inferior and had a horrible UX that even relatively tech-savvy seniors were clearly going to struggle with.
"Give up your data to BigTech or have worsened healthcare outcomes" is already here - even on what's left of the NHS.
I remember in the Winter of 2020 I was exposed to COVID and I went to schedule a test. That's when I discovered the only convenient way through the state website was to use my Google account. The other ways were so convoluted that it didn't really feel like a choice.
@aral i ask that question all the time and it's amazing how often you're seen as an idiot for not clearly seeing <mischievous earning structure here> as the obvious model.
Even though it's often possible to just have a subscription model and have a fair pay-for-when-it-costs-us system. Optionally supported with privacy respecting ads, to keep it affordable for much more people.
@aral lol I wish I could say you are wrong but that is the whole point of these products. The service they offer is almost secondary... Like Harvard is a Hedge fund that just so happens to offer Educational services.
Sometimes.
@loy Exactly. The question to ask whenever someone pitches you a “smart” thing is: “Who’s getting smarter about whom?”
If it’s you (and just you) getting smarter about yourself, that’s perfectly fine.
If it’s some corporation getting smarter about you, then “smart” is just a euphemism for “surveilled.”
#smart #tech #privacy #surveillance #capitalism #BigTech #peopleFarming #SiliconValley
@braxuss @loy @aral @braxuss @loy @aral Uncloud Watch is just a javascript client application and a nodejs server process. The server handles the webrtc handshake and then gets out of the way.
You can download the server under "Documentation and Code" and run your own. A 1GB R-pi works fine, that is what I used to develop it.
You can view stuff at home using webrtc with no external dependencies.
@braxuss @loy @aral Uncloud Watch is just a javascript client application and a nodejs server process. The server handles the webrtc handshake and then gets out of the way.
You can download the server under "Documentation and Code" and run your own. A 1GB R-pi works fine, that is what I used to develop it.
It does not use firestore but it does use mysql for the optional camera list feature.
The original smart home concept was that you would own all your data and it would all stay local. The only way this is going to change is by strict, enforced regulation that flat out prohibits this kind of data collection. Or at minimum, allows an easy user opt out that does not compromise service or price at all. That's what we need to push for.
@[email protected] Exactly. The question to ask whenever someone pitches you a “smart” thing is: “Who’s getting smarter about whom?” If it’s you (and just you) getting smarter about yourself, that’s perfectly fine. If it’s some corporation getting smarter about you, then “smart” is just a euphemism for “surveilled.” #smart #tech #privacy #surveillance #capitalism #BigTech #peopleFarming #SiliconValley
Science fiction tricked us by showing us robots whose artificial brains lived inside of their artificial heads; bounded intelligences in iron.
We imagined that if they were "in" our homes, living as part of our families, that this meant that they worked for "us." Loyal robotic valets like Jeeves. Faithful employees of a sort.
We did not see the complete loss of the inside/outside boundary coming, nor what it implied about the corporate invasion of our private spaces.
@franko Exactly. The lie that became commonplace in the last decade or so was “if you don’t like it, just don’t use it.”
The underlying assumption being that these technologies are optional.
Once we recognise that no, these technologies are now essential to life in modern society, the only option we’re actually being presented with in the Silicon Valley model is whether we accept corporatocracy and the wholesale surrender of our human rights or whether we “choose” a hermitic existence.
How does that work for anyone working on confidential documents? Or classified ones? Are MS office products now a no-go for these applications, or is there a verified way to turn it off? Does the application run on an air-gapped network?
@bigmike
Sure that's the easy answer, and the one that has applied to myself for a very long time. The risk inherent in closed formats and dependency on proprietary software is obvious to those that look.
But now that it's happened, i wonder what various agencies and groups *needing* to access data in MS office formats, by workers trained in MS office products. Surely the answer isn't "turn the firewall into a sieve", and I doubt the answer is "switch overnight to other products".
@kyrsjo @bigmike @aral @frank_rieger
Despite the "wisdom" of so many experts on the internet, Microsoft makes the bulk of its profit from businesses, not consumers, and businesses tend to be even more sensitive to the confidentiality of their documents than consumers are. So Microsoft is well aware of how expensive (to Microsoft) any breach of confidentiality would be - far more expensive than the imaginery profits that the internet experts insist are being made by surveilling those customers.
But how does it work then? If the program connects to the internet and exchanges data with external servers, how does the customer know, control, and verify what is being sent, and what can be sent?
You're the one making the allegations, it's up to you to show how it works. I mean, it's not as if there aren't tens of thousands of people out there who consider themselves highly skilled who would love to prove that Microsoft is guilty of just about anything. And yet all we see is allegations.
I have no idea if Microsoft is guilty of what these "experts" allege or not, but I have more reason to trust Microsoft than their accusers, because the motivations on both sides are clear.
I'm aware of their shenanigans. I was more wondering about how it would work in an environment with some negotiating power and competent/paranoid IT security people, say a big company or a government agency.
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