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Why we give away our Internet privacy, according to Cory Doctorow

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Experts have been warning us for awhile now. Here is another example from Cringely:

https://www.infoworld.com/t/cringely/privacy-may-be-joke-companies-its-no-laughing-matter-the-rest-of-us-195230?source=IFWNLE_nlt_notes_2012-06-11

WE have been demanding that the perps be arrested, tried, and imprisoned. We have been making use of a multitude of pseudonyms and the occasional misleading posts to hide our preferences and interests in order to protect our own privacy while continuing to demand reform. We keep our eyes open and dodge around the corner when we seen the evil Google cam-cars tooling down the street, we look away from the evil goverments' surveillance cameras and cover our faces. We tint our car windows, cast mud on the plates or "protect" them with glaring scratched plastic or change them from time to time, and avoid toll booths. WE haven't signed up for FB, friendster, grouply, linkedin, myspace, Medicare, Medicaid, Socialist Insecurity or OhBummercare. Live free. Live private.

that was my first though too.

"Tonto! Look at all those hostile Indians coming! We're in trouble!"
"What you mean 'we', white man?"

But, I am not optimistic as I used to be.

(insert Pink Floyd here)

Doctorow's short story I linked at the beginning. It's a quick read, but well-done...typical Cory.

Curious though. You are a member here at TR. You provided certain information to TR, to CBS, and so on... How did you view this web page? Lot's of TPV activity that is visible and invisible. I'm not so sure you are as private as you think.

one is NOT to provide the real details when signing up for a forum, another is to use things like Fire Fox with AdBlock Plus at set it to stop third party cookies and certain types of scripts etc, also add in Better Privacy which I think you told me about in an older blog.

One of the first things I block in AdBlock Plus is Googel Analytics - thus it makes it harder for them to know where I am, add in my pipe into the Internet is via either my ISP who is in a city across the other side of the country and my access is just as likely to link in through the Brisbane, Perth or Adelaide offices as their Sydney office, and my mail server and web site is hosted by a mob in Sydney, and the best anyone can know for sure from my IP is I'm in Australia but not get within 5 hours drive of where I am.

Having said that, the article is right to a certain extent, when I buy from an on-line service I have to give details about where it's to be delivered to. Luckily I deal with Aust businesses 98% of the time and they have to obey the Aust privacy laws which prevent them from doing a damn thing with that information. If I get real worried, there is a local service that will accept deliveries for me to collect later.

I do have one forum I subscribed to under a false ID simply because I was very suspicious of them at the start, and events have proven that true. Thus I know any mail addressed to that name that reaches me is very tainted. I've since closed that account, but still get contacts from the ID I gave there.

Oh, before I forget, want to see a real NASTY attack on your data privacy, check out Mundia's Terms of Use, Item 5, especially 5.1 to 5.3 - Nasty

http://www.mundia.com/au/TermsConditions

quote
For each item of content that you post, you grant to us and our affiliates a world-wide, royalty free, fully paid-up, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, transferable, and fully sublicensable (including to other Website users) license, without additional consideration to you or any third party, to: (i) reproduce, distribute, make available, transmit, communicate to the public, perform and display (publicly or otherwise), edit, modify, adapt, create derivative works from and otherwise use such content, in any format or media now known or later developed; (ii) exercise all trademark, publicity and other proprietary rights with regard to such content; (iii) use your name, photograph, portrait, picture, voice, likeness and biographical information as provided by you in connection with your content for the Service, in each case, in connection with your content. For example, after your registration or subscription has ended, we may continue to use and display any content that you previously posted, and other users may continue may access, change, edit, add to, subtract from or otherwise amend such content. If you do not want to grant us the rights set out in these Terms of Use, please do not post any content on the Website.
end quote

"One of the first things I block in AdBlock Plus is Googel Analytics"

Me too, in fact the first thing out of a clean install (after getting to firefox) is to install noscript and browse to a few sites that I know will throw up a ton of the trackers and ad servers that we'll want listed as untrusted.

I block all the usual suspects, akamai, --(btw read that name backwards) doubleclick and the like.

A good way to quickly hit a lot of scripts to block is do a google search for something popular and click on the top few results, eg "lady gaga," you'll get a lot of commercial results, the kind of sites that make .0004 cents every time some adserver loads a script.

The number of people that do this or even remotely know about it are minuscule. Getting someone to use NoScript is difficult at best.

And like all choices carries a balance of risk and reward. "You makes you choices and you takes your chances".

at least they are disclosing everything they're going to do with your content; how many sites do all this, but don't enumerate?

case about not making it that clear. Also, their major site and members are in the UK, and the UK laws require this level of notification.

We're outta the belly of the beast, too. People don't realize SS is 100% voluntary, you don't need to sign up, tho the 'world' has gone along with the agenda and it's difficult to negotiate without the number. (but it can be done, with consequences like not having any relationship with a bank)

The voluntary nature is why someone was able to sue Taco Bell and win, the issue being they asked for a SSN. They removed the question for a time, and IIRC later replaced it with a note that it's not required data.

The plaintiff had been turned down and the reason given was the application was incomplete, without a SSN. He successfully argued that since the program is voluntary, it can't be a cause of restraint.

Still, our ISP alone makes up for any lack of our voluntarily coughing up data. I also have a youtube account. The result I'm sure is that the powers that be are satisfied they have enough of a finger on us.

Once cameras and facial recognition are widespread, including on board drone aircraft, it'll be Star Trek (NG) tracking, without need of a com badge.

Then it doesn't matter whether you block Analytics or not. They have you.

If you log out they don't get the global tracking info, but it's a PITA cleaning out cookies and disabling the scripts every time, then re-enabling same when I want to use the youtube account, which is almost never. In fact I just uploaded my first video last week, and now have a grand total of 2 up there.

Granted almost no one would bother to the extent I go.

BTW my reference was after installing a system for a client. I try to get as many sites blocked as possible, swiftly. I don't know what a lot of them do afterward, but there's not a lot of facebook or other 'social' stuff going on. They're mostly busy business folk.

Some do use gmail, they're definitely among the 'big data.'

I figured you would be ultra-safe.

Do you mean collecting social security is voluntary because paying the tax never has been voluntary. There was no lawsuit filed in the Taco Bell case.

http://www.curiousevidence.com/(S(gdoih5r3mezdk1htcrdhfwvx))/samples.aspx?id=23
http://www.ssa.gov/history/InternetMyths.html
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/03/fdrs-voluntary-social-security/

But the "administrative state" has been bought into lock stock and barrel by the so-called "employers."

They are fictional entities owing their "benefits" to the state. Good luck finding someone who'll honor your status, should you elect to not have a SSN.

But obtaining the number, opting in from the outset, MUST BE (and is) 100% voluntary, or it simply violates all tenets of law, every court decision on the matter (regarding ultimate, original jurisdiction) and the 13th amendment.

In fact status as a "US citizen" (or "citizen of the United States," but no other spelling) is also totally voluntary. You are actually entrapped by fraud, perpetuated by media, 'public education' and plain old assumption.

One example of media perpetuating fraudulently obtained status is the harping upon stories surrounding "anchor babies." There is no such thing, but the system is pleased to assume they have a status, in order to not draw the curtain back on the truth of the situation.

One cannot be free and have been made responsible for a legal fiction involuntarily at the same time. If you do your research and ask the courts nicely they will ultimately admit this is true.

To be honest, where I am is nearly untenable, but only because the system has so totally choked every aspect of life with a constructive fraud as to be near impossible to 'live normally.'

My wife and I are last of a dying breed: free Americans. Damn proud of our status, too. If only 5% of the population would do as we have, there would be no budget deficits, wars, fake usury-based money, a lot of the present ills would evaporate overnight.

Basically we live on the receiving end of a collective "yeah, but just try it!" Thing is we have, and we're holding our own. The borg has been behaving quite honorably, have been since the supremes read my writ circa 2006.

We simply have faith things will work out. Plans, especially involving money, are pipe dreams not founded in reality. I was warning people 30 years ago that your being crammed into a 401(k) or similar (involuntarily) is simply a rip-off scam, you'll get close to retirement and "aw, gee, looks like you lost most of it when the 'market' tanked."

To be honest I'm shocked the present appearances (of a functional system) have lasted this long.

Your links are as bogus as the email straw men they stand up to tear down. Annenburg, for example, ASSUMES one is a "US citizen," for whom there are in fact NO rights, except those remedies provided by congress in it's (private) codes and regulations. The overarching question is 'when and how DID I become such "US citizen" as that term is defined by laws of congress?'

You have to realize the ruse would have to be so deep as to be literally impossible to uncover. It is nearly bottomless, but a few of us have evolved a bit beyond the need for a state. We're waiting for the rest of y'all to catch up, which sure won't be in my lifetime, nor my grand children's...

For the record I do not advocate anyone do anything remotely like I have done. There's probably 10 of us out here that want the status of unencumbered by any involuntary body corporate or body politic. To an outsider I imagine it looks like a religious thing, maybe in a way it is.

Bottom line I just don't like being lied to, and being assumed to be too stupid to know a game when it's being foisted on me.

I am not understanding you being "the last of a dying breed?"

I knew of a few who were in the Posse Comitatus who never got an SSN, and the rest of it is fuzzy in my mind, but it seemed like they refused to sign any check, or go into certain contracts - they never paid taxes - but then I doubt the IRS could get a case against them, because the used barter and trade almost exclusively.

Do you mean to tell me that you have no medical insurance and no retirement? I assume that the answer is that you (1 are willing to take the risk that nothing bad will happen to you, (2 are so well off that it does not matter, or (3 have some form of "private" (commercial) insurance/retirement. Are the commercial providers somehow less invasive of your privacy? My medical insurance provider is very invasive. And what, exactly, is one supposed to do if they cannot afford commercial insurance? Some people will trade privacy for medical care.

I was nearly killed by medical error a few years back, requiring an emergency procedure to prevent me from bleeding to death internally. I almost didn't make it.

They ran up a huge bill, around 30k, which I'm paying out of pocket as I am able.

I will work until I drop dead.

Thanks for that link. I especially liked the "stupidity trifecta," I have a client or two that'll be getting that link in their emails today.

BTW are there actually more than 2 reasons someone would install a bittorrent client?

Could someone please give a plausible, practical, and reasonable end to this sentence:
"Would you still use Facebook, if???

Cory was the first person I've found who has attempted to explain why? I find that mysterious in of itself.

since I've never used it. I've had Twitter and LinkedIn accounts but closed both. This place is the only active 'social' site I belong to. Yeah, Google tracks my searches, but I do consider that to be a worthwhile exchange.

Right?

Nothing that wasn't already available in public records or my resume. Finding some of it would have required manually searching paper documents, but it was already out there. Nothing I'm worried about being used for anything other than targeted advertising, and that's going to be more shotgun than sniper.

That is does not take much to make you unique and therefore trackable.

they did NOT allow any person or organization to (1) access any data associated with your Facebook account, including your Facebook page, unless you have declared that person or organization to be a friend, and (2) access any data which reveals which other Facebook members with whom you are "friends" regardless of whether that person or organization is also your "friend"?

had user terms that stated using the app allowed them to collect and use your Facebook data. Hmm, one wonders how much they can trust what Facebook themselves say as they don't control all the apps themselves.

That is a major loophole being well exercised in the mobile app world.

We are seeing this in the mobile realm. TPVs are getting the same permissions as the apps and we do not have any idea who the TPVs are or what they intend to do with our information.

In your context, it doesn't seem that TPV means "third party verification" (which is required by law for some transactions).

I think the point of the open ended question is for each person to ask themelves just how much will they accept before saying "no" to Facebook or any other company/individual/government agency and to analyze that response to see if they are willing to give up privacy for that little food pellet now.

You're right (as far as I can tell); he was imploring slowly-boiling frogs to say when they might suddenly perceive that the water's too hot....

Does that really happen?

It seems like things are beginning to change! The news is full of stories about privacy becoming a rapidly increasing concern, and there is at least one brave company that seeks to arm the rebels. A new social media platform called Sgrouples offers most of the features as Facebook, but with total privacy to respond to market demands.

To any web site you visit.

Since I began using NoScript with FF (and more recently DNT+), I've been made quite aware of the number of ad networks and data tracking sites that many commercial sites (TR included) use on a single page.

What's frustrating is how some sites won't even serve up some (or all) content unless the ad network/tracking site/s is/are allowed access to your browsing data.

When that happens, do you allow access to your information or not?

Also, you may be interested in my article about ScriptNo for Chrome:

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/security/scriptno-a-preemptive-strike-against-script-attacks-for-chrome/7962

without the ads, then I email the webmaster and the senior staff of the company the site is for and complain, and let them know that they just lost my business and I now have them on my not recommended list. A few have responded and made changes, but many don't reply and I don't go back to check the site.

We Stand with you, be Paranoia and stealth skills go up that a + that why I am IT so I can know how to hide, I can go dark in a blink

Interesting, Bayen. I wonder if that is even possible any more -- simply having a driver's license removes the possibility.