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"It's been swell, but the swellings gone down". It was a fun 25 years for me personally. Time to re-think my entire online existence and take up knitting or so

"It's been swell, but the swellings gone down". It was a fun 25 years for me personally. Time to re-think my entire online existence and take up knitting or something. I don't even do anything "wrong", I make games, and tinker with electronics, but I do NOT like knowing that every single private chat I have is monitored, collected, stored, and searched. I've used lots of encrypted chat programs and encrypted data storage because MY stuff is MINE, not theirs. They don't let us read their private documents and emails, or read their private chats. Increasingly, it's the people in power who are caught being the ones doing fucked up things to children (concentration camps in the US, child rape rings in the UK, etc)... yet WE are the ones who have to give up all privacy, all rights, so they can monitor us? In the great words of my countrymen: Yeahnah. It's despicable how our (AU) country's sycophant nature has dragged us down the authoritarian well with the US/UK. We had a chance to stand up on our own, with a good strong economy while the rest of the world struggled with the GFC, our own tech companies showing they can stand up on an international stage, and the beginnings of a world class fibre network that would've propelled us into the future comfortably. Instead, we get this. Bow down to your masters, do as we say not as we do, and be happy we're not locking you up (yet) for wanting to talk to your wife about personal medical things in private, or store your personal belongings (photos of our kids, banking details, passwords) in a secure place where no one steal them. Why won't we think of the children?! Says the same people stealing them, raping them, and ruining their future.

gwillz 8y ago
+1 for 'sycophant' - thanks old mate Turnbull for the English lessons. On topic though, I'm too disappointed in Australia not being able to properly about privacy properly. It's come up a few times and the discussions almost made a difference - the ISP data retention policy, the medical database, something-something about the big banks. There are occasionally little stories that largely go unnoticed about the government quietly asking around for back doors and whatnot. But every time we roll over and show our belly. Why is it so hard to convince people this is an important issue?
- graeme 8y ago
  Lack of visibility I guess. People in general are really bad at seeing the danger in something that isn't visible. And they probably also imagine it's only used against the bad guys, selectively. Surely no one would be monitoring everything all the time? Basically I think it's hard for many to grasp the scale of it.
- ObsoleteNerd 8y ago
  I have a significant number of very technically advanced friends (due to previous jobs). The exact type you'd think would care about this. They couldn't care less if they tried. Somehow, at some point, the "geeks" just decided that unless you're a blackhat, or buying/selling drugs online, or into some underground scene where you specifically are trying to circumvent the authorities, then it just doesn't matter. They all use Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, etc etc, while decrying the "evil" of China. I'm not sure when or how the shift happened, but the same friends I use to sit on IRC with and rant about open source, privacy, and the important of encryption, have all just... given up. I've been fighting for and preaching the importance of privacy my entire life, and my dad was a life-long activist (physically, too) for human rights, so I've been exposed to "the fight" since before I was born, and for the first time ever, I'm starting to feel like I should just give up, make an FB account, shut down my Pi-Hole/OpenVPN, and just "wait to die" as they say. It's a bloody depressing era. I want to wake up.
  - ZenPsycho 8y ago
    is it survivorship bias? Are the ones who have "given up" just the only ones still visible online?
    - ObsoleteNerd 8y ago
      That's a good question. As mentioned elsewhere, the Internet is my life (career, hobby, everything)... so I don't think I could fully disconnect if I wanted to. It's like... I know what the problem is, but I don't know what the answer is (for me personally, for my kids sake I'm not quite willing to go Stallman yet, but I'm respecting his methods more every single day).
toomanybeersies 8y ago
The utter shambles that is the NBN [1] is symptomatic of the Australian government's and hence the Australian peoples' attitudes to technology and online privacy. Most voters would say "if you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to hide". The Government is now trying to consolidate your healthcare record into a central database (ensure that you specifically opt out of this before November), and apparently have been using this data to target sex workers according to people I know in the industry, despite it being legal. The Australian government cannot be trusted with your personal data. This is a government that seems to take civil liberties as an inconvenience rather than a right. Scott Morrison (the current PM, for those not keeping up) just today said that Victoria need a "police force that's a force", which is a blatant dogwhistle for "let's target minorities and disadvantaged communities". Meanwhile, the NSW police force seems to think there's absolutely nothing wrong with deploying drug dogs at train stations in Sydney's western suburbs like a bunch of fascists. People keep voting for these politicians that support these policies. It's disgusting. [1] For those non-Australians, the National Broadband Network is a mostly failed attempt for the Australian government to roll out high speed internet nationwide.
- ObsoleteNerd 8y ago
  Hear hear. You just need to look at the Census fiasco to realise how bloody terrifying an idea it is for these guys to handle a centralised database of all our medical information. It scares the shit out of me, to be honest. I have small kids, and the future we're heading towards terrifies and depresses me. I'd love to leave the country but I'm stuck here due to "reasons" and also I don't think it would make much difference. The Internet is my career, my hobby, and my entire life, and it's controlled by "them" anyway... and I don't know how to do anything else to support my family.
  - BLKNSLVR 8y ago
    Write to your state and federal representatives, plant a veggie garden, self-host what you can, offer whatever self-hosting services you can to family members, discourage those you can influence from using as many of the 'big' service providers, create a personal VPN, block ads, opt out, write about your experiences doing all of these things to help and encourage others to do the same. And also realize it's not as bad as all of that... yet. Also, there's likely an election coming up soon, so writing to your government representatives should be a priority. I've never done it before, but it's high on my list now.
jsoc815 8y ago
> Time to re-think my entire online existence and take up knitting or something. I share your sentiments. A few months ago I told a less-technically-inclined friend that things would move in this direction and prompt people to consider disconnecting. Of course, my friend was/is skeptical; time will tell.
somebodythere 8y ago
I feel the same way, but with existence in general. Authoritarianism is way up, the planet is frying, AI will destroy jobs and supercharge surveillance ... I'm not sure I want to witness the result.

gwillz 8y ago

+1 for 'sycophant' - thanks old mate Turnbull for the English lessons. On topic though, I'm too disappointed in Australia not being able to properly about privacy properly. It's come up a few times and the discussions almost made a difference - the ISP data retention policy, the medical database, something-something about the big banks. There are occasionally little stories that largely go unnoticed about the government quietly asking around for back doors and whatnot. But every time we roll over and show our belly. Why is it so hard to convince people this is an important issue?

graeme 8y ago
Lack of visibility I guess. People in general are really bad at seeing the danger in something that isn't visible. And they probably also imagine it's only used against the bad guys, selectively. Surely no one would be monitoring everything all the time? Basically I think it's hard for many to grasp the scale of it.
ObsoleteNerd 8y ago
I have a significant number of very technically advanced friends (due to previous jobs). The exact type you'd think would care about this. They couldn't care less if they tried. Somehow, at some point, the "geeks" just decided that unless you're a blackhat, or buying/selling drugs online, or into some underground scene where you specifically are trying to circumvent the authorities, then it just doesn't matter. They all use Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, etc etc, while decrying the "evil" of China. I'm not sure when or how the shift happened, but the same friends I use to sit on IRC with and rant about open source, privacy, and the important of encryption, have all just... given up. I've been fighting for and preaching the importance of privacy my entire life, and my dad was a life-long activist (physically, too) for human rights, so I've been exposed to "the fight" since before I was born, and for the first time ever, I'm starting to feel like I should just give up, make an FB account, shut down my Pi-Hole/OpenVPN, and just "wait to die" as they say. It's a bloody depressing era. I want to wake up.
- ZenPsycho 8y ago
  is it survivorship bias? Are the ones who have "given up" just the only ones still visible online?
  - ObsoleteNerd 8y ago
    That's a good question. As mentioned elsewhere, the Internet is my life (career, hobby, everything)... so I don't think I could fully disconnect if I wanted to. It's like... I know what the problem is, but I don't know what the answer is (for me personally, for my kids sake I'm not quite willing to go Stallman yet, but I'm respecting his methods more every single day).

toomanybeersies 8y ago

The utter shambles that is the NBN [1] is symptomatic of the Australian government's and hence the Australian peoples' attitudes to technology and online privacy. Most voters would say "if you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to hide". The Government is now trying to consolidate your healthcare record into a central database (ensure that you specifically opt out of this before November), and apparently have been using this data to target sex workers according to people I know in the industry, despite it being legal. The Australian government cannot be trusted with your personal data. This is a government that seems to take civil liberties as an inconvenience rather than a right. Scott Morrison (the current PM, for those not keeping up) just today said that Victoria need a "police force that's a force", which is a blatant dogwhistle for "let's target minorities and disadvantaged communities". Meanwhile, the NSW police force seems to think there's absolutely nothing wrong with deploying drug dogs at train stations in Sydney's western suburbs like a bunch of fascists. People keep voting for these politicians that support these policies. It's disgusting. [1] For those non-Australians, the National Broadband Network is a mostly failed attempt for the Australian government to roll out high speed internet nationwide.

ObsoleteNerd 8y ago
Hear hear. You just need to look at the Census fiasco to realise how bloody terrifying an idea it is for these guys to handle a centralised database of all our medical information. It scares the shit out of me, to be honest. I have small kids, and the future we're heading towards terrifies and depresses me. I'd love to leave the country but I'm stuck here due to "reasons" and also I don't think it would make much difference. The Internet is my career, my hobby, and my entire life, and it's controlled by "them" anyway... and I don't know how to do anything else to support my family.
- BLKNSLVR 8y ago
  Write to your state and federal representatives, plant a veggie garden, self-host what you can, offer whatever self-hosting services you can to family members, discourage those you can influence from using as many of the 'big' service providers, create a personal VPN, block ads, opt out, write about your experiences doing all of these things to help and encourage others to do the same. And also realize it's not as bad as all of that... yet. Also, there's likely an election coming up soon, so writing to your government representatives should be a priority. I've never done it before, but it's high on my list now.

jsoc815 8y ago

> Time to re-think my entire online existence and take up knitting or something. I share your sentiments. A few months ago I told a less-technically-inclined friend that things would move in this direction and prompt people to consider disconnecting. Of course, my friend was/is skeptical; time will tell.

somebodythere 8y ago

I feel the same way, but with existence in general. Authoritarianism is way up, the planet is frying, AI will destroy jobs and supercharge surveillance ... I'm not sure I want to witness the result.