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You already get banished from half of the internet for hiding your IP address, I hope this wouldn't be used to make our lives even worse. Imagining a grim futu

You already get banished from half of the internet for hiding your IP address, I hope this wouldn't be used to make our lives even worse. Imagining a grim future where sites block all ad blockers (how about some detecting if an ad blocker exists at all, rather than its usage?), VPNs, virtual machines, even incognito mode. No full trust = no website.

chii 6y ago
Then do go to those websites. It's not a right that you have access to a website. Seek out only sites that don't block adblock, or has no ads. This might include a paid option (for example, youtube premium, or twitch subscription for ad-free viewing).
- emptyparadise 6y ago
  I may not have the right to have access to most of these websites but I do have the right to complain about how unethical I find it. And of course this situation has different implications if the website offers some sort of an essential service, but that's an entirely different discussion.
  - judge2020 6y ago
    OP is just suggesting you vote with your 'wallet' by not using those sites - they're not saying you should stop complaining.
    - pixl97 6y ago
      Bad actors generally win monitary contests. The entire vote with your wallet is a mostly disproven idea.
      - chii 6y ago
        it merely points out the hypocrisy of those who complain, but continue to use said sites.
  - wolco2 6y ago
    Is unethical the right word? Unpleasant might fit better. It doesn't break ethical rules to ensure ads are shown so income can be generated to pay for hosting.
    - natch 6y ago
      There are many ways to pay for hosting. Ads are just one way. Since they have proven so lucrative for some well positioned businesses, those businesses have pushed the meme that the only choices are ads or paid subscription. There are other ways. I’ve run sites where I happily paid the hosting bill because I correctly suspected it would lead to me getting the job I wanted down the road. You could say that sounds like advertising, but it was not run as a business, much less an advertising business. There was no self promotion whatsoever other than bragging rights. Many people have agendas, including sometimes very positive agendas, that lead them to support online services of various types in order to further those agendas. None of this is to say there’s no place for advertising or for paid subscriptions. I’m just saying there are often more options.
    - eecc 6y ago
      Ads, fine. Participating into a pervasive tracking infrastructure that strips you bare of your privacy to optimize manipulation of your individual cognitive faults is entirely another thing.
- _jal 6y ago
  This entirely ignores the implications of a society that heads down that path. There are questions substantially more interesting than a reductionist "do I have an innate right to access private websites?"
  - Siira 6y ago
    There is nothing “reductionist” about this petty quibble.
- maccard 6y ago
  Even as a paying user of Amazon (via prime), google (via one), netflix, spotify, im still subjected to ads and tracking on those services.
colordrops 6y ago
How do you hide your IP address? Are you referring to using a VPN?
- emptyparadise 6y ago
  VPNs, proxies, Tor, you name it.
  - Darkphibre 6y ago
    Ooof, yeah. I was trying to make a new, purely anonymized identity. Went through an anonymized bitcoin VPN with TOR on top. Registered an email through Protonmail. Pretty much no social media platform will accept Protonmail as an address without also having a phone number. Got banned from Discord within 3 hours, literally all I'd done was send three friend requests and join one discord. My IP was rotating and I then needed to have 2-factor authentication (and protonmail wasn't allowed, I needed that phone number). So, I went out and bought a burner phone, cash, with a 1-year prepaid account. Got it setup over a wired proxy with all radios turned off. Now at least I had a Google account! (they also require a phone number) And Discord proceeded to reject it, because I needed to have a 'real' phone number from a major carrier. I essentially needed to craft an entirely new identity if I wanted to be truly anonymous. It was eye-opening how invasive and pervasive the 'track you down to a real identity' accounts have become.
    - slivanes 6y ago
      Sorry to say, but if you act like someone you aren't, you are not going to be welcome at websites that want to know they are responding to a real person. Basically you are acting like you have something to hide which typically is something that people up to no good would do. I'm not saying you are up to no good, but your activity mirrors as such.
      - Darkphibre 6y ago
        It's just unfortunate that companies are employing precog future-crime concepts to what (should) be standard privacy approaches. And, to be clear, I'm not acting like someone I'm not. I'm forthcoming that I have an identity, and I'm even willing to prove that I'm a self-consistent individual. I'm acting like someone that has purchased a month-to-month phone, and have signed up for a free email account, and values their internet privacy. It's become apparent to me that a number of companies discriminate against people for whom this is their only choice... heaven help you if you can't afford a proper phone (or don't have the credit to open a proper cellphone account). As a transgendered person that's been discriminated against, I do indeed have valid reasons for wanting my most personal conversations to be secure from being used against me. There are other aspects of my private life that that would be wildly misinterpreted if taken out of context. I would prefer to keep my private life wholly separate from my public persona, and that's... harder to do in the age of COVID isolation where everything is online. It's astonishing to me how many people just... don't care about their privacy these days. And that the bar is so crazy high to be anonymous. To the point that wanting to be anonymous for a few hours is indistinguishable from being up to no good?! Hell, I'd have to _break_ the law and craft a truly new identity just to be able to be anonymous on some of these platforms that don't have real-world identities as a sign-up requirement. The argument of "you're not doing anything wrong, so why be concerned about your privacy" is disingenuous. https://lifehacker.com/why-your-privacy-matters-even-if-youre-not-doing-anyt-1645884650 https://lifehacker.com/why-your-privacy-matters-even-if-your...

chii 6y ago

Then do go to those websites. It's not a right that you have access to a website. Seek out only sites that don't block adblock, or has no ads. This might include a paid option (for example, youtube premium, or twitch subscription for ad-free viewing).

emptyparadise 6y ago
I may not have the right to have access to most of these websites but I do have the right to complain about how unethical I find it. And of course this situation has different implications if the website offers some sort of an essential service, but that's an entirely different discussion.
- judge2020 6y ago
  OP is just suggesting you vote with your 'wallet' by not using those sites - they're not saying you should stop complaining.
  - pixl97 6y ago
    Bad actors generally win monitary contests. The entire vote with your wallet is a mostly disproven idea.
    - chii 6y ago
      it merely points out the hypocrisy of those who complain, but continue to use said sites.
- wolco2 6y ago
  Is unethical the right word? Unpleasant might fit better. It doesn't break ethical rules to ensure ads are shown so income can be generated to pay for hosting.
  - natch 6y ago
    There are many ways to pay for hosting. Ads are just one way. Since they have proven so lucrative for some well positioned businesses, those businesses have pushed the meme that the only choices are ads or paid subscription. There are other ways. I’ve run sites where I happily paid the hosting bill because I correctly suspected it would lead to me getting the job I wanted down the road. You could say that sounds like advertising, but it was not run as a business, much less an advertising business. There was no self promotion whatsoever other than bragging rights. Many people have agendas, including sometimes very positive agendas, that lead them to support online services of various types in order to further those agendas. None of this is to say there’s no place for advertising or for paid subscriptions. I’m just saying there are often more options.
  - eecc 6y ago
    Ads, fine. Participating into a pervasive tracking infrastructure that strips you bare of your privacy to optimize manipulation of your individual cognitive faults is entirely another thing.
_jal 6y ago
This entirely ignores the implications of a society that heads down that path. There are questions substantially more interesting than a reductionist "do I have an innate right to access private websites?"
- Siira 6y ago
  There is nothing “reductionist” about this petty quibble.
maccard 6y ago
Even as a paying user of Amazon (via prime), google (via one), netflix, spotify, im still subjected to ads and tracking on those services.

colordrops 6y ago

How do you hide your IP address? Are you referring to using a VPN?

emptyparadise 6y ago
VPNs, proxies, Tor, you name it.
- Darkphibre 6y ago
  Ooof, yeah. I was trying to make a new, purely anonymized identity. Went through an anonymized bitcoin VPN with TOR on top. Registered an email through Protonmail. Pretty much no social media platform will accept Protonmail as an address without also having a phone number. Got banned from Discord within 3 hours, literally all I'd done was send three friend requests and join one discord. My IP was rotating and I then needed to have 2-factor authentication (and protonmail wasn't allowed, I needed that phone number). So, I went out and bought a burner phone, cash, with a 1-year prepaid account. Got it setup over a wired proxy with all radios turned off. Now at least I had a Google account! (they also require a phone number) And Discord proceeded to reject it, because I needed to have a 'real' phone number from a major carrier. I essentially needed to craft an entirely new identity if I wanted to be truly anonymous. It was eye-opening how invasive and pervasive the 'track you down to a real identity' accounts have become.
  - slivanes 6y ago
    Sorry to say, but if you act like someone you aren't, you are not going to be welcome at websites that want to know they are responding to a real person. Basically you are acting like you have something to hide which typically is something that people up to no good would do. I'm not saying you are up to no good, but your activity mirrors as such.
    - Darkphibre 6y ago
      It's just unfortunate that companies are employing precog future-crime concepts to what (should) be standard privacy approaches. And, to be clear, I'm not acting like someone I'm not. I'm forthcoming that I have an identity, and I'm even willing to prove that I'm a self-consistent individual. I'm acting like someone that has purchased a month-to-month phone, and have signed up for a free email account, and values their internet privacy. It's become apparent to me that a number of companies discriminate against people for whom this is their only choice... heaven help you if you can't afford a proper phone (or don't have the credit to open a proper cellphone account). As a transgendered person that's been discriminated against, I do indeed have valid reasons for wanting my most personal conversations to be secure from being used against me. There are other aspects of my private life that that would be wildly misinterpreted if taken out of context. I would prefer to keep my private life wholly separate from my public persona, and that's... harder to do in the age of COVID isolation where everything is online. It's astonishing to me how many people just... don't care about their privacy these days. And that the bar is so crazy high to be anonymous. To the point that wanting to be anonymous for a few hours is indistinguishable from being up to no good?! Hell, I'd have to _break_ the law and craft a truly new identity just to be able to be anonymous on some of these platforms that don't have real-world identities as a sign-up requirement. The argument of "you're not doing anything wrong, so why be concerned about your privacy" is disingenuous. https://lifehacker.com/why-your-privacy-matters-even-if-youre-not-doing-anyt-1645884650 https://lifehacker.com/why-your-privacy-matters-even-if-your...