4 ms·

Not necessarily directed at the parent comment (who seems more at a loss than thinking it's a solution), but calling for laws and regulations to restrain a stat

Not necessarily directed at the parent comment (who seems more at a loss than thinking it's a solution), but calling for laws and regulations to restrain a state that regularly ignores laws and regulations already on the books feels very lazy (slacktivism?) to me, and is all too common a trope on HN. Call me pessimistic but I really don't think that the kind of elites that will use illegal metadata to drone strike their own citizens and their children (among numerous other atrocities) will suddenly behave if we just put a few more of 'The Right Laws and Regulations'™ in this time. The only answer to the privacy and security question is to be principled enough to do what you can to opt out even if it's difficult. Yes I get it, you don't want to alienate some percentage of your social circle/users/customers. But that attitude contributed to how we got here in the first place. You may be pleasantly surprised how many people will be willing to follow along if you ask them directly and are willing to help them do it. I thanked a friend for getting set up on matrix after I deleted all my other services and he told me "even though I still use whatsapp you have a good reason not to and you know more about this stuff than I do so I'm happy to use element to chat with you". I haven't had a friend that I made a personal appeal to turn me down yet. "I'll create your user on my server. It's nobody's but ours and it runs from my living room" goes a long way, apparently. My personal roadmap (ymmv): - Use tech that makes your adversaries job harder. For me this is things like no JavaScript (plain pages in general), FOSS/OSHW, walled gardens, cash/cryptonumismatics, mirror things on RSS/yggdrasil/gemini/alternate dns roots/ipfs. Self host. You get the idea. - Help others do the same. Cultivate a community. Make topical group chats/forums/pages. Mirror the content of things you would like to see. - Make your employers do the same, and be willing to say no to things that are counter productive to that goal. - Regularly make your friends/coworkers/boss confront the idea that they do have something to hide. Ask them to hand you their phone and tell you their password, ask for naked pictures of them/their family, ask them to install a parental control app that gives you their location/microphone/browsing history/etc, ask if you can put some cameras in their house/bedroom/bathroom (bonus points if you bring a camera over). - Obviously tailor the above to the situation and remind them that they do in fact want privacy. Don't ask a co-worker for naked pictures what is wrong with you? - People are wrongfully arrested on a regular basis based on minimal evidence. Amplify their stories. - Rotate usernames regularly. Anyway that's what I do. It hasn't been nearly as rough of an experience as I thought it would be. Thanks for hearing me out. Welcome to the panopticon, friends.

kingaillas 6y ago
>The only answer to the privacy and security question is to be principled enough I like this answer. Maybe this course of action won't be sufficient but I like taking responsibility to do what you can first of all. Folks here worship the free market and here's a corporation making use of data that is freely provided (but perhaps not used in expected ways), much in the very same way Facebook, Google, what have you, use data that is freely provided to make big bucks. There is some outcry, but in general, software developers are extremely happy about massive wage increases across the industry, due to companies like Facebook and Google, while crapping on these same companies as often as possible, in web forums where it doesn't really matter at all. It's cathartic but ineffective. Make some vague statement about "the government" should solve this, while also cashing your outsize paycheck and continuing the privacy destroying work at BigCorp Data Scrapers Inc. So I like the reminder to look in the mirror and remember who exactly is building all this surveillance tech in the first place, and starting the solutions there.
- Sleepytime 6y ago
  Thanks for the kind response. I kind of expected to get pooped all over for that post. It's not necessarily an easy answer. I left my last cushy job over something most here would consider minor to work for a non-guaranteed income that would be embarrassing for most others in the industry or on this site, but my soul feels much better that now I'm an (albiet insignificant) part of the solution instead of part of the problem. No one snowflake is to blame for the avalanche. On the plus side my work-life balance is far more tilted to the 'life' side of that equation. The goal over the next few years is to continue to do what I can in all areas of my life. Produce my own food, spend my money as locally as possible. I'm okay if it's not polished for mass consumption or 'regulated' as long as I know who's behind it. I've been buying homemade meals from random strangers on craigslist and Facebook marketplace (my SO hasn't given it up yet, even they haven't posted anything for years). They have been delicious and cheap usually deliver to my house. Unregulated food might scare people, but I've got the runs from grade A inspected places many times over the years so... Call it what you will. Localism, anti-corporatism, cryptoanarchy, free market, anarcho-capitalism. Labels don't really seem to help much when we're fundamentally all working towards the same end goal. But I think in all cases it's unfair to ask others (including the state) to do something you're unwilling to expend effort attempting yourself because you've given up before you've started. Be excellent to each other and have a rocking day.

kingaillas 6y ago

>The only answer to the privacy and security question is to be principled enough I like this answer. Maybe this course of action won't be sufficient but I like taking responsibility to do what you can first of all. Folks here worship the free market and here's a corporation making use of data that is freely provided (but perhaps not used in expected ways), much in the very same way Facebook, Google, what have you, use data that is freely provided to make big bucks. There is some outcry, but in general, software developers are extremely happy about massive wage increases across the industry, due to companies like Facebook and Google, while crapping on these same companies as often as possible, in web forums where it doesn't really matter at all. It's cathartic but ineffective. Make some vague statement about "the government" should solve this, while also cashing your outsize paycheck and continuing the privacy destroying work at BigCorp Data Scrapers Inc. So I like the reminder to look in the mirror and remember who exactly is building all this surveillance tech in the first place, and starting the solutions there.

Sleepytime 6y ago
Thanks for the kind response. I kind of expected to get pooped all over for that post. It's not necessarily an easy answer. I left my last cushy job over something most here would consider minor to work for a non-guaranteed income that would be embarrassing for most others in the industry or on this site, but my soul feels much better that now I'm an (albiet insignificant) part of the solution instead of part of the problem. No one snowflake is to blame for the avalanche. On the plus side my work-life balance is far more tilted to the 'life' side of that equation. The goal over the next few years is to continue to do what I can in all areas of my life. Produce my own food, spend my money as locally as possible. I'm okay if it's not polished for mass consumption or 'regulated' as long as I know who's behind it. I've been buying homemade meals from random strangers on craigslist and Facebook marketplace (my SO hasn't given it up yet, even they haven't posted anything for years). They have been delicious and cheap usually deliver to my house. Unregulated food might scare people, but I've got the runs from grade A inspected places many times over the years so... Call it what you will. Localism, anti-corporatism, cryptoanarchy, free market, anarcho-capitalism. Labels don't really seem to help much when we're fundamentally all working towards the same end goal. But I think in all cases it's unfair to ask others (including the state) to do something you're unwilling to expend effort attempting yourself because you've given up before you've started. Be excellent to each other and have a rocking day.