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"We are making a mobile phone ecosystem that lets users escape the permanent and industrial harvesting of their personal data." I have never heard any normal p

"We are making a mobile phone ecosystem that lets users escape the permanent and industrial harvesting of their personal data." I have never heard any normal person ever talk about data privacy. It feels like there's this giant bubble that the tech world lives in, and they are the only people who care about this issue.

fezfight 4y ago
Good it happens at all. These people are the last bastions of hope.
eldaisfish 4y ago
this is my #1 complaint as well. These OSs must be easy to install and reliable. Having parts of the OS crash, dealing with the terminal, using ADB over USB... all of that makes zero sense to the average person or someone pressed for time. I now want my phone to work and that is why i use iOS. Having to replace the OS on your phone is already a step too far for most. The install instructions here require using the terminal and typing commands - not going to happen for most people. IMHO, the easiest path to adoption is to have a hardware manufacturer put this OS on their phones. No installation required.
- COGlory 4y ago
  >Having parts of the OS crash, dealing with the terminal, using ADB over USB... I bought a phone from /e/ and have never had this happen in almost 2 years.
  - rglullis 4y ago
    Relax, OP is just reaching for whatever rationalization they can get to continue sucking on Apple's tit.
    - 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
      That's a shitty comment man
      - rglullis 4y ago
        What is shitty is this attitude of accepting the "solutions" sold by Big Tech and finding fault at whatever minuscule issue with the free alternatives. What is shitty is being on HackerNews and seeing (presumably tech-savvy) people more worried about the product's name and "marketing" instead of discussing the system on its technical merits. Or seeing comments like yours that think that privacy is something that only concerns a "small bubble". That is just not shitty, it is profoundly depressing.
- commoner 4y ago
  /e/ has partnerships with Fairphone and Teraphone to sell versions of their phones with /e/ preloaded. /e/'s sister company Murena produced its own phone (the Murena One) and they also sell refurbished Galaxy S9/S9+ phones preloaded with /e/: https://murena.com/products/smartphones/ https://murena.com/products/smartphones/ No terminal/ADB needed, and in my experience, /e/ is not crashy.
jlkuester7 4y ago
Honestly I am starting to hear it more and more from nontechnical folks. People are starting to realize that tech companies are profiting off their "private" data (just see the mainstream responses to Amazon acquiring Roomba). I now hear a lot of people saying they don't want Google/Amazon/etc to have all their data, but these folks are not sure how to avoid it.
renewiltord 4y ago
All the Apple billboards in SF on 280/101 tout their Privacy right now.
- 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
  A Ford billboard might have a picture of a fancy cupholder to advertise their car has more cupholders; doesn't mean everyone's walking around talking about cupholders. (Though they will if they see that billboard)
amatecha 4y ago
I know a couple in their 70s who literally just switched away from using their ISP email because the ISP is adopting Gmail for the email service. People typically care about their privacy regardless of age or technical ability. Sometimes it just takes some basic understanding of just how deeply tech companies/services can invade their privacy. Most non-technical people simply don't grasp how shockingly omniscient tech corps are. That said, sometimes it can take a while for them to understand, even with regular discussions on the subject.
pessimizer 4y ago
> I have never heard any normal person ever talk about data privacy. I hear normal people talk about it all the time. The only place where I hear that only people on HN care about privacy is on HN, constantly. edit: I suspect that tech people who work on privacy-invading technologies live in a rationalization bubble that tells them that the complaints that they constantly hear are from a vanishingly small nerd contingent that they themselves just happen to immersed in. They don't believe their lying ears.
unethical_ban 4y ago
What is your point? You're using loaded terms like "normal" to contrast with people who are tech hobbyists, and you sound as if it is bad for an organization to care about something moral if few people care for it.
- 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
  Because it's like a trope now where a tech person builds a thing that bothers them but nobody else, and meanwhile most people are like "I just want to do X, why is it so hard". Like why does my Android phone take up 15GB just for system files? I care about having free space more than data privacy. Security would sure be nice too, seeing as I use banking apps from this thing. Call me crazy, but I think most people care less about Nike knowing what their shoe size is, than they care about keeping their bank account safe or not running out of storage.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    > Call me crazy, but I think most people care less about Nike knowing what their shoe size is They don't care because they don't understand. "Most people" think their shoe size or what ad they see doesn't matter because they're right, those things don't matter. What matters is that all of the data being collected about them will be used against them at every opportunity so that other people can get more money and power at their expense. The data they give up will be increasingly used in every aspect of their lives. Restaurants will use it to decide how long to leave them waiting on hold when they call for a reservation. Employers will decide to hire them or not based on their purchase history, their health, or their political views. Stores will decide how much to charge them vs their neighbors for the exact same products. The data they've been handing over will be used by corporations to extract more money from them. It will be used by by politicians who want to manipulate them and to create maps that will limit the ability for their votes to make any difference. It will be used by activists looking for people they can target for doing things they don't like. It will be used by law enforcement who will use that data against someone anytime they think it might help them make an arrest, or win a case in court. It will be used by their health insurance company to raise their rates when fast food spending in their zip code goes up. The data "Most people" gave up thinking it was about shoe size and ads will be leveraged against them in countless ways by people they've never had any direct interaction with at all. The data never goes away and it ends up in the hands of hackers and data brokers who sell it to others. "Most people" aren't allowed to know who is accessing their data, how accurate that data is, how (or if) it is being secured, or what the people who have their data will be using it for. Well, although they'll never be allowed to know specifically what their data will be used for, in a general sense they can be pretty sure it will be used to manipulate them, to categorize (and often miscategorize) them and to assign them a position in one or more unregulated digital caste systems that will increasingly limit their options and cause them to spend more money. They don't care about data privacy now, but as more of them figure out that what they've been giving up is going to impact the rest of their life in ways they couldn't imagine they're going to start caring more and more.
jrockway 4y ago
Yesterday I was reading that Facebook shares DMs with the police to find people that are thinking of leaving the state to get a medical procedure that is illegal in that state. Data privacy is now deeply relevant to 50% of the population that have reduced rights relative to the other 50%, they just might not know it yet.
acka 4y ago
0xbadcafebee: > I have never heard any normal person ever talk about data privacy. It feels like there's this giant bubble that the tech world lives in, and they are the only people who care about this issue. Honestly, I don't know if I've just missed your irony here, or if you don't realize there are lots of 'normal' people out there who have been thinking about this since like... the 50s of last century or something? Most certainly, they were talking about it (freely that is) since at least the 90s of the same century. Like, people who grew up under a totalitarian regime which could assign spies to eavesdrop and collect data on anyone, anywhere for any reason at all. Like the GDR for instance[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
kubanczyk 4y ago
The elders still sometimes say things like "shush, not over the phone". This didn't use to make sense for like 30-40 years, and, hey, it's a great comeback now.
- HeckFeck 4y ago
  My grandmother wouldn't give her bank details to anyone. She paid all her bills at the bank, cash in hand. She only had a phone line put in in the early 90s. I thought it was extreme at the time, but now who is laughing?
neongodzilla 4y ago
If "normal" people didn't care about privacy, HIPAA wouldn't have become a thing.

fezfight 4y ago

Good it happens at all. These people are the last bastions of hope.

eldaisfish 4y ago

this is my #1 complaint as well. These OSs must be easy to install and reliable. Having parts of the OS crash, dealing with the terminal, using ADB over USB... all of that makes zero sense to the average person or someone pressed for time. I now want my phone to work and that is why i use iOS. Having to replace the OS on your phone is already a step too far for most. The install instructions here require using the terminal and typing commands - not going to happen for most people. IMHO, the easiest path to adoption is to have a hardware manufacturer put this OS on their phones. No installation required.

COGlory 4y ago
>Having parts of the OS crash, dealing with the terminal, using ADB over USB... I bought a phone from /e/ and have never had this happen in almost 2 years.
- rglullis 4y ago
  Relax, OP is just reaching for whatever rationalization they can get to continue sucking on Apple's tit.
  - 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
    That's a shitty comment man
    - rglullis 4y ago
      What is shitty is this attitude of accepting the "solutions" sold by Big Tech and finding fault at whatever minuscule issue with the free alternatives. What is shitty is being on HackerNews and seeing (presumably tech-savvy) people more worried about the product's name and "marketing" instead of discussing the system on its technical merits. Or seeing comments like yours that think that privacy is something that only concerns a "small bubble". That is just not shitty, it is profoundly depressing.
commoner 4y ago
/e/ has partnerships with Fairphone and Teraphone to sell versions of their phones with /e/ preloaded. /e/'s sister company Murena produced its own phone (the Murena One) and they also sell refurbished Galaxy S9/S9+ phones preloaded with /e/: https://murena.com/products/smartphones/ https://murena.com/products/smartphones/ No terminal/ADB needed, and in my experience, /e/ is not crashy.

jlkuester7 4y ago

Honestly I am starting to hear it more and more from nontechnical folks. People are starting to realize that tech companies are profiting off their "private" data (just see the mainstream responses to Amazon acquiring Roomba). I now hear a lot of people saying they don't want Google/Amazon/etc to have all their data, but these folks are not sure how to avoid it.

renewiltord 4y ago

All the Apple billboards in SF on 280/101 tout their Privacy right now.

0xbadcafebee 4y ago
A Ford billboard might have a picture of a fancy cupholder to advertise their car has more cupholders; doesn't mean everyone's walking around talking about cupholders. (Though they will if they see that billboard)

amatecha 4y ago

I know a couple in their 70s who literally just switched away from using their ISP email because the ISP is adopting Gmail for the email service. People typically care about their privacy regardless of age or technical ability. Sometimes it just takes some basic understanding of just how deeply tech companies/services can invade their privacy. Most non-technical people simply don't grasp how shockingly omniscient tech corps are. That said, sometimes it can take a while for them to understand, even with regular discussions on the subject.

pessimizer 4y ago

> I have never heard any normal person ever talk about data privacy. I hear normal people talk about it all the time. The only place where I hear that only people on HN care about privacy is on HN, constantly. edit: I suspect that tech people who work on privacy-invading technologies live in a rationalization bubble that tells them that the complaints that they constantly hear are from a vanishingly small nerd contingent that they themselves just happen to immersed in. They don't believe their lying ears.

unethical_ban 4y ago

What is your point? You're using loaded terms like "normal" to contrast with people who are tech hobbyists, and you sound as if it is bad for an organization to care about something moral if few people care for it.

0xbadcafebee 4y ago
Because it's like a trope now where a tech person builds a thing that bothers them but nobody else, and meanwhile most people are like "I just want to do X, why is it so hard". Like why does my Android phone take up 15GB just for system files? I care about having free space more than data privacy. Security would sure be nice too, seeing as I use banking apps from this thing. Call me crazy, but I think most people care less about Nike knowing what their shoe size is, than they care about keeping their bank account safe or not running out of storage.
- autoexec 4y ago
  > Call me crazy, but I think most people care less about Nike knowing what their shoe size is They don't care because they don't understand. "Most people" think their shoe size or what ad they see doesn't matter because they're right, those things don't matter. What matters is that all of the data being collected about them will be used against them at every opportunity so that other people can get more money and power at their expense. The data they give up will be increasingly used in every aspect of their lives. Restaurants will use it to decide how long to leave them waiting on hold when they call for a reservation. Employers will decide to hire them or not based on their purchase history, their health, or their political views. Stores will decide how much to charge them vs their neighbors for the exact same products. The data they've been handing over will be used by corporations to extract more money from them. It will be used by by politicians who want to manipulate them and to create maps that will limit the ability for their votes to make any difference. It will be used by activists looking for people they can target for doing things they don't like. It will be used by law enforcement who will use that data against someone anytime they think it might help them make an arrest, or win a case in court. It will be used by their health insurance company to raise their rates when fast food spending in their zip code goes up. The data "Most people" gave up thinking it was about shoe size and ads will be leveraged against them in countless ways by people they've never had any direct interaction with at all. The data never goes away and it ends up in the hands of hackers and data brokers who sell it to others. "Most people" aren't allowed to know who is accessing their data, how accurate that data is, how (or if) it is being secured, or what the people who have their data will be using it for. Well, although they'll never be allowed to know specifically what their data will be used for, in a general sense they can be pretty sure it will be used to manipulate them, to categorize (and often miscategorize) them and to assign them a position in one or more unregulated digital caste systems that will increasingly limit their options and cause them to spend more money. They don't care about data privacy now, but as more of them figure out that what they've been giving up is going to impact the rest of their life in ways they couldn't imagine they're going to start caring more and more.

jrockway 4y ago

Yesterday I was reading that Facebook shares DMs with the police to find people that are thinking of leaving the state to get a medical procedure that is illegal in that state. Data privacy is now deeply relevant to 50% of the population that have reduced rights relative to the other 50%, they just might not know it yet.

acka 4y ago

0xbadcafebee: > I have never heard any normal person ever talk about data privacy. It feels like there's this giant bubble that the tech world lives in, and they are the only people who care about this issue. Honestly, I don't know if I've just missed your irony here, or if you don't realize there are lots of 'normal' people out there who have been thinking about this since like... the 50s of last century or something? Most certainly, they were talking about it (freely that is) since at least the 90s of the same century. Like, people who grew up under a totalitarian regime which could assign spies to eavesdrop and collect data on anyone, anywhere for any reason at all. Like the GDR for instance[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

kubanczyk 4y ago

The elders still sometimes say things like "shush, not over the phone". This didn't use to make sense for like 30-40 years, and, hey, it's a great comeback now.

HeckFeck 4y ago
My grandmother wouldn't give her bank details to anyone. She paid all her bills at the bank, cash in hand. She only had a phone line put in in the early 90s. I thought it was extreme at the time, but now who is laughing?

neongodzilla 4y ago

If "normal" people didn't care about privacy, HIPAA wouldn't have become a thing.