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Ads on your phone can aid government surveillance

mindslight 3y ago
It's so disheartening that commercial surveillance has to be eventually linked to and framed in terms of government surveillance to get many people to even possibly care. The US political machine has been extremely successful at pushing this false dichotomy of "government" xor "business" when the two actually have quite similar imperatives, mechanisms, and failings - resulting in great harm to individual liberty.
- unfairthere 3y ago
  I think like most people, you have the chicken and egg backwards. People know our government is neigh-encouraging corporations to collect personal data to feed into their pipeline(s). To take on the corpations is to take on the government. Those in the U.S. have little control over either in this case.
  - mindslight 3y ago
    Saying "backwards" implies a single direction causality, when it's more like a bidirectional synergy where each supports the other (like "chicken and egg" for that matter). You seem to be attributing all commercial surveillance to the desires of the government, which is obviously not true given that the business reasons for surveillance stand on their own. It is however far too easy to write off those business reasons as "legitimate", while ignoring that they form their own systems of control.
- g-b-r 3y ago
  I can sort of understand how someone could decide to trust a single company though*, and only see things differently after realizing who else will or might have access to the data * especially when it's too inconvenient not to
t0e 3y ago
https://archive.ph/RmOh1 https://archive.ph/RmOh1
miohtama 3y ago
Israeli (Pegasus malware et. al.) are spread through ad networks https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/16/insanet_spyware/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/16/insanet_spyware/
- lacrimacida 3y ago
  Yeah, and through chumboxes like outbrain and taboola that I’ve been wondering what value bring for a long time..
g-b-r 3y ago
This is really a surprise for someone??
- pavel_lishin 3y ago
  Every day, someone's one of the lucky 10,000: https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/

It's so disheartening that commercial surveillance has to be eventually linked to and framed in terms of government surveillance to get many people to even possibly care. The US political machine has been extremely successful at pushing this false dichotomy of "government" xor "business" when the two actually have quite similar imperatives, mechanisms, and failings - resulting in great harm to individual liberty.

unfairthere 3y ago
I think like most people, you have the chicken and egg backwards. People know our government is neigh-encouraging corporations to collect personal data to feed into their pipeline(s). To take on the corpations is to take on the government. Those in the U.S. have little control over either in this case.
- mindslight 3y ago
  Saying "backwards" implies a single direction causality, when it's more like a bidirectional synergy where each supports the other (like "chicken and egg" for that matter). You seem to be attributing all commercial surveillance to the desires of the government, which is obviously not true given that the business reasons for surveillance stand on their own. It is however far too easy to write off those business reasons as "legitimate", while ignoring that they form their own systems of control.
g-b-r 3y ago
I can sort of understand how someone could decide to trust a single company though*, and only see things differently after realizing who else will or might have access to the data * especially when it's too inconvenient not to

t0e 3y ago

https://archive.ph/RmOh1 https://archive.ph/RmOh1

miohtama 3y ago

Israeli (Pegasus malware et. al.) are spread through ad networks https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/16/insanet_spyware/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/16/insanet_spyware/

lacrimacida 3y ago
Yeah, and through chumboxes like outbrain and taboola that I’ve been wondering what value bring for a long time..

g-b-r 3y ago

This is really a surprise for someone??

pavel_lishin 3y ago
Every day, someone's one of the lucky 10,000: https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/