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""Make Orwell fiction again,…"" Tragically, in the present political and economic environment it's a lost cause. Just about everywhere governments are against

""Make Orwell fiction again,…"" Tragically, in the present political and economic environment it's a lost cause. Just about everywhere governments are against it with their incessant push towards increasing surveillance and backdooring encryption. Big Tech—Google, Meta, Microsoft et al including their greedy shareholders—are now financially dependent on income from surveillance and ensuring privacy is nuked. If "Making Orwell fiction again" were to actually happen the economies of these trillion-dollar companies would be in jeopardy. With such enormous sums at stake and dogged persistence from authoritarian governments it's just not going to happen anytime soon.

rolandog 1y ago
> With such enormous sums at stake and dogged persistence from authoritarian governments it's just not going to happen anytime soon. Not with that attitude! We need to help inform our friends and families about how easily things can be misused against their will; case in point, the recent DEF CON presentation on smart "vape detectors" that have microphones [0]. [0]: https://youtu.be/WCnojaEpF2I https://youtu.be/WCnojaEpF2I
- hilbert42 1y ago
  "We need to help inform our friends and families about how easily things can be misused against their will;" With the 'convenience' world of the modern internet and millions of users addicted to smartphones and Social Media I defy you to show me that that approach actually works (to date there's little or no evidence that it does). Telling a heroin addict to give up doesn't work, same goes for 'electronic heroin'. I'd bet you've not given up your smartphone or Social Media. And how about your gmail account?
  - rolandog 1y ago
    > Telling a heroin addict to give up doesn't work, same goes for 'electronic heroin'. I'd bet you've not given up your smartphone or Social Media. And how about your gmail account? It's all about continuous improvements. We shouldn't "No true Scotsman"-fallacy ourselves into inaction.
    - 0xEF 1y ago
      The thing is, for the surveillance state to be completely obliterated, what the previous commenter said is only a sliver of what has to happen. Yes, consumers would have to put all their devices in the trash, disconnect everything from the Internet and never use it again, etc, but also start tearing out telephone poles, police vehicles, anything with a camera or microphone, etc. That is daunting, so it's understandable why so many either just give up the fight or satisfy themselves with some limp-wristed attempt like just running an ad blocker or VPN or something and calling it good. The diligence required to stay either low or off (if you are lucky) the radar, as it were, is so exhausting as to be impossible for the common tech consumer. I tried it, for a long time and it came to be known as a War of Attrition in my head because it is one that I no longer believe we can win, having passed the point of no return by trading our privacy for safety and convenience over the course of three decades; a victory by inches for the tech companies, to be sure. The funny part is, my problem was never with hackers, so the way the rhetoric spewed over the years claimed that this is all for my own safety never clicked with me. "Your data is safe with us!" Okay, who are you, who are you connected to or funded by and what cause do I have to trust you? I learned at a pretty young age that if someone is telling you "this is for your own good" they're the ones exploiting you. So now we have copious amounts of categorized data in the hands of entities that not only make massive profit from it, but will (if they have not already) turn it over to the increasingly conservative world governments who enjoy making lists of people they don't like. And we all know where that leads.
      - hilbert42 1y ago
        "The diligence required to stay either low or off (if you are lucky) the radar, as it were, is so exhausting as to be impossible for the common tech consumer." Right, I nevertheless still attempt to keep a low profile by having no Social Media or Google (phone) accounts, no gmail, using rooted phones sans Google apps, blocking both ads and JavaScript, forcing utilities to send me bills by snail mail, etc.; but as you say it's really a lost cause especially if one takes it seriously and really wants to remain anonymous on the net. I act more out of principal than anything else. Also, I'm quite happy for family and people who know me to just contact me by phone, SMS and or email—or even snail mail (if you read my subsequent reply to the earlier comment it's pretty clear I've no Social Media addiction, not caring a damn about that stuff makes lowering one's profile easier). I take the view that government already knows full well who I am especially given that it once employed me to do surveillance work. (No, I'm not acting hypocritically here, that work wasn't sussing out citizens but keeping an eye on nuclear materials—stopping it falling into wrong hands.) What really annoys me is how pernicious and underhanded surveillance capitalism is. For example, despite the steps I've taken above, it only takes one or two people with Google accounts to enter my details into their phone and gmail accounts for Google to figure out who I am. Telling friends and acquaintances not to enter one's details into their phones is a hopeless task. Google can further tighen up my address details by 'triangulation'—cross-referencing it using my neighbors' WiFi to get my SSID info, etc. Yes, I could hide that info but it's too much trouble. In my other reply it's clear that governments dropped the ball early on with respect to user privacy, what I didn't mention was that it didn't take them long to realize that having Big Tech to do the heavy lifting with respect to surveiling citizens was and is a great advantage. Thus, their great reluctance to act. Dodging both Big Tech and government is essentially fruitless. The best I can do is to render the data collected for advertising purposes worthless. To date, at least to my knowledge, I've been successful as I've never received any targeted advertising. But then how would I ever know given that I've always been very efficient at blocking ads? :-)
librasteve 1y ago
yeah someone should tell Putin that its not an instruction manual

rolandog 1y ago

> With such enormous sums at stake and dogged persistence from authoritarian governments it's just not going to happen anytime soon. Not with that attitude! We need to help inform our friends and families about how easily things can be misused against their will; case in point, the recent DEF CON presentation on smart "vape detectors" that have microphones [0]. [0]: https://youtu.be/WCnojaEpF2I https://youtu.be/WCnojaEpF2I

hilbert42 1y ago
"We need to help inform our friends and families about how easily things can be misused against their will;" With the 'convenience' world of the modern internet and millions of users addicted to smartphones and Social Media I defy you to show me that that approach actually works (to date there's little or no evidence that it does). Telling a heroin addict to give up doesn't work, same goes for 'electronic heroin'. I'd bet you've not given up your smartphone or Social Media. And how about your gmail account?
- rolandog 1y ago
  > Telling a heroin addict to give up doesn't work, same goes for 'electronic heroin'. I'd bet you've not given up your smartphone or Social Media. And how about your gmail account? It's all about continuous improvements. We shouldn't "No true Scotsman"-fallacy ourselves into inaction.
  - 0xEF 1y ago
    The thing is, for the surveillance state to be completely obliterated, what the previous commenter said is only a sliver of what has to happen. Yes, consumers would have to put all their devices in the trash, disconnect everything from the Internet and never use it again, etc, but also start tearing out telephone poles, police vehicles, anything with a camera or microphone, etc. That is daunting, so it's understandable why so many either just give up the fight or satisfy themselves with some limp-wristed attempt like just running an ad blocker or VPN or something and calling it good. The diligence required to stay either low or off (if you are lucky) the radar, as it were, is so exhausting as to be impossible for the common tech consumer. I tried it, for a long time and it came to be known as a War of Attrition in my head because it is one that I no longer believe we can win, having passed the point of no return by trading our privacy for safety and convenience over the course of three decades; a victory by inches for the tech companies, to be sure. The funny part is, my problem was never with hackers, so the way the rhetoric spewed over the years claimed that this is all for my own safety never clicked with me. "Your data is safe with us!" Okay, who are you, who are you connected to or funded by and what cause do I have to trust you? I learned at a pretty young age that if someone is telling you "this is for your own good" they're the ones exploiting you. So now we have copious amounts of categorized data in the hands of entities that not only make massive profit from it, but will (if they have not already) turn it over to the increasingly conservative world governments who enjoy making lists of people they don't like. And we all know where that leads.
    - hilbert42 1y ago
      "The diligence required to stay either low or off (if you are lucky) the radar, as it were, is so exhausting as to be impossible for the common tech consumer." Right, I nevertheless still attempt to keep a low profile by having no Social Media or Google (phone) accounts, no gmail, using rooted phones sans Google apps, blocking both ads and JavaScript, forcing utilities to send me bills by snail mail, etc.; but as you say it's really a lost cause especially if one takes it seriously and really wants to remain anonymous on the net. I act more out of principal than anything else. Also, I'm quite happy for family and people who know me to just contact me by phone, SMS and or email—or even snail mail (if you read my subsequent reply to the earlier comment it's pretty clear I've no Social Media addiction, not caring a damn about that stuff makes lowering one's profile easier). I take the view that government already knows full well who I am especially given that it once employed me to do surveillance work. (No, I'm not acting hypocritically here, that work wasn't sussing out citizens but keeping an eye on nuclear materials—stopping it falling into wrong hands.) What really annoys me is how pernicious and underhanded surveillance capitalism is. For example, despite the steps I've taken above, it only takes one or two people with Google accounts to enter my details into their phone and gmail accounts for Google to figure out who I am. Telling friends and acquaintances not to enter one's details into their phones is a hopeless task. Google can further tighen up my address details by 'triangulation'—cross-referencing it using my neighbors' WiFi to get my SSID info, etc. Yes, I could hide that info but it's too much trouble. In my other reply it's clear that governments dropped the ball early on with respect to user privacy, what I didn't mention was that it didn't take them long to realize that having Big Tech to do the heavy lifting with respect to surveiling citizens was and is a great advantage. Thus, their great reluctance to act. Dodging both Big Tech and government is essentially fruitless. The best I can do is to render the data collected for advertising purposes worthless. To date, at least to my knowledge, I've been successful as I've never received any targeted advertising. But then how would I ever know given that I've always been very efficient at blocking ads? :-)

librasteve 1y ago

yeah someone should tell Putin that its not an instruction manual