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Google has a service that shows you some of what they know about you. Last time I checked they were WAY off the mark about me, and I use Google products for nea

Google has a service that shows you some of what they know about you. Last time I checked they were WAY off the mark about me, and I use Google products for nearly everything. Aside from that, I'm not really sure why I should be offended about being given more relevant ads. Being advertised to doesn't annoy me when I actually want the thing being advertised. A very well targeted ad would tell me about a product I want that I didn't know was available. I'm happy when I get an email from Valve letting me know that a Steam sale has begun because I really love their service. On the other hand, I sometimes get ads for booze (probably because I'm a 29 year old male) despite the fact that I don't drink. I get ads for religious groups (probably because I frequent atheism sites) which I have zero interest in. Those are badly targeted ads that annoy me. Aside from political dissidents under oppressive regimes, I don't see much reason for people to worry about someone trying to figure out what you like. Every time I meet some tech savvy developer who only uses a Linux distro he built himself to avoid government spying, runs all his phone calls through encryption software, and encrypts his entire hard drive on every device, I immediately wonder if he's a paranoid schizophrenic or has very illegal hobbies. I know that sounds harsh, but it's what goes through my head. If you disagree then please enlighten me. Am I being dangerously nieve? What specific things should I be concerned about that I'm not? I'd appreciate links to news articles showing that you're talking about things that are actually happening and not just hypotheticals. I'm not worried about what-ifs.

nisa 14y ago
> Aside from political dissidents under oppressive regimes, I don't see much reason for people to worry about someone trying to figure out what you like I don't share the Google paranoia but It's not about what you like or don't like. It's more a profile of you. That means Google is (in theory) able to identify to a certain degree if you are sick, if you have problems with the law or any other other personal trait that may be problematic. Your insurance company would probably like to know about this. Your employer would also like to know about it. I'm certain that Google won't share this data but others might do. > Every time I meet some tech savvy developer who only uses a Linux distro he built himself to avoid government spying, runs all his phone calls through encryption software, and encrypts his entire hard drive on every device, I immediately wonder if he's a paranoid schizophrenic or has very illegal hobbies. That is a slightly rephrased variant of "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry". And it's unrelated to Google IMHO, so I'll talk only about encryption here: It's not the government, it's also other companies. And it's great to have the possibility to encrypt your HDD and be anonymous. You don't need to be in an oppressed country, look at Wikileaks, journalistic work, industrial espionage. There are lots of legit cases for encryption. I'm doing freelance work, I have several root passwords on my hdd. For me it's logical to encrypt the drive. The only technical somewhat secure way to encrypt your drive is full disk encryption. I think my clients deserve that I'm not leaking their passwords when my laptop is stolen. > Am I being dangerously nieve? What specific things should I be concerned about that I'm not? If you are a company: Industrial espionage, malicious hackers, law enforcement If you are a private citizen you probably want to control the data trails you leave. They can bite you have bitten numerous others. You can e.g. easily create graphs of your social connections and cluster you based on these. You can then make assumptions about these clusters. That means your mobile provider knows where you are and were your connections are. Now when law enforcement decides to collect these data from a whole city the structure of your group is clear. You can identify influencing persons and concentrate on these. This happens, last I checked activism was not illegal.

nisa 14y ago

> Aside from political dissidents under oppressive regimes, I don't see much reason for people to worry about someone trying to figure out what you like I don't share the Google paranoia but It's not about what you like or don't like. It's more a profile of you. That means Google is (in theory) able to identify to a certain degree if you are sick, if you have problems with the law or any other other personal trait that may be problematic. Your insurance company would probably like to know about this. Your employer would also like to know about it. I'm certain that Google won't share this data but others might do. > Every time I meet some tech savvy developer who only uses a Linux distro he built himself to avoid government spying, runs all his phone calls through encryption software, and encrypts his entire hard drive on every device, I immediately wonder if he's a paranoid schizophrenic or has very illegal hobbies. That is a slightly rephrased variant of "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry". And it's unrelated to Google IMHO, so I'll talk only about encryption here: It's not the government, it's also other companies. And it's great to have the possibility to encrypt your HDD and be anonymous. You don't need to be in an oppressed country, look at Wikileaks, journalistic work, industrial espionage. There are lots of legit cases for encryption. I'm doing freelance work, I have several root passwords on my hdd. For me it's logical to encrypt the drive. The only technical somewhat secure way to encrypt your drive is full disk encryption. I think my clients deserve that I'm not leaking their passwords when my laptop is stolen. > Am I being dangerously nieve? What specific things should I be concerned about that I'm not? If you are a company: Industrial espionage, malicious hackers, law enforcement If you are a private citizen you probably want to control the data trails you leave. They can bite you have bitten numerous others. You can e.g. easily create graphs of your social connections and cluster you based on these. You can then make assumptions about these clusters. That means your mobile provider knows where you are and were your connections are. Now when law enforcement decides to collect these data from a whole city the structure of your group is clear. You can identify influencing persons and concentrate on these. This happens, last I checked activism was not illegal.