This might be old hat to some -myself included- but I feel this is a topic worthy of discussion or at least this post has merit. [ame="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-383709537384528624"]Toor2122 - Steve Rambam - Privacy Is Dead - Get Over It[/ame] This video is 2 hours long. What I'm going to type isn't giving it justice. It goes into vast detail about how your privacy is dead. You have none. The video was made in 2006/7 (I think) and it has vast techological advances that companies, sites and individuals can gain information about you that in my opinion should be unavailable to everyone but me (speaking about me as an individual, not that I should be able to get your information). The first half goes into the information I'll list shortly. The second half of the video goes into a "guinea pig" mode where the presenter goes about finding out information and goes on further and there is a short Q&A at the end of it as well. It ranges from the following but not limited to: Yahoo Google Amazon.com (or similar) shopping purchase or queries any email you send cross-compiling (ie. if you have a cat and enjoy chunky peanut butter you're more than likely to buy a VW beatle than if you don't enjoy those things) if you've got a phone and you've got it on - you can be found all ISPs will log where you surf. if you have a static ip - they own you The guy goes on about how every action we make in life is or can be found out. Social networking sites? Facebook? Myspace? With the information most people post -voluntarily- on those sites anyone (as of the moment) can most likely gain enough information to really screw with someones life. okay you've just logged into thephins.com and you want to check up on the football happenings around the league. or one of your friends has sent you a private message. you had to register to the phins with an email address that was valid. all that can be traced back to your ISP, which can be traced back to your home info, which can then get your name and SSN, which can get a whole host of other information. all your grocery shopping.. if you have one of those cards that gets you good deals. it's all marketed. there is really so much more. it is really creepy to me. and some of it is with good intent, i'm sure, but there are other things that really stand out to me. there is a company that has a permanent record of everything about you. that information is given to the government. think about that for a minute. there is no anonymity anymore. it is gone. for those of you who have read 1984 - and for those of you who haven't I fully recommend it NOW - this is it or damn near close to it... and my gut tells me that we're already here. there's not really much anyone can really do about it. it's just something I feel that everyone should be aware of.
dont do anything stupid and it wont matter. the gov't has no reason to look at what im doing, and its gonna stay that way.
so you're ok with the fact that any joe with an internet connection can get all the information about your entire life, and then do whatever they want with that information?
i seen the first hour of this video. so far it has been an endless list of the ways that average identity theives, big business, and the goverment collect and use data. Marketing has gotten out of control. Its a relentless beast that cant be stopped. There are people who want to know everything about you so that they can pretend to be you. There are people who want to know everything about you so that they can sell you something. There are people who want to know everything about you so they can find out what youve been doing. There are people who want to know everything about you so that they can sell it to other people who want to know everything about you. Its horrible.
Oh, I think Felix is dead on , and it perpetuates into the private sector as well. IF you spend lots of time looking into questionable things on the net, chances are somebody is going to take an opportunity to exploit you. Truth is, there are how many millions of people on the internet every day? There are not enough "Bad People" out there to figure out what everybody is about. The filter is they look for keys of exploitation. Be smart, and you wont be exploited IMO. Posted from Lucky's mobile. PS: Az is an asshat
not true at all. anyone could pick you at random from a database and decide to ruin your life. happens to people every day.
thing is, with globalization, you wont find many countries who arent doing the same. you have to go to some desolate fourth world place to escape it, and it wont be long before they are swept up too. ive heard the same ol line, if you dont do anything wrong you got nothing to worry about. unfourtantely its not that simple. you couild always be a victim of mistaken id or what not. its just not easy to just go and bury your head in the sand and think you got nothing to worry about. This is part of the new world order and you and me are f*cked.
I can't believe you guys haven't detected the irony in my post Also, for the record, its Head in the sand, not Hand.
IMO it's not just "don't do anything stupid and they won't have a reason to use any of it against you" it's "they shouldn't have the right to know 3/4ths of the stuff they can know." there's just so many ways that this is going to turn negative and it's very, very frightening. they shouldn't have the right to sell my information and make money off it either. i could use a decent bit of money right now and i'm sure these companies aren't just paying 20 bucks to figure out what kind of things I like. I'm sure it's a substantial amount of cash... and it might not include "just me" that they're purchasing at the moment (probably more like databases at a time) but at any rate I should be able to sell that information only if i want to and I should be the only one getting paid for it. I am the only one living my life. and what do they care what I purchase, look at, where I surf online, who I talk to, where i'm walking, where i'm driving, where i'm living and probably at some point what I'm thinking. it's down right invasive.
hey shuttup and just live with it buddy. corporate america can buy and sell 1000 of you so you just better shut up.
also, just to point this out because i have a feeling the majority of people here are windows users (I use windows and linux). In the EULA (end user license agreement) that you have to check "yes" to before you install your operating system on your computer it gives Microsoft a whole bunch of these rights. They can use information related to Windows. Mainly they say it's for pirated software but basically (this is the way the guy put it) that "every baby ship phones home to the mothership" or something similar to that. Just because I know I didn't read the EULA when I put it on my machine (machine is useless without an OS and I didn't learn linux until recently) I went and read it here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/eula/home.mspx I'm not sure what the EULA on the mac is but I didn't sign anything like that when I installed linux, and I'm very happy for that.
the guy explains in the second half of that video that the gov't is shutting off private investigators to some of that information. he went on to say that even at the time it was becoming hard for him to look up certain information and he had to gather a subpoena. so if they're shutting it off from PI's you can damn well be certain it's shut off to the regular joe.
I agree it is extremely disturbing but what are our options to avoid it? Become a hermit and shy away from modern technology? Its terrible to know what is going on around you and knowing that it will get worse isn't any better but honestly what can you do besides just play a game of "privacy" Russian roulette? Oh yeah and thanks anlgp for only adding to my many paranoias in life.
This is a pet issue for me, the level of Government data collection is massive, ditto the private sector, to me such information should be available upon request by the person they are keeping the information on. That said, when one uses Facebook or Myspace or what have you, one is broadcasting the smallest details of one's life to whomever glances at your page, if one wishes to maintain privacy then the first thing you must do is...keep things private...
