Big bro

Thread Starter

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/16/opinion/schneier-internet-surveillance/index.html?c&page=1

I've been saying this for a while now. It doesn't matter if you use your real name online, or if you refuse to use google, or anything really. There is no such thing as anonymity or privacy. You could probably be tracked through the internet even if you don't even use the internet. If the Government, or anybody really, wants to track you, they can. If I look real hard for something comforting in all of this, the only thing I can come up with is maybe that I haven't given anybody a reason to track me (that I know of).
 

DerStrom8

Joined Feb 20, 2011
2,390
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/16/opinion/schneier-internet-surveillance/index.html?c&page=1

I've been saying this for a while now. It doesn't matter if you use your real name online, or if you refuse to use google, or anything really. There is no such thing as anonymity or privacy. You could probably be tracked through the internet even if you don't even use the internet. If the Government, or anybody really, wants to track you, they can. If I look real hard for something comforting in all of this, the only thing I can come up with is maybe that I haven't given anybody a reason to track me (that I know of).
This is a pretty daring thread. I can see it getting very political very fast.... :eek:
 

takao21203

Joined Apr 28, 2012
3,702
Anything you do not potentially want to be seen by random anonymus, you probably should not add to the internet.

There is not yet a law for online identity, as the private civil laws are quite different from country to country.

But I do not think you are allowed to lie about your identity. For instance using a false photo without the same act being obvious, or lying about your gender, employer etc. could be a criminal act, even if such information is given voluntarily.

Using a pseudonym is a legally recognized act under private civil law in many countries. Many authors and politicans did it professionally.

So if you use a made up internet ID it has the purpose to identify your behaviour on the internet. You should stick to it. The more memberships and websites you can demonstrate over a number of years with the same internet ID, the more people can trust you.

Meeting someone from the internet locally is not regulated by any kind of law, so let's say this legal situation is not meant to be in the first place.

In a decade or two, we will have regulations about all that.
 

praondevou

Joined Jul 9, 2011
2,942
So even if companies know what my buying habits are, what sites I frequently access, what can they do with that information?

The ads on Google for example which are related to my search I always ignore. Just from the search results on Google or the first page of a link I clicked on I can already determine if it is what I was looking for.

We are becoming used to useless ads, it's not that hard to identify them.

And advertisment in my mail goes directly to the trash bin. I don't feel harrassed by personalized ads.
 

edwardholmes91

Joined Feb 25, 2013
210
I heard a fact the other day about the number of times you can be seen on CCTV in an average day. I can't remember the number but we were talking 60+ or something! I suppose it depends on where you work and what you do, but thinking about it, it soon adds up! In work, on your way to work, in the shops on the way home, down the high street!

Someone I know went to a CCTV centre for a trip and they asked the group of people if someone would volunteer their car registration for a demonstration. They typed it in, found her car and traced her route to and from work, what time she traveled, 5 days a week, Monday to Friday. So with a tiny amount of information and a simple search on their system they could track a lot of her moves in her car. I suppose this should make me feel safer... knowing that if something happened the likelihood of them catching the perpetrator is quite high, but I'm not sure as I like the idea of it!

I try not to post anything too personal on the internet because I don't want personal information going out to people I don't know, but you do have to be very careful these days. I can bet, even if you don't use the internet or computers, you will be on the internet somewhere in some shape or form. You may be on a photo at a party or someone may mention you in a blog. The chances of having a 0% internet presence is virtually nil, unless you live in hiding all your life!
 

MrChips

Joined Oct 2, 2009
30,712
Every time you visit a website or search google for something that is information they have on you.
Every time you use your credit card, same thing happens.
 

takao21203

Joined Apr 28, 2012
3,702
Every time you visit a website or search google for something that is information they have on you.
Every time you use your credit card, same thing happens.
They are only allowed to keep search history for 18 months or so. Also only law enforcement is entitled to match it up with your street address through the ISP.

Google etc. may voluntarily know who you are in some cases but that's it.
 

shortbus

Joined Sep 30, 2009
10,045
Any one use the "points" cards in a store? They do the same thing. That's one way they no what brand of something to carry or promote.
 

Thread Starter

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
So even if companies know what my buying habits are, what sites I frequently access, what can they do with that information?

The ads on Google for example which are related to my search I always ignore. Just from the search results on Google or the first page of a link I clicked on I can already determine if it is what I was looking for.

We are becoming used to useless ads, it's not that hard to identify them.

And advertisment in my mail goes directly to the trash bin. I don't feel harrassed by personalized ads.
Would you be OK with someone standing outside your house all day peering through your windows, so long as they didn't touch themselves when your wife undresses or sell pictures of you in the shower? I know that's a hyperbolic analogy, but do actually consider it. The only reason you're OK with being spied on online but not in your home is because you can't see the beady little eyes outside the window. But they are there. For a less hyperbolic analogy, would you let a google employee stand behind you and watch your every move as you use the computer? Probably not I assume. Creepy having a stranger physically there, when you can feel their eyes on you. So why is there a difference between having the spy on your side of the web or their side? it's the same web.

I worry not so much about what they can do with my browsing habits in the present, but what implications my present browsing habits may have, or might be construed to have, in the future. Things are always changing. Overnight, mundane things can have unanticipated meaning. To meld past and present for the sake of example, let's say that we had the same political climate, the same internet, and the same level of intrusion for the past 15 years. If you were a patriotic non-partisan American with a penchant for speaking out about corruption in the government and who had a muslim family and you posted something derogatory about the government on Sept. 10, 2001, you might have wound up in quite a bind. They might have pooled their terrabytes of information about you, and painted quite a scary picture of you. You frequent "anti-government" websites (whistle-blowing blogs), you have "ties to al queda" (you know, your second cousin Achmed who you've never met), you bought weapons and ammunition online (texas gun trader, hunting rifle), you navigated to a tutorial on how to make improvised weapons (out of curiosity, and partly by accident), you requested advice on an electronics forum on how build a remote device that could be used to detonate a bomb (a bluetooth activated relay for a chicken coop), you googled the address of the World Trade Center and looked at it's picture on google street view (too poor to make a vacation there), and you looked into getting a pilot's license (as well as a marriage license, welding certificate, and merchant mariner's document). Congrats, yesterday you were a normal dude, today you're most likely a terrorist. Imagine if Mccarthy had had the internet and all it's spying capacity at his fingertips.
 

thatoneguy

Joined Feb 19, 2009
6,359
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/16/opinion/schneier-internet-surveillance/index.html?c&page=1

I've been saying this for a while now. It doesn't matter if you use your real name online, or if you refuse to use google, or anything really. There is no such thing as anonymity or privacy. You could probably be tracked through the internet even if you don't even use the internet. If the Government, or anybody really, wants to track you, they can. If I look real hard for something comforting in all of this, the only thing I can come up with is maybe that I haven't given anybody a reason to track me (that I know of).
It doesn't matter. If the government decides you are guilty, you are. No matter which government or country.
 

Metalmann

Joined Dec 8, 2012
703
All this spying the Feds are doing, is to be used in the future.

Google
"Fusion Centers". Last I heard, they have built 77+ data centers. Billions of dollars.

Today, Obama admitted that they will spy/keep records; of everybody.


Just a few years ago, all this was considered Conspiracy Theories. The Patriot Act, and the NDAA, destroyed our civil liberties. Actually, it is Congress; who does the destroying part. A few years ago, Janet Napolitano said that we are ALL considered "potential terrorists." That's when I knew for sure, we are on a collapsing stage.

Think what our Grandchildren will have to put up with.:(

Some real life events, cannot be considered non-political. Because, it affects us all.

And, people keeping quiet; is what got us to this stage.
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
Perhaps, but AAC is not the place. So far we have kept within bounds, so I have no beef, but at no time is this site meant to be used for political points of view, no matter how much I may agree with them.

Just a heads up. Carry on.
 
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