# Where Do We Draw The Line Between Pragmatism And Paranoia?



## RedPhoenix (Jul 18, 2019)

First, drhowarddrfine, let me stress this one point. I'm not against marketing. I don't mind ads. People have to make a living. But I value my privacy. It's one of the reasons why I use FreeBSD (it has more options than Linux that cater to the security-minded). So now that that's out of the way... It seems as if many of us don't know where that line is. Some of us go to reasonable lengths so we don't suddenly get PUPs by clicking on cleverly designed buttons disguised as "Download", etc.. Some (thankfully not myself) go to other lengths on the deep end. I asked about blocking ads and tracking on the DNS level, not just to maintain security and privacy, but to study and understand how it works. Some of you might not know this, but I have a deep interest in how various Technologies work. Which means that I might try to implement things that some might deem unnecessary. And, though you may not know it, I actually have Autism, and don't really have a family or many friends to go on trips with, and so I have a lot of time to devote to my small business of installations on people's Hardware and just learning things. Anyway, where do you guys stand on this issue? Thanks for your time, and please, no hammers.


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## obsigna (Jul 18, 2019)

_„We“_ are many people. Personally, I draw the line when counter-measures start to prevent me from doing useful things and/or consume too much of my valuable time.

So, I go for tools that after installation need almost zero maintenance.

However, my issue with tracking and targeting is not actually my Privacy as such. A year ago, I wrote:


			
				https://obsigna.com/articles/1528644109.html said:
			
		

> Targeting defeats the Age of Reason, it substitutes reason by choice, and it turns citizens into tools, i.e. fools. However, Google Analytics is no more a battle to fight, this has been lost already.


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## trev (Jul 18, 2019)

While there may be some who still place some value on their privacy, the vast majority care not at all and have already willingly sold themselves to the likes of Facebook et al. The Internet-related privacy battle has already been lost.

Even for those who gone out of their way to be careful. For example, I have never signed up for nor used Facebook. Yet nonetheless Facebook know certain things about me. How? Friends who do use Facebook and post annotated photos in which I appear, have Facebook email me Facebook "invites" etc.

I too am guilty by necessity. I avoided signing up for a PayPal account for as long as I could. Nonetheless, sometimes I had no choice but to use a credit card via PayPal. After some arbitrary number of transactions, PayPal started rejecting my credit card unless I signed up for a PayPal account. So, I either stopped purchasing from any merchant who only accepted PayPal or signed up for an account. I signed up for an account. Lo and behold, every transaction where I'd used any of my credit cards through PayPal previously was already nicely listed in my transaction history.

I had  a similar experience with Google. I once owned an Android tablet which required a Google account. Wandering around the various privacy-related options I noticed Google had listed every YouTube video I had viewed. It didn't stop there. There was also a list of my "friends" being anyone who had ever emailed me from a Gmail account. I think I recall there also being a list of all the Google Documents I had viewed.

The privacy horse has well and truly bolted, no point trying to lock that barn door now. 

All of which is not to say that I don't still attempt to put in place counter-measures. However, such measures now only serve to limit, not prevent, any invasion of privacy or, as obsigna noted above, behavioural or psychological manipulation.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Jul 18, 2019)

trev said:


> Even for those who gone out of their way to be careful. For example, I have never signed up for nor used Facebook. Yet nonetheless Facebook know certain things about me. How? Friends who do use Facebook and post annotated photos in which I appear, have Facebook email me Facebook "invites" etc.



Actually it's worse than that. One is likely to cruise by a web site that has a Facebook icon that calls home. Check your cookies and there is generally a present from facebook. That's a whole other level of tracking there. But yeah, you probably knew that already. 



trev said:


> The privacy horse has well and truly bolted, no point trying to lock that barn door now.



I see it slightly differently. Most people seem to suggest that their name and/or other information being available on the internet is a bad thing. Being of the generation where a physical "phone book" was distributed, even including house address and profession, I still like to be able to find people and be found by others. The real problem is actually large databases used for antagonistic purposes. By antagonistic I mean things which are not in one's personal interest. That includes the massive databases accumulated via loyalty cards (not even online) and other activities of data brokers, as well as police state type activities. So, my approach is to obfuscate. Without going too far out of my way, I try to make the information gathered in those places less complete and less useful.

I think the title of this thread alludes to a difference between those who try to make everything perfect, even when that is not possible, and those who are able to think it through in a manner that is actually relevant to their life. I don't waste my time on the unachievable, and I'm not paranoid - but I also don't give up.


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## ucomp (Jul 18, 2019)

General Data Protection Regulation - Wikipedia
					






					en.m.wikipedia.org
				




have fun discussing


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## forquare (Jul 18, 2019)

obsigna said:


> Personally, I draw the line when counter-measures start to prevent me from doing useful things and/or consume too much of my valuable time.



I think this is my general premise, also.

When it comes to services that I can self-host, I am slowly doing so.  I think the only Google service I frequent is YouTube, aside from that I have nothing consciously to do with them (though I'm certainly being tracked around the web by them and am likely using their services indirectly).
Like RedPhoenix, much of what I do at home aids learning and satisfies some sort of itch.  My current service to reclaim is email - but this is less because I am privacy conscience, and more because I am curious.

While in principal I don't mind companies having data, I do mind when they use it to exploit and manipulate me.  It then pains me to find, once they've taken my data and exploited me, that they've not taken care of it and given it away in a security breach.


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## RedPhoenix (Jul 18, 2019)

forquare said:


> I think this is my general premise, also.
> 
> When it comes to services that I can self-host, I am slowly doing so.  I think the only Google service I frequent is YouTube, aside from that I have nothing consciously to do with them (though I'm certainly being tracked around the web by them and am likely using their services indirectly).
> Like RedPhoenix, much of what I do at home aids learning and satisfies some sort of itch.  My current service to reclaim is email - but this is less because I am privacy conscience, and more because I am curious.
> ...


Yes.  This.  This is exactly the point I was trying to make in my post about ad blocking and blocking tracking in FreeBSD as a Server OS.  But as you stated, I do not mind tracking, up to a point. For instance, I make a point to install bsdstats from the repository on every new FreeBSD installation (I really should get to installing it on my Server).  Thanks for your thoughts on this important issue!


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## RedPhoenix (Jul 18, 2019)

OJ said:


> Actually it's worse than that. One is likely to cruise by a web site that has a Facebook icon that calls home. Check your cookies and there is generally a present from facebook. That's a whole other level of tracking there. But yeah, you probably knew that already.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Well said, OJ.


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## RedPhoenix (Jul 18, 2019)

ucomp said:


> General Data Protection Regulation - Wikipedia
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This will make for some interesting reading.  But, I live in the U.S., and encryption isn't banned here (yet). :\


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## RedPhoenix (Jul 18, 2019)

trev said:


> While there may be some who still place some value on their privacy, the vast majority care not at all and have already willingly sold themselves to the likes of Facebook et al. The Internet-related privacy battle has already been lost.
> 
> Even for those who gone out of their way to be careful. For example, I have never signed up for nor used Facebook. Yet nonetheless Facebook know certain things about me. How? Friends who do use Facebook and post annotated photos in which I appear, have Facebook email me Facebook "invites" etc.
> 
> ...


It does sound discouraging, but remember this: all information has an expiration date.  Thanks for your response on the matter.


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## RedPhoenix (Jul 18, 2019)

obsigna said:


> _„We“_ are many people. Personally, I draw the line when counter-measures start to prevent me from doing useful things and/or consume too much of my valuable time.
> 
> So, I go for tools that after installation need almost zero maintenance.
> 
> However, my issue with tracking and targeting is not actually my Privacy as such. A year ago, I wrote:


I didn't know you have your own Website.  I'll visit it, and Bookmark it, ok?  Thanks for your input.


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## getopt (Jul 18, 2019)

RedPhoenix said:


> But, I live in the U.S., and encryption isn't banned here (yet). :\


This you wrote referring to GDPR which is EU legislation. Your writing ("but") suggests that encryption is banned there which is wrong.


RedPhoenix said:


> I don't mind ads. People have to make a living.


The Internet has become the main "warzone" for all kind of marketing where advertising pictures are the visible part only. For personalized advertising-attacks a huge data industry works mostly unnoticed by the users generating exorbitant profits not being even fairly taxed. The Data&Marketing-Complex use a global playfield where they just can act almost without any regulation and they do it in such a greedy way that they influence legislation heavily around the globe for not touching their self taken privileges.

You are right saying people have to make a living. But which people do really profit from Internet and data-driven advertisement? Which people do profit from "Big Data"? It's the 5% who have the resources to do so, and they do not have in mind the well being of the 95%. The ordinary people are just needed as long as they keep the wheel turning. Good products don't need a hammering marketing that even hammers on our privacy. 

All this is not near the peak. Data collectors now try to explore mood and feelings while surfing the Internet. They may tell you if you tend to euphoria or depression, being calm or aggressive along with your political habits. Do we really deserve such a technological future?


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## Deleted member 30996 (Jul 18, 2019)

I got a Google account so I could use their Webmaster Tools to get my sites indexed, jumped through their hoops to get HTTPS and added a viewport metatag so I wouldn't be penalized.  My site only uses valid XHTML and CSS, no scripts, ads or cookies and the only thing that shows as a tracker are my W3C code validation buttons. That only so they can tell which page you came from for validation purposes.

I never use gmail or stay logged in to do anything but work on my site. If Google sees my IP# searched for something or watched a youtube video I'm not worried about it. I have #1 and #2 Google ranking in a search for FreeBSD Desktop Tutorial so I can't complain. #5th rank too if you include the article about it in freebsdnews.com, but who's counting.  That was Marketing in its truest form, by word of mouth, and not missing a chance to shamelessly promote it and myself.

Everything else falls under my basic Internet Security Plan. This is as close to Social Media as I get and won't let people take a photo of me if they use Facebook. I won't use a browser that doesn't support the extensions I deem necessary and it's never too much trouble to sift through a few scripts to see which ones are actually needed for basic site functionality. Once I have things set up the way I want it's only a matter of updating uBlock Origin on a regular basis. The rest is business as usual and I don't worry about anything past that point.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jul 18, 2019)

You guys are going to go crazy once you learn about Nielson and Arbitron.


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## toorski (Jul 18, 2019)

RedPhoenix said:


> It does sound discouraging, but remember this: all information has an expiration date.  Thanks for your response on the matter.



Information is a BIG word which depends on its application and context, at least in the English language.  In general terms, there are various ways where and how information is stored, retrieved and used.  According to some, then and now, who claim to know better (I hope) or think so, information never expires. If it did, we wouldn’t know about the past. Or else, those who provide latest information, that are based on past information, lie or make shit up, then&now 

According to Me&I, there’s infinite amount of information around us that never expires. But, we the primitive homo primates have no abilities or intelligence to process, store, analyze, understand, imagine or visualize most of the information that surround us, no matter how many computers, software applications and networks we build to deal with it.

Until we understand how our brain works, how universe works, how birds fly, navigate and communicate without engines, clocks, navigation equipment, radios and satellites, how sea mammals communicate and navigate without engines, clocks, sonars, radios, and satellites, how earth worms regrow split body parts without medical equipment or how to communicate with other creatures on this or others planets, we will  build machines supported by so called AI software to collect useless information designed and developed by dumb homo sapiens to annoy each other.


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## malavon (Jul 18, 2019)

I'm so going to become the nutcase of this forum after this post, or at least _one_ of them. Remember me the way you thought I was ... 

My difficulty with losing privacy really isn't about the fact that my life is being tracked and used to sell me items. I'm one of those people (about 30% of humanity) that truly isn't _positively_  influenced by advertising.
The problem lies with the fact that people don't really understand that there is no such thing as _just data_. The value in big data doesn't lie in the data itself, it lies in the information that can be _inferred_ from said data.
That's where things become more abstract, but also way more dangerous. Using the data that's in people's GMails, private Facebook chats and everything else is used to understand the target's emotional state. This
is basically marketing 101, but the same information can be used in much more sinister ways. In the past this was the terrain of intelligence agencies, using information to gain a way in to someone's _mind_. To give you 
one example: there have been studies about how easy it is to manipulate people into committing suicide. All it takes are a few orchestrated mishaps based on someones *past* at the *right time* and to provide the target's 
most likely *method of choice*. The parts in bold can be inferred from the data that people hand out to social media easily.

I could start raving about what other people do or do not understand, but I'd rather make people think for themselves. One question and followups I generally ask people (mostly irl) when this topic is brought up is the following:
would you be scared more if <known dictator from the past> had access to this technology that told him everything about yourself? If said dictator has a radically different set of ideas about things you find important, and is willing
to purge the world of people who do not agree with his version of ideas, would you still be comfortably giving out your data?
This risk is real today (and has been real in the entire past of humanity):
Look at Turkey, where Erdogan's police has used social media to identify 'threats' against his supreme reign based on what ngo's they supported (many linked to Gülen) and who they associated with.
Look at China, where all social media is essentially state-controlled to be able to identify dissidents and where their data will be used in the future to _score_ and _classify_ people into obedient and subversive groups.

Handing out your very thoughts to people you do not know is a folly. Handing out blackmail material is truly insane. 
Would you be throwing all of your private mails, chats and whatever onto the streets? Would you hand out USB sticks with all your private data, every picture you've ever taken, every message you've ever sent to your friends
or even enemies on to anyone passing you by in the streets? If the answer is no, then why are you _doing_ the very same thing while you're reading this?

On a final note this: data does not expire. It's a false assumption to think that what I wrote/thought 10 years ago, is no longer relevant. Or rephrased, can be no longer used against me. I am still the same person and the
choices I made in the past, the experiences I had in the past still define me to this very day. People do not truly change, especially after their brain no longer grows (before 25y for most people). The information that
lies behind the data will remain relevant for ever. 
Think about this: if in the future you're running for an important office and someone unearths something that you wrote 20 years ago in a drunk stupor, would you not be sorry about having kept all your data out there?
It's not because you think it might be irrelevant, that other people are going to think so. Especially the easily manipulated ones, like the typical voter, will care a lot.
When this happens to people right now, they have to think who may have made this public. In the future, you won't even have to think because you did it yourself. You'll think back to the times people didn't understand
the value of their data and come to regret the choices you made.


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## ucomp (Jul 18, 2019)

malavon said:


> .....Handing out your very thoughts to people you do not know is a folly....



thanks for handing out your very thoughts to us. 
Now we know you a little better  ;-)


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## obsigna (Jul 18, 2019)

drhowarddrfine said:


> You guys are going to go crazy once you learn about Nielson and Arbitron.



Are you talking about their Portable People Meter?

Note, I heard about Nielson already in the past, about their broadcasting reach business since the 1940's (by their predecessors). I now updated myself by the way of the respective Wikipedia article. I cannot see anything which would even remotely be able me let going crazy. Their business is doing real measurements (full stop)

So, a real measurement is an observation of a physical condition by absolutely avoiding influencing the same. Here take physical in a general sense and avoid any influence literally. The latter is the difficult thing they're trying hard to do and therefore they're in business for such a long time, and I wish them all the luck for another 80 years.

What they are doing is like temperature measurement using a tiny device immersing it into the big (social) pool and publicly report the temperature reading. This is by far different from what Google and Facebook are doing. To begin with, they create the big social pool. Then they measure all sort of things in there, and the readings are not for serving any curiosity (although Google Analytics likes you to believe this), no the readings are for controlling the physical conditions in the pool. The primary business of Google, Facebook, Twitter, and the like is controlling and gaining influence - for the time being mainly for parasitizing their shares on sold goods and services. Parasites tend to grow as large as possible, but only merely keeping their hosts alive.


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## obsigna (Jul 18, 2019)

RedPhoenix said:


> I didn't know you have your own Website.  I'll visit it, and Bookmark it, ok?  Thanks for your input.


You're welcome. Many articles are in German language. These can be translated quite well to English using online translation services, except the Google Translator, because Google is blinded on my site by the firewall. The Microsoft Bing Translator works quite well. The following would be the translator prefix https://www.translatetheweb.com/?from=de&to=en&a= and behind the ...&a= you would append the complete URI of the page to be translated.


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## RedPhoenix (Jul 18, 2019)

obsigna said:


> You're welcome. Many articles are in German language. These can be translated quite well to English using online translation services, except the Google Translator, because Google is blinded on my site by the firewall. The Microsoft Bing Translator works quite well. The following would be the translator prefix https://www.translatetheweb.com/?from=de&to=en&a= and behind the ...&a= you would append the complete URI of the page to be translated.



Yeah, I get why you'd block Google through your Firewall.  I'm curious: which version of FreeBSD do you use for your Server, and if not, which other OS?  Also, I find it fun to play with URLs, and see what I can cook up or find, such as on dilbert.com .


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## RedPhoenix (Jul 18, 2019)

malavon said:


> I'm so going to become the nutcase of this forum after this post, or at least _one_ of them. Remember me the way you thought I was ...
> 
> My difficulty with losing privacy really isn't about the fact that my life is being tracked and used to sell me items. I'm one of those people (about 30% of humanity) that truly isn't _positively_  influenced by advertising.
> The problem lies with the fact that people don't really understand that there is no such thing as _just data_. The value in big data doesn't lie in the data itself, it lies in the information that can be _inferred_ from said data.
> ...


Your reply is quite likely the best one on here (no offense to you all ). Though I disagree that people cannot change, I agree with literally everything else you said. You're not crazy. This level of manipulation is carried out every day, from the Board Room to the Oval Office, possibly. :\ Like him or not, your reply reminds me of President Trump, and how his "locker room talk" about grabbing women by the */dev/null* still continues to haunt him to this day. You've given me a lot to think about.  Thanks for your reply.


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## Crivens (Jul 18, 2019)

Just remember that in the last census before 1933 people here did not think bad about writing down their religion.

Now think again about what might be hideworthy in some years. Nobody knows, and that is why one should go for the absolute zero with his data.


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## ucomp (Jul 18, 2019)

RedPhoenix said:


> I'm curious: which version of FreeBSD do you use for your Server, and if not, which other OS?


Why do you ask him ?
He doesn't use FreeBSD on that server , it`s Tux .


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## RedPhoenix (Jul 18, 2019)

ucomp said:


> Why do you ask him ?
> He doesn't use FreeBSD on that server , it`s Tux .


Well, I thought it would be rude to run Nmap…..


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## RedPhoenix (Jul 18, 2019)

Crivens said:


> Just remember that in the last census before 1933 people here did not think bad about writing down their religion.
> 
> Now think again about what might be hideworthy in some years. Nobody knows, and that is why one should go for the absolute zero with his data.


Yeah, like the Gypsies and the Jews in Germany..... They (the Nazi scientists) also experimented on disabled people, so I would have been killed back then. :\ I was born in 1991, thankfully.


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## ucomp (Jul 18, 2019)

RedPhoenix said:


> Well, I thought it would be rude to run Nmap…..





SirDice said:


> *whistles innocently*



I also whistle sometimes  

by the way, great thread-topic-idea from you here...


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## obsigna (Jul 18, 2019)

ucomp said:


> Why do you ask him ?
> He doesn't use FreeBSD on that server , it`s Tux .


That is fake news, hoax or however we call it. Present your alternative facts! 

I just executed on my home server which is also the web server of my BLog: `# uname -mnv`
server.obsigna.com FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE-p7 GENERIC  amd64


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## ucomp (Jul 18, 2019)

obsigna said:


> Present your alternative facts!


No, because  :


Crivens said:


> ......
> one should go for the absolute zero ....


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## toorski (Jul 19, 2019)

RedPhoenix said:


> Some of you might not know this, but I have a deep interest in how various Technologies work. Which means that I might try to implement things that some might deem unnecessary. And, though you may not know it, I actually have Autism,


You are not the only one in the game of implementing things deemed unnecessary.
MS, Google, Apple, Facebook, Oracle, FOSS community of devs, programmers, coders and power users implement things that some deem unnecessary,  yet some others can't live without 

_"People with autism may be severely impaired in some respects but normal, or even superior, in other."_
If that's the case, according to Wikipedia's AI, then all of us have some form of Autism


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## rufwoof (Jul 19, 2019)

Dunno where I should draw the line, as when I asked Google Home it said "sorry I can't help with that yet". So clearly Google is still yet making up my mind.


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## ralphbsz (Jul 19, 2019)

You should ask Siri. The people who implement it have a great sense of humor. For example, ask them what the meaning of life is, or the airspeed of an unladen swallow.


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## Crivens (Jul 19, 2019)

ucomp Well, you may lie some if you want. As long as you hide what is good to hide, all is fine.


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## ucomp (Jul 19, 2019)

Crivens said:


> ... As long as you hide what is good to hide, all is fine.


indeed, it would greatly help the world if some thoughts were kept hidden and would never got access to everyday practice....


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## Deleted member 30996 (Jul 19, 2019)

ucomp said:


> indeed, it would greatly help the world if some thoughts were kept hidden and would never got access to everyday practice....



They just need brainwashing.


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## SirDice (Jul 19, 2019)

ralphbsz said:


> or the airspeed of an unladen swallow.


African or European?


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## ucomp (Jul 19, 2019)

Trihexagonal said:


> They just need brainwashing.


there`s little hope that  BrainwashBSD will soon reach Tier 1 status but we work on it


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## Crivens (Jul 19, 2019)

ucomp said:


> indeed, it would greatly help the world if some thoughts were kept hidden and would never got access to everyday practice....


Why do I think of MBAs and lawyers now?


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## ucomp (Jul 19, 2019)

Crivens said:


> Why do I think of MBAs and lawyers now?


Nmap scan report for crivens.mind : "no exact matches for open ports"
I think it would be rude to run aggressive guesses ..


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## Deleted member 9563 (Jul 19, 2019)

malavon said:


> My difficulty with losing privacy really isn't about the fact that my life is being tracked and used to sell me items. I'm one of those people (about 30% of humanity) that truly isn't _positively_ influenced by advertising.
> The problem lies with the fact that people don't really understand that there is no such thing as _just data_. The value in big data doesn't lie in the data itself, it lies in the information that can be _inferred_ from said data.
> That's where things become more abstract, but also way more dangerous.



I couldn't agree more. And to me the "abstraction" here is the most dangerous part because it depends on the things outside of one's personal control, and indeed outside of one's personal reality. When these abstractions become the basis for assumptions that can put you in jail or cause other political problems, then they become very real. 

We're fairly lucky in most Western countries in that our governments are fairly reasonable, but it hasn't always been so, and (based on history) it will not always remain so. Hints of being a communist (the meaning is not relevant) could easily cause great trouble in both Canada and USA just a few years ago. Large databases from which to make inferences that may not even be true, are a dangerous thing.

Amazon suggesting a list of things that are possibly of interest to me is one thing. That is personally fairly harmless, if sometimes irritating, although that approach really does distort the whole market in ways that are not always good. It is quite another thing if a prosecutor of some kind is out to get me (or people in general) for idealist reasons.


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## Crivens (Jul 19, 2019)

ucomp said:


> Nmap scan report for crivens.mind : "no exact matches for open ports"
> I think it would be rude to run aggressive guesses ..


Beware of black ICE when scanning


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## CraigHB (Jul 19, 2019)

Where ~do~ you draw the line.  I try to limit my exposure, but it can easily get to a point where I'm worrying about nothing.  On the other hand it's probably a good idea not to underestimate the ability of the system (as in corporations and government)  to collect and use personal information against you.

People are definitely foolish about broadcasting personal information.  Such as the Easter break photos that an employer might come across in looking at a prospective employee.  I know that does happen where employers do background checks and come across unflattering information like that.

At one point I did almost get caught up in the social media thing due to the influence of a family member, but then I came to my senses and closed down my accounts.  I think I kind of hurt my relative's feelings doing that, but sorry I just don't want to put myself on the internet in that way.  At least on forums there's some semblance of anonymity.


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## ucomp (Jul 19, 2019)

Crivens said:


> Beware of black ICE when scanning


 ..... 

Why do I think of long Unix-beards with biting lice now?


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## Crivens (Jul 19, 2019)

ucomp said:


> .....
> 
> Why do I think of long Unix-beards with biting lice now?


No idea. But I can only recommend to read Gibson.


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## ProphetOfDoom (Jul 19, 2019)

When the Chinese Communist Party is literally arresting people, cutting out their vital organs for transplant (sometimes whilst they're still conscious) and killing them... it seems self indulgent for me to complain because a website is trying to get me to buy a beard trimmer or a device to cook bacon more efficiently.
We just have to hope that no other parts of the world become Chinese colonies any time soon.


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## ucomp (Jul 19, 2019)

Crivens said:


> No idea. But I can only recommend to read Gibson.


yes, thanks for the recommendation ... I've just read from that brother of K. Thompson , who recommends the basic tools Needed to Maintain  *privacy* ...like , motor-oil, wire-brushes  & Anti-lice -shampoo


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## drhowarddrfine (Jul 19, 2019)

CraigHB said:


> an employer might come across in looking at a prospective employee.


When I owned my restaurants, we did that all the time. You might not be surprised at the OMG! things we saw. Some of the photos could be hideous.
It wasn't the occasional weird pic or comment that bothered me. It was the common theme of things, most often the language or talk of what they were going to do to someone Saturday night or drug usage.

One guy worked for another Subway. He had a video of himself smoking weed in back while on break with other employees and a friend who stopped by. Not interested.


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## PMc (Jul 19, 2019)

The trouble began much earlier. The basic truth is: we can be manipulated. (That thing with the "unconscious".) We are doing and thinking a lot of things, and we do not really know why - or we _think_ we know why but what we think is wrong. Just look at morals and/or sexuality, and you will find lots of such matters.
There were always people who knew this, and there were always so-called schools to train and learn to know oneself. (One of the newer ones is psychoanalysis, an older one is buddhism.) But very few people pursued that issue, very few people actually bothered themself to the pursuit of "temet nosce", know thyself.

Then there was the Era of the "Aufklärung", when we declared "reason" as the proper way to view the world and started to do deliberate nature science, and did away with magical thinking, did away with unproved beliefs. And especially many computer people are strongly rooted in that kind of world-view.
The problem with this is that the whole unconscious still exists and does shape our thinking, much more than we would admit and a lot more than reason could ever do. Everybody doing some stock jobbing knows this: one tries to adhere to ratio, but actually one is much more driven by fear and greed.
So the whole idea of "reason" is in itself just an unproven belief, and in fact it does not work.
Whereas the old magical viewpoint, the religious and ritual stuff, had a strong relation to the way our unconsicous works, and could -if done properly- at least deliver some human values and ethics.

But with reason there are no real ethics at all. So if Google says, we collect data because we want to help the people choose the products they actually like, then that is a reasonable viewpoint.
You would need a somehow ethical viewpoint in order to argue why it is not good to reduce people to mere functions of consumption, where part of that function can easily be taken away and moved into the cloud.

I am not troubled about privacy. But today I got a questionnaire from PayPal, and they asked on which online shops I did buy things. Very well. But then they mentioned a couple of other online shops and asked why I didn't by at these also, and how they should improve the "shopping experience" in order to make me buy there. 
And this is what troubles me: they seem to think that "shopping" is a pursuit, an engagement, an amusement, an end in itself! Hell no! I buy things when I need them, and I buy the things I need: the act of buying is a means to some other end.
So, if the commonsense now is that the means of existence is shopping, then something is very very wrong, and privacy is one of the least worrysome aspects of it.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jul 19, 2019)

PMc said:


> I buy things when I need them


I try to follow this phrase when someone approaches me to try and sell me something. "If I wanted it, I would be searching for it." But often you may not be aware such a product exists. So I might listen to see what he's pushing but he has to grab my interest in the first few seconds. Otherwise I have no problem just saying I'm not interested, turn and walk away in mid-sentence.


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## Deleted member 30996 (Jul 19, 2019)

PMc said:


> The trouble began much earlier. The basic truth is: we can be manipulated. (That thing with the "unconscious".) We are doing and thinking a lot of things, and we do not really know why - or we _think_ we know why but what we think is wrong. Just look at morals and/or sexuality, and you will find lots of such matters.
> There were always people who knew this, and there were always so-called schools to train and learn to know oneself. (One of the newer ones is psychoanalysis, an older one is buddhism.)



They teach classes in manipulation and mind control, too.



PMc said:


> I am not troubled about privacy. But today I got a questionnaire from PayPal, and they asked on which online shops I did buy things. Very well. But then they mentioned a couple of other online shops and asked why I didn't by at these also, and how they should improve the "shopping experience" in order to make me buy there.
> And this is what troubles me: they seem to think that "shopping" is a pursuit, an engagement, an amusement, an end in itself! Hell no! I buy things when I need them, and I buy the things I need: the act of buying is a means to some other end.



I was against any form of online commerce for a long time till I discovered the Joy of ebay and the multitude of things they had for sale you just didn't normally see. I signed up for an ebay and a Paypal account, this before they merged, but any purchases I made were by check that I mailed in to them. That took 2 weeks to clear, put a cramp in my style and not every dealer wants to hold something 2 weeks for a check to clear. I linked my bank account and now purchases go through instantly from my ebay page using my Paypal account. I've done business with people all over the world and it's been a positive experience for me.

If I use a different computer to log on to ebay they'll flag it as not recognized, want to call my number to confirm it's really me and I've never had any problems with unauthorized purchases. I have all my purchase receipts sent to my offshore email account in Israel so the Mossad can keep my file updated. It's of little concern if they see what I buy and I've never gotten a survey like you mentioned. If I get any onsite emails from ebay that aren't strictly business I delete it without looking at it.

I'm still against online banking and don't do business on Amazon, they make you jump through too many hoops. If on occasion there's something on Amazon I want my sisters hubby buys it and reimburse him.


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## PMc (Jul 20, 2019)

Trihexagonal said:


> They teach classes in manipulation and mind control, too.



Yes, and some of these can be partially useful, although they are intended for other purposes. _Donald Kingsbury_, for instance, seems to have grabbed some wisdom from Scientology Church, and if you manage to get a copy of his novel _Courtship Rite_, you find a bunch of brave ideas that nicely and validly break some borders of commonsense thinking.

The mind has by nature been designed to be 100% self-referential - there is no common baseline anywhere, all of them are fabrications, and while this is probably the only possible sustainable design, it tends to frighten people a lot when they find out.
Obviousely, anything that deals with the matter has a high abuse potential.


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## Crivens (Jul 20, 2019)

Reading tip: 

Robert B Cialdini PhD
influence: The Psychology of Persuasion


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## ucomp (Jul 20, 2019)

PMc said:


> ...get a copy of his novel _Courtship Rite_ .........





Crivens said:


> Reading tip:
> Robert B Cialdini PhD
> ...



... always these commercials ...
How do these brainwash-tools  know what we are interested in ......


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## Deleted member 30996 (Jul 20, 2019)

ucomp said:


> ... always these commercials ...
> How do these brainwash-tools  know what we are interested in ......



You don't have to be interested. They know how to make you interested.


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## ucomp (Jul 20, 2019)

Trihexagonal said:


> You don't have to be interested. They know how to make you interested.


they failed in waking up my interest ,
I actually wanted to buy only a beard trimmer & Anti-lice-shampoo .
But they may have known that I still have to buy something more to get it delivered for free right away the same day.
Their AI-engine tracked that I searched for something but don't need anything and that I`m
desperately searching for useless products,
so they sent me a link to a useless product only because the price of the product
matches what I need to get my shampoo "free" same day   ...
So, O.K., I will buy all the shite just to stop my beard itching ...
everybody is lucky now: Win/Win  , I cannot wait to receive my products..
I want it all and I want it NOW !
Me first , gimme gimme all the shite immediately or I'm going crazy


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## Crivens (Jul 20, 2019)

I'm off browsing online stores for some tight womans underwear just to improve my online experience. Looking at ads for stuff I already have, and therefore want no more, is boooring. Better look at ads that please my eyes.


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## ucomp (Jul 20, 2019)

Crivens said:


> I'm off browsing online stores for some tight womans underwear......



as you teached us :



Crivens said:


> ....you may lie some if you want.....


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## ucomp (Jul 20, 2019)

Crivens said:


> I'm off browsing online stores for some tight womans underwear just to improve my online experience. Looking at ads for stuff I already have, and therefore want no more, is *boooring*. Better look at ads that please my eyes.


to give a more sensful answer than my last  :
yes, absolutely true, Crivens,the web  is boring and burns us out  if we use it without self-control...
e.g. I`m quite sure, you knew what I will  answer in my last post ...
we hear ourselves speaking , most of the time we know what will follow, e.g. in Linux-threads here bla bla ... 
I quit all social media years ago. for the price that I earn less money but to save my self control...
I`m only here for technical discussions, it`s a nice thing to help others and learn from discussions... but now I hear myself speaking to myself, that`s the moment to do this  :



Crivens said:


> I'm off



( for at least a time)&( what doesn`t mean I`m away from FreeBSD-programming)..


great experience in this forum with you all,
much more civilized than elsewhere & with some high quality technical discussions .., thanks .. and bye


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## drhowarddrfine (Jul 20, 2019)

ucomp said:


> the web is boring and burns us out


Since I've sold my company and have more time on my hands, I've noticed even more now how pointless and worthless most posts, articles and web sites are. In the past, I didn't have time to think about them and sometimes thought that this is how things are because I saw 50 headlines about it today but didn't read the article. I've always known reddit was a total waste of human excrement but I notice now that it doesn't even rise to that quality level. Hacker News is almost as bad. Stack Overflow is starting to circle the toilet. And the TV "news"! OMG!!

I don't watch television news but my wife lets it drone on while she eats breakfast. I sit here and drink my coffee but I can hear it in the background. All TV news is nowadays is bitch bitch bitch!! EVERY single story some "news" anchor has a story bitching about someone or some company or some product and almost all of them are not newsworthy at all! The morning shows are the worst cause they're nothing but product placement, endorsement and advertising. 

Then they spend the rest of their time talking about some movie celebrity or what their fellow "news" person did over the weekend. Immediately followed by more bitching about someone or some thing! 

And I used to work in that business! I now have a niece-in-law who's also a "news" producer and she's as bad at the product endorsement crap as they come!

I apologize for the language. I am one who does not curse in public or even among friends and family but it's the only word I can use to describe it all.


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## CraigHB (Jul 20, 2019)

drhowarddrfine said:


> I don't watch television news but my wife lets it drone on while she eats breakfast. I sit here and drink my coffee but I can hear it in the background. All TV news is nowadays is bitch bitch bitch!! EVERY single story some "news" anchor has a story bitching about someone or some company or some product and almost all of them are not newsworthy at all! The morning shows are the worst cause they're nothing but product placement, endorsement and advertising.



That cracks me up, I know ~exactly~ how you feel.  My wife does the same thing, lets the awful TV network news drone on, drives me nuts.  Sometimes I'll bark at her to put something else on, but most of the time I just tolerate it to keep the peace.  The content is just unbelievable in how mindless and trivial it is.  They hardly ever talk about anything truly important and when they do it's just a bit piece with no follow up.  I'm old enough to see how the face of journalism has changed and it's sad.


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## getopt (Jul 20, 2019)

drhowarddrfine, CraigHB 
how far has it come, when wives prefer the noise of the TV over the well being of their husbands and these men just endure their fate. Boys! I need to avoid being too empathic for suggesting to start talking with your partners about each of your needs.


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## PMc (Jul 20, 2019)

drhowarddrfine said:


> Since I've sold my company and have more time on my hands, I've noticed even more now how pointless and worthless most posts, articles and web sites are. In the past, I didn't have time to think about them and sometimes thought that this is how things are because I saw 50 headlines about it today but didn't read the article. I've always known reddit was a total waste of human excrement but I notice now that it doesn't even rise to that quality level. Hacker News is almost as bad. Stack Overflow is starting to circle the toilet. And the TV "news"! OMG!!



I didn't dare to put it that way - I'm twisted between it being my own fault to not find good quality input or not achieve to trigger satisfying conversation - because otherwise the conclusion might be that half mankind has gone nuts. So what is actually happening??
I remember the Internet of the late 80s/early 90s, when I was totally blown away by the input from people who were quite above my perception - computer stuff being only a part of it; the intellectual, science, philosophical ideas were just as mind-blowing. Where has that gone, where are the people with a clue now?


CraigHB said:


> They hardly ever talk about anything truly important and when they do it's just a bit piece with no follow up.



Exactly. And if in a discussion you bring something up that is controversial, and that would need further elaboration and probably some thinkling about consequences, the response is roaring silence. Response is happening on the level of "like" and "me too", and where that doesn't work, there is none.

There is a new movie about the moon landing, and a review was titled "the time when we still dared to dream". There are many things wrong with that - first of all, we now celebrate _a movie about_ the time when we still did achieve something. That in itself is already horrifying. And then, the title of the review turns it all around, it interchanges dream (i.e. movie, storytelling, etc.) and reality.
So I commented, that I really could understand the no-moonlanding-conspriracists, because, looking at today's ongoings, nobody could believe we ever made it to the moon. Imagine what happened: people started to bitch and consider me a conspiracist.


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## trev (Jul 21, 2019)

PMc said:


> I remember the Internet of the late 80s/early 90s, when I was totally blown away by the input from people who were quite above my perception - computer stuff being only a part of it; the intellectual, science, philosophical ideas were just as mind-blowing. Where has that gone, where are the people with a clue now?



I remember a similar time in the early to late 80s when running a FidoNet Bulletin Board System - the thing was, you needed a certain level of intelligence to get online then and the majority of the echomail conferences had content that reflected that. It lasted into the early Internet days, but alas, not for long.


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## CraigHB (Jul 21, 2019)

I was around then too.  Difference is the internet is a much bigger pond now than it was then.  It's mostly noise now, but there's places you can find to spend your time where smart people are having intelligent discussions.  This is one of those places.  There's others out there.


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## RedPhoenix (Aug 15, 2019)

toorski said:


> You are not the only one in the game of implementing things deemed unnecessary.
> MS, Google, Apple, Facebook, Oracle, FOSS community of devs, programmers, coders and power users implement things that some deem unnecessary,  yet some others can't live without
> 
> _"People with autism may be severely impaired in some respects but normal, or even superior, in other."_
> If that's the case, according to Wikipedia's AI, then all of us have some form of Autism


Hehe. :3 Yeah, someday, somewhere, my work will be quoted. To quote a Splash Text in Minecraft... XD Or at least that's how I think it went. :> Also, You may be right about that. I think there's a Meme on the Internet that showed a FreeBSD user as someone with Autism.  Also, my hair is red.  Maybe that's partly why I like FreeBSD so much.  I'm typing this on it now!


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## RedPhoenix (Aug 15, 2019)

PMc said:


> The trouble began much earlier. The basic truth is: we can be manipulated. (That thing with the "unconscious".) We are doing and thinking a lot of things, and we do not really know why - or we _think_ we know why but what we think is wrong. Just look at morals and/or sexuality, and you will find lots of such matters.
> There were always people who knew this, and there were always so-called schools to train and learn to know oneself. (One of the newer ones is psychoanalysis, an older one is buddhism.) But very few people pursued that issue, very few people actually bothered themself to the pursuit of "temet nosce", know thyself.
> 
> Then there was the Era of the "Aufklärung", when we declared "reason" as the proper way to view the world and started to do deliberate nature science, and did away with magical thinking, did away with unproved beliefs. And especially many computer people are strongly rooted in that kind of world-view.
> ...


Very true. I am into Mysticism, but I also like Technology.  It's just so polarizing these days... You're either this or that. You can't be spiritual AND be into a Science at the same time. And yeah, all your other points were spot on.


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## RedPhoenix (Aug 15, 2019)

drhowarddrfine said:


> I try to follow this phrase when someone approaches me to try and sell me something. "If I wanted it, I would be searching for it." But often you may not be aware such a product exists. So I might listen to see what he's pushing but he has to grab my interest in the first few seconds. Otherwise I have no problem just saying I'm not interested, turn and walk away in mid-sentence.


I don't know... I would give them the time of day. But maybe I just have too much time on my hands...


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