I give up… Privacy is a fool’s game and it’s a losing one at that. We are slowly entering a world where more and more requirements are made on people to own a regular non-hipster cell phone. There are places you can’t even buy parking or look at a restaurant menu without having a proper cell phone.
Maybe the answer is not to flash some obscure on life support operating system on your Google pixel but rather… maybe the answer is to work within the system and simply adjust privacy controls as allotted?
that’s because you are trying an individual solution to a collective problem.
going for the roots of it involves going for the corporations and oligarchs taking control of our electronics, not simply installing a private rom.
I agree with you. I’m a privacy advocate but there are some things I have given up on. I have an iPhone and just live with the fact that it has much more telemetry than I want. It’s better for work because everyone else has an iPhone, etc. However, on my personal computers I run Ubuntu LTS with all telemetry turned off. I use Firefox with ublock and privacy badger, if I want extra privacy I’ll use a VPN. But even then you have to trust the company that runs the VPN isn’t secretly recording your browsing data, it’s a gamble.
My main point is, fight for privacy where it makes sense. Don’t waste your limited time fighting it where it doesn’t. That’s become my personal philosophy, your mileage may vary.
Exactly. The most important thing is to do what we can.
The problem is there are lots of places where fighting makes sense but you have no control. 99% will turn all their info over without batting an eye.
I was invited to an event recently on Partiful. If you’re unfamiliar, this is the company founder by a bunch of former Palantir execs. The only way to RSVP or see the event info or get updates or anything else is to turn over your phone number. I told the person who invited me that I wasn’t comfortable giving these people my info and they responded along the lines of “okay, don’t come”.
I went to a food truck a while back and they wouldn’t even give me a menu or accept my order at the window. Told me I needed to download, order and pay through their shitty app.
Anyone who has my contact information volunteers it in it’s entirety to any shitty app that asks for it. They upload pictures of me (along with the according metadata) to surveillance databases without my consent or knowledge, thinking nothing of it.
@WaffleWarrior@lemmy.zip, what specific problems are you running up against? I’m confident that my fellow lemmings and I can help you figure out how to minimize or at least reduce whatever privacy related tech issues you’re having.
My mortgage broker or lender clearly sold my phone number to spammers.
I use a cheap VoIP and have a number specifically to give out to businesses. It offers way more control over call handling than a typical phone service, and I can change it whenever I want without having to give family & friends a new number.
The cypherpunk manifesto, 9th March 1993
32 years ago we faced the same nightmare. I was 37 years old back then.
We must defend our own privacy if we expect to have any.
We must come together and create systems which allow anonymous transactions to take place.
People have been defending their own privacy for centuries with whispers, darkness, envelopes, closed doors, secret handshakes, and couriers.
The technologies of the past did not allow for strong privacy, but electronic technologies do.
Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age.
Privacy is not secrecy.
A private matter is something one doesn’t want the whole world to know, but a secret matter is something one doesn’t want anybody to know.
Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world.
None of our individual strategies are “the answer”. The situation won’t be turned around by individuals making personal choices, but by organized efforts. A world in which Terms and Conditions don’t supersede your rights is possible.
There’s no such thing as total privacy. When you walk in the streets, people can see you and that is no problem. Same goes online. You have to reach YOUR balance between privacy and convenience. I have reached mine with two excellent tools that are GrapheneOS and AdGuardHome. Of course I have also excluded privacy-invading apps such as WhatsApp or Google search. I suppose I evade 80% Big Tech usual tracking and I’m happy that way.
Any place asking me to scan a QR for a menu, or need an app for parking probably wasnt worth it to begin with. Yes practicing privacy is not going to “feel” good thats exactly what they want. Just keep fighting back where you can, Make it as unlikely as possible for them to get what they want.
Every person In this comment section has leaks in their system. Unless they are some data security expert, theres simply no way to get by without being “exposed” at some point.
Keep up the good fight. Its worth it. Your eyes and your data are the new currency. Keep their hands off it.
Almost every one of these places (that’s truly worth it) will have a way to pay without tech. They still want your money. Hell, ask the guy behind you on line, they’d probably take the credit card points.
Avoiding apps if you can and focusing on using the web and/or PWAs as a good direction too. Lot of the stuff out there for apps really should not be an app to start with. Then there is F-Droid which has most of the actual apps you need.
The ones not in fdroid and where you can’t use a web app, and must have, these are not so many. For me this is some health devices, some transit and travel apps, my local library, a hearing test app, Google Maps, my bank app (for check cashing). All of these also run just fine on GrapheneOS. Lot of those don’t have to be on my phone though if you only have one android device maybe they do. Really transit and travel apps, maybe my local library, and Google Maps are the only ones I use out and about.
No, thank you. I’d rather be without a phone than bowing down to these corporations.
I want to run a bit faster than my hiking buddy to avoid being caught by the bear. I want my car or bike to look more of a pain to steal than the one parked next to it.
There’s no perfect privacy. I want to outpace my peers so that they are the more attractive targets.
Just install GrapheneOS. Simple.
I think they were saying that, with the google pixel reference in the post. Graphene also has issues, certain apps and services flat out dont work, Its not for everyone. but it is infinitely better than stock imo.
Yes some don’t work but frankly none I needed. Originally my banking app did not work, but they upgraded it and after that it worked fine. So I would say mostly it just works. Not all apps even work on all stock phones either.
Being treated like cattle is for everyone though it seems.
Normies get what they deserve
Its a fight against corps and bad actors. Why attack potential allies? Genuinely hate people like you. you arent better than these people, get a grip.
That’s not an attack, thats a comment on the current reality.
Typical GrapheneOS user. Blindly shills it without even reading the thread.
I did read the post. Way easier to install GrapheneOS then it is to fiddle with non-existent privacy controls on stock. GrapheneOS is highly popular and pretty much just works so the on life support thing is BS. Yes if you must have one of the few apps that don’t work, sure you’ll have to use stock or just not use the app. I’ve not found any apps that I need that don’t run on GrapheneOS but there are some.
Keep in mind too, that not all apps work on all stock phones either for one reason or another.
GrapheneOS is highly popular and pretty much just works so the on life support thing is BS.
I think perhaps you missed the context there. The future for Android custom ROMs like GrapheneOS is looking quite bleak currently, even its developers have acknowledged this.
God forbid the normie has to do anything to protect himself.
I get the feeling. My wife and I keep wondering how long we can refuse to use smartphones. I like polluting the data pool. There is a developer app to set a faux location for the phone. anything I can do to send wrong data is a bigger thing to me than not sending the data.
Why even post this? do you really need outside validation every time you decide to give up?
Maybe the answer is not to flash some obscure on life support operating system on your Google pixel but rather… maybe the answer is to work within the system and simply adjust privacy controls as allotted?
And when those controls are removed because most people went along with it and they were determined as a waste of development time by a corporate or government entity because people also give up on that then what? This is not an answer to anything, it’s complacency that will just erode privacy more and make the problem worse.
Eh privacy isint cheap, you gotta have multiple devices so it doesnt get too complicated
