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Thread: The End of Privacy

  1. #1

    Lightbulb The End of Privacy

    A very insightful talk at Google by Michal Kosinski, if you have an hour to spend:


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  3. #2
    Relatively interesting, but I gave up at 4 minutes
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  5. #3
    Porous Membrane skywatch's Avatar
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    That's right in my back yard. I even helped a friend give a presentation in that room. Very interesting talk, and frighteningly accurate.
    Too many watches, not enough wrists.

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  7. #4
    Just watched The Great Hack on NF -- I so didn't see the strikingly similar ending note coming.

  8. #5
    Not trying to push the subject, but I find it rather important and worth sharing with whoever else is interested.
    A little different angle here (while the whole talk is interesting, the privacy bit starts around 20:33 and goes for a couple of minutes).



    Also, NDGT must be a watch guy, he's wearing different watches during the talk and in the interview clips. I'm glad I don't see him wearing an Apple thing.

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  10. #6
    Moderator gnuyork's Avatar
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    Saw the trailer forThe Great Hack..gonna watch it and probably be upset.

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  12. #7

  13. #8
    Member Perseus's Avatar
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    I find it so disheartening the battle for privacy was lost without a fight.


  14. #9

  15. #10
    OK, it's somewhat significant time for me, and I think this is a good place to share it.

    As I mentioned elsewhere, I bought a new laptop this month. What I didn't mention is that with this purchase I've ditched Intel and Nvidia in favour of AMD, but, more importantly, I've ditched Windows and gone full Linux.

    As far as I can remember, I've always been privacy-conscious, but I wouldn't say that my decision is only driven by privacy reasons. It's also about reclaiming control of the products I use and how I use them. From my own observation, over the last 20 years tech giants have been shamelessly laying their hands on whatever personal data they could, and they've been designing products to leave users and consumers with as little choice as possible. I think I first noticed it with Facebook -- where with every subsequent update I was left with fewer and fewer choices as to what I wanted to receive and what I wanted to share. (Mind you, I wasn't an Apple user back then so they may have just been following Apple, who, as far as I know, had always applied the 'we know better what you want' approach to their products). Apple has been trumpeting privacy focus for years now but their users have no way of telling what's really going on under the bonnet. Microsoft has become incredibly arrogant over the years and they don't even ask for permissions to submit eg crash reports, they're just letting you know they're collecting data from your device.

    About a year ago I switched from iPhone to Samsung (and consequently from iOS to Android), and while there still are many reasons to complain about Samsung (no, baby, we want no f***ing Bixby, stop trying to shove it in our every opening), and I have no delusions about being off the hook, it still felt liberating.

    On utilities level, it's difficult for me to imagine not using ad blockers or VPNs these days.

    The only compromise I'm making so far by doing this switch is gaming capabilities, but that's a very conscious choice. Also, if I go back to freelancing, which I'm seriously considering given my professional circumstance, I'll probably have to start using mainstream software platforms again for that purpose. But what I know now and didn't, say, 15 years ago is that having separate devices for work and personal use is the way to go. (I still have 3 Windows PCs, where switching to Linux is probably only a matter of time, and one Mac that I need for work, but my usage patterns on it are completely different).

    Next step: complete de-Googling, once I figure out how to do it smoothly and convince myself that I'm OK with having a limited access to YouTube and forgetting about the convenience of Google Pay.

    Rant over. Congrats to myself.

    (BTW, one of the reasons for this rant is to reassure folks who are hesitating because they think that switching to Linux may be technically overwhelming or that Linux is lacking any basic features otherwise available in mainstream OS's. Nope, it's not and it's not. If you define your needs and research your options, go ahead. It's my first time with Linux, too).

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