Dude my van has been breaking a ton of websites lately. I had to turn it off to check the tracking on a package from USPS yesterday. Any time a website is sending me to a broken page, I turn off my vpn and it works immediately.

I was going to ask because I’m somewhat new to vpns, but I just assumed it was one hassle for privacy. Is this a new occurrence?

I mean, I know everyone says it’s impossible for phones to be listening, but I feel like there are just too many examples for that to be the case. My friend was looking for something for our other friends birthday. Her husband suggested opening instagram and talking about the thing she was looking for, describing the specific jacket, saying the company started with an “A.” Minutes later, she got the ad for the jacket she was looking for.

When I was driving with some people from work, we were talking about daddy Yankee, and his song “gasolina.” We were using maps to navigate home from an away job. On our route, suddenly there were multiple waypoints suggested on our map, “estaciones de gasolina.” We were speaking English, the person whose phone it was doesn’t speak Spanish.

If they’re not listening, how could these things be possible?

Yeah, this is definitely an issue that needs attention.

But…

That thumbnail. What secret is that hacker carrying in their little tummy basket? It looks like a scrumptious little bitty secret

Care to share what specifically worries you about an offline app utilizing your gps nav data to feed you real time directions? Which permissions I mean. I have org maps but don’t use it too too often because it’s still a little unreliable for me. But I’d love to completely move to it

Yeah…I almost never order out unless I have company in town or I’m completely out of food to cook after work and I’m lazy (which is like once/mo). And even then I’ll usually scrape something easy together like cereal or pasta/red sauce or even just toast/butter if I’m really desperate.

I’m not constantly throwing out food or eating the same things. Just every week or so I’ll grab enough to make like three separate dishes plus a few staples and just like that I’m set to scrape together something new or eat at least three different set meals. Or I can run down to grab one extra ingredient and make an entirely new dish combining what I have.

I definitely get eating out is delicious and much easier, but let’s not pretend it somehow saves you money lol

I got into a long discussion with friends at work who were saying it’s silly to worry about protecting my SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER and getting upset at companies for leaking it because “if it’s gonna get out it’s gonna.” Like…WHAT. How goddamn okay are you people with fighting to prove you’re you and not the person who stole your identity? The fuck. For real.

Yup. I was driving in the car with a few people for work. We were talking about a music video a couple of us had worked on, and we were explaining who daddy yankee/bad bunny was, and we mentioned daddy yankee did the song “gasolina.”

We live in the US, the conversation was in English, but fuck if “estacion de gasolina” didn’t show up on our route.

Yeah, another factor I didn’t even mention. The voluntary surveillance.

Well, we already experience that psychological torture. After 2002/2003, and then especially after 2012, this concept has already burdened our everyday behavior. Browsing behavior, phone calls, texts, emails…every single way we communicate, even face to face meetings with phones in our pockets are open to surveillance. And it’s been shown that it’s been used. Over a decade ago, thanks to Snowden. Now? Things have surely gotten worse and I would bet the farm on behavior very much having changed due these facts.

And here we are, more than a year later, and any time anyone actually calls it by its new name, it’s always followed by (previously Twitter). Hilarious. Because the new name is fucking nonsense

Or my data

I…responded to your comment.

While i agree with the sentiment thats a ridiculous comparison. Thinking you have nothing to hide from the government is not the same as thinking you have nothing to hide from random entities on the internet. You already give the government all of that stuff when you literally just exist. Go get a social security card or a drivers license. Absolutely asinine to try to compare the two.

And I said “increasingly the entities are the problem.” And you challenged that. And continued to. Hence where this conversation ended up.

In the privacy community, you’re confused as to how big tech is violating your privacy?

Fuckin Forbes knows it. Establishment democrats know it. But you don’t?

Your cars are spying on you. How is this news?

lol this is literally the next article linked after I submitted this comment. https://www.texastribune.org/2024/07/30/texas-meta-facebook-biometric-data-settlement/

…google, Microsoft, Facebook…need I go on?

In the early 2000s, the issue was primarily the government. Patriot act made sure of that. And yeah, it’s still an issue with regards to the amount and types of data they’re storing and who the government is currently comprised of, but in 2024, the much larger privacy issue is from private data holdings. All those random fuckin apps you have, every cell phone carrier, every goddamn car now. Your data is the product now. And capitalism is the problem.

But increasingly, the data you need to care about not being private isn’t from the govt. airs from those random entities. And their security is godawful.

FUCK no

I use aura, but mostly for credit safety and ease of access to freeze/unfreeze my credit report. Got it after the experian hack ordeal. They have a ton of other services, including a data mining record deletion service and a call monitoring service. I would recommend it for pretty much everything I’ve listed. It’s made my life a lot easier, put my mind at ease. I also work a job where my personal info gets put in a lot of hands I basically have no choice but to trust. So this was kind of a necessity for me. Look into aura’s cheapest plan, see if it includes the data mining removal stuff. The extra layer of security for me is worth it, no question, but the added benefits of this, for example, and the spam call blocking just seals the deal in my opinion.

Exactly. It shouldn’t be “what is privacy worth,” but more like what should you get in return for consenting to volunteer your privacy? Because right now the system is backwards. We are expected to give up privacy, are expected to have none. And we spend money and time to try to get it back with almost no guarantees.

But the point is there’s always been a way to avoid ads, even while browsing sites with ads and browsing YT. Personally, if that ability entirely disappears, i hate ads, ad-voice, and the concept of advertising so much that I will stop and close a whole tab if an ad plays. I’m in the minority though. Because, I think you’re right, a lot of people just don’t even think about it and mindlessly consume. I can’t. When Reddit fucked us and showed us our opinions and feelings didn’t matter, I left. I will do the same to YT.

Apple has been trying to be the next advertising giant. They’ve been growing their advertising revenue and plan on doubling it this year. They went from $4b ad revenue to $7.5 2022/2023. And if you remember correctly, that was right when you started seeing all their “apple cares about your privacy!” ads and got into it with Facebook. They’re not out here to protect our privacy. They’re trying to take the advertising revenue from the other ad giants and corner that market for themselves.

Think about it. They have gotten people locked into their OS/ecosystem. They basically hold the advertising golden ticket. They’re not here to make your digital life more private. They’re here to get your data for themselves, locking out the competition. They aim to bring more people into the gate and shut it behind them while extracting all of our advertising milk with their more advanced data udder sucking machine. The pasture looks nice, but when those gates close, the skies darken and the farmer corners you with that look in his eye.

I don’t know where that metaphor came from. But that’s how I see it in my head. The moo cow with the pretty eyelashes and the shiny bell around her neck is pulled into a false sense of security by the smiling farmer at the gate, but that shit turns dark real quick when she’s locked in.