More Surveillance?

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tubed

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Here's a scathing "review" of Amazon's Echo speaker.
https://gizmodo.com/dont-buy-anyone-an-echo-1820981732
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I called my echo dot a stupid mf'r when it wouldn't play the music I requested. Month's later, while on the Amazon site I found the text of that exchange under the "my devices" page. From then on I watch my mouth, when I'm in the same room with that thing.
 
I've been telling anyone that would listen these things are glorified spyware. They always point out the smartphone, and reply I shouldn't have one of those. Thing is, I know my phone is tracking me, I know it's tracking my habits. These types of devices on the other hand are literally a set of eyes and ear in your most intimate surroundings on 24/7. Smartphones can be set to only use voice recognition in driving mode, which is what I do.

I love tech, but I've minimized this type of tech in my life. Got rid of my xbox kinect. Got rid of usb webcams, built in ones get a piece of painter's tape over them until needed.

Moderation note: Deleted political content. Politics are prohibited in AK forums.
 
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It warms my heart that others also value their privacy.

Tho it may be pissing in the wind, I will always fight against the Truman Show excesses of modern living.

Some pretty scary stuff out there, as I recently heard about a couple who had no pets, but for 3 days, with their phones OFF, talked about getting a cat, we need cat food, blah blah blah, as some type of test.

The phones were within earshot.


In 3 days, they received Facebook ads for.....wait for it........cat food.

Now, I don't know if this is true or not, but if it COULD be done, then what would stop those who would?
 
A couple years back my parents got into an argument, over the ODB2 tracking device from the insurance company. My mom noticed it in her car one day, asked me what it was. My mother is pretty tech illiterate, and right away she knew the implications and was fuming an asking my dad how it got there. My dad said he put i there to save like $20/mo on car insurance. She exclaimed it wasn't worth $20/mo to let a company track her when the govt would need a warrant to do the same.
 
People refused to get their RFID chips inserted, like good lemmings,... so, they were put in their cellphones; and, now they have access to them all day, everyday.
 
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It warms my heart that others also value their privacy.

Tho it may be pissing in the wind, I will always fight against the Truman Show excesses of modern living.

Some pretty scary stuff out there, as I recently heard about a couple who had no pets, but for 3 days, with their phones OFF, talked about getting a cat, we need cat food, blah blah blah, as some type of test.

The phones were within earshot.


In 3 days, they received Facebook ads for.....wait for it........cat food.

Now, I don't know if this is true or not, but if it COULD be done, then what would stop those who would?

A similar thing happened to me. I was talking to a friend about a venue I used to frequent back when I lived in Raleigh (Cat's Cradle) and how the shows there were fun. Literally the next day I started receiving emails about upcoming shows for them.
This is a place that I haven't been to in 12 years and hadn't received a single email from prior so I don't believe it's a coincidence. I'm sure I had my phone in my pocket at the time but I've never enabled speech so it's listening somehow.
 
Long ago a techie found out our cell phones were never truly off. The microphone is always on.

I'm researching security cameras and have decided against Arlo, Nest and everything the common online and b&m stores are pushing. Most require a cloud based server from who knows what country accessable to to who knows what third party.
Got a quote of $2300 that will get me four 4k 8mp cameras with 4TB of recording space for a month on a hard drive that I will own. I'll have to do more research on accessing it via phone while away and hopefully be able to find some encryption to go with it. There has been a huge increase in homelessness in our area which is typical for living near a capital but this year it's very noticable. Have had stuff taken from our front porch and some sit there. Funny if it weren't for my wife being home alone.
In any case a small tip, do install a simple over the door bell. There is no false alarm with that one. Lol. All this tech is great but what happens when something is cut or power goes kaput?
I'll do my own surveillance as this by our tech companies is getting out of hand.
 
It warms my heart that others also value their privacy.

Tho it may be pissing in the wind, I will always fight against the Truman Show excesses of modern living.

Some pretty scary stuff out there, as I recently heard about a couple who had no pets, but for 3 days, with their phones OFF, talked about getting a cat, we need cat food, blah blah blah, as some type of test.

The phones were within earshot.


In 3 days, they received Facebook ads for.....wait for it........cat food.

Now, I don't know if this is true or not, but if it COULD be done, then what would stop those who would?


Well said James, good to see ya on as well!

Kind Regards,
John
 
Long ago a techie found out our cell phones were never truly off. The microphone is always on.

I'm researching security cameras and have decided against Arlo, Nest and everything the common online and b&m stores are pushing. Most require a cloud based server from who knows what country accessable to to who knows what third party.
Got a quote of $2300 that will get me four 4k 8mp cameras with 4TB of recording space for a month on a hard drive that I will own. I'll have to do more research on accessing it via phone while away and hopefully be able to find some encryption to go with it. There has been a huge increase in homelessness in our area which is typical for living near a capital but this year it's very noticable. Have had stuff taken from our front porch and some sit there. Funny if it weren't for my wife being home alone.
In any case a small tip, do install a simple over the door bell. There is no false alarm with that one. Lol. All this tech is great but what happens when something is cut or power goes kaput?
I'll do my own surveillance as this by our tech companies is getting out of hand.

For that price you should look into Axis cameras. Depending on your knowledge of networking, one can be web hosted and backed up to a local DVR or cloud. Good luck with the project!

Kind Regards,
John
 
It all pretty much started with the internet after the money pit wild west period, once the business model became tracking information collection, so it's probably kinda late to worry about it.
It's definitely too late to fix anything that really matters, now that we've handed the hen house over to the foxes.
This stuff doesn't happen by itself in a vacuum, follow the money.
 
Good point. I also noticed his recent absence.

Yea James is a wealth of info, he was on my 1250 rebuild thread years back, always kind words just a true gent! His how to clean vinyl thread is fantastic. I've gleaned a lot of great info from it. :)
 
It all pretty much started with the internet after the money pit wild west period, once the business model became tracking information collection, so it's probably kinda late to worry about it.
It's definitely too late to fix anything that really matters, now that we've handed the hen house over to the foxes.
This stuff doesn't happen by itself in a vacuum, follow the money.

While you can't fix it, you can try to limit what you let out. That's a whole other topic tho! :)

Like what you said on follow the money, hit that nail on the head!

Kind Regards,
John
 
While you can't fix it, you can try to limit what you let out. That's a whole other topic tho! :)

Like what you said on follow the money, hit that nail on the head!

Kind Regards,
John
Also, impossible to suck back what went out in ignorance of things to come. Funny tho how stuff you want to find and could just disappears.
 
Good point. I also noticed his recent absence.
Yea James is a wealth of info, he was on my 1250 rebuild thread years back, always kind words just a true gent! His how to clean vinyl thread is fantastic. I've gleaned a lot of great info from it. :)

Hello guys! My new job has gobbled up most of my free time. Heck, I'm actually putting on my shoes for another long day. Thank you for the kind words, Jobrewer. I love a good 1250 rebuild thread, I do, I do.

Steve is right - the time to get concerned about privacy passed us back some time ago, but when I ponder things like this, I try to remember that it takes a small rudder to steer a large ship. Something like only 3-5% of colonists supported the American Revolution.

Another big problem is the constant attacks on Net Neutrality. The FCC is at it again. It'll soon be pay to play for any site you wish to visit. What is the historical precedence? Let's see -

Guttenburg Printing Press - Began as a way to spread info. Led to publishing houses and juicy contracts, Mellon/Carnegie tag team of giant swaths of trees turned into magazines.
Morse code - Began as a way to spread info. Okay, that one kinda petered out.
Radio - Another invention to help mankind. Led to payola, Alan Freed, and now, a sea of NPR, Bro Country, and Nicki Minaj.
Tv - Sigh
Internet......

I never would have guessed George Orwell and Aldous Huxley would have been so accurate in their respective works.
 
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