I was just at a friend’s house, she has a new Google Internet TV. We openly discussed in front of it, while it was turned on, the likelihood that we were being filmed with the TV camera and voice recorded or listened to - then we kindly, smiled, waived at the TV and said hello to Mr. Google and the bots that might be listening. We then continued with our very ‘out there’ conversation while watching Youtube videos of Mary Rodwell ‘the alien lady’…
This article seems to hint as similar things - needing to be constantly connected to the internet is a huge red flag.
I know someone who has been targeted for many years by the government and police in my country, simply for standing up for her rights and for those of her people, including land rights. She is Indigenous Australian. She has to change her email address and phone number regularly to avoid being harassed and surveilled by them and as such I have lost contact with her. They also target her young daughters and come to her home.
Knowing of her experiences first hand, I wonder if governments and police will, or perhhaps already do, use internet connected devices like these TVs to do surveillance?
So that’s one side, the other is that to get to my friend’s place I travelled for many hours through the Aussie countryside which is VAST (putting it mildly) and I can say, absolutely yes, it is possible to maintain true privacy… you’d have to ditch all of your devices and move to the back of beyond where the emu’s are the size of houses and the camels run wild to do it though… with the local indigenous people’s permission too.
@kirkmahoneyphd I remember watching that film when it came out & it seemed like total science-fiction. However, the way things are going now…I’m not so sure it’s not possible.
Remember futuristic family cartoon The Jetsons??? It was supposedly set in 2062.
Considering that we’ve already managed to achieve much of what was featured in that show, I don’t want to say the FACE/OFF is not possible.
Generally speaking…
I wonder how the newest generations define online privacy?
Those of us who recall a time without the internet (even if we were only babes /teens at the time) may have a very different perception of online boundaries, what’s appropriate to share and what privacy actually is/means.
I’m sure the older generations will have a different idea again…
If you have lived all of your life with internet interactions, and would like to share - I’d be interested to hear - how do you define online privacy?
@galtions I was away for a short holiday weekend on the Côte d’Azur. I don’t really speak French, so sometimes getting around could be an issue, so I knew I would need some digital help. I took to google maps.
Landed in Nice & opened the application:
Since it’s been awhile since I used this phone I was SHOCKED google maps wants to record AUDIO, all in the name of faster navigation. It completely freaked me out.
I wonder if the application still works if you select Don’t Allow?
And it’s not just asking to listen to audio- it’s asking to RECORD… I don’t know how the tech works but that just feels wrong to me!
I hope you were able to enjoy your time away anyway
In one study at the University of California, Berkeley, in February, researchers could pick out a single person from more than 50,000 other VR users withmore than 94% accuracy. They achieved that result after analyzing just 200 seconds of motion data. In a second June study, researchers figured out a person’s height, weight, foot size and country withmore than 80% accuracy using data from 1,000 people playing the popular VR game Beat Saber. Even personal information like marital status, employment status and ethnicity could be identified with more than 70% accuracy.
Apparently, in some cars, when you connect a “smart” device to the car’s infotainment system, the car’s infotainment system takes copies of all of the text messages and call logs on the “smart” device and sends this data to the car manufacturer. Allegedly the car manufacturer then on-sells this data to third parties.
There is a lawyer in the US who made a video about it, as a class action was brought against several car manufacturers in the US.
@user1, a recent article said that rental-car companies (Hertz, Avis et al.) often will find 50 or more car renters’ call logs, etc., in a rental car’s infotainment system when they prepare the car for sale.
@kirkmahoneyphd I literally just had this experience. On a recent trip, we rented a car with one of the built-in navigation systems which are standard right now. While going through the interface, to make sure we knew how to use it before we drove off, we noticed that there were people’s contacts stored in the system, as well as call logs, since the drivers before us sync their cell phones to the computer system.
During research for my book, I found that using Alexa’s voice command triggers 246 contracts that we have had to accept in order to use it. These contracts transfer our rights and data to countless, often unidentified, parties. For example, they frequently refer to “affiliates.”
