Everyone is laughing at us

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Okay, maybe we should insist on a little regulation.

Comments

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Well, folk of most nations are in the same boat.

It has ceased to worry me if the powers-that-be are looking over my shoulder every time I do something: I advocate a lot of gay porn viewing, and accessing wikipedia pages on political theory within classical civilisations*. If they're going to watch me, I'm going to have fun with them.

*

[kadaria.livejournal.com]

That's not what dogs like to watch.

(http://s1300.photobucket.com/user/SarcopticMange/media/loldogs_zpsdfaa6575.jpg.html)

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

LOL Nailed it! You must be a dog person. One can feel the guilt.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

This gift is what domesticated them 100,000 years ago.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

And there have been technological improvements on this gift:

[kadaria.livejournal.com]

What do the balloons say?

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

I couldn't tell, nor is my Spanish beyond the introductory level. Your guess is probably as good as mine: 'Feed me', 'Pet me'? The title of the video is 'I am here', right? But that's all I have.

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

They're hard to read, but pretty sure I saw "rescue me."

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's a campaign for a lost dog's home or the like.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

LOL!!!!

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

The most ridiculous spin I've seen on this thus far is the idea that we're somehow at fault for giving too much private information to these entities as opposed to blaming the government for overreaching on our data.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, there's plenty of blame to spread around here.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

There's some truth in that, I mean, did you really grok every license agreement you've clicked on with a mouse since 1990?

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

But we are kind of powerless in that, right? If we never clicked on those agreements, we may as well stay off the Internet altogether. Corporations, governments... it's all the same. *sigh*

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Of course not. The issue, however, is not that I shared my personal information with Facebook, it's that the government thinks it has the right to personal information on Facebook.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Would you prefer the FBI have access to say, the Boston bombers web activity? If so, how would you effectively collect said activity in a manner that fits your privacy sensibilities?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I think there's a difference between getting a warrant and having that check in place, and the sort of metadata collection (if not more) we're experiencing now.

People say it's okay because, hey, metadata. People want to blame corporate entities for taking the information and acting like there's no difference. It's weird.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

People want to blame corporate entities for taking the information and acting like there's no difference. It's weird.

I think a lot of us would like it if we could play or work on the Internet without having to click away all our information to the private companies, but we have come to accept that our wishes mean nothing, and if we want to play on the Internet, then we have to accept what they want to do. So, when the government comes along and decides to do the same thing, we already feel helpless about it, and we think, "That is the Internet!" I suspect only your strong libertarian ideology may be keeping you from seeing this phenomenon.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Well, you can do that already. If your data means so much to you that you don't even want the companies that offer things to you to have it, then there are plenty of ways to anonymize your experience and secure your data.

The issue I take is that, because the government abuses its power - and that's exactly what it's doing - we shrug and blame the corporate entities we trust as a matter of basic interactive agreements as opposed to the people abusing us? You don't have to be a strong libertarian (or, in my case, a weak one) to come to that conclusion. There's a difference between being "free with your data" within the constraints of interpersonal/business relationships, and me telling you something and then saying "well, you told me X, so it's the government's business too."

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

The distinction is moot, I agree. The issue is that to obtain even the metadata you pretty much have to mirror and cache the entire network traffic.

[ice-hesitant.livejournal.com]

Having access to Boston bombers web activity before they bomb anything clearly doesn't accomplish anything, and since it requires having access to everyone's web activity, it's an odious approach. It's hard to police future crime.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Nevermind that Facebook's value is mostly built on the personal data mining they've engaged in and the commercial value of that to their partners. Somehow this is the government's fault.

Facebook is notorious for changing security settings in such a way that previously-protected information is exposed unless actively changed. This has happened several times since I signed up.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Well, I had a beta of google+ on a rooted droid. This did not have the feature to upload images to the cloud. When the beta was upgraded to the FCS version, the feature to upload images to the cloud was enabled without any agreement or setting and it automagically began snarfing pictures to a server somewhere without permission. When I shutdown and restarted the app, it offered me an agreement screen to enable the feature, but that was after they uploaded about 100 images without my permission. I complained to google, but rooted phones are not supported and that bug only affected beta users who signed their shit away anyway. Oh, and the hilarious part was they assured me it was on a private server that only I had permission to view. Yeah right, fucking liars think I am an idiot. Wheee.

Creeps.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Google was the other private entity most frequently cited for abuse of user data so I'm not surprised.

It's also a little weird when conservatives complain about privacy overreaches when the GOP has been so rah-rah about renewing the Patriot Act every time it comes up. Because it was the passage of that and Executive Orders relating to the "War on Terror" that ramped up government-based snooping to levels previously unknown. Warrantless wiretaps, NSA installing directly in telecommunications hubs, all post 9/11 activities.

[cinnamontoast.livejournal.com]

I gave everything to Google on my own. Well, almost everything. I stopped short when it came to medical shit. Nope couldn't go there. Just couldn't do it. Otherwise they know all about what the intenet surfing and working habits are from my house. They will be very, very confused. Very.

I'm old enough for me to cease caring. what they might be able to do with the information. Because I am BORING!

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

And also never mind the fact that many corporations are just plain volunteering the data, because THEY think the government should have it.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Under our law, those licenses mean nothing. If it's assumed it will be unread, then it's not a binding agreement (and writing a 100 page contract to agree to use software is assuming it will be unread).

[dwer.livejournal.com]

It's funny, because some people will argue that it's not right to point out that Americans give up most of their data freely anyway.

[madscience.livejournal.com]

The difference is to whom, and what they're doing with it. At least corporations have privacy policies, even if we don't really believe they're following them. The government's privacy policy is "fuck you."