Data Privacy

2ygb4cmqetsjhx

Hi All

I am just wondering do any of you care at all about data privacy and do you think people should take it more seriously. I am growing frustrated with the general apathetic attitude of my friends with regards to this topic.

I've been interested in this for quite some time now and recently saw the Snowden movie which pissed me off. I think the scale of the snooping by the USA alone is frightening and extremely dangerous.

If you talk about data privacy with any friends they are generally clueless about it. I typically ask them to use different apps rather than WhatsApp to communicate with me because I hate the idea of the government reading all my messages.

A common argument that you will hear is that they have nothing to hide and don't write anything on WhatsApp which they wouldn't want anybody to see. This is not a valid argument. I simply counter this by telling them to hand me their phone, laptop and keys to their house. They have nothing to hide right? Nobody ever gave me their phones or data so I think the point is clear.

Another common argument is that usually all of their friends are using WhatsApp,Facebook,Instagram, Gmail, Snapchat, Dropbox and whatever other spyware you are having yourself. Particularly with social networks if there is nobody on it then what's the point right? I try to convince my friends to use Signal or Threema which are secure messaging services and I think you should too. Threema is a paid service and Signal is free. Both offer great privacy and have zero data retention which is what we should all be using. I try to convince my friends to use alternatives preferably based in Switzerland. For example Protonmail mail for email. I am not having much luck.

Nobody wants to change to better more privacy based services so if I want to communicate with friends I have to use spyware and it bugs me.

Also a lot of people simply cannot fathom the idea of paying for software services which I find quite sad. An app can only cost as little as 2€. People piss multiples of that away drinking Starbucks coffee everyday. If you don't pay by cash you will often pay with your data privacy and security.

The main issues I have is that I feel we are moving closer and closer to dystopia every year.

Here are just some horror stories for your delight which highlight the dangers:
http://goo.gl/fdhzGd
http://goo.gl/FsV6PP
Granted they took place in China and Dubai which are not exactly model societies in terms of freedom and justice but you get the point.
Interestingly Signal messenger was recently subpoenaed and had to handover all of their data. The best bit. The only data they had on their users was the registration time. Nothing else. Signal is free by the way.
http://goo.gl/820gqD
Surviving a subpoena is a hell of an endorsement if you ask me. Told me friends this. They are not interested.
Another thing people fail to consider is that the world is constantly changing and what's considered harmless today could be illegal or used against you in the future. The way politics in Europe is going we could be soon living in the fourth reich. Just look at Britain drawing up lists of foreigners. That's how it all began in Germany.

Seriously though if you are not convinced that privacy is more important read the two following books:
1984 by George Orwell
The Trial by Franz Kafka

Have any of you ever worried about Facebook getting hacked and everything you ever wrote in private to your friends could be made public? I reckon lots of friendsships and relationships could be ruined.

I think it's a long road ahead but we need to lead by example and make people are of the dangers. Apathy can not be tolerated and it is too important that people begin to care about this.

Another good article:
http://goo.gl/PMdquM

Are there any other boards privacy enthusiasts out there? Would love to here from you and know what can be done about this and how you guys try to counter it?

(Yes I am aware of the irony of using goo.gl and posting this on boards)

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

A common argument that you will hear is that they have nothing to hide and don't write anything on WhatsApp which they wouldn't want anybody to see. This is not a valid argument. I simply counter this by telling them to hand me their phone, laptop and keys to their house. They have nothing to hide right? Nobody ever gave me their phones or data so I think the point is clear.

I don't see the analogy. I have nothing online to hide. The only data of concern is my nine banking and that seems well protected. The comparison with giving your phone, laptop and house keys doesn't work as I have things in my house that can be easily stolen or damaged but not so online.

Due care and diligence are essential but within reason.

The Moldy Gowl

If the government wants to read about my spicy poos, then let them. They will get bored fairly fast.

If facebook wants to read my data and target ads at me, let them, I'll never click an online ad anyway.


I should care about my data being protected but it's too much effort and the vast majority of us are extremely boring people with nothing worth spying on.

I think a lot of it is tin foil hattery though.

OP doesn't want anyone finding out about his abundance of testicles....

jimmy blevins

When they came for the spicy poo's......

Deub

What is the risk if they read my messages on whatsapp or my emails?
What can they do with it?

2ygb4cmqetsjhx

Deub wrote: »

What is the risk if they read my messages on whatsapp or my emails?
What can they do with it?

Steal your identity
Impersonate you
Blackmail you
What if you did something and talked about it and in the future it's illegal and you are retroactively punished?

The Moldy Gowl

Karson Stocky Guru wrote: »

Steal your identity
Impersonate you
Blackmail you
What if you did something and talked about it and in the future it's illegal and you are retroactively punished?

You must have a big roll of tin foil.

Specialun

Most people dont actually understand the danger of data out in the wild nor do they understand what can happen the data. Social engineering is so easy these days

Canis Lupus

Would people be okay with microphones in their house after all they've nothing to hide and the government/private company is hardly interested in the sounds of you fapping to midget porn.

Personally I'm vaguely concerned about my data but mostly apathetic about it like most people.

Specialun

The Moldy Gowl wrote: »

You must have a big roll of tin foil.

Complete garbage. You dont understand data or what the dangers are..its 10000000000% not tin foil hat ...i have seen cases 20 times over

Cookie_Monster

Karson Stocky Guru wrote: »

Steal your identity
Impersonate you
Blackmail you
What if you did something and talked about it and in the future it's illegal and you are retroactively punished?

the obvious and simple solution is don't use the apps, the internet, a smart-phone if you really have a problem with it because it's not going to change otherwise. Its your principles vs convenience

2ygb4cmqetsjhx

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

the obvious and simple solution is don't use the apps, the internet, a smart-phone if you really have a problem with it because it's not going to change otherwise. Its your principles vs convenience

That's a simple solution but not an ideal one. My whole point is securing your online identity is possible but I am having problems educating people about the problems.

learn_more

The Moldy Gowl wrote: »

I think a lot of it is tin foil hattery though.

Well, the way the OP worded his post and the reference to the novel 1984 etc one would might think he was one of those paranoid types...but whether he is or isn't , I agree with his fundamental point.

This is what I object to.

I object that any text based conversations on skype or whatever is remotely stored and can be interrogated retrospectively.

I object that my physical location is logged by my smartphone.

I object that my browsing habits are logged by my internet provider.

That's 3 things, conversations I have , my whereabouts and browsing history that provides a 'character profile' of me. If that's not surveillance I don't know what is. It makes video surveillance by CCTV cameras look trivial.

Just imagine if every verbal conversation you had before the internet was somehow recorded by say microphones planted in cafes, bars, buses, parks, pubs, nightclubs, homes. And that those conversations were just simply stored somehow but not listened to in a 'live' manner. Would you not have an objection to that ?

I think the Citizenfour Documentary was a real eye opener for me. I think it's all just shocking and the only reason I can think off that people don't care is that they simply don't understand it all.

petrolcan

Karson Stocky Guru wrote: »

That's a simple solution but not an ideal one. My whole point is securing your online identity is possible but I am having problems educating people about the problems.

If they are not willing to listen then it is no longer your problem.

johnty56

This is something that has concerned me for a while to be honest. I'm not very tech savvy, which also worries me..

If you think what a totalitarian regime could do with the information that is gathered about us as we go about our lives and use online facilities, it is really frightening. What concerns me, is what such a regime would or could do to even extended families of 'transgressors'.. the sins if the father being visited on the sons and all that.

What I don't understand is how much data is actually stored, and for how long? Are all phone calls actually recorded? How long is internet history stored for? Will changes in technology mean that data now stockpiled ( for example detailing my internet political readings or porn search history) be unavailable to viewers in 30-100 years?

2ygb4cmqetsjhx

johnty56 wrote: »

This is something that has concerned me for a while to be honest. I'm not very tech savvy, which also worries me..

If you think what a totalitarian regime could do with the information that is gathered about us as we go about our lives and use online facilities, it is really frightening. What concerns me, is what such a regime would or could do to even extended families of 'transgressors'.. the sins if the father being visited on the sons and all that.

What I don't understand is how much data is actually stored, and for how long? Are all phone calls actually recorded? How long is internet history stored for? Will changes in technology mean that data now stockpiled ( for example detailing my internet political readings or porn search history) be unavailable to viewers in 30-100 years?

Posts and text messages are probably there forever. The NSA and GCHQ are actually mass gathering everything they can and making it searchable. Internet history is the least of your worries to be honest.

johnty56

Karson Stocky Guru wrote: »

Posts and text messages are probably there forever. The NSA and GCHQ are actually mass gathering everything they can and making it searchable. Internet history is the least of your worries to be honest.

Text messages etc are unlikely to reveal much about a persons thought processes or political leanings in general, but as I understand it, technology allows advertisers to determine what we read first on online papers etc, and obviously what we post etc. I had thought that due to tech changes, much of this would be meaningless data in years to come.. strange scenario that even if it all turns out well, our descendants will be able to see so much more about us than we think#!

Orwell would have genuinely had a stroke if he realised the truth of the future

andekwarhola

I pity the agents of evil that have to catalogue - and find worth in - the inane drivel that compromises most of my online discourse.

qo2cj1dsne8y4k

If the government wants to see photos of my dogs, and read my stimulating thoughts on highly significant occurrences throughout the day, (for example, today I asked my dog where his bum was and he chased his tail) they're more than welcome to read it. I'm actually pretty boring really. Arguing with the OH or talking about whatever's caught my eye that day, I can't imagine they'll be queing up to read it.

I think people worry they might be more interesting than they actually are. Unless you're smuggling drugs and hustlin bitches, I doubt they'll even care enough to read your hey wua xx text.

johnty56

andekwarhola wrote: »

I pity the agents of evil that have to catalogue - and find worth in - the inane drivel that compromises most of my online discourse.

I think the reality for many, having grown up in a bubble of 'acceptance' is that they are unaware of how quickly reality can change. There are still people alive who can remember the systematic slaughter of 6000000 human beings, and not long before that 20,000,000 people were murdered by their own government ( Stalin's Russia) for 'non conformism'. In the case of Russia, many were condemned to death on the basis of information supplied by their family, friends, neighbours or work colleagues. Imagine what Stalin would have done with the information freely divulged by individuals today.

Homosexuality was illegal in many Western states until relatively recently. In Nazi Germany it could have resulted in your death. In the space of 30 years it went from being something a westerner had to hide, often in fear of their life, to something that is completely acceptable and commonplace. Imagine if that were to swing the other way. And millions of homosexuals had attested to their own 'crime' by their technological footprint.

Substitute homosexuality for any number of other 'transgressions;' and you might understand. No one in Germany in 1937 thought they would be shovelling murdered human bodies into incinerators in 5 years time. But they were.

riffmongous

Thanks for the op OP!

While I might be another faceless slug, I can think of a lot of jokes and things I've said online or in messages that could be used against me out of context if I ever did become a person of note.

riffmongous

Now I'm starting to get paranoid, might be getting near the time to close down the account :pac:

Cookie_Monster

don't forget they record all your phone calls too not just data

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/395843.stm
http://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/thousands-of-requests-made-to-secretly-track-irish-phone-calls-1.1822930

I spend a lot of time on the "Interview the person below you" thread. I reckon it was started by the NSA to get more information about us! Darn, I regret my 2000 posts in that thread.

Sure it's grand, I want my life story, along with my thoughts, fears and secrets to be widely available. Am going to have to write an email detailing my pre-internet days on Google as well.

JimmysCar

Won't somebody please think of the children!!!

Stigura

OP; When They come to power and start searching through every word and intonation of everything anyone's Ever said, on line or a phone; They'll find what you've been saying here. Then ye'll be right f**ked!

They'll make an example out of you. For trying to incite us sheeple to attempt to dodge them :cool:

CMOTDibbler

LexieOnRale wrote: »

If the government wants to see photos of my dogs, and read my stimulating thoughts on highly significant occurrences throughout the day, (for example, today I asked my dog where his bum was and he chased his tail) they're more than welcome to read it. I'm actually pretty boring really. Arguing with the OH or talking about whatever's caught my eye that day, I can't imagine they'll be queing up to read it.

I think people worry they might be more interesting than they actually are. Unless you're smuggling drugs and hustlin bitches, I doubt they'll even care enough to read your hey wua xx text.

Putting aside the obvious non-interest the government has in your dogs, as someone above said, that knowledge would be very useful to someone who wants to defraud you or the people you work for.

Many hacks now are targetted at businesses through their employees. Some are very crude and take a shotgun approach. Others are much more insidious and are designed at getting access to your work computer or other data sources and either stealing data or mimicing your actions to defraud third parties who may trust you.

Edit: Your online presence is a trust relationship. People who know you and link with you through these portals trust this presence as if it were you standing in front of them.

qo2cj1dsne8y4k

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

Putting aside the obvious non-interest the government has in your dogs, as someone above said, that knowledge would be very useful to someone who wants to defraud you or the people you work for.

Many hacks now are targetted at businesses through their employees. Some are very crude and take a shotgun approach. Others are much more insidious and are designed at getting access to your work computer or other data sources and either stealing data or mimicing your actions to defraud third parties who may trust you.

Edit: Your online presence is a trust relationship. People who know you and link with you through these portals trust this presence as if it were you standing in front of them.

"Give me 1000 euro or I'll leak your dog sleeping snoring video"
Em, I don't think he'll be embarrassed, leak away pet.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

Putting aside the obvious non-interest the government has in your dogs, as someone above said, that knowledge would be very useful to someone who wants to defraud you or the people you work for.

Many hacks now are targetted at businesses through their employees. Some are very crude and take a shotgun approach. Others are much more insidious and are designed at getting access to your work computer or other data sources and either stealing data or mimicing your actions to defraud third parties who may trust you.

Edit: Your online presence is a trust relationship. People who know you and link with you through these portals trust this presence as if it were you standing in front of them.

I don't get that at all. Nothing online from me would help any hacker in any way. You'd want to be very naïve to post things on line that could be of value to anybody who might access your data. My online presence is most certainly not a trust relationship nor indeed any kind of relationship at all.

Penny Tration

You sound like my OH's brother, OP. He deleted his online social media accounts, won't use WhatsApp or other messaging services, not even text messages, and exclusively uses protonmail for communicating.


As a result, he doesn't speak to his family much because none of them are arsed to install special sh!t to speak to him.

CMOTDibbler

Treasure Rotten Scanner wrote: »

I don't get that at all. Nothing online from me would help any hacker in any way. You'd want to be very naïve to post things on line that could be of value to anybody who might access your data. My online presence is most certainly not a trust relationship nor indeed any kind of relationship at all.

An online presence has a value. If somebody hacked your Facebook page and then interacted with your friends, purporting to be you, how many of them would know this? That's a trust relationship right there. People believe that it's always you posting on your Facebook page despite having no real evidence to support it.

There was the old and much used Gmail hack which sent mails to your contacts saying the user had been robbed on holiday and asking friends to send them money. A lot of poeple fell for that scam and sent money to the hackers.

Many people use the same passwords for their various online presences and one hack can lead to more. The easy one to spot is if there is some overt activity like changing passwords or sending mass mails. But in recent years, hackers have stayed dormant having hacked in and intercept emails that have a financial value. For example somebody booking a holiday and getting an email giving the payment details would not question this if they were expecting such an email. The payment could then be redirected to the hacker.

CMOTDibbler

Penny Tration wrote: »

You sound like my OH's brother, OP. He deleted his online social media accounts, won't use WhatsApp or other messaging services, not even text messages, and exclusively uses protonmail for communicating.


As a result, he doesn't speak to his family much because none of them are arsed to install special sh!t to speak to him.

WhatsApp has end to end encryption. It's probably one of the most secure methods of communication. Not even WhatsApp themselves can read your messages and they are not stored anywhere except on your device.

Penny Tration

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

An online presence has a value. If somebody hacked your Facebook page and then interacted with your friends, purporting to be you, how many of them would know this?

Every one of them would know because I pretty much never reply to messages

seamus

Karson Stocky Guru wrote: »

Steal your identity
Impersonate you
Blackmail you

The government. You're talking about the institution which basically defines what "identity" is. If they wanted to impersonate me they don't need to go trawling through my social media accounts. Between the revenue database and the passport office they have everything they could possibly need to steal my identity and "be" me.

And like any other sane person I don't stick anything online which could be used to blackmail me. I don't even have anything privately stored which I think could be used to blackmail me. My P60 or bank statements are about the most sensitive pieces of data I have.

What if you did something and talked about it and in the future it's illegal and you are retroactively punished?

If the government of the state in which I lived had taken such a draconian step which is in violation of basically all human rights treaties, I would be less concerned about my privacy and more concerned about getting my family to another country.

As Srameen says, there is due care and diligence, and then there's being paranoid about things which have an extremely low likelihood of occurring.

StupidLikeAFox

First they want to read your browsing history, no hassle, who cares. Then they monitor your facebook, sure so what, I want relevant ads. Then you share location, contents of emails etc. Eventually your whole world becomes digital. They digitise the monetary system - no cash. A law is passed to say your phone is now your digital ID - and must be carried at all times. The newspaper of record becomes digital (and can be altered). Governments records and laws are only recorded digitally (so can also be altered). Meanwhile they have built up a profile of you, your interests, your flaws and vices. As more people begin to get all their news from a service like Facebook, Google begins to only show the correct results they can begin to shape public opinion by feeding you the "correct" version of the truth. If you are seen as an aggressor or fit an undesirable profile, they can make you a social pariah by turning others against your viewpoint. They can apply some data analytics to identify who is most likely to commit a crime, and arrest people in advance. "I know you didnt't do anything son, but the data doesn't lie"

By now, Emperor Trump now has a stranglehold on the whole western world, nobody really knows the scale of it because there is nobody reporting it. You feel there may be something up, there may be others who feel the same but you can't organise because there is no way to communicate with others, and they are tracking everyones location anyway, they can monitor if these aggressors are congregating and shut it down.

This is a very extreme example but I do feel we are sleepwalking into a version of it.

nozzferrahhtoo

Karson Stocky Guru wrote: »

I am just wondering do any of you care at all about data privacy and do you think people should take it more seriously.

I think they should probably take it more seriously in the same way you should probably take it less seriously. I do not think it is an issue we should just ignore and fail to push for ethical standards on, but I also do not think it an issue worth obsessing over TOO deeply either to the point you become "that guy" who berates all his friends every time you meet them.

Karson Stocky Guru wrote: »

I simply counter this by telling them to hand me their phone, laptop and keys to their house. They have nothing to hide right? Nobody ever gave me their phones or data so I think the point is clear.

I think your analogy fails for a couple of reasons.

Firstly you seem to use lines like "The government reading all my messages". Do you actually believe they do? Do you imagine them sitting down and reading message after message from everyone's phones?

Come off it. The sheer ENORMITY of the quantity of data alone would make this impossible. Let alone that most of it will be mind numbingly mundane... petty.... and meaningless without context. I webhosted an irish chat room for awhile once and it did log every message public and private before people really cared about that kind of thing. And I can tell you now sheer quantity alone..... let alone the sheer inanity of just about all the content...... would render any parsing and processing of it by an actual human simply impossible.

So no I do not expect anyone is literally sitting there reading your messages. There may be algorithms scanning your messages for consistent use of certain keywords and patterns, but that is not even remotely comparable.

Secondly I mentioned above "context" and context is everything. I can not think of a single message or email I have written that it would bother me if some semi official in an office was sitting there reading them. Most of it would have no meaning to them, and what little did I honestly do not care. But a friend reading them would actually have the context to parse my messages in a way more than mere meaningless words in a text.... but in a way that would render it personal and invasive.

So no, I do not see people handing your their phones and house keys as even remotely analogous to the Data Privacy issues that are bothering you. And therefore I do not think their refusal to hand over their phone or keys is making the point you think it is making. At. All.

But if you are worried about mindless algorithms trolling your content for certain key words and patterns against your wishes then you should simply mess with their minds and constantly find ways to USE those keywords and patterns in order to bugger their algorithms. If everyone started doing that tomorrow, their algorithms would be well buggered.

Could you imagine what would happen to their algorithms if even 1% of americans tomorrow made a point daily of signing off some emails or messaging app messages with "allahu akbar" "Death to Obama" "the west will pay" or periodically downloading random copies of Dabiq?

But when I see rhetoric like "they are reading all your messages" I only see people trying to be emotive and scare mongering when the reality is likely massively different to what those words evoke.

But all that said, as I said above, data privacy is not something we should not care AT ALL about either. We should be pushing for good and ethical legislation and practices on this all the time. And a certain level of common sense and caution applied to what you do and say on line pays anyway. I constantly operate under the assumption that any words I write on line and hit "submit" are "out there" and out of my control forever. Some small level of awareness goes a long way.

Karson Stocky Guru wrote: »

I think you should too. *******is a paid service and ***** is free.

Just edited the names out of your post there. You know.... just in case this is less of a rant about data privacy and more of a case that you are on commission Your post started to read a little like a paid endorsement at the end of a podcast or vlog for a minute there.

Karson Stocky Guru wrote: »

Also a lot of people simply cannot fathom the idea of paying for software services which I find quite sad. An app can only cost as little as 2€.

Not just software. People have gotten used to the idea that content is free too. Sam Harris write and speaks well on this in his blog and podcast. Talking about the ways in which people providing content have to finance it.

Often by click bait adds or product endorsement. He himself wants to use neither so he has gone for a patreon style model as well as the AMAZON AFFILIATE PURCHASES model. Patreon seems good though in that you can do monthly donations if you like, but also per podcast donations (with a cap).

But Harris claims he has about 2% of his follower/subscriber base who actually contribute anything at all, and most of those are low contributions like a dollar a month. So yes we have become VERY used to the free content model for content and software. And this has good sides and bad.

It is certainly good when people like John and Hank Green and many others can produce good quality on line educational content on everything from science to literature. Much of that content being adopted, and used, by teachers in schools and so forth..... not just for their educational value on specific topics.... but for their ability to generate interest in those subjects as a whole.

draiochtanois

This post has been deleted.

draiochtanois

draiochtanois wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Oooo-oooo-ooo do me do me! You could be the boards.ie version of a /whois command - where we feed you a username and you summarise their entire post history.

Arthur.beaker

draiochtanois wrote: »

Your post history here indicates:

You graduated from M.Sc. in Mobile & Ubiquitous Computing in TCD.

You speak German fluently and have lived in Munich before

You worked for a German car company in China

One doesn't need to be in the CIA and FBI to track you down ...

Plus we know that he (or she) has at least 3 testicles.

Arthur.beaker

Arthur.beaker wrote: »

Plus we know that he (or she) has at least 3 testicles.

Well in fairness can we be so sure of that rather than he _is_ someone's third testicle?

CMOTDibbler

Penny Tration wrote: »

Every one of them would know because I pretty much never reply to messages

Well even posting on your timeline is interaction. And just in case you haven't posted in a while, Facebook will send you an email to inform you of that fact. :rolleyes:

Although I don't go in for what the OP is saying with regard to data privacy, I do believe that people take data security too much for granted.

An example (and this really happened - although I'm not mentioning the name; PM me if you want it) of a holiday letting portal that hosts thousands of properties to let all around the world. The properties are typically managed by a letting agent, a letting agency or the owner who is contactable via their email address on the portal.

That person receives an enquiry about a property and in the course of discussion about a possible letting, receives an attachment from the purported lessee that they are expecting. The attachment contains a payload that sits on their computer and relays passwords and other log in details back to the hacker. They then gain access to the agent's email account and monitor it for letting enquiries, intercepting those that meet their criteria and deleting them so that the owner/agent is never aware of them.

They have registered a domain with a very close relationship to the domain of the portal, open a matching bank account in a European city and then let and re-let the same properties over and over again for roughly the same time period. They request payment for these lets by bank transfer to the bank account and conduct all correspondence in a professional manner with nicely formatted html emails containing the portal's logos and other info.

The owner/agent is totally unaware of these transactions and communications and the hackers close the account and get away with hundreds of thousands of euro before the poor defrauded holidaymakers are aware that there is a problem.

This kind of social engineering and hacking can be targetted to any individual who is routinely involved in financial transactions through their work or personal life.

ThinkProgress

Facebook etc was cooked up by the Illuminati as a means for mass public surveillance... and the cheeky bast*rds were even brazen enough to figure out a way to milk vast sums of money off us in the process, by creating overpriced tech that we must purchase in order to avail of these surveillance services!

We have essentially paid (through the nose) for the right to be tracked night and day by those who wish to control us! Gotta give them their due props... it was all very cleverly thought out. :P

There will be a technological revolt... it's coming!

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

An online presence has a value. If somebody hacked your Facebook page and then interacted with your friends, purporting to be you, how many of them would know this? That's a trust relationship right there. People believe that it's always you posting on your Facebook page despite having no real evidence to support it.

There was the old and much used Gmail hack which sent mails to your contacts saying the user had been robbed on holiday and asking friends to send them money. A lot of poeple fell for that scam and sent money to the hackers.

Many people use the same passwords for their various online presences and one hack can lead to more. The easy one to spot is if there is some overt activity like changing passwords or sending mass mails. But in recent years, hackers have stayed dormant having hacked in and intercept emails that have a financial value. For example somebody booking a holiday and getting an email giving the payment details would not question this if they were expecting such an email. The payment could then be redirected to the hacker.

Oh I can assure you if anybody I know was 'interacted' with by me on Facebook they'd know instantly it wasn't me.

CMOTDibbler

Treasure Rotten Scanner wrote: »

Oh I can assure you if anybody I know was 'interacted' with by me on Facebook they'd know instantly it wasn't me.

Would they though? I mean if you've never interacted with people on Facebook, there might be an issue, but it's surprising how little notice people take of sudden Facebook activity after even years of inaction.

I'm speaking from experience here in that I stayed away from it for years and recently logged in to wish a friend in foreign parts a happy birthday. The response I got was "It's about time...".

If you're posting regularly, it's easy to mimic you.

Call Me Jimmy

seamus wrote: »

The government. You're talking about the institution which basically defines what "identity" is. If they wanted to impersonate me they don't need to go trawling through my social media accounts. Between the revenue database and the passport office they have everything they could possibly need to steal my identity and "be" me.

And like any other sane person I don't stick anything online which could be used to blackmail me. I don't even have anything privately stored which I think could be used to blackmail me. My P60 or bank statements are about the most sensitive pieces of data I have.

If the government of the state in which I lived had taken such a draconian step which is in violation of basically all human rights treaties, I would be less concerned about my privacy and more concerned about getting my family to another country.

As Srameen says, there is due care and diligence, and then there's being paranoid about things which have an extremely low likelihood of occurring.

But if it isn't for 'paranoid' people - people who recognise the dangers and potential dangers - we won't know about the draconian steps being taken. And there won't be another country to go. It's a slow process but how a reasonable person can't see the natural conclusion, based on the evidence exposed, is strange.

Based on what you're saying here, with things having such a low likelihood of occurring, nobody working for governments like Ed Snowden should raise the alarm in the future? You don't put anything worthwhile online, so you would have no problem with governments continuing to enhance these programs?

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CMOTDibbler wrote: »

Would they though? I mean if you've never interacted with people on Facebook, there might be an issue, but it's surprising how little notice people take of sudden Facebook activity after even years of inaction.

I'm speaking from experience here in that I stayed away from it for years and recently logged in to wish a friend in foreign parts a happy birthday. The response I got was "It's about time...".

If you're posting regularly, it's easy to mimic you.

You don't seem to get it. They'd know for sure it wasn't me. Some of us actually speak to our friends for real.

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Call Me Jimmy wrote: »

You don't put anything worthwhile online, so you would have no problem with governments continuing to enhance these programs?

That's it in a nutshell. No more than I have a problem with CCTV cameras in public places. Nothing to see, nothing to hide, nothing to dig up.

CMOTDibbler

Treasure Rotten Scanner wrote: »

You don't seem to get it. They'd know for sure it wasn't me. Some of us actually speak to our friends for real.

Well that helps

Call Me Jimmy

Treasure Rotten Scanner wrote: »

That's it in a nutshell. No more than I have a problem with CCTV cameras in public places. Nothing to see, nothing to hide, nothing to dig up.

Interesting. CCTV in your home? Private communications (telephone call or online). On principle, does the same attitude hold? There is a line for you, where you do want privacy?

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johnty56 wrote: »

I think the reality for many, having grown up in a bubble of 'acceptance' is that they are unaware of how quickly reality can change. There are still people alive who can remember the systematic slaughter of 6000000 human beings, and not long before that 20,000,000 people were murdered by their own government ( Stalin's Russia) for 'non conformism'. In the case of Russia, many were condemned to death on the basis of information supplied by their family, friends, neighbours or work colleagues. Imagine what Stalin would have done with the information freely divulged by individuals today.

Homosexuality was illegal in many Western states until relatively recently. In Nazi Germany it could have resulted in your death. In the space of 30 years it went from being something a westerner had to hide, often in fear of their life, to something that is completely acceptable and commonplace. Imagine if that were to swing the other way. And millions of homosexuals had attested to their own 'crime' by their technological footprint.

Substitute homosexuality for any number of other 'transgressions;' and you might understand. No one in Germany in 1937 thought they would be shovelling murdered human bodies into incinerators in 5 years time. But they were.

Exactly my point!