Discussion
If a device is recording you and everyone around you,
And is sharing all this data with a corporation outside of your control,
It is not a "smart" device,
It is a spying device.
At the very least, you are ethically required to not inflict this surveillance upon others without prior explicit consent.
#TechSurveillance #MassSurveillance #Privacy #Consent #RingDoorbell #MetaRayBan #SmartSpeakers
@Em0nM4stodon I can't comprehend that oh yeah, we just give data from these devices away to LEO all the time, without any consent, and without a warrant all the fucking time wasn't the end of it.
"Oh I've used Facebook for a long time and haven't had any issues, I don't know what your problem with this is"
...the comment I got from someone when I voiced my displeasure with their glasses
Never ceases to amaze me how some people are
@Em0nM4stodon Indeed. Should be a mandatory label declaration
@Em0nM4stodon If most people saw what their phones, apps, TVs and smart devices sent through a sniffer, they'd be mortified.
@philpetree @Em0nM4stodon It still blows my mind that people let apps have access to stuff they never ever should be allowed to use. Even things people think that are harmless like contacts access can be bad, but some even access mics and cameras and etc all the time.
I'm convinced they implemented a "boy who cried wolf" policy some ten years or so ago to convince people that they have to just go ahead and click yes on everything just to make them stop pestering. And then some even started refusing to run at all without functions they never ever should need and people started accepting that too...
@nazokiyoubinbou @philpetree @Em0nM4stodon
I once had a phone game that frequently requested access to my contacts, phone/call (logs), media, storage, location.
The woiks
All for a dumb simple stickman game
Noped right out of there!
But never forget! You can always shove garbage up a sucking pipe! 
2009 They: "You turned off Siri?"
2009 Me: "It listens to everything I say, so yes."
2009 They: "No, no - it only listens when you say 'Hey Siri'!"
2009 Me: "Think that through."
(might have been 2010 - don't recall when I got the first iPhone)
@Em0nM4stodon that matches with the trend that people "must" have a videocall in public
@Em0nM4stodon This could use an #IoT or #internetofshit tag.
I'm not rich enough to live outside society.
@Em0nM4stodon It is entirely possible to build smart devices that work without all of that. If you aren't a DIY tech geek, it's very hard to buy such things though, and they're usually very expensive if you can even find them, because they aren't mass produced. You can build your own smart speaker using a Raspberry Pi, using nothing but local data for speech recognition and synthesis, there are plenty projects like that all over the Internet, but there aren't many good ones you can just buy and plug in, and those that exist are much more expensive than the big brands which are basically just surveillance devices.
There are all kinds of smart devices that can be quite useful, but which I wouldn't use if I couldn't hack them and install some open source firmware. Most of the big brand names use proprietary protocols and can become entirely useless overnight once the company decides that they don't want to support five year old hardware anymore, and that all their customers should just replace everything every five years. There are vendor independent open standards that very few of the big systems actually support, and you need to learn a lot about the technology to actually use them in any meaningful way.
Technology can be used to empower us all, but that is not what the big tech companies want. They want to use technology to keep us under control, keep us addicted, keep us locked in. Under Capitalism, the technology that could help us break out of the cage is rare, expensive, and needs a lot of work and expertise, while the technology that keeps us trapped is cheap and ubiquitous. Under authoritarian Socialism, it's even worse. Don't trust any hierarchical power systems.
@Em0nM4stodon Install the free DNS Server Software Pi-hole on a Raspberry Pi, give it a static internal IP address on your router and configure your router to use the Raspberry as DNS Server. Then you can block any spy with a mouseclick and/or can download blocklists from GitHub or other sources.
@Em0nM4stodon
Is it a reason for divorce? Or is it a reason to lose a day job?🤣
@Em0nM4stodon I only tell the truth, follow me.
@Em0nM4stodon use GrapheneOS. Though ironic, the only phone which is secure enough for the OS is Google's Pixel.
@Em0nM4stodon
I keep the microphone off on my cell phone at all times and turn it on only for incoming/outgoing calls.
I keep my the laptops in my home on airplane mode except when in use.
I request that friends and family turn off their phone microphones when discussing anything political.
I also keep my geolocation services off except when I need to use a map.
It's really not that inconvenient. Privacy tactics are good practice.
So important. I wish people wouldn't be so deliberately obtuse about this!
"I have nothing to hide" is all fine and dandy until they start to expose other people's data to the collectors ...
Ah, these devices get to know us & then are used to manipulate us. They are not benign.
@quincy @Em0nM4stodon it's sadly why i don't give my real phone number to anyone anymore only the signal username.
because first thing they will do, put it on their phone (and will be shared to meta, tiktok, google etc).
@quincy @Em0nM4stodon This is what gets me the most. Nobody knows what others' threat models look like
@Em0nM4stodon everything 'smart' is actually a computer.
Smartphone is a computer that can phone, smart TV is a computer on which you can watch TV, smart car is a computer on which one's built a car, and so on.
This is a bonfire demo instance for testing purposes. This is not a production site. There are no backups for now. Data, including profiles may be wiped without notice. No service or other guarantees expressed or implied.
