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Did We Lose the Privacy War?
eihab writes "I've been a fanatic about my online privacy for the last few years. I've been using NoScript and blocking Google Analytics, disabling third-party cookies, encrypting IM and doing everything in my power to keep data-miners at bay. Recently, I've been feeling like I'm just doing too much and still losing! No matter what I do, I know that there's a weak link somewhere, be it my ISP, Flash cookies, etc. I've recently gotten AT&T U-Verse, who, according to their privacy statement, will be monitoring my TV watching habits for advertisement purposes. I'm extremely annoyed by that, yet I love the service so much and I don't think I can cancel it. I just can't take this anymore. I have nothing to hide, but I do not want to be profiled and become member #5534289 in a database somewhere that records everything I do. I know I'm not that interesting to anyone, but the idea of someone being able to pull up everything about me with a simple SQL SELECT statement and a couple of JOINS makes me cringe. One of the reasons I hate data mining is that data security is not understood and almost non-existent at a lot of places. Case in point: I changed my life insurance two years ago, and the medical firm that conducted my health screening was broken into and computers with non-encrypted hard drives and patients' data were stolen. That medical firm didn't really need my SSN, but then again neither did AT&T when I signed up for U-Verse. Am I just too paranoid? Is privacy dead? Should I just give up and accept the fact that privacy is not the norm anymore (like Facebook's founder recently said) or should I keep fighting the good fight for my privacy?"
Look... not to be a spoil sport, but who cares? So you don't have any privacy... is it costing you money? Is it costing you jobs? Is it harming you? The alternative is to go "off the grid"... and you *can* do that if it's worth it to you. It's not to me. So just accept that companies will look over your shoulder and don't do stuff that you're going to be ashamed of, counting on the fact that the law of averages will shield you. This is no different, really, than living in a small town.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Privacy has been bad for the internet. There, I said it.
The net circa 1995-2004 or so, being anonymous was trivial to achieve. And what did it result in? A putrid culture of hacking, piracy, foul language and lack of manners, incessant and destructive celebrity gossip, porn up the wazoo, and more piracy.
The net is a cesspool, the Chinese are running around jiggling everybody's locks, and allowing comments at the end of online newspaper articles has revealed a deeply divided America, Europe and World. Sport just makes it worse, the Olympics don't bring humanity together, it divides it further.
You all have Big Brother because the collective WE have been such asswipes about the net as a medium. My concluding evidence for my argument: Youtube comments.
If I don't see a tampon commercial, I consider my life better. Frankly, I have no objection to more-targeted advertising as long as it's not more advertising. (That is, if I'm going to see the ads anyway, show me targeted ones.)
Comment of the year
we need to keep the guns out of the hands of minorities.