I was kinda surprised at how many wanted access to the microphone and camera (that weren't sound or camera apps).
Not to mention other sketchy things like access to your address book. My solution to this problem is very simple: if an app is asking for permissions when there is no clear reason for it to be, I don't use the app.
There are tons of alternative to Facebook for doing this. Email would work fine (that's what most of the people in my family do), but so would setting up one of the cheap and easy websites such as Wordpress.
which is as much of an intrusion as a guy walking into an open store to buy something and being overheard by the sales clerk.
No. It's a much greater intrusion than that. When someone overhears what you say in public, they aren't writing it down, noting various mathematical characteristics of it, and storing everything in the database of a multinational corporation.
Or not usually. We have a word for the people who actually do this: spies.
There have been numerous reports of any page with a like button creating an 'anonymous' user hash for the sole purpose of tracking people that are not signed in to facebook (or don't have the login cookie).
Yep, which is why I block all access to Facebook servers, and block all javascript by default.
That's the good part about making it a switch: people who often use their phones as actual phones can just leave it on. But a substantial portion of the population (especially the younger set) almost never make voice phone calls. It's so rare, that when they get a voice call, they automatically assume that there's an emergency.
There are reasonable expectations and there are unreasonable expectations. Users may be guilty of being naive and giving an inch, but Facebook has taken that inch and run 10 miles down Big Brother Blvd.
Facebook has been openly running full tilt down Big Brother Blvd. from day 1. It's the people who think that Facebook doesn't actively fight against your privacy who have the unreasonable expectations.
(with a fair bit of security, short of someone forcing you to unlock your own phone)
Ummm... if you enjoy the convenience of logging in with fingerprint scanners, that's fine -- but know that it's not very secure. Nowhere near as secure as a decent password. Nobody needs to force you to unlock your phone. All they need is a copy of your fingerprint, and fingerprints are pretty easy to get.
What I do is root my phone and run a firewall on it. The firewall blocks all traffic, in or out, from any app unless I specifically allow it. That way, I don't have to know what IP addresses to block -- I just block everything.
But then I have to trust that the stock firmware doesn't do nefarious things like phone home or present a back door. And I don't have that level of trust at all.
You are right in that most users don't understand (or care) about these things, and that businesses tend to cater to the lowest common denominator.
But what does that have to do with the fact that businesses treat their customers like idiots, and in the process make their products and services worse for customers who actually care about these things? That attitude, while it may be reflective of a justifiable business decision, is offensive (and demonstrates the sociopathic nature of business).
This is true. I was not trying to assert otherwise. I was just assuming that the hypothetical Taylor Swift shirt was sufficiently different, in order to keep the analogy with the Guy shirt.
This is true. If the worst thing that Sanders does is to bully someone with trademark, he'd still be an absolute saint compared to the others running.
But still, it would be a mistake for those of us who think Sanders is the best available candidate to let him off the hook about this anyway. Sanders is a politician, and all politicians need their feet held to the fire. Part of what's gone awry in the US is that we've not been very good at that.
Freedom of speech does not permit breaking copyright / trademark laws
True. Any law the unconstitutionally infringes on speech is an invalid law. This is why the vast majority of laws, including IP laws, include allowances for protected speech. People using trademarked or copyrighted material as part of protected speech are not breaking trademark or copyright law.
Freedom of speech is not a right to make a profit.
Nor do you lose your freedom of speech because you are engaging in a profit-making enterprise.
Freedom of speech does not exonerate you from defamation.
You will have to define "defamation" here, because I don't see anything in the shirt that looks like it rises to the legal definition. In the first place, how "defaming" the speech has to be to rise to the legal standard is MUCH higher for political figures and celebrities than for the rest of us. In the second place, to be defaming, the speech has to be a statement of fact (vs opinion) that the speaker knows is not true.
These shirts appear to be a clear statement of opinion about an important political figure, thus not defamation.
Oh and Freedom of speech only protects you from your government, not from a private person or corporation, and even within it's scope it does a shit job.
The guy can make as many of the shirts as he wants. He just can't sell them without Sanders' permission.
This makes no sense at all. If the shirts are a trademark violation, then he is unable to distribute them at all, regardless of whether he charges any money for them. If they are not a trademark violation, then he is obviously free to do with them as he likes.
Either way, whether he's doing this for profit or not doesn't affect anything at all.
Slashdot Mirror
I was kinda surprised at how many wanted access to the microphone and camera (that weren't sound or camera apps).
Not to mention other sketchy things like access to your address book. My solution to this problem is very simple: if an app is asking for permissions when there is no clear reason for it to be, I don't use the app.
If Slashdot counts as "social media", then the term has pretty much lost all useful meaning.
There are tons of alternative to Facebook for doing this. Email would work fine (that's what most of the people in my family do), but so would setting up one of the cheap and easy websites such as Wordpress.
which is as much of an intrusion as a guy walking into an open store to buy something and being overheard by the sales clerk.
No. It's a much greater intrusion than that. When someone overhears what you say in public, they aren't writing it down, noting various mathematical characteristics of it, and storing everything in the database of a multinational corporation.
Or not usually. We have a word for the people who actually do this: spies.
There have been numerous reports of any page with a like button creating an 'anonymous' user hash for the sole purpose of tracking people that are not signed in to facebook (or don't have the login cookie).
Yep, which is why I block all access to Facebook servers, and block all javascript by default.
That's the good part about making it a switch: people who often use their phones as actual phones can just leave it on. But a substantial portion of the population (especially the younger set) almost never make voice phone calls. It's so rare, that when they get a voice call, they automatically assume that there's an emergency.
There are reasonable expectations and there are unreasonable expectations. Users may be guilty of being naive and giving an inch, but Facebook has taken that inch and run 10 miles down Big Brother Blvd.
Facebook has been openly running full tilt down Big Brother Blvd. from day 1. It's the people who think that Facebook doesn't actively fight against your privacy who have the unreasonable expectations.
And yet, I still hear people saying things like "Microsoft has changed", "Microsoft isn't evil anymore", or even "Microsoft is a good guy now".
How many times does Microsoft have to demonstrate that they're still the same old Microsoft before people stop believing this nonsense?
Microsoft retrofitted much of its Win 10 spyware into Windows 7 updates a while back.
(with a fair bit of security, short of someone forcing you to unlock your own phone)
Ummm... if you enjoy the convenience of logging in with fingerprint scanners, that's fine -- but know that it's not very secure. Nowhere near as secure as a decent password. Nobody needs to force you to unlock your phone. All they need is a copy of your fingerprint, and fingerprints are pretty easy to get.
What I do is root my phone and run a firewall on it. The firewall blocks all traffic, in or out, from any app unless I specifically allow it. That way, I don't have to know what IP addresses to block -- I just block everything.
Then what's the right way?
What about being secure enough for users?
But then I have to trust that the stock firmware doesn't do nefarious things like phone home or present a back door. And I don't have that level of trust at all.
If you're transmitting data to a service provider, that data will be sold.
You are right in that most users don't understand (or care) about these things, and that businesses tend to cater to the lowest common denominator.
But what does that have to do with the fact that businesses treat their customers like idiots, and in the process make their products and services worse for customers who actually care about these things? That attitude, while it may be reflective of a justifiable business decision, is offensive (and demonstrates the sociopathic nature of business).
Emil Kirkegaard is a total scumbag.
This is true. I was not trying to assert otherwise. I was just assuming that the hypothetical Taylor Swift shirt was sufficiently different, in order to keep the analogy with the Guy shirt.
This is true. If the worst thing that Sanders does is to bully someone with trademark, he'd still be an absolute saint compared to the others running.
But still, it would be a mistake for those of us who think Sanders is the best available candidate to let him off the hook about this anyway. Sanders is a politician, and all politicians need their feet held to the fire. Part of what's gone awry in the US is that we've not been very good at that.
If the shirt was parodying them, they wouldn't have a leg to stand on in trademark terms either.
Ack. That last sentence was an editing error. Those are not my words.
Freedom of speech does not permit breaking copyright / trademark laws
True. Any law the unconstitutionally infringes on speech is an invalid law. This is why the vast majority of laws, including IP laws, include allowances for protected speech. People using trademarked or copyrighted material as part of protected speech are not breaking trademark or copyright law.
Freedom of speech is not a right to make a profit.
Nor do you lose your freedom of speech because you are engaging in a profit-making enterprise.
Freedom of speech does not exonerate you from defamation.
You will have to define "defamation" here, because I don't see anything in the shirt that looks like it rises to the legal definition. In the first place, how "defaming" the speech has to be to rise to the legal standard is MUCH higher for political figures and celebrities than for the rest of us. In the second place, to be defaming, the speech has to be a statement of fact (vs opinion) that the speaker knows is not true.
These shirts appear to be a clear statement of opinion about an important political figure, thus not defamation.
Oh and Freedom of speech only protects you from your government, not from a private person or corporation, and even within it's scope it does a shit job.
While there is truth there, people think this means that every instance of potential infringement must be prosecuted or the protection is lost.
That is definitely not true.
It very explicitly states that, according to law, anyone in the Communist Party is considered to be attempting to overthrow the government
Being a communist != being a member of the Communist Party.
Also, Sanders is not a communist.
Profit != Speech
The guy can make as many of the shirts as he wants. He just can't sell them without Sanders' permission.
This makes no sense at all. If the shirts are a trademark violation, then he is unable to distribute them at all, regardless of whether he charges any money for them. If they are not a trademark violation, then he is obviously free to do with them as he likes.
Either way, whether he's doing this for profit or not doesn't affect anything at all.