This will be my last post on this topic, sorry for the length, since I can't seem to convey my intent and don't want to be left defending a viewpoint that brings everyone down.
What's wild about this thread is that I honestly thought I was bringing some brevity to an otherwise negative topic. I most certainly was not making any more fun of any other valued contributor than I was of myself--it was if anything a statement of commiseration, not degradation.
I, too, have the desire for corporations to respect our privacy more than they do, but I just don't see that happening. It would be extremely counter-productive for a business that mines personal data to customize and thereby leverage your preferences to just suddenly stop doing so. Perhaps if every company simultaneously disavowed all of the benefits of violating your privacy it might have a chance of working--at least until one company violated that trust and suddenly became the single most relevant provider of services on the planet. To expect government, who has a huge stake in working with these big companies to aggregate citizen data, to want to stop the surveillance or to be able to actively police the possibility of surveillance would be equally if not more counter-productive.
My biggest point about the concept of privacy being an illusion is that while you tell Google not to follow you and report the location of every search you have every performed and while you use a segmented VPN that accesses another VPN that ultimately gets your Duck Duck Go privacy-enabled browser running in "extreme private mode", the fact remains that the information that you are trying to desperately to hide is still available if someone wants to go to enough trouble. If you believe that your privacy is absolutely safe, you are suffering from a delusion. And more corporate statements telling you that they won't violate your privacy, more government oversight that seeks to protect your privacy, and more hardware and software that supports hiding your tracks is just a ping pong game of escalating priorities. For every move you make, there is a much bigger and much more concerted effort that undermines it. Knowing this and choosing how much effort you are willing to put into your belief that your privacy is protected is your decision, and I do not wish to take away anyone's right to choose how much they invest in keeping their belief in their privacy protected.
What I find more disheartening than the invasion of my privacy with some limited controls that I can implement is the defacto belief that everyone is out to get me and that if my private information is available to some big company that they will somehow use it to my disadvantage. I mean, that's the big fear, isn't it? That if the government, working with big business, can hear your dissent about the president: present of future, they could have you arrested or you could use your job, much like wearing blackface or refusing to write an adequately extensive statement declaring your unmitigated support for Black Lives Matter.
I appreciate the chance to discuss this topic (which I have to believe is the ops intent when bringing up the article he posted) and I don't mean to pass judgment on anyone who chooses to believe they are protecting their privacy by implementing whatever level of security they feel is adequate. Everyone should be allowed to do whatever they want to do and I don't have a problem with it. My entire goal was to show that the advantages of some of these items (which will get better and will become more privacy-focused) far outweigh the historical precedent of harmful actions by big business or by government with respect to privacy. That is to say that the enjoyment (especially for tech nerds) of using these items can be profound. And so far, we haven't really seen any practical risk associated with using them. Even when recordings have be subpoena'd for testimony, it has only been during the commission of a serious crime--never just for fun and certainly not widespread across the population. So very little evidence of risk and huge opportunity to miss out on the development cycle of the latest technology seems contrary to the tech nerd inside of me.
Also, I feel obliged to point out that absolutely none of the kerosene-heat families that chose not to implement electricity had any effect whatsoever on the electrical safety requirements. In fact, surely you can see that a couple of people who were early adopters were the only ones that informed the industry of the problems with electrical safety. That is to say that non-participants have no benefit to the development process that makes things safer. It is only those who adopt the new technology and find it's flaws (like security flaws) that make it safer. They are also the ones who are more likely to benefit from both the short and long term advantages the technology provides.
People avoiding these smart appliances are not having much of an effect on the market because those who are, love it for the most part. Early adopters who enjoy asking Google questions and then cracking up about the answers are the ones who will determine the future requirements and guidelines for business--not the avoiders and nay-sayers. I find the way that
@distilled handles the situation to be brilliant and effective. He gets the advantage of the services without a lot of the risk. He will be in a better position to ensure that the next version is better and safer and more respectful of privacy than someone who doesn't use one at all.
Whereas@L&LD, your children are going to be exposed to these appliances at every one of their friends' homes and likely soon to be in every classroom and business. Your belief that you are protecting the privacy of your family (which is admirable without a doubt) is a lot like believing that because all cell phone conversations can be easily recorded,nobody in your family should own a cell phone. Surely you can see that this is not the case and though cellphones provide the single biggest opportunity for invasion of your most intimate privacy, they are all but a necessity today. I still support your choice to do what you want to do and I understand your hesitation to "have an open mic on the internet" so don't get me wrong. I'm just saying that perhaps like
@distilled, there's a way you can have both and the benefit you could offer to the development cvcle is much greater as a participant than as an avoider. In short, we need more skeptical people to ensure our protection.
