Edward Snowden: How Your Cell Phone Spies on You
superstar4410
Matthew Leverton

Video brought to you by Youtube on your smartphone, right?

I turn my phone off at night. >:(

Because it's a big battery sucking waste for no reason and I don't want my beauty rest interrupted by anybody.

bamccaig

Thanks for sharing. It's not news to me, but it's important to spread the message. It's exhausting trying to explain why this is important to normies though... They just want to be lazy and not care. :-/

I'm starting to think that humanity is on a crash course, and rightfully so. >:(

Append:

I suppose I just want to be lazy and not care too. For years I went without a phone, and I didn't really miss it either. However, it does come in handy being able to communicate with family from almost anywhere, and the map and weather apps are super useful for a hobby like motorcycling. I broke down and got one shortly after I got a motorcycle so that if anything happened I could call for help. And gradually over time I've been easing up restrictions on it because if you do restrict your phone then apps just become unstable, and then it's too frustrating to use.

It's a similar story with the Web too. 10 years ago I always ran ad blockers, script blockers, etc. And the Web worked GREAT with all of the junk blocked. It was trivial to enable the hosts script(s) and ignore the advertisers and analytics. Today very few Web sites are usable without scripting from advertisers and analytics enabled. I also find that script blocking tools in today's browsers generally do not understand all of the scripts on the page until you begin to add them (likely because scripts are being added dynamically), which I think is strategic on the part of the analytics/advertising industries to make blocking them impractical. For example, my mobile provider's Web site doesn't load the payment processing scripts unless the advertising and analytics scripts are permitted to load first. It could be strategic on the part of my phone company too, of course. Or it could just be incompetence all around. Regardless, it's very, very bad for humanity and for the Internet.

The amount of garbage most Web sites pull in is insane. If you've never used a script blocker then I recommend giving NoScript a try, even just momentarily to understand what we're talking about here. Trying to weed through it trial-by-error style to figure out only what resources are required to make it work is just too much effort today. And so you either don't use the Web or you allow the Web uncomfortable levels of access to your data.

We need for our devices and software to be opened up to us, and for us to own and control our data and devices. Corporations are NEVER going to do this on their own though. We need for governments to regulate the corporations to force them too. And governments aren't going to mess with big business until a LOT of people get upset. Meaning change will require the majority of the population understanding the problem and being upset about it. So it's unlikely to happen. We're likely to just keep snowballing towards a tyrannical state instead (though I might argue we're already there and beyond, and it's too late to stop it).

Matthew Leverton

The points Snowden makes are common sense to a techie but I think well spoken for the average citizen. If a site doesn't work without AdBlock and Ghostery, then I won't use it. I don't use any big name public social networking apps. To me that covers 80% of what he's talking about. I'd have to cut off Google to take care of the remaining 19.9%.

But honestly what annoys me more than big data about phones is that everybody I know can contact me 24/7 and expect an immediate response (which I don't give). That's the part that makes me want to throw my phone in a bucket of water.

I miss the days where sending email was more akin to sending snail mail in terms of deliverability and response.

bamccaig

If a site doesn't work without AdBlock and Ghostery, then I won't use it.

There are several sites that I need to use to access online payments or pay bills. And in addition to that when I'm attempting to research topics it's pretty much guaranteed that 90% of the sites I land on won't work with scripting disabled, and each one seems to require a 5 minute wrestling match to get the minimal scripts enabled without enabling any of the evil (and usually I need to let a little evil by for critical functions to work).

Sites that work without any JavaScript appear to be very rare these days (perhaps only hackers and neckbeards have them). I will just delete overlays from the DOM if possible, but often the techniques used are sufficiently obscure that I give up. The Internet becomes nearly useless to me (or too tedious) to continue blocking everything. You do raise an interesting point. Maybe it's not even worth my time anymore. On the other hand, I think until the fight for an open Internet is officially lost and doomed I guess I should keep participating and fighting to save it instead.

I don't use any big name public social networking apps. To me that covers 80% of what he's talking about. I'd have to cut off Google to take care of the remaining 19.9%.

We're certainly too dependent on Google. I only really use YouTube for social networking, if you could call it that. I try to remind myself that it's a waste of time, but I typically do post meaningful comments and like to get positive feedback on them. I also rely on Google for most search needs, for email, for scheduling, for chat/meetings, cloud storage, my dead blog, etc.

I could potentially run some of these services myself, but I don't have that kind of time or energy. It's really a shame that more of the free software packages for some of these services aren't trivial to setup. I think that the utopia that I'm aiming for will require it anyway. Perhaps that's the job for a specialty distro instead though.

But honestly what annoys me more than big data about phones is that everybody I know can contact me 24/7 and expect an immediate response (which I don't give). That's the part that makes me want to throw my phone in a bucket of water.

I rarely respond immediately. Regardless of the time of day. During work I'm distracted with work (or just distracted because that's my new normal), and when I'm at home just hanging out I often leave my phone in the other room or just don't check it for hours (ignoring it if it makes noise). A few people do expect immediate responses, but the beauty of texting is that you don't have to answer right away. Hopefully those people aren't your boss and you can tell them off (or politely, if it's like your wife or mom).

I miss the days where sending email was more akin to sending snail mail in terms of deliverability and response.

I am very fortunate to have email to assist me in communication at work because it is much easier for me to manage. If it flowed at a snails pace it wouldn't be practical for my needs, and I would have to struggle through more in-person/verbal communication.

When responses flow quickly then work goes quickly. Which is great. I normally do try to respond immediately to work messages (partially so I don't forget to, and because I want to encourage others to respond quicker to me). Admittedly this hyper-vigilance could be contributing to my lack of concentration as of late though.

Matthew Leverton

For what it's worth, Ghostery and AdBlock don't disable all scripts, only those known to serve ads and track you. Some sites do break because they use things like a remote Google script manager (meant for ads) for required site functionality, but I just stay away from them.

There's nothing evil with JavaScript (other than the language is garbage) powered apps. It's tracking and ads (neither require JS) that are evil.

Polybios

AdBlock and Ghostery

I was told to use µBlock Origin and PrivacyBadger instead.

MiquelFire
Polybios said:

I was told to use µBlock Origin and PrivacyBadger instead.

That's what I'm rocking (plus whatever Firefox has built in these days, though I wish I could allow embedded Twitter images with that while keeping other blocks)

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