[Source]: IEEE Spectrum
Whether we like it or not, we all use the cloud to communicate and to store and process our data. We use dozens of cloud services, sometimes indirectly and unwittingly. We do so because the cloud brings real benefits to individuals and organizations alike. We can access our data across multiple devices, communicate with anyone from anywhere, and command a remote data center's worth of power from a handheld device.
But using the cloud means our security and privacy now depend on cloud providers. Remember: The cloud is just another way of saying "someone else's computer." Cloud providers are single points of failure and prime targets for hackers to scoop up everything from proprietary corporate communications to our personal photo albums and financial documents.
[...] It's not just attackers we have to worry about. Some companies use their access—benefiting from weak laws, complex software, and lax oversight—to mine and sell our data.
Our message is simple: It is possible to get the best of both worlds. We can and should get the benefits of the cloud while taking security back into our own hands. Here we outline a strategy for doing that.
In the last few years, a slew of ideas old and new have converged to reveal a path out of this morass, but they haven't been widely recognized, combined, or used. These ideas, which we'll refer to in the aggregate as "decoupling," allow us to rethink both security and privacy.
Here's the gist. The less someone knows, the less they can put you and your data at risk. In security this is called Least Privilege. The decoupling principle applies that idea to cloud services by making sure systems know as little as possible while doing their jobs. It states that we gain security and privacy by separating private data that today is unnecessarily concentrated.
[...] The needed protocols and infrastructure exist, and there are services that can do all of this already, without sacrificing the performance, quality, and usability of conventional cloud services.
But we cannot just rely on industry to take care of this. Self-regulation is a time-honored stall tactic: A piecemeal or superficial tech-only approach would likely undermine the will of the public and regulators to take action. We need a belt-and-suspenders strategy, with government policy that mandates decoupling-based best practices, a tech sector that implements this architecture, and public awareness of both the need for and the benefits of this better way forward.
Do you think this strategy will work ?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Tuesday November 07 2023, @12:58PM (9 children)
The sensible solution is to simply not use cloud services where possible and poison the data that you cannot avoid to put there so any data gained is useless.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RS3 on Tuesday November 07 2023, @04:53PM (7 children)
Adding: I like the idea of disinformation. Clog up the voyeurs' databases with garbage data wherever and whenever possible.
(Score: 3, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 07 2023, @08:00PM (1 child)
The number of birthday wishes I get three weeks before my actual birthday on Facebook is.... illuminating.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday November 08 2023, @06:09AM
That's not such a bad thing though. You should capitalize and get many birthday parties, dinners, and presents. The 'net says it so all those birthdays must be true.
I don't search for people much, but a couple of years ago was searching a little on an old girlfriend's name. It's fairly unique, and the several "people finder" - type websites all have about the same list of past residences, but each has a different present one. All wanted $ for the likely incorrect info. I didn't waste my time or $.
(Score: 2, Informative) by anubi on Wednesday November 08 2023, @05:44AM (4 children)
I already have been doing that for years.
I exist on the net, but most of the info is wrong.
I have several non-existent virtual wives.
And kids.
Wrong birthdate. Wrong age.
Lived in several places I've never been.
TWO of my old phone numbers are correct.
So is a previous apartment I once lived in.
And two old email addresses.
Hopefully, identity thieves will tip themselves off by their submission of so much crap.
If someone opens a loan in my name, good luck finding someone to send the bills and collection notices to.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday November 08 2023, @06:01AM (2 children)
I'm too chicken to search on my name. Years ago I heard that everything you search for goes into the databases. It's kind of like searching for something you might have invented- by searching for it you're giving it away.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday November 08 2023, @09:13AM (1 child)
Oh yes. Storage space is cheaper than dirt ( ask any realtor ), and CPU cycles even cheaper.
Everything they can get their hands on is correlated and merged into existing databases, then shared with yet more " business partners".
Read the legalese behind the " privacy policy " statement associated with the " agree " button on web pages that must be accepted to do something..or the fine print on loyalty card applications. Hey, I don't actually expect you to read it, just a quick scan over will show you just how much you are waiving for a pittance. Many ask for damm near everything, then share the databases of people who have waived their legal protections mentioned in the waiver.
Sure, they promise not to sell, yet those I have seen blatantly admit to sharing, and you have no say. Yet business also tells me " sharing " is a violation of their Congress-given rights. All it takes is someone truthfully opening a " free hamburger" loyalty account and they have the name, email, location, and possibly any financial information if other goods, likely required for redemption, had credit card accounts used for payment.
How many businesses out there aren't pushing their loyalty card? Knowing people will volunteer truthful information, along with payment credentials, to businesses, this makes them a valuable partner to have where patrons have already waived their default privacy rights for a small reward...a reward subsidized by higher charges ( no discount ) for those customers who decline the offer. Get multiple accounts and you can correlate some pretty accurate info on who buys/does what along with how for it.
Always be on the lookout for store loyalty cards dropped in the parking lot... Someone else will get some credit for your purchase. Big deal. You got the card price. And didn't have to waive your privacy rights to use it. Since stores give them away for filling out a form, few give much of a hoot about losing one.
We all know it's expensive to visit a card store without their card. Best go to WalMart if you don't have a card store's card.
But this can backfire. If you ever need a loan, you don't exist. You aren't in their database enough to show you are sufficiently hooked. Same with landlords and employers. Old retired goat like me can usually get away with it because we aren't buying much anymore and living off retirement.
Gotta admit though, the LifeLock ads do concern me, especially given how much private info collected by financial concerns ( The Equifax Breach ) is out there on all of us.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 08 2023, @07:51PM
>Many ask for damm near everything, then share the databases of people who have waived their legal protections mentioned in the waiver.
Optimist. I expect many operations that provide an "opt-out" route to use their service still database anything and everything you do there.
It's like some of the SPAM e-mail you receive where the "unsubscribe" link only gets you put on more crap e-mail lists because now you've confirmed that this is a monitored e-mail account. Granted, in this case the legitimate companies _do_ (about 95% of the time, in my experience) attempt to unsubscribe you, but that's just because it's bad business to openly break the law in annoying ways that your victims can easily prove - even if they can't easily sue for compliance or damages.
But on the data archiving and mining side of things? Like Snowden showed: people will start a data mining operation merely because they can, and can do it "in the dark" for a long long time before anyone who cares even has the slightest shred of evidence that they are doing it. These "we have our sources" secret troves of information provide value to those who collect and use them, and there's damn little we can do to find who is doing it.
Transparency is always the answer, but it's not easy to enforce.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Saturday November 11 2023, @07:27AM
Learn to use Facebook and other antisocial media sites as what they are: Advertising platforms.
On there, I'm the biggest and best in my trade, rubbing shoulders with the biggest and brightest minds and looking like their best buddy ever. And if all you do is take your information about me from antisocial media, that's all you'll get. You will be duped and swindled.
Of course if you ask me, I will honestly tell you that none of this is true and that it's just fake to thwart the dicks that try to sneak a peek into my life without telling me. And that's what they deserve for doing this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2023, @05:36PM
Encrypt your data with AES-256, then send it up to the cloud.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Tuesday November 07 2023, @01:02PM (2 children)
So their plan is to somehow, be legal means and wishful thinking, make companies log less information and stop trying to profile customers without said data by merging small amounts of data from different sources together? The data should be spread out and put into more baskets, or databases. So no single user have all the data? That doesn't sound very practical, more security problems as more places need to be secured and also just generating a lot more traffic.
They hide it behind phrases such as "Least Privilege" and "Decoupling". But as far as I can tell this is what they mean. Abstract concepts doesn't really change that.
What is the companies incentive to stop? As noted the laws are weak and the monetary incentive is massive. After all this is how they make a lot of their money. Advertisements. The more targeted and less generic the better, for them.
They appear to basically be hoping that these companies are just going to scrap their business models out of the goodness of their evil black hearts.
No.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 07 2023, @07:31PM
>government policy that mandates decoupling-based best practices, a tech sector that implements this architecture, and public awareness of both
What ivory tower did this rube fall out of? Sure seems to have hit the concrete head first before spouting those pearls of... wishdom.
Make me king, guarantee me absolute protection from assassination and absolute control of at least 25% of the world's power structures (aka resources and the military to enforce said control). Then something like this could get rolled out as legislation and made to work, by me, but that part about having an absolute global monarch telling 8 billion people what to do would seem like a bad trade.
Transparency Is Always The Answer... start with a mandate for timely, accurate and complete public disclosure of data gathered. If we could get even that, the public might become a little more aware, but still not clued in enough to care enough to change their behavior to improve the situation. In the same vein as "we get the government we deserve," we also get the internet we deserve, because people flock to sites like Tik Tok, regardless of how evil they are portrayed to be by highly visible publicity campaigns.
If the public ever did lose enough apathy to start "voting with their clicks and eyeballs" against websites with the most horrible privacy values, then we might just see some industry self-regulation to create more attractive products based on those values of privacy over cat pictures, bouncy boob videos, etc. It all starts with Transparency - without that, we're continuing down the drain to RoboCop 2028 land... Would you buy that for a dollar?
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by crafoo on Tuesday November 07 2023, @07:39PM
It honestly sounds to me like a plea for more regulatory capture, allowing the established companies to freeze out any competition. more government regulation means more lawfare, lawsuits, armies of lawyers looking for loopholes. a staffing and capital investment that small companies simply cannot make and therefore an industry they cannot compete in.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mcgrew on Tuesday November 07 2023, @02:38PM (11 children)
Whether we like it or not, we all use the cloud to communicate and to store and process our data.
Some of our data, yes. My web server is "the cloud" as all are. I will occasionally use a free web based service as a tool, like a bar code generator. I "own" kindle books.
But I avoid the cloud whenever possible. Rather than storing my data with Google or Amazon or Microsoft, I have my own network file server. It's not like terabyte hard drives are expensive any more. Paying rent to store your data, or to use a piece of software when there is an owned (free or purchased) alternative is just ignorant; stupid if you know better.
Impeach Donald Saruman and his sidekick Elon Sauron
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Tuesday November 07 2023, @03:02PM (8 children)
Amazon would like to have a word with you about your possessiveness of their licensed content.
Amazon Has Disabled Downloading Kindle Unlimited Titles for USB Transfer [the-ebook-reader.com]
Amazon Removes E-Books From Kindle Store, Revokes Ownership [pcworld.com]
Amazon Removes Books From Kindle Unlimited After They Appear on Pirate Sites [torrentfreak.com]
Kindle eReaders Deleting Sideloaded eBooks? [the-ebook-reader.com]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by anubi on Wednesday November 08 2023, @12:53AM (1 child)
The so-called "pirate" sites seem to be the only sites that actually deliver operable product.
Especially those in European and Russian regimes who find copyright takedown demands to be quite " illuminating".
Ever read the "Terms and Conditions" and "Privacy Statement" that many sites require you to accept? Some of those documents are over a megabyte!
The "attack surface" that people assume when clicking the "I agree" button is horrendous! It requires a great trust in a business or a gambling mindset to bind oneself to such a pile of legalese. I don't know if even a lawyer knows which claims are legally enforceable and which are there to just intimidate those who disagree. Like those "non-compete" clauses in employment contracts. They lay someone off and expect the ex-employee not to seek employment under another employer, which will entail following the new employers order?
I won't even have a ebook reader. If necessary, I will fall back to ASCII text to avoid gambling with mandatory agreements to legalese I neither have the time or legal background to accept.
By actually paying for DRM and reportware, all I am doing is encouraging a business model that will be used to ensnare us all in enforced ignorance as well as forcing us to beg.
Think I am advocating theft? Then revert Copyright and Patent back to original, so the free market will work, so we aren't burdened with all these artificial monopolies created by our law-makers colluding with their rights holder cronies to extort maximal rent-seeking.
We no longer seem to earn money by making things, rather we sell permission to do things.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday November 08 2023, @02:18PM
DRM, etc. is why I pay for games on GOG (DRM-Free). Whether or not I bought it on Steam. A newer title, I will have most likely already purchased on Steam and then purchased on GOG, if released there.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Wednesday November 08 2023, @01:22AM (4 children)
Thanks for the convenient list of reasons never to buy a Kindle.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday November 08 2023, @03:30AM (3 children)
I remember fiddling around with one ( or was it a Nook? ) and felt quite helpless/ignorant with it. I couldn't get it to do anything useful. Seemed like an awful expensive and restricted way to read a book. Much rather have a .PDF of it. Especially if it's a reference book, as most of mine are. Incidentally, I am still looking for a PDF copy of the wiring diagrams for my 30 year old IDI Diesel van, despite I have three hardcopy bound books of the same. Often, I just need several sheets, knowing they will be severely shopworn, oiled, torn, creased, marked, when I take them under the hood tracing a circuit.
I've been leery of oddball formats ever since I bought and paid for a copy of "IC Master" - a collection of specifications for computer interface chips in the 80's, sold on CDRom. I thought it would have been compatible with my brand new Netscape browser. I had already seen packages of documentation as hypertext ( new in those days ) linked .html files that were searchable via html browser by pointing it to "file://" or the CDRom drive instead of a URL. It wasn't. Just wasted money for some DRM thing that didn't work. But I did remember the lesson: Paid-for stuff often doesn't work due to some DRM thing. The free stuff-no one gives a hoot if you copy it, so one can back up their stuff. Or print off pieces.
I never did buy a commercial DVR because of lack of .MP4 recording. I Used a Hauppauge card instead. It was obvious Businesses were far more concerned over controlling me than selling me anything I might find useful. Besides, Businesses let Investors take the hit for failed product. All the Executive, legal and marketeers get paid regardless of the customer experience. God knows how many things I have left on the retail shelf simply because some designer omitted the thing that would have made a digital video recorder usable for me. Like a standard removable HDD carrier and .MP4 compatibility. Even on the half-price going out of business sale, I would only offer $10 for it, thinking maybe its HDD drive had a usable standard IDE interface, and I could just erase and reformat it into something usable.
This marketing greed to dominate the customer only teaches the customer to be leery of high tech product.
It probably won't work, and it costs a lot not only in money, but also the requisite legal agreements that one must agree to in order to activate the purchase.
Business will not sign such a thing if you present them with one. They know better. I gave an AT&T rep one to sign as a prank, knowing he was going to ask me to sign several. I had no intention of a purchase anyway; I just wanted to see what he would do. Mine was simple, in 14 point font, that simply stated that I am over 70 years old, and due to my impaired vision, any text printed in less than 14 point type or CIE contrast ratio less than 0.8 will have no legal significance.
He would not sign it. Despite my constant reminders of "Always Be Closing!", and "Why are you holding up the Sale?". You see, Business is smart. We are the dumb ones who readily agree to such wishwash.
I don't even visit Fry's or Best Buy anymore. I get whatever pieces I need from Goodwill, eBay, and Amazon to assemble what I need, as I get the strong impression the marketers don't really give a damn about what I, the customer, want. They get paid whether or not I buy . They run on Statistics. Always Be Closing. And they are quite good at it if you consider it is Stores, not Sales, that are being Closed.
"Purchase" must be a nasty word in the Business and Marketing world, given all the agreements, restrictions, and other stumbling blocks they place in the path of those still doing it. The old folks are finally learning the neighbor's kid probably knows more how to assemble a computer than the trained professional at the retail store, but the trained professional is an expert in running the billing machine.
Maybe the Commercial DVR would come in handy for throwing at stray cats, so I won't have to go retrieve a shoe.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday November 08 2023, @02:16PM (2 children)
In my opinion ebooks are horrible for reference. Sure, it works great, if all you need to do is look up a word. It doesn't work, if you're actually using the reference. I.E. Car Manual or a purely research driven use. Someone really doing in-depth research may actually have the print copy and an ebook.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Unixnut on Thursday November 09 2023, @12:52PM (1 child)
I've taken to using my e-book reader for reference/research in programming and computing, primarily because I can keep all the reference books on there, it is thin and light, and I can tag pages, highlight lines and scribble notes on the PDFs from the tablet, which makes it almost paper-like. Plus I can search PDFs and use the internal PDF links work as well (assuming the e-book has them).
Is it as good as a real book? No, but its an A4 size tablet that is less than 5mm thick, yet on it I can fit digital copies of my entire heaving bookshelf of references I have in my office, with space to spare for other books and light reading. When I am in my office I tend to use the real books, but everywhere else it is the ebook tablet.
Only downside is that some books I own never had a digital copy made available, and I am unwilling to destroy the books to scan the pages. Some non-destructive tabletop book scanner would be nice to have.
While good overall, I would never use it for a car manual or anything messy. It is just too fragile and expensive. If I need to do work on the car or some DIY, I will print out the bits I need on paper, and if they are not too greasy, torn or tattered by the end of the work, it will go in the file, otherwise it will be disposed of.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday November 09 2023, @02:38PM
You can get a reasonable one for a few hundred dollars. There's also the DIY approach which is generally more time consuming. Our Library purchased a book scanner and promptly proceeded to waste it's potential. Now, it's a few years old and while it's usable, the staff is still unfamiliar with it. What's more is that we could probably spend a couple hundred dollars and get something that would better fit our needs. We could afford it, but I'm not about to suggest it. Until we get someone who can really spear head the projects we need to accomplish, there's no point.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Touché) by mcgrew on Monday November 13 2023, @02:31PM
Oh, I agree that the Kindle e-reader sucks, I bought one. I plan to buy a different e-ink reader and give the Kindle away. The link about removing ebooks was about George Orwell's heirs suing Amazon for publishing 1984 without permission when it was still under copyright.
As evil as Amazon is, they weren't the villain here, Orwell's greedy heirs and the US government are.
Impeach Donald Saruman and his sidekick Elon Sauron
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 07 2023, @07:44PM
I've settled around 2TB as my family data storage capacity need. There's plenty of video on there that we never use, so if it starts filling up I purge some of that.
At the moment we have triple-redundant copies on separately located USB connected external drives. In 2007 I had a QNap server, bad idea - power supply fried in 2008 and the format they stored the data on the drives in was NOT practical to recover. In response to that failure I bought two external drives, simple mirror backup, and I believe one of them is still running today. When the other died, I replaced it with a 2TB SSD, and just recently with the price fall I bought another 2TB SSD for about $160.
$320 (or $480 for triple) one time investment plus maybe $20 per year in electricity to keep them online 24-7, to store your entire history of tax documents, family photos, music, videos... why would you ever entrust ANY of that stuff to a cloud server in the first place?
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Wednesday November 08 2023, @12:38AM
"Rather than storing my data with Google or Amazon or Microsoft, I have my own network file server. "
This is what I do too. As I have upgraded my machines every few years the old one gets filled with disk drives to become a new backup. They get turned on once a week to run the scripts that sync the new data from the master to the three backups that are there now. It has been a couple of new years now since I have upgraded. I am on strike from buying from the parasite corporations as they thieve our money with high prices, this applies to absolutely everything I buy now, if not needed to live it does not get bought. My current machine though few years old has done and continues to do everything I need it to do and until the drives start dying in those old machines nothing will be replaced. I keep looking but they continue their thieving so it is a stand off.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday November 07 2023, @03:00PM (7 children)
We don't all jump aboard the fashion train. I haven't jumped aboard the Cloud fashion train, nor do I plan to jump aboard the AI train. All of America can mill about at the train stations, waiting to hop aboard The Next Big Thing, but don't expect to see me anywhere near the station.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday November 07 2023, @03:06PM (6 children)
I've been interested in Stable Diffusion and ChatGPT since they came out and have toyed with them. After getting an artist's opinion of Stable Diffusion results. I've pretty much written that one off, except as potential use for lowest common denominator type things.
ChatGPT also has limited usefulness. The biggest issue is that it loves to hallucinate, so unless you know what you need to know already. It's as likely to lead you astray as it is to point you in the right direction. Though, perhaps it only leads you off a cliff 25% of the time. It can be a useful tool. So long as you use it like that.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday November 07 2023, @03:29PM (2 children)
And, there, Freeman, you identify a huge problem. We use specific tools for specific purposes. Hammer, screwdriver, soldering iron, etc ad nauseum. In this case, it seems the world wants to use AI for everything. For instance, Microsoft using AI to flood news channels with moronic AI "news stories". They hope that AI can solve all of humanity's problems. Overnight, even!
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2023, @03:41PM (1 child)
"They hope that AI can solve all of humanity's problems."
They have no interest in that at all.
They want to maximize the wealth of The Owners by eliminating meatbags
and replacing them with techno-parrots to attract eyeballs.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday November 08 2023, @06:01AM
HK-47, is that you?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 07 2023, @07:57PM (2 children)
>Though, perhaps it only leads you off a cliff 25% of the time. It can be a useful tool. So long as you use it like that.
Agreed, however, I find that it does format the information better than the sources it scrapes from, and as you say: right more often than wrong, as opposed to reading the source material where you usually have to read several sources before starting to get a sense of which ones might have a chance of being believable.
When there's a majority common misconception out there, that's when ChatGPT is usually the least help - it's pretty bad at recognizing which sources to trust when the ones you should be trusting are in the minority.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday November 07 2023, @10:20PM (1 child)
I find that it's very good at corporate speak.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 07 2023, @10:37PM
Plenty of source material to model after out there.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Tuesday November 07 2023, @03:45PM (4 children)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Tuesday November 07 2023, @04:02PM (3 children)
I do. Because even though I don't do anything wrong right now, who says that what I do right now isn't going to be seen as wrong in the future? Things become illegal. Or "socially unacceptable". Did you stop doing them? Hell, why did you do them back then? You bad/sick/stupid person!
You think you'd be the first to be fired over an ancient social media posting, because what you said back then is no longer acceptable?
(Score: 5, Funny) by Opportunist on Tuesday November 07 2023, @04:05PM
Just remember the old joke:
Two prisoners meet in Dachau. One of them asks the other one: "Why are you here?"
"Because I said on May 5th that Hess was crazy! And you?"
"Because I said on May 15th that Hess was NOT crazy!"
Or the Soviet variant, if you prefer:
Three prisoners meet in a Gulag. One of them asks: "Why are you here?"
"Because in 1935, I was against Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov! And you?"
"Because in 1937, I was for Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov! And you?"
"I am Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov!"
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday November 08 2023, @03:46AM
This kinda stuff is what happens if you let someone else control a critical part of your life...
https://search.brave.com/search?q=people+being+debanked [brave.com]
It's just like being a kid again, depending on someone else to grant permission to do anything.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday November 08 2023, @06:39PM
The general rule of thumb is if you're not shitting on somebody then you're probably fine. It's not like we had a big purge of people wearing bellbottoms or an onion on their belt.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday November 07 2023, @05:46PM (6 children)
At this point, we have to win privacy back. Because it's gone.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 07 2023, @07:54PM (5 children)
You have the choice of privacy, you just have to forsake online services to get it.
In 2010 I interviewed for a job, of course they researched my social media and they found that I neglect Facebook like an old Herman Melville novel on the shelf - sure, I flipped through it once, years ago...
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 07 2023, @09:39PM (3 children)
Be careful.. Without adequate "social credit" you won't get a job, and people will wonder what you are trying to hide
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 07 2023, @10:16PM (1 child)
Where I am now, lack of activity on LinkedIn indicates a stable employee who isn't looking to switch jobs, and the opposite as well.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Thursday November 09 2023, @01:04PM
That is kind of how I think it works for everyone.
My logic is if you resigned your job, it was probably as you already bagged a new one so you would not sit on Linkedin posting all day for attention. Same if you decided to leave your job to take some time out, because you would have made sure you were financially secure enough to do that without having to look for a job soon after. Anyone who is in a stable job does not have the time or inclination to spend a lot of time being active on Linkedin (unless it is part of their job itself).
So the only ones that start actively posting on LInkedin are those who were laid off, or lost their job in other involuntary ways, and are urgently trying to find another job. Showing activity to attract attention of recruiters and/or to have something to show for the "gap time" they have on their CV.
I find it is in fact a good barometer of the health of the local economy. The more active my Linkedin feed, the more people are being laid off. I can say in the last year or two my Linkedin feed has been getting more and more active. Especially in the last six months or so.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday November 08 2023, @04:37AM
I've told several people who asked me about social media I am on. I only have four sites I consider worthy of having anything to do with:
Slashdot ( over 10 years since last visit . Things changed. I no longer felt relevant there. )
Here. Soylent News. Currently Active.
TheOilDrum. Oil Industry Scientists. Site is now only an archive. I commented frequently. I still stand by what I typed in there, including a scathing technical analysis I did on a few "free energy" proposals that others ran up the pole. ( I pointed out the quantity of steam ejected from a cold fusion apparatus only correlated with the electrical energy it was consuming and called the thing a very expensive 750 watt teapot. ). Of course, I will readily retract my statement if the inventor will show me that his machine really does work, but I need to see and measure the machine, not the academic credentials of it's creator, or all the names dropped of institutions that have expressed even a passing interest in it.
OilBurners. Currently Active. Mostly in the IDI forum.
I am not ashamed of the rants I have left here. If anyone infers from them that I would be a bad employee, so be it. I much prefer accurate information than being told lies. Likely, if they are offended by anything I have left here, especially my rants on the destructiveness of modern leadership methods used to destroy corporations from the inside out, I wouldn't make a good employee for them anyway. I am old and make no bones about what I have seen work, and what unimaginable clusterfucks I have seen or been involved in.
I don't have the time to mess with social gadflies that will rank me by my ignorance of the placement of a knife and fork at formal dinners, discussing golf games, sports scores, or who is going with who.
It's truth that means anything to me.
I make machines. I don't wear suits.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Wednesday November 08 2023, @12:45AM
"You have the choice of privacy, you just have to forsake online services to get it."
Indeed I have been online for going on forty years now, whenever the 2400 baud modem came out the first I owned to connect with. And I can search my name and home town anywhere I want it comes up with nothing on me. I have never really used the anit-social media I saw from the beginning what those garbage sites were and still are all about.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 2) by Rich on Tuesday November 07 2023, @10:06PM
I'm a bit confused to see Bruce Schneier's name on a pamphlet that advertises "treacherous" (*) computing.
At the start I thought "what kind of nutjob got past the IEEE editors"? Then I saw Schneier's name, and also some sane explanations. And finally, again, that weird "trusted environment" stuff.
But I don't think any of that will fly with Google or Microsoft. Apple actually has this "hide IP from trackers", where they relay tracking information. But that's hardly for your privacy, but rather because they want to be the middlemen for advertising to people wealthy and/or stupid enough to blow seven grand on a laptop. They lost all credibility when they advertised they'll scan local data for dissden..er.. child molesters. Also, none of that onion mixing works out if the NSA taps every node.
IF people want to have cloud features, the IETF could come up with a suite of protocols that enables anonymous backends of tasks, where the server only sees encrypted blobs, and all processing is done locally. But not that this would be used by anyone, unless some "rogue" state mandates it.
(*) (correct) FSF lingo for "trusted"