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Are you tired of being under surveillance?


tripelix

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Cooper had some great points however I believe that he misses a few things since he is not from the United States nor does he live in its society. His expectation of privacy is different.

Your barber may take cash and you are right that we are not obligated in using credit.

Where the expectation of society leaves America on its own is that in the US you have an expectation to be let alone. legally it was defined , Judge Thomas McIntyre Cooley wrote in ‘A Treatise on the Law of Torts: Or the Wrongs which Arise Independent of Contract’, 2nd edition 1888, page 29 under the classification of legal rights “Personal Immunity the right of one’s person is said to be a right of complete immunity: to be let alone.”

Look, you and I both totally agree with respect to the 4th Amendment and our expectation of privacy. I'm also fully on board with all the great quotes from our founders, especially the ones with regard to freedoms by Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, etc. But the ONLY thing that has changed is the ability for people to get the information more easily through the Internet.

Your personal information (home address, phone number, etc.) has ALWAYS been available... the phone book was basically the same think as Spokeo and those other data mining sites. We still get solicitation calls over the phone, but it used to be MUCH worse back in the 80s when the internet wasn't really used by the public. The first loss of privacy, really, was the introduction of the social security number... quite honestly.

Back then, companies STILL sold your information. When you would donate to a charity, that charity would sell your information to other charities who would then send you out mailers. I know this because I accidentally spelled my name with an extra D way back when (in the 90s) when I was sending a check for donation. A month later, I had three new charities soliciting me with the exact same misspelled name.

As far as credit cards and things like that go... if you're concerned about the products you purchase being tracked, you can always pay for these items with anonymity through place like Bill Pay or Western Union. You can still pretty much buy whatever you want locally from brick and mortar stores.

Children today will have a much more difficult time (or maybe an easier time?) adjusting to a society where everything from birth to death is recorded online. Everything we type.. like me typing this in, is queryable. For what it's worth, I don't have a Facebook account, just not interested in it... but there are things you can do to realistically detach yourself without being anti-social or considered a weirdo.

I personally have no need for Ethernet connected appliances... that may not be a choice in the future... but we as consumers should demand products that don't NEED Ethernet connectivity.

I'm not suggesting we all go back to carburetors. I love fuel injection, but does my car need to have WiFi in it (TPMS, Bluetooth, or what have you)? Probably not... especially if cities will likely all eventually get WiMax, or our phones can be used as hot-spots.

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Look, you and I both totally agree with respect to the 4th Amendment and our expectation of privacy. I'm also fully on board with all the great quotes from our founders, especially the ones with regard to freedoms by Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, etc. But the ONLY thing that has changed is the ability for people to get the information more easily through the Internet.

The fourth amendment does not apply to transactions between individuals. The Bill of Rights is written between the government and the people not with each other. It is a general misconception that I've heard many times.

Your personal information (home address, phone number, etc.) has ALWAYS been available... the phone book was basically the same think as Spokeo and those other data mining sites. We still get solicitation calls over the phone, but it used to be MUCH worse back in the 80s when the internet wasn't really used by the public. The first loss of privacy, really, was the introduction of the social security number... quite honestly.

Although the phone book which is no longer printed had names, addresses and phone numbers in it, it was and remains as copyrighted information. The court has upheld the ownership of the information to be that of the company. Therefore any use of the information or republication of anyone's address is stolen information. Just because it appears on the Internet doesn't make it public domain.

Back then, companies STILL sold your information. When you would donate to a charity, that charity would sell your information to other charities who would then send you out mailers. I know this because I accidentally spelled my name with an extra D way back when (in the 90s) when I was sending a check for donation. A month later, I had three new charities soliciting me with the exact same misspelled name.

What has changed is enormous. Back then your data was not systematically used against you. Today everything you do online and off affect both your physical credit score and your pseudo-score. Increasingly the traditional credit system is becoming insignificant. The problem is that we the consumer have no way of checking what creates our pseudo-score. Further there is no way to correct it. With the old system that is regulated you may know how to contact the big three credit reporting agencies. This leaves every consumer at the mercy of the data brokers. Data that is hidden and very well could be wrong is recorded about you and used against you.

As far as credit cards and things like that go... if you're concerned about the products you purchase being tracked, you can always pay for these items with anonymity through place like Bill Pay or Western Union. You can still pretty much buy whatever you want locally from brick and mortar stores.

That is very true I actually like to pay cash and in person. Without saying too much it has certainly freaked a few people out when I knocked on the door of their house to buy a cool gadget from them.

Children today will have a much more difficult time (or maybe an easier time?) adjusting to a society where everything from birth to death is recorded online. Everything we type.. like me typing this in, is queryable. For what it's worth, I don't have a Facebook account, just not interested in it... but there are things you can do to realistically detach yourself without being anti-social or considered a weirdo.

Very cool I'm glad you posted this please use my website. Facebook in case you don't realize it has a policy of tracking all of its users. It collects all kinds of data and is hoping to get into the data analytics business with its user base. When my project finally gets around to facing off with Facebook your contact information may be fruitful. If they have collected information from you and identified you it was without your permission. I don't consider you a social weirdo, I have a couple friends that aren't on there either.

I personally have no need for Ethernet connected appliances... that may not be a choice in the future... but we as consumers should demand products that don't NEED Ethernet connectivity.

You may find in the future that it won't be a choice, increasingly we are being forced to submit all sorts of information. There are a lot of people for example that have monitors plugged in their cars under the guise of reducing their car insurance. These data ports are both hackable and give a wide variety of information. Newer cars are being built with this option built-in. Corporations can and will determine their warranties based on the way that you use a device.

I'm not suggesting we all go back to carburetors. I love fuel injection, but does my car need to have WiFi in it (TPMS, Bluetooth, or what have you)? Probably not... especially if cities will likely all eventually get WiMax, or our phones can be used as hot-spots.

Personally I don't want Wi-Fi near my car. I've been in the scene for almost 30 years man. I've seen my share of all kinds of crazy stuff. Did you catch the warning from DARPA that was on 60 minutes last week? They had a segment on hacking cars with a laptop and Wi-Fi.

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The point about many of the things that result in your data being collected is that for a large part they're simply a requirement of doing business, such as providing the number of your CC to complete a transactions. Alternatives DO exist, but it requires you to make a concious decision to do so and most of the world prefers to just zombie through life and try to do less than the absolute minimum just because they can.

You can get one of those throwaway credit cards:
http://twocents.lifehacker.com/blur-uses-one-time-use-credit-card-numbers-to-deter-hac-1683151358
http://lifehacker.com/5831160/use-virtual-credit-card-numbers-to-shop-safely-online-keeping-in-mind-the-downsides
Problem is that it's an additional step to take and it costs you additional money.

Your bookstore will happily order a specific book for you if you can let them know which one you want (typically, if you have an ISBN number, you're good to go).
Problem is you're going to have to wait for them to get a copy and then hop over to the store to come fetch it as opposed to punching in your data and have the mailman drop it on your doorstep.

Over here everybody uses debit cards and the payment mechanism here is that when you're on a webshop and need to complete the transaction, the webshop redirects you to your bank's website where you can complete payment. All the webshop knows is that shipping address did a transaction for X amount via iDeal that used transaction id <insert_long_id string>. The webshop never learns which bank you use, what your account number is, nothing.
Something I oftentimes do is ship the product to my place of work. That way the sender doesn't get to know where I live and since someone's always at reception ready to accept any packages I don't even have to go out of my way to get it. Beats having to be home for the mailman to come by.

Everybody can piss and moan about how "unfair" and "wrong" companies are for doing what they do (even calling it "stealing", which is a rather warped way of looking at things), but they do so because you let them. Most of the times they even told you up front they were going to do this and provided you a checkbox to un-check if you didn't want them to. But you let them because you're lazy, impatient or apathetic. which wouldn't be so bad in and of itself if it was at least a concious decision.

When people discover what they allow companies to do with their info they might end up being outraged by this, but their anger should be directed at least in large part at the person in the mirror.

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The point about many of the things that result in your data being collected is that for a large part they're simply a requirement of doing business, such as providing the number of your CC to complete a transactions. Alternatives DO exist, but it requires you to make a concious decision to do so and most of the world prefers to just zombie through life and try to do less than the absolute minimum just because they can.

Cooper I have no idea what happens in your country. In the United States however small business and bookstores both use what is called a merchant service. These companies handle the card transaction back to the home bank. There are two paths one is for debit transactions where the merchant bank receives funds back from the bank. The other is credit which goes to the card issuing bank.
Behind the scenes the card merchant service also collects metadata from the transaction including if present the SKU of the products purchased. This information is then sold to four different companies. The metadata includes the name on the card and the last six digits of the account number, the time, location and some other data I can't remember what it is.
This second process has nothing to do with the actual transaction. Some organizations are in league with the card merchant. This is most often done in the electronics industry. High ticket items are sometimes sold at amazingly low prices locally. The reason for this is to pick off the identity of the person making the purchase. Increasingly smaller business are finding a second source of income by selling its customer data.
All of this information is then available through either analytic list results or alternatively if I know your name and I'm willing to spend the money I can just buy all of the metadata, locations, product SKUs, about you.
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