this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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[–] [email protected] 100 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Something needs to happen to clue in the average person about why this is such a problem. I don't know what that something is though. Continued breaches of privacy? The government and police continuing to make obvious use of the data they can easily buy from any of these companies? What is it going to take for people to care and for laws to be made to prevent more of this going forward?

I was talking to my insurance company the other day and they warned me that if I make any changes to my policy they'll drastically jack up my rate because of the changes in the economy. But I can bring it down a bit if I install their tracking software on my phone that can interface with my vehicle and send all of my driving data to them. It would tell them everywhere I ever go whenever I drive, my exact speed at any moment, braking habits, etc. Does anyone ever say yes to this? Do people realize that they could sift through everything you've ever done effortlessly with AI to find that one time in your life you came to a rolling stop at a deserted stop sign and claim you're a dangerous driver who doesn't follow the rules of the road in order to deny your claim?

Is there a chance in hell that one day this won't be a requirement just to have vehicle insurance? Why isn't everyone up in arms about their data being harvested and sold to the highest bidder? Why are there not laws being made against this kind of undemocratic, authoritarian control over people? I am so disappointed in my fellow man, both the ones guilty of the harvesting and everyone who couldn't be bothered to complain and put a stop to this.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is why free (libre) software is important

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Have to have some kind of hardware to run that software on. And that hardware needs proprietary drivers.

Hardware is ridiculously expensive to develop and manufacture so don't count on any competition that isn't already doing it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was talking to my insurance company the other day and they warned me that if I make any changes to my policy they’ll drastically jack up my rate because of the changes in the economy.

This is when you sternly warn the agent/sales rep that this behavior will result in you seeking a new insurance company AND agent for all of your needs

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I did. He assured me in more professional terms that they don't give a shit. I do a lot of business with them and have been a client in good standing since I became an adult. They apparently have nothing set up to retain customers who leave over this, which would indicate that hasn't been an issue for them. Or they might be banking on me not following through, but that just means they don't know me very well. When it comes time for me to make those changes to my policy, I'm gone.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah they're probably banking on people not leaving. Depending on if that agent is good to you and if he/she is local; you should consider just asking them to help you shop around because you need "Change XYZ in your ABC policy" and you need a provider who isn't going to shaft you for making that change.

If they are not a local agent with access to multiple insurance providers...I guess find one locally.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wonder if it'd be worth spoofing packets with some automation? Get that sweet discount and still maintain your privacy?

If insurance companies mandate tracking I could see new efforts to do this like piracy and adblocking came about.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Imagine getting caught and having your claim denied or being sued for insurance fraud. I'm happy to use ublock origin, but what you're describing is playing with fire. We need to make sure it never gets to this point in the first place by making it illegal for insurance companies to do this.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I see your point. What a scary world.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Plenty of private companies to donate to. EFF is the first that comes to mind.

But spying on the public is ridiculously valuable to both corporations and government alike so it seems like an astronomical hill to climb.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Oh crap I was about to try changes to my auto policy on the lizard's online portal to see if I could get it any cheaper while still having enough liability, uninsured, property damage, collision and comprehensive for my litigious state. Glad I saw your warning not to consider modifications in this screwy market. Thank you!

I still may shop it to a different company before my end-August 45% rate hike. Not considering the phone spyware discount though, for the reasons you mentioned.

[–] [email protected] 76 points 1 year ago (11 children)

God dammit! Im going to build my own hardware from scratch!

Common boys! Pack the shovels we need silicon!

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In the spirit of not getting the joke, Pine64 could be worth checking out for whoever shares this sentiment. It's the closest thing to user friendly free open source hardware at the moment, and their laptop (the #PinebookPro) actually looks pretty neat. @PINE64 @pine64eu

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[–] [email protected] 71 points 1 year ago (3 children)

2023 Might actually be the year I become a ludite at this rate. Did every tech company just decide this would be the year to make everything shitty?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The luddites were against technology being used to abuse and subjugate workers and drive down wages, so yes I’m absolutely a Luddite.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Might as well do it while everyone's anger is focused elsewhere.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Interest rates have motivated corporations to find creative ways to maintain profits. God forbid they just make less money for a while.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm not totally against all telemetry... but can they at least be transparent about when they use it, and exactly what they're collecting? It really could be as simple as just defaulting to asking the user.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Debian approaches this sort of information gathering in the most respectful way I’ve seen so far. During the installation process there’s a screen where you are presented the option to participate in sharing package popularity statistics. It’s opt-in, just like it should be. Doing this sort of thing with the possibility to opt-out is super shady, but unfortunately very common these days.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You can also apt install or purge popcon whenever you want.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Same here as I believe (and correct me if I'm wrong) some types of data that can be collected can be helpful to the driver devs, especially for arc but other than that everything else should be opt-in and they should ask for permission of the user

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can I psy on you? No

Can I collected "telemetry" data? Sure, here is key and 200% access to my data, take what you need when you need it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Is the former when they ambush you at random inopportune times to shout "OPPAN GANGNAM STYLE!", and do that cross-armed squat dance thing?

You just got ~~dunked~~ psy'd on, bruh

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

only europe can fend off this bs

us companies are just a medium for american espionage.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The USA is just one giant scam and it's citizens are the victims.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

agreed. all worldwide citizens suffer its existence.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Intel driver updates, once the very pinnacle of sobriety and professionalism, have degenerated into the wild west of driver dissemination reminiscent of the very early days of Windows adoption, where, sometime the shit works, and sometimes it doesn't.

There's been a good 20 years of knowing if you downloaded an intel driver, that shit is going to fix your fucking problem. Not any longer.

Over the last year, especially with the Intel Driver scan tool, the Video drivers have repeatedly caused my screen to blackout and I've had to restore the previous non intel provided driver for my Arc capable video chip. Bluetooth drivers have also been shit.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Is this a known thing? I aways install everything that scanner suggests me.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

This is why I trust no one when it comes to software setups.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Does this affect Linux users?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

it in the installer, qhere you can select telemetry, and i don't think they want to piss of companies that use linux, so this is just windows problem(and mesa programmers could just rip the shit out of the drivers anyway), but with the amont of windows telemetry i don't know why this people are complaining

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It's valuable information that will help them improve the state of their software and drivers. The why should be obvious enough, though it's not nice to have it forced upon you.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

We all should move to Europe at this point

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Fully understand the problematic precedent set by default / always on telemetry, but do we have anything to suggest that this collects any form of PII? I would imagine the data they collect can be previewed on their ToS or something along those lines but I haven't been able to find it.

Furthermore, is it safe to presume this change is specific to beta Arc drivers on Windows, or is this likely to become the norm?