Do We REALLY Care About Giving Up Our Privacy?

in #writing7 years ago (edited)

The last few days have been riddled with new stories about the leaks and dumps of data from various devices and websites. Plenty of outlets are indignant with rage, while others, smugly deride the “other” device that was guilty of letting the breach happen, safe in the knowledge that their own preferred product has kept them safe. That said, at the end of the day, most reasonable people will admit that we’ve all accepted the EUL’s that permit these kind of things, and know that at any time our data is on the block for the highest bidder.

So, should we be up in arms? Are we complicit in our own exposure? Is it even worth it to take steps to protect ourselves?

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"So, should we be up in arms? Are we complicit in our own exposure? Is it even worth it to take steps to protect ourselves?"

Yes, everyone should be pissed
Yes, we are complicit, complacent, blinded by convenience
Yes, it is unequivocally worth it to protect yourself

but as others have said, how do you get the masses to want to make a change, if the revelations of facebook and google over the past week haven't inspired a mass revolt to data collection and sales ... I guess it will take something much worse happening to get people moving.

When anyone tells me "I don't have anything to hide" I ask them.
would they want the world knowing that they have cancer? or HIV?
what are they going to do when society (those in power) says that X,Y,Z traits or beliefs are no longer accepted

your info is out there you have a right to your privacy and you have a right to decide who knows what about you and when AND you definitely have a right be profit from your data.

But yes, we all signed EUL/A's that gives away our data at the cost of some shit services that tells everyone when I am single or in a relationship.

I for one am driving to take my data back and limit my footprint. I can control what I do, I can only inform you of what is happening and what you can do, but YOU must be the one that takes action.

I totally agree with you! For the first time in my life, my steemit account was phished just last month, after being here for just 11 days and I was damn pissed for being a victim and one thing that scare me most is what else has been 'taken' from me? The few dollars is not of much concern but what about my other private data in my phone? Now, I am more cautious in what to keep in my private storage and what more to the public cloud backup!
At the end of the day, we are responsible for our own data and I don't believe that there is such thing as "I have nothing to hide" for anyone...

sorry for the double entry.. my line is darn slow and ended up with the double comment... apology again

Hell yeah. I completely stopped using the internet as me years ago when Snowden published government documents showing they want my data. That was good enough for me. They can't have it.

If I were to see papers saying the government wants my toenail clippings, I would carefully collect and burn them.

The government can have my vote when they do well. The cannot have anything else as long as they are flying around in jets molesting kids or paying masked men to kill civilians in other countries to force the use of the dollar there. Bye-bye dollar. Your days are numbered.

Thanks for sharing your insights about it. Privacy is definitely a critical matter on our personal life. We should take care of it.

the people only worried about their privacy if they are doing bad intentions, if you're a good man why worry? that's the whole purpose of decentralized platform to make it transparent and trustless society without compromising your private data, but in terms of facebook they exploiting their data customers through centralized data and that is their biggest mistake.

I liked .. wonderful words from you
And excess confidence is not good for us
Thanks for sharing

I think we shouldn't do anything violation of privacy is a crime and there should be serious restrictions about this matter yet this violation continues for almost a decate now

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Thanks for fighting the good fight! Good luck and Steem on!

Let us just be honest, the Most users don't care about privacy!Most Users Just jump on the next trendy train without considering what is done with their privat data. That is how the world ist running at the moment

I think it's related to the fact that people can't think of everything at the same time. Either all of humanity has to uphold privacy together like a mother clutches a child or there will always be a few good men who "go overboard" and negotiate away their privacy for trifles, but the real world doesn't really have much privacy, especially for young people (for good reason, sometimes). So people grow up without privacy and don't really see the value in it, or why it should be considered in day-to-day life. Then add on the obscure and technical nature (to most)of the internet and the magic behind it's curtain. Add on the fact that trendy things make people feel safe, making many falsely perceive security and trust in something that is familiar and has a facade of transparency, like a company would have in an advertisement.

Anyway, with a few more serious breaches of trust from tech giant, this might change. But, I'm not sure if people even realize what they are fighting for. Do they want privacy for privacy's sake, or as a matter of principal? Or do they want to rightfully retain the right to sell their own info, or at least get a cut from the sale to third parties? Or are they afraid of a Orwellian scenario(I think everyone is at some level)? Or are they just jealous of corporations making billions and want to criticize someone above them to feel better about themselves?

But, I'm not sure if people even realize what they are fighting for

This is the question it comes down to.There are a lot of good reason for the individual to keep his data privat, but actually nobody know these reasons.

I have accepted it, in fact I accepted it a while ago when I signed up with Amazon, pre ordered alexa, and put information on the internet....however

I do think cryptocurrency, bitcoin, and blockchain will eventually solve many of these privacy issues

Hopefully it will, although by that time we may be too far down that rabbit hole...

I think it gets more and more complicated to take care over his personal data as we are transferring our daily life into the internet.

Nice post on privacy issues.

I appreciate your post. I want to become success my career. Pls help my.
Pls follow and upvote. Tnk you

You should locate ur delete button on this we have people like @spaminator... They're like steemit FBIs

Seems like an appropriate post, given the medium. Though I'm not clear who you mean when you refer to 'we'. I personally think that switching to privacy-centric platforms is definitely worth it in most cases. Unfortunately, as of now that means sacrificing convenience and network in some cases (like google chrome and facebook, respectively.)

I believe that yes, privacy should be taken very seriously, and it is worthwhile to take steps to protect our privacy. However, these privacy breaches with Facebook, Google, etc. should not take people by surprise - anytime someone hands over their information to such a company, that information should be assumed to be public.

True privacy, in my view, can only be obtained by using end to end encryption for any confidential information. If access to unencrypted data is given to any third party, it must be assumed that this data will be compromised.

The same goes for financial transactions. If I make a transaction through a bank account, I assume that the bank, government, and other parties have open access to it...if I send an unencrypted email, I treat it as a digital postcard.

Sovereignty over one's own information will only be achieved when we take the effort to use open source, end to end encryption for digital messaging, and privacy cryptocurrencies (such as Monero) and cash for financial transactions. Implementing this requires significant time and effort, but it is a wise investment.

Clearly we don't, we post every little movement we make for people to see and when other people see it they may comment or like as a reward. Suddenly people get flustered when that information is out there, expect to have your information stored if you haplessly give it away.

I think what we have here is a generational issue. I am older and value my privacy. It was instilled into me at a young age. I don't know how old you are, but the kids today have been brought up in a more transparent world, but I doubt that most of them know the extent of the information they are sharing. Honestly who really reads a companies TOS? We rely on a companies integrity, but as we have been learning they usually don't have any.

I can't tell you the last time I actually read a ToS, is the problem just that we trust others too easily?

It is not a problem, we should be able to trust others. The problem is to many people don't have integrity. I believe we are waking up to this fact and over the next decade businesses will have to change or be out of business.

it is worth,otherwise there would not be regulation like gdpr. There have been rumors but yet we have not witnessed political or social issues because of data exposure. But soon things like this will happen.

I think the whole concept of privacy and data protection can be sorted by the use of decentralised platforms which enables users to control their data or even perhaps making companies pay the consumer directly as a form of compensation before they sell it to third parties with their permission.

Do You really think that someone actually would want information on people they do not actually care about. You know who are the primary targets mostly and there was always leaks and fixes and always will be.. There is no such a thing as great wall of protection anyway, so taking care of yourself is the best way to take care in this case.

Really useful post! congratulations.

It is of paramount importance that we begin to take our privacies a lot more serious, its so easy for us to input our personal data into almost any site these days, i too am guilty of this but i believe with a worldwide acceptance of cryptocurrencies these issues will slowly be resolved.

I think that privacy is paramount depends on us and the respect of others, nobody has the right to invade us therefore should be penalized.
P.D: https://steemit.com/spanish/@erilej/a-mi-hombre

I think we like to think we care, but actions speak louder than words. We're not, as you say, 'up in arms' - far from it. I definitely think we're complicit. We're too lazy to read the terms and conditions for everything we sign (by 'we' I include myself in that as well). We're mildly creeped out by the fact our phones can record our conversations but not enough to actually do something about it. Perhaps we might discuss with our friends at dinner.

Privacy blockchains (is that the correct term? I don't speak computer) and their applications seem promising, but I think if people truly cared about privacy, everyone with an internet connection would be getting on board, and not just when its in the green.

I think this general inaction is connected in some way to the apathy that drives the world's problems: poverty and slavery and climate change, to name a few. I'm not well read enough to know how we got to this point, nor am I smart enough to know how to solve it. I just know it's kind of fucked up.

Anyway, I'm going to go write some shit and get some magic internet money now.

It was pretty apparent to me that the block chain was so accessible if we can just go to google and find an article. So we are no different here on steemit we are just getting paid to give up our privacy. No it’s not alright and I don’t agree with it. I just see more and more spy techniques in the world today. It is getting harder to escape it. Great post.🐓🐓

Do we care about giving up our privacy? Yes and no. While nobody wants to give up their privacy, they do it voluntarily in exchange for convenience. The following post explains more in depth the dangerous road we're going down:
https://steemit.com/life/@workin2005/privacy-is-dead-and-we-have-no-one-to-blame-but-ourselves

Of course as good people we mostly have nothing to hide. Does this mean we have no right to privacy?

Do a DuckDuckGo search online for 'data is currency' and check out all the articles on the current and future role data is playing in the economy and even as a form of currency.

If you care nothing for your privacy and security, surely you would not throw money away. Why then are we giving away, or allowing to be stolen, all of this data which is currency?

Maybe it's just me...

Whenever I think of James Stewart peering through his telephoto lens in Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, I am reminded of today's internet where voyeurism is not just a fad but a vocation! There are web sites that make it apparent what they do to you and with your data. On the other hand, there are the really deep ones that never let on about how your information is being processed. The internet today is a gigantic ocean of perpetual information and fishing in it seems to be international sport. Not many of us have a sporting chance to conceal our whereabouts. Not unless you are like Neo and you know your way blindfolded around this labyrinth!

Let us face it we are all under surveillance and the best part of it is that we have accepted it as a way of life. In the retail rat race, customer profiling is indubitably the only tool that separates the chaff from the wheat (or maybe it is bills from our wallets!)

Hi there, I have upvoted you. I like your post. Can you please give me an idea on how about I can be successful in Steemit.

Yeah, the same. How I wish techs like blockchain, people can finally own their own identity and data. Nobody can steal them without our permission.

Stop?