The investigators on this have included some of the data they saw being shared that you can see at their GitHub[0]
I can block a lot with my browser but then often websites stop working, so while that is a solution since I have the technical knowledge to handle it there is no way in hell I am going to tell my parents to install something that will block this stuff.
Throw in the tracking in apps and potential server side tracking that there is nothing I can do about.
We need some serious laws to be implemented. I have removed Facebook and google as much out of my life as possible, but they still collect data about me without my consent and it is very frustrating.
I despise that other people can consent to have my data given to these companies (by my data being on their devices as my phone number, texts, whatever) and then these companies can consent for me to have my data sent just by going to their website.
Each one alone is troublesome and when aggregated it’s super annoying every American can basically be a voyeur target for a few dollars, and not even have to option to consent to this happening.
The issue, however, is simple. There is real money on the table so anyone even thinking of running ( and making a change ) must be able to withstand likely quick and solid stomp, must be techy enough to understand the risks and PRy enough to be able to move in today's media landscape. Those skills tend of be somewhat rare on their own. Combination of those traits is likely more rare.
<< Throw in the tracking in apps and potential server side tracking that there is nothing I can do about.
And after that, almost inevitable hacks ( inevitable due to misaligned incentives for companies ).
If you won you'd still be beholden to the constituents as their representative, and seeing as how they, as a whole, do not align with your personal position, you're not going to be any further ahead. At least not without moving to a new constituency where the people are more likely to align – which is something you can also do as a constituent.
I agree on people running. I have been saying for several years that if a candidate came out and said "I don't have a strong technical understanding of [insert important technical discussion], but here are the people I will keep personally employed to help me with that to answer that question" will mean a lot to me. But I also know that admitting you don't know something will be picked up by the media and they will be destroyed for saying that, even though in admitting it is really a great sign.
Many of the people in power may have people that can explain it, but they will never truly understand it. Especially when they have so many other things they also have to deal with.
"advertising" makes people think it will be used to sell them sweaters in a pop up ad, but it can be easily used to deny access to housing, jobs or loans.
This "free capitalism" does not mind when Government protects their copyright, patents etc. etc. They should not mind Government protecting us either. Otherwise let's get even and remove their protections. Then see how they like it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_LifeLog
> LifeLog was a project of the Information Processing Techniques Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). According to its bid solicitation pamphlet in 2003, it was to be "an ontology-based (sub)system that captures, stores, and makes accessible the flow of one person's experience in and interactions with the world in order to support a broad spectrum of associates/assistants and other system capabilities". The objective of the LifeLog concept was "to be able to trace the 'threads' of an individual's life in terms of events, states, and relationships", and it has the ability to "take in all of a subject's experience, from phone numbers dialed and e-mail messages viewed to every breath taken, step made and place gone".[1]
> The LifeLog program was canceled on February 3, 2004 (one day before the launching of Facebook),
If you live in any other country, you should lobby your government to ban Facebook, to ban all foreign social media entirely. But I fear the situation is hopeless for us Americans.
In the first three movies, the bad guys are basically after money, the cops are all disorganized fools, and it’s just this one guy with the right skills that foils the plot.
In the fourth movie, the bad guys are after your whole country, your freedom, and your daughter, the cops are supported by the feds who are are very cool and powerful, and the feds from their all-seeing command center masterfully assist the guy with skills to foil the bad guys. Also the bad guys can log in to any webcam they want any control any computer system at the press of a button.
Watching this reminded me of the mass cultural delusion that took over USA in the 2000’s. This LifeLog program follows from the idea that anything and everything that can be done to foil a potentially all powerful adversary should be done, and things like individual privacy have no meaning whatsoever.
What’s interesting looking back at these movies, knowing for example how the cops behaved at the Uvalde elementary school shooting, is that the portrayal of the police in the first three movies is way more accurate than the fourth.
There is a nice symmetry here, too, in that such a tool could be a force for great good, but it could also be used as a force for great evil. Such a tool would give "you" (the thinking, rational, speaking you) a great deal of leverage over the behavior of your future self using the same techniques honed by Tik Tok, Facebook and Twitter. It would give you a great deal of awareness and control over your Situation, to assess and minimize risk. (The application to opportunity is harder to imagine than risk, but I'm sure it's there, too.)
Certainly there's nothing physically impossible about such a system ultimately being under your personal control, with an ur-5th amendment protection against intrusion, and civilizational infrastructure to guard against intentional and unintentional hw and sw flaws that subvert that protection guarantee. But all of that would require a real and dangerous commitment to individual autonomy and responsibility on par with the 2nd Amendment. Do the risks of making bad people more effective outweigh the benefit of making everyone more effective? How does that tradeoff compare with a similar tradeoff around the 2nd Amendment?
(I agree with another comment saying we need privacy legislation that would stop this sort of thing, but in the mean time the only thing you can change is yourself)
What choice is there when commercial companies push user-hostile and perhaps directly illegal leaks like this?
I will not advocate software piracy on a sealed VM like the pp here, but please consider the skill, time and effort it takes to write acceptable consumer software, as a direct barrier to entry for "fair" players, and then add network effects.. With that, consider the personal productivity software that has been built slowly and well over two decades in an open way.. where the user of the software has the right and ability to examine, modify and use the code.
I predict that intrusion and forced-interference into tax transactions will increase over time in almost every jurisdiction around the world. There really is no better time than now to re-examine your own practices with software on the open net.
Tax is arguably on the same level of confidently as health data, and companies entrusted with this information just sells it off?
Tax was supposed about giving government your money. There wasn't supposed to be private information disclosed as a result of filling taxes. This is beyond outrageous
What. The. Fuck...
I overcome my hate for FB and feel a little bit of sympathy for these people, might even want to hire a few if/when situation presents itself.
Then I read this, I’m reminded of what FB is and who all created this system, all sympathy vanishes.
That being said, credit bureaus and data brokers seem just as bad as Facebook, just less visible.
Involving third parties in the process can only make things more complex. Even if that market should grow and attract entrepreneurs it's all artificial rent seeking, and not positive for the economy at large.
Meanwhile the US government is spending $15 million (https://www.propublica.org/article/files-taxes-free-inflatio...) to study free tax filing. the keyword is study, not implement.
