Now it's official I'm paranoid
I care for my privacy, I don’t have Facebook and WhatsApp. I have a mobile phone without any commercial apps. I prefer to pay cash to avoid trails. I use encryption, host my e-mail, calender and file server myself. I avoid sweepstakes where I’ve to give any personal data including my name. In my browser I block all third party content not required for the website. I know I still leave a trail by keeping my mobile phone connected all the time. I give up a lot of comfort.
So it seems I’m paranoid. The world would be much more pleasant, cheered up and beautiful if I just suppress all the findings of Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks or The Intercept and we could then sleep better. But no I’m paranoid. Well I at least I didn’t get more paranoid, all the things I listed above I did already before Snowden leaked the NSA documents in 2013. I just feel vindicated, even if I never imagined this magnitude.
At least it seems I’m not alone. The Atlantic published an Article by Walter Kirn If you’re not paranoid, you’re crazy that is a good read.
posted at: 11:27 | path: /politics | permanent link to this entry
Surveillance Culture
The (German) newspaper NZZ feature article summarize our current surveillance culture in a greate complete picture:
Bequemlichkeit und Todesangst
posted at: 11:26 | path: /politics | permanent link to this entry
Computers better predict your personality than humans
A new study Computer-based personality judgments are more accurate than those made by humans shows that computers are better at predicting a personality than humans. The personality predicted based on the digital footprint is more accurate than the appraisal of close acquaintances.
Given that this study is based on generic likes, this support my claim that Facebook (and Google, and Amazon, …) knows you better than you think. It knows you well enough even if your profile info is wrong to manipulate you (see Facebook mood manipulation study). And I claim it is even able to build your profile without any likes from you based on the like button website bug implant and I’m quite sure this even works by simply analyzing your social network of all the people who added you to their profile.
Given that Facebooks now owns Whatsapp it should be able to do the same for me just from the phone book uploaded by Whatsapp. But still this isn’t an excuse for me to use Facebook or Whatsapp as I’m still trying to expose as little as possible of my personal data.
posted at: 11:26 | path: /net | permanent link to this entry
