Yes, because I have something(s) to hide... My financial account numbers, passwords, credit card and debit card info, personal correspondance, medical records, purchases, reading material, social insurance number, my vote (political), those with whom I associate (family, friends, associates, strangers) and my business activities (all legal). Also, I do not want to be profiled for any purpose - the dangers are more than obvious. The introduction of IOT to consumer appliances is the equivalent of lunacy. I will not trade my privacy for convenience. I am not pleased that an OS vendor can harvest personal data, store it, share it and/or sell it to business partners or advertisers. That is theft as well as profiting from theft. I accept that a search engine collects tracking data to sell ads - that is the business model. It is a public space not a private space. Browsers provide privacy extensions to lower the exposure. I have no qualms.
Privacy would be a concern if you had control over it; unfortunately you haven't; whatever protective step you take , you can only reduce the amount of your personal infos collected, you can't stop it. You haven't any control over infos collected by: - Government administrations & agencies - Banks - Websites you use your real name or credit cards. - Phone providers - ISPs Basically all your personal infos collected and stored by any entities other than you is considered leaked and available to anyone with the (legit or usurped) permissions to access it. Business/corporations networks are (for most of them) weak in term of security. Employees are careless and easy targets for social engineering. all those factors make the fight for total privacy irrelevant ; only you can reduce the potential damages by using some tools and proper behaviors. Sad but true...
indeed. At least in security you have more control over your system, unless you made a mistake, only targeted attacks against you have a chance to succeed and the attacker have to be crafty.
I voted Very Much. I have nothing to hide from the ***, ***, ***, ***, *** etc. And they know everything already. I deem it impossible to hide from them. From others yes I mostly have privacy.
There are two kinds of privacy. Digital communications privacy and absolute privacy. They are not the same. Digital communications privacy you have at least some control over. Absolute privacy pertains to the privacy and protection of all personal data distributed by you and stored on various systems. You visit doctor, use the services of small businesses, use your debit card at Walmart, buy online from Amazon, have a bank account, own or lease a car, rent a house, have a mortgage, you are in public records readily available online, etc ? If yes, then the personal data you provide all those vendors is stored on their, as well as 2nd, 3rd, 4th... party systems that are unsecured, under-secured, misconfigured, and many times haphazardly managed. In many instances, your data is not only insecure, it isn't private anymore. Business systems and their 2nd, 3rd, 4th... party affiliate systems chock full of personal data are prime targets. It's a futile enterprise to chase-down and try to prevent personal data leaks. You cannot control those systems, and therefore, cannot control your data. If you don't give them the data, then they won't do business with you. You're stuck.
So it does not concern you? They are all reasons for concern. The extent to which privacy has been eroded or what an individual can do about it was not the question.
Sure, it's a concern, but there isn't much that I can personally do about it. It's a fight against the collection and storage of information - a fight I couldn't possibly win. My solution is acceptance.
Acceptance as in: You take zero steps to control exposures and suffer the maximum hit to privacy? You acknowledge that you can't control everything you may want to but you take what steps you can? Or something else?
I voted very much. But there is little you can do to be hidden. Maybe pull a Jason Bourne and go off the grid, that's about it.
I voted somewhat. I do nothing online that will tell governmental/law enforcement agencies anything they can't already get directly from my bank, employer, ISP, mobile provider etc. I live in the UK so have no pretence that any and all official or commercial organisations that hold data about me won't eventually be compelled to free up if requested. I therefore don't really consider that worth trying to fight although understand there is a principle at stake. I think it's a lost battle though. Most want convenience over privacy and will trade their privacy for a few less clicks if asked. How many volunteer every aspect of their life to the world on social media and the vast majority of us now carry the most sophisticated of tracking devices around in our pockets with little thought to the GPS and other telemetry it spews to its corporate creators and the software designers funded and owned by the ad peddlers. I personally however find the myriad of tracking practices employed by all and sundry across the internet designed to try and sell me stuff I just don't want and interrupt my online world with intrusive garbage based on some AI profile they've come up with from my online activity to be offensive. I therefore try to block or remove most of the stuff, use different browsers, profiles VPNs, VMs, SBIE/SD on Windows and Firejail --private-home on Linux to discard browsing traces on close etc. to make that more challenging (in my mind at least). I do appreciate that fewer and fewer feel an obligation to keep the web free and ad-clear on principle and there is a cost to hosting many of the sites I visit so I'm not against ads to support individual vendors and sites that provide a service I use but the general monetisation of everything and every element of online activity I find deeply depressing. I also know that my puny protections are not a match for sophistication of the big boys who want to track my very vanilla online activity but I feel better at least trying to disrupt and confuse them in my own small way. Cheers
Segments of the population will no doubt display apathy or even resignation. The more empowered people are, the more likely they will voice concern and look for solutions. The general public does not like state mass surveillance, however they have less concern if surveillance is being used to carefully focus on specific targets. 'Speak truth to power' means believing deeply in what you say and fighting every day to have that heard. Stay peaceful, forceful and never surrender. People can actively take steps to prevent commercial surveillance too. Voicing concerns will put pressure on regulatory agencies and manufacturers to be more vigilant. There should be no tolerance for privacy intrusions that put consumer security at risk. There is a range of tools and behavior change open to people to defend against surveillance. There is no need to accept anything that is egregious. Acceptance is consent.
in theory and ideal , you are right; in daily life, it is utopia. Those holding the power you mentioned are those enforcing those privacy intrusions for their own direct or indirect benefits. To spy on a target , you have to identify it first > to identify it , is to filter the population > to filter the population is to put everybody under scrutiny > to put them under scrutiny is to analyze and monitor behaviors > to analyze behaviors is to use mass spying tools on every aspect of the population life. It is what is happening already, most people are willing to sacrifice privacy for more security and it is understandable: "i do nothing bad, so i don't mind being spied upon if it can help catch terrorists or pedophiles" Understandable , yes; acceptable, just a matter of opinion depending of each individuals. Yes but you can fill hundreds of petitions and lawsuits but at the end, they will just ignore them if the cost is too high... take the example of any big supermarkets, they won't pay for an army of security guards, but rather pay an insurance to cover a certain amount of stolen goods. Same goes with cyber-risks, they will say "if we are hacked, we will urge users to change their password" , far cheaper than making their servers solid as Fort Knox. sure but how can you defend against things out of your reach and knowledge? Securing our privacy is way too complicated now unless becoming a kind of Jason Bourne...
Not going to happen. Vast majority of people care not & do nothing. What's worse is that of those people who purport concern also do nothing. A good analogy is in the US people's verbal assertions, & self interests do not tally. As shown with how they vote.
Somewhat: 7/10, because I know that I can't fully control it. I totally agree with minimalist and guest here. My idea can be resumed in this way: 1 government agencies, policies and secret services - and of my and other country, can anyway violate my privacy if they want. 2 I have not sensible data to protect for objective reasons: I can live - and operate - without home banking, as credit card I use Paypal, not real private medical informations..... 3 sure, privacy is an absolute value, and a democratic, basilar right but, as already said here, " absolute " remain a idealistic situation: in the real IT world things are different. 4 sure, anyway I think that every my personal datum ( emails, pictures, videos, things written, music, cards......) also the more silly, superficial, are mine and only mine, and an absolute matter of privacy. So, I take good ( I hope ) measures to protect them, how long is possible it ( see point 1 ). And I try to be updated on new protection system.
I would say "Somewhat". I'm not obsessed with it, but I do use anti-tracking extensions, and also refuse to use AV's because most of them are bad for privacy, same goes for Win 10. But stuff like TOR and VPN goes a bit too far.
if you really need true privacy on internet for some obscure reason, you can have it by taking multiple steps, but then you leave the realm of classic user and enter the realm of Jason Bourne. lot of efforts, but possible.
There are so many forms and means of tracking and surveillance that, even if you do use browser privacy extensions, disable settings, eliminate firewall rules, use a VPN, etc, etc - there is only a very minimal improvement to the risks associated with your online activities and privacy. It's an exercise in futility. Huge effort with only an incremental improvement in privacy. I guess what some here are really talking about is conspiracy-theory type invasions of privacy. That kind of intrusive behavior needs to be dealt with in the real world by activism to have bad laws rescinded and good privacy laws enacted - but very, very few people in user-land go that route. Taking a software\hardening the OS counter-measure approach to the privacy issue is not the solution. Privacy is a cat-and-mouse type game that is worse than antivirus signatures. If you're really paranoid about privacy, there are online guides for the ultra-ultra-paranoid. However, you will spend all your time setting it up and managing it - with little time to do much else. Plus, your computing behaviors would have to change dramatically. You would have to accept a whole lot of user inconvenience.
