nontoxyc (u/nontoxyc)

nontoxyc commented on Before buying Ring, WEMO or Roku, consider privacy issues usatoday.com/story/tech/2... · Posted by u/walterbell

cannonedhamster · 6 years ago

You're new here. I suggest you read the rules of you haven't (it's to get an idea for how comments are handled and expectations). Comments tend to get downvoted if they do not add to the conversation. I'd give it a bit of time to learn how HN works before making up your mind. I get downvoted all the time, but if you're posting comments of value you can expect your karma to increase over time.

nontoxyc · 6 years ago

Been lurking and reading the articles for 3 years.

nontoxyc commented on Before buying Ring, WEMO or Roku, consider privacy issues usatoday.com/story/tech/2... · Posted by u/walterbell

Jamwinner · 6 years ago

Whataboutism, giving up on personal freedom or privacy, because it takes effort is not helpful. Your handle betrays you.

nontoxyc · 6 years ago

Oh I haven't given up at all. My cell phone service expires Dec 10 never to be renewed.

The massive amount of data your phone collects about you is quite relevant. Thanks for the downvotes which have now throttled my new account, and given me a bit of a bad impression of the community here.

Can you explain what you mean by "your handle betrays you?"

nontoxyc commented on Before buying Ring, WEMO or Roku, consider privacy issues usatoday.com/story/tech/2... · Posted by u/walterbell

charles_f · 6 years ago

> Wemo says it encrypts all communication between the app, cloud and device and takes privacy and security "seriously."

Consider 1) the multiple security breaches that pop up every week, usually following quite dumb holes (unprotected elastic search, unencrypted reset commands, etc.). I have 0 trust in how these companies store my data. 2) the relative longevity (lack thereof) of these companies that still function on investors money, which means that best case scenario your device is now a brick, worst case your data now belongs to a company the likes of Google that doesn't care (or are planly hostile) for your privacy.

My wife reaaaally wanted cameras in our house, I took ubiquity and didn't connect it to their "cloud", that's the only thing I somewhat trust

nontoxyc · 6 years ago

Do you have a smart phone? If so I have bad news for you.....

nontoxyc commented on Average product lifespan of Google products before it kills them gcemetery.co/google-produ... · Posted by u/walterbell

sct202 · 6 years ago

Netflix is the last app that works on my Sony Google TV from 2011. The YouTube app shut off after like 2015, but 8 years later Netflix is still trucking.

nontoxyc · 6 years ago

Ahhh my 40" google TV was too big to haul across the country the most recent time I moved. Ended up in a dumpster. Really too bad.... That was a nice TV. Good picture quality.

On the bright side I bought a new TV and found, to my surprise, digital antenna works much much better now. I have two TVs, the flat screen from ~2010 gets 3 channels, the new one gets 30. They're connected to the same source.

nontoxyc commented on Personal and social information of 1.2B people discovered in data leak dataviper.io/blog/2019/pd... · Posted by u/bencollier49

ars · 6 years ago

I don't know about other people, but I have zero personal info with LinkedIn and Facebook.

They only info they have about me is info I don't mind being public. If I want something to be private I don't tell it to them. It's as simple as that.

Google on the other hand, knows lots of private things.

nontoxyc · 6 years ago

Facebook has a lot of personal information about you even if you have never had a Facebook account. For example: your GPS location data, approximate age, gender, ethnicity....

Welcome to the future komrade. Sadly, it's not a matter of just "not giving them" your location data. Your devices supply it.

nontoxyc commented on Twitter lets you use 2FA without a phone number twitter.com/TwitterSuppor... · Posted by u/arkadiyt

badrabbit · 6 years ago

I have the same experience with tinder. They build shadow profiles on you, and they're not even discreet about it if you look at their traffic. I get whole phones with sim cheap.

nontoxyc · 6 years ago

It's the implementation of a "social credit" system. I don't know all the details but they evaluate your "social media creditworthiness" through your phone number.

I don't agree to any TOS with tinder and I really doubt they "delete all my information" when I delete the account like it says.

In fact my guess is they just leave your profile active if it's popular to encourage other people to "match" with you.

nontoxyc commented on Twitter lets you use 2FA without a phone number twitter.com/TwitterSuppor... · Posted by u/arkadiyt

badrabbit · 6 years ago

Twitter,google and the rest refuse to let you register without a phone number and they are agressive about not letting burner services.

So I spend money buying burner sims. I can. But normal people can't. They use phone numbers more than IP addresses to uniquely identify people. Never use apps if you can use a website!

And screw these companies that are sneakily hostile against their own user base.

nontoxyc · 6 years ago

I use a lot of burner phones cuz I'm paranoid, and when you sign up for fb/google/whatever they treat a burner phone you just turned on completely different from your regular, existing phone number. Example: if you activate a burner phone and sign up for tinder with the number, it pauses after you enter the code and then asks for your email address. You have to sepetately login and verify your email. On the other hand, if you sign up for tinder with your normal number you're verified; it doesn't request an email address. They get some kind of information packet about your account that I would guess includes activation date, your approximate age, whether your service is prepaid etc. I should say, I use the term "burner" for a cheap Android phone you insert a bring your own SIM into. Don't worry, it's not that anonymous because they also track/correlate your device IMEI with the services you use. I had an interesting experience the other day. The burner phone service expired, and tinder knew within 24 hours the number was no longer active...... Creepy.

2010-2019 has been the smart phone decade and now it's coming to an end. I'm celebrating by letting my cell service expire. My smart phones leak way too much data. I'll be using my too-smart phones like an ipad, making and receiving calls and texts only when I'm connected to WiFi at home.

nontoxyc commented on Senators ask if Facebook 'really' lets users opt out of location tracking arstechnica.com/tech-poli... · Posted by u/bookofjoe

colejohnson66 · 6 years ago

Depending on where you are, there may be laws regarding stalking. The problem is that you “consented” (agreed) to the TOS when you signed up.

nontoxyc · 6 years ago

Facebook tracks you even if you don't have a Facebook account though. And if I signed up in 2009 did I really agree to sharing location data on a smart phone in 2019??

Completely aside I'm finding how much data my Android phone shares extremely intrusive.