
An investigative reporter has changed his tech habits after what he has learned - CapitalistCartr
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/23/technology/personaltech/facebook-online-privacy.html
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el_cujo
Terrible clickbait title, at least the actual article mentions Facebook so you
have some idea of what it's about.

I found it kind of funny towards the bottom when he said:

>We’re a pretty analog family. Aside from the requisite phones, laptops and
iPad, I don’t have a lot of gear.

We've gotten to point where if all you have is smartphones, laptops, and
tablets, you're considered pretty "analog".

~~~
0003
He also has a Google nest (which is slightly upper class tech) and a google
home -- even if it is in one room.

~~~
krn
That's insane.

In my EU country, pretty much everyone of age 18-65 has a smartphone and a
laptop, and that's it.

Tablets, e-readers, smart watches, and digital cameras are not popular, and
home assistants are pretty much non-existent.

TVs are rarely watched at home anymore, apart from the live sport events a few
hours per week.

Yet, nobody considers himself very analog or very digital, and almost everyone
feels like he has all the tech he really needs.

The lack of large suburban areas might be the main reason for this. Most
people are either busy in the city, or in the nature with each other.

~~~
rando444
Most home assistants have extremely limited language support, which is fine
for younger people in bigger cities that speak english, but that's about it.

Plus home assistants in America can order things for you, get your local movie
times, and have a host of other features mostly only available in the US and
certain locations.

Unless you live in Germany, Japan, or the US better home assistants are still
a year or two away.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Most home assistants have extremely limited language support, which is fine
> for younger people in bigger cities that speak english, but that 's about
> it._

And that's if you can make them actually use English. I'm baffled by the
amount of technology that needs forceful and sometimes sophisticated (e.g.
Google Search) reminders that just because I'm a Pole from Poland, doesn't
mean I want to talk to technology in Polish.

> _Plus home assistants in America can order things for you, get your local
> movie times, and have a host of other features mostly only available in the
> US and certain locations._

That would be a big factor IMO, if not _the_ factor. Hype waves around smart
assistants happen everywhere simultaneously, but most features are initially
implemented only for the US (hell, I don't think _any_ voice assistant
available in Europe actually has feature parity with what you get when using
it in the US). By the time those assistants become available and somewhat
usable outside the States, nobody cares anymore.

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faitswulff
I was going to ask if all of this was worth it, but for a reporter doing
investigations on Facebook, I can see why:

> Once I started reporting deeply on Facebook, I deleted all Facebook-owned
> apps from my phone, including Instagram. I don’t know exactly who has access
> to the data those apps collect, but while meeting with confidential sources,
> I don’t want to risk that an app on my phone might be sending Facebook my
> location.

~~~
NotAnEconomist
I would suggest that anyone reporting on tech agencies leave their phones and
tablets at home when meeting a source.

Use your laptop if you _must_ use a computer or the internet during the
meetings, but you'd be better served by an independent (and dumb) tape
recorder.

~~~
barneygumble742
Or carry a dumb/flip phone.

Off topic...I recently ran into my high school chemistry teacher at Costco
this weekend and he said he lost his passion to teach because school do not
enforce their "no phone" policy due to litigious parents. He said the students
are constantly distracted by their smart phones. On the drive home I was
thinking...why can't schools encourage students to carry dumb/flip phones for
emergencies?!

~~~
3chelon
Yes I find this shocking too. My kids are teenagers and their high school
makes them check their phones into a special locker room during school hours.

I hadn't imagined it any other way until other relatives said their kids were
actually _using_ their phones in class. It seems utterly insane to me - how is
it even possible to teach a class like that?

Schools have always had rules, so it seems like a no-brainer to enforce this
one, and if parents complain, ask them to take their kids elsewhere.

~~~
dorchadas
I've found it worse that parents actually try to _call_ their kids during
class. Not text, but _call_. And then complain when you tell a kid to hang up.
It's definitely an issue, and too many principles are afraid of being sued by
parents to do much against what they want (and the kids spend more time trying
to sneak on their phones than actually paying attention and getting their work
done).

~~~
briandear
Afraid of being sued? For what? What would that lawsuit look like and are
there actually any real cases on record for parents suing over in class cell
phone bans?

~~~
dorchadas
Parents will sue for _anything_ , and even if it's frivolous, it still costs
the schools money to fight it. And all it would take is one student not being
able to contact/be contacted by a parent in an emergency for such a lawsuit to
arise, honestly.

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rb808
I watched "Enemy of the State" again on the weekend. Its 20 years old and a
great movie. It was talking up about what the NSA could do 20 years ago with
CCTVs, satellite imaging, bugs, wiretaps, voice recognition etc. I remember
back then it was a bit far fetched. Now it looks trivial and basically there
is no hiding anywhere any more.

~~~
js2
The Conversation is 44 years old, also a great movie, and while the
surveillance is much more primitive, it’s no less scary.

~~~
icebraining
Agreed, The Conversation is fantastic.

Interestingly, both star Gene Hackman as a main character.

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motohagiography
If you have an ex- or a problem with someone who works at Google or Facebook,
what recourse do you have?

In health, we talk about consent directives for ex-spouses of doctors, and
even the NSA had some limited controls for loveint, but there is a real
danger.

There are a lot of unprincipled people in tech now and that's only going to
get worse.

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duxup
I guess I just take it for granted but I would think that a YubiKey like
system, and a separate phone for work that is fairly clean of other apps would
be the SoP for most serious journalists. At the same time I guess I shouldn't
be surprised it isn't.

~~~
stuntkite
This article felt like a pretty normal guy talking about how he's sort of
thinking about how computers are creepy.

I personally have been playing with U2F hosted on my home network and
integrating it throughout my life. It's not that hard and definitely worth it
when you get it going. I have been working with some YubiKeys to secure my
house and my girlfriend and I's internet accounts. Recently I got a couple
Solo[0] Keys. Really excited about open hardware that's not platform locked.
You can seed your keys yourself and give one a massive offset then say put it
in a bank box, if you lose your keys or are compromised, get key from bank and
seed a new set. The Yubi and google U2F offerings are cool, but they are
definitely designed to lock you in to their tooling. Buying into a single
point of failure for this feels dumb.

[0] [https://www.solokeys.com](https://www.solokeys.com)

~~~
duxup
Yeah I haven't gotten far into the key stuff myself. Thanks for the tip as far
as rolling your own goes.

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gglitch
> privacy expert Ashkan Soltani, whom I’ve quoted in some stories, compares
> [consumers being responsible for their own privacy] to ordering a cup of
> coffee at a Starbucks and being told that the coffee may be loaded with
> arsenic, but that it’s up to you to figure out whether or not the coffee is
> safe to drink.

...I'd say the better analogy would be, ordering a cup of coffee and being
told it definitely has arsenic in it, and it's up to you to figure out how to
safely drink it.

------
sunstone
Interesting that in this article he doesn't mention turning off "third party
cookies" in his browsers. It's the very first thing I do with any new browser
and it's always "on" by default. Sure it's one small step, but still
important.

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amphibian87
"Changed tech habits for privacy..."

"...still uses Chrome"

Wow

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markstos
He should rethink his lack of Instant Pot.

------
saiya-jin
I have trouble respecting this guy's opinion when he is so concerned about
privacy but completely ignores Firefox on both desktop (stability issues...
what?!??) and Android (where with plugins like uBlock Origin it becomes the
safest and cleanest mobile web browser in my view).

Its nice if all this tracking activities are shared and explained to non-
technical folks, but these have been discussed here on HN in much more detail
ad nausea over last 5-10 years

