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‘People have no idea’: How smart devices spy on us and reveal information about our homes
(english.elpais.com)
this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
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I don't think that the issue is that people don't know; people don't care. They don't understand how horrible the loss of privacy is, and think that the marginal convenience of being able to control your thermostat from your workplace, or have your refrigerator add milk to your shopping list outweighs the negatives of them being turned into botnets, or monetizing all of your data to squeeze every last penny out of you.
I agree. There are far too many people with the "if I'm not doing anything wrong, then what have I to hide?" mindset. I've seen people unironically say that all Tor users must be engaging in illegal activity, and I don't think it occurs to them that in many parts of the world, freely accessing information is an illegal activity, and by adopting this mindset we're empowering that type of state.
I like the way a coworker put it to me, it's the same reason we have locks on our doors and curtains on our windows, it's not because we have something to hide, but a right to privacy that tech giants have widely ignored.
We also shouldn't be conditioned to just accept terms of services with no recourse, by this point I think most people just press accept and know by now whatever it is there, isn't worth the trouble of fighting to have it changed. So companies get to legally have a free for all with your privacy, cause you consented to things you'll later find out you didn't even know you consented for.
No reason to care when the TOS can be changed at any time, and who wants to read it once much less every times they want to use a thing?
@snooggums @throws_lemy @HelixDab2 @Jessvj93 tosdr is the solution to that!
It helps once, but does it push notifications when the TOS changes from the last time you read it?
The TOS could switch from protecting your data to sharing it for money at any point in time and that would apply to any existing data. Unless you know you can get them to delete it, the fact that the TOS used to say something does not matter once they change it.
@snooggums @throws_lemy @HelixDab2 @Jessvj93 ofc that’s always the risk you take when using any service. Sadly a lot of the time the ToS is so long it’d take forever to read but this is the closest I’ve been able to find to quick overviews on the the ToS of a specified service.
Note that it does not have every service critiqued as I think ppl with TOSDR manually read the ToS and evaluate.
ToS are the worst thing ever. They are "contracts" that you are required to sign to do literally anything in the world but are not allowed to negotiate and can be modified at any time without your consent and your original signing is propagated to the new contract and it is still considered binding. Also, they are allowed to put clauses in which hand over rights to your property, intellectual or otherwise, which is irrevocable and perpetual. Additionally, you have many "software" providers putting clauses in which state that you only lease the license, you do not own it. Even if you have a physical media with the software, you only purchased a lease and it is therefore illegal for you to resell it. They are also allowed to revoke your lease at anytime, without recompense of any sort. That is the real power of SaaS, not the subscription, but the fact that nobody is ever allowed to own something, no matter how much money you have paid.
Yes, as others have said, they are virtually unenforceable, but it does happen often enough to make sure you are afraid of it.
The TOS are the legal equivalent of a locked car door. It's the bare minimum prevention against a lawsuit, but really doesn't protect anything. It's because they are so long and opaque that they are often unenforceable.
The difference is the part immediately after you stopped quoting:
What OP is saying here is that people know abstractly that smart devices are not privacy friendly, but they don't understand how big a deal that actually can be.
So what you guys are saying is that people have no idea how much their privacy is being invaded.
Exactly, they aren't the same.
I also feel many don’t understand the full extent, either. They’re used to using fairly secure devices in their everyday life (often not realizing how much the software they install is also spying on them), so why wouldn’t these IoT things also be secure?
In my experience, it’s all very vague and ethereal until the risks are highlighted for them. “So what if Google can read all of my emails? What could they possibly do with that information, anyway; why should I care?” is an example of a portion of a real conversation I’ve had.
What's really maddening is realizing that secure spying is still spying.