SRN_privacy

Unroll.me, the email unsubscribe service got busted for spying on people's inboxes. The Washington Post article is one of the better non-paywalled: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/04/25/unroll-me-backlash-shows-us-exactly-whats-wrong-with-privacy-policies/?utm_term=.6dd92fef1f41 WP, like Gizmodo, points out the problem is that we don't read privacy polices, long, obscure, etc. https://gizmodo.com/how-did-unroll-me-get-users-to-allow-it-to-sell-their-i-1794603555 The stick-it-to-you with the privacy policy is one example of a fairly shameful approach to exploiting regular, educated, middle class people, (and others, they are equal opportunity slimeballs), called dark pattern. Tricks to have you give up information, or worse. A web site devoted to what they do is below, DO NOT miss their hall of shame, it is very educational. https://darkpatterns.org/ https://darkpatterns.org/hall-of-shame Photo by Andrew Neel Most of the time, they don't

Dear Bank of America, I noticed that your site says I am using an unsupported browser and you want me to upgrade to Safari or Chrome. Let's be very clear about something. I am thankful and appreciative of both Apple and Google. However, I try to manage what is known about me as I make my way in the world, perhaps you have heard of the competing interests in privacy. So if it comes down to it, I will upgrade, to another bank. Love, Stephen

https://voice.mozilla.org/ I am going to share some thoughts about smart speakers, personal assistants, voice activated assistants, whatever you wish to call them in a future post. These devices are all good, Amazon Echo currently is probably the best. There are a number of articles on actionable steps you can take to manage your privacy with the Amazon technology. Here is one by USA today and another less actionable by Forbes . However, the bottom line is that with any of the commercial solutions clips of your voice, (and background noise), will be sent to and potentially stored in, the cloud. There are alternative to Amazon, Siri, Cortana, Home, but they are poor stepchildren indeed. However, they like their big brothers and sisters get better the more they are trained. One of the programs is the Mozilla Common Voice. They are trying to build, train, a Speech To Text, (STT), capability. I have been using an open source assistant for a month. The only way it can get better

Browsers track your web surfing activities and report them to large corporations. You already know that, probably shuddered, thought there was nothing you could do. In this post, I would like to offer a suggestion that isn't really hard to do. Separate your browser by your usage, the old security principle of separation of duties. The default browser This is the one that will come up when you click on a link. Mine is set to Safari. From what I have read, Apple makes their money selling products, not information about their customers; for me, this is a good place to start. Online shopping Amazon and Etsy purchases: Between reboots, I stay logged in to Amazon and Etsy using the Opera browser. It is not extra effort, I leave the browser on my tool bar and use it as needed. I did an analysis a while back and found it reports to Opera about my surfing.  Fine, tell them I use Amazon and Etsy. I recommend you do something similar, Amazon is already tracking you, it mig