facebook and myspace are fuckwits and tools

[Maggot]

I have a FB acct, though I rarely use it. I signed up knowing full well that .govs and other entities data mine these sights. I joined because I supported Ron Paul for president and it was a place to share info during the presidential primaries . I NEVER put personal info on there. I have lots of "friends", none but a couple who I actually know. These are people who are basically sharing political alerts and videos. I've posted and shared stuff like dirt on pharmaceutical companies and the fake swine flu pandemic, Alex Jones videos, information about legislation while bills are being debated (like the health care bill), etc. Everything I post is also widely posted on forums, blogs, news sites. In a worst case scenario, like political dissidents getting rounded up and sent to FEMA camps, what I've posted at FB would be used against me. However, we would be talking about millions of others posting the same thing so I'll have lots of company. NOTHING is private on the internet. ALL data is mined. The only way to protect yourself is to be a serious geek who knows how to use advanced encryption programs and layers of proxies. Even then, those mostly apply to more private online communication.

Google tracks and stores ALL SEARCHES AND IPs. They have a relationship with the .gov intelligence agencies. If you want to do your searches anonymously, with a site that doesn't store info, use Scroogle (a site created by some geeks who hate Google). Google makes no secrets of it's data mining. That's why they're in business - to make money selling information. Now, that information could be that you like cashmere sweaters or that you're an anti government "radical". It could be Overstock.com buying your info or the spooks at the CIA.

We live in an Orwellian police state where everyone's private info can be had for a price or by using the unconstitutional PATRIOT Act. Unless one is a hermit, you don't have much privacy. Being a politically active individual, I've resigned myself to that fact. I'll never shut up and I'll never self censor out of fear.

All that said, there is the other aspect of FB and the one I find more concerning. These are the people who use it only to post the constant personal updates of their private lives. I was looking at the FB page of my friend's 20 year old daughter. She puts everything damn thing she does, WITH PICTURES, on FB. Kids do this stuff because they are conditioned and have grown up being online. They know nothing else and don't consider the dangers of what they're doing. My friend's daughter will put stuff like her class schedule, what homework she's working on, what concert she's going to on Friday, photos of her desk in her bedroom, etc. Any asshole who wanted to stalk her would only have to look at her FB page. These kids are so connected that I saw where she and her sister were talking to each other, on FB, and they LIVE IN THE SAME HOUSE!!!

I recently saw a video news report, from ABC, showing that some digital cameras and smart phones have GPS tracking devices in them and when you post a pic online other people can right click on the photo and get the coordinates of the location that the picture was taken. Apparently, you can turn off the GPS but I'll bet that a lot of people don't even know that their cameras and smart phones have this capability.

So, I see this privacy thing as having very different considerations. One is that the daily habits of someone being revealed online make them vulnerable to stalking, home invasion and the like. The other is political.

Oh, and, BTW, gmail is rumored to spy on it's users, as well. I don't know a whole a lot about this other than email services can't be trusted, either. Yahoo mail once turned over emails of a dissident journalist in China that the Chinese gov't used to put him in prison.

Can I get the condensed version.......wait I will do it. "I'm a dumb fuck" See was that hard?


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