In the book The Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt describes the rudimentary mass surveillance system used by the secret police force of the Russian Empire.
"God is watching" used to be a motivator to try to be good and do right. Now it seems we have a technological replacement of our own invention that can influence our behavior similarly, but with more potential to lead to our destruction without ever being in the presence of the others. It seems that we have all but replaced the one God with eight billion gods. What a nightmare.
The 24/7/365 digital surveilance aka the Panopticon will be right inside our homes if the powers that be have their way by 2030.
Household ‘environmental sensors’ as the ultimate panoptic tool. All vestiges of privacy will vanish completely once intrusive health surveillance sensors are mandated in households.
Although the subject of phone and computer privacy is a less interesting than watching paint dry to most people, I'm interested in this subject. In reality, it's a good idea for everyone to do a bit of work and protect themselves and their identity from data mining by Big Tech as far as they reasonably can.
Smartphones, and all smart devices are incredibly efficient spy devices. Phones spy on the individual and on other phones. It's nearly impossible to set up a smartphone to provide a decent level of privacy. There are settings that help, but they're rather trivial and not very effective in real terms. Of course, Google and Apple don't want users to have a meaningful level of privacy.
I don't use smart devices or social media. A dumbphone is fine for me, quick to use, and has a very long battery life.
To improve both privacy and security a little, unused smartphone apps can be deleted. This may also speed up the phone slightly. Old files can be backed up and deleted to give more storage space.
Far more can be done on PC's to improve both privacy and security than on smartphones and tablets. The latter are extremely vulnerable to hacking, data mining, getting lost or broken. Although smartphones are amazingly versatile, this leads to a great deal of dependency on one device. However, it will be increasingly difficult to function in society without a smartphone in the future. An option would be to use a smartphone with a bare minimum of apps, use these as little as possible, and use a computer for all other uses. This minimises exposure to the Internet on a basically insecure device.
I could say much more, but perhaps this post is long enough.
"God is watching" used to be a motivator to try to be good and do right. Now it seems we have a technological replacement of our own invention that can influence our behavior similarly, but with more potential to lead to our destruction without ever being in the presence of the others. It seems that we have all but replaced the one God with eight billion gods. What a nightmare.
Wow that is powerfully put.
The 24/7/365 digital surveilance aka the Panopticon will be right inside our homes if the powers that be have their way by 2030.
Household ‘environmental sensors’ as the ultimate panoptic tool. All vestiges of privacy will vanish completely once intrusive health surveillance sensors are mandated in households.
https://drmathewmaavak.substack.com/p/household-environmental-sensors-as
Although the subject of phone and computer privacy is a less interesting than watching paint dry to most people, I'm interested in this subject. In reality, it's a good idea for everyone to do a bit of work and protect themselves and their identity from data mining by Big Tech as far as they reasonably can.
Smartphones, and all smart devices are incredibly efficient spy devices. Phones spy on the individual and on other phones. It's nearly impossible to set up a smartphone to provide a decent level of privacy. There are settings that help, but they're rather trivial and not very effective in real terms. Of course, Google and Apple don't want users to have a meaningful level of privacy.
I don't use smart devices or social media. A dumbphone is fine for me, quick to use, and has a very long battery life.
To improve both privacy and security a little, unused smartphone apps can be deleted. This may also speed up the phone slightly. Old files can be backed up and deleted to give more storage space.
Far more can be done on PC's to improve both privacy and security than on smartphones and tablets. The latter are extremely vulnerable to hacking, data mining, getting lost or broken. Although smartphones are amazingly versatile, this leads to a great deal of dependency on one device. However, it will be increasingly difficult to function in society without a smartphone in the future. An option would be to use a smartphone with a bare minimum of apps, use these as little as possible, and use a computer for all other uses. This minimises exposure to the Internet on a basically insecure device.
I could say much more, but perhaps this post is long enough.