GoofballJones

I liked this little article as it reminds me of when the Web was still young and mainly just text with no formatting or graphics yet. Takes me right back to 1991!

"We take very seriously your privacy and we make sure no one can see what you do...because THAT'S OUR JOB! Hey, you want to know what our customers are doing, we're more than willing to sell you the data and telemetry we collect, but ya gotta go through us! We take that very seriously."

1. Thanks..as it shows the article in question was full of holes, such as the Russians requiring an app be baked in and not being able to uninstall. This was false.

2. This is for iCLOUD backups. Yes, that's a problem. But you can turn off iCloud backups totally...and then use your computer to make the backup while tethered and THAT can be encrypted. If your security conscience, don't use iCloud back-up. Yes.

3. Adverts in the App Store aren't tracking you. They're adverts in the app store. I forget that when someone these days sees an ad, their face melts.

4. Again, Apple isn't sitting there looking over your shoulder watching everything you do for the ads. The ads are for the apps that are "free" and get revenue from the ads in their apps. Usually pushing people to pay the $1.99 for the app. Annoying, yes. On the level of Facebook or Google? Not even close. But keep an eye on this.

5. Apple took 3 years to fully cut ties with a supplier using child labor. Fully cut ties. They are no longer doing it...but took their sweet time. Again, hold their feet to the fire over this.

The difference is the "terms of service" on these things...something many, including many here, don't even bother reading. Apple specifically states they don't collect your data..which is why when there are times people find out that they have (like the time they were caught having real people listen in to Siri requests to see if they were accurate), all hell broke loose and there are several lawsuits about that very thing against Apple.

Google says right up front, right in the open "hey, we're gonna look over your shoulder at EVERYTHING you do with your phone. Go ahead and switch off all those placebo buttons on the "privacy" tabs, but we'll still glean telemetry from you". Ok, they don't use those exact words, but they do state that's what they do. But even then, it's not enough for them so they dig more and more and more.

Apple gets their feet held to the flames all the time, especially now that they're leaning into the privacy. Will the convince anyone here? I doubt it. Everyone here are "experts" and they're not gonna let Apple fool them! No-sir-re!

So, all the things I'm actually doing on Apple hardware I'm not really doing? Hmm...good to know. Thx.

Yes, was just listening to that just this past week.

That's a very bad hole to dig with "most people buy it because" nonsense. Why do YOU care what others buy or don't buy? Were you ever going to get one? Even at $400-$600? It smacks of "I don't want this, therefore NO one should want this...and if they do they are only getting it because blah blah blah".

Let people like/use/play what they want and stop judging others for their choices just because they're not YOUR choices. I, btw, don't own anything by Teenage Engineering, but it absolutely doesn't affect my world one iota if someone else does.

This may be an ignorant question, but how do we know what every part in a computer does? Yes, we can choose the OS, but do we all know what every single chip does on a motherboard? Like, EVERY chip, not the CPU or main ones, but the innocuous chips that are strewn across a motherboard. Now, I know some of you will go "yes, I know what they do", but do you inspect every motherboard you own in detail to see what they do?

What am I getting at? Well, I know it's totally paranoid, but what if some agency out there in other countries who build these things are putting things on the boards to send telemetry data back. Perhaps something small and quick now and then while the computer is online. Something that you don't even notice unless you're constantly monitoring the internet traffic in and out. And the traffic itself could be something innocuous also. Something that slips under the radar.

I know I know, I'm totally paranoid here. But does anyone here worry about that at all?

"...most of us have endured years of mindless criticism of our decision, usually from WordPerfect users..."

Wow. it's like stepping through a time portal.

Make no mistake, Stallman is a loon. Yes, a loon that developed some great things and has some good ideas, but he's still a loon.

That doesn't mean he's wrong. Just...a loon.

I just use technology. I never was a windows kind of person, just didn't gell with it. I was more unix. I know that system. I know what it does and why it does things. I could have done that with windows, but just never wanted to.

I guess I was more of a tinkerer than the author of this piece, which is why I went with Linux. And I'm talking Linux when Linus first put it out there decades ago.

Before that, I tinkered with DOS, of course. Windows 3.1. OS/2. Windows NT. But, like I said, it just didn't gell with me. Linux was where it was, and still is. Yes, I've gotten Macs because again, with OS X, they were unix and I knew the underlaying structure. I didn't really find the need to install a gaming OS like Windows, because I'm not a gamer and that's basically all I saw it offering.

And now? I don't allow any Google products in my home. I don't even use Chrome nor any Chromium derived browser. And absolutely no Android.

No Amazon Alexa anything.

No "smart" devices at all. No "Internet of Things" BS.

You've asked this around different places, and it's been answered. Those ads are not digital purchases made by users. They're ads. Please edit your posts and point out that this has been answered now and you understand that ads are not the same thing. But of course, if you want to keep bashing Apple and muddy the waters, continue on.

Also, Facebook is going to find their ads are less effective in the next release of iOS, as they won't be able to track people as easily.

What does this even mean? Are you suggesting a private company should be forced to host content they don't want to? Should Fox News be forced to host Rachael Maddow and a Huffpost show? Is Fox News "censoring" Huffpost by not hosting a show on their network?

Alex Jones being kicked off those services isn't the same thing. He was spreading major misinformation and targeted harassment at innocent people that were involved in a tragedy. He wasn't "conspired" against. They just told him to go host his hate somewhere else.

And stop with these "censorship" BS. Alex Jones has every right to start his own network if he wants and put anything on it. There's nothing stopping him from doing it. But there is also zero reason why another private company has to be forced to carry something they don't want to. Free speech doesn't mean everyone is forced to listen to that speech. Why not say that CBS/NBC/ABC/PBS are also "conspiring" against him too because they don't carry his show? OMG, Nickelodeon doesn't carry Alex Jones! They're censoring him!

Come on.

Exactly this. The "old" way of living, you were considered in your old age if you made it to your 40s.

And here it is, just a few hours after I wrote this and here's yet another story about malware on the Google app store:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/found...

I did the opposite, went from Android to iOS because of security. I'd rather live in this "walled garden" instead of the vulnerabilities that pop up in Android now and then, the malware that's always popping up in their app-store, and finally the fact that Google is always looking over your shoulder at everything you do, even despite how much you "turn off" things in the OS, it still phones home. Microsoft is the same. I'm tired of it. Not to mention that Android manufacturers idea of an "update" to the OS means you basically have to buy a newer model, as they often lag months behind on software/security updates from Google, and Apple supports their phones and tablets with updates years after. For instance, Google only provides updates to their Pixel phones for 3 years. Meanwhile, my wife's iPhone 6s is still chugging along with the latest OS after 5 years.

But this is just me. Everyone should use what they are comfortable with.

Ok. That's been the opposite experience of me. I got rid of the Surface Pro because it's a kludge. No matter how long Microsoft worked on touch/pen support to slap onto Windows, it still fails in being a good environment, at least for me. Plus, at the time, the battery life was abysmal. I'm not sure if they ever got better at that with the newer models. AND, no matter how much they played up that fricken kickstand, it was terrible in trying to use it on my lap. But then again, the iPad was the same.

Enter the iPad, which was built from the ground up as a touch interface. but now it looks like they're coming at it from a different directly....a touch interface incorporating mouse/touchpad support.

But, I'm for people using what they want to use. My use/need isn't the same.

Plus, on Mac OS I run Little Snitch with a set of custom blocking rules that's updated on a regular basis.

Also, at this point, I don't trust anything based on Chromium...even if it's all open-source etc. The last time I checked, it still phoned home to Google some telemetry data. Granted, I haven't looked into it for a while as I've turned my back on all things Google a while ago.

Been using DDG now for over a year and I would say, for me, it's about 95% accurate in finding what I want found. It's rare now that I go to Google to search for anything.

DDG is the default search engine on Firefox and Safari for me. I no long use Chrome (it's not even loaded on this computer) and rarely Google.com itself.

I lived in Chicago and would log into CBBS, Ward and Randy's and The Ward Board all the time.

Thank you, Randy, for all the good times I had on those boards and the joy and excitement of discovering new things, even if was just to say hi to strangers with a similar interest.

I really miss Byte. I used to read it all the time. They had many diverse articles in it, not just about computers in general. For instance, Byte was where I first learned about Pixar's Renderman. They also had positive coverage of the Amiga.

Well, there was an ad for the Apple II in there. "Now with upper/lower case!"

Wasn't it when Digg did their very unpopular redesign/rework that people left there and headed to Reddit?

Reddit learned too late about the user generated content business: Don't get into the user generated content business.

He IS an insufferable prick. He's a loon. He's always been a loon and said loony things. Yes, many many many years ago he contributed a lot of things that are important to the Free Software movement, but just because he did that doesn't mean he's immune from being criticized for being a shitty person.

People can still admire what he did back in the day, but you don't have to defend his views or his bullshit. Like Bobby Fischer, you can absolutely admire and study his past chess games, but he was a reprehensible human being.

This is interesting. From the article:

"Wynter’s veil had concealed not only her face but a wireless radio."

Isn't that pretty advanced for 1919? A wireless radio that fed her information through an earpiece?

I was a major fan of the Amiga. It was a great community of users too. I remember meeting at a local user group that met twice a month at at library. Fred Fish disks exchanged, art projects shown, music played.

But the overall feeling was that Commodore was pretty much ignoring their fans, and not promoting the computer at all. Even at an Amiga World show in Chicago, Commodore was a no-show. WTF?

So, Amazon, Google and now Apple have been "caught" doing this. Is Microsoft's Cortana doing it also on it's voice commands?

Also, wouldn't it make sense for EVERYONE to just use their own users to gauge if the voice is working as intended? Like, once in a while get a random "was this correct?" from the people using it, instead of strangers determining it.

This is sad to hear. I just started re-watching “From the Earth to the Moon”, which I haven’t seen since it first came out...but HBO finally made an HD version. Mr. Kraft was portrayed as a no-nonsense, pragmatic administrator and engineer.