Your data, privacy, surveillance and Social Media

[sp]

looks like cyanogen has turned into LineageOS, or at least shares a lot of features with it. i might give that a shot

[Dirty_habiT]

If you want a private cell phone don't use it to connect to cell towers.

[misteraven]

Going to bump this because… 2021. 

[Mercer]

Here's a good example of a piece of shit (government) using customer loyalty data to target people for something even I'd overlook. Basically, they bought customer loyalty data from a grocery store. Took the data on who bought pet food, and cross referenced it with who owned a dog license, so they could in turn target pet owners that didn't pay the government for a pet license license.

 

https://komonews.com/news/local/king-county-using-grocery-store-data-to-target-pet-owners

[KILZ FILLZ]

https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/google-agrees-settlement-5b-lawsuit-accusing-company-tracking-users-incognito-mode

[ndv]

Lol, I really never thought incognito mode was actually legit. 

[ClownPrince]

[ndv]

That's a good share, but with all do respect to the guy who posted that doesn't really understand data collection.  Adobe is going to collect data with or with out your permission and whatever toggle switches there are in UIs. 

 

I have these settings off, I only sign in to Adobe when I need to do something then sign back out. Not that this practice still keeps Adobe out of your business.  

 

What's even worse with Adobe spying on people is how they wrote the app.  Now, when you take a photograph of any thing with text or a physical document, Adobe automatically asks if you would like to convert this image to pdf. 

 

You can say no, and it won't, but don't think for one moment abode is collecting photos in the background. 

 

For those of you concerned about privacy, I'll have to dig for it again, but there are softwares that are just as versatile and can read and write Adobe files that do not collect data. 

 

Adobe, and companies alike are the reason why QubesOS is more valuable than their company on any given reason or day. 

[ndv]

On 11/14/2019 at 10:38 PM, Hua Guofang said:

This is what I'm referring to regards Australia - others were also raided for leaking info that one of Australia's most decorated soldiers is being investigated for war crimes/murder in Afghanistan (side note, I used to serve with the dude years ago and he seemed normal then, but that was a lifetime ago)

 

 

Documents name ex-intelligence officer as alleged source of leak to Smethurst

By Fergus Hunter

 

Smash

[ndv]

I should also include, if you engage in activity that requires the utmost no trace left behind on any computer/laptop, then you probably are already running Tails, but if not, run everything through tails, make sure your tails in loaded on a Kill bus.  LE from local to Central Intelligence hates this stuff so much so that anyone searching for tails on a general search engine gets flagged by the NSA because this software leaves no trace on the operating system. 

 

Qubes/Whonix/Tails = Freedom

 

As for email service providers, I would stay away from Proton for sure, rise up is pretty much invite only but there's no way to tell who's behind it all considering it's mainly for Facist communications.  DNMX was compromised by LE a while back which led to multiple people being arrested for illegal activities on the darkness.

 

Rule of thumb. Any company who provides security services across the net public or private asks for BTC or ETH keep searching.  If they ask for Monero and only Monero then they appear to be serious about the anonymity of their customers but remember it's the net so you never know who is really behind the servers.  Purchase at your own risk.  

 

But always keep in mind just about every country is under sometime of law pressured by the US so if its serious enough. Servers can be raided leading to potential leaks.  

 

This is why it is a must to run Tails.   LE has to find the evidence or it didn't happen. 

 

Leave no trace behind. 

 

 

[misteraven]

On 11/11/2019 at 5:55 PM, Hua Guofang said:

There are a number of threads on this website that overlap a little, the one on the social credit system, the one on social media and discussion, @Mercerthread on surfing the net without giving up who you are and what makes you tick, etc. To me they all have one thing in common, the future of privacy, the individual and ownership. So I'm keen, if @misteravenis happy for me to do so, to aggregate some of that discussion here.

 

I read and listen to a lot of this stuff and I most often link my positions to material you can reference for more information - also, because I don't want to be just another voice yelling personal opinion into the voud, I intend to back my positions up with consideration and research. I know reading is not something a few of you are big on but I ancourage you to pay attention to this stuff or you and your kids will be fucked before you know it.

 

Also, there's a bunch of tinfoil hat wearers up in here and you're chasing your tails whilst missing the real plays that are actually going on around you. I'm hoping this will assist in giving you something real to worry about!

 

To kick off, here are a few articles that give you the idea of where I'm going with this article that raises issues of consent, privacy, knowledge of where your data goes and who sees it and how it may be sold on, security of that data and how it may be used in the future in ways we don't yet think about:

 

Google’s ‘Project Nightingale’ Gathers Personal Health Data on Millions of Americans

Search giant is amassing health records from Ascension facilities in 21 states; patients not yet informed

https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-s-secret-project-nightingale-gathers-personal-health-data-on-millions-of-americans-11573496790

 

By

Rob Copeland

Updated Nov. 11, 2019 4:27 pm ET

 

Google is engaged with one of the U.S.’s largest health-care systems on a project to collect and crunch the detailed personal-health information of millions of people across 21 states.

 

The initiative, code-named “Project Nightingale,” appears to be the biggest effort yet by a Silicon Valley giant to gain a toehold in the health-care industry through the handling of patients’ medical data. Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are also aggressively pushing into health care, though they haven’t yet struck deals of this scope.

 

Google began Project Nightingale in secret last year with St. Louis-based Ascension, a Catholic chain of 2,600 hospitals, doctors’ offices and other facilities, with the data sharing accelerating since summer, according to internal documents.

The data involved in the initiative encompasses lab results, doctor diagnoses and hospitalization records, among other categories, and amounts to a complete health history, including patient names and dates of birth.

 

Neither patients nor doctors have been notified. At least 150 Google employees already have access to much of the data on tens of millions of patients, according to a person familiar with the matter and the documents.

 

In a news release issued after The Wall Street Journal reported on Project Nightingale on Monday, the companies said the initiative is compliant with federal health law and includes robust protections for patient data.

 

Some Ascension employees have raised questions about the way the data is being collected and shared, both from a technological and ethical perspective, according to the people familiar with the project. But privacy experts said it appeared to be permissible under federal law. That law, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, generally allows hospitals to share data with business partners without telling patients, as long as the information is used “only to help the covered entity carry out its health care functions.”

 

Google in this case is using the data in part to design new software, underpinned by advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning, that zeroes in on individual patients to suggest changes to their care. Staffers across Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent, have access to the patient information, internal documents show, including some employees of Google Brain, a research science division credited with some of the company’s biggest breakthroughs.

 

Google Cloud President Tariq Shaukat said the company’s goal for health care is centered on “ultimately improving outcomes, reducing costs, and saving lives.”

 

Eduardo Conrado, an executive vice president at Ascension, said: “As the health-care environment continues to rapidly evolve, we must transform to better meet the needs and expectations of those we serve as well as our own caregivers and health-care providers.”

 

Google and nonprofit Ascension have parallel financial motives. Google has assigned dozens of engineers to Project Nightingale so far without charging for the work because it hopes to use the framework to sell similar products to other health systems. Its end goal is to create an omnibus search tool to aggregate disparate patient data and host it all in one place, documents show.

 

The project is being developed under Google’s cloud division, which trails rivals like Amazon and Microsoft in market share. Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai has said repeatedly this year that finding new areas of growth for cloud is a priority.

 

Ascension, the second-largest health system in the U.S., aims in part to improve patient care. It also hopes to mine data to identify additional tests that could be necessary or other ways in which the system could generate more revenue from patients, documents show.

 

Ascension is also eager to have a system that is faster than its existing decentralized electronic record-keeping.

 

Google, like many of its Silicon Valley peers, has at times drawn criticism for not doing enough to protect user privacy. Its YouTube unit agreed in September to pay $170 million in fines and change its practices in response to complaints that it illegally collected data on children to sell ads. YouTube neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing.

 

Last year, the Journal reported that Google opted not to disclose to users a flaw that exposed hundreds of thousands of birth dates, contact information and other personal data of subscribers in its now-defunct social-networking website Google Plus, in part because of fears that the incident could trigger regulatory scrutiny. Google said at the time it went beyond legal requirements in determining not to inform users.

 

Regulators are now scrutinizing the company on a number of fronts. Federal and state investigators over the summer made public separate antitrust inquiries into Google. The federal probe is examining whether Google’s existing trove of data amassed from its flagship search engine, home speakers, free email service and numerous other arms give the company an unfair advantage over competitors, people familiar with the matter said.

 

Google has said its products increase consumer choice and that it is committed to cooperating with the inquiries. This year, Mr. Pichai has touted new privacy protections for Google’s billions of users.

 

The company made public this month a $2.1 billion deal for wearable fitness maker Fitbit Inc., which makes watches and bracelets that track health information like a person’s heart rate. Politicians of both parties quickly criticized the deal; Rep. David Cicilline (D., R.I.), chairman of the House Antitrust Subcommittee, warned that the Fitbit deal would give Google “deep insights into Americans’ most sensitive information.”

 

The companies said they would be transparent about any Fitbit data they collect.

 

Google appears to be sharing information within Project Nightingale more broadly than in its other forays into health-care data. In September, Google announced a 10-year deal with the Mayo Clinic to store the hospital system’s genetic, medical and financial records. Mayo officials said at the time that any data used to develop new software would be stripped of any information that could identify individual patients before it is shared with the tech giant.

 

Google was founded with the goal of organizing the world’s information, and health has been a fascination of its top executives from the early days. Google Health, a fledgling effort to digitize existing medical records, was shut down in 2011 after three years of limited adoption. Alphabet has since poured millions of dollars into its under-the-radar Calico and Verily divisions, which aim to combat aging and manage disease, respectively.

 

Google co-founder Larry Page, in a 2014 interview, suggested that patients worried about the privacy of their medical records were too cautious. Mr. Page said: “We’re not really thinking about the tremendous good that can come from people sharing information with the right people in the right ways.”

More relevant as it ages…

[ndv]

12 hours ago, misteraven said:

More relevant as it ages…

 

Pretty much the tech Target is using.   I wouldn't be surprised if Google pays retailers to install the tech in their stores. 

[misteraven]

21 hours ago, ndv said:

 

Pretty much the tech Target is using.   I wouldn't be surprised if Google pays retailers to install the tech in their stores. 

we already know from the Snowden dump that three letter agencies are paying or subsidizing advanced network surveillance systems for big regional and national chains in exchange for access. Likewise, that pretty much what the Real ID system is doing at the state / municipal government level as well. Not even a secret or conspiracy at this point. 

[ndv]

1 hour ago, misteraven said:

we already know from the Snowden dump that three letter agencies are paying or subsidizing advanced network surveillance systems for big regional and national chains in exchange for access. Likewise, that pretty much what the Real ID system is doing at the state / municipal government level as well. Not even a secret or conspiracy at this point. 

 

Yeah, I never read any of the Snowden papers.  I am a little late to the party on the surveillance thing but it's not like I don't have random thoughts that male sense this stuff goes down all the time.