Demand privacy
Demand privacy
157 comments
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Don't forget with the Recall feature, you may be on Linux and are using a secure communication application, but if who you are talking to is on windows your conversation can be scraped.
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It's not like companies that use Linux don't get breached either. Your personal data is in thousands of databases that have varying levels of security. Personal choices don't affect any of that, regulations like GDPR are what's needed.
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GDPR has much the same problem: it can only actually be enforced against entities with a presence in Europe. When Europeans do international business, the GDPR only protects them if that foreign site has a business presence within Europe. When they have no bank accounts or business assets inside the EU, they are not subject to the GDPR.
Even though the GDPR covers your side, it doesn't always cover the other side.
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getting breached is different from using spyware.
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this goes for pretty much every single chat app out there. most of the popular ones are proprietary and go through private servers.
privacy is important kids.
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So it's not enough to brag about being on Linux ourselves, we should be encouraging our friends to switch to Linux as well?
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How's this different from someone just record your call? The thing you are worrying about has been possible long before Recall is a thing.
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But does your medical clinic do?
No, they don't, and it pisses me off. Every time I see it, I think, Well, there goes my medical privacy.
But where else can I go? There's only one health company in town, and they bought all the doctor's offices.
Who can I complain to? The doctors and nurses are visibly frustrated with Windows every time I see them use it. If they can't change it, how could I?
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That ship has sailed anyway. I've had no less than 5 breach notifications show up in the mail from things related to my health care in the last 2 years, and it's not like I'm constantly at the doctor. The whole system is a disaster.
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They might not know there are alternatives. So they likely do not ccomplain to their IT person.
Dont be a "jUsT uSe LiNuX" guy, but when you see them frustrated maybe say "hey I see you are frustrated as well and I as a patient are concerned about my medical data privacy. You know there are better and safer alternatives, maybe you could ask your IT if it would be possible to switch to Linux?"
Realistically, they can't switch because the software to use some $€1m medical device only runs on windows.
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I sell encryption. Send me the lead dog ;p
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I work in IT for healthcare, and our CTO, CIO, and head of Cybersecurity are all ex-Microsoft. We're a "Windows Shop" adopting anything Microsoft has ever made, from Windows to Azure DevOps to Access
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i use linux and don’t have family or friends or get any kind of medical care ☺️ checkmate
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Using Linux in America be like
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The failures of the United States healthcare system are compatible with the Unix philosophy due to its emphasis on doing one thing poorly and leaving the rest for the user to figure out. Like Unix tools, each component—insurance, billing, and treatment—functions independently, refusing to communicate effectively while relying on the user to “pipe” themselves between endless calls, paperwork, and escalating bills. Debugging your health, much like debugging code, requires advanced knowledge, infinite patience, and a willingness to accept that nothing will ever be fully resolved.
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Most sociable Linux user.
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human relationships are antithetical to the unix philosophy
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And most servers do too.
God save ASP and .NET applications
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privacy is scary stuff if you think. it's like, i care so i dont share my phone number with facebook, but someone out there may have my number/address/name on their contact list and chances are big that they have no problem sharing with zuck. so i'll still end up on zuck's database.
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I just activated my checking account with PayPal and one of the questions from the verification battery was asking me which email I recognized. They were different domains of my mother's ISP email that she uses only with Amazon.
I had the urge to answer incorrectly as if that would remove their association.
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My dad did that. The man has a slight obsession with collecting information about our entire extended family, as far back as he can go in time. He's been known to get in touch with small municipalities to ask for their records about someone 8 generations back. He's collated quite a bit of data over the years.
And then one day he went and loaded all of that into a shitty mobile family tree app. Phone numbers, current addresses, email addresses, photos, a shit ton of personal information of a shit ton of people, uploaded to some random developer's unknown database without their consent. He didn't even pause to think about it for one second. I told him what he did, he wasn't even bothered.
There are tons of people like my dad who don't have a single cell in their entire bodies that gives a flying fuck about data privacy, unfortunately, and they give out everyone's data along with their own.
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Demand it from who? With what power or leverage?
Not to be defeatist, but I'm just a guy. Nobody's gonna listen to my demands. I'm surprised privacy notifications say anything other than "You don't have any" with two buttons that both say "OK". All I can do is selfhost as much as possible and decline to use tons of applications or services that underpin modern societal functions or social activities. So I do. But it sucks ass and I don't have any power to change any of it.
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Where I am, unlike climate change, the privacy issue is not discussed properly so just explaining it to people that trust you can boost any future systemic action.
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Legislature. GDPR was a good step.
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Yes well my government is about to be run by a bunch of techno-nazi's so that's a non starter.
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No, but the point they're trying to make is, I think, that the more you complain, the more other people complain and the more other people start complaining and unless we have enough complainers and people switching, nothing is gonna change.
Our power is imperceptible but not non-existent
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Wow that last line is exactly what I needed to hear, thank you
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What drives me nuts about this subject is rarely spoken about.
No single company can properly compensate all of their users for the damages caused by mishandling their personal data.
In fact the damages may even be too great for the government to properly compensate said users.
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My government forces a fingerprint on our id cards. I already lost. I can't use my fingerprint anywhere for authentication because it's not mine anymore.
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All your fingers, or just one?
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No single company can properly compensate all of their users for the damages caused by mishandling their personal data.
What do you mean? Every time I've been involved in a data leak, I got offered 6 months of identity monitoring. What more could you want?
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I think people who say "I don't care, I use Linux" are really saying "You should use Linux to stop this."
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I hate to be that guy, but they may not be aware of alternatives.
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Im sure the receptionist in the doctors surgery cant wait to have that conversation.
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Yes. And whereas if you say "You should use linux" might get you downvoted and angry responsens, just saying "I use linux" does not.
But with enough repetition the people who care enough might eventually give Linux a try on their own time.-
Yeah but that misses the point.
Others SHOULD use Linux. We've been saying that for decades now and slooooowly people are learning. Stop down voting people for saying what everyone should be listening yo
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"does your medical clinic do"
Bring back grammar nazis
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This is common in British English.
For example, the question "Are you going into town?" might be answered by an American with, "I might," and by a Brit with "I might do". In past tense it would be "I might have" vs. "I might have done".
This is all perfectly systematic and grammatical - this person just has a different grammar than you do. Though I guess that's what Nazis do best: enforcing arbitrary standards in systems they don't understand to destroy diversity to everyone's detriment.
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They might not be native English speakers.
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Not a native speaker here, what would be correct?
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"Does your medical clinic use Linux?" or just "Does your medical clinic?"
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This is common and considered correct in British English.
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Assuming you're asking about American English. Here is the revised scenario.
"I use Linux"
"Does your medical clinic?"
In this example the response is in a new sentence. So one should also include the subject in the new sentence.
"Does your medical clinic also use Linux?"
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Best I can do is actual Nazis.
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Clearly this post was written by Tim Robinson.
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No, you need to demand that government organizations use Linux or other open source systems as well, there is no other way.
You can require Microsoft to comply with rules, it won't. It doesn't care, it wants money, and more money, and that is it. It's been like that since it's inception. The same goes for all other tech companies
You know what brand doesn't careuch about money and will respect your privacy?
Open source software. Linux. Firefox (eh, mostly) with plugins, mariadb, etc...
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We can't even get the government to stop using Twitter.
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If you believe the duly elected people have less power than a corporation, well, that's also a "we" problem
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I once took a government contract for rebuilding a critical piece of software to provide civic services to the under-employed.
I finished it in about a month. Was paid. And I was on a retainer for three years to provide updates.
It actually took FOUR years before it was launched live to the general public.
Best of luck convincing the underpaid govt IT to move OSes.
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At some point they'll have to
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You speak the truth.
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I'm still pissed the email I had managed to keep junk free for years was leaked because my insurance company had a breach.
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Simplelogin/anonaddy
That having been said, keeping an email "private" is roughly as silly as people who think phone numbers are private, as if the white pages never existed.
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As a home user the OS thing is preference, some prefer Windows, some Mac, some Linux, etc.
Your post however raises a good point, and it certainly makes me form an opinion in a greater context. Thanks for making me think about this, genuinely - it's good to have opinions challenged.
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Thanks for making me think about this, genuinely - it's good to have opinions challenged.
Not me. I plan to continue being a sweaty holier-than-thou neck beard and mock people using Windows. Brb gotta write to my dentist about how good Linux is now and recommending Arch to my general doctor who still uses a computer from 2010.
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I think there's some confusion at play here. That argument is about security, not privacy.
Is the concern that Microsoft is ingesting your data and thus your actions aren't private? Or is it that Windows is not secure and so you don't think data stored in Windows systems is safe from third party access? That distinction matters, because in both cases the way it's framed here isn't really accurate but for different reasons.
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And both arguments are valid. However, when discussing privacy with somebody "who has nothing to hide", the security concerns argument usually holds more ground.
"Fine, you don't mind microsoft and their 961 partners to know about your computer usage patterns. But how about the criminals which will have your data as well? You may trust microsoft with your data - "because they have it already" - but do you trust each of these 961 partners? Do you trust all their privacy policies? I have read some. They are horrendus and allow sharing with third parties. Do you trust their privacy and security?"
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Well, for one, I have no information regarding MS keeping mandatory telemetry of Windows application usage or data (at least outside their own software suite). As far as I know what is there is opt-in and does not extend to keeping any copies of your computer data, which is the point where you'd be worried about something like your medical records. One of the reasons the Recall nonsense drew so much attention is that it was an unusual instance of something approximating that.
But the other side of your argument is a bit confusing, because it seems to be coming from the angle of... proselytism, I suppose? As in, what is more useful to convince somebody who doesn't care about the privacy side that they should avoid Windows.
And to be clear, that's not my goal, or at least not a goal I think is worthwhile in absolute or abstract terms, for its own sake. I'm not an OS activist, use whatever the hell you want and works for you. The closest I have is a distaste for Apple's pricing and ecosystem-focused tactics but, man, that 600 bucks M4 Mac Mini is nice value, I'll think about it.
On the merits of the argument, I'm not sure it tracks, either. If someone attacks a legitimate holder of your data the part I care about is how secure their data storage is (because, again, nobody is sharing your medical records over Microsoft telemetry gathering, that's not a real thing).
I trust a third party's security setup as far as I can throw it, I don't care if it's on Azure, Google, Amazon or a self-hosted Linux server. Hell, I may trust the self-hosted Linux server of a provider least of all of those. Not because of Linux, but because of the self-hosting.
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Until there is serious consequences to data breaches and criminal charges it doesn't matter. It's been a free for all for a long time the best we can do is simply keep using products or services that respect your privacy and discourage or not use services.
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Yeah, our response to the Equifax breach was the end of data privacy. Oh, you lost literally all of the data for all of the adults in the US that you have been tracking without consent? All good, don't worry.
Really, the response should have been the FBI taking all of their equipment, figuring out exactly what was stolen, notifying all the victims, then formatting and shredding all the equipment and sending Equifax a bill, on top of a huge fine.
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Does your company/school provide employee/student Microsoft 365 licences? Ask your Windows-using colleague to check that "Optional Connected Experiences" are enabled and tell the IT team that they are likely allowing genAI training on internal documents (Microsoft seems to have reserved the right to do that and never denied the allegations). Yes, they can disable this organization-wide and will likely contact Microsoft over this, and if enough of us do this they'll know they crossed a line.
If your company's IT team does not respond, you'll have another argument getting your peers over to LibreOffice.
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We're working hard to get rid of Microsoft as last we checked, we can't disable copiloi using our data used on SharePoint without also removing all required user functionality like searching documents from SharePoint. We searched everywhere and literally couldn't find a way to remove that.
I know that government is storing citizens data there....
WTF, why have companies ever decided to use Microsoft ?
Dump Microsoft, now.
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I believe the government gets a different version of Windows. My work has blocked copilot and all the AI tools. The search function in Sharepoint works for me though. Companies cannot afford to dump Windows. They need to hire people with Linux knowledge or train existing employees and most importantly rewrite programs still using MS DOS.
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Maybe we should tell people to use Linux
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This is framed with OSs in mind but the place where this actually happens the most is mobile apps.
It's difficult to protect your contact info when everyone with you in their contracts gives access to candy crush. It's the one I see the most and know who does it because those people will show up in the "you might know this person" shit.
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It’s always the games or some other Chinese crApp
Despite strenuous efforts, I still get ads using my private information (like I told my friend in person I needed a charger for a specific brand of vacuum [I needed the charger for a piece of random equipment but found that a Dyson cable worked and wouldn’t be $100] and next thing you know I’m getting ads for Dyson and vacuums in general).
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Pretty sure we all know that. I've been using Linux full time for about 8 years now. I'm also EXTREMELY aware that I can't change what OS an organization runs. It's a systemic problem.
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I can control if I use Linux or not. I can't control my government being
bribedlobbied by big tech that shits on consumer rights. I know what can reasonably change. Also the therapist and doctor offices are bad examples, because they have strong legal defenses through HIPAA.-
They do have HIPAA. That doesn't mean their IT departments configured Windows correctly. Especially if it's a government facility that's required by law to accept the lowest bid from a third-party IT provider.
I work in municipal government, and our third-party IT is absolutely terrible. They can't manage to set up an email address or image a computer without inventing 19 new ways to fuck it up. They've called me for help with my coworkers' computers. If I worked in tech, that wouldn't be so bad, but I work in the planning department.
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Technical issues are irrelevant. If Microsoft is caught acting on this data, then they are in a lot of legal trouble. As far as I know, HIPAA doesn't have exceptions for unintentional data leakage from inept admins.
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I made a similar point in one of My blog articles
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This is unrelated to the article you're sharing now, but I read that (I agree thoroughly that the GDPR needs to be a start, but that it's inconsistently followed/enforced) and then I saw and read your article about apathetic cis people who might be agender. That's a neat perspective that I hadn't considered before — I'm cis and very much not apathetic about my gender (and I sometimes experience dysphoria if I am not treated as my gender). However, I have a bunch of other friends who have described their attachment to their gender as being far more "meh", and I am looking forward to getting a chance to discuss your article with them.
It strikes me that most of my friends are some flavour of LGBTQIA+, but I don't know anyone who is agender. However, 10 years ago, many of my friends who now are non-binary didn't know a term for their experience of gender, so identified as the closest they could find (such as lesbian). I wonder how many people I know who might find that "agender" feels like a fitting identity, if it were more prevalent in discourse etc.
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Thank you
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I like your writing style. Nailed it.
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This is exactly the same argument we had with the loss of anonymity brought about by social media participation, primarily of Facebook. Now more and more of the digital space connects with the real world and other people end up giving out info about you. Then we had cameras and microphone put in every smart device and people bought those eagerly just so they could play with the equivalent of the latest dog face filter, putting them everywhere so you get spied on all over the place.
The average person is walking civilization into a nightmare and individuals who notice can do nothing about it. People will not let responsibility ruin their recess. They're children handing control of everything in their lives over to psychopaths who are re-enslaving all of us. Lemmings off a fucking cliff bought off with a series of damned toys.
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That's why I demand (nag constantly) that everyone around me run Linux 🤣
Jk we're all doomed to live in an Orwellian dystopia
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(me screaming at the gas station attendant from behind the bulletproof glass)
BRO CHANGE YOUR OS!
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But does your medical clinic do? Does your therapist do? Does your family member...
Surprisingly, yes. Though they're not happy with it, for various reasons. But it was refreshing to rant to my therapist about snap, apt and systemd and have them truly understand.
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got 'Hogwarts Legacy' for $17 on a sale ($60 normally) and after starting it up I got put on a shader caching screen for literally 10 minutes It instantly put me on a screen that forced me to go to some 3rd party website to enter my email and IRL location for them to delete my data if they had it, BUT IT DIDN'T EVEN WORK. It showed an error message!!
Then it gave me literally 15 customizeable items I don't care about then after literally 20 minutes of playtime IT CRASHED.
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… what?
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Karma, I'd say
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My wife and I just had this conversation a couple days ago where she pointed out that she has all the same documents as me on her computer and she uses Windows. I had to acknowledge that was definitely a hole in my privacy, so we concluded the conversation with the decision that she will start using Linux too. But you're right, the solution needs to be bigger.
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Good luck with that
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i just like linux, I am not cool or edgy using it but its a nice/fast os :(
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If Linux became the most used OS on the planet, wouldn't more people be interested in finding vulnerabilities to exploit in it? People used to claim Mac didn't get viruses. But it wasn't because it was impervious; it was because it wasn't widespread enough to be worthwhile to make anything for it.
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Linux is not the most used but it is used in some of the most important places. An exploit on Linux is still very useful, while there are very few Apple servers still running.
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Using Linux does not make you safe either. Given that almost every server runs Linux, you can bet good money that most intelligence agencies have a few full time employees adding backdoors to the kernel XZ Utils style, and at least one of them has succeeded.
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True, but I'm a betting man and I bet that the US intelligence agency is so deep in Microsoft that Linux looks totally free and clear by comparison.
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On a side note, I don't discuss anything with gmail users that I don't want indexed and stored in Google's dossier of me.
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Become ungovernable.
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Dude, I can't even demand my health care insurance cover anesthesia for a procedure. Demanding anything from the government or a corporation is absolutely pointless at the moment.
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I hate to say this, but PRIVACY IS DEAD... Atleast online... Unless, you are an IT expert and been using VPNs since 2001.
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it died a long time ago
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Valid. I also don't have the "I don't care" stance but rather that medical providers etc should go to jail for storing data on unsecure infrastructure
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I don't care, I use Linux. 🙈
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When you're the person the meme is talking about and proud of it.
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Right. I'm not saying I'm proud of it... Just that I'm here and I took notice. Thx for making the meme. I think there is more to the story... But at the same time it also nails it.
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But does your medical clinic do? Does your therapist do?
This person's grammar would probably be greatly improved if they used Linux.
Edit: ouch, tough room.
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They could have just said
[ -n $THERAPIST ]but they had to go and conjugate verbs poorly.
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Demanding more regulation isn't going to solve this problem. Demanding that your therapist and family members abide by some sort of "regulation" just ensures that will only use software that is formally "certified" to meet the regulator's standards.
Microsoft has the lawyers and marketers to ensure that they can meet any regulation the government wants to throw at them.
Linux just solves it and distributes the solution, fast and free, to anyone who wants it. Nobody has time for regulators, so even though it is more broadly scrutinized and more secure than anything Microsoft will put out, it never gets "certified" by regulators.
You can best secure your privacy by pushing your therapist, your family away from Micoshit.
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Just watching from Europe. I'm covered by strong and enforced privacy regulations.
Please do elaborate how they don't work.
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The US really needs to work on getting privacy rights in the constitution. There were some implied rights, but the current court's busy rolling out back.
A well run, non-partisan campaign could fix this.
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157 comments