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[–] 2 points 18 minutes ago*

We are living in the age where dystopia is being built up and all we can do is write witty comments online about it.

Its an interesting life experience and our generation will be the last young ones who didn't grow up in dystopia. 20 years from now, the west will be exactly how we think it will be.

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  • [–] 3 points 55 minutes ago* (last edited 45 minutes ago)

    Yeah we didn't learn shit from that book.

    That being said, it's easily one of the more important books I've ever read.

    Also, the MapQuest app just added a surveillance layer. I swapped a month or so ago when Google bowed to their pedo god over the whole Lake Ontario thing. It's honestly a great app and gets me from point A to point B just as well as Google Maps. Anyway, I checked the surveillance layer yesterday and we are literally surrounded by surveillance cameras. It's terrifying.

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  • [–] 1 point 29 minutes ago

    They have ears, and eyes, and noses, and skin, and tongues. They can absolutely perceive everything you do, and tell it to the enemies of the people. It's frightening the moment we're living.

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  • [–] 32 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

    It's rare, but sometimes I do wonder with some patients.

    It's obviously somewhat unarguable if it's just the more ideological "they're listening to all of us and generally invading our privacy." Usually then I'm just like, "TRUTH, but also please either put the pants back on or go to your room."

    But then there'll be a woman who says the voices telling her to wash her hands until she bleeds are a symptom of the black magic her ex is using to track her. And I'm like: girl, u crazy about the black magic thing. All they need is a fuckin' AirTag, and he probably is tracking you. So then you call the cops to take down the report, and they're like, "We can't arrest the dude for black magic." And it's like, no shit, she's bonkers. But could you at least double-check that the dude isn't stalking her?

    There are so many patients who tell me super fractured stories. They're impossible to untangle in a way that could even approach a formal pursuit of justice. But based on the details they're able to express coherently, I genuinely wonder if the story is true.

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  • [–] 20 points 11 hours ago (4 children)

    Um, actually, in 1984 the government spies on you through your TV, but in real life, corporations spy on you through your TV and the government intercepts the internet traffic and/or asks the corporations for the data, so it's obviously completely different.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 hours ago

    They don't intercept anything honestly. They either buy it or receive it through PRISM. Saying they intercept it really isn't the right word when Internet companies literally allow them into their interconnect locations (IXP) to install NSA hardware. I suppose technically you could still call it intercept, but it is more like they just listen to all traffic without any actual clandestine action.

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  • [–] 13 points 11 hours ago

    We have known ever since snowden, but people kinda just pretended that never happened.

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  • [–] 7 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (5 children)

    It's really that bad. Just ordered a smart TV knowingly that it's going to spy on me. I will never connect it to the internet and just to be sure, I will try to disable the microphones physically. At this point I believe that it will still try to connect to open wifi's in my neighbourhood. Can't be paranoid enough these days.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 hours ago

    It can also connect to other devices that do have WiFi connection via Bluetooth, best thing you can do is remove the antenna (writing this down, it makes sense the remote control that has Bluetooth and a mic will do it too)

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  • [–] 3 points 10 hours ago (3 children)

    A speaker also can be used as a microphone btw lol.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (2 children)

    Probably true, even if not the best quality. Anyway, perfect shouldn't be the enemy of good.

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  • [–] 27 points 14 hours ago
    [–] 2 points 9 hours ago (6 children)
  • [–] 4 points 6 hours ago (5 children)

    DNS over HTTPS kinda makes that moot. Plus proprietary apps can roll their own DNS-like protocol, and chuck data down whatever port they want.

    Get Wireshark

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  • [–] 4 points 6 hours ago (3 children)

    I've mac banned my TV from the wifi

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  • [–] 5 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

    Amazon shipped out thousands of Kindle's with prepaid Sim cards in them back in 2012

    We've now moved on to eSim, once phone companies wondered "why do we even need a piece of outside hardware to connect to a phone tower", so good luck sleeping at night.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 hours ago (1 child)

    We're about to go full circle with 5G enabled televisions

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  • [–] 2 points 4 hours ago

    I created a satellite box for my mum using a Raspberry Pi with Debian and a USB stick for the LNB feed. It works fine. Great even, better than the shitty satbox massive phonebook sized device she had. And I can control it.

    I don't see why we can't build our own TVs. Get a large MIPI/DSI 1080p screen (15.6" is the biggest I've seen), mount it on a piece of plywood, mount a raspberry pi or other SBC onto it and connect it via the MIPI ribbon. For apps, install Kodi, and for LiveTV install a streaming server. That's it

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  • [–] 21 points 17 hours ago (9 children)

    Still is in my house. TVs are separate from streaming devices. No remote or speaker has a mic in it. Phones and laptops have mic and video permissions off if not in use.

    Do I expect someone is listening? Yes but they are at the nation state level and ain't willing to risk their tools for less than national level threats.

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  • [–] 5 points 13 hours ago (1 child)

    The danger is that these things can be done automated by now. It's not just governments doing this. It is the private sector, and they sell all of that to the highest bidder. The only way out is either to stop them connecting to the internet or install a free software operating system you control.

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  • [–] 1 point 24 minutes ago

    And even then the firmware (or a hidden RTOS) can still be able to record and send everything.

    We need to seriously fund more things like free, libre and open source (and libre and open hardware) TVs, TV-boxes, TV-sticks, phones, tablets and so on.

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  • [–] 1 point 15 hours ago* (3 children)

    Your router is GPS geotagged and recording/reporting all your audio/video/Facebook/Reddit/etc search activity, so good luck with that.

    Even I'm not totally immune.

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  • [–] 1 point 14 hours ago (2 children)

    Your router is GPS geotagged

    Not if you turn the wifi off.

    and recording/reporting all your audio/video/Facebook/Reddit/etc search activity

    Recording all my VPN activity, maybe. But all it's going to see is a lot of encrypted traffic to and from my VPN server.

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  • [–] 15 points 16 hours ago* (2 children)

    They were called "screens". I don't have a smart tv...i have a kick ass dumb tv that works just fine.

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