That Privacy Law

We all love our privacy right? I love the fact I can close my curtains at the end of the day and enjoy a quiet evening.  I enjoy the fact I can have a private conversation with someone.

It’s all a lie really though?  The majority of what we tell people goes to someone else sooner or later.  We claim we want privacy yet we sign up to a dozen websites using our personal details.  We live on social media showing off photographs of a holiday, our house and car.  We take selfies on a night out while doing that drunken tweet about Jegabombs.. sorry I meant to say cheapest beer available or some white ligntning.  Yet we claim to want privacy.

We continue to tell people about ourselves, even again posting that on social media or perhaps to whine about the postman turning up while we’re in the shower.  We drive a car, own a home and have to share all that information with multiple organisations who again can cold call us or put junk mail through our door.  Yet we claim to want privacy?

When we use social media sites like Facebook this has the access to direct adverts to you as a result of websites you’ve visited.  Platforms like this have the ability to use our day to day usage to directly target us on what we like or don’t like on Facebook.  Yet we claim to want privacy?

The new one is about logging every website we visit.  So what’s the difference? Are people really that paranoid about “privacy” well why sign up to Netflix which can store what you watch, when you watched it and where?  Why sign up to these services that can tell you prefer action movies or perhaps movies that involve murder? Perhaps they can tell if you spend a lot of time watching anything with the Nazis in it?

This is one website, one service.. when there are so many others.  How many of these do you sign up to?  How many of these will log what you buy, what you do and where you go?

·         Banking – Everything you spend a £ on is logged.  Some of it you can see using online banking.

·         eBay – All your personal details, what you buy and sell.  Including comments.

·         Amazon – Likewise, all your personal details.

·         Netflix

·         Steam gaming – Your preference of games, what you achieve, what your comments are like

·         Twitter/Facebook – One thing I didn’t mention that even the way you post is logged permanently in some way.  Your attitude, when you swear and generally it’s easy to tell your level of maturity.  I can’t stress the amount of people tweet as if they are a 13 year old temper throwing teenager who lives in their mothers basement.

·         Smartphones – These have an ability to log an incredible amount of small details which add up.  Location, where you use wifi and 3g, what you use, when you use it and who you’re in contact with.

Yet we claim to want privacy?

I’ve only picked the top prime examples yet there are hundreds if not thousands of ways our lives are being recorded.  Our smartphone even with data switched off is still tracking where we are.  It still tracks when it comes in to contact with any signal of 3g.

Yet we still claim to want our privacy?

I recently asked a few questions regarding VPN and was set upon by a pack of growling teenager boys all too young to realise that if you want privacy maybe you should shut life off from being online.  The same ones who whine about what the Government does but most of them have failed to pay a £ in tax.  Most of them will spend their evenings with other geeks and sit there while debating the world but having no impact on it.  Talking about what their recent purchase GPU was or how well they did on Call of Duty online the night before.  While sipping a beer and eating a pizza paying their parents £100 a month in rent.

It’s all not a nice thing but it’s true.

The whole VPN although lately the tech used is actually Juniper for work related, it allows our PC to become effectively in its own network.  Great for those of us who use it to remote in to work so we can do some maintenance on our servers late at night so it doesn’t impact the day to day staff/students.  Let’s face it though there are those who use it to download illegal or generally because they are paranoid about the world knowing they visit torrent sites or perhaps some Hentai/Yaoi.

Sorry did I use that term? Hentai/Yaoi.  It’s cartoon porn to put it lightly.  It allows all those weird little fetishes to come true because the majority of it would actually be banned in this Country if the Government was fully aware of how popular it is amongst geeks.  In my job I’ve had to track down kids to give them a telling off for visiting stuff like this.  As a gamer I know that this porn is very popular amongst World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy fans.  I remember once having to ask someone what does Yaoi mean? What is this?  It’s gay porn but a hentai term.  Hell I have no issues with peoples sexual orientation or preference.  It’s their choice.

What I find full of hypocrisy is this is what it’s all about, hiding the fact that their sexual fetish would be logged and their illegal downloading would be logged.  If privacy is such an issue why not “live off the grid” a term used by some to effectively say – avoid any tech/online activity. 

I myself am staff in School, I have to adhere to the rules of “E-Safety” meaning anything I do online can’t really be traced back to me.  It’s why I have this account showing no personal information.  I avoid names, work place details and generally keeping my “private” life in check.  Yet you don’t see me the one whining with a temper tantrum about losing more privacy.

Let’s face it, the ones moaning about it have always been the ones up to no good.  When a speed camera gets introduced the ones moaning will be the speeders.  When CCTV gets installed in a street the ones moaning will be those up to no good.  When Schools push for more control over students the ones crying are the parents who give no care about the education of their children.  You look at Brexit, the ones raising their voices the most are young people not because it impacts their future but because at that age they are quick to react instead of slowing down and thinking.

I keep hearing terms of “hackers can get your data if Government stores your history” well they can already? Can’t they? Yes or not?

They can hack their way in to your steam, amazon and eBay accounts.  They can easily inject something that can incriminate you.  They can easily stick some illegal porn on to your PC without you even noticing.  If a hacker was really going to come at you, you’ve already lost the battle regardless.  Your only safety net is not using anything online.  The same ones who whine about the Gov doing this are the same ones using social media with their own personal information?  Where they work? What their title is?  Really?  Why would you do that.

One word hypocrisy.

Then again as I said before what do we really expect in regards to young adults or young children who are quick to react.  Quick to batter anyone that doesn’t agree with them like a child who has been hand fed their entire life.  I actually agree the Government shouldn’t be doing this but as someone that’s very experienced in life we only get one choice.  Who to vote for as our local MP/party – in fact we are lucky to have had a referendum because in the last few decades we’ve had very little choice in what the Government does.  Do you think we choose where all this money goes to? Our taxes? How the NHS is run? How education chooses it’s curriculum? When the bus turns up? Where the train stations are?

No.  You are deluded in to thinking we have these as choices.  The Government has and always will continue to do so.  The ones who influence them are their own parties or rival ones.  That’s it.  Do you think the protests on the EU Referendum (again majority were young whiners) made a difference? No.  Do you think thousands turning up to protest Donald Trump  (again majority were young whiners) made a difference? No.  So what do you think throwing a temper tantrum on twitter is going to do – nothing.

The only way the “people” have made any difference is when it’s united and let’s face it, if the Government can consider doing a U-Turn on a referendum without too much of a fight in the streets do you think a little protest about privacy is going to stop them? No.  I suggest these geeks stop playing games and realize you are not in control regardless what you say.  When the miners protested their lively hoods, people were seriously injured and arrested.  You think that made a major impact on the Government or shall we say the “Iron Lady”? No.  Nothing changed.  The majority of the mining industry in this Country has been shut down.  Those workers have all found different jobs.  The Government spoke and didn’t change its mind.

So I say again teenage tantrums trying to prove about defending my privacy when in fact it barely exists. 

“It’s like someone looking through your window”.

No it’s not, when they look through my window they are seeing me living my life “offline”.  They are seeing what I cook, how I sit, when I go to the toilet.  That’s a poor comparison considering history activity is what I do online.

Once more this is about illegal downloading and finding what porn activity people do.  The same ones who whine about this will whine about torrent site owners being defended for “doing nothing wrong” they are housing the links to torrents not the actual files.  Doesn’t’ matter he’s a part of something illegal.  Perhaps you can tell me that person is innocent (even though he’s not).

Then again many of the whiners I dealt with recently have all been the “Linux” people.  And I’ve met and worked with many of them.  Anti-Microsoft for being this big corporation then jump in to bed when Google was a garage but jump ship when that too became a big corporation.

Dear oh dear the sheer hypocrisy is beyond belief but as I stated in another blog, people who know IT especially the ones who do it at home but don’t work with it are the worst kind of opinionated and clueless people.  They refuse to see the actual big picture.  Then again I’ve always been told I can see it clearly.  The Government is doing this for control, nothing less nothing more.  The whiners are doing it because they are guilty of doing something they know they shouldn’t.  I don’t want my privacy invaded and I’m against it but I’m not going to cry about it.  If I can no longer do what I’m not supposed to be doing.. I’ll get over it because I’ve got nothing to hide.

The rest is just kicking and screaming.