[clug] The end of the personal computer age is nigh ! psychological manipulation

[George at Clug]

    Thanks to those who have responded so far, it has been fun to read
the different responses.

I agree with Eyal's comments;

"Gov is a different issue (theoretically you can tell it what to do).
Other corporations are the real problem here.
I would not mix the two."

While "Big Brother" is always worthwhile keeping an eye on, it is
actually "Big Corporation" and their new found toy "Data Mining" that
really concerns me. Other concerns are about Identity theft,
unsolicited identity usage, and psychological manipulation.

I recently read that certain search engines alter the order of search
responses to put first the ideas or views of those controlling the
search engines.

>From people's responses it has been interesting to read about what
people use the Internet for, that is "how people use the Internet".  

I wonder what kind of information people put up on the Internet.
Someone said they put photos up on a web site. This is not something
that I do. I might send a photo to someone via email.  I realise that
email is not secure, so this is not a completely private action, but
still more limiting than posting on an open web site.

It seems that there are three approaches;
1) People (especially the under 30's, but also those above 30) are
quite happy to give Facebook, Google, and other international
companies their details about their hobbies, holidays, lifestyles,
photos, finances, etc. _Makes for great marketing material for
multinationals._

2) Those who still use the Internet, but do so selectively.  This
would be a sliding scale extending from the above group to the below
group.

3) Those who restrict their use of the Internet and sharing of their
personal identity to the greatest detail as they are able.

I would place myself in the second group, as I do discuss IT matters
on a few forums like this one, and I do use Skype. But then I do not
use Cloud storage (other that for work) and do not share photos,
videos for files other than transferring by USB memory sticks.

I liken this to going outside of my own home. Whenever we leave the
relativity safety of own homes, we increase the risk of being mugged
or of injury. Most of us are willing to take on this risk, and in
various degrees we minimise the risk by controlling the hours and
locations we go. Some people I know go to places at hours that I would
not.  Likewise most of us will use the Internet, but will also limit
to some extent what we do with it. The challenge coming is when all
the digital functions that we want to perform can only be performed by
relinquishing all our private data to commercial entities.

If people do not mind sharing this information, a) what limitations do
you have on data that you share via the Internet and b) is there a
point that you give up using computing devices if you cannot keep your
data off line.

I noticed that no one has raised the issue that occasionally people
loose access to their own on line account.  Mostly stolen, sometimes
lost by accident.

I guess there has been many occasions where people have had their
electronic records, including photos, stored on a computer local hard
disk drive without backups and then lost all their data.  It is
surprising how much we hold dear that really is not necessary to
survive life. 

Has anyone thought about the various financial and government
institutions who are now using our email address to communicate with
us. I dread to think what clever people could do with just that
account.  And we are only just starting to "trust" the Internet with
our identity.

"the horse has bolted", true but I was not on the horse that the time.
I might get trampled the next time it runs past me.

Good advice by Bob "$ sudo ifdown eth0 ; ifup eth0"

Advise for the totally paranoid "$ sudo ifdown eth0"

Has been fun, please keep commenting and add items we have not
discussed.

For example, most companies don't pay governments 30% tax, but
software companies selling software via the Apple store or Microsoft
store are paying 30% or 20% tax to these companies.  Will there be a
future for a OS platform where the developers do not have to pay to
have their software run on the OS?

I would also be interested in knowing how many people run Linux as
their main PC OS, and how many run Linux as their only OS.

At this time I only run Linux as my server OS, not as my personal
computer OS.  I expect that this will change either when Debian
Jessie is released or in 2020 when Windows 7 is no longer supported.

Thanks again, everyone.