Social Media's Hidden Truth

[zridling]

A simple graphic that is true for all of them, not just Facebook.

[attach]

[Paul Keith]

Is this some kind of a trap to make me join Google Plus instead? 

[rgdot]

It's a trap to make you join Diaspora 

[mouser]

Nice find 

[40hz]

I think it's more an argument for keeping this place going at any cost.  

(Mouser? Take a bow!)

[Paul Keith]

Is this some secret business advice I don't know nothing about?

Is mouser and 40hz planning to open a donation barn based on the success of the forums?

@rgdot, I'll join Diaspora once it nails down the best private policy on the entire side of the interwebs.  

[Renegade]

Hehehe. Very cute!

[zridling]

Is this some kind of a trap to make me join Google Plus instead? 

"A simple graphic that is true for all of them...."

Change the motivational to any social platform you want; G+ is no exception except it doesn't have corporations (yet). But it will eventually.

[lanux128]

this is hilarious and eerily accurate..

[JavaJones]

Change the motivational to any social platform you want; G+ is no exception except it doesn't have corporations (yet). But it will eventually.

Except, er, Google, the biggest stats collector and web advertising company around. Sure there are no ads yet, but you can bet Google is watching usage closely.

- Oshyan

[rxantos]

One of reasons I left facebook (the other is that I didn't find any use for it).

As for cookies, I use Opera, their ad blocker. And Ghostery.

[IainB]

In haste. I would suggest that the fundamental issue here is not Facebook or other social media "hidden truths", but freedom.
If I have this right (and please correct me if I am wrong), it seems that it is a fact of life that currently the only way to avoid the Facebook and Google tracking of our IP address transactions is to browse anonymously through a VPN (Virtual Private Network).

It is a characteristic of the way the Internet works that our browsers send out an http header to every site we visit. The header includes lots of data - e.g., our browser name and version, possibly our MAC or PC details and maybe even our email address (depending on how we have configured the browser), and of course the header has to be preceded by our IP address so that the server being accessed knows the address to use to send back a response.
I used to use the now obsolete JunkBuster which could spoof the header and spoof/deform the cookies, but it could not do anything about the IP address.

Big Brother (the State) wants to know, and makes sure that it does know (or can find out), where and who we are and what we are doing when we are online. It is all faithfully logged.
Nowhere has this been shown to be more true than in reports of communist and Fascist states' tracking or control of user activity (e.g., China, Iran), but democratic states (e.g., US, European, Australasian, Canadian) are categorically not excluded - in fact, the latter invented and perfected the tracking (Google even did it for the Chinese government, at one point). The IP address is our virtual and (usually) actual geographical location key. If you do not operate via a corporate and fixed IP address (where everything is logged by default), then even though our private ISP will dynamically reassign a different IP address if the ADSL router/modem disconnects/reconnects or is reset, that key is valid for all session activity from that point on up to the next point of disconnection, and is faithfully logged by our ISP. Newly-assigned keys are similarly logged by our ISP as soon as a session is started. Those logs are saved for an extended period, the length of the period depending on local statutory regulations, for the purposes of tracking for criminal activity - which includes, for example, child pornography and file-sharing copyright infringements in an increasing number of states/countries - and which can be scrutinised for those purposes under legally enforceable requests from relevant police/state authorities or state mafia. We are obliged to accept this - the difficulties of enacting/imposing these legal controls on users' Internet activity in the current Internet system can only be overcome by reducing our right to freedom/privacy whilst we browse, and sites consided by the State to be "illegal" may even be commandeered (taken over) or blocked from us by the State (e.g., China, Iran).

Even if you have a VPN, the provider of the VPN services will have logs of your activity also, and it is a matter of record that these logs can be and have been provided to relevant authorities (e.g., to the FBI) on their legally enforceable requests. Though Facebook and Google currently have no legal right to access these logs, that could change overnight by statutory mandate if they successfully lobbied state authorities and if the State thus decided that it made sense to delegate such monitoring to reduce the costs of direct State monitoring. Anything is possible here, which is why I used the word "currently" in the opening sentence of this post.

So, if you woke up this morning, feeling refreshed and secure in the almost certain knowledge that you live in a democratic, free State, where your rights to privacy and freedom of speech are securely maintained, then you are living in a warm and fuzzy state of illusion. Whilst you were sleeping, your freedoms and rights on all fronts will have already been even further eroded by remorseless State Fascism and corporate Fascism that - like rust - never sleep. It's all about money and power.

Some recent examples:
(a) The US police department of Renton legal action to secure the identity of the satirist who produced YouTube cartoons that Renton police only thought was aimed at them, and so wanted to retaliate and exact retribution/revenge. This is effectively a direct attack on US First Amendment rights. Google were being required to reveal the ID and IP address of the YouTube cartoon author.

(b) Different secular states (e.g., including US, Canada) considering enacting laws to make it an offence to criticise religion or upset the feelings of religious people (this after pressure only from Islamist organisations like the un-indicted 911 co-conspirator CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood). Christians and other sects have been fair game for as long as they have been around, and that is exactly how it should be - e.g. the cases of the RC priesthood's well-publicised penchant and belated recompense for buggery of little boys could never have become so public or have been remedied otherwise.

(c) The UK government's responses to the recent chav riots - including the increased scrutiny and control of Blackberry device usage logs, and increased CCTV surveillance.

(d) The US government's tacit approval of Philip Morris International's (Big Tobacco) involvement in activity in Indonesia which is banned and would be illegal if carried out in the USA - e.g., targetting children and the young in general for tobacco advertising/sale. PMI bought out the state's biggest tobacco company some time back and now has a monopoly - even 2-year olds are encouraged to smoke (check YouTube for examples/TV documentaries), and even the Indonesian government health department sponsors mumbo-jumbo treatment for people, including children, where nicotine and smoking are prescribed remedies ("spiritual tobacco" use). This sort of thing will be putting at risk potentially millions of Indonesian citizens (including a large proportion of children), but it must be generating good corporate profits for the PMI US head office, and the stock (share) price will look good as a result - which is a main objective. And that has to be good for State tax revenue on all fronts.

[Paul Keith]

Sadly it would be much more important if indeed the issue is freedom...but it's not. What drives the issues of privacy is paranoia (to the casual person who doesn't know how all these tracking is being used and how they function) and fear (to the techie who fear that eventually they can no longer say anything in the internet that is public at all especially if it's important information)

In order for the issue to be freedom, it has to be beyond Facebook and Google but if somehow someday both companies revealed that you are even more anonymous than the rest of the internet (hypothetically for the sake of analogy) then almost everyone would celebrate and praise them and this controversy would be all over. No continuing towards the battle for freedom. No grand realization across all fronts that this should never happen again. The protesters will dissipate and the rest of the world would continue living their own lives including not caring how they are being tracked elsewhere.

[IainB]

@Paul Keith: Yes, I don't know what the real issue is here, but I hope you are right - though some people might say that history would seem to indicate that you are probably on the wrong tack.

Freedom seems to be something that mankind has typically had to fight for, and generally "...you don't know what you got 'till it's gone", as the songs have it. I guess it could be cyclical. Once freedom has been obtained, the erosion of that freedom can commence. Entropy.

[Renegade]

Sadly it would be much more important if indeed the issue is freedom...but it's not. What drives the issues of privacy is paranoia (to the casual person who doesn't know how all these tracking is being used and how they function) and fear (to the techie who fear that eventually they can no longer say anything in the internet that is public at all especially if it's important information)

In order for the issue to be freedom, it has to be beyond Facebook and Google but if somehow someday both companies revealed that you are even more anonymous than the rest of the internet (hypothetically for the sake of analogy) then almost everyone would celebrate and praise them and this controversy would be all over. No continuing towards the battle for freedom. No grand realization across all fronts that this should never happen again. The protesters will dissipate and the rest of the world would continue living their own lives including not caring how they are being tracked elsewhere.

I suppose that I'm paranoid then.

I worry that information will be turned against people by governments and corporations.

Governments turn it around when the police subpoena information.

Corporations use it in propaganda marketing machines.

It's like being thrown in a cage with 800 lb gorillas, then seeing someone throw in clubs and tire irons for the gorillas. As if it weren't bad enough already...

[mahesh2k]

We have some recruiters here who check facebook or other social media profiles of the candidates before calling them, it's not restricted to linkedin anymore. So if you're sharing something public which doesn't go in line of thought with the recruiter or the employed company, or even family and friends it can go against you. Google admitting not to spy on web users is like US army saying - theyhave no interest in middle east politics. FOX reporters found spying for the sake of information and news. Same can be said for the other government stuff. Paranoia ? so be it.

[IainB]

Interesting post here

"After the Iranian post-election events that led to massive riots and break-outs through the world, the Iranian government started blocking all social websites, including Facebook, Youtube, Orkut, MySpace and Twitter. The Iranians, however, started using VPN (virtual private network) connections to bypass censorship. Since Thursday, September 30, 2011, all VPN ports have however been blocked, in the first attempt to start what the Iranian government calls the 'National Internet.'"

[Renegade]

Interesting post here

"After the Iranian post-election events that led to massive riots and break-outs through the world, the Iranian government started blocking all social websites, including Facebook, Youtube, Orkut, MySpace and Twitter. The Iranians, however, started using VPN (virtual private network) connections to bypass censorship. Since Thursday, September 30, 2011, all VPN ports have however been blocked, in the first attempt to start what the Iranian government calls the 'National Internet.'"

I just posted on that same topic > Getting Around Internet Censorship: Internet Freedom.

Looks like I may need to look into posting another solution...

[Paul Keith]

@Paul Keith: Yes, I don't know what the real issue is here, but I hope you are right - though some people might say that history would seem to indicate that you are probably on the wrong tack.

Freedom seems to be something that mankind has typically had to fight for, and generally "...you don't know what you got 'till it's gone", as the songs have it. I guess it could be cyclical. Once freedom has been obtained, the erosion of that freedom can commence. Entropy.

My take is that it's more hmm... black hole-ish. (or whatever the theory is that the universe is destroying itself to set up another big bang)

It does cycle but the cycle is towards destruction. The illusion of progress is built on the fruits of freedom that has been already obtained so every next generation of erosion is worse but at the same time less "relatively destructive". That is to say, soft fascism may analogically be "kinder" than fascism but through it's subtle qualities it makes the conversation of issues related to freedom more wedged and less about bringing forth a single concept, as it is about bringing forth a set of newer preferences transforming once revolutionary issues into an issue of spoilage and soft activities.

I suppose that I'm paranoid then.

I worry that information will be turned against people by governments and corporations.

Governments turn it around when the police subpoena information.

Corporations use it in propaganda marketing machines.

It's like being thrown in a cage with 800 lb gorillas, then seeing someone throw in clubs and tire irons for the gorillas. As if it weren't bad enough already...

I wasn't really using paranoia as a negative though. More of an observation of attitudes.

The problem with paranoia isn't that paranoia can't be helpful but that paranoia can be distracting. Like say a cryptographer who declares an encrypted safe because in a vacuum that data would be near impossible to crack. This doesn't mean the average person even if he educates himself on cryptography would say... know if he is being wiretapped...nor will he be perfectly protected against a false friend if he studied wiretapping.

In such a scenario, paranoia is unhelpful in the sense that it's a single issue and not an issue that if penetrated through would lead to massive reforms. As you so portrayed, your worry does not prevent what governments and corporations have already become. In such a scenario, can you really say the fundamental issue is about freedom?

Maybe you can justify it as an individual but I bet if we take a series of surveys of people as like minded as you and question them which of the two topic title they would prefer clicking "Social Media's Hidden Truth" or "Freedom's Hidden Truth" that most people (especially in a state of fatigue) would click the former not only because of the title but because inherently they know they would more likely read about something they can skim in the former topic. Social media fuels our fear but once we log out of a news site or stop wondering about Google's policy, we are most likely to go back using Google. Freedom on the other hand though? Even with Iain's examples, how many of us are archiving his words and then rereading it and then planning to use our money to do something beyond even the acts of the common patriot like leave our job entirely and battle for the education of Indonesians?

[IainB]

@Paul Keith:

My take is that it's more hmm... black hole-ish. (or whatever the theory is that the universe is destroying itself to set up another big bang)

Yes, absolutely. That's "entropy" - (in cosmology) a hypothetical tendency for the universe to attain a state of maximum homogeneity in which all matter is at a uniform temperature (heat death).

[Paul Keith]

Weird. I had an inkling of entropy but at the time I wrote it, it didn't seem to match what I had in mind.

Isn't the heat death different from the theory of the Big Crunch and the Big Rip? (Wikipedia has an article called the Big Freeze)

[IainB]

@Paul Keith:

Isn't the heat death different from the theory of the Big Crunch and the Big Rip? (Wikipedia has an article called the Big Freeze)

I don't know! I thought "heat death" was something we were all going to die of in 2012, according to the predictions of the Anthropogenic Global Warming Church.
And certainly, I had always thought that a "Big Crunch" was a Cadbury's chocolate bar, and that the "Big Rip" was something to do with surfing - as in the "Big Kahuna".     

[IainB]

My quote, from above:

(b) Different secular states (e.g., including US, Canada) considering enacting laws to make it an offence to criticise religion or upset the feelings of religious people (this after pressure only from Islamist organisations like the un-indicted 911 co-conspirator CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood). Christians and other sects have been fair game for as long as they have been around, and that is exactly how it should be - e.g. the cases of the RC priesthood's well-publicised penchant and belated recompense for buggery of little boys could never have become so public or have been remedied otherwise.

What a coincidence: US Bishop Charged For Not Reporting Priest's Child Porn To Police