tyrion

Are you joking? No way will we have that much control over our data in 5 years.

(My turn to be grumpy.)

RubeRad

Yes I was joking

The potential pathway I envision toward a revolution in data privacy/ownership is:
* fasebuch and friends do one too many bad things (probably already happened)
* they get lots of bad publicity (happening now?)
* laws get passed to try to solve the problem
* the laws are not ignorant and counterproductive <-- weak link in the chain right there
* laws enshrine citizens with the right to the privacy and value of their personal data
* companies have to set up revenue-sharing schemes with users
* once people realize they can get 'free money' it's all downhill from there

BUT, that's a major threadjack

tyrion

I think privacy will be available for a premium, so you'd pay extra for a taxi service that doesn't log your ride habits in a database.

RubeRad

You're right, so I guess the flipside of the money question is, instead of starting to give customers a kickback from selling data, they'll probably just say 'well your account can remain free, or if you want our guarantee that we won't sell your data, we're going to have to charge you $X/mo'

In which case 'muricans will go for the free

I-Like-To-Bike

What is the matter with the old memes like - Who wudda thunk about the popularity and power of smart phones?

Or "They" put a man on the moon only 8 years after JFK gave them the mission, surely "they" can cure cancer in that time frame too?

Or "They" invented a preventative vaccine for Polio, surely "they" can develop a preventative vaccine for whatever needs a prophylactic vaccine?

Did the movie about Edison fog your ability to use the old chestnuts of dingy logic about the inevitability of techno wizards finding a satisfactory solution to every problem in a timely manner because after all, other problems have been solved.

rseeker

I finally caved and got a smartphone ("smart") a couple months ago. I can't justify the Apple tax, so I got Android. Which is an example of what tyrion was talking about, in less explicit form. Apple so far does respect user privacy, but you pay a premium for it; Android (from Google; and its app ecosystem), on the other hand, collects every piece of data it can get its hands on, but phones based on Android are typically cheaper. It's in the privacy agreements which no one reads because they're so long. (And even if you read them once, are you really going to reread them every time an app updates?)

The reason I haven't gotten one before now is because I think it's insane to conduct one's life with all the data about it flowing through Google's (and Facebook's) hands. Yet, that's the world we've consented to, and it's now all but impossible to participate in that world except around the thinnest margins without a smartphone, which is why I caved. This is nuts and I hate it.

Rollfast

A junkyard, OF COURSE.

RubeRad

The reason I haven't caved yet is I'm too cheap. I pay about $100/yr to keep my $5 flip burner alive with tracfone, and I don't get nearly that much value from it, as I only turn it on a few times a month.

I almost caved last month, but halfway through the process of getting a moto e6 from tracfone, having to get a totally separate 'smartphone plan', I said 'f this noise'.

horatio 

I have nothing to add, except that the spread of AI, whether in vehicles or personal electronics, scares the hell out of me. I watched the FrontLine special last night and got chills.

Seattle Forrest

Why will Google have the best self-driving cars?

They already know where you live and everywhere else you go.

Seattle Forrest

I pay $100 a month for Sprint service. They let me have 100 GB a month of hotspot, meaning my cell phone is a modem for my laptop. I work from home, but sometimes I work from a park bench or a log in the woods. Once you get into the mountains I can only work near the freeway. But I find it hugely valuable. It works well enough that I don't have home internet service.

When I travel, having a smart phone means I can leave the laptop at home but still check trail conditions and maps.

RubeRad

$100/mo to have smartphone and replace home internet, that would be worth it, except it wouldn't really work for the family, I mean all our various devices and rokus depending on a cellphone for internet, and then that cell leaves the house? Or switches to a different cell (but then we're talking about N*$100/mo)

I don't travel much, but when I do it is slightly annoying to not be able to try uber or lyft.

I took one business trip to a conference in vegas with half a dozen cow-orkers, that was HUGELY annoying because like everybody else nowadays, text is their default mode of remote communication. I got on this group text about making plans for dinner, and most of the texts were encased in some kind of mime-encoding or something that I couldn't just read it on the flip, I had to go through all these extra keypresses to download and open the text as an attachment. I just couldn't keep up.

tyrion

There are software services (github, codepen) that do exactly that: it's a free service unless you need privacy, then you have to pay.

Seattle Forrest

Yeah, text has become the dominant form of communication. It's actually very convenient once you give in. Especially the ability to "text" photos. Not just for art; an example is if somebody is at the store you can text them a picture of what the product they're looking for looks like.

On that note, good smart phones have excellent cameras. I made a photo calendar from mine, most people who have a copy don't believe most of the photos were shot with a phone.

For what it's worth, I don't do videos or games, the few videos I posted in your songs thread yesterday were more than I've watched the rest of the month. I don't think a phone plan would work for most families. I do git, remote desktop, and a couple web forums. So you're not missing out on much.

If you ever do decide to get a modern smart phone, they've become incredible computers, they're very powerful, and they depreciate. It's perfectly ok to buy a used one from 2 years ago at 1/3 the original price, you'll still get a few years use out of it, more if you're frugal which it sounds like you are. I bought a used Note 8 a year ago, it cost $1,000 new, mine was about $300. That probably still sounds absurdly expensive to you, but it's proved its value. Hell, a car GPS costs more than that and doesn't work as well just for that one purpose.

Now back to self-driving cars.

tyrion

You'll need a smartphone to hail a robo-taxi.

RubeRad

Nice pivot. Yeah already without smartphone I've never used Uber or Lyft. I mean by myself, I've hopped a ride with somebody else maybe 3-4 times.

But in theory I should be able to summon an Uber or a robotaxi to the airport from my home computer, or to home from my work computer, etc. Although I guess it would be tough to verify my identity to the robotaxi. Maybe I print out a QR code it can scan.

tyrion

No. We don't even want you in our robotaxis if you're carrying a flip phone.

Seattle Forrest

Law enforcement agencies around the country have for the past few years eagerly latched onto consumer-facing DNA sites as a rich repository of information to help them close cases. Many of those sites have been allowing users to adopt privacy settings and restricting what data they allow police to access, but a first-of-its-kind search warrant may blow those users' data banks wide open.

Police in Orlando, Florida, obtained a warrant this summer to search DNA site GEDmatch and review data on all of its users—about a million people, The New York Times reports. Privacy advocates are now concerned that police will continue to get broad warrants for DNA sites, including larger peers such as 23andme or Ancestry that have much larger pools of user data.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...dna-with-cops/

RubeRad

Call me naive, but on the principle that the government has a need/right/responsibility to administer identification (passports, drivers licenses, SS cards, birth certificates, other kinds of government ID) for all its citizens (and legal residents?), why should the federal government not establish an exhaustive DNA registry? Being in the registry becomes required to acquire/renew any form of ID, and all babies are registered at birth.

Is it legal/possible to live completely off the grid? Born in a log cabin with no address, no birth certificate, never go to public school or see a doctor or get any form of ID, never drive a motor vehicle on a public road, never get a job, never pay taxes, live off of subsistence farming, and barter/sell for cash under the deductible limit to avoid owing taxes? Surely the state or county could still get you for property tax on the log cabin and the land it's on

genec

I bet there are plenty of folks living that way in Apalachia..., maybe some the Rockies too.

Jseis 

I've a friend who lived off the grid for about 20-25 years. Subsistence gathering, all cash transactions based on modest cash work as a handyman, sales of what he gathered, found, lived for free in a boat, paid no taxes, no utility bills, had no driver license, no car, rode a bike, always below poverty level, had a small garden, and all this was pretty hip life style until he got sick and needed medical assistance. Then he realized that he'd better find a partner with a bit of $$$, which he did, and now he's almost respectable.