Warning

[Peckris 579]

Even sophisticated AI wouldn't be able to uncover the real person behind a fake identity based on a hotmail email address, which is what anyone with any sense does now anyway, when they register for a forum. And if on top of that they use a proxy server, or TOR, then that's game set and match.

I agree than one can take steps to make it more difficult for 'the state' or other agency to track our every movement BUT why should we have to? The mass of information collected is so great and so diverse that none of us is likely to remain hidden for long unless we individually make it our life's mission, and who has the time and energy for that? Am I really alone in seeing a worrying trend in which all but the most determined of us will eventually lead a life in which our every movement and communication is tracked?

Remember how this thread started. Did most of us even know that smart phone pics contained date, time and location information? How many of us read Google, Apple or Facebook's privacy policy ('privacy' is a joke). This recent article about Google's StreetView is just but one example of what is happening around us.

Yeah, but you're not acknowledging my main point : there is SO MUCH data out there, no-one gives a sh*t or has time & resources to go through it all, UNLESS you're a suspected terrorist. And if you are, then I'm reassured that the security services and Special Branch find it much easier to track you down and stop you. For the rest of us, they don't have time; they don't have resources; they really don't care.

[Accumulator 52]

Even sophisticated AI wouldn't be able to uncover the real person behind a fake identity based on a hotmail email address, which is what anyone with any sense does now anyway, when they register for a forum. And if on top of that they use a proxy server, or TOR, then that's game set and match.

I agree than one can take steps to make it more difficult for 'the state' or other agency to track our every movement BUT why should we have to? The mass of information collected is so great and so diverse that none of us is likely to remain hidden for long unless we individually make it our life's mission, and who has the time and energy for that? Am I really alone in seeing a worrying trend in which all but the most determined of us will eventually lead a life in which our every movement and communication is tracked?

Remember how this thread started. Did most of us even know that smart phone pics contained date, time and location information? How many of us read Google, Apple or Facebook's privacy policy ('privacy' is a joke). This recent article about Google's StreetView is just but one example of what is happening around us.

Yeah, but you're not acknowledging my main point : there is SO MUCH data out there, no-one gives a sh*t or has time & resources to go through it all, UNLESS you're a suspected terrorist. And if you are, then I'm reassured that the security services and Special Branch find it much easier to track you down and stop you. For the rest of us, they don't have time; they don't have resources; they really don't care.

I accept the specific point about terrorism but think you're failing to recognise the more general direction in which society is moving. There are many examples, outside of terrorism, where the state has shown it does give a s**t and one government department has accessed data held by another unrelated department and used it for its own purposes. Maybe that doesn't bother you, but I honestly think its naive to believe we are not on a slippery slope in which personal freedom and privacy will be the casualties.

[Peckris 579]

Even sophisticated AI wouldn't be able to uncover the real person behind a fake identity based on a hotmail email address, which is what anyone with any sense does now anyway, when they register for a forum. And if on top of that they use a proxy server, or TOR, then that's game set and match.

I agree than one can take steps to make it more difficult for 'the state' or other agency to track our every movement BUT why should we have to? The mass of information collected is so great and so diverse that none of us is likely to remain hidden for long unless we individually make it our life's mission, and who has the time and energy for that? Am I really alone in seeing a worrying trend in which all but the most determined of us will eventually lead a life in which our every movement and communication is tracked?

Remember how this thread started. Did most of us even know that smart phone pics contained date, time and location information? How many of us read Google, Apple or Facebook's privacy policy ('privacy' is a joke). This recent article about Google's StreetView is just but one example of what is happening around us.

Yeah, but you're not acknowledging my main point : there is SO MUCH data out there, no-one gives a sh*t or has time & resources to go through it all, UNLESS you're a suspected terrorist. And if you are, then I'm reassured that the security services and Special Branch find it much easier to track you down and stop you. For the rest of us, they don't have time; they don't have resources; they really don't care.

I accept the specific point about terrorism but think you're failing to recognise the more general direction in which society is moving. There are many examples, outside of terrorism, where the state has shown it does give a s**t and one government department has accessed data held by another unrelated department and used it for its own purposes. Maybe that doesn't bother you, but I honestly think its naive to believe we are not on a slippery slope in which personal freedom and privacy will be the casualties.

If you're talking about the kind of official data that hangs off an NI Number, I accept your point, but I don't define that as 'important data'. Ok, it might include my lifelong benefit claims record, and one day that might be tied into my health records (which it isn't right now), but I don't care. It doesn't contain information about the 'real me'. The real me - as far as it can be drawn upon from my online life - is scattered between several unrelated identities, and no-one can trace any one of them back except to one of several email addresses. Perhaps I saw the writing on the wall a long time ago, and I'm now an instinctive 'cyber saboteur' in relation to my own personal data.