In the last post, I recalled that the only thing that matter whether data collection is taking place is whether it's technically possible, and that if you carry an electronic sensor, you must assume it to be active. Here's why it doesn't matter one bit if the sensor was made with \"good guys\" with exemplary and outstanding Terms and Conditions.<\/p>\n
If data collection is possible, it is happening, and it will be used against the person it was collected from. That\u2019s a reality which is provable with mathematical precision: the probability for data being collected is nonzero, and the probability for it being used against its owner is also some nonzero probability. Since neither of these probabilities are falling over time, then they will take place, with mathematical certainty. Therefore, the only way to have data not used against you is to make sure it\u2019s not possible to collect it in the first place.<\/p>\n
I hear a lot of people looking at \u201cgood guy\u201d companies, and how they are standing up for privacy, so you can trust them with certainty. This is good, but it is not enough: a company can not just get a new management, it is also completely at the mercy of the government it is operating under.<\/p>\n
In effect, a company does not even have agency<\/em> to promise to protect any collected data. A few case studies:<\/p>\n In the Terms of Service of Dropbox<\/strong>, it was first stated that the files are encrypted, and that Dropbox employees are incapable of accessing your data. At some point, Dropbox mentioned that they\u2019re doing server-side deduplication<\/em> to store space. This is a compression technique where similar segments of files are only stored once. When this was mentioned, bright minds immediately realized that deduplication cannot take place unless Dropbox can determine that the files are similar, in which case they cannot be encrypted<\/em> when this process happens. After an uproar, Dropbox changed its terms of service from employees being \u201cincapable\u201d of accessing client data, to employees being \u201cnot permitted\u201d to access client data \u2014 which is an enormous difference, because it means the data is accessible to somebody walking into Dropbox offices and, say, flashing a badge. \u201cNot permitted\u201d counts for absolutely nothing.<\/p>\n Another case in point is Amazon Alexa, which is listening into your living room (just like a lot of other devices do). Amazon had promised to never share anything it heard in your home. This promise was only valid up until a District Attorney wanted those recordings as part of an ongoing investigation, at which point Amazon\u2019s promises were completely null and void.<\/p>\n