14 Comments

"And the fact that the vacuums are made in China implies that they come with built-in backdoors to be accessed at will." They only imply such thoughts when credible people like you repeat the diatribe. At least balance such aspersions with references to what Google, Facebook, X et al can do.

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We live in an old bungalow. We drive cars from before 1990. We don't use "smart"phones. We do have a TV, but it doesn't see much. Our appliances are analog. I suppose the state keeps track of my emails and articles, but I'll take that risk at my age.

I do as much as I can with cash and an analog/mail way of doing business.

I don't answer questions, or surveys, or interact with the state at all except to pay the extortion taxes.

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💯

Consequences of a society of convenience and captivating with the latest shiny objects. The spy has gone on for years and decades now.

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Way ahead of you. I was never anything but old school. I never fell for or was sucked in by any of that crap from the very start.

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What is the James Bond device that “pings” when foreign interlopers/transmitters are detected?

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Solutions:

1. Get an old low-mileage car or keep the one you have (should be relatively easy, since so many are ditching their "dinosaur" non-green/nimby cars).

2. Don't buy anything new - especially tech or anything teched-up (which could include your fridge or washer/dryer or obviously vacuum cleaner).

3. Probably best not to buy any apple device.

4. I won't recommend ditch your spyphone, since most cannot imagine doing that, but if you don't want to be tracked and listened to constantly . . . . .

5. Thanks John, for keeping us up to date on some of the almost unimaginable insanity (watching the Jetsons, we never knew what was coming.

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Unplugged my Amazon Alexia years ago after my brother told me “You know that box is listening to every word you say, don’t you?” Are our IPhones listening in to our conversations as well? Scary.

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yeah, and my stepson, who worked for the big G for 7 yrs, told me 17 yrs ago that "they" could turn on your cellphone which was totally "off" and listen to you. So you could be walking down a deserted beach, having what you thought was a private, very confidential conversation, all cellphones off, and yet be spyed upon.

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Michael Faraday had the solution to this problem way back in 1836.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage

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Scary shit, especially if you’re up to no good.

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or if you just prefer decent human privacy. Plus, who knows what may eventually come to be considered "up to no good"

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"...sends it to criminals, corporations, and/or governments to use however they like." Appreciate the redundancy of this sentence @johnrubino -- I believe these are one and the same! LOL!!

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And AI will be oh so helpful?

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People literally pay for the stuff that is spying on them. We eagerly install it ourselves in the name of convenience.

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