Re: Schneier, Data and Goliath: no hope for privacy

D <nospam@example.net> writes:

On Thu, 20 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
>

Amen! Quite an efficiency hack! =D Another "security" hack I have
implemented for my father is that I have forbidden him from getting
government digital ID on his smart phone. This is very funny,
because once scammers called him and told some kind of story that
ended with them asking him to confirm what ever they wanted by
opening the digital ID app (this is how most old people get scammed
where I live) and he told them that he doesn't have it, due to
security reasons...
>
... the scammers sighed heavily and just hung up. =D

>
Lol.  If that's not a super inconvenience to your father, then I think
it's a great solution.  Over here these scams are quite a problem too.

>
At the moment, everything essential in society has to be able to be
done on paper, so it really is not a problem, and costs about 20-40
minutes per year in extra writing on actual paper.
>
This scares me though! I fear the day when a smartphone is mandatory
in order to participate in society. This will be a sad day indeed. Add
to that, centralbank managed electronic currencies, that can be clawed
back from you, or where you are blocked from spending them in an
instant, if you go against the government, and we have a very
dystopian situation indeed. =/

I would think that there are so many poor people in the world that
governments could never really ask anyone to always have a phone.
However, I think it's already real that without such tools, the
alternative way will be so painful that a person like you or I will
likely not choose not to use a phone.

I think that's already more or less true in commerce.  For instance,
I've been at times confronted with the situation that without using
Whatsapp, I could not get service.

During the pandemics, for example, so many people could not find a way
out of following protocols they did not want to follow and even taking
chemical substances they did not want to take.  So many people I know
did not want to do it and did it anyway because it was a hassle
otherwise.

I also do talk to my father quite a lot about such matters.  And
anything suspicious at all, he always talks to me.  In fact, I've talked
to my entire family about such things.  To always let one another know
about these events---to talk often among us.  We learn more and so we
protect ourselves more.

>
This is good advice! My father and I, and my wife, talk about these
things, but we never formalized it, so that we say that we should talk
to each other in case anyone does get a weird message.
>
I read that in order to protect against voice cloning, you should
decide on a family password as well. This we also haven't done. But I
am currently working on a small IT-security curriculum for retired
people, and that class will include an example of voice cloning to
show them how it works, and what they can expect.

I haven't done something like that either.  But, you know, I'm going to
propose that this week---I think it's a very good idea.  I'm meeting
most of my family in two days.

The reason we can be so good at handling this computing world is because
we are pretty much obsessed about it; we spend the entire day thinking
about it; reading about it; writing about it.  By talking more with our
families about these matters, they do learn more from us.  Of course, we
can't expect they'll be coworkers.  We need to take things very slowly
and only as much as they can handle it.  Then it becomes kind of fun for
them too and then they learn a bunch.

>
This is true. But this also requires some amount of simplification in
order for it not to become an energy drain. That is why I like my way
of limiting communication to phone and email. It only leaves two doors
open which is easier to defend than 3 or 4 or 5 doors open. ;)

Quite right.

So I find this to be a hueg benefit! I am also lucky because I run my
own company, so my business partners know that if they want to reach
me, they have 2 options, email or phone, and all of them accept that.

>
Nice to hear you run your own business.

>
Yes, it is the best thing that has ever happened to me except for my
wife. I am truly blessed and am very thankful for it every single
day. =)

>
Nice to hear that your wife is the best thing that ever happened to you.
I unfortunately can't yet say the same.  I'm single, although I'd love
to have little kids running around and through the house. :)  But first
I gotta find someone who I love and who loves me.

>
In my experience, as long as you are living a positive life, and don't
get caught in depression, and caught by unreasonable aesthetic
standards, this will happen in time.

That's *very* good to hear as this is the most important thing to me.  I
feel very much protected from all of these malaise (for lack of a better
word).

As for children, no such thing for me, since biologically I have an
extremely low chance of having children. On the other hand, my parents
got the same diagnosis from the doctor, and they had me, and the
doctor said it was not possible according to science, so who knows? ;)

I am sorry for hearing the news, but I also feel that we should hope for
the best here.  I think nobody should trust doctor's predictions.  I
certainly don't know the reasons you might have low chance of having
children and let's remember this is a public forum.  The subject does me
remind me of a conversation with epidemiologist Shanna Swan, which I
have been slowly rewatching again---it's a 2h conversation.  The entire
conversation is very interesting.  In this conversation, we can learn
that male fertility is decreasing by 1% *per year*.

  Shanna Swan on male fertility (et cetera)
  https://youtu.be/C9aqGqjC1kE