GAH!!!!! – a rant

 

Okay, fair warning… this will be a stream of thought, and frankly I don’t care if you can follow it or not… I have to vent it out…. so here you go

<Rant>

I’m so tired of everyone whining about shit, when they continue to do EVERYTHING in a public setting (Online). Growing up in the Wild Wild West days of the Internet I was taught, and KNEW, never… NEVER to use my REAL information on anything online. Since my first computer, I have played with programming, and networking, and have been horrified at how easy it is to glean information from ANY program, yet you all use your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and fucking every other site, not to mention all of the online shopping sites that you enter your name, address, phone number, credit cards, and fucking social security numbers… what the FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU ALL!!!!!!

yes, some sites you have to, but do you even take the time to look to see if you should use those sites at all? have you looked at any kind of security settings on your account to limit the people who even have access to your information? have you looked at their privacy policies to make sure they don’t SHARE your information or worse yet, use it for profit by selling it to whomever wants to buy it?

god damn. My kids are already smarter than most of you, and they understand the idea that once something is online, that it is NEVER going to go away. Yes, I understand that in today’s world you almost HAVE to use the internet, but what i don’t understand is why the fuck you need to make an account on every site you visit.

I don’t have Facebook, I don’t have Pintrest, or Instagram, and you know what? I don’t even miss having it for one second. nope… and my using ad-blockers is currently making it impossible to even go to some sites (as they are now restricting traffic if you have your ad-blocker enabled) but guess what? Yeah, still don’t care, those are now sites I’ll never use again. so not a big deal to me.

Take your time, and enjoy things that matter. stop obsessing about fucking news from anywhere outside of 50 miles outside of your home, because guess what…. it’s probably not going to affect you…. I left Michigan nearly 10 years ago, and to be honest, I haven’t cared to read ANY of the news about Michigan even though I still have family there… if something earthshaking or world-changing happens there, My family can tell me when we are on the phone… yeah that fucking thing we used 30+ years ago before the Internet.

let the other places in the world burn, and take initiative in your own life, because that is ALL you have control over. This planet is doomed, because nobody stops to THINK about what they are doing, or saying anymore. Complaining because shit’s not fair…. WHEN IN FUCKING LIFE HAS ANYTHING BEEN FUCKING FAIR?!!??!?!?! If you’re worried about people knowing too much about you, don’t put it online! if you’re not worried about it… you deserve EVERYTHING that comes your way. Just be smart, and use common sense (which i know you can’t because you likely don’t have any anymore) but FUCK… stop complaining, and stop playing the fucking victim. Take responsibility for yourself because now we face a world, where Bathrooms are the most important issue in our 1st world fucking society…

on that note, let me just be 100 percent fucking clear… I give absolutely ZERO fucks about what bathroom you want to use, however, if you go into that bathroom and cause a scene or act a fool, YOU are the problem… walk into the damn stall, mind your own business and get the fuck out…. like every other person on the planet. what a bunch of fucking whining sissies and fuckwits we have…

anyway, my time is up…

</Rant>

Privacy, is it dead?

So, it’s been a couple of weeks since the NSA “PRISM” was leaked. Outrage followed, but seems to have died down. Which got me thinking, most people I know are their own worst enemies when it comes to their own privacy and important information.

How many of you have Facebook? Most people do. Now, let me be clear, I don’t use Facebook and haven’t for a long time, but my wife does.

Everyone has started to post play by play updates so EVERYONE can know what they are doing. The problem is then, how can you get mad the government collected the data? You posted it in the internet equivalent of screaming in the downtown square, then getting mad someone wrote down what you yelled.

Don’t get me wrong, what the NSA is doing, is wrong; however most people are not taking even the slightest steps to guard their privacy. This makes it very hard moving forward, because it gives us another “lesser of two evils” scenario: Do we give up, and let the government monitor everything we do? Or do we punish those who even stumble on publicly published information that is sensitive in nature for “hacking”

What I think really needs to happen is that people need to start taking privacy seriously. I can’t count how often I have gotten after my family for posting information that could be used against them, and without fail, they ALWAYS seem surprised that what they posted wasn’t private.

Read the end user license agreements for all of the software, and websites you use, they always list what they do with information that travels through their services. Is unfair to get mad at companies and government for spying when you click “I accept” without reading the terms of service.

For this problem to change, it’s going to take a shift in our mentality, not just more useless legislation to supposedly limit the government, even though they already ignore the laws currently on the books, how is another law going to fix things?

Simple solution: Stop being stupid!

My View on this NSA thing

I have tried to keep my blog as non-political as possible, but with the news that has recently come to light regarding the NSA with both Verizon call data, and the PRISM program that snarfs up all our internet communications; I find myself very hard pressed to ignore the issue, but I will do my best to simply represent my objections to the issue, without getting too political.

Basically, the stories that have come to light indicate that the government, with the consent and direction of the Obama administration (and Bush previously) have been issuing secret programs and warrants to collect all of your communication data. With Verizon wireless, it appears that they are using the call metadata, not your actual call contents but rather your phone number, call time, call length, who you called, and other details but no name. They are getting that information from all Verizon customers, and put it through data-mining to find out who might need to be “watched” more closely.

This presents a very large concern to me. As someone who values both freedom, and privacy, this action bothers me to my core. The government isn’t waiting till they suspect someone of actually communicating with terrorists before looking into their activities; they are looking at everyone, looking for possible bad guys. the problem with the later, is that even if you have done NOTHING wrong, you’re being watched. The government is just WAITING for you to screw up, so they can get more information on you.

It doesn’t just end there however. The NSA is also using a program called PRISM to gobble up all of the internet communications and activities of all Americans online. They are claiming they have agreements with major companies who give them this data. They named, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook and many many more (Some of the companies are denying any knowledge of such a program, or that they do not simply give information to the government or law enforcement, which is completely beside the point) The information they are gathering, consists of email information, VOIP call data, chat history, web habits (like what sites you visit or “like” or “favorite”), shopping information. Essentially they are getting access to all you do, and can study it.

It is important to remember, that in the pursuit to fight “terror” we have systematically given up so many of our civil liberties and freedom for the false promise of “safety” that it simply proves, that which Benjamin Franklin said “Those who would trade liberty for security deserve neither”. This is exactly true. We as a country cannot allow this level of intrusion into our personal lives to continue.

There are important way to fight this, most importantly is voting. Our government is failing us as citizens, and we’re sitting by watching it happen. WAKE THE FUCK UP! it is important to hold EVERY elected official accountable for their actions (how they vote on anything) by literally tossing them out of office. Yes, I said FIRE THEM! Enough with this “we’re just protecting you” bullshit, and GET OFF MY LAWN!

Always, ALWAYS be mindful of what you share online.

With your privacy under attack by so many organizations, and governments; it is important to remember that anything you share can come back to haunt you. Facebook recently changed its privacy policies to include a statement that anything you post (be it pictures, posts, stories, poems, status updates, etc…) is owned by Facebook, and can be used as they please because all users are capital entities.

I also just read about an iPhone/iPad app called “snapchat” that purports to automatically delete pictures sent after a max of 10 seconds since it was received. This is done in an effort to protect teens from “accidently” sharing photos of themselves that could cause trouble for them (think the Amanda Todd incident) however, there is nothing stopping anyone from taking a screenshot of the picture or even doing a few other ways of capturing the content before it is auto deleted.

It is important to stay educated when sharing anything online, as once it has been released in a digital format, there will ALWAYS be a trace of it somewhere on the internet. The only way to truly protect your pictures, or information is to keep it off the web to begin with.

If you are worried about maintaining your copyright for your works that you post online, make sure you carefully read ALL the privacy and content notices under the end user license agreements for any company or website that you use. In a best case scenario you would be using your own private server, and private storage that would allow you to maintain ownership of all your intellectual property.

Privacy and intellectual property is a huge concern in today’s world. Governments, and companies will seek to profit and use your information for their gain, and most times with little concern for how it impacts you.