.
There is a tyranny looming, powered by technology. It's amorphous - you can't just point to a government or a company and order them to stop, it is a blobby, shapeless, ever-changing, landscape that is inexorably funneling us into control.
Social Media outlets are under the microscope currently, but the funnel is not limited to just them, or indeed anything. It is pervasively inserting tendrils into all aspects of society, much like an out of control ivy.
You don't like social media? You refuse to partake of it? That's good, but it's not enough. Not by a long shot. Do you have a phone? A computer? Do you shop or pay bills on the internet? Do you find your debit card a more convenient form of payment than cash? Maybe believe it to be more secure and resistant to theft? Think again. All of the above, and more, constitute the tendrils of insecurity and spycraft burrowing into your life.
We are all currently aware of the countless examples provided by social media, so let's take a look at a few other tendrils incessantly burrowing into your life, your very psyche.
Do you use "web-based services" like Gmail or "the cloud"? First, THERE IS NO CLOUD - it's really just other folks' computers, under THEIR control. It gives them defacto ownership of YOUR data, which is why "the cloud" and "cloud computing" is being pushed so hard. Have you ever noticed something funny about Gmail? I use it, and have noticed that if I sign into Gmail, I automatically get signed in the YouTube and several other web-based services under Google control... and they are gathering data, and correlating it together, from every single one of those places you get signed into.
Have you ever wondered about the option to "sign in with Google" or "sign in with facebook" that is increasingly becoming an option at many, many sites across the internet? It's being presented as "more secure" or "more convenient", but in reality it is there to give even more control over your data, to add to that ever growing profile on you.
Your phone. Most folks carry around a "smart phone" of one sort or another these days to avoid being tethered to a land-line, one particular location. Instead, they carry these "smart phones" that can go anywhere they go. Great, but look a little deeper... not only is that phone going everywhere with you, it is recording everywhere it - and you - goes, and phoning home that information for sale to the highest bidder.
AND - that information on you is stored on their servers... forevermore. It is constantly being correlated with other bits of information on you coming in from myriad sources, building a "profile" on you as if you are on the FBI "Most Wanted" list. You are being tracked, traced, and profiled like any common criminal.
It gets worse from there.
Think that YOU own your cell phone just because you paid for it? Think again. Whomever "owns" the operating system of it, whether Android, IOS, or what have you, is the actual owner of YOUR phone, and they will do with it as they damned well please regardless of your preferences. While Android is a variant of Linux, it is a PROPRIETARY variant of it, proprietary to Google. Same for iOS, with respect to Apple. They are locking down the apps you are able to install on YOUR phone to THEIR choices. The choke-hold tightens a bit more every day.
"Chromebooks" and the Chrome browser. They were all the rage for a while, and the browser still has a choke-hold on the browser markets. Both of them report all of your information to Google, which then factors that in to the above mentioned profile being constantly built and updated on you, your "digital self". I personally used a Chromebook for about 3 days one time before throwing it away in disgust. That was back in 2015, and even then the Chrome OS had taken almost all of the user control away from the user. It was good for surfing the net (so long as you didn't try to download anything or have any expectation of ever being able to retrieve what you downloaded), and phoning home with all your information gathered by the operating system and browser... and not much good for anything else at all.
Microsoft has, for years and years now, been trying to monopolize the operating system market. They've done pretty good at that, with most computers worldwide using Windows of some form or another - about 95% to 97% of ALL computers, worldwide. Now they are taking that a step farther, and trying to monopolize YOUR computers, the hardware YOU paid for, so that Microsoft owns it in reality, and will dictate what can - and cannot - be done with it.
This all started way back when. I became aware of it in 2002, 20 years ago, with the then fractious debate over "TPM chips". TPM stands for Trusted Platform Module, and the implication was that it made your computer more secure, more "trustable" for you to use, safe in the knowledge that you hadn't been hacked... but that was just the public-facing propaganda of it. The private, Microsoft facing meaning of "TPM" was that they could trust YOU to use YOUR computer in a Microsoft controllable and approved manner.
It hasn't gotten any better since those days.
Today's lesson is in how Microsoft is trying to lock all other operating systems out of the market, squeezing that last 3% to 5% into submission and eliminating them from the competitive marketplace. The video is around 55 minutes long, but if you have the time, well worth the watching to give you insight into what is going on, and how, with YOUR computers but THEIR operating systems:
I'm also well aware of how Apple is currently in dispute with the FBI over their encryption schema, refusing to hand over encryption keys to the FBI "without a warrant". Apple claims they are fighting for your right to privacy, but consider this: the fight itself confirms the suspicion that Apple is stealing your stuff. How could they possibly be expected to hand YOUR encryption keys to the FBI if THEY DIDN"T HAVE THE KEYS TO YOUR CASTLE TO BEGIN WITH? Apple is NOT "fighting for your right to privacy", they are instead fighting to maintain THEIR monopoly on YOUR data, pure and simple.
This thread is not specific to computers, cell phones, the internet of things, or any other single abuse of your data. Instead, it is a place to post ANY tendrils of techological, tyrannical control that you find are insinuating themselves into society, attempting to shape it into what The Oligarchs in charge want to see it become... a society of serfs and slaves. They don't want to control just your data, or even just your mind. In the final analysis, they want to control that AND your body and soul as well.
In order to do that, they intend to shape not just what you think and do, but even your ABILITY to think and do until it is finally restricted to corporate-approved Groupthink.
This is the thread to blow your whistles in when you see the tendrils coming, wherever you see them coming from.
.
There is a tyranny looming, powered by technology. It's amorphous - you can't just point to a government or a company and order them to stop, it is a blobby, shapeless, ever-changing, landscape that is inexorably funneling us into control.
Social Media outlets are under the microscope currently, but the funnel is not limited to just them, or indeed anything. It is pervasively inserting tendrils into all aspects of society, much like an out of control ivy.
You don't like social media? You refuse to partake of it? That's good, but it's not enough. Not by a long shot. Do you have a phone? A computer? Do you shop or pay bills on the internet? Do you find your debit card a more convenient form of payment than cash? Maybe believe it to be more secure and resistant to theft? Think again. All of the above, and more, constitute the tendrils of insecurity and spycraft burrowing into your life.
We are all currently aware of the countless examples provided by social media, so let's take a look at a few other tendrils incessantly burrowing into your life, your very psyche.
Do you use "web-based services" like Gmail or "the cloud"? First, THERE IS NO CLOUD - it's really just other folks' computers, under THEIR control. It gives them defacto ownership of YOUR data, which is why "the cloud" and "cloud computing" is being pushed so hard. Have you ever noticed something funny about Gmail? I use it, and have noticed that if I sign into Gmail, I automatically get signed in the YouTube and several other web-based services under Google control... and they are gathering data, and correlating it together, from every single one of those places you get signed into.
Have you ever wondered about the option to "sign in with Google" or "sign in with facebook" that is increasingly becoming an option at many, many sites across the internet? It's being presented as "more secure" or "more convenient", but in reality it is there to give even more control over your data, to add to that ever growing profile on you.
Your phone. Most folks carry around a "smart phone" of one sort or another these days to avoid being tethered to a land-line, one particular location. Instead, they carry these "smart phones" that can go anywhere they go. Great, but look a little deeper... not only is that phone going everywhere with you, it is recording everywhere it - and you - goes, and phoning home that information for sale to the highest bidder.
AND - that information on you is stored on their servers... forevermore. It is constantly being correlated with other bits of information on you coming in from myriad sources, building a "profile" on you as if you are on the FBI "Most Wanted" list. You are being tracked, traced, and profiled like any common criminal.
It gets worse from there.
Think that YOU own your cell phone just because you paid for it? Think again. Whomever "owns" the operating system of it, whether Android, IOS, or what have you, is the actual owner of YOUR phone, and they will do with it as they damned well please regardless of your preferences. While Android is a variant of Linux, it is a PROPRIETARY variant of it, proprietary to Google. Same for iOS, with respect to Apple. They are locking down the apps you are able to install on YOUR phone to THEIR choices. The choke-hold tightens a bit more every day.
"Chromebooks" and the Chrome browser. They were all the rage for a while, and the browser still has a choke-hold on the browser markets. Both of them report all of your information to Google, which then factors that in to the above mentioned profile being constantly built and updated on you, your "digital self". I personally used a Chromebook for about 3 days one time before throwing it away in disgust. That was back in 2015, and even then the Chrome OS had taken almost all of the user control away from the user. It was good for surfing the net (so long as you didn't try to download anything or have any expectation of ever being able to retrieve what you downloaded), and phoning home with all your information gathered by the operating system and browser... and not much good for anything else at all.
Microsoft has, for years and years now, been trying to monopolize the operating system market. They've done pretty good at that, with most computers worldwide using Windows of some form or another - about 95% to 97% of ALL computers, worldwide. Now they are taking that a step farther, and trying to monopolize YOUR computers, the hardware YOU paid for, so that Microsoft owns it in reality, and will dictate what can - and cannot - be done with it.
This all started way back when. I became aware of it in 2002, 20 years ago, with the then fractious debate over "TPM chips". TPM stands for Trusted Platform Module, and the implication was that it made your computer more secure, more "trustable" for you to use, safe in the knowledge that you hadn't been hacked... but that was just the public-facing propaganda of it. The private, Microsoft facing meaning of "TPM" was that they could trust YOU to use YOUR computer in a Microsoft controllable and approved manner.
It hasn't gotten any better since those days.
Today's lesson is in how Microsoft is trying to lock all other operating systems out of the market, squeezing that last 3% to 5% into submission and eliminating them from the competitive marketplace. The video is around 55 minutes long, but if you have the time, well worth the watching to give you insight into what is going on, and how, with YOUR computers but THEIR operating systems:
I'm also well aware of how Apple is currently in dispute with the FBI over their encryption schema, refusing to hand over encryption keys to the FBI "without a warrant". Apple claims they are fighting for your right to privacy, but consider this: the fight itself confirms the suspicion that Apple is stealing your stuff. How could they possibly be expected to hand YOUR encryption keys to the FBI if THEY DIDN"T HAVE THE KEYS TO YOUR CASTLE TO BEGIN WITH? Apple is NOT "fighting for your right to privacy", they are instead fighting to maintain THEIR monopoly on YOUR data, pure and simple.
This thread is not specific to computers, cell phones, the internet of things, or any other single abuse of your data. Instead, it is a place to post ANY tendrils of techological, tyrannical control that you find are insinuating themselves into society, attempting to shape it into what The Oligarchs in charge want to see it become... a society of serfs and slaves. They don't want to control just your data, or even just your mind. In the final analysis, they want to control that AND your body and soul as well.
In order to do that, they intend to shape not just what you think and do, but even your ABILITY to think and do until it is finally restricted to corporate-approved Groupthink.
This is the thread to blow your whistles in when you see the tendrils coming, wherever you see them coming from.
.
![[Image: b7mjl2.png]](https://iili.io/b7mjl2.png)
