What's some really unpopular opinion you have?
What's some really unpopular opinion you have?
Most of the time when people say they have an unpopular opinion, it turns out it's actually pretty popular.
Do you have some that's really unpopular and most likely will get you downvoted?
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People here don't know anything about tech regulation or privacy even though they pretend to and almost every criticism I see is just straight up wrong. And I'm a data engineer who works in tech focused on privacy.
I have a feeling this is the case for any technical subject that happens to be diiscussed on social media. Mostly everything I read about my own domain of expertise is often flat out wrong, but repeated with such confidence and appeal to authority that it makes you wonder what else here is wrong.
Duning Kruger baby!
Yep, it is always those with just enough knowledge to be dangerous. Some guy who watched a youtube video, took a 101 class, or just started in the field. It is crazy really, and of course it is very hard to convince those people of anything because sometime the wiser, non-newbie opinion will seem overkill to them since they believe the issue to be very simple and clear-cut.
What do you believe are the best practices to protect ones privacy would be, regardless of complexity (something extremely effective, but not necessarily easy to set up/use)?
Reject society, become a hermit, and move to the woods off grid, because otherwise you can't.
Sure, you can refuse to sign up for every big tech company that does targeted advertising, but if you want to participate in society at some point you'll need to join a financial institution and you'll probably need insurance. I've worked in insurance and by nature the data collected is way more personal and intrusive than anything needed for targeted advertising, but they can fly under the radar because everyone is laser focused on targeted advertising tech companies right now. Imo the most concerning data leaks of our time have been financial institutions like Equifax, which everyone forgot about almost immediately, but we're still obsessing over which of your personal preferences Google knows.
But for the vast majority of people, none if this really matters, because on a personal level nobody actually gives a shit about you.
I'll end it with a disclaimer that there are exceptions (e.g. if you're looking for an out of state abortion in America use E2E encrypted apps) and overall I do think privacy regulations like the GDPR and CCPA have made good progress across the industry into keeping sensitive data safe, but the community on Lemmy is looking for big tech blood that they'll never get.
idk I mostly agree with you. Although, how do the insurance companies collect that information? I know there's car insurance apps that sense how good your driving is, but other than that is it mostly just datamining of publicly available documents etc like those background check or people finder sites do?
I worked in Canadian health benefits, everything you submit is data. Not just your SIN and address, but which drugs you're on, which paramedicals you use, all that good stuff.
When I signed up for life insurance they came and took my blood to run tests too, that's pretty personal lol.
at least you mostly know what data insurance companies get though, with tech its somewhere between all of your internet activity ever, and nothing because its too expensive.
personally it seems worth it to me to avoid large tech companies simply because I have the time to deal with some lost convenience, and if they are storing everything then they will have less on me, and if they aren't, well I've learned loads about IT, and its been kinda fun.
I’ll end it with a disclaimer that there are exceptions
So your whole rant is false?
Because of exceptions? No