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Christ a bit of paranoia would do modern internet users good, I still remember when it wasn't normal to have every single piece of identifying information online and readily available for anyone.
Isn't that pretty much a thing of the past? This meme is maybe true for Facebook, but most sub 40 people don't use that anyway and the "public diary" days are also pretty over. Sure, you can stitch together a lot from geolocating Instagram posts and LinkedIn information, but it's not like it's the searchable database Facebook was in 2012.
Data brokers getting a kick out of this one.
That's not "readily available", and it's certainly not given voluntarily by users, it's often straight up illegal. That's a very different case.
It's available to whoever is willing to pay. Consent is given when users agree to privacy policies and ToS. Unfortunately, unless you're in the EU, it's legal, and when companies violate permissive laws or suffer a data breach, the penalties are often inconsequential. The original comment was vague and didn't specify the case. In the context of linux users vs MS and Apple, I'm leaning towards a distrust of big tech and "readily available for anyone" being inclusive of a multibillion dollar ad industry and the ecosystems developed around it. Though, technically not anyone can access every piece, so I guess we could dismiss it as a thing of the past.
Though, technically not anyone can access every piece, so I guess we could dismiss it as a thing of the past.
That's how words work, yes.
The threat of public information for most people is not a data broker, but their neighbor. And unless you have a particularly psychopathic neighbor, they can't realistically access data from a data broker.
It's threat modeling like every cyber security. My phone's password protects me from a random thief, but if a state actor really wants my data, they will get it, but the chances of them even trying are very low for me personally.