The Great Privacy Rights Give Away

[Bubzer]

There's an interesting phenomenon that's been going on for a while, Corporations, Federal Agencies and even Local Governments are violating our privacy, and we're just accepting it.

Have you noticed all the devices out there with cameras installed? Did you know that hacking into and using those cameras is fairly easy? The majority of the planet has access to a cell phone with a camera on it. About half the worlds population owns a tablet pc, laptop, smart watch or some other device with a camera embedded on it. The truly frightening part isn't that all these dices can be used to invade your privacy, the absolutely terrifying part is this is the least of what they can be used for.
http://www.cracked.com/article_20345_5-terrifying-smartphon…

Interestingly, though Federal and local Government Agencies seem to bear the brunt of accusation for privacy violation, its actually private business that enjoys a completely unfettered and unregulated ability to invade your privacy.

"The government is limited in the amount of data it can collect," says Bakke. "But businesses and the private sector can essentially collect all the data they want without government oversight. It's much more pervasive."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/government-surveillance_n_5…

Businesses take information from you everyday. Some of it is benign enough to not worry about. However, there's quite a bit that should be a cause for concern. Credit card information, billing address, social security numbers... and not just of adults but of children as well. But that's not it, they also data-mine your social history, medical history, sexual orientation, political affiliation, religious affiliation, where you work, who you know, how you know them, what you've been up to... for you, your friends and your entire family.

There's no doubt that corporations are extremely predatory... they will do whatever it takes to get your dollars, including, in some cases, illegal acts. For the majority of businesses, the only thing that discourages unethical or illegal behavior is laws and regulations. However, corporations have been eroding our rights through manipulating public opinion and co-opting politicians for generations. We're even on the cusp of a passage of one of the biggest personal rights giveaways in recent history; the TPP.

So, what can be done about this mess? The first thing to do is to get informed about this increasingly invasive issue. The second? Support those organizations and politicians that fight back against these and similar actions (Such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and senator Bernie Sanders). Lastly, share knowledge of what's happening. Let people know how this issue bothers you.
The invasion of our privacy has gone on long enough. Let's fight for freedom from prying eyes.

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Curiously, gun rights get more attention...

although Apple and Microsoft know everything about you. And can give it up to the authorities with a phone call. Speaking of phones, AT&T and Verizon have all sorts of stuff they may or may not share with Google, which has its own collection archive. And don't begin to think whay Amazon has on you...

Windows 10, btw, has as the default sending up most of what you do to MS cloud servers and even if you turn it off. it still sends stuff up.

"We have met the enemy and it is us" -- Pogo

[Bubzer]

2. Windows 7 and 8 are vulnerable now as well.

http://www.techworm.net/2015/10/microsoft-once-more-forcing-windows-7-users-to-upgrade-to-windows-10.html

Like it or not, Microsoft wants you to upgrade your PC to its latest iteration. In fact, Microsoft set up a ambitious goal of bringing Windows 10 on a total of 1 billion devices by 2017. And in order to achieve this goal, Microsoft is going hook, line and sinker after the Windows 7 and Windows 8 users.

Despite of the fact that many Windows 7 users have preferred to stay with it instead of Windows 10 being available to them for free, Microsoft wants them to upgrade to Windows 10 as soon as possible.

In order to fulfill this goal, Microsoft offered some patches prompting users to upgrade which were stopped when there was criticism for forcing users to forcefully upgrade to Windows 10. Now, it seems Microsoft has recently re-released these to make sure that, even if Windows 7 consumers blocked them, they still show up on their computers.

This was reported by Woody Leonhard of InfoWorld who wrote that Microsoft has re-released total of six patches, and these include not only updates that are supposed to encourage the upgrade to Windows 10 but also bulletins that were previously used to enable data collection on Windows 7.

Here’s the list:

KB 3035583, re-released for Windows 7 on Oct 5, version 8, this patch contains the Get Windows 10 program GWX. There is no information in the KB article about why the patch has been re-released.

KB 2952664, re-released for Windows 7 on Oct. 6, version 13 is a snooping patch. It send information back to Windows servers back in Redmond. The KB article continues to identify the patch as a “Compatibility update for upgrading Windows 7.” There’s no indication why it was re-released.

KB 2976978, re-released for Windows 8.1 on Oct. 6, version 19. Still labeled a “Compatibility update for Windows 8.1,” it’s a scanning program.

KB 2977759, re-released for Windows 7 on Oct. 6, version 12. Analogous to the KB 2976978 patch for Windows 8.1, this one is also a scanner. The KB article says it’s a compatibility update for Windows 7 RTM.

KB 3083710 is a new update client for Windows 7, with no further details available.

KB 3083711 is also new, and it appears to be an analogous update client change for Windows 8.1.

Once again if you value your privacy and dont want to upgrade to Windows 10 and you don’t want telemetry services enabled on your computer, you should avoid and hide these updates. Needless to say, Microsoft recommends everyone to install them, but it’s up to you to decide whether you need them or not.