It's always encouraging to follow threads like this one. Facebook is a real
nightmare, yet most people don't understand the real cost of using it
(data-mining, profiling by intelligence services, etc.).
I imagine in one way or another this is how society has always behaved. There
are immediate personal benefits to not using FB. The "social" hope with not
using Facebook is to achieve a critical mass, after which I am sure the
service will fall apart. So far, only one of my former FB contacts (that I
know) has quit.
The best explanation I have found to raise awareness against data-mining
intelligence services (like facebook, google, yahoo, etc.) is a talk by Eben
Moglen on Republica in 2012 entitled "Why freedom of thought requires free
media and why media require free technology." You can watch it through the
following link if you don't agree with youtube tracking you either:
https://archive.org/details/EbenMoglen-WhyFreedomOfThoughtRequiresFreeMediaAndWhyFreeMedia
Frankly, there is not much that I miss from Facebook. Indeed I think I get
along better with the few people that I consider my friends from my former FB
list of contacts since I stopped using the "service."
Regarding e-mail, I chose Lavabit paid accounts ($8 or $16 dollars per year).
It still requires you to trust what they claim, but according to their
website, and if you turn on server encryption then all of your e-mail is
encrypted on their server. I also use GPG with the few people I have been
able to convince to use it.
At some point a while ago I installed friendi.ca on a server I own but found
that my technical skills were insufficient to make it work properly and to be
sure that the setup was secure. I have been looking for options to use
diaspora or friendi.ca or one of the federated social networks but have not
found an option that satisfies me in terms of privacy. Any pointers in the
right direction would be highly appreciated.
The subject of on-line privacy is a difficult and thorny one, and even some
of the people who claim (and whom I believe) to be working in favor of
privacy oftentimes are contradictory. For example, freedomboxfoundation.org
uses embedded youtube on their main page, which incidentally I cannot watch
without flash; they use google analytics on the website (????); further, they
don't list any public keys in their contact section either. I did write them
to mention this, but I never received a reply.
For most of the data-mining, time-wasting, websites of which Facebook is a
prime example, I find that I am much more productive and happy since I quit
them. I do long for more on-line social life and I'm actively trying to solve
that (this here being one example).
The only spy service I have been unable to completely get rid of in my online
life is Youtube. Does anyone have recommendations in that area?
In any case freedom is not free, and especially not free from hassle. Some
sacrifices must be made in every area of life where you would like to be
free. With time, most of these sacrifices become blessings, I have found.
Regards,
fbit
