[khahoon]

@Xanthe,
I agree technology is fascinating and it enables us to tackle issues that were not possible before. However we could have designed a better future where certain values were not compromised.

@PatNY
There are no problems with providing services that require certain data. That is perfectly fine. What is not fine is doing that at all times. They cna design these things in much better and respectful ways, but they do not want to.

@Rbneader,
You should root your phone/tablet and install firewalls and certain other apps that will let you limit those invasive behaviours and turning on the airtplane mode is also good idea. We do not need to have these devices to be connected to internet at all times. Rooting tablets is pretty easy. It is as easy as putting couple files on an sd card and rebooting your tablet while it is in the tablet. Check out Xda forums.

Also it is not just the tablet manufacturers that want those data, most likely every app that you install will try to return some data from your device to some distant location. It is pretty sad to see that Android did not implement admin features by default. I believe that they just did not want people to truly own their devices. All modern operating systems let you have admin accounts. Why not Android?


To me it is really sad to see that people are easily giving up so much valuable things about themselves. Please remember that Google made an immense empire by just giving away email accounts. Facebook made an immense empire by just giving you some cheap server space where you spilled all your beans.What they are giving you is so little but in return what you give back is many hundred times bigger and more valuable. That is why they were able to get so rich so fast.

The other thing is that whenever this kind of conversation comes up, many people assume that the OP is always thinking that some goverment or some company is going to get him/her. This is just a silly oversimplification. This has nothing to do with individuals, not about me or not about you. This is more about our future as humanity and how we want to govern our future. I realize people like to think in simpler terms however I do hope that everyone can implement their own geniune understanding of these massivley important issues.

I also like to point out that the security really has nothing to do with surveilance. Goverments want to know everything you do, so they can govern you better in their terms. Everyone is living in glass houses now they just do not realize it. It happened so fast that it is hard for people to grasp it. To me security claims are dubious. The real security can be implemented only when everyone on earth agrees on it. It can only happen through real diplomacy, friendship and common future. Other than that, if some people want to hurt another, they will find the ways this way or that way regardless of if your goverment is running dubious, hideous, dishonest survailance campaign in a total punishment camp. Currently the western goverments surveilance skills are 100x worse than communist/ despotic regimes in fiction literature.