What's with the Paranoia?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by haertig

You don't seem to comprehend that others think differently than you do.

The difference in our thinking about the situation we are now discussing boils down to proactive vs. reactive. You appear to want to wait until after you've had a problem, and then deal with it. You are (appear to be) reactive.

I prefer to try and predict a potential problem, and avoid it before it ever happens. I am proactive.

Your stress comes from dealing with problems (that have already occurred), my stress comes from worrying about them (in advance). In the end, you rarely worry, and I rarely have problems. Who is right? Neither. We just think differently.

This generalization just isn't true. I'm generally a pessimist who always thinks about and prepares for the worst. But I'm not willing to sacrifice my every convenience for privacy at all costs. Yes, like most people, I prefer to keep my life reasonably private from general public. But not everywhere and from everyone. That would be far too inconvenient in today's age. I like modern, comfortable lifestyle. False accounts, gift cards, always deleting cookies or using VPN, cash etc. is just so much more bother than I'm willing to put up with. And no, I haven't had any problems because of that.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by haertig

You don't seem to comprehend that others think differently than you do.

The difference in our thinking about the situation we are now discussing boils down to proactive vs. reactive. You appear to want to wait until after you've had a problem, and then deal with it. You are (appear to be) reactive.

I prefer to try and predict a potential problem, and avoid it before it ever happens. I am proactive.

Your stress comes from dealing with problems (that have already occurred), my stress comes from worrying about them (in advance). In the end, you rarely worry, and I rarely have problems. Who is right? Neither. We just think differently.

But I've told you there is no potential problem. In fact, there is no problem at all. If there was a problem, I would have read about it before buying my Kobo.

Your stress comes from imaginary problems that do not exist and worrying that they may exist. I don't have any stress because I don't have any problems. My Readers are registered and I have no problems at all.

You need to get a life that includes stopping stressing over imaginary problems that don't exist and just resister any Reader you have.

[issybird]

I think it’s time to end the back-and-forth about registering/not registering ereaders in particular. The positions have been stated, the points have been made. It’s time to let it go. People are still free to discuss more wide-ranging issues of privacy, but not this particular one.

[Ripplinger]

Just out of general curiosity, those who refuse to register their ereaders, do you do any online shopping at all? How do you get around the stores having your info and tracking your purchases and most likely sharing your info?

I'm not looking to continue an argument, I'm really curious if they've given up all conveniences the internet has to offer because of inevitable tracking and sharing of info everywhere online.

If I had my choice, my preference of course would be to not let anyone have my info, my ereaders included. I just don't see any way around it, it's a necessary evil of online activity.

[haertig]

The difference for me is the level of snooping. Wanting to know what I bought is one thing. Wanting to know how many hours a day I read, what page I am currently on, how fast I am reading, if I abandoned a book part way through, etc., is just creepy.

As an analogy, I would let a stranger take a picture of the outside of my house. People drive by and see my house all the time. It is not a secret. If you were out there 24x7 photographing every angle of my house, drawing sketches, taking notes - I might come out and question you. But a drive-by one-off picture? Have at it.

However, I would not let a stranger inside my house to take pictures of my bedroom. Even if they asked first, but especially if they tried to obscure what they were doing and snuck inside on their own. This is not because there is anything in my bedroom that could be used to harm me if a picture was taken of it. However, it's just too invasive. The fuzzy line of privacy has been crossed. It's creepy for someone to want to do that. Their motives would always be questionable, no mater how they tried to explain their interest in my bedroom.

How do I keep strangers with cameras out of my bedroom? I lock my doors. Many people don't lock their doors. But I do. Same things goes for unnecessarily registering things and agreeing to invasive data collection. Do that if you want. But I don't.

[Ripplinger]

All good points (although I'd probably be concerned if I saw anyone taking even one pic of my house ). I doubt any of my reading activity is able to be tracked though because I simply keep wifi off always and only sideload my books through Calibre once they've been freed of DRM. I only manually update firmware as well, so wifi is really never ever on.

So even though yes, I used a real email address to register, there's no info attached to it and they can't spy on my reading without wifi turned on. Amazon knows what books I do buy of course, but nothing else about what I do with them afterwards since I never read on the Kindle.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by haertig

The difference for me is the level of snooping. Wanting to know what I bought is one thing. Wanting to know how many hours a day I read, what page I am currently on, how fast I am reading, if I abandoned a book part way through, etc., is just creepy.

As an analogy, I would let a stranger take a picture of the outside of my house. People drive by and see my house all the time. It is not a secret. If you were out there 24x7 photographing every angle of my house, drawing sketches, taking notes - I might come out and question you. But a drive-by one-off picture? Have at it.

However, I would not let a stranger inside my house to take pictures of my bedroom. Even if they asked first, but especially if they tried to obscure what they were doing and snuck inside on their own. This is not because there is anything in my bedroom that could be used to harm me if a picture was taken of it. However, it's just too invasive. The fuzzy line of privacy has been crossed. It's creepy for someone to want to do that. Their motives would always be questionable, no mater how they tried to explain their interest in my bedroom.

How do I keep strangers with cameras out of my bedroom? I lock my doors. Many people don't lock their doors. But I do. Same things goes for unnecessarily registering things and agreeing to invasive data collection. Do that if you want. But I don't.

If you don't want this data collected, keep your WiFi off and just side load everything. I keep WiFi off on my Kobo because I don't want it syncing or doing a firmware update without me being ready for it. I know Kobo also collects all kinds of data. But seriously, what harm does Amazon and Kobo having this data actually do to you? To me, it does nothing except maybe tailored advertising.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But seriously, what harm does Amazon and Kobo having this data actually do to you? To me, it does nothing except maybe tailored advertising.

I do get my amusement from the book recommendations from Kobo and Amazon. Though I have to wonder that since they so often screw up those recommendations, just how accurate are the algorithms they use.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I do get my amusement from the book recommendations from Kobo and Amazon. Though I have to wonder that since they so often screw up those recommendations, just how accurate are the algorithms they use.

I get a lot of recommendations for books I've already read.

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I do get my amusement from the book recommendations from Kobo and Amazon. Though I have to wonder that since they so often screw up those recommendations, just how accurate are the algorithms they use.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I get a lot of recommendations for books I've already read.

Thanks to our wonderful community that gives us the patches to make reading more enjoyable, I don't get any recommendations. And I love it that way!

[haertig]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But seriously, what harm does Amazon and Kobo having this data actually do to you? To me, it does nothing except maybe tailored advertising.

Probably true, for retailers like Amazon. But there are other players in the game. Seems like every week we are reading about some major companies database being hacked. Data about you - seemingly harmless data - can be collected and consolidated. What would they find out about me, the innocuous stuff? They'd find that I like Star Trek. I was heavy into it at one time. That seems like "I don't care" data, doesn't it? Except for some smart hacker thinking, "I wonder if this guy has a password related to Star Trek?" And you know what, I *did* (at one time). I think about this now, and back then I was really stupid to do that. It was not something that a human would guess easily, however if even a low end PC had been tasked with combining words from Star Trek episode names, common sayings by Star Trek characters, and other related Star Trek trivia - that PC would have been able to guess my password in a matter of seconds probably, just by brute force. This is an example of innocuous data being used in not-so-innocuous ways. It's a simple extension of the password guessing programs that used to try spouse names, addresses, kids names, pets names, telephone numbers, etc. Never use any of that type of stuff in your passwords, even if it makes them easier for you to remember. All that data about you has already been harvested, consolidated and shared between hacking software programs. If the info relates to you in any way, no matter how small and inconsequential, it does not belong anywhere near your password.

I remember the days when people would write their social security number on checks. That was common back then, and people did it all the time without thinking about it. Who nowadays would consider that a safe thing to do?

These days, some hacker might get info on me from Amazon after an online breach of their database. They would easily be able to determine that my favorite author is James Rollins. Were I still as naive as I once was, I might have chosen a password like "51gmaF0rc3", a minor re-spelling of "Sigma Force", the secret agency that Rollins likes to write about. "Sigma Force" would be a bad password in anybody's book, but it would be horrendously bad for someone known to like the author James Rollins - information that Amazon has collected about me.

BTW, this is not paranoid stuff that I'm just making up myself. I learned all about this before I retired and was working in computer networking and security. From classes, presentations, and technical papers on information security.

For all of you out there, how many have passwords that relate at least in part to "your favorite this or that"? And how easy would it be to determine what your particular "this or that" is from "innocuous" online tracking of you? This doesn't describe everybody, but for every person smugly saying "That's not me!" there will be a matching person saying, "Crap, this guy is right!"

No need to drag this thread off any further into good vs bad passwords - I just used password guessing as an example of how apparently harmless information gathered about you could be used to harm you.

[Sirtel]

Very interesting reading, this. Thanks for sharing such a detailed insight.

[hildea]

I'm a bit surprised at those posters who seem to have an all-or-nothing view of privacy. I can't protect my privacy perfectly, and there's a lot more I could do but am not willing to because of the hassle, but that's no reason to give up all attempts to reduce the amount of info I give away, especially when doing so costs me very little in lost convenience. (Just like I'm not willing to eat only healthy food, but enjoying cake and ice cream doesn't mean it's pointless for me to also eat wholemeal bread and lots of vegetables.)

So, for instance: I'm not willing to delete my Facebook account, but I've installed a browser add-on which reduces the amount of info I give to Zuckerberg. I'm not willing to delete my Amazon account, but I buy my books elsewhere if I can. I'm not willing to stop using my Gmail account (although I'm considering actually going through the effort of doing so), but I've turned off all the tracking I can turn off in my Google account, and use a privacy friendly search engine.


Thanks to Difflugia for answering my question about which features I'd get with registering an ereader, by the way

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by hildea

I'm a bit surprised at those posters who seem to have an all-or-nothing view of privacy. I can't protect my privacy perfectly, and there's a lot more I could do but am not willing to because of the hassle, but that's no reason to give up all attempts to reduce the amount of info I give away, especially when doing so costs me very little in lost convenience. (Just like I'm not willing to eat only healthy food, but enjoying cake and ice cream doesn't mean it's pointless for me to also eat wholemeal bread and lots of vegetables.)

Simply put, many of us don't care. Let them track.

Yes, I've used DuckDuckGo occasionally. But it's not as good as Google Search. It consistently gives me fewer results. So I've returned to Google every time.

I don't use social media. At all. Not because of privacy, but I just hate it. It's noisy, and I don't mean audibly. It's like being in a room with lots of people, which I also hate. No can do. But I'm certainly not giving up Gmail, Google Search and other things which make my life convenient and comfortable.

Some people value digital privacy more than others. Some value speed and convenience more than others.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

Thanks to our wonderful community that gives us the patches to make reading more enjoyable, I don't get any recommendations. And I love it that way!

Not on my Reader, in email and at the bookstores is where I get the recommendations.