re:publica 2015 - Aral Balkan: Beyond The Camera Panopticon

"Facebook doesn't control it." Unfortunately it's controlled by the Mark Zuckerberg of Russia who still has access to his data brokers. None of the companies with access to our private data seem problematic at first. Google was a gift from the heavens with it's insane 1000MB gmail accounts back in 2003, now it's a private intelligence agency. Facebook was about free fun and connectivity, now it's a private intelligence agency. But Telegram's going to be different and money comes from magic and ICOs even after it reaches critical mass. Aral Balkan explains this better than I ever could ▶ this video Also, the security model of Telegram is exactly the same as Facebook Messenger: A bunch of promises about respecting your privacy, coupled with opt-in end-to-end-encryption that doesn't work cross-device, and the use of which reveals the intention to hide messages from server (which is extremely valuable metadata: these messages I want to hide from service provider and governments!)

Aral Balkan has excellent things to say about charades such as "privacy on facebook": ▶ this video All in all, this is a great talk, I highly recommend you watch from start.

re:publica 2015 - Aral Balkan: Beyond The Camera Panopticon has an excellent further discussion of this problem beyond just Gmail: ▶ this video

Approaching the "to google or not to google" question is impossible without stating your casus belli . If you care about opsec, there are many reasons why you would want to use google services: e.g. a hostile actor will have an extremely hard time stealing your emails from Gmail while there's a might higher chance you fucked up a config on your self-hosted setup. Usually, as always, it comes down to smart compartmentalization and using the right tool for the job. Personally, the ethical perspective is a much stronger reason why to stray away from data behemoths like Google and Facebook. First of all I believe the "usefullness" of many of these services is over-exaggerated: Facebook noawadays is more of a brainwashing service to expose you to "content" that does nothing more than dull your mind and keep you mindlessly scrolling and endless stream of irrelevant advertisements. But even if this isn't the case for all online services, some come at a price I am personally not willing to pay. We are entering an era of digital slavery where our entire lives are managed by data monopolies that are bound by no rules other than those they create for themselves. I don't care how convenient these commercial services are, if the price is giving up the sovereignty of my data, and the core liberties of my human existence. I make a conscious choice to not be part of this system, and we will all have to face this choice sooner or later. For more on this topic, I highly suggest Aral Balkan's t

▶ this video > A lot of us already subscribe to the mass psychosis of a all seeing White Man in the cloud watching over us. Erm... really? He wants to bring Religion into this? This isn't the only time he references Religion either, but its the most noticeable. ▶ this video > Like these _beautiful_ Nexus phones Rather disparaging to owners of Nexus phones. He's pretty much calling you a dumb-fuck at this point for buying into Android. On the contrary, if you wish to "Red Pill" a Nexus user, you don't start off the argument by calling them a dumb fuck. In fact, you need to be sure to NEVER call them a dumb fuck throughout the entire presentation. And yes, he is calling members of the audience who disagrees with him, dumb fucks. ▶ this video > Dumb Fucks. And maybe we deserve it. Lets be frank here, his point is "If you disagree with me, you're a Dumb Fuck". That is about as disparaging as you can get. Imagine if you will, you were a normal person who didn't care about this privacy stuff. None of the above techniques would win you over. In fact, I'm probably going to have to apologize on behalf of privacy advocates for this guy's disparaging remarks. Again, I fully agree with what he's _trying_ to do. But he's so disparaging and elitist it is very hard to actually recommend this video to anyone I know. Tell me, would you really have your Grandmother watch this guy, to try and win her vote over to the privacy conscious? These disparaging remarks are fine for rallying up a crowd or preaching to

▶ this video No one but the White man can bring the Internet to you. Dude, I'm not even white and I find it disparaging. The talk is terrible. It is politically charged when it really shouldn't be. The issue is simple: Privacy concerns are not being respected by Facebook or Google. I don't know why he keeps bringing up "White People" conquering nations, or "The White Dude who lives in a Cloud and watches over Us" , or any of the other disparaging remarks. What the hell? How many times does he call Mark Zuckerberg white ? Why have any emphasis there at all? If it were a black man in charge of Facebook violating our privacy, it'd be just as bad. Why did he have to bring Mark Zuckerberg's race into this? Its one thing to be against the system, or to expose the system's flaws to the world. But disparaging the audience is not the answer. His harmful speech is going to hurt the cause in the long term.

Aral Balkan gave a superlative talk a few days ago at re:publica 2015, called Beyond The Camera Panopticon: ▶ this video It's a broad overview the current state of the internet as seen through a cyberpunk, pro- freedom, human rights, and privacy perspective. Aral is a dynamic speaker and delivers it with a delightfully dark and sardonic voice. Really one of the best talks I've seen on the topic.