Midnight Pub

Digital Discomfort

~aftergibson

While I'd considered myself someone who was fairly deliberate about my online digital choices and the privacy tradeoffs involved, in recent years I'd become quite lazy and just handed off the privacy thinking to Apple. I was all in on Apple product, iPhone, MacBook Pro, Apple Watch, even Air pods. I always had this niggling discomfort in the back of my mind however, but it was easily suppressed.

The discomfort increased with the Epic lawsuit. It was lack of control, why were two corporations going to courts to fight over what I do with my device? Why were suits in Cupertino making a decision about my life? Sure, using an iPhone enables a lot, but the fundamental question remained on my mind, "Whose device is this?".

That was answered with Apple's CSAM scanning. My device was now firmly out of my hands and was now capable of ratting me out to authorities. Practically this has no real bearing on me, as I imagine it wouldn't impact the law-abiding 99.99999% of people using these devices. The question still was, whose device is this?

I don't even want to attempt to wade into the ethic of the matter, the potential for this system to be abused by authorities or the actual efficacy of the solution, the question is, do I truly own this device? While Apple rolled back this scanning, the fact it has the potential to do this answers my question. It's a resounding no.

Now, I completely understand if holding entirely different views to me, I can genuinely appreciate you either don't care about privacy or even think CSAM scanning is a good thing, but do you really feel it's still your device? Imagine your car tells the authorities when you're speeding? That would be a genuine social good for all, right? But if you were to look at your car again, would it feel like you completely owned that car?

I'm in a very different place technically these days, preferring to use digitally quieter tech (I write this on a lovely Psion 5MX). Maybe I'll write up my changes and how much more comfortable I've felt. My system isn't perfect, but it's definitely better and improving.

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Replies

~ew wrote:

> Whose device is this?

This is the question, imho. And it is not limited to smart phones. Smart door locks? Cars? Smart house appliances?

I am using a camera for pictures

I am using old fashioned HiFi equipment for music (no, I don't listen to music on the computer or some digital device)

I am sometimes carrying old fashioned binokulars with me

I don't have a smart phone any more.

I'm still alive :-)

I have one more gripe: cloud computing. I posted it over at srht if you are interested.

gemini://ew.srht.site/en/2021/20211101-re-digital-discomfort.gmi

Cheers,

~ew

~starbreaker wrote (thread):

I'm this close stripping my phone bare and not using it for anything but calls and two-factor authentication.

I don't want to use my phone as a music player any longer; I have a dedicated device for that.

I don't want to use my phone as a camera any longer; I want a dedicated device for that.

I don't want to use my phone for internet, period.

I don't want to use a computer that can't run Slackware anymore, at least not for personal computing.

And, to be honest, I'd much rather do my writing with a nice notebook and a fountain pen, at least at first.

~orkney wrote:

Epic is owned by China now, which means China owns Unreal too.

~nsilvestri wrote (thread):

I feel somewhat similarly about software subscriptions for specific hardware, e.g. Tesla Autopilot. All the hardware is there, the code is (probably) there, all locked off by a single boolean flag.

I think human brains aren't good at the concept of "ownership" if it doesn't directly relate to a single physical object.