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The Canary is Dead


This is going to be a long one.


TL;DR: Google doesn't respect boundaries. Institutions are not doing their job. Gemini gives me some relief and hope.


You may have heard that to check if Facebook or Google is listening through your phone, all you have to do is tune your radio to a Spanish station for some time and later watch the ads change to Spanish.


I'm convinced the situation has become worse than that.


About me:


I am a JavaScript (currently front-end) developer, working on Linux.


I have been a privacy freak for some years now.

It is more of an experiment to see how private you can still be in the modern world and an attempt to figure out some workarounds than a concern that someone is after me personally.

I use cash. No loyalty cards.

No smartphones. Me and my kids are using cheapest dumb Nokias. For a long time my wife was too, but recently she had to get a more advanced phone due to some requirements at work (not related to this post).

JavaScript or cookies are enabled on a per-site basis on my Firefox (currently I use uMatrix with strict settings, previously NoScript).

No Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Google et al. are blocked in my browsers, with extra steps going through preferences and `about:config`. Was using a Gmail account but finally ditched it once Google started blocking my Thunderbird.

YouTube via Invidious or yt-dl (except at work).

Never agree to anything if GDPR lets me (I'm in the EU).

Never use personal accounts on job devices and vice-versa.


As you can imagine it is a bit inconvenient at times. I miss email in my pocket the most. And occasionally it is stressfull if I have to travel somewhere new without a map on my phone.


I think the experiment gradually started after I quit Facebook ~8 years ago -- when it became nearly impossible to have a chronological feed anymore.


My GitHub blog post from 2013 to give you context. I stopped using 3d party JS on my sites after that (2013).


So I can say I have been doing it more thoroughly and for a longer time than these "I lived without a smartphone / social networks for a month" articles.


Some Stories


Do you speak Turkish?


One day at my previous job (over a year ago) we went to a Turkish place for lunch. Some of the staff spoke Turkish between themselves.


Later that day, at home I opened YouTube on my personal laptop and on the front page I saw a full block of videos in Turkish language.


This is highly unusual:


I was browsing YouTube with cookies (and other stuff) turned off.

Usually I saw many blocks of Russian and Lithuanian videos of questionable quality, which is what I would expect to be popular among people who live in the area — not what I like, but the people (and their kids) who share dynamic IP with me probably like.

The area where I live (around 54.7117, 25.3902) is highly unlikely to have any Turkish immigrants: it is mostly land for growing fruits and vegetables with tiny summer houses or one-family households. Transportation is inconvenient compared to the city and majority of Vilnius residents don't even know the area.

As I mentioned above: I don't have Android. I don't mix personal and job accounts. My colleagues however did have Android phones.


Do you speak Finnish?


This one happened this year.


I currently work for a tiny Lithuanian contractor of a larger Finnish company (a Microsoft shop). We have daily stand-ups via Microsoft Teams. For fun I started learning a few Finnish language phrases from my colleagues ("hi", "how are you today?", "good, and how are you?").


One day we had a small natural exchange like this.


Later at work I wanted to look something up on YouTube (no Google account on that laptop and cookies+more blocked as usual). You can guess what I was expecting. I did see a block of Finnish language videos.


Usualy I see blocks of videos that [I assume] my colleagues or other people in the same building are into.


I see these possible routes:


Chrome (used for development sites only) was listening on my laptop's microphone and told YouTube which Firefox is installed on the laptop.

Microsoft is sharing some data with Google.

Android phones in my colleagues pockets were listening and my voice profile is tied to the Firefox on my work laptop.


I told my colleagues what I noticed and asked if they noticed any Finnish language content on YouTube. They did not.


Can I get my documents without pinging Google?


This year, during the spring quarantine I noticed that my national ID card has expired.


As expected, there is an online form on a government website, that I can fill in to register to get new documents. As it was quarantine, offline option simply was not available.


I logged into the government site via my bank account (this is the usual way in Lithuania). I was using a secure 2-factor authentication (physical code generator).


The form does not work unless I unblock Google Recaptcha via uMatrix...


This was a bit of a matter of principle for me. I called the responsible government agency. They told me some bullshit about blocking robots. I mean, I was very securely authenticated. They know I am the citizen E.D. with personal ID code 3xxxxxxxxxx. If I would be running a robot somehow, they would know it was me responsible for its actions.


Obviously I called the local data protection agency afterwards. They forwarded me to their IT gentlemen. They weren't of much help. I looked them up and it seems they run advertising related business on the side.


So I'm stuck with outdated documents until I find the time after the current quarantine to visit the government office in person, wait a few hours in a queue, etc..


I can't say that it's not possible, but it's bloody inconvenient.


My kids are REQUIRED to let Google film them for a few hours every day


Gladly we don't have webcams, so only their voice is processed for the moment.


As you must have guessed, due to current quarantine, they are attending school lessons from home. The school is using Google apps to organize distance learning. The school has put into its rules that all students must be on camera during the lessons.


What the school didn't do is ask parents' permissions to create Google accounts for their children or check if their rules don't break any national or EU laws.


This feels quite fucked up. I was keeping my kids unknown to the Borg-tech, and now they are being assimilated. And I have Google listening on our house for 5-6 hours every working day.


Regardles of how I feel about it, I had to talk to a couple of teachers already to explain the situation. Some of them were threatening with sanctions.


I understand that the school had to do some quick decisions to start distance learning and chose poorly (in my opinion). I don't want to interrupt what the teachers and the (quite human and friendly) administrators are doing. But I draw the line at Google having cameras running at my house, filming my kids.


The situation is developing, but the threats of sanctions weren't fullfilled so far.


Some reflection


So this is all about Google. I don't have *such big* problems with the other "big-tech". I do have a problem with their practices, but at least I can avoid them and their services.


Google on the other hand... is pushed down my throat. And I didn't even mention how it annoys me as a web developer of 20 years that it is constantly trying to control the Web.


BTW, did you know that 30% of all internet connections and 9% of all upstream traffic in 2019 were made to Google servers?


https://www.sandvine.com/blog/netflix-vs.-google-vs.-amazon-vs.-facebook-vs.-microsoft-vs.-apple-traffic-share-of-internet-brands-global-internet-phenomena-spotlight


I am not sure what Google is any more. What I am sure is that it is not just a business or even a monopoly.


What concerns me most is that if it is impossible to escape Google surveillance, none of our elected officials (imperfect as they are) in our [somewhat] democratic countries will be able to stand against it. Because they will know that all their dick pics, drug usage in youth, stupid conversations and so on, were recorded and can be used against them.


And it has been caught recently, trying to dominate politicians:


https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-alphabet-tech/google-ceo-apologises-for-document-eus-breton-warns-internet-is-not-wild-west-idUSKBN27T1CX


The canary in the coalmine is indeed dead.


Is it hopeless?


No.


I consider Google to be some type of living organism. I am not sure which exact type it is (hyper-monopoly / NSA operation / AI-paper-clip-factory-run-amok / something evil and biblical / something else). It doesn't matter that much.


I am sure that (even if it gets to dominate the ecosystem) it will get fat, it will get lazy and it will get eaten by other organisms. It may not be as advanced as we may fear. The Turkish and Finnish video suggestions aren't that smart after all. And Google may already be getting even stupider.


Note however, that in the meantime it may fuck up our lives quite seriously, shaking us for our time, resources and control over us. We might even see 1984 like shit in our lives. Who knows.


With Gemini, at the very least we have a brief moment of a lost freedom. Maybe a safe space for nerds. Maybe even a fighting chance. Lets take it seriously.


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Replies


> Thanks Emilis for the great article. I was thinking recently how companies like Google have set up offices here in Ireland and we think of them as American companies but they are really more like big alien tech companies, not American values at all.

> I wrote something about privacy a while ago which was at

gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/users/iolfree/few_thoughts_on_data-privacy_.gmi

> Anyway another point that occurred to me reading your article was that gemini is sort of like a cabin hidden in the woods or some such.

> Your humble servant ~iolfree

> @2020-11-23


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If you want to reply to this post, email me your reply or a gemini:// link to emilis [at] emilis.net.


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