Personally, I'm for having a centralized account for many things.

I'm tired of giving info to every single website I login to, give fake info to the ones I don't trust and then have to remember which fake info I gave to who.

Ideally, your government would fufill such a facility, but since right wing nuts trust the profit oriented private sector more than their own government, private corporations fulfill such a role.

Either way, I'll trust a well established corporation like Google a mite more than a two-bit website whose credentials I can't fully verify.

If you don't trust Google, then you can give them fake info too, but at least you have only one set of fake information (and one password) to remember.

I think that's a bit extreme.

It's true that if some hacker boy decides to stalk you, you'll have no privacy as too much of what happens online is not encrypted.

Otherwise, if you don't stay connected on Facebook(1) and you don't post your life on some profile somewhere that is easily traceable to you, you'll have a measure of privacy simply because the main thing that interests the corporations that really work hard to piece together the data is what they can sell to you.

Ok, maybe some of them would blackmail you for all you are worth if they got something juicy and it was legal, but it's not and it's more profitable for them to remain on the legal side of things.

1: once I found out the amount of details that Facebook posts about your online activity on your profile by default, such as which news article you read, I promptly proceeded to just stay logged off that stalkering piece of shit (and only post the barebone essentials in there that I don't mind the world to know).

Now, whenever I login to Facebook, I close all the tabs and delete all my history . Once I'm done, I promptly logout and delete all my history again for good measure, for real. Needless to say I don't do it often as it's quite the hassle.

Seriously, Facebook should get sued by the family stalker victims as it enables these creeps.

Just found out I also needed a Google+ account to rate any Android app I bought -- i.e., Android apps I already paid for -- on Google Play (i.e., the official Android App Store.) So basically Google is forcing ALL Android users (all Android users who want to buy and rate apps) to adopt Google+. Motherfucker Google is seriously pissing me off.

I seriously need to write a letter to FTC to alert on what the fucker Google is doing. Write a letter to Facebook too so Facebook knows Google is using Android and YouTube to muscle users into using Google+ and pressure FTC to investigate Google. This is so wrong and anti-competitive.

.Sharing is a common human socialization.

Some time ago I found an interesting TedTalk presentation about interconnecting and openly sharing data/databases between sites and services, allowing us "users" to easily, not only gain from historical data, but also new critical data. (ex. flights, trains, patents, maps, government docs, shares index etc.).

The speaker talked about not locking up data, and letting others extract data to find a new use for it. Today, a developer might not have the permission to extract weather info to his/hers own site/app, because the data is locked up. (just as an example, there are other sides to this part, I know. However, much can be gained from this) Historical data and software (yes, abondonware too :) is likely to be extinct if the original caretaker shuts it down, and it's not released openly.

Private/sensitive data is another domain, and subjective for the most part. With everything in our own lives, why should we use energy on protecting us, or hide? Isn't it virtual after all?

For some the limit is internet search, others draw the line at genetically defects or personal ID number. That's OK, we all have different view. Still, the reality is that we "users" have become a commodity. We've lost our own right to choose who we will share our most private data with. Companies are more willing to share private data, than non-private data.

Why is that?

If we combine more and more private data into one big centralized service, with sloppy security, crackers will have a real feast. But how should we address these issues when a user/costumer wants convenience over security? (ex. Android<>Google<>FB)

I think it's interesting to see how this will turn out in the future :).

Luckily, we have services like openstreetmap.org, diaspora, duckduckgo, etc. "Pirate Party" might sound dangerous for someone not into technology and security in general, but they might find us a compromise for us all.


To properly handle a car you must first understand how it works! Same thing different domain. :D