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Comment by pluc

1 day ago

There was a time where the default assumption was functionality created tracking opportunities. Nowadays, it's more the opposite. Social media have always been on the forefront of monetizing data, but the same data in the hands of governments is used differently. My point is that the way you/we feel towards Facebook, the entire world is increasingly feeling about most, if not all, US tech.

I know people who won't use Israeli or Chinese-made tech for fears of sabotage. US tech is quickly making its brand in that market.

7 comments

pluc

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herbst  1 day ago

I know people who avoid US tech and happily use Chinese or Russian tech here in central Europe. Not trusting US tech isn't new, it just gets a lot worse

  • BiteCode_dev  1 day ago

    I actually opened a yandex mail account 15 years ago because, since I was going to be tracked, at least it would be from people who have no friendly contact with most gov entities and companies in my society.

    Sad.

    • herbst  1 day ago

      I heard same argument with telegram (however I wouldnt consider it to be Russian tech these days) but yes. Choose your poison, basically. And some entities definitely seem(ed) less evil to our society than others.

d5lt5  16 hours ago

It's interesting how you think of US tech currently being in a process of becoming a tool of state surveillance and oppression that Russia and China have, while the following exists:

* PRISM (est. 2007) spied on US citizens with the help from AT&T, Microsoft, Google, Apple, and etc.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM

* SpyFiles (various years, ~2011) US/EU surveillance software: https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/

* Facebook (est. 2004):

  - Helped Cambridge Analytica (~2013) to interfere with the elections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal

  - Bought Onavo (~2013) to spy on competition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo

  - Manufactured consent to enable genocides in Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Gaza.

* Palantir (est. 2003): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir

* Microsoft GSP (~2003) to enable US government to find zero-days (now with Mythos): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/securityengineering/gsp

  • pluc  10 hours ago

    It's one thing to spy on your population/users, it's another to spy on your clients.

    You can go all authoritarian fascist if that's what floats your boat, but at least don't backstab people who buy shit from you.

    Can't you be repressive and professional?!

    • d5lt5  3 hours ago

      3 entries in the list above did exactly that more than a decade ago. My point is that the US tech is not in a process, they were at the frontier long before everyone else.