Comment Re:News Flash! Water is wet! Spread the word! (Score 1) 393
A conversation with a non-geek on the subject of data privacy tends to go like this:
They sell it to credit card companies, advertisers, marketters, and anyone else who wants to sell you some junk: a) So what? how does that hurt me. I get more targetted advertisments and possibly products that better suit me
They give it to the government: a) If the government wants to know what I did at that party last week.. I would have happily told them
When we revert into some paranoid disutopia the forces of opression will use your twitter comments to identify you as counter to their objectives and have you dragged from your homes and taken to the acid mines where you'll
If we want to convince people that privacy is important, we need better scare statements!
Compared to most people here, I'm hardly a "geek" but in my social circle outside the computer, I certainly am considered one.
And my answers would be "So what? I don't have to buy what they advertise to me." / "I doubt the government would be that interested in me, in anything I would part of some shallow stats report about internet usage." and "Oh, get a life".
The idea of having to to be connected at all times to a server to basically "have a computer" is ridiculous to me, Because of privacy? No. Because I'd have to pay a monthly fee to USE a computer (because, y'know the whole no-internet-no-files-hence-no-computer thing)? Hell yes.
I know an internet-less computer is hardly the way to go about in this day and age, but at least I have the option that if I don't have Internet access, I can at least have all my files right where I want them and still work with them.