Agreed. Keep in touch with friends and family as one lives abroad is much better done via pen, paper and snail mail.

I'm fine with that, and am mindful of what I publish. My point was there is such a thing as oversharing. You can minimize what is data mined by engaging the platform to a limited extent.

Except I don't use heroin to keep in touch with friends, and, unless you can provide a platform that is not subject to data mining, I see little choice. I have friends and family that live abroad. Platforms such as Facebook puts staying in touch at fingertips.

Because those avenues are NOT data mined? Well, to give you a straight answer, it's because of what the other poster said. By not adopting the tools everyone else around you utilizes to communicate, you get left behind basically. So you do your best to control what you share, with the assumption that EVERYTHING you share is data mined.

I'm acutely aware of that. My point wasn't to say I am not being data mined, but by being mindful of the data I choose to share, I can curtail some of it. So what social platform can I migrate over if I want to stay in touch with my family and friends that live abroad?

Social platforms are far from being the only entity that do this, so to call them out on this merit is short-sighted. The reality is you cannot shield yourself completely from what you correctly identified, but you can take steps to limit what you share.

I suppose I should have provided this context to begin with. I use Facebook. None of what Stephen talks about applies to me. I use Facebook to strictly keep in touch with close friends and family. I don't click on ads, I don't click on videos, I don't post pictures of my breakfast, lunch, dinner. I don't have my profile publicly available. I am extremely strict with whom is on my list of friends and what I share. Social media platforms are tools and they can easily be misused. Their misuse is the issue, not their existence.

Social networks are what you make of them. I have not read his essay, but from OP alone it seems to me that there's a distinction to be made here, between "doing it right" and "doing it wrong".

It bears mentioning that these new generation ransomware programs will dig for network drives and hit them as well. So having a back-up on a USB drive that is only connected when the back-up is performed is a very good idea for the most sensitive items, OR manage the network back-up drive in such a way that it is only available at certain times and very narrow windows.

Ok, so you can't fire a gun in the air, I am OK with that, it makes sense. Would it legally be permissible to fire an EMP pulse at the craft, disabling it, assuming this was done in a moment the drone did not poze a hazard by becoming a falling object? I'd be interested to see whether or not EMP-gun DIY guides will emerge eventually as a response to more drones popping up. If your drone is on my property, flying low, it's mine.

I'm a licensed claim rep. Your scenario with the car inching forward to go then stopping because they changed their mind, doesn't have negligence. Negligence rests on the vehicle behind 100%, and that negligence is assigned for driving forward and yet not looking there. Negligence assigned for assumption that the car in front actually completed the maneuver. Negligence assigned for the duty owed to maintain proper following distance. While it does take two to cause an accident, your kind of mentality leaves us in a world where rarely is anyone never at fault. You can't assign negligence by sheer fact of someone being at the scene of the accident.

Like the comment subject says ...

Evidence. That's what matters. Not insistence.

There's just too many DIY options out there for self monitoring to make it worth paying somebody else to do what the owner can themselves. But then again there certainly are different needs for different people. For example EyezOn has a module called Envisalink 3 which works with DSC and Honeywell security systems: it makes them accessible via the web and alerts can be sent via text/email to a number of contacts for a number of events. I've had the module for about a year now, picked it up for around $130, it was easy to install and I am very happy with it. Just throwing it out there.