Comment on Stop Using Your Face or Thumb to Unlock Your Phone
simplejack@lemmy.world 6 months agoIMHO, as someone that works in security / privacy, I tend not to view it as a binary thing. It depends on where you live, what you’re protesting, what you look like, who you are, etc.
Are you in Russia or China and are protesting the government? Yeah, I might leave that thing at home. Are you a white lady in San Francisco marching with a pink knit cat hat during brunch hours, then you’re probably well on the other side of the risk spectrum. You might actually be introducing more risk by having less immediate access to communication or a camera.
IMHO, it’s nuanced.
Aceticon@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The problem is that the people doing the surveillance are hardly going around honestly telling people what’s their surveillance profile.
For example the UK that “pink knit cat hat white lady” would very likely be under surveillance if she was a member of the Green Party and participated in demonstrations.
Also the lower the barrier to entry to surveillance the lower the “threat profile” needed end up in that dragnet: if the authorities already have well established and commonly used ways provided by ultra-broad surveillance court (or whatever those courts are in your country) orders to just get from the mobile network providers all the phone numbers that connect to specific cell towers during a specific time period, pink knit cat lady is going to end up in the list just as easilly as baclava-wearing hard-core anarchist looking to break stuff.
Asidonhopo@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I agree with your point, but balaclava is the hat, baclava is the delicious Greek pastry.
merde@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Image
merde@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
what an image though 😁
simplejack@lemmy.world 6 months ago
We take on risk every time we decide to wake up and start the day.
I live in a place where I’m considerably more likely to get hit by a car while walking than thrown in jail as a political prisoner. That doesn’t mean I’m never going to go for a walk. I’m going to live life.
Leaving my phone at home seems pretty silly when the risk is very low in my nation and I do riskier things while cooking dinner.
Aceticon@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Oh, in day to day usage I agree with you: we’re all one little uninsteresting datapoint in a whole lot of datapoints and there are plenty of other was in which we are tracked.
However if you’re part of a Political Party or Movement and/or attend demonstrations, it’s probably wiser to leave the phone at home, if only because that make you stand out as a much more interesting datapoint than average.