slowmachine
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Mike
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2020
- Threads
- 39
- Messages
- 930
- Reaction score
- 1,971
- Location
- New Hampshire
- Vehicle(s)
- 2015 Jeep Wrangler, waiting for a Ranger PHEV
- Thread starter
- #16
Do you have a driver's license? Is your Ranger registered and licensed by the state? Do you have insurance? How about rented, leased, or owned real estate? Pay taxes? If any of these are true, you have no privacy. Do you make every phone call from a cell phone that you purchased used, with a new anonymous SIM card, then destroy the phone and SIM card after each call? No? You're being tracked. Many state DMVs sell your personal information to help fund their operations, and they provide it for free to all other state governments and a very long list of federal agencies.
I like privacy as much as anyone, but being a citizen in any modern country involves giving up some of your anonymity and autonomy to gain the benefits of citizenship. From birth to death, our lives are recorded, tracked, and in extreme cases, controlled, by the society in which we live, and the multiple layers of governments with jurisdiction over of the chunk of earth we're standing on.
I'm typing this on a Chromebook, while logged in to four Google accounts at the same time. In my pocket is a Google Pixel phone. Next to me, on the table, sits an Amazon Kindle Fire tablet. In my bedroom, I have an iPhone, Apple Watch and an iPad Mini, running two Apple IDs, each with multiple aliases. In my basement office, I have a Mac Mini with Mac OS 11, and a Dell laptop running Ubuntu and Fedora Linux. The only thing I don't have readily available is Microsoft Windows, though I do have a Microsoft account and a Windows 10 license that I can use at any time. I'm not afraid of living in the modern world. I do not, however, use any of the big social media platforms, no Facebook, Twitter, etc. Ranger5g is on of several special-interest forums that I belong to. My life is not a secret to anyone with minimal tech skills. It's been this way since Windows 3.1 and an AOL account, with no ill effects.
I do not believe that Ford contracting with Google for infotainment software and cloud services exposes me to any more risk than borrowing money or owning real estate. Google owns the best mapping software of any company that covers North America, and they are so far ahead of all of the competition that nobody will match them in my lifetime. I use Google Maps. Google has the best search engine of any company that supports the English language. I use Google Search. Like everyone else, I am bombarded with advertising on nearly every website that I visit. That's not because Google is bad, it's because the website (this one included) sells ad space to Google to help pay for their operating costs. Do you really think that Ford will allow Google (or any of thousands of other companies) to place advertisements on the screen in your dash? I'm not bothered by seeing web page ads that are targeted to my personal interests. I actually prefer that over whatever random product would appear in its place.
I think that Ford (and GM, who are also partnering with Google) are doing a smart thing. They're getting state of the art services that they could never duplicate on their own.
I like privacy as much as anyone, but being a citizen in any modern country involves giving up some of your anonymity and autonomy to gain the benefits of citizenship. From birth to death, our lives are recorded, tracked, and in extreme cases, controlled, by the society in which we live, and the multiple layers of governments with jurisdiction over of the chunk of earth we're standing on.
I'm typing this on a Chromebook, while logged in to four Google accounts at the same time. In my pocket is a Google Pixel phone. Next to me, on the table, sits an Amazon Kindle Fire tablet. In my bedroom, I have an iPhone, Apple Watch and an iPad Mini, running two Apple IDs, each with multiple aliases. In my basement office, I have a Mac Mini with Mac OS 11, and a Dell laptop running Ubuntu and Fedora Linux. The only thing I don't have readily available is Microsoft Windows, though I do have a Microsoft account and a Windows 10 license that I can use at any time. I'm not afraid of living in the modern world. I do not, however, use any of the big social media platforms, no Facebook, Twitter, etc. Ranger5g is on of several special-interest forums that I belong to. My life is not a secret to anyone with minimal tech skills. It's been this way since Windows 3.1 and an AOL account, with no ill effects.
I do not believe that Ford contracting with Google for infotainment software and cloud services exposes me to any more risk than borrowing money or owning real estate. Google owns the best mapping software of any company that covers North America, and they are so far ahead of all of the competition that nobody will match them in my lifetime. I use Google Maps. Google has the best search engine of any company that supports the English language. I use Google Search. Like everyone else, I am bombarded with advertising on nearly every website that I visit. That's not because Google is bad, it's because the website (this one included) sells ad space to Google to help pay for their operating costs. Do you really think that Ford will allow Google (or any of thousands of other companies) to place advertisements on the screen in your dash? I'm not bothered by seeing web page ads that are targeted to my personal interests. I actually prefer that over whatever random product would appear in its place.
I think that Ford (and GM, who are also partnering with Google) are doing a smart thing. They're getting state of the art services that they could never duplicate on their own.
Sponsored
Last edited: