Hey everyone, this week we’re tackling some common misconceptions with privacy, security, and anonymity. Often privacy and anonymity are used interchangeably; however, there are distinct differences between the two. In this video, we aim to explain and discuss the differences so you can make better decisions on your privacy and security journey.
Thank you all for checking out the video. I hope you enjoy it! I’m also looking forward to hearing what you think about the direction I took with the video!
Would it be worth adding a categorisation for each of the tools on PG with some sort of tagging system, or other method to easily show what each tool is specifically for?
You can Hover your mouse over the icon to get an explanation over what each icon means, and click on it to be taken to the common threats page with more information.
Unfortunately the threat model icon hover over doesn’t work properly on iOS Safari, it just redirects to the Common Threats kb, and when going back to the previous page the hover over is stuck in front of the information on the page.
Ignore my suggestion, I had some confusion linking the information already provided on the website in the Common Threats video to the video., whereby the video was focusing on security, privacy and anonymity in a broad sense, and PG focuses on categorisation by threats or goals.
Yeah the hovering part is sadly not possible on mobile browser as a whole. Tapping it should at least bring you to the specific threat with its explanation though.
“Surveillance capitalism” is an ideological and deliberately misleading term. If I referred to China’s activities as “surveillance socialism,” many people would simply laugh with good reason. “Digital data economy” is a much better term to describe how personal data is exploited.
How is it an ideological term? You are conflating state surveillance with corporate surveillance. Surveillance capitalism accurate describes corporations gathering as much data about their users as possible for the purposes of profiting off of that data.
It accurately describes the situation if we absurdly reduce the term “making money” to its capitalist component. But that’s just it: a reductionist, ideological term—a deliberate, and likely malicious, oversimplification of what it really is. State surveillance and corporate surveillance are essentially the same; the only difference is the form in which the benefits manifest.
Having read the book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism - I see no issue with this term being used in the video. The book is written by one of the authorities on the subject matter. Are you disagreeing with how the book explains it and defines it too?
And if if it’s a deliberate oversimplification of what it really is - then what is it really?
The author of that term wanted to emphasize the “accumulation” aspect of surveillance from corporations. They want to gather as much information from as many people as possible to maximize profits. Information becomes a resource that can be collected and exploited.
I do admit “Capitalism” is way too overused in academic literature but “Surveillance Capitalism” is probably the best term to describe the motivations of corporations.
First, thanks for another great video. Although I don’t fault others for getting the words of privacy, security, and anonymity mixed up; the effects of not using the correct term will add up over time. This reminds me of my professor’s words when I took abstract algebra: know the words and know what they mean (where your only way to get through a proof-based class is to learn the definitions of terms).
A tangent: this reminds me of when some talk a security vulnerability in the news and afterwards they will incorrectly call everything a “backdoor” as a hyperbole. Although I understand where they come from, it’s bad because it dilutes the actual meaning of the word. I’m not superstitious with literal words, or that you need to remember your name so that you can return home, such as in the plot of Spirited Away. However, it’s sort of like yelling that there’s a fire when there’s none or crying wolf - this repeated desensitization will come the point where no one will respond accordingly when the danger is actually here.
My only constructive feedback is that sometimes the subtitles had wrong words. What is used to generate the subtitles? And is there any way for fellow users here to help fix them if they notice them?
Here are two inconsistencies with timestamps, when transcribing the word “Chromebook”:
“Objects” at 3:36
“Facebook” at 4:04
I didn’t exhaustively double check the correctness of the subtitles, but that’s what I noticed.
Now, let’s swap “they” (referring to corporations) for “The state”:
The state wants to gather as much information as possible from as many people as possible to maximize ‘profits.’ Information becomes a resource that is collected and exploited."
I can almost describe state surveillance word for word with that definition. This shows that the only difference lies in the term “profits,” which is interpreted differently. If that’s the case, then “surveillance capitalism” isn’t an accurate term—it’s hard to link an entire economic system to a specific action like surveillance. As I’ve mentioned, “digital data economy” is much more precise; it succinctly defines an economy where digital data is bought and sold.
At the same time, it’s equally difficult to connect surveillance in China with socialism. “Surveillance socialism” isn’t a real concept any more than “surveillance capitalism” is. Thus, the term is deliberately used as an ideological weapon.
I think what “surveillance capitalism” means is in this context is that surveillance is being capitalized and does not necessarily mean that capitalism as an economic concept has been fully overtaken by surveillance and that there’s only surveillance when it comes to capitalism. There’s a difference here. Anything you can make money with doing whatever you can to make it happen is capitalism. We are just talking about surveillance in this case and that’s why it’s called that.
But it also downplays the egregiousness of the what you want to call it. It’s like calling a huge cut on your arm from an accident a scratch. The extensive no rules invasive nature of it warrants the term “surveillance capitalism” and not what you want to define it as, even though it may be true to call it that too. In the accuracy spectrum of what this can be called, surveillance capitalism is a more accurate term given the egregiousness of it.
What in your mind is damaging something that you feel it is an “ideological weapon”. What’s the damage being done that you think its ideological based and that its a weapon. Also, everything we all think stems from some dogma and ideology so that itself makes calling it “ideological” somewhat moot.
Also, if you can specifically respond to these specific comments, that’d be helpful to understand your POV.
You quoted the questions but did not, in my opinion, answer it. But let me know if your previous comment itself was an answer because I felt it was a non answer.
