Paranoia?

[red750]

Following on from the US downing of the Chinese weather balloon and an unidentified object over Alaska, and the Australian government removing security cameras on suspicion of spying, there is now a call to be aware of Chinese cars, which may be carrying spy gear. It is thought they may be tracking people's movements, particularly if they are involved in any way with things that could be of stategic importance. 

 

So MG's, Volvos, LDV, Haval etc vehicles could well be spying on us. For example, our conversations or phone calls, using bluetooth of course, may be being recorded. This is not unlike the smart speaker situation, where Alexa and the like were listening in to our home converesations. Jeff Bazos was reported to have hundreds of people monitoring and recording those conversations.

 

And what about all our Chinese made mobile phones, Huawai, etc. Is nowhere private?

[old man emu]

I was afraid to open this thread to read what you were going to say.

[Marty_d]

Bit of a problem, for a moderator...

[red750]

45 minutes ago, Marty_d said:

Bit of a problem, for a moderator...

Just reporting the news.

[Bruce Tuncks]

Just think of the numbers of trips and phone calls you would need to go through to get a snippet of useful info. Ten thousand ,one million, 100 million?

 

[octave]

Most people over estimate the usefulness of their information.   Think about your last 24 hours of household conversation and consider whether it would be valuable or not to anyone listening in.   I once knew someone who was a member of the Labor party and they explained to me that they strongly suspected that their telephone was being bugged by ASIO.  They believed that their involvement with the Labor party during the reign of a conservative government made them a target. The hilarious thing was that their involvement with the Labor party amounted to sticking flyers in letterboxes and handing out how to vote cards on election day. I suspect their theory was driven by the need to big themselves up rather than fact.

4 hours ago, red750 said:

Jeff Bazos was reported to have hundreds of people monitoring and recording those conversations.

 This doesn't pass through my bullshit filter.  You have to ask the question of what information Bezos would find that would be useful.   Sure, it is useful for a business to know what we are thinking of purchasing so they can target us with advertising,  This happens all the time, but the most efficient way is through our internet searches.  This is cheap and easy.    The notion of employing vast numbers of people to listen to individual conversations is nonsense.   If someone wanted to do this wouldn't they use some sort of AI to record and sift billions of conversations?

 

We have a Google home assistant and I am pretty relaxed about that. It would not totally surprise me if conversations were picked up and used for marketing but at least for the moment it seems this does not happen.   As an experiment for a month everyday we talked about  booking a holiday in France. Although we had no such intention of travelling to France. we discussed which airline to book, discussed where to stay and what might the whether be like in May.   We were expecting to get ads on the net for airlines and accommodation etc.  but , nothing.   You only have to do a couple of searches online o start getting all sorts of marketing.   

 

If someone wants to listen to me pleasuring MS Octave through my Google home then good luck to them, perhaps they may learn some valuable techniques.

[Old Koreelah]

You seem to be a much more relaxed citizen than most, Octave! 

Regarding my internet searches being monitored, they sure could improve their targeting; I regularly get offered great deals on things I’ve already bought and have no need to purchase again. When I already have the car/TV/solar panel etc. it’s not likely I’ll be rushing out to buy another one!

[octave]

18 minutes ago, Old Koreelah said:

You seem to be a much more relaxed citizen than most, Octave! 

Regarding my internet searches being monitored, they sure could improve their targeting; I regularly get offered great deals on things I’ve already bought and have no need to purchase again. When I already have the car/TV/solar panel etc. it’s not likely I’ll be rushing out to buy another one!

 

Yes I can relate to that, getting adds for items I have already purchased although this does appeal to the part of me that likes to continue to shop after the purchase the either see how I could of got a better deal or how I made the right choice. 

I actually prefer targeted advertising to untargeted or poorly targeted advertising.

 

Many years ago we bought a large bush property outside of the town of Braidwood and effectively "dropped out"  we lived in a rough little hut whilst we built a modest house.   One day we got a letter which from some fancy Southern Tablelands country club. The letter stated that as one of the Southern tablelands "leading families" we were invited to come and inspect the facilities and for a mere "many thousands of dollars" become members. Because we were living in a little hut with no power or water whilst building our house we were pretty feral.   We did contemplate driving our rusty old ute  to the country club and saying "here we are, we would love to join"

 

 

[red750]

I did a couple of enquiries about places for rent as the house two doors up recently went up for lease, and as a sticky nose, I wondered what they were asking for it. I have been bombarded by house plans from builders and architects all over the world on FB. Each one I dismiss by selecting "don't show this ad", but that only applies to that advertiser. Each one is different. I have no intention or hope of building, just a waste of time. Surely there can't be many more builders or architects in the world. Even had them from India.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Virtually all forms on unecrypted electronic communications are monitored, and some electronic communications are able to be monitored, too. In fact, the FBi, AFP, and Europol were involved in taking over a secret messaging app used by crims, too: https://news.sky.com/story/hundreds-arrested-murder-plots-thwarted-and-drugs-seized-after-criminals-duped-into-using-app-monitored-by-police-12327609

 

When you talk over a cellular or fixed line network, the messages are being eavesdropped and scanned.. They don't use people though - sophisticated algorithms and AI are used to identify alerts.

 

Even though we are accessing this site through an encryption layer (TLS2.0, I would imagine), the posts are monitored through scrapers, etc, and can be tied back to where it came from using your return ip address on all your TCP packets sent... Unless you are spoofing your IP address. So, there are eyes watching us all the time. And a lot of the content on here will never get past the first level of interest, so, we are largely all right. But, if I were to write something like, "Who wants to join me on a jihad and plant a bomb in Trafalgar sqaure", it will attract interest of their algorithms and if there is sufficient basis, an alert will be generated and directed to the relevant agency. Exactly how that bit works, I have no idea.

 

And, yes, their systems are multi-lingual.

 

This is all fairly common knoweldge stuff. Encrypted communications make it tough as do cellular and internet networks as the messages are broken into packets from the source and each packet can take a diferent route to its destination, where the packets are re-assembled into the message.

 

 

[nomadpete]

I used to feel paranoid.

Then I found out ... everyone does hate me.

[Old Koreelah]

No I’m not paranoid; the bastards actually are out to get me!

[old man emu]

15 hours ago, octave said:

the most efficient way is through our internet searches.

Not even that. Simply present your loyalty card at the checkout and the retailer knows exactly what your purchase pattern are. Harking back to the cashless society thread - if people use cash and don't use loyalty cards, then retailers lose all this data. COVID has been a windfall for data collection because retailers promoted the use of plastic "to protect the health of staff".

 

Are loyalty cards worth it? I'm happy with the Woolworths one because the 4 cents per litre benefit is instantly redeemable. Try as I might, I can't seem to be able to convert my Flybuys points to a monetary unit. And I reckon I've got more value per dollar spent from my Woolies card than my Flybuys even with the thousands of dollars I've spent at Bunnings.

[octave]

22 minutes ago, old man emu said:

15 hours ago, octave said:

 

Not even that. Simply present your loyalty card at the checkout and the retailer knows exactly what your purchase pattern are.

 

I think that companies have loyalty cards for a reason.  Personally I am not too worried if a company knows what I have bought and thinks it may have an idea about what I may buy in the future.  Occasionally an ad generated by my data does hit the mark.  I would prefer if adverts were always tailored for me rather than just being random.      

28 minutes ago, old man emu said:

Are loyalty cards worth it?

Probably I guess.  The thing is to balance the pros and cons.  I don't have many usually because I cant be bothered and the savings are not enough to entice me. I do have a card  (I don't even know what it is called)  that resides on my phone and every so often invites me to take a 10% discount at Woolworths. 

I never use cash (or extremally rarely).    Most of my weekly purchases I do on my credit card and ever Friday we go through our online statement and zero the card.  This means we pay no interest and earn points.  These points could be cash back but we use them exclusively for Bunnings cards.   We would probably get around $250 of Bunnings vouchers each year.   The only credit card cost is $50 per year.    The other benefit of this is that when we pay the weekly credit card bill we fill in a spreadsheet with the categories of spending.  We can instantly know how much we spend on fuel or power or entertainment.

   

[old man emu]

3 minutes ago, octave said:

we fill in a spreadsheet with the categories of spending

And, Ladies, Gentlemen and curly-headed babies is the definitive definition of "anal retentive". 🤣

 

[octave]

1 minute ago, old man emu said:

And, Ladies, Gentlemen and curly-headed babies is the definitive definition of "anal retentive". 🤣

 

I know right.  Having retired early on our own super we were initially worried that we were fooling ourselves about whether we had enough money to do this.  We actually find our system is quick and easy and actually allows us to live better knowing where we are spending our money. We live pretty well on a  modest income.

[facthunter]

IF you pass on NEWS it's best you tell which source so I can save the time by not reading it.  You can do that on line or select your newspapers of which I regard NONE as worthy of reading..  Nev

[Bruce Tuncks]

Once, I read about how Aristotle Onassis got rich...  he kept ALL of his spendings in a diary. When I told the wife that we should do this too, it started a fight.

So goodonyer Octave. Keep up the good work.

[facthunter]

My comment does not refer to you Octave. It's general. Today more than ever, the source (and intent) of so called News has to be scrutinised CAREFULLY.  Nev

[red750]

I also keep a spreadsheet, not detailed like Octave's, more a duplication of the bank statement. I know I can get this by logging on to the bank website, but sometimes that is not convenient. And if the balances differ, I can immediately see why, or will know I have been scammed.

 

 

[old man emu]

Way back when I was a long-haired, bearded Ag student living in a hostel near the Uni, the old lady living next door said that she always had a quid for a flutter on the GGs because she had a budget and stuck to it. Being young and know-it-all, I ignored her advice. Now circumstances dictate that I live to a budget.

[facthunter]

It's a bucket. You have to pour more water in or stop some of the Leaks. Gamble only IF you can afford to lose but the ODDs are still DUMB mostly. WE are by far the World's TOP poker machine Gamblers and that's Australia the ""CLEVER Country" .   Nev

[onetrack]

Everyone operates to a budget, on the rich have a lot more money to "juggle". Many of the wealthy people I know do a huge amount of money juggling, and take huge risks, and many a time they pay off.

They reckon most people spent nearly all they earn, and 90% of the population would be bankrupt in a fortnight if a catastrophe happened, and the money stopped being paid.

[Old Koreelah]

40 minutes ago, onetrack said:

They reckon most people spent nearly all they earn, and 90% of the population would be bankrupt in a fortnight if a catastrophe happened, and the money stopped being paid.

That raises the issue of resiliance; how long can you go with the food and water in your house?

I believe most households and most supermarkets only have enough stock on hand for less than a week.

Our way of life is totally dependent on trucks, the people who drive them on a tight schedule and the fuel we import.

I guess there’s good in that; we are all interdependent, with plenty of incentive to be nice to each other. 

 

It occurrs to me that many of the nutters who are not nice to their fellow citizens took themselves outside this community.

[Bruce Tuncks]

After being told by his grandfather that he lived through the depression without ever knowing it was on ( he lived on a farm just north of Adelaide ) my son decided to be a farmer. 

I reckon we would be better off without any of the "help" we get, which consists of about $300 worth of road works a year, while we pay $6000 rates.

We could go a long time here.