[briandear]

Are you really this paranoid? You must be loads of fun at parties. It's interesting though because your British government is tracking your phone, your texts and watching you as you traverse London on CCTV. But luckily Microsoft doesn't know about your affinity for Yorkshire Terriers and love of Bass Ale.

Don't get me wrong, I value privacy, but all things in moderation, including paranoia. I personally don't think most peopke's lives are that controversial to be so concerned about their privacy that they'll avoid the grid altogether lest some lewd fact trickle out amongs the billions of other lewd facts trickling out about everyone.

[batou]

I spent a number of years working for nefarious defence contractors so the paranoia is somewhat justified. My paranoia is clearly required as I've been responsible for the security architecture at a number of financial companies and have a lot of experience dealing with both the human and technology aspects of data.

Safety in numbers is only valid if it's difficult to discern facts from the flock. But it's not. The technology logs and correlates specific data for fast retrieval rather than collecting noise and then discerning the signal later on.

Oh and I'd never drink Bass; maybe an Abbots or two ;)

[ionised]

> I personally don't think most peopke's lives are that controversial to be so concerned about their privacy that they'll avoid the grid altogether lest some lewd fact trickle out amongs the billions of other lewd facts trickling out about everyone.

This sounds suspiciously like 'nothing to hide nothing to fear'.

I don't think batou is being overly paranoid at all. Especially not with the last year or more of news.

If anything, this is massive tech company overreach on the part of Microsoft, Apple and especially Google and Facebook.

More protection in law is what is needed, not for people to suck it up and accept it.