FreeSoftwareActivism/think-of-the-children.md

Is it currently, the door to your house, locked or unlocked? When you go outside, do you lock the doors? When you go to sleep do you lock the doors? Or you like the idea that whoever can come at any moment and take whatever they want? I know that even in places where crime is very low, the precaution of locking the door still matters a lot. People may say "I have nothing to hide", but that doesn't mean that they have nothing to loose. As soon as they see that there is value in what ever they are hiding. They will lock the doors.

Research Requires Data

In one of my previous articles I already dived deeply into why personal information is so valuable to the corporations. But in a very shortened form, in order to manipulate the masses better, they need to figure out, mathematically, how the brain works. So they could sell things a lot easier, make things a lot more addictive, and make you vote for who ever they want you to vote.

This requires a data sets of as many personal points of your life as possible. Anything they can legally gather on you. And it is legal to some extent. Even though it becomes illegal slowly, the, so called "Consent" making all of this still legal in most places. If you remember, most data-collecting dis-services like you to agree to forms that you never read.

Let's say that the ultimate goal of this, so called "research" is to manipulate people better. In any research:

• Data has to be gathered.
• Correlations need to be observed.
• Tests should be conducted to find probable causations.

Remember that correlation and causation are not the same thing. This is why politicians can lie so easily about statistics. But let's go back to the actual "science" at hand.

Data could things like: Whether you stopped for a moment to look at a post while scrolling in Facebook or Twitter. Whether you watched a video on YouTube. Or how much of that video you watched... On what point have you stopped... What was the expression of your face while watching it? Yes. They might record your face while you watch a video if you don't tape off the camera. Other data may include things like your location. People you talk to and how frequently. What exactly are your messages... What is your facial expression when you read a certain message... And so on. Even conversations that happen outside of the phone with people present in the room where the phone is, are important statistical data. Phones have microphones after all.

Next you need to find the correlations. Before computers it would be done by humans. And it still can by done by humans in some hard to code areas. But most of the times, it is done by a program. By an artificial intelligence. Which is just a fancy name for a complicated program. It is given ALL THE DATA. And it looks for correlations.

Next, we need to test those correlations for causations. This is done using the recommendation feeds, personalized ads and so on. When you come to YouTube and you load the first page with suggestions on what videos you might like. It is the test of causation.

Whether you click on something it suggested, it is just another data point. It will be thrown back to the program that searches correlations to learn how to manipulate you better.

So think about this. It is very valuable for those companies to find anything about you, that they can. Why don't you lock the doors?

Rogue Employees...

Due to the recent pandemics I imagine a lot of employees of companies, who's jobs are to sit in front of a computer, prefer to stay home, since there is no expense of travelling to the office. It is arguably more convenient to wear a casual pajamas while writing code or checking correlations for some corporation then to wear a suit, or at least presentable clothes in a boring office. But even if they are in an office, there are still moments of privacy that a rouge employee can exploit.

Imagine a rapist working in a high-tech firm. You can't know for certain who that person is. Or how many of them are in the firm. Some might even be serial rapists. Or serial killers. Put any terrible sounding title here. The other staff probably has not a single clue about that person. They are usually very well trained in protecting their privacy. Criminals like to lock their doors. And working for some company like Google or Facebook is kind of a clever cover. And of course a good source of "inspiration".

There could be laws and regulations about what can be done and cannot be done about the data gathered by corporations. So called "Data protection" laws. But quite frankly our case study, the rapist, doesn't give a damn about them. After all, he is sitting in his house, during the pandemic. Or he is left to a few minutes by himself in the office.

This rapist has the full range of data recorded in real time to choose a potential victim from. He might see messages of your children talking to each other, planning to meet at a playground at certain time. He might start planning to go there after work. He already knows how they look and how they think. It would be easy for him to manipulate them into his car.

The "Earn It" act

There is a law proposal going through the government of the US that might or might not pass. And if it passes, it might make the situation even worse. They claim that the law will "protect children from predators". While in reality, it would allow more predators to get to the children. It will require companies that allow encrypted communication through their services, to loosen it just a bit, so the law enforcement could read the messages. For example, if one serial killer is sending proof of murder to another. Law enforcement could spot it. And put the two in jail. But there is catch.

Internet can be thought as just a complicated radio. When you want to send a message, you broadcast it away. Any computer connected to the internet between you and the intended receiver, can see the broadcast. If we were talking without encryption, it would mean that anybody can read anything that we said to each other. It's like chatting in the comment section.

Encryption takes a message and mangles it into an unrecognizable mess. But since it's doing it mathematically, with a specific key combination, it could be un-mangled back into the message that was sent. Currently with good end-to-end encryption, only two people can see the proper message. The sender and the intended receiver. Law enforcement or criminals cannot see those messages. For them it's a mangled mess.

If you loosen the encryption so law enforcement can see it, by what ever means. This is like having a ticking clock bomb inside the encryption algorithm. Law enforcement will of-course know about the exploit first. But soon, criminals with very bad intentions will also figure it out. And the effect is like if there was no encryption in the first place.

Question for parents: Would you rather prefer, a system where pedophiles can reach your children's data easily? Their location and such... But they could not safely send pictures of them to other pedophiles. Or would like real encryption. Which means your kids are safe, but people can send pictures of god knows what to one another?

How to stop all of this none-sense?

I wouldn't claim that I know the perfect solution to all of these problems. But there is a answer that, with a bit of caution, can make your life a lot more private. It not the ultimate lock. But it's a good lock. Better than nothing.

I'm talking about Free Software. Software that respects users Freedom and community. Which is not owned by corporations. And which is probably even immune to the "Earn It" act, if such a stupidity passes. The source code of the software is easily viewable and editable. And if a change in the encryption algorithm will happen, people can just fork it, to form a truly private program. leaving those suckers who want to comply with the stupid law, without users.

Furthermore the software is not owned by any corporation. Or by anyone really. Which means, there is nobody really in charge that can get in trouble for not complying. And even if they will get to somebody who is "responsible". His absence will not shut down the software at hand. Because of it's decentralized nature.

If you delete Facebook's software and Google's Software from your child's device. And replace them with Free Software that does analogous things. You will save the child, by protecting his or her privacy. Removing privacy protection to catch a few criminals will also allow criminals to be criminals more easily. They for sure will use Free Software with good encryption no matter what the law says. They are criminals after all.

To truly think of the child, I suggest you to buy the Librem 5 phone to your child. Or no phone at all. Google's android and Apple's IOS are very bad. They have glaring privacy problems. You can read this list of malware to see what I mean.

Footnote:

Remember, there are 3 sensitive topics used to undermine our freedom or privacy. Those are mere manipulations and have nothing to do with the real intent of the proposal. Every-time that you hear them it's a red flag. The topics are:

• Pedophiles
• Terrorists
• Coronavirus.

Happy Hacking!!!