Summary: Tracking in Facebook criticised; Malicious features in mobile phones (tracking and listening) are being discussed as well
THIS 84th episode speaks about phones' exploitation for tracking and listening by authorities. For those who are not aware yet, as long as the main battery is inside a phone, or any battery at all is inside a phone (some have several batteries), then even when the phone is switched off it can be used to listen to the carrier and his/her environment. Craig Murray, a former British ambassador, says the MI5 uses this technique.
Android/Replicant are discussed, noting that they do not help resolve the above issue. One listener of TechBytes asked: "Maybe you could ask him [Stallman] about so called smartphones. Everybody knows he doesn't use any... But can he think any condition he could think about using one. Fairphone? Phone with FirefoxOS? Prepaid SIM without registration?" Stallman said he was hypothetically thinking about getting an OpenMoko phone, but eventually decided that tracking would be unavoidable.
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually