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2019 Surveillance Glossary

Part 1: 2019 Tech Glossary

A dictionary



Summary: Distortion of technical and nontechnical terms in this day and age of '1984'

Phone: a small computer that can also make phonecalls (but rarely does) ISP: surveillance company that give bandwidth in exchange for your personal data (deeply-inspected packets) Car: surveillance on four wheels ATM: location-tracking checkpoint, converting or exchanging financial data in return for notes Smartwatch: surveillance attached to one's wrist Fitness tracker: surveillance optimised for insurance companies' needs Sleep tracker: same as above ("fitness tracker") but for nighttime Data mining: interpretation of personal secrets and mental thoughts/beliefs based on publicly-stated information Photograph: object/file with location/temporal data and typically faces to decipher who was where (and when, who with, mood) Streaming: modality for tracking one's choice of acoustic input and sometimes mood Account: facility for identification (to combat anonymity) 2FA: enhanced means of enforcing identification to stifle anonymity Phone number: enumeration of subjects (see above), akin to RFID and serialisation Data portability: facility for passing (copying) data from one surveillance datacentre to another, or from one spying company to another Printer: device for printing pale yellow dots with some other, user-required rendering on paper Webcam: low-cost user-facing CCTV that cannot be removed but can typically be covered by tape Operating system: a back-doored, remotely-accessible piece of software on which to run other software X86: a high-performance albeit defective (by design) chipset as failsafe for the above Journalist: a glorified writer who calls privacy-conscious people paranoid Data broker: surveillance monetiser President/Prime Minister: elevated politician who signs papers to authorise all the above

Recent Techrights' Posts

There's Nothing "Funny" About Attacking Free Speech and Software Freedom
persistent focus on the principal issues is very important
GNU/Linux Adoption in Africa, a Passageway Towards Freedom From Neo-Colonialism
Digi(tal)-Colonialism and/or Techolonialism are a thing. Can Africa flee the trap?
 
Links 05/12/2023: Microsoft's Chatbot as Health Hazard
Links for the day
Professor Eben Moglen Explained How Software Patent Threats Had Changed Around 2014 (Alice Case) and What Would Happen Till 2025
clip aged reasonably well
CNN Contributes to Demolition of the Open Web
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Eben Moglen on Encryption and Anonymity
The alternate net we need, and how we can build it ourselves
Yet More Microsofters Inside the Board of Mozilla (Which Has Just Outsourced Firefox Development to Microsoft's Proprietary Prison)
Do you want a browser controlled (and spied on) by such a company?
IRC Proceedings: Monday, December 04, 2023
IRC logs for Monday, December 04, 2023
GNU/Linux Now Exceeds 3.6% Market Share on Desktops/Laptops, According to statCounter
things have changed for Windows in China
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Links 05/12/2023: Debt Brake in Germany and Layoffs at Condé Nast (Reddit, Wired, Ars Technica and More)
Links for the day
[Meme] Social Control Media Giants Shaping Debates on BSDs and GNU/Linux
listening to random people in Social Control Media
Reddit (Condé Nast), Which Has Another Round of Layoffs This Month, Incited People Against GNU/Linux Users (Divide and Rule, It's 2003 All Over Again!)
Does somebody (perhaps a third party) fan the flames?
Who Will Hold the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Accountable for Taking Bribes From Microsoft and Selling Out to Enable/Endorse Massive Copyright Infringement?
it does Microsoft advocacy
Using Gemini to Moan About Linux and Spread .NET
Toxic, acidic post in Gemini
Web Monopolist, Google, 'Pulls a Microsoft' by Hijacking/Overriding the Name of Competitor and Alternative to the Web
Gulag 'hijacking' 'Gemini'
Links 04/12/2023: Mass Layoffs at Spotify (Debt, Losses, Bubble) Once Again
Links for the day
ChatGPT Hype/Vapourware (and 'Bing') Has Failed, Google Maintains Dominance in Search
a growing mountain of debt and crises
[Meme] Every Real Paralegal Knows This
how copyright law works
Forging IRC Logs and Impersonating Professors: the Lengths to Which Anti-Free Software Militants Would Go
Impersonating people in IRC, too
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, December 03, 2023
IRC logs for Sunday, December 03, 2023
GNU/Linux Popularity Surging, So Why Did MakeUseOf Quit Covering It About 10 Days Ago?
It's particularly sad because some of the best articles about GNU/Linux came from that site, both technical articles and advocacy-centric pieces
Links 04/12/2023: COVID-19 Data Misused Again, Anti-Consumerism Activism
Links for the day
GNOME Foundation is in Reliable Hands (Executive Director)
Growing some good in one's garden
Links 03/12/2023: New 'Hey Hi' (AI) Vapouware and Palantir/NHS Collusion to Spy on Patients Comes Under Legal Challenge
Links for the day
'Confidential Computing'? More Like a Giant Back Door.
CacheWarp AMD CPU Attack Grants Root Access in Linux VMs
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, December 02, 2023
IRC logs for Saturday, December 02, 2023
Links 03/12/2023: CRISPR as Patented Minefield, Lots of Greenwashing Abound
Links for the day