Re: how to use fetchmail with MS Office 365 / davmail?
On Sat, 01 May 2021 09:28:04 +0200
deloptes <deloptes@gmail.com> wrote:
> Joe wrote:
>
> > I know someone who started to be shown online adverts that could
> > only have been based on a sound-wave conversation within the
> > hearing of his smartphone. I don't know about other similar claims,
> > but I trust his.
> >
> > Are you saying that you don't believe anyone could be that naughty?
> > Go look up 'superfish' and 'lenovo' if you're not aware of the
> > incident, and that was years ago. I don't believe that advertisers
> > consider any kind of non-lethal behaviour to be unethical.
>
> People can state anything, but it is not necessary true.
>
> However if you have enabled some kind of assistant like Alexa, Siri or
> whatever they are called, it could be that they are indeed spying on
> you. Again to make such a statement means you need to provide
> evidence.
>
> Some state their brainwaves are being influenced by whatever (video,
> tv, wireless) It could be true, but there is no evidence and the
> probability of this being true is very low.
At the moment, yes. But there are regular announcements of brain wave
measurements being used by e.g. disabled people to allow some control
of things. Do you doubt for a moment that researchers around the world
are studying brain waves with a view to at least surveillance of
thoughts, if not control, of for weaponry?
>
> I am writing this and asking you to start checking facts and stop
> believing.
>
Facts have become extremely difficult to come by. Almost every
potential supplier of 'facts' has his own agenda and cannot be trusted
to be honest. Even universities, which used to carry out research just
for the sake of it (e.g. Faraday, Davy etc.) are now mostly sponsored
by businesses and cannot be trusted to be unbiased. Everything has been
made political, and there is nobody who does not have their own
political beliefs and agendas. We users and writers of free software
certainly do.
I work on the basis that if something underhanded and unethical can be
done and can provide some political or financial return, it *will* be
done until it is discovered and measures are put in place to prevent it
happening, if indeed that ever occurs. Manufacturers *have* been caught
eavesdropping on people in their homes, and said that these occasions
were 'accidental', or for quality control purposes, or some such. Some
even admit to targeting advertising:
https://www.techwalls.com/samsung-smart-tv-eavesdropping-company-admits/
'Here’s what Samsung says to warn you, at least:
“Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other
sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured
and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice
Recognition.”'
Such manufacturers say that voice facilities can be turned off to
prevent this, but whose word do we have to take that it is true?
Remember when Google StreetView camera vehicles were found to be
collecting personal wifi SSDs and anything available that was
unencrypted as they drove around?
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/may/15/google-admits-storing-private-data
Naturally, there were good, honest reasons for doing that, but Google
would have looked more ethical if it had announced in advance that it
would be doing it, instead of hiding it until it was discovered.
Remember when the shiny new Windows 95 was found to be accumulating in
a file the names of web sites visited? That was a very crude and
unsophisticated way of spying, a quarter of a century ago, but it
brought to the public's attention the fact that such spying was now
possible. Even Windows 95 was just too large to disassemble and audit,
and an installation was by today's standards a drop in the ocean at
25MB. Windows now occupies tens of gigabytes, and even a large Linux
installation can be several GB in size.
> This is not religion.
There is nothing 'religious' about assuming that many private businesses
will take every opportunity to make money from you in ways that you
would not permit if you were given the choice. What is the purpose of
'free' social media, after all? What about the written guarantee cards
provided with products since the early twentieth century, to be
returned to obtain some small additional benefit? What were they if not
the gathering of low-level purchasing information to assist future
marketing? We *know* that's the kind of thing businesses do. We should
expect them to use all possibly technological assistance to do it more
and better. And we can certainly expect our rulers to spy on us
whenever possible.
--
Joe
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