Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

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Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
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If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
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Noob Question: If you aren't willing to deal with custom OSes like Linux (for computers) and Android Custom Roms (for phones), do you just not have any privacy at all? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I mean, exactly how invasive are default operating systems? (Like Windows, Mac, Chrome OS, Android, iOS) Do they log your keystrokes, log passwords, capture screen, upload your photos, videos, or audio? (Assuming you aren't a target of government) Is it even possible for the average person who doesn't feel comfortable messing with installing operating systems to have any privacy?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

It depends on what you consider spying. The vast majority of devices want some form of push notification capability, which requires being connected to Microsoft/Google/Apple servers, and thus the company knows your IP address. But doing pretty much anything on the internet and you expose your IP address.

If what you mean by spying you think it is looking at what app/program you are doing, recording your keystrokes, recording what your camera sees, the vast majority of devices don't do any of this. Those are done on hacked laptops and school laptop admins that are either creepy and unchecked or overly intrusive.

Somewhere between these two extremes you would say it crosses the boundary into spying. You don't need a custom OS to stop it unless you your threshold is all the way to the push notification level.