democracy is a funny lie

I don't like scaring people, i don't like triggering anxiety, and i definitely don't want to come off as a downer. The world is full of shitty governments run by shitty people who think they have a right to your privacy.

I've been reading a few articles to just catch myself up on some tech news and it seems these governments don't understand they are elected to serve the people, not pass laws that they think can just magically collect all our data. So a few states are rolling up bills that require operating system level age verification, pardon these dumbfucks in office, they don't understand much. Basically these bills push companies to require account creation with them and to use "age signal"(true fucking term used in the colorado bill). the "age signal" gets sent to the OS app store and all apps would supposedly have to request this "age signal" from the account company(apple/google/windows) to authorize the user.

Dumb as hell and proves how little these people understand devices, so rather than i say something like "we're cooked" or "1984", instead let me say it ain't shit.

Now if you're on iphone or mac, you shouldn't be, because there is no workaround for this. Sideloading is doable with the altstore, but not if they decide icloud accounts are now required. Android and PC have options. Android can either install lineageOS or GrapheneOS if you have a pixel, Graphene is easy and can be done all from your pc browser. For PC there isn't really anything these laws can do, Linux is ungovernable period and windows can be easily modified.

Now another thing i've come across is digital id. Now i'm gonna be the one people side eye and real talk for a minute, cause i think people miss how much of an id already exists.

So US reference, you're born you are given a social security number, that number will be what lets you get a job and open bank accounts or get a home(apartment or house). You go to school or the doctor, they also have this number. Get arrested, also tied to the number. That's your education, home, job, finances, health, and criminal record all tied to that little number. 

Now let's talk about the companies that sell your face, starting with elementary school. That list everyone keeps talking about, that company that has been responsible for almost all school photos for over a decade was found to have been involved with. Yep, our photos got sold to peds sizing up prey. Next you get your license, big day to finally drive by yourself, and the fucking DMVs sell that to databrokers. Now we take to the streets, open roads and Flock cameras watching like vultures and your car brand dealership definitely isn't sending your driving data to insurance companies. That's fine, just come home and relax. You get greeted by your digital doorbell with its cute chime, and it just scanned your face for the 10th time this week.

I feel like i could mention how internet privacy ties into this, but my fingers are already cramping from typing. I did post a blog on internet privacy already, but i think i'll do another elaboration later. The point here is that they already have all the personal info of you to influence how difficult they wanna make your life, digital id just makes pulling all this data up faster for them.

Just practice basic internet hygiene, cause it's the only place where you don't have to be branded.