There, said it! You are using smart-phones right? Well, me too and i'm not happy to say it but we are screwed.
Ever since I got my first Xperia X10 back in 2010 I realized these devices were a bit too smart. And not before long everyone with a 3 digit IQ realized that these devices are being used to gather personal information from our daily lives.
"We are gathering user information so we can improve the user experience" - this is the bullshit that every company is trying to sell, but actually they just gather precious information that is priceless to some communities - both in thе private and government sector.
"But they can't take data we did not agree to share."- I still can't believe it when i hear someone say this with confidence. Let me put it this way - a bunch of programmers gathered and made an experiment with two phones. One of them was on an airplane mode and the other was on an airplane mode and without a SIM card. They used them a bit and then connected them through a Wi-Fi router, so they could see what was being sent out. The moment they connected to the Internet both devices started sending info like crazy.
They were not sending info only about the current activity, but also about the activity performed while they were not connected and the info contained when they were sitting or in motion, running walking or driving and much more including their locations even though the GPS was turned off.
Major lawsuits have been led against most of the big companies dealing in smart-phones, because of this, especially after Wikileaks. Sadly not enough people get involved in the cases and in the end even when they are won, the profit for these giant companies are more than enough to cover a few lawsuits and after that do it all over again.
Part of the problem is the mentality of people, because a lot of them are cool with this saying stupid things like: "Well yeah, they steal all of my personal info, but look what nice camera it has." I'm worried that more and more people are so passive about Big Brother's plan to keep an eye on us all of the time. It even got you a fingerprint detector. How nice of him.
We are being robbed! We are being robbed of our privacy - the privacy of our lives and thoughts. And they make us pay big cash for it. The smart-phone profits are skyrocketing and it's fueled by unethical marketing strategies which include corruption of old devices through updates. Apple even admitted doing it and stated that they were doing it, because this way it's better for the users. How is it in my interest to spend money for a new device when my old one is still ok? Well we made it so it's not OK so you can buy the new one and give us several more billion dollars in the process.
Both Apple and Samsung are getting sued because a lot of people managed to prove that the giants are crashing perfectly good working devices through software. And I personally know people with Iphone and Samsung devices that experienced this firsthand - new update after which the device won't start and it's unfixable.
My personal story started 4 months ago when i got an update for my Samsung Note Edge a device I got 3 years ago. After the update my phone started restarting and crashing every 2 minutes.
After 4 days of reading i finally found a solution and managed to fix this, by installing a special software, that cured my problem and the phone worked normally, until last week when something happened again. Guess what? Samsung had a new update for me, but this time after it finished, my phone couldn't even boot.
I tried factory settings and but that didn't resolve the problem. I tried restoring the OS through the samsung software on my computer, because I knew it had this function and guess what? When i clicked on restore os the software stated that it no longer supports this function?! Since when? Since samsung started crashing phones so the users would buy the new one.
I raged. A lot. As you can guess when i called Samsung support they were as useless as they come. In my place most of the people would buy a new one. Why? Because the marketing team has already made it easy for the consumer to participate in programs which allows them to easily upgrade to the new model and we know people just want NEW STUFF. It's not prestigious to walk around with a 5 year old phone anymore.
Well fuck that! I come from a family of engineers and if something is not disintegrated then it's not broken yet. I started reading and after 2 days of forums and attempts i finally installed a normally working OS on my device and it even works better now. I want to thank all the guys on XDA Developers, for sharing their knowledge. I wouldn't have made it without them.
Despite that after this stupid update i lost around 400 drawings, that i made on the phone, that were more precious to me than the device itself. My sister went through the same thing with her Iphone, but her device was not fixable. So fuck Samsung and fuck Apple too. Greedy little info thieves.
Most of the people would say yeah, but if it wasn't them it would've been someone else. Please don't be ignorant like them and at least try to put up a fight against it. Install custom OS on your device, use an old phone,whatever fits your style do it. Not because you have something to hide from the world, but because you have the right to have privacy.
Photos: Pixabay
Think Big! xTrex
