This is a gen x complaint. Boomers would just ask their kids to set it up because they can’t get it to work. Gen x realizes what is going on and that it is bullshit to need an account for a fucking lightbulb.
I think it’s a complaint from everyone but Gen z, who are just used to it.
Somewhere between milennial and gen-z here. I can’t fucking stand making more accounts just because companies want to collect data. And neither can my gen-z younger siblings.
Used to it ≠ Not complaining about it
Ah. Resignation is NOT acceptance.
Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy.
As genz, can confirm
I think this is a common-sense complaint, mostly unrelated to generation.
I mean yeah we are used to it but it’s still shitty. Are you not used to it?
Gen z to me is just the boomers mark II.
For what reason? That doesn’t make any sense.
I meet a lot of overentitled Gen z. They remind me of the boomers that I also meet a lot of. Of course neither group can see it.
This might surprise you, but people are people no matter what generation they were born in.
Boomers is a name for a specific reason.
So you agree.
Millennial here. We are in agreement.
My late 50s mum happily signs up with her Facebook to everything. Meanwhile it’s often the people in their late 20s to 30s who were introduced to computers during their youth before everything had super streamlined GUIs who know enough about software that they realize this is a privacy concern, what internet privacy means, and why it’s important. People who are older or younger than that have to go out of their way to learn how and why to look behind the easy interfaces. That’s my experience and explanation at least.
Remember when our parents were super nuts about keeping your info private online, not revealing too much info to strangers, and not signing up for stupid shit? My my, how the turntables.
My 70yo mom thinks I’m crazy paranoid because of my data privacy stances, while she’s dealing with constant spam and account hacks. Guess who hasn’t had damn near any info issues? :D
I was never allowed to be on Club penguin or the like. I also wasn’t allowed to be on Facebook when it became popular around me, until I was 14. Mum, what happened?
Tbf you weren’t missing much with Facebook. It was kinda cool in the early days when it replaced MySpace (like Reddit to Digg), but that went out the window pretty quick when all your extended family are calling your parents wondering why there are tagged pictures of you dancing around a fire half naked with a liquor bottle in your hand at 3am.
That’s because for her the only risk is about getting kidnapped or killed, stuff that needs physical contact. Getting accounts hacked and phone scams are relatively new in her life span.
Not personally, but I remember the feeling
My mom never actually had any idea what the internet was. My dad bought the PC for me, so he probably would’ve doubled down if he knew what I was seeing and maybe would’ve even said it was good for me or not a big deal or something
It’s weird to see my 11yr old brother now with the exact same access to YouTube which I’d ironically argue is a lot worse than old rotten.com. No idea if that’s true but an argument could be made, for sure
Eh the internet was a lot simpler back then. Yeah there was fucked up shit around like there is today, but social networking imo is what really screwed the pooch. Back then, people just posted screwy shit for the sake of it and had varying degrees of influence, but now almost everything out there is intended to manipulate your behavior and worldview on a mainstream level. It’s a shitton more dangerous than the weirdos in chatrooms asking a/s/l.
My young family members are the worst, they just click “yes” to everything, regardless of any effort I’ve made to explain how things work.
Any barrier to convenience is too frustrating to them. They don’t like even using full applications in their laptops, always say “wheres the app, this is too complex”. 🤦🏼♂️
that’s not just young people that’s 80~90% of users
You’re not wrong. Ffs.
I’d say you made the point better than any of us.
I know some network security folks, in their 40’s, who’ve literally said “I don’t want to be inconvenienced” when discussing why they tolerate this invasive shit.
Motherfucker, your job is securing networks. You know first hand the kind of shit going on out there.
I really wish more things just let me log in with Facebook, I don’t want to fill out and make passwords for every pointless site. At least I can be somewhat confident that Facebook will follow security standards.
Based on their long track record of privacy excellence?
They dont care about your privacy, they do care about their security, which your account being compromised would hurt.
Might I recommend a reasonably secure browser with an in-built password generator and manager? I use Firefox. You make up a username and it generates a safe password and saves it so you don’t have to remember it’d Just use a safe password for the browser itself that you can easily remember. I personally feel that’s a decent compromise between secure and convenient.
I love the basic instructions for someone debating security policy nuance. It’s like you don’t get that he’s way, way, way beyond “pick a password you can easily remember” despite the technical level of the discussion.
The person I’m replying to isn’t the only one reading the comment. Chances are someone who’s on the fence or hasn’t interacted with the issue yet will benefit from it a little. That’s what I like to think at least.
That’s still shifting responsibility to the users, which is great for all these crappy products, but we should be demanding better.
Of course, but meanwhile, we have to take of our own privacy.
They still have a profile on everyone, established long before we could limit anything.
Hahahahahaha Facebook follow security standards? Your fucking kidding, right?
Facebook, probably the first greatest scourge of privacy invading companies (worse than Google), follows secjrity standards?
The motherfuckers have a profile on me, and I’ve never once been on any Facebook website or service, let alone logged into any Facebook crap.
You’re probably aware, but welcome to third party tracking. You can’t truly get away from this trash unless you start doing some hardcore blocking at the network level (apps have tracking too).
Boomers would get the bulb set up by their kids, then something will happen, and you come over to find your parents sitting in a rave room because they need the light and can’t fix it.
And haven’t mentioned the issue even though it’s been like that for months.
Hahahahaha “rave room” ain’t that the truth
Nope. Mom’s meross bulb got a little fucked in a power failure. She unscrewed its green self and put in a regular bulb.
Boomers WILL solve this. But they’ll go low-tech even if it means unplugging the cord to turn it off.
Gen X here and can confirm.
what kind of lightbulbs are you guys buying? I’ve never had to set up an account for this kind of stuff
Sadly these days, it’s a hold over from boomer managers making the decision that services require logins, which in turn require accounts and emails. So gen-x managers who were taught by boomers do the same thing. It’s systematic really.
I don’t think it’s boomer managers doing that, necessarily; I think it’s an unholy alliance of liassez-faire tech bro entrepreneurs and the
propagandamarketing industry.
It’s also a millennial complaint.
Sincerely, elder millennial who recently had to make an account for a lightbulb and an air cooler and is sick of that bullshit.
Boomer isn’t really used as a generational term nowadays
Gen Z doesn’t know what a “boomer” is…
Not wanting to be exploited by tech coorporations, technological literacy, is not a boomer thing.
I mean, have you met zoomers? Technological literacy as we knew it is dead.
but also have you met boomers? Tech literacy as we knew never existed.
Born too late to be blissfully unaware about technology
Born too early to be blissfully unaware about technology
Born in just the right time to have the cursed knowledge on how all of the cobbled together tech stack out there barely works
Every time I use an ATM I get the mental image of a 70 year old COBOL programmer desperately trying to patch holes in a sinking ship with a roll of duct tape.
Me too, except any time I have to deal with the US banking system. Ever used ACH? What a wreck.
It’s a fucking nightmare, but I have heard rumors that it is in the process of being replaced with a new nightmare.
Boomers were the generation that invented a lot of this tech. Most of them weren’t literate, but I have known quite a few who were. Honestly same with Gen x, we grew up with it but, a lot of the good tech didn’t come until later in our lives. There are tons of illiterate gen xers and millennials and gen y and z. Some people care and some people don’t.
Gen X and Millennials to the rescue
Laugh it up now. When we’re 50, our holoshere is going to require us to submit to genetic modifications to get our next soylent nutrition paste to dispense. God only knows how we connect to a person young enough in 2040 to know if it’s even possible to bypass. That kind of stuff was laughed at the last time we tried.
Quick, invent everything before we get too old!
Gen X would like a word
@The_Picard_Maneuver I once bought a TV sound bar that wanted me to download an app, make an account and give it detailed location information just to use it as a wired speaker. I returned it.
I wish more people would do this!
If more people acted this way this wouldn’t be the standard
The only radio with Bluetooth that fits my older car requires a fucking Android app to sync Bluetooth… Fuck you pioneer!
Thankfully there’s a ton of workarounds for that.
If there’s a tape deck, you can do headphone jack to cassette tape. If you don’t have a headphone jack on your phone you can get a little bluetooth reciever to headphone jack type thing.
There’s also the route of using a small device to broadcast your own little AM station (same deal, gets audio from jack or bluetooth), then tune into it with your existing head unit.
Best way is to just rig up your own aux in, but that requires some doing.
Was it a Bose? I once bought Bose headphones and downloaded an app to pair it. When Bose recognized the headphones, it told me that I had used the wrong app to pair to those headphones.
@snow_bunny Nah, it was Sonos. Which, I guess the app ecosystem is their whole thing - but I didn’t know that at the time. I just wanted a basic sound bar, and the reviews didn’t really mention that all that extra fluff was mandatory.
In retrospect Sonos sucks for a lot of other reasons too, so I guess it was a bullet dodged.
Good, cause it sounds like absolute junk
That’s my pet hate with everything.
A mouse doesn’t need an account. Just let me install the shit and configure it you fucks.
Linux has built in drivers for most shit with no account necessary. Logitech (for example) has a third party app called Solaar that does everything Logitechs own crappy mouse/keyboard software does.
Getting away from the endless hassle of popups and drivers was my biggest motivation for switching to Linix way back in 2008.
Does it work with the g pro mice? I fucking hate the logi app
I used it with a G503, it should work.
You just connect them as everything Bluetooth in Linux and they work
Then I though it would be nice to see battery levels and stuff, and installed Linux solar and now I have dumb pop ups every once in a while.
Sure, but it’s not exactly easy to remap all the extra non-standard buttons on my g602 & g604
Not only an account. The Razer Naga needs connection to the cloud so the macros work properly
Outrageous. Do the macros get processed in the cloud or what?
Cheaper than putting the hardware for it in the mouse.
This shit I don’t get. Your computer can’t handle that? Loading up tons of trash in the cloud is fucking atrocious.
But now they can say “cloud compatible” in the board meeting!
How is this a boomer complaint? Why does everyone need my email and info?
So they can sell it to spam companies obviously.
Er I mean… For better customer exploitation!
Shit, I’m really not good at this but they’re going to send me to the
to exploit you. not being exploited at a molecular level is boomer shit.
now, are you an old, or are you gonna send me a copy of your social security number and complete sequenced genome?
now, are you an old, or are you gonna send me a copy of your social security number and complete sequenced genome?
Does email work or do you have a mailing address? I’ll spit in a cup and send that to you if I need to but I’d rather not have to go to the post office.
do you have like a cloud storage with at least 1TB? if not, we’re gonna have to sneakernet this.
I lack that much cloud storage, I’ll see if I can track down a station wagon I can fill up with tapes.
What I love was it is boomers that allows these changes so they gotta live with it. It’s not like we all woke up and decided to start asking for emails for everything. It was sitting back and being cool with letting ads take over everything until they started needing more and more data so they weren’t paying 30 million for beer ads to people who don’t drink
Ok boomer.
Lol jk
Bro we need to track you in every way possible so we can sell you even more shit, what’s the big deal?
Um, how about no Scott, okay? You got my money, if you wanna keep pestering for more money, I’m gonna return this original item and you aren’t getting shit.
Ladies and gentlemen, Scotty don’t.
Scotty n’est pas
For me it’s that I don’t want short form video anywhere near my view.
I went to a bar for a drink the other day. They had TVs all over the place which I normally don’t care for but it looked like golf or something I could just ignore. After I ordered my drink I realized how wrong was.
It was actually some weird short form video TV channel. They croped the 16:9 screen into a 1:1 square with moving neon lines in the “empty space” where there was no video. Each video was about 5 seconds long and showed brainless content of people using a Rube Goldburg machine or doing card tricks and other such nonsense.
Once I realized what was happening it was too late as I got my drink and I felt compelled to finish it and pay. I tried to ignore the 5+ screens in my view but they were too big and eye-catching to really ignore. I kept catching myself looking at one of the screens after a minute or so. I felt like I was getting serotonin raped between ads.
Eventually I moved to sit by a window and stare at a tree. I’ll never go back to a bar like that again.
This reads like a cyberpunk vignette; I enjoyed it. Thank you. I’ve started to take note when something decidedly cyberpunk happens in day-to-day life. I make a lot of notes.
I could increase the cyberpunk feeling by turning the TVs off with a flipper zero. I haven’t felt the need to yet but it’s always an option.
Remember when phones had ir transmitters
I was so jealous of my dad’s HTC one, haha.
that’s the direction we all need to be moving, if we’re going to survive/avert the water wars.
That’s an idea…
CHILI’S IS ABLEIST AND HAS LITTLE SCREENS KN EVERY DAMN TABLE THAT DISTRACT ME.
I went to a restaurant awhile ago and they told me to order using the little screen on the table. I said “no thanks” and left.
It’s like a race to the bottom.
I have this exact same reaction.
I’m a grumpy bastard and hate similar things but honestly, this doesn’t sound so bad that I’d be particularly bothered by it or leave if I hadn’t already ordered that beer. It’s just wallpaper. If I was by myself I’d probably appreciate it on some level and if I’m with other people I’d likely stop noticing. Overall I think I’d probably prefer the bar not have them at all but it’s really not that bad.
Loud sports or music that can fuck right off but otherwise, meh.
The Olympics required four apps. Five if you count Visa Go, which just outright didn’t work. All of them want you to make accounts and send you shit.
- Itinerary, account optional
- Tickets, account required even though the tickets were on the phone
- Transport, account required even though the tickets were in the
- Metro app, for which it told you to NOT DELETE THE DATA BECAUSE THE TICKETS ARE ONLY ON THE DEVICE
Fighting side by side with a boomer?
What about side by side with a friend?How about side by side with your mother?
No, lightbulb, I won’t give you my location
(actually happened)
I think it was requested on mine for the sunrise/sunset feature, but let me just put in a zip code after I declined location access
That and they can turn on when you get home after sunset. But they could do that with simple wifi connection or something. Unless your wifi is unstable I suppose.
Or, you know, a photodiode.
Or you use a VPN on your router
For Android, the location permission was(is? not sure right now) basically required for anything that wanted WiFi or Bluetooth. As getting access to that, could in theory be used to locate you
Not that this was necessarily the case here, but an explanation
“required”
Required by Google, yes, but not actually required in any functional sense of the word other than the function of spying on you in another insidious way. It worked without invasive permissions for a long time and you absolutely won’t convince me it wouldn’t now if data collection weren’t a priority.
(This isn’t directed at you personally; apologies if it seems like it is.)
Yeah, but the problem is, that app developers abused the WiFi/BT permission to locate people, without them knowing about it. So at some point the permission was changed to reflect the theoretical real world potential of abuse
The downside is, that apps that don’t actually require your location, will still need to ask for it
Yep technically it’s called coarse location which in theory tells apps what neighborhood you’re in, but can be exploited by marketing to know if you’re in front of a shop stand. At least it won’t drain your battery with GPS usage.
It works without it though. 🤔
Lots of times devices need access to a thing called location just to detect certain kinds of Bluetooth. I don’t know the specifics but it’s a trend I’ve noticed. It might not be the fault of the light.
Over my dead body
“Or sign in with your Facebook account”
No, this isn’t Facebook!
Far from being a boomer, but 100% agree with it.
It is sad to think there are people who don’t think this is ridiculous and are just accepting that.
WHAT DOES GOD NEED WITH A STARSHIP?!?!?
Wasn’t that scene from Star Trek II (specifically, when the Reliant approached them suspiciously), not Star Trek V?
Haha, yes… It’s definitely the wrong movie. Good eye!
I wrote an email app called Port87 for this. Every account gets its own address, and everything to that address goes in its own label.
How’s this different from plus aliases?
Just chiming in, if you’re using + aliases for privacy some people can just remove the plus and see your email
For example if you sign up with [email protected] the service can remove everything between the + and the @ and see your real email is [email protected]
It kinda isn’t, however I found that some websites refuse to acknowledge that plusses are valid. I see this one uses dashes which might have a similar issue. Only thing I think is universally accepted are periods
I haven’t found any place that doesn’t accept a dash.
As a kid I had an email address that started with a dash. Back then I regularly encountered websites that flagged it as invalid (but only if it started with it)
But then again, that was almost 25 years ago
It is plus aliases*. It’s got additional features for them that other providers don’t have though. Like for each label (alias) you can toggle whether to get notifications, mark as unread, screen new senders, and show them in the “aggbox”. The aggbox is like an inbox, but since you don’t ever use your “bare address”, it just shows the labels you want. Your bare address autoresponds with a list of your public addresses.
* It’s technically subaddressing, using either a dash or a plus as a delimiter.
From what I can tell, not much. They use dashes “-” instead of pluses “+”.
But neither of these two options provide you with much privacy. Plus addresses, as others have pointed out, can be automatically stripped (just delete everything after the plus sign) and you get the real email behind it.
This service specifically I dont know the details, but it seems there is a unique prefix per user, but no “real email”. So for instance if you use gmail you can have “[email protected]” as your real email. You then use “[email protected]” for your lemmy account. If that email gets leaked out somehow, people can easily tell your real email address is “[email protected]”
This service seems to do something very similar with the difference there is no base email, so there isnt a “[email protected]”, there will only be “[email protected]”. It is worth pointing out you might still be tracked because all your emails will be prefixed with “sunny”. So although spammers wont be able to figure out your real email address they can just try something like “[email protected]”, and if multiple of your addresses leak it will be easy to link them all up to the same person.
This also creates A LOT of lock in. Because if the service shuts down you now have dozens of services for which you don’t have means to access the emails anymore.
Thank you for the feedback. These are all really good points that I’d like to address.
The vendor lock in part I agree is very important. I’m working on adding support for custom domains, which would let you migrate to another provider if Port87 ends up not working for you.
Regarding the privacy part, a long term goal is to let you create private aliases for your labels that are randomized addresses on a different domain. I haven’t started working on that yet, and supporting enterprise features will take priority.
Thats really nice. I appreciate your concerns with privacy and user experience!
Ill be sure to keep my eyes on the project
Your app looks amazing. Looking forward to it becoming available!
Thank you. :)
If anyone is interested in this, check out addy.io and simplelogin, which provide this exact service and are seen as privacy friendly by the community. Remember that any email service like this has the potential to read all your email, so pick a service you trust.
Those are email forwarders. Port87 is an email service. They provide a similar feature, but it’s not the same. They still rely on you to organize your email with filters and labels in your downstream email service.
Thanks for clarifying.
Yes, you do need to organize your stuff downstream if you so desire (I personally prefer not to). I will leave the comment though because they provide similar funcionality and might be helpful to someone.
How else are they going to email you 20 times about changes to their privacy policy?
And then the inevitable email when they have to admit that all the data they gathered on you was stolen and that there is nothing you can do about it.
“We’ve updated our privacy policy and want to let you know we care about and value your privacy. You now agree that we can sneak into your bedroom at night and take videos of your genitals while you sleep, for sale on OnlyFans. If you disagree with this policy then we will brick your device.”
