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Comment by batou | Hacker News Reader

Google are just as bad. I've moved to a dumbphone and an IMAP mailbox at an independent company. I tried Android but that was pretty much impossible to keep control of (Moto G 2, Android 5.0)

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I want a Jolla. Sailfish is probably better in this respect (or at least the company is smaller).

That said, all that data harvested and used to customize the interface for you is indeed convenient.

I'm using Nokia 106. Calls. Texts. Nothing else. I turn it off at 6pm and on at 9am.

Doesn't have data, GPS, Bluetooth or WiFi so that's not a problem. The best it gives is rough triangulation data from cell towers but I can leave it at home and do nefarious things to my own heart's content if I so desire (not that I intend to).

Also makes decent voice calls, which seems to be more than most smartphones can manage ;-)

PS Are you sure it doesn't have Bluetooth?

Yes. It's as dumb as a 3310.

OK, thanks. My wife has just bought a cheap Nokia 103 (she's used Nokias for ages) and I was surprised that it had Bluetooth. It showed up on the laptop I was using at the time, but I couldn't find any way to connect to it. (They didn't pair.)

I checked and it did have Bluetooth on the Nokia 103 menu.

My mistake: it's a Nokia 130. (I'd assumed a 103 would be close to a 106 in specification.)

Are you really this paranoid? You must be loads of fun at parties. It's interesting though because your British government is tracking your phone, your texts and watching you as you traverse London on CCTV. But luckily Microsoft doesn't know about your affinity for Yorkshire Terriers and love of Bass Ale.

Don't get me wrong, I value privacy, but all things in moderation, including paranoia. I personally don't think most peopke's lives are that controversial to be so concerned about their privacy that they'll avoid the grid altogether lest some lewd fact trickle out amongs the billions of other lewd facts trickling out about everyone.

I spent a number of years working for nefarious defence contractors so the paranoia is somewhat justified. My paranoia is clearly required as I've been responsible for the security architecture at a number of financial companies and have a lot of experience dealing with both the human and technology aspects of data.

Safety in numbers is only valid if it's difficult to discern facts from the flock. But it's not. The technology logs and correlates specific data for fast retrieval rather than collecting noise and then discerning the signal later on.

Oh and I'd never drink Bass; maybe an Abbots or two ;)

> I personally don't think most peopke's lives are that controversial to be so concerned about their privacy that they'll avoid the grid altogether lest some lewd fact trickle out amongs the billions of other lewd facts trickling out about everyone.

This sounds suspiciously like 'nothing to hide nothing to fear'.

I don't think batou is being overly paranoid at all. Especially not with the last year or more of news.

If anything, this is massive tech company overreach on the part of Microsoft, Apple and especially Google and Facebook.

More protection in law is what is needed, not for people to suck it up and accept it.

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