The One with No Escape #5
# intro
Hey, 👋
It’s been a while.
I made a commitment to myself to write consistently every week, but I immediately broke that promise. I had my reasons, though!
First, I'm no longer unemployed since I accepted an offer from my old friends at FaceApp. It’s been great, and I’ve been working as a privacy and support manager for over 2 months now. Yay!
We've also changed countries twice: we spent 2 months in Yerevan, Armenia, and now we're settling down in Limassol, Cyprus. No plans to change countries in the near future, and it feels great, especially during these turbulent times. But enough about me — what's been happening in the tech and privacy world?
# general
OpenAI held its conference on Monday, May 13, and Google I/O wrapped up just yesterday. No, OpenAI didn't roll out its own search, but the enshittification of the internet will continue as per schedule. Pretty soon, every piece of content online will be churned out by a Language Learning Model (LLM) of your choice, and you’ll be using these same models to dig up info. It sounds handy, having machines do all the work, right? But hold your horses — turns out, AI content that’s just feeding off other AI content isn’t as good as when LLMs learn from stuff humans have written. See: The AI feedback loop: Researchers warn of ‘model collapse’ as AI trains on AI-generated content.
All in all, the current Google business model is unraveling, suggesting they'll need to pivot soon, but adding AI or LLMs to everything is the biggest invasion of privacy since surveillance cameras in every corner. As Meredith Whittaker points out on Twitter: "from detecting 'scams' it's a short step to 'detecting patterns commonly associated with seeking reproductive care' or 'commonly associated with providing LGBTQ resources' or 'commonly associated with tech worker whistleblowing.'"
Apple will unveil their on-device (?) AI next month, ensuring there’s virtually no corner in the digital world left uncovered.
We'll see how it unfolds. We'll feel the impact firsthand.
# privacy
Speaking of uncovered corners, when they say there’s nowhere to hide, they mean it. Want to head home? They'll find you there. Insurers are now spying on home from the sky:
Nearly every building in the country is being photographed, often without the owner’s knowledge. Companies are deploying drones, manned airplanes and high-altitude balloons to take images of properties. No place is shielded: The industry-funded Geospatial Insurance Consortium has an airplane imagery program it says covers 99% of the U.S. population. — Source
Thinking of escaping by car? Won't work. Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies:
LexisNexis is a New York-based global data broker with a “Risk Solutions” division that caters to the auto insurance industry and has traditionally kept tabs on car accidents and tickets. Upon Mr. Dahl’s request, LexisNexis sent him a 258-page “consumer disclosure report,” which it must provide per the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
What it contained stunned him: more than 130 pages detailing each time he or his wife had driven the Bolt over the previous six months. It included the dates of 640 trips, their start and end times, the distance driven and an accounting of any speeding, hard braking or sharp accelerations. The only thing it didn’t have is where they had driven the car. — Source
In today’s world, where everyone seems to be hunting for your data, maintaining a privacy-focused mindset is more crucial than ever.
# links-of-note
I have only one link this week, and it's all about Telegram. It looks like Pavel Durov has joined forces with Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey in their campaign against Signal. I'm not sure where he's coming from when he says that Telegram is more secure than Signal, especially given that it doesn't even have end-to-end encrypted chats by default. However, I recommend this thread from Matthew Green about it:
If you think that Telegram is secure, think again.
# water-cooler
No small talk this week, but here is a good old video about trying to escape surveillance in a modern world:
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Until next week, I promise🖖
Greg