I'm going to ask you to hedge.
A couple of weeks ago, Open Rights Group co-founder Cory Doctorow gave a talk at the Personal Democracy Forum - An Internet of Things That Do as They're Told. At only 21 minutes in length, it's worth watching if you're at all concerned about the computing devices that you "own" which do not always work for in your interest - by preventing you from doing some perfectly legal things which the device could technically do, or by collecting data about you and passing it to the manufacturer or other 3rd parties[0] - but don't have a clear idea of how those concerns might manifest as concrete problems that affect you.
One thing I particularly want to highlight though, are his closing remarks about one relatively simple thing anyone can do to offset the fact that we all fund these very companies that work against our interests:
None of us are pure. None of us make great decisions all the time about our technology. We all of us get up every morning and we give money to phone companies that are destroying net neutrality. We give money to technology companies that are petitioning to put programmers in jail for disclosing vulnerabilities. We all make decisions that end up redounding on us and our future.
I'm not going to ask you to be pure. Not going to ask you to only use Free Software, and only surf through Tor, and turn on NoScript all the time even if it breaks all your favourite websites.
Instead, I'm going to ask you to hedge.
To figure out how much money you spend every month on companies whose mandate is to destroy the future that we want to build, and figure out what percentage of that you're going to give to EFF and groups like EFF to keep the internet free and open.
Food for thought.
[0] Which you "consented" to in the "Terms and Conditions" that you agreed to without reading when you first turned it on.
One thing I particularly want to highlight though, are his closing remarks about one relatively simple thing anyone can do to offset the fact that we all fund these very companies that work against our interests:
None of us are pure. None of us make great decisions all the time about our technology. We all of us get up every morning and we give money to phone companies that are destroying net neutrality. We give money to technology companies that are petitioning to put programmers in jail for disclosing vulnerabilities. We all make decisions that end up redounding on us and our future.
I'm not going to ask you to be pure. Not going to ask you to only use Free Software, and only surf through Tor, and turn on NoScript all the time even if it breaks all your favourite websites.
Instead, I'm going to ask you to hedge.
To figure out how much money you spend every month on companies whose mandate is to destroy the future that we want to build, and figure out what percentage of that you're going to give to EFF and groups like EFF to keep the internet free and open.
Food for thought.
[0] Which you "consented" to in the "Terms and Conditions" that you agreed to without reading when you first turned it on.