I desperately avoid keeping any contact info on my phone, as it's so often slurped up in various ways. I also wipe all conversations frequently as standard digital hygiene. Thus, I get a lot of texts from (000) 555-1212 and I have absolutely no idea who it is, so I try to infer from the text content with .. uh.. varying levels of success.
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@codinghorror Seems like that’s a bit like not using Gmail: Google gets most of your email anyway because the person you’re emailing is probably on Gmail. Same for contact info: everyone else using Whatsapp shared their whole address book with Meta. Sigh.
@thinkling Zuck is pretty far down the list in terms of who and what I trust. I have zero facebooks / instagrams / meta accounts to date and no plans to ever create any.
@codinghorror But I guarantee you that your contact info is in the address book of dozens of people who use WhatsApp and they all have their address book exposed to it. That was my point.. it doesn’t matter if you avoid having an account on Meta services, they’ve got your info and got you mapped in your social network anyway.
@thinkling they actually don’t, in my testing, provided you never create a Facebook/instagram/meta account
@codinghorror @thinkling Iʼve never tested this so Iʼll have to accept your findings. I thought, too, that they would have your details, e.g. what I thought was a 'shadow profile'. Should you join (not recommended, and fortunately you wonʼt anyway), theyʼll go, 'Eureka, finally!' and marry up all the shadow profile stuff to your new presence. Countless organizations have uploaded my private information there without my permission, too, so the bastards have a good idea of me. 🙁
@thinkling the idea that any person would have ZERO meta accounts is completely and utterly alien to them, believe me. Imagine the audacity of a human being who chooses not to exist.
@codinghorror @thinkling I have a handful of friends who are surprisingly affronted by my not being on WhatsApp. I say ‘Signal’, but it just annoys three of them…
@codinghorror @thinkling My understanding is that Meta tracks two kinds of ‘users’—those with accounts and those without. If you visit any page with a non-blocked Meta pixel or widget on it you become a ‘user’.
I have no meta accounts, but I have definitely unblocked pages with Meta’s shit on them on occasion.
I presume if you ask for all the information they have on you they demand (and might need) all the information I try not to give them, so I’ve never done that.
@codinghorror @thinkling not even WhatsApp? I'm struggling to get rid of this one
@codinghorror "Happily existing without _ever_ having had a meta-associated account of any kind"
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@codinghorror What’s the primary motivator for wiping message history? And how has this behavior helped you? Do you wipe all messages: email, text, Signal? Or just some?
I know everyone has different threat levels and decision making. Do you suggest these activities for others?
@codinghorror If you keep your contacts (and calendar items) in iCloud and turn on Advanced Data Protection, all your data is end-to-end encrypted and only accessible by someone who has full physical access to your device(s). I don’t allow apps access to my contacts, except for a select few that I trust, like Signal and Fantastical.
@mikesax yeah ADP has been on for while already for my acct
@mikesax @codinghorror Legitimate counterpoint—as long as your cool with your 'stuff' being stored on Apple's serbers (where it may or may not be as indecipherable as it is in-transit).
@codinghorror iOS control is pretty robust in Settings > Privacy & Security > Contacts. All of my 3rd party apps are denied access.
@Vorsos @codinghorror Denied from third-party apps—but not the system of course.
it is strange how, in iOS, when you delete an iMessage conversation it offers "BLOCK THIS NUMBER / CONTACT?" .. I guess they assume you are gonna keep iMessage conversations around indefinitely?
@codinghorror did you know that there is an option to delete messages automatically after 30 days? (In iMessage)
Maybe you prefer to do it manually because you don’t want to keep them for so long, but I just thought that I should mention it, because I’m not sure it’s that obvious that it’s there.
@salgiza amazing thank you!
@codinghorror I feel confident in saying you are using your phone in a very abnormal way.
My last startup was focused on contact data, and I have never talked to someone who was as concerned about its security as you are I am quite fascinated by it.