What ever happened to Peter Tea and John Geanangel?

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"I consider it the single greatest privacy risk on the Internet."

I always told my students and friends one thing about Facebook... Imagine if just these three; Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini had access to Facebook back in the day. We would not be having conversations about "global warming" because the world population would be significantly smaller than it is presently. Now think of all the world leaders who fit into the same group of psychopaths, and give them the same access to the amount of personal information and connections that Facebook has logged.
 

fourteener

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For many of us, it never "was" :) I consider it the single greatest privacy risk on the Internet.

I was watching the "Today Show" the other day. They were talking about the apps on your phone. Almost every app knows you aren't going to read the fine print of what you are allowing by installing the app. In short you are offering them access to all your contact information( your info and everyone in your contact list), knowledge of all the other apps you use, content in your news, whatever they can mine out of your info. Facebook is currently getting a bad rap. Truth, everything you do on your phone is known. Facebook is just one of the fish in the pond.
 
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just.wing.it

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I was watching the "Today Show" the other day. They were talking about the apps on your phone. Almost every app knows you aren't going to read the fine print of what you are allowing by installing the app. In short you are offering them access to all your contact information, knowledge of all the other apps you use, content in your news, whatever they can mine out of your info. Facebook is currently getting a bad rap. Truth, everything you do on your phone is known. Facebook is just one of the fish in the pond.
Yep. Phones are tracking devices, on many levels.
 

Bonsai Nut

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Almost every app knows you aren't going to read the fine print of what you are allowing by installing the app.

I think you raise a huge point. Almost all of these apps hide behind the curtain of "you have to opt in". The truth is that when we opt in, we are usually opting in for a specific use - regardless of what their two-page fine print terms of use statement says. If we are asked if we want to allow an app to access our contacts to send out an email, we are NOT approving blanket use of contact access of all uses for all time... yet according to the app companies we are. That, in my opinion, is wrong.
 

just.wing.it

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Ive never been on facebook,but the one time I tried to create an account last year,it told me my account already existed and was terminated for misconduct.........SO REALLY!
Took it as a hint.lol:eek:
Wow, a bot stole your ID and made a lude account...lol!
 

Shima

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Yep. Phones are tracking devices, on many levels.
I don't have one. NNNNYYYAAA! 80% of FB is bonsai for me. The rest is far-away relations now and then. If I get anything else I block it and never see it again. My private info? Amazon? Ebay? PayPal? It's all being mined? Bottom line, I'm known for saying "it's all hanging by a thread anyway, amazed that "it" hasn't all come undone.
All phenomena is impermanent.
 

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I can see the value in having a Facebook (type) account to stay connected to family and friends, particularly if they are scattered all over the country. But much like vlogs, I can't think of a better media to feed the narcissistic personality... Like LanceMac10 said, I know I'm just not that interesting, and if someone thought I was, I had better be afraid of them.
 

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My long-term goal is to run my electronics for another 10-15 years, then be totally disconnected with the wider world.

It's too bad that rich people don't pay real people to be hermits in their gardens anymore, like the English did back in the 18th century... Imagine seeing my unkempt white hair, moustache, beard, and skinny white chicken legs barely covered in tattered dirty rags, tending to Bill Gates's flora and fauna as he sips tea on the back stoop... gack!
 

chicago1980

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Peter Tea has mentioned reviving his blog in the near future with some new and interesting additions.

The world strives forward.
 

Eric Group

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Well, the US Congress is becoming aware of some of the huge issues - but as you yourself pointed out, so many people who are technically naive don't understand the risk - and they are apparently ok with sharing every intimate detail of their personal lives with a private company who will own it for all time and sell it to the highest bidder. I could write pages about it...

I can't even imagine sharing all of my life's details as a 15 year-old... just to have those same details come up when I am trying to get a job at 25. The first thing that companies do today when hiring is do a social media search. Ever use Facebook messenger to send details like name, address, etc? Did you realize that you gave Facebook permission to scan those messages, save them, and use them to identify you as well as the people you are conversing with? Did you approve Facebook for location services? Do you realize that they track and store your location? That they can tell when you meet with another Facebook user IRL? That they can tell which stores you go to, which addresses you visit? They track your political views, and the political views of your friends - and sell that information.

Who needs Big Brother when you have Facebook?
And that is all reallllll scary... if you are a terrorist or a drug smuggler, right? ? -** disclosures to avoid offending people= All due respect, and no offense and I hope this remains a civil discourse as I respect all you guys and hate it when a simple discussion that I feel is somewhat light hearted in nature turns sour and pisses people off, please don’t take me too serious because I rarely am even when I am being an asshole**- (maybe I should just make that my signature going forward)
I don’t personally care if FB, the FBI or Obama, Oprah... know what I am doing and who I am doing it with. What are they going to do? Steal my identity? HAVE FUN PAYING MY BILLS BITCH! I cannot even use my REAL name on FB because they think I am a company, so, like I said before- you control the message you see on your feed, you also control the info you share. If you are really worried about big brother, call yourself big BIRD or some other ridiculous made up name... I don’t worry about the stuff I cannot control and if anybody thinks they can hide from the government by avoiding Facebook!?!? I dare say the info on this website is much easier to track, hack and hijack than the info on Facebook and everyone seems perfectly happy sharing their stuff here...

My point is, unless you move to Alaska, go off grid, with no electricity and live on land not titled in your name without any bills or social security numbers, IDs... the government can find anything they want about you in a SECOND. The same dark web Tracking you through Google and Facebook shows up here too- go to any shopping website and search for... digital cameras to buy, then come here and within a week your add banners on this site are filled with digital camera adds! Cookies TRACKED.

I have posted some pretty stupid stuff to social media when I was young and I still have a good job, the government has not busted down my door and Facebook hasn’t drained my bank accounts, so to me all this “globalist media deleting info they disagree with and hacking my info and tracking my whereabouts...” is much ado about nothing. By all means, protect your bank accounts, protect your identity, be reasonable about it... but a bunch of people posting on an INTERNET FORUM, talking about their paranoia about posting on the internet... ??? Reminds me of the meme where the flat earth society was bragging about “having members all around the globe”. Think it through... LOL

My opinion is simple- Facebook is the single biggest international community of people sharing pictures, info, knowledge and selling, buying... Bonsai and bonsai related things. If ya’ll want to avoid it because you feel safer here? Ok... Just letting you know if you ever wonder where all the folks who used to make valuable contributions here are NOW making their valuable contributions? Facebook and Insta. Walter Pall, John G, DARIO- anybody remember him? Valuable is a relative term I suppose... some seemed so enamored with Sorce pots? He sells them on... FACEBOOK! Like Roy Minarai pots? Facebook.... You get the idea I am sure.
 

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And that is all reallllll scary... if you are a terrorist or a drug smuggler, right?

No. I think your argument comes down to two points: one, you can never be 100% secure so why even try basic security practices? and two, since you have never locked your doors at night and have never gotten robbed, you recommend that no one lock their doors :)

Also understand that there is a huge difference between Facebook, which develops a portfolio on each of its users and then sells that information, and a bonsai forum website, where we keep no personal information except user name and user password, and even that basic information isn't sold or shared with anyone. In the case of Facebook, your personal privacy is its BUSINESS MODEL.

If you are worried about seeing Google ads at this site based on your prior Google search history, the answer has to do with the cookies you allow Google to store on your PC and nothing to do with this site and nothing to do with the "dark web". Cookies are a rather brute force way to send a specific machine ads based on what that specific machine has recently been searching for on the Internet. Cookies are dumb bits of code that can tell you nothing about the person on the other side of the keyboard, just that someone sitting at the PC had just run a search for "perfume". Man? Woman? Kid buying a gift? Cookie doesn't know. Unlike Facebook, which has made it their business to know you, your spouse, the names of all of your kids, your healthcare needs, your position on sensitive political issues... and to keep that information for all time and to sell it. You don't care. I do. I feel my privacy belongs to me, not some billionaire who couldn't care less about who he sells me to.
 
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Bonsai Nut

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No that was the Russians trying to influence our elections!

That is the second funny thing about Facebook. People feel that everyone on Facebook is who they say they are. I find it sadly amusing at the OUTRAGE people feel because there is fake news on Facebook... which just means that they believed that Facebook was somehow vetting all the content put up on their site and ensuring its accuracy, LOL!

But I need to stop because I am turning this thread into a Tea Room thread. Suffice it to say I believe in Net Neutrality and a Privacy Bill of Rights.
 

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And that is all reallllll scary... if you are a terrorist or a drug smuggler, right? ? -** disclosures to avoid offending people= All due respect, and no offense and I hope this remains a civil discourse as I respect all you guys and hate it when a simple discussion that I feel is somewhat light hearted in nature turns sour and pisses people off, please don’t take me too serious because I rarely am even when I am being an asshole**- (maybe I should just make that my signature going forward)
I don’t personally care if FB, the FBI or Obama, Oprah... know what I am doing and who I am doing it with. What are they going to do? Steal my identity? HAVE FUN PAYING MY BILLS BITCH! I cannot even use my REAL name on FB because they think I am a company, so, like I said before- you control the message you see on your feed, you also control the info you share. If you are really worried about big brother, call yourself big BIRD or some other ridiculous made up name... I don’t worry about the stuff I cannot control and if anybody thinks they can hide from the government by avoiding Facebook!?!? I dare say the info on this website is much easier to track, hack and hijack than the info on Facebook and everyone seems perfectly happy sharing their stuff here...

My point is, unless you move to Alaska, go off grid, with no electricity and live on land not titled in your name without any bills or social security numbers, IDs... the government can find anything they want about you in a SECOND. The same dark web Tracking you through Google and Facebook shows up here too- go to any shopping website and search for... digital cameras to buy, then come here and within a week your add banners on this site are filled with digital camera adds! Cookies TRACKED.

I have posted some pretty stupid stuff to social media when I was young and I still have a good job, the government has not busted down my door and Facebook hasn’t drained my bank accounts, so to me all this “globalist media deleting info they disagree with and hacking my info and tracking my whereabouts...” is much ado about nothing. By all means, protect your bank accounts, protect your identity, be reasonable about it... but a bunch of people posting on an INTERNET FORUM, talking about their paranoia about posting on the internet... ??? Reminds me of the meme where the flat earth society was bragging about “having members all around the globe”. Think it through... LOL

My opinion is simple- Facebook is the single biggest international community of people sharing pictures, info, knowledge and selling, buying... Bonsai and bonsai related things. If ya’ll want to avoid it because you feel safer here? Ok... Just letting you know if you ever wonder where all the folks who used to make valuable contributions here are NOW making their valuable contributions? Facebook and Insta. Walter Pall, John G, DARIO- anybody remember him? Valuable is a relative term I suppose... some seemed so enamored with Sorce pots? He sells them on... FACEBOOK! Like Roy Minarai pots? Facebook.... You get the idea I am sure.
I agree to a point. I am old enough and experienced enough to know when I am having the wool pulled over my eyes. However; there are a lot of people out there who think they know something about bonsai, and think because they have a crumby tree in a nursery pot they actually have a bonsai are trying to teach other people their philosophy of bonsai. Personally this pisses me off.
 

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Maybe you can try this test, it didn’t work for me but I’m kinda closed so I wonder if this works with other people
https://inti.io/oilsjtanalytica/

It's a classic fake test... because it actually isn't guessing your name. It is having your browser spit back the name you've saved on your PC in autoforms. Kinda like when you get a spam email and it says "Hey 'insert name here' remember me from High School?"

Take the test and if it 'guesses' your name correctly, open a new browser window in "privacy" mode. Take the test again using privacy mode and answer the same questions... and voila! the test won't work. The interesting thing about this particular exercise... even though the site will get your name to display properly on your PC... the site itself still doesn't know your name and can't obtain it from your PC (using this method).
 
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Djtommy

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It's a classic fake test... because it actually isn't guessing your name. It is having your browser spit back the name you've saved on your PC in autoforms. Kinda like when you get a spam email and it says "Hey 'insert name here' remember me from High School?"

Take the test and if it 'guesses' your name correctly, open a new browser window in "privacy" mode. Take the test again using privacy mode and answer the same questions... and voila! the test won't work. The interesting thing about this particular exercise... even though the site will get your name to display properly on your PC... the site itself still doesn't know your name and can't obtain it from your PC (using this method).
Yeah it uses Facebook and google plugins to find out, I don’t have it so it doesn’t work for me but for the one it does work , better be aware
 

Bonsai Nut

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better be aware

You missed the last part of my post. It is a trick. The site doesn't know your name, nor can it find out your name using this method. HOWEVER it can fake you into THINKING it knows your name... which is where the danger lies.
 
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