i genuinely hope anyone ages 13-15 on this website (or, god forbid, younger) stays safe and keeps their private information secure and really private
please, if you’re really young on tumblr, try not to get swept up in the discourse and the tremendous amount of arguing with strangers that goes on here. i know you probably feel mature for your age but this website, like, really psychologically affects youth, and i encourage you to be cautious about your interactions with people on here
please, kiddos, stay safe
additionally, for my young, non-adult followers,
- depression memes about wanting to die aren’t a healthy coping mechanism and can lead to worsening symptoms of your own mental health if overindulged in
- you are not garbage. or trash. i know these terms are popular on here, but you shouldn’t be calling yourself that. you have everything you need inside of you to become your best self, even if it’s hard to see that
- seriously, really don’t trust adults who want to date you. don’t trust adults who call you hot, flirt with you, ask you sexual questions, or ask you for nudes. (that last one is VERY illegal, also, please get help from a trusted non-creepy adult if this happens to you)
- the opinions of complete strangers who aren’t interacting with you typically aren’t worth it. move on, use the block button. it’s not worth engaging with people who are going to make you feel awful or unsafe
- take breaks from tumblr if it’s getting really stressful for you. talk to friends if you’ve got em, play a videogame or do whatever it is that can take your mind off the massive amounts of Hell on this website
- recovery is good. it’s really, really good. if you’re having mental health issues, please seek out help if you can, or ask a trusted adult or friend for guidance. you are not alone. don’t let this website make you feel like you are
Tag: internet safety
to all the minors following me you dont have to reveal everything about yourself on the internet you dont have to make a laundry list of the MI’s and traumas u have endured be on your about its ok to not make this very extremely personal stuff you wouldnt tell to people you first meet irl easily available on your online web page you really dont owe anything to anyone and you can and should indulge in privacy
i might even go further and caution very strongly AGAINST doing so for minors ESPECIALLY, like look, i am not your dad and cannot demand you to avoid doing so, but it honestly allows predators to sort of “cold read” your vulnerabilities and exploit them. and be wary of anyone who demands to know that information to make a judgement on you because someone who wants to know your “weak spots” before interacting is someone whose idea of human interaction is, at best, messed up.
listen i also hate those dumbass political cartoons about kids and their phones but at the same time you’re a fool if you flat out deny there are negative aspects to the way we communicate in the social media age
facebook and instagram strategically time your notifications after you post something to make you waste time scrolling. those two platforms also come to mind as being particularly performative (“look at this beautiful picture-ready thing i’m doing today”) although any social media encourages that. snapchat’s streak feature, as well as those stupid emojis next to people’s names, exist solely to suck you into using the app every day. twitter and instagram display your follower count, and facebook displays how many friends you have. tumblr cultivates a culture of oversharing, and although you can have one-on-one conversations on here, most “communication” takes the form of shouting from a soapbox. all of these things are related to the problem of privacy online, which many of us simply assume doesn’t exist and should therefore be tossed aside so that we can dissect and manufacture every detail of our selves and desires online. you can’t honestly tell me these things are of no concern for the way we understand ourselves and others, and our relationships to the world.
I love this post. Also note that social media (the Internet truly), in a way that TV hasn’t been able to achieve, allows advertisers to be more intimate and targeted than they’ve ever been before. Through platforms like Instagram and Facebook, we basically declare to them the things we desire, interact with most often, the places we go, etc…
All that information is scraped from us and used for all sorts of stuff. To get us to buy things, to get us to watch things, to sway our opinions on so many things.
#remember when nobody put pictures of themselves on the internet?#i remember vividly the switch when younger fans would use real names and selfies and being extremely disturbed by it#it changed something fundamental in how we relate to each other and i’m not sure it’s all the way good (jonnyjacqobis)
I found these tags on that post asking adults to list their age. This is one of many who seem to agree with OP’s sentiment.
I think kids on the internet these days–and by “kids” I mean anyone under 18 honestly–need to be re-taught about internet safety and keeping your personal life away from your internet life, for safety reasons. I’ve been noticing this a lot lately, but I’ve found that the younger generations just never learned about Internet safety and keeping your personal information… well, personal.
Listen. I am a 90s kid in my late 20s. Yes, I do list my age on my description, because I feel comfortable doing so. But lately, there’s been an alarming trend where you, the younger generations, expect us to cater to all of your needs and keep you safe. And more, even.
The internet is a big, scary place. People my age and older, and some a little younger, grew up with the internet. We grew up with the dial-up noise and “get off the internet so I can use the phone!” and being limited in the way we interacted with the internet because it was expensive and strange and modems were not a thing. We also grew up with massive internet safety campaigns and worried parents scared of the unknown. Scared of the predator on the other side of the screen. It was normal for parents to be worried and assume predator until proven otherwise.
As such, everyone in my generation and older grew up with a massive internet safety awareness. Don’t give out your personal information, don’t tell them where you live, your name, your age, where you study or what. Say nothing. Share nothing. Most of us have created for ourselves internet personas, much in the way that I am Saku on the internet but someone else in real life.
Yes, the line has blurred somewhat, and over time people have lost the alarm and concern that the internet caused in them. But most of us still remember what it was like back then. Most of us remember the safety rules, remember the techniques and tactics to tell if someone was or wasn’t telling the truth, remember the golden rule about not sharing personal information on the internet.
Because the internet back then was a big, scary place. And the internet now? It still is a big, scary place. It’s just more…. normal. More a part of our everyday lives that we all just sort of take for granted.
What you kids are missing now is that we, as the older generations on the internet, the generations that grew up with the internet, still remember what it was like back then. And we still abide by our internet safety rules.
You all may think that sharing your age on the internet is not a big deal, but it is. Whatever you post on the internet can be used against you, regardless of how “safe” you feel. And one way or another, we are not responsible for you or your internet experiences. We protected ourselves back then, we policed and monitored our own internet content and use, and so should you.
The internet is not yours, it’s all of ours. And we got here first, way before you were even born, in some cases. I’ve been on the internet since I was 9, and that’s well over a decade and a half ago. If anything, fandom spaces are made up primarily of adults. Who do you think writes the good content that you consume? Who do you think produces the best art and the best fics? Who do you think writes the well-written, hot, sexy smut you shouldn’t be reading at 3 in the morning?
When we got here, we all assumed that everyone was older than us on the internet. For some reason that’s changed, and now people assume that everyone’s younger, or their age. But we’re all still here. We’ve been here for the past 15, 20 years. Even longer.
There is nothing wrong with us. We don’t owe you anything. You make your own safety on the internet, and you are the one responsible for making sure you’re safe. That’s not on us, it’s on you.
If you’re uncomfortable talking to an adult on the internet, then you’re more than welcome to unfollow, or block, or whatever. But it’s not our responsibility that you do so. If you want to know something, ask.
Most importantly, we’re not all predators. Don’t shame or fault us for existing on the Internet. We were here before you, and we enjoy things just as you do. They aren’t yours, you don’t own them any more than we do. And we have a right to be here too, without having to bend over backwards for you just for existing.
I find it so weird that people post so much personal information nowadays.
When I first joined the internet in the late 90s, i was in my mid-teens. The big thing was ‘never tell anyone your name’ so I used my nickname. 20 years later… i still don’t use my real name online, and I’m used to being called Cassie that I get confused when someone uses my real name!
Shitty people lie, you kids know that, right? Like how many times have we heard the “He said he was a senior in high school dating a sophomore, but he was actually 28 years old,” story? Why would you possibly believe if someone has their age on their profile? And if it’s just as likely to be a lie as the truth, why does it matter if it’s there at all? I honestly don’t understand this.
This is actually so important, because I’m 16, and I haven’t seen internet safety campaigns since I was in lower primary (like reception, year 1, year 2) which was a decade ago, and it makes me wonder if they teach kids about internet safety anymore. We would get shown videos in ICT about people pretending to be young, and about cyber bullying, and I never hear about them anymore, but I don’t think my younger sister does either, and there seems to be an assumption that kids just know this because they’re given internet access from such a young age, but they’re still impressionable, and so are teenagers, and we get taught about revenge porn but not internet harassment and it can lead to young people being stalked or worse because they dont have it drilled into them that they shouldn’t trust strangers
While I definitely want to and will try to do everything I can to protect the experiences of kids online, it does worry me that the public internet safety campaigns of yore aren’t common anymore… hell, I wasn’t allowed to access the internet in my own room alone until I was 18 and while I definitely didn’t follow that rule (sorry parents) it made me wary of the waters I was wading into.
Also like one of the commenters mentioned, kids, just because someone listed their age and says all the right things doesn’t mean they’re not a predator. Often predators are really fucking good at looking like unproblematic harmless people.
Curate your own experience. Watch yourself. Don’t put everything online. Don’t trust someone just because they seem to have all their information upfront. If you sense something is off, get out, log off, and don’t be afraid to talk to a trusted adult if you need help. This is BASIC internet awareness.
Never ever turn off your phone: rethinking security culture in the era of big data analysis.
Back in the 80′s if you were a pissed off anarchist that wanted to burn down a building, you probably checked your home for listening devices and made a plan. If you were the same kind of pissed off anarchist in the late 90′s, you turned off your phone and encrypted your online traffic. In the 2020′s we’re gonna have to change our strategies once again. Intelligence gathering has adapted and so we must adapt too.
To get a head start at this, let’s look at how big data analysis is being used. To do this, we’ll need to talk about 3 things: metadata, patterns and networks. Those sound boring and complicated but I’m not a techy and I won’t bore you with tech language, I’ll keep it as easy as I can.
Metadata: In the context of online activity, ‘content’ means ‘the message you send’ and ‘metadata’ means ‘everything other than the content’. So, for example, if you send your friend a text about lunch, the content might be “Let’s go out for lunch” and the metadata might be “Message send at 01/04/2018 11.32 from phone 0478239055 to phone 079726823 using Signal”.
This information is registered by your phone even if the app encrypts your actual message. Your metadata is very badly protected by technology and very badly protected by the law. No matter which country you are in, most of your metadata if freely available to intelligence agencies regardless of whether you are a suspect in anything.
Patterns: Whether you realize it or not, your metadata has a pattern. If you have a daily job you might have a very consistent pattern, if you do not your pattern might be more flexible but you have a pattern. If someone wanted to know the rhythm of your day, they could very easily do so because your pattern is in the metadata.
For example: Maybe you use the wifi at your favourite bar on most Sunday nights until about midnight, you wake up around 10 AM and check your Signal, you use your public transport card to get to class every Monday afternoon and you spend on average 1 hour on Tumblr twice a day. All this is part of your pattern.
Networks: You have online networks. Your facebook friends, the people in your phone adress book, the dropbox you share with coworkers, everyone who bought online tickets to the same punk band you attended, the people using the same wifi points as you. Take your networks, combine them with other people’s networks, and clusters reveal themselves. Your work community, your family, your activist scene, etc.
If you are in an anarchist community that will probably be abundantly clear from all your minor network connections like going to the same band and knowing the same people as other anarchists. Even if you never liked an anarchist facebook page or pressed ‘going’ on an anarchist facebook event, your network is hard to hide.
Now, let’s say you commit a crime,
the kind that would result in some serious research. Let’s say that on Sunday night 3 AM, you are your friends go out and burn down a nazi’s house. (Of course I would never advice any of you to do such a thing.) It’s obvious that anarchists did it but there are no other clues. You use traditional style security culture: you burn your notes, you are careful not to communicate about your plans near technology and you do not leave physical traces.
But because you commited the crime that night, your metadata will vary strongly from your usual rhythm: you stay at your usual bar until 2 AM to wait for your friends, you do not wake up at 10 AM in the morning so you do not check your Signal or Tumblr until 1 PM. You do not go to class. Your metadata pattern is very different from your usual pattern. The metadata patterns of your friends are different too. If one of you is clumsy, they might generate a super suspicious metadata signal like a phone being switched off at 2.30 AM and activated at 4AM. You wouldn’t be the first.
If I wanted to solve this crime using data analysis, what I would do is:
- let a piece of software run a pattern analysis of the local anarchist scene to generate the 300 people most connected to the anarchist scene.
- let a second piece of software analyse the metadata patterns of those 300 people over the last months and identify the biggest metadata variations around Sunday night as well as very suspicious metadata activity
- Illiminate pattern variations with an obvious cause or an obvious alibi (people who are on vacation, people who are in the hospital, people who lost their job, etc).
- Do indepth research into the ones that remain.
Which is how, out of a massive amount of people that I couldn’t possible all listen to at the same time, I could quickly identify a few to monitor closely. This is how I could find and catch you.
So, now what?
If traditional security culture doesn’t protect us as well as it used to, how do we adapt? Well, I don’t have all the answers but for a start, I’d say: know your network + know your pattern.
In the case of the example above: leave the bar at midnight, return home and put your phone on your bedside table. Check the apps you check before going to bed and set your alarm to 10AM. Return to the bar without your phone. Wake up at 10AM and check your Signal. Drag yourself to class or ask a comrade to make the trip with your travel card and do not use technology in your home while the comrade is taking your travel card to class. Stick to your pattern. Never ever turn off your phone.
You might also be able to manipulate your network but that seems much harder to do. Not having a smartphone and dropping out of all social activity online is a big commitment. Knowing your data pattern and making sure your data pattern doesn’t look out of the ordinary? Much less commitment.
Some of the old rules will still apply: don’t talk about a crime around devices with microphones, don’t brag after a succesful action, etc. Other rules, like ‘turn off your phone when planning an illegal act’ need to change because their metada looks too out of the ordinary. No one switches off their phone anymore. We look suspicious as fuck when we do.
This is just one idea on how we could update our security culture. There are probably other people with other, better ideas about updating our security culture. If we start the conversation, we may get somewhere.
Finally: we need to keep adapting.
As technology changes, more information is becoming available, including data we have very little control over. Smart-tv’s and ads in public spaces that listen to every word we say and the tone of our voice when we say it are examples. Data analysis projects are currently using license plate reading software on security footage to map the travel patterns of cars. A lot suggests they may soon be ready to do the same with face recognition, at which point the presence of our face in public space becomes part of our metadata. More information means more accurate data analysis. Our metadata may soon be too vast annd too complex to completely map and mirror. Which means we will need to adapt our counter measures if you want to hide something.
How do we keep it all under the radar? I don’t know. But let’s try to figure this shit out. These are some first thoughts about what security culture should look like in the age of modern big data analysis and I’d be very happy for any insights from comrades that have some thoughts on this.
Also: feel free to distribute and rework these words without credit.
I know it’s a lot more reading but I’m kinda sad that my post about direct action (http://queeranarchism.tumblr.com/post/173477897068/probably-the-saddest-sign-of-our-times-is-how-many) got ten times more notes than this one from the same day.
Anarchists, anticapitalists, antifascists, antiracists and ecoactivists are all criminalized for existing. The systems that maintain injustice know that we are the biggest threat to their existence. They will do to us whatever they can get away with. Dig into security culture. Stay safe so you can stay dangerous.
i'll apple your turnover 