Off The Grid

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sen8or

1770 posts

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#96838 4-Feb-2012 16:47

Reading through the megaupload thread, there are lots of comments around giving up of freedoms, justice being bought etc etc, got me wondering, if "big brother" really is watching you, how easy/possible would it be to live totally off-grid?

All births are registered in NZ (well, legally required to be anyway), so in theory its not possible to be excluded from all databases, but lets disregard at least that one for now.

Most people from an earlyish age have an IRD number
School records?
Could you get by without a bank account in your own name?
No drivers license, passport etc?
Cellphone is pretty easy these days with pre-paids and cheap as sim cards etc
No census information?
What about utility bills, guess in theory its possible to not have anything registered?

There really are just countless ways that big brother could gather your personal information from any number of sources, just boggles the mind

oxnsox

1923 posts

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#577284 4-Feb-2012 17:26

The more tech hungry we get, the more traceable we are....

Otherwise if you can get back to a cash (or barter) based society you'd could become big-brother invisible.
But to get off the books to get there you may have to get on your sailboat, bid Customs and Immigration adieu and then sail over the horizon... where you sink the boat and swim back to your predestined obscurity.

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tdgeek

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#577291 4-Feb-2012 17:40

To me, it goes with the territory. The more information we can access, that is via the internet, the more data is accessible about us by the so called big brother. Does it really matter? The internet revenues are driven by advertising that we see on our non POP email, the websites we visit. That gives us free internet.

There was a doco on TV recently that went into detail on privacy and information, very enlightening. Apparently what we email is scanned for keywords that will customise the advertising that we see. Who does it? Who is Big Brother? The Googles, Apples, Yahoo's, Microsofts, Facebooks, etc, etc of ths world.
Whether that is also the Interpols, CIA's FBI's, SAS's, Johnr's also, probably, but I guess as long as you are not into black, terrorist activities, I guess that matters not. I hope!

If it is mainly used for tailor made advertising, sobeit.

There was a set of email threads where the emailer was just a number, to protect privacy and so the holder of that info did not know who it was. That data was read, and it was narrowed down to the point where the emailer was identified, by a process of elimination. Amazing, and of concern.

But, if the holders of the data are big brothers, it matters not, if they are highly IT literate criminal element, that is another issue.

BBC Virtual Revolution was the doco

oxnsox

1923 posts

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#577298 4-Feb-2012 17:48

Whether that is also the Interpols, CIA's FBI's, SAS's also, probably, but I guess as long as you are not into black, terrorist activities, I guess that matters not. I hope!

Johnr is known to have access to Black helicopters.....
...should we worry about him??

tdgeek

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#577299 4-Feb-2012 17:53

oxnsox:
Whether that is also the Interpols, CIA's FBI's, SAS's also, probably, but I guess as long as you are not into black, terrorist activities, I guess that matters not. I hope!

Johnr is known to have access to Black helicopters.....
...should we worry about him??

Good point, my post is now edited to reflect the concern!! :-)