Feel really guilty, my one family member gave me this. I don’t use much google stuff anymore and I really dislike the company as it gets more intrusive. Is there anything I can do with this thing besides give it away? Nothing is worse than getting a gift that you can’t use.
Just sell it online and be honest when asked. Gifting culture is too guilt based, just do the sensible thing and plow through that ridiculous social barrier like a bulldozer.
Yeah. I already informed them I don’t feel comfortable with it in the house. But I’m also the type to use TOR on all my devices. So I don’t know how paranoid that came off as.
I think I am going to try to trace down where they got it from. I’m thinking Walmart so, they may take it without a receipt I hope.
Best to sell it. Since you use Tor you’re probably already on a watchlist
How so?
The Snowden leaks revealed that simply subscribing to Linux Journal was enough to put you in a list for enhanced monitoring.
I’ve heard this a lot - is it just a common joke in privacy circles, or is anyone using Tor/Tails actually likely to be on a list?
Its pretty likely to be the case, using tor makes you stand out significantly.
I don’t really know what I’m talking about tbh, but my understanding is the more unique you make yourself, the easier you are to identify. For example, as soon as you use an ad blocker, your browser fingerprint becomes more unique because your average person doesn’t use an ad blocker. Even fewer people use Tor. So if someone knows you are using Tor, then they know you are 1 of maybe 100,000 people instead of millions (idk if those numbers are accurate, but you get the point).
That being said, Tor does do a pretty good job of making you blend into all the other Tor users.
But what I was talking about initially was mostly your ISP identifying your Tor traffic. So you use a VPN, but again you are now more unique than someone not using a VPN, even if your traffic is more encrypted.
Google owns Nest. Personally, I don’t use Google products due to their incredibly invasive ToS.
That’s what OP already said in the text of their question.
Give it (or sell it) to a person with disabilities. I have a disorder where my joints dislocate constantly, and if it wasn’t for my service dog, I would be screwed. The ability of these things to call 911 or other family members is awesome and can be life saving. I’ve even read about a woman who collapsed down the stairs and turned music up to wake up their partner. Gotta do what you’ve gotta do.
Is there any other use for these things? I don’t understand the point of owing one, when I already have a phone and a TV running Android. What can these things do that my other devices can’t?
My grandma loves hers and screams commands at it all day. She has hers hooked up to her lights, to her plant watering thing, it plays music she wants, remembers stuff for her, sets timers and alarms. The fact that she can just talk at it and tell it what to do, instead of using her hands, figuring out apps, and getting up (she’s almost 80), makes it pretty beneficial for her.
Though she gets angry when it can’t decipher what she wants, so I joke to her, that if/when society gets conquered by AI overlords in the future, they’ll probably punish her for abusing and enslaving their ancestors. 😅
But again, a phone can already do all of that.
Let’s just say she’d lose her head if it wasn’t attached.
Just return it. I’m sure they’ll understand. And it’s the thought that matters.
What thought? They clearly know nothing about OP and didn’t put any actual thought in. Lol
I work in IT and my whole family knows I’m privacy centric. None of them would have even thought about the privacy concerns with a smart speaker. That doesn’t mean that they don’t know me, it’s that they are ignorant to tech and cyber security. It’s not a stretch to think that OP’s gift giver knows OP will enough to give them an expensive gift but didn’t think of all of the implications, because that’s foreign to them.
Yeah, exactly. Zero thought.
“Oh, techy thing! Perfect for techy person!”
Absolute brainless gift.That’s different than not knowing anything about OP. That’s not knowing tech or not knowing extreme specifics about OP. The giver knows OP well enough that they thought a tech gift fits them, which makes sense. Most people don’t think twice about smart devices and security because most people are ignorant.
There may have been lots of thought put into the gift, like OP likes tech, perhaps they’re into music, maybe they have a Google phone, or they have lots of fancy gadgets. A popular smart speaker sounds like a good gift for that person to someone that’s not security minded.
