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what exactly is the concern with China knowing when I make my coffee or use my laundry machine? It’s not like they’re interested in stealing my identity or scamming me out of my savings. Outside of the generally icky-ness of having your data stolen, what’s the endgame?

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marxismtomorrow@lemmy.today ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Silly Answer: American morning rituals are sacred. They are to be hidden from our enemies.

Actual Answer:

Small Data sources compiled over time with rough geographic approximation (or direct geographic information such as GPS sensors on phones) as well as likely consumer information can actually form a complete or near complete profile on the habits and locations of individuals, groups, and companies, including military targets. As an example, if we assume all Chinese companies are secretly government controlled (they’re not.) extensions of their spy agency then, for example, a useful profile might include:

Time the alarm clock went off + time water heater gets activated + time coffee maker is set to make coffee + time refrigerator is opened and closed + time recorded by alarm system + video from doorbell cam = Accurate morning routine, including when the house will be empty, when it will be occupied but not actively monitored (during a morning shower), if and when the person might be gone for a run and how long

If you need to target say, a general who you believe has classified information in his home office, then it would be amazing to know all of this. It’d also be easier to just bribe the maid to get what you want (which is how 99% of ‘spying’ operations actually work.)

If you extend that to all things that might form some amount of data on their use, you could get a total profile of everything someone does in a day in their home… or office… or possibly military base.

Now is this is a risk? Yes.

Is this a likely risk? No. Not even a little. Again bribing a maid or maintenance technician is cheaper, easier, and way, way less risky.

Then why do so many ~~Chinese~~ appliances send this information to unknown and scary ip addresses?

Because data is valuable to advertisers, and theoretically it’s valuable to engineers to know how their product is being used. This combined with executives’ push for everything to have an app, because data is valuable and because it makes the product seem ‘modern,’ fully offers a simple explanation on how and why we find ourselves here. But sinophobia in the Amerisraeli Empire is the only way the Epstein class actually maintains any control – if there is an enemy who they accuse of doing even worse, the subjects of the empire let them do anything they way.

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