Stallman vs Pariah

Long time lurker, first post, so be gentle.

I was wondering if anyone has any tips on how to deal with being the last hold-out in your social circle who doesn't have a facebook account, doesn't use WhatsApp, Dropbox an Iphone or an Android due to ethical and/or privacy reasons. I know people who only communicate through Snapchat, and I was wondering what you can say (if anything) to those people when they're almost offended at my lack of Snapchattedness.

TLDR: Don't want to become full-out Stallman, don't want to become a human pariah. How do you deal?

All the best from frigid Norway.

 

PS: We have many good micro breweries here *wink wink nudge nudge*.

I don't use that shit since I hate people and those associated with people.

Just tell him them the same thing.

Social sites are complete crap. You have no control over your content or even have your site looks. Think data mining. Build your own personal website is the best i can recommend . Something with mail and voice and video service.

 

It's your choice to do that and they should simply respect it IMO. If they want to lose control over their personal information and they simply don't care about privacy then they're free to do that as well. If someone doesn't respect that decision of yours then they're probably not worth having in your social circle (or you can just tell them to shut up about the subject because it's a fruitless discussion). You also shouldn't try to convert them in some way though. Just state the facts and tell them that they're trading most of their privacy for convenience. If they happily agree to that then you can just agree on the fact that you have different viewpoints on the subject and be done with it.

just don't make an issue about it. if they ask why aren't you on what'sapp, tell them they can sms or call you easily.

if they ask about Facebook or such, tell them you're not into it. easy. they'll adjust.

Also, you might have to become more social to compensate for not being in these networks. i.e. you ask people to join you to check out a new band, a show, a movie, a game, party, etc... also, easy.

just don't make it a big political issue when they bring it up.

I remote into a throw away android device for this reason. I think I could get it working in a cloud hosted android device somewhere maybe and that would be even better. It would be cool if oyu could run android VMs on your phone then remote into where it was really running from.

Good luck tracking that or gleaning personal info from a throw away android device. It has helped me discover some apps do their magic by sending SMS messages as there is an api call to 'disappear' an SMS message before it is delivered to the user. Hard to do that when the device getting the sms is actually an sms-to-email service and not a real device though.

 

I've read people asking similar questions about this before and it comes down to being very simple. You just don't use them, people who want to contact you will phone, sms, or email.

If someone wanted me to talk to them through snapchat id probably have a good 5 minute laugh, then tell them just use sms, that thing everyone has.

And theres nothing wrong with going full stallman, just go full stallman on your principles, i.e. don't break them.. ever (as long as there right :p )

Remember, you don't have to look and act like a neckbeard just because you don't like to use spyware.

When my friends ask me to get Facebook, I say this, everytime "I have a flip phone, you can text me, or call me, I don't like Facebook because it collects my data"  If you want Dropbox like features, try something like OwnCloud and port forward your router.  If you want something to play games and do work on the bus, make a handheld out of a Raspberry Pi and a mini LCD screen, and maybe a Sixaxis controller.  I never talk about the stuff I have set up, and my friends just assume I live without those services even though I set up my own services that are quite similar, you can be a neckbeard without looking like one, that's how I do it.  I use Debian, and made my own phone/smartphone/raspberrypihandheld/emulatormachine.

You remote into an android device from another android device? How do you go about that?