Avoid all AI bots/apps at all costs

@DeWayfarer I think the trick is going to be working out how, just like with spam emails, we determine what's got AI in the process and what doesn't.

@zonavar68 avoidance in anything is not good.

Your emails are a good example.

They are the things that let you know what's going on around you just as much as attempts to use you.

It's the degree that you need to figure out. A balance needs to be worked out.

With me I don't use the spell checkers. I use the word prediction. Something that gives me a easy choice instead of just letting it do everything. And most of the time I don't pick the choices offered.

With AI searches I question the AI. I don't always accept it's answer. I dig deeper into the links it offers or even use just the search engine itself.

You need to work with what's available. Neither ignore it nor depend on it.

Again a balance.

@markinkansas "Smart" TVs and 'speakers yes - they are connected to companies like Google whose clients are advertising-agencies and the like.

Cars? Possibly - if they rely on Internet access. That is a fear with the low-cost Chinese-made EVs. One threat there may be trying to analyse journeys to work out if the owner works in a delicate areas like defence manufacturing, military base, airport, etc.

GPS: no. Unless within a portable telephone so...

..... Cell phones: No, unless someone is intercepting your calls. The common fear is that they trace your location. There is a grain of truth in that the telephone has to transmit its own location so the system can work. It does not prove who has the telephone there, nor does it give any hint why or what the holder is doing. You can help yourself by not being a slave to it.

I don't recall all this worry when CB Radio was a craze!


{i]Anything with a micophone or camera[/i]. Anything? ONLY if it is connected to a system sending the signals away somewhere. So front-door intercoms and cameras, baby-alarms, reversing-cameras and windscreen cameras on vehicles, any fully-contained speech recorders, or isolated digital cameras etc., are safe by not being connected to the Internet.

Theoretically, if connected wirelessly (a short-range radio link) some might be listened-in on but the eavesdropper would need be very close and the information they'd obtained would be pretty thin! Still worried? Use hard-wired versions.


VR headset: I know little about these but why would they be a threat? I can't really think how they might.


Most people's privacy weakness is .... "social media"! Also routine or frequent on-line shopping and commercial web-siite browsing, but it will be influenced by the nature of the sites you use. The big boys are likely to be interested only in your use of the big boys in retailing.

And of course buying a gadget like an Alexa and leaving the wretched thing switched on. Easiest protection? Don't buy such things! You do not need them!


The most dangerous security weakness? Announcing on chat-sites future planned or regular absences from home, displaying valuable property, and the like. Giving away enough information for people intent on malfeasance, deducing your identity and location

I know of someone some years ago completing a massive craft project, as a hobby, taking many hundreds of hours and a lot of expensive materials. Rather rashly he posted photos of it Facebook. This elicited strange enquiries of its monetary value - he had said nothing about selling it. He was astute enough to realise his mistake, and not to reply but to block and delete them. Others could have been caught out and offered some estimate.

@ArishMell I had my Alexa a month. It was a freebie from a company for signing up to something. I gave it away when I realised it added nothing to my life. I have Siri on my phone, but very rarely use it as all it does usually when asked a question is reply, 'Here's something I found on the web.' Well thanks, I can manage that myself.

@ArishMell
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