SpotX Privacy / Rockwell, Somebody’s Watching Me (1984)

As part of my review of the SpotX, a few people asked about the SpotX privacy policy. Put on your tinfoil hats folks because here’s my Curmudgeonly opinion. We’re all screwed. Accept that you’re screwed. Embrace the suck and plan accordingly.

As far as I can tell, there isn’t a SpotX privacy policy. If there was one I wouldn’t believe it. Would you? Why? I’ve seen nothing but privacy invading bullshit since cell phones achieved market saturation. To trust a”policy” about this particular topic you’d have to be an imbecile. I dimly hope the NSA simply ignores SARs because it’s a tiny market but that’s hope and not evidence. I don’t live according to hope; reality is more my style. Thus, we’re screwed.

Saying “we’re screwed” is pretty bold eh? But I’m not going off half cocked. I have proof. There’s solid publicly available evidence that a legitimate billionaire presidential candidate couldn’t assure privacy in his own fucking building. Regardless of whether you voted for the guy or he makes you froth at the mouth, the fact of spying on Trump is a known thing. If Trump wasn’t able to fend off investigatory overreach, you won’t. You haven’t got a chance.

If this is new to you, sit down and take a few minutes to process. Also the sky is blue, politicians lie, and the Easter bunny doesn’t hide eggs in your living room.

Let’s not overreact. Despite what both parties claim, nobody in North America is loading cattle cars bound for concentration camps in 2019. (If you’re worried about that level shit right now… turn off the TV and keep it off because you’re freebasing too much politics.)

Back in the real world, considered privacy risk is tolerable if the benefits outweigh the costs. I like my SpotX and accept limited privacy risks because it may summon help when my life is in danger. If a wolverine bites my face off, esoteric theories won’t mean shit. Getting a helicopter to my location will be my only concern!

Also a SpotX is unquestionably more private than a smartphone.

Smartphones are snitch machines. Whether it’s the device, its software, its OS, the cell tower it communicates with, the cell network, an ISP, a barrage of cookies, or shit I don’t even know… there’s too many links in the smartphone chain to assume you’re safe. It’s a toss up as to who’s doing the spying. Choose your preferred concern: the NSA, the FBI, Snapchat, China, Microsoft, Verizon, Google, the Pope, or Space Illuminati. All that’s certain is that a smartphone generates a constant stream of data and data attracts snoops. Whenever data accumulates; someone’s hoovering it up. Also, read up on Hoover to see how well the US government treated the privacy of citizens in the stone age when phones were bolted to the wall. (See what I did there?)

A SpotX generates vastly less intrusive data. This is because it can’t do much. That’s why I keep saying “it’s not a smartphone”. This is good!

Barring extremely unlikely hardware intrusion, it doesn’t have a microphone. Lacking a microphone, it’s not listening to you. Ask Siri to explain this.

It’s not a camera. That means it’s not taking your picture. Nor is it running facial recognition on your cloud based folder full of images which it also can’t access.

It can’t browse the internet so Zuckerberg can’t use it to crawl up your ass. It won’t help Google isolate your search strings and it doesn’t have a GUI that can push that thing Google insists you want.

(A SpotX apparently can post to but not receive from social media. If use it to post to social media you obviously don’t care about privacy.)

The most compromised a SpotX can be is to gather location information and 140 character text that you deliberately typed into the damn thing. That’s it! Compared to the hive mind of a Millennial’s smartphone it’s practically a brick wall. (I suppose it can compromise messages that come to you from white-listed senders but they already sent those messages from much more easily compromised devices.)

It’s easy to turn a SpotX off. I think (though I don’t know) off is really off. If you’re worried, stuff it in a Faraday bag. That’s the great thing about technology, it’s complex but not magic. Crammed in a Faraday bag and tossed in your pack; a SpotX is inert. Leave it that way 100% of the time if you want. Why not? If the shit hits the fan you can always open the Faraday bag, turn it on, and call for help. See? Going private wasn’t hard at all.

[Note: I prefer Faraday bags from Faraday Defense. That’s my personal preference. Other brands are good and tinfoil really does work too. Yes I’ve tested both tinfoil and Faraday Defense products.

At the risk of TMI, I use Faraday bags even though my life is boring. It’s good practice to learn tools even when you don’t really need ’em. Plus it’s fun to fiddle with radio waves.

Faraday Defense’s tinfoil-ish ziplock type bags are dirt cheap and super reliable. Their other stuff is good too, but the ziplock bags are the cheapest option. Buy a multipack of and you’ll pay $3-$6 a pop; it won’t bankrupt you. A bag sized for a SpotX weighs basically nothing. Even if you’re into ultralight backpacking, a bag is no big deal. The bags I’ve used seem to take a beating. As a bonus, they’ve kept the water off my cell phone in wet conditions. Win! (That’s not their design spec so YMMV.) Obviously, flexible bags aren’t protection against crushing. (One last note, if you’re among muggles and want to keep a low profile, the Faraday Defense wallets and cell phone cases won’t look unusual and pique unwanted interest like the silvery bags do.]

Personally, now that I’ve got (and tested) a SpotX this is my plan:

Whenever I go into the woods my cell phone will be off, stuffed in a Faraday bag, and abandoned in my truck’s glove box. My truck keys got in a ziplock that invariably winds up at the bottom of my pack. The SpotX (after I finish the testing phase) will be off 90% of the time, live at the top of but under the cover of my pack. It’ll be used to “check in” at strategic points like trailheads, my first night at a camp location, and Yeti attacks. After these comments, adding a $5 Faraday bag for total blockage of all signals might happen too. I like the waterproofing and dustproofing effect of the bags anyway.

That said wandering around the outdoors without electronics is OK too. It’s what everyone did for a million years right up to a decade ago (and I did up to a month ago). If you want to melt into the background just do it. Just take care to not do stupid shit and stupid shit (probably) won’t happen.

The outdoors is great for privacy; once you’re out of the greatest tracking device of all (your car), you can do your thing in peace. Ideally, pick remote spots. (To be in solitude is why you’re camping anyway.) If you hang out in prime real estate it’s less private. Duh! Stand at Old Faithful and you might get geotagged by fifty tourists. Then again you’re the dumbass standing in front of a planet-wide recognizable landmark and paying the Park Service to be there.

None of this will help if you’re unreasonably paranoid. Every night you can count satellite flyovers and you’re certainly noted along with the other things that are mapped. This is nothing new. If Gary Powers was flying a U2 over a Russian campsite in 1959 privacy violation was a done deal then too. Such is unlikely to matter, if you’re an unremarkable gray man catching trout and minding his own business the world is not interested in you. Be dull and be happy. You’ll have as much privacy as anyone does and more than most.

Good luck y’all. Have fun and make your own choices. At least we have a theme song: