this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2024
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I'm getting a bit sick of large corporations a) demanding excess data as a condition of doing business with me, b) allowing it to be stolen, and c) giving zero fucks about it.

What are some things that us netizens can do to make our displeasure known.

Extra points for funny ideas.

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[–] JoeKrogan@lemmy.world 1 points 6 minutes ago

Use bots to apply for the open positions to waste time. Reject them all for not enough pay.

Post public info of the CEO class

Piracy

Give fake data when using all services.

Start and join boycott groups.

Use their social media against them. Eg post their dirty laundry as a comment on their post.

[–] BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 12 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

Edit: whoops, I missed the "il" part in "not illegal". Anyway you should definitely not do the following. Allegedly doing the following would be arson, and society frowns upon such things.

Easy:

  1. Identify company
  2. Wait until it's a weekend night. We're not after the wage slaves after all.
  3. Mix polystyrene and gasoline. Remember that gasoline can melt some plastics, so if using a plastic container for mixing do a test first. You do not want napalm all over the place.
  4. Fill the gooey substance in glass bottles.
  5. Cap the bottles. (see #7)
  6. Drive to the company.
  7. Open bottles and put wicks in them. (important not to do this earlier. Driving with open gasoline containers in your car will make you drowsy and is a fire hazard)
  8. If you haven't already got gloves on, put them on and wipe down the bottles - you may have to leave some at some point.
  9. Have accomplices trigger fire alarms all over the local fire department's district. Either automatic fire alarms will be discarded for a bit or the marshall will be tied up investigating.
  10. Light a wick, throw the bottle at the company, try to get it to break a window.
  11. If you're out of bottles or you see blue lights cheese it. Otherwise go back a step and repeat it.
[–] x00z@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

I heard you should mix the gasoline with diesel for more mileage.

[–] hansolo@lemm.ee 12 points 7 hours ago

If a company is publicly traded, then all leaked individuals are given 50.1% controlling stock in the company, split among the victims with new stocks created for them, with unclaimed stocks held in a trust controlled by anyone that did respond to claim stocks. They can sell the stocks, or drive the company into the ground out of spite. Maybe even both.

Companies not publicly traded have 3 months to make all code used, trademarked material, and patents open source in perpetuity, and 1 year to convert their corporate structure into a non-profit.

Regardless of the size of the company, the CEO, CTO, and board must eat their weight in fried bugs. They get to pick the type of bug from a list of 5 options, and any seasoning they want. Live streams of the bug eating will be monetized and the proceeds given to orphans, under the title of "It's not a bug, its a feature."

[–] helmet91@lemmy.world 13 points 9 hours ago

Don't use their services.

[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

The fake name generator might be useful. There are also temporary email services for when a site account requires a confirmed email.

[–] BrotherL0v3@lemmy.world 33 points 14 hours ago

Not exactly what you're looking for, but Ad-Nauseum is a nice way to inject a ton of garbage into the data corps collect.

[–] owenfromcanada@lemmy.world 126 points 19 hours ago (1 children)
[–] WorldwideCommunity@lemm.ee 8 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Explanation for illiterates?

[–] fool@programming.dev 31 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (2 children)
[–] keisatsu@infosec.pub 2 points 17 minutes ago

As a security consultant who tests web applications on the regular: LOL

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 16 points 13 hours ago

Still, any programmer worth their salt should filter their inputs. One group at work refuses to do it and they always get away with it and it's infuriating

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 84 points 18 hours ago (6 children)

Use EICAR test strings as your password.

If they store your password in plain text the AV will lock the user database.

If your password gets leaked and they are using bad password security, when your password is cracked the AV will isolate the file.

[–] HootinNHollerin@slrpnk.net 5 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Being a non-programmer I had to look up what that is

[–] Sir_Premiumhengst@lemmy.world 4 points 7 hours ago

Whoa, I wanna try this now! Thx!

[–] shrodes@lemmy.world 62 points 18 hours ago

Bold of you to assume a corporation storing passwords in plain text would be using AV

[–] qaz@lemmy.world 38 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

According to EICAR's specification the antivirus detects the test file only if it starts with the 68-byte test string and is not more than 128 bytes long. As a result, antiviruses are not expected to raise an alarm on some other document containing the test string.

This won't work, assuming the database file is more than 128 bytes long

[–] Talaraine@fedia.io 10 points 17 hours ago

I think the important distinction would be 'file' or 'record'. Passwords aren't really a file in a database iirc and records in a database have a storage limit

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[–] Krudler@lemmy.world 20 points 17 hours ago

Ah... "advice" consisting of "I've heard of a thing"

[–] Talaraine@fedia.io 10 points 18 hours ago

This is diabolical. I approve.

[–] fool@programming.dev 20 points 15 hours ago

Make your data useless or wrong.

More passively, there's probably an oddly large amount of John Does born on January 1, 2000 ;)

More offensively, anti-image-gen data poisoning such as Nightshade exists. It's well-defended against IIRC so hopefully someone can Cunningham's Law correct me. And this is also more solo of a movement (as opposed to gaining mass support for something)

[–] GrumpyDuckling@sh.itjust.works 35 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

If you send back one of those reply mail envelopes it costs them money. Stuff those envelopes with junk and send them back.

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 11 points 14 hours ago

I don't get many of them anymore, but when I do, I mail them back with a little slip of paper inside that says "poop".

[–] MNByChoice@midwest.social 8 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

But not a brick. They are apparently onto that.

[–] kalkulat@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago

I tried the brick once long ago. 1) No way to verif it works (not just PO's the P.O. 2) That kind of shit may be why so many public POBoxes have been removed. 3) The was of paper (up to 3.5 oz?) -seems- to have worked.

[–] GrumpyDuckling@sh.itjust.works 9 points 14 hours ago

First class letter mail is up to 3.5 oz and within a certain l thickness. Every ounce costs extra over the first oz (idk about commercial return mail pricing) just stuff it with flat cardboard from cereal boxes or fill out the information wrong and put in a competitors corporate address.

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 84 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (2 children)

More in the spirit of this, prefer and actively seek out alternatives that collect as little or even no data at all and test to make sure they run without internet access. If they give you a hard time or straight up dont work without an internet connection when they ought to be able to, chuck em

Edit: also call them out in reviews. Why you collect data guys, dont you want my money?

[–] Bluetreefrog@lemmy.world 16 points 19 hours ago

This has been the go-to for decades and it's not working. I feel like we need to be prepared to engage with the system, but make it clear we are not just passive consumers. Something that becomes viral maybe?....

[–] noxypaws@pawb.social 19 points 20 hours ago

that only works when there are alternatives that work offline. which is not guaranteed.

[–] stinerman@midwest.social 20 points 16 hours ago

As others have said, the best instances of direct action are illegal.

[–] RamblingPanda@lemmynsfw.com 23 points 17 hours ago
  1. Get into politics
  2. Get elected
  3. Rip them a new one

*might take some time

[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 56 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (3 children)

Edit: The following should be reserved for serious malfeasance causing death/harm/suffering. For data breaches, I'd say something similar, but with fines.

Pick a C*O. Set fire to them.

Alternatively, if you want to go to the source, pick the single investor (dereferencing through any institutional investor) with the greatest worth, and set fire to them.

In the case of managed investors, flip a coin to decide if you burninate an investor or someone with purchasing authority.

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 1 points 1 hour ago

burninate

Hehe so funny seeing Trogdor references in 2024. :D

[–] stinerman@midwest.social 23 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

I believe this is illegal in most jurisdictions.

[–] huquad@lemmy.ml 10 points 15 hours ago

We'll see once the verdict comes

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[–] granolabar@kbin.melroy.org 45 points 20 hours ago (3 children)

Deny engagement and profit. It a takes a mind set change but a lot of shit can go avoided.

Streamimg can be replaced with Yarr

Use products you have longer until they break or not longer don't fit use case

Start your shopping on the second market.

Generally Corpo's and government are centralized and get benefits of that system, working class is decentralized naturally so we need to lean into that.

[–] Norin@lemmy.world 14 points 19 hours ago

Absolutely.

Buy things used, repair and jailbreak what you can, and learn to make things for yourself.

We can’t, at least as individuals, divest from every exploitative system. But, we can remove ourselves from more than we think.

Often enough, you get a better experience out of the homemade and secondary market than whatever the new thing you’re being pushed can give.

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[–] halloween_spookster@lemmy.world 32 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I'm skeptical that anything legal will work for very long because they will quickly work to make said legal action illegal.

[–] Bluetreefrog@lemmy.world 12 points 19 hours ago

But we can have some fun along the way, and it does change behaviour for a bit.

[–] WhatSay@slrpnk.net 26 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Use AI to generate false info to feed into their database

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 22 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

I love putting wrong AI slop in every optional field or space I can get away with for profiles and accounts that don't really matter.

[–] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 15 points 17 hours ago

If an extension exists for this I'll use it

[–] j4k3@lemmy.world 35 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Send a copy of the receipt for your donation to the open source project that most closely aims to be their alternative. Explain why you're angry in 3 sentences and do so like you are condescendingly speaking to a five year old.

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 13 points 18 hours ago

Make the letter public, so other people know & get informed.

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[–] just_an_average_joe@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Maybe pirate your media and donate the money to open source alternatives

[–] metaStatic@kbin.earth 7 points 18 hours ago

I donate all the money I save pirating to the charity of Me

[–] BerenstainsMonster@kbin.earth 15 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

I think the most effective method is to do some sort of organized boycott. We all know well enough how sheisty these companies are. Time to start encouraging each other to quit them en masse.

[–] nichtburningturtle@feddit.org 11 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

To bad that most participants give in and return shortly after leaving.

[–] metaStatic@kbin.earth 13 points 19 hours ago

me explaining how evil Nestle is every time a family member buys a product, them agreeing that's the most evil thing they've ever heard, and then doing it all over again next week ...

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