Getting rid of Big Tech, why?

Why being open source matters

Making your program freely viewable by others is at the heart of the open source philosophy: the goal is to publish your work online to receive feedback on its development, an aspect that also plays a crucial role in the context of security.

When the code of a program or a project is made freely accessible, everyone can verify that:

1. It contains no activity trackers or malicious services that harm the user's privacy
2. It contains no services that are potentially risky for privacy (for example, if the software isn't updated it could be exposed to cyber attacks)
3. It contains no malicious software (for example a built-in crypto miner, which has already happened in the past with Android apps that were later removed)

When software isn't open source, nothing can be taken for granted. You often hear people say: "I have nothing to hide" when referring to Google's services. However, these people are giving Google the technical ability to analyse all their email communications, with or without artificial intelligence (Gmail), creating significant privacy issues: receiving payslips, profiling of communications, PDFs about events and tickets are just a few examples.

This leads to potential detailed profiling:

1. How much a person earns in a month/year, or their spending power
2. How much of those earnings they would be willing to spend
3. Shopping interests (do they buy a lot from Temu, and if so, what? Amazon? etc...)
4. Potential targeted advertising (if they buy a lot of ink cartridges for pens, I'll show them a site that has them on sale, and these aren't always reliable sites)
5. Potential medical profiling (if you receive emails from the doctor/doctors who follow you)

In light of all this, if you use Google's AI and you're tied to their services to communicate and work, it could reply to one of your requests like this:

User: "Hi Gemini, can you give me a summary of the book XXXX?"
Gemini: "Hi Michele, I could give you the summary, however your teacher/professor sent you a message specifying that the assignment is yours to do. Therefore I can't proceed."

It's important to clarify that these situations are potentially feasible, but this doesn't necessarily mean that they happen or will ever happen. However, it's precisely these shortcomings in privacy protection that motivated me, and many others, to abandon Google's services.

Going back to the Open Source topic, we have now understood how much a program or service that isn't open source can hide under the hood an endless number of critical issues for security and personal privacy.

If you need an alternative email service, you can check the dedicated page on the site: www.michelepelosi.com/alternative

Adopting open source solutions

I'm getting rid of WhatsApp, why?

Lately I've been cutting WhatsApp out of my communications.
The reason? It's fairly obvious: WhatsApp is no longer just a replacement for text messages, it's becoming a social network in its own right.
Companies use business accounts to communicate with customers, and a big button to talk to the AI has appeared.

A small note... Have you ever wondered why I would want to talk to an AI right inside WhatsApp? And not with Google's or another one?
Every company draws its own chatters in so it can acquire and resell the information we share with the AI chat, so if I talk to Google's AI, Google earns, if I talk to META's, META earns... we can therefore deduce that META put the AI in WhatsApp purely for profit, not because it's really needed (in fact it isn't)

AI Washing

Lately we're seeing a phenomenon called "Artificial Intelligence Washing".
It's when companies try to all look the same in a certain way, to follow a trend.
For example, during Gay Pride companies tend to use rainbow images and often even change their logo to make it colourful (often associated with the rainbow colours used at Gay Pride and on the Gay pride flag); this phenomenon is called "Pride Washing".
The term "Washing" is often used pejoratively, and indicates a company's tendency to carry out certain marketing practices not because it believes in the cause, but because it has to follow the fashion.
This also happens with artificial intelligence: many companies want to put AI in every product or service they offer. Even where it isn't really needed, or where it even becomes superfluous and cumbersome, as happens with WhatsApp. (Integration with the META AI chat)

WhatsApp, child of META, of the Facebook tribe

Facebook, now called Meta, has always collected and sold users' information and data.
As for WhatsApp, all chats are protected by an encryption called E2EE (End-to-End Encryption), which keeps conversations private. However, all the other information, such as phone numbers, app usage data and other activity, is recorded and sent to Meta.
We're talking about information such as:

• Phone number provided during registration.
• Contact list saved on the device, if permission is granted.
• User ID and device ID used to identify the user and the phone. (Which device you use, Samsung, iPhone ... and which model)
• Email address (in certain scenarios, such as using WhatsApp Business).
• Payment information if transactions are made through the platform.
• Approximate location derived, for example, from the IP address or from GPS if knowingly shared (When you share your location, Meta also knows where you are).
• Profile pictures, status, description and other info associated with the account. (all the information not contained in the chats is shared)
• Conversation history, chat backups (in the cloud, if enabled). (Unencrypted backups can be read by both Meta and Google; this can be avoided by enabling E2EE on backups.
• Photos, videos and other media files shared through the chat (stored on devices and in backups, but encrypted in transit).
• Diagnostic and usage data, including crash logs, battery level, signal strength, mobile carrier, frequency and duration of app use. (if the app has a problem, it isn't necessarily reported to the user).
• App performance data and the user's interaction with the platform's features. (e.g. how many business accounts I deal with on a dd mm yyyy basis)
• Advertising data and information linked to preferences/activity that can be used for statistical purposes or to improve services.
• Interactions with customer service and feedback provided by users.
• Data on security features such as two-factor authentication and linked devices.

Alternatives

At the moment the most valid alternative, and probably my final choice, is Signal.

Why?

Signal is an instant messaging app focused on privacy, completely free and open source, that protects all messages, calls and files exchanged thanks to end-to-end encryption.
It's preferable to other apps because it doesn't collect users' sensitive data, doesn't show ads and doesn't belong to a for-profit company, thus guaranteeing independence and maximum security of information.
Moreover, the Signal security protocol is public and is also used as a reference by other messaging platforms. A small note: the protocol WhatsApp adapted to its own chats for encryption is the E2E protocol developed by Signal.

Conclusions

All things considered, these and other considerations too technical to cover on this page led me to decide to remove WhatsApp from my life

Any questions? Feel free to contact me with the contact me button :)

Contact me

Do you need a list of programs and services to use to stop Big Tech from knowing everything you do?:

www.michelepelosi.com/alternative