Onur Sümbül

Smartphones have become more than just basic communication devices that replace home line phones. They are our point-and-shoot cameras, navigation units, media consumption devices and add many more unique features to help us out in real world use-cases. With every new year comes a new generation of SoCs, camera sensors, charging and display technologies. This is also why it is tempting to buy the newest flagship phone on the market.  Adding the hype around these devices, people most are likely willing to upgrade sooner to the next gen devices then their use-cases require.  This creates many problems: First, changing phones every one or two years creates a large amount of waste and that way harms the environment. Also, new devices need resources that are most likely only available in mines with inferior labor rights compared to modern industrial countries. Well known cases of child labor and slavery shouldn't become a norm to satisfy the public.  But w...

Let's begin with the obvious facts: Google Search is not prone for its privacy and user anonymity. In fact, the goal of most companies from the valley is about farming data about you. It's not that they want to scam or blackmail you. The goal is to create a personal image of the user to target ads and campaigns for companies that try to reach a specific audience. A vacuum manufacturer obviously tries to reach people that regularly use a vacuum and have an interest in having a nice and functioning one. So, the perfect audience for a vacuum ad could be housewives and professional cleaning companies for example. Like I mentioned in one of my previous posts about privacy, cookies are one of the main data access points for creating a user profile. With the help of the EU, users have gained the ability to check the cookie usages on websites and can choose to only save the necessary cookies to have a properly functioning website.  But there are alternatives in which data ca...

Germany takes privacy very serious. The abuse of personal information and trust by the Nazis with the Gestapo and the socialists with the Stasi organization showed Germans why information is a very valuable good.  This is also one of the reasons innovative technologies take time to get implemented in Germany and the usage of credit cards are extremely low compared to countries like the USA.  One of the most important things to consider in the 21th century is privacy.  That is why I decided to write this quick post about how you can avoid leaving any footprints behind you with your daily internet consumption.  Here are some important points: 1. Cookies Cookies are one of the most important aspects you need to worry about when browsing through the internet.  Cookies are essentially small data packs that include some information about the website you have visited. For example, settings for visuals or your login information. The problem with c...