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Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

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Re: Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

#151

Post by mechanical_fish »

maqr wrote: post #117
pilif wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. I see. I do also think though that the previous setup provided security by obscurity (it was hard to stalk, but it was also hard to notice being stalked), whereas the new setup is open about that fact. Relying on your stalker not to be technically-sophisticated seems risky. I agree on the point of not changing existing tools, though arguably, this was a change for the better (now you see that you are being st…

I'm also having a hard time understanding the issue here. Is any private data (besides social relationship data) being 'published' that wasn't available before via a simple Google search?

As I will have cause to say again: Life is not a mathematics problem. There is a world of difference between that which is theoretically possible, that which is practical, that which is routine, and that which is obvious. And the tendency to assume that these things are all the same is a huge problem in tech product design, especially social software design.

Cryptographers have a principle: security-through-obscurity is no security at all. And in the world of cryptography, that's a good principle. [1] But, alas, in the world of people who are being stalked, that principle is useless -- or, rather, it is isomorphic to in the long run you are doomed. Security-through-obscurity, and its undependable, amorphous cousins like social engineering, are all that you get, assuming that you physically exist, that you can't afford to live in an armed compound, and that you can't afford (or have no legal power) to get your stalker put in a secure prison for life.

Don't force your users to give up all the pragmatic social tools that they know best, that they've developed for themselves -- their knowledge of the natures, personalities, and social norms of the people around them -- and make them live inside a math-class story problem. Such a move can literally kill them. And they won't appreciate it even if it doesn't.

---

[1] Because cryptographers study a class of problems in which this assumption makes sense and maps well to the real-world situation.

Re: Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

#152

Post by hexis »

lsc wrote: post #30
CaptainZapp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd wager a guess: Greed? So much for do no evil...

but it's /stupid/ to piss away the goodwill of nerds, and there is a rather large subset of the nerd population that is freakishly concerned about privacy. If you want to do business with nerds, you need to respect that. Google, I think, did a very good job of building trust and enthusiasm with nerds; it's super important for them, we are the influencers here. Sure, nerds never click on ads, but who do you think sets…

Greed can make you stupid, just like any other kind of lust.

Re: Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

#153

Post by nfnaaron »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #88
pilif wrote: post #68

I wonder... before buzz, her ex-husband could also have followed her, probably without her ever noticing. Now that buzz generated, well, buzz, she found out about it and now can actually take mesures to block her ex. While I see dubious value of automatically setting often mailing addresses to following (this should not have been the case, IMHO), I have a feeling that the much more visible follow-relationships right…

You don't get to cherry-pick the scenarios. If you're going to play the cost-benefit game you have to enumerate them all, or at least all of the common ones. (Here's just one of the many alternative scenarios: For every technically-sophisticated stalker who is unmasked by this change, I'll bet there are several technically-unsophisticated stalkers who didn't used to know how to stalk someone through Google, but who n…

"The person who does get to cherry-pick scenarios -- to steer the course of his or her life in situationally-appropriate ways -- is the customer."

As has been pointed out here on HN, we are not the customer. The customer is the ad buyer. We are merely the sheep, here to be regularly shorn by serving ads to us and analyzing our data and networks.

As has also been pointed out here on HN, Google doesn't treat their customers (ad buyers) very well. Given that, how well would you expect them to treat the sheep?

Re: Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

#154

Post by cabalamat »

Can anyone tell me how I can (1) get off buzz, (2) not forward anytthing from me to anyone using buzz, (3) not have buzz appear in my gmail window? I've never opted in to buzz, don't want it, and don't want anything to do with it. There doesn't appear to be any obvious setting where I can get out of it.

Re: Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

#155

Post by qjz »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #94
goodside wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recklessness and lack of foresight doesn't make you inhuman. If you forwarded this post back in time to the Buzz engineers, they would try to fix it before launch -- not laugh maniacally at the thought of an innocent woman fearing for her safety.

The engineers are human. I'm sure they're as horrified as you suggest. Companies are not human, certainly not by default. The vector sum of the effort of many humans is inhuman by default. [1] (Phrases like "mob mentality", "team spirit", and "groupthink" didn't get invented for nothing.) It takes hard work to give a company a human face -- hard work by management, by PR, by customer support, by HR. Some companies ar…

It appears they may have foreseen the outcome and acted deliberately, if this thread at http://www.google.com/buzz/tmgrone/brHidEYC3jh/I-wish-Google... is any indication. In particular, see Brett Lider's response that includes this excerpt:

'Similar to Facebook being willing to "piss its users off" when it feels the need to make a big change in its service for the long-term good, I see Buzz in Gmail as a relative big change that requires more than one day to adjust to. We've all been on the side of changes in services that we didn't like and either got used to or actually loved in the long run. We think Buzz is one of them. A lot of us here have also been designers on a service that we knew needed to change but was afraid to because of internal momentum or fear of short-term user reactions.'

edit: I think the quote stands on its own. They may be horrified, but the action was rooted in a kind of arrogance we often ascribe to inhuman activity, where the impact on other humans wasn't considered thoughtfully or was deliberately ignored.

Re: Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

#156

Post by lmkg »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #40
loup-vaillant wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"web-based anonymous e-mail" can't exist. It is just too tempting for the hosting company to use your personal data without your explicit consent.

I don't understand the disagreement. Can someone explain to me why "web-based anonymous e-mail" can reliably exist ? (short of having your mail server at home, of course)

http://www.lavabit.com

They (claim to) use some sort of asymmetric encryption scheme such that they literally do not have access to the data on their own servers. I'd love to have a crypto expert explain to me if it's legit.

Re: Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

#157

Post by jfager »

jasonlotito wrote: post #146
jfager wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This morning, I've watched two coworkers open their gmail accounts for the first time since Buzz went live. In both cases, they clicked "No thanks, take me to my inbox" instead of the button to "Check out Buzz", and in both cases, Buzz was enabled anyways, and a bunch of people were listed as following/followers. We looked at their profiles, and all the followers/ees were publicly listed. What, exactly, should they h…

They were using their profile privacy settings, and it violated it, or was it more a case of the feature enabling itself in Gmail and using existing privacy settings? Edit: And because it needs to be said here: I'm not suggesting enabling Buzz and then using existing privacy settings as a bases for how Buzz works is right. I'm just asking a question.

This was their first interaction with Buzz. There was no opportunity to set any privacy settings.

They are both Reader users, and did have limited sharing enabled there, but under what logic should those permissions ever extend to a completely new, different service with wholly different privacy concerns?

Re: Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

#158

Post by run4yourlives »

jrockway wrote: post #134

I don't get the outrage. Is there some flag in GMail that you flip to say "this person is stalking me, pretend they don't exist"? No. So at this point, her public comments are being shared with one of the people that she talks to the most. This is a problem, but it's not something Google could have avoided. My advice is to block this person, stop commenting on blogs if it is going to endanger her life (or use real an…

The default position of any social network when it comes to sharing personal information should not to, Period.

All "sharing" should be based on opt-in actions and not left to being opt-out. I've fully aware that many networks including the biggies like Facebook don't follow this mantra, but personal privacy laws (such as those that exist in Canada) should exist to enforce this fact.

Re: Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

#159

Post by cabalamat »

jfager wrote: post #140
jasonlotito wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being an HN reader doesn't make someone immune to being wrong. At some point, the user has to take responsibility. Every complaint I've read that discusses this has mentioned not using Google Profiles to modify privacy settings previously. Either that, or it wasn't mentioned at all. So, I go back to what I was saying: did anyone using the privacy settings available have their privacy setting explicitly overridden, or…

This morning, I've watched two coworkers open their gmail accounts for the first time since Buzz went live. In both cases, they clicked "No thanks, take me to my inbox" instead of the button to "Check out Buzz", and in both cases, Buzz was enabled anyways, and a bunch of people were listed as following/followers. We looked at their profiles, and all the followers/ees were publicly listed. What, exactly, should they h…

> In both cases, they clicked "No thanks, take me to my inbox" instead of the button to "Check out Buzz", and in both cases, Buzz was enabled anyways

That's exactly what happened to me. I'm really pissed off with Google now. If they are going to throw this sort of crap at me, I will have to reconsider whether I want gmail and reader accounts.

Re: Automatically followed by abusive ex-husband (and his friends) on Google Buzz

#160

Post by aneesh »

cabalamat wrote: post #154

Can anyone tell me how I can (1) get off buzz, (2) not forward anytthing from me to anyone using buzz, (3) not have buzz appear in my gmail window? I've never opted in to buzz, don't want it, and don't want anything to do with it. There doesn't appear to be any obvious setting where I can get out of it.

At the bottom-center of your Gmail page, there is a link to "turn off buzz".
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