What is Differential Privacy?

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 15, 2016, 7:02 AM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #10

aub3bhat wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck selling that to doctors. People who are trained to cut open a patient aren't receptive to hypothetical harms and imaginary "budgets". Consider the fact that cause of death records are public. The usual perception of privacy by theory and security researchers and norms practiced in healthcare differ enormously.

The point of differential privacy is to allow for aggregate analysis, without destroying the privacy of outliers. Researchers deal with noise all the time, so is it so odd that a field of researchers believe that adding enough noise to data released with studies will allow for conclusive analysis without ruining privacy for individuals?

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 15, 2016, 7:04 AM UTC

aub3bhat wrote: post #8

ekianjo wrote: post #3

> On the other hand, when the budget was reduced to a level that achieved meaningful privacy, the "noise-ridden" model had a tendency to kill its "patients". Uh, the graph is just showing you get an increased 25% estimated risk of mortality from Warfarin, nothing close to "killing patients". Complete exageration, since the mortality baseline is probably very low in the first place.

Good luck selling that to doctors. People who are trained to cut open a patient aren't receptive to hypothetical harms and imaginary "budgets". Consider the fact that cause of death records are public. The usual perception of privacy by theory and security researchers and norms practiced in healthcare differ enormously.

Post by anshukla » Wed, Jun 15, 2016, 7:32 AM UTC

guelo wrote: post #27

Apple backed themselves into a corner by marketing themselves as the super-privacy company in contrast to Google. The problem is that all the data collection lets you do some really useful stuff that benefits the user. So now they're spreading FUD while trying to pretend that they're not collecting the same type of data that Google does. Google has been using differential privacy for a while in different projects.

Post by singularity2001 » Wed, Jun 15, 2016, 7:37 AM UTC

Twisell wrote: post #26

conradev wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though the technique doesn't require collecting all of the data, Apple still does collect a huge well of data. They store all iCloud sync material (backups, photos, contacts, calendars, mail, documents, etc.) without end to end encryption, and have all of the iMessage metadata.

This is so wrong. The only thing that isn't user-encrypted so far is the iPhone backup on their server (Of course it is encrypted but Apple have the key to decrypt it as needed). The official explanation so far is that if the user forgot the password a user-encrypted backup would just become some useless junk. This is (officially) the sole remaining non user-encrypted personal data on apple server that authority can…

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 15, 2016, 7:39 AM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #10

aub3bhat wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck selling that to doctors. People who are trained to cut open a patient aren't receptive to hypothetical harms and imaginary "budgets". Consider the fact that cause of death records are public. The usual perception of privacy by theory and security researchers and norms practiced in healthcare differ enormously.

The point of differential privacy is to allow for aggregate analysis, without destroying the privacy of outliers. Researchers deal with noise all the time, so is it so odd that a field of researchers believe that adding enough noise to data released with studies will allow for conclusive analysis without ruining privacy for individuals?