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The privacy wars are about to get a whole lot worse

locusmag.com

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Re: The privacy wars are about to get a whole lot worse

#101

Post by ryukafalz »

ACS_Solver wrote: post #67
Sylos wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Google account - I have one because it's required for Android, but I have never used Gmail, do not search from my Google account or ever log into it from my browser. I haven't run stock Android in a while (and instead just CyanogenMod), but I'm pretty sure that it's not actually required, i.e. you can skip account creation during setup and then install alternative app stores like F-Droid, Aptoide or Amazon. If w…

I also prefer Cyanogen, although I like having access to the Google Play store even on that. While that's tied to my Google account, it's an informed choice, I am fine with Google knowing what Play Store apps I have installed, and I use F-Droid at the same time for some other apps. One of the great things about Cyanogen is maintaining tight control even over Google's apps and how much they track me.

> One of the great things about Cyanogen is maintaining tight control even over Google's apps and how much they track me.

Are you sure? How much is Play Services tracking you?

I run MicroG on my own phone, personally. It's a FOSS implementation of (most of) the Play Services APIs.

https://microg.org/

Re: The privacy wars are about to get a whole lot worse

#103

Post by mattkrause »

ahartman00 wrote: post #94
ryandrake wrote: post #76

> Eventually, some lawyer is going to convince a judge that, say, 1% the victims of a deep-pocketed company’s breach will end up losing their houses to identity thieves as a result of the data that the company has leaked, and that the damages should be equal to 1% of all the property owned by a 53 million (or 500 million!) customers whom the company has wronged. It will take down a Fortune 100 company, and transfer b…

"They're portraying the negligent company as the victim!" While I agree that things like sql injection are negligent, there were also credit card hacks/leaks(and an nsa leak) that were the result of malicious contractors. Saying "dont hire bad people" is easy, but how do you do that? And the standard for best practices is constantly moving in our industry, how do we decide when it is negligence, and when there was no…

> How do we decide when it is negligence, and when there was nothing that could be done?

This isn't an insoluble issue: courts deal with similar decisions in car crashes, medical malpractice, and many other scenarios.

A plaintiff could argue that the respondent should have been aware of certain vulnerabilities because they were widely disseminated, or that certain practices are explicitly warned against in common training materials. Respondents might counter by arguing that they test for that type of vulnerability using a widely-accepted tool, but it failed to flag this one issue, or something like that.

I agree that it can't be a purely algorithmic process, but almost nothing in a courtroom is.

Re: The privacy wars are about to get a whole lot worse

#104

Post by CaptSpify »

ahartman00 wrote: post #94
ryandrake wrote: post #76

> Eventually, some lawyer is going to convince a judge that, say, 1% the victims of a deep-pocketed company’s breach will end up losing their houses to identity thieves as a result of the data that the company has leaked, and that the damages should be equal to 1% of all the property owned by a 53 million (or 500 million!) customers whom the company has wronged. It will take down a Fortune 100 company, and transfer b…

"They're portraying the negligent company as the victim!" While I agree that things like sql injection are negligent, there were also credit card hacks/leaks(and an nsa leak) that were the result of malicious contractors. Saying "dont hire bad people" is easy, but how do you do that? And the standard for best practices is constantly moving in our industry, how do we decide when it is negligence, and when there was no…

Do you regularly hire contractors and then never look over the work they do? Because I don't, and frankly, that's kind of idiotic. The data is your responsibility, not theirs. They also have no interest in the longevity of your company, why would you trust them without checking what they are doing? As a customer, I don't care how Home-Depot handed out my CC info, I care that they did.

Sure some hacks happened despite companies putting forth their best effort, but hand-waving the responsibility to contractors is not the answer.

Re: The privacy wars are about to get a whole lot worse

#105

Post by snthd »

Sylos wrote: post #47
ACS_Solver wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think this is right. I have very privacy-conscious tech habits, and companies have some data on me, but probably far less than on the typical user of modern services. Some ways I protect myself: 1. Google account - I have one because it's required for Android, but I have never used Gmail, do not search from my Google account or ever log into it from my browser. 2. Facebook or any subsidiaries - never. 3. Gener…

> 1. Google account - I have one because it's required for Android, but I have never used Gmail, do not search from my Google account or ever log into it from my browser. I haven't run stock Android in a while (and instead just CyanogenMod), but I'm pretty sure that it's not actually required, i.e. you can skip account creation during setup and then install alternative app stores like F-Droid, Aptoide or Amazon. If w…

If you have the option to log in to a google account you have google play services installed. It keeps a connection open to google (even if you aren't logged in) to support push messaging - which many apps use.

Re: The privacy wars are about to get a whole lot worse

#106

Post by CaptSpify »

Silhouette wrote: post #75
craigsmansion wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Gervase Markham of Mozilla: "If you believe you have a right to access all the free content on the Internet while blocking the ads which fund it, you continue to believe that [..]" Mozilla seems to not want to interfere with online advertising practices.

"If you believe you have a right to access all the free content on the Internet while blocking the ads which fund it, you continue to believe that [..]" Thanks, I will. I've been using the Internet since before online advertising became a big deal. I've run web sites of varying scales, often with original content, sometimes with original content that cost a lot of time and/or money to produce. I've also contributed w…

https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/web/AdSupportedWebD...

> essentially all of the ad supported sites I visit are diversions

The web existed fine before ads, and could exist just fine (if not better) after ads.

Re: The privacy wars are about to get a whole lot worse

#107

Post by Zigurd »

Frondo wrote: post #8

I used to feel strongly about not trading my privacy away for some convenience. For a long time I took a luddite pride in not being on various services, having a dumb phone, keeping it turned off, etc. Over time, though, I've found myself having a change of heart. What started as little inconveniences have turned into big ones, as I'm more and more out of touch with my peers, contemporaries, and family. I don't like…

There is no need to "balance" privacy with anything. You and I should just have privacy. Technology products can be created that put privacy first, and that thwart surveillance.

Moreover you don't need new laws to have privacy. Or looked at from another angle, even if you had laws protecting your privacy you should not rely on laws to keep your private information secure.

If all real time communication were secured with endpoint-generated ephemeral keys, and all storage and store-and-forward payloads were secured with keys distributed with a web-of-trust ket distribution infrastructure, the surveillance state and other commerce-oriented snoops would have to work much much harder to glean far less information.

Re: The privacy wars are about to get a whole lot worse

#108

Post by krupan »

ahartman00 wrote: post #94
ryandrake wrote: post #76

> Eventually, some lawyer is going to convince a judge that, say, 1% the victims of a deep-pocketed company’s breach will end up losing their houses to identity thieves as a result of the data that the company has leaked, and that the damages should be equal to 1% of all the property owned by a 53 million (or 500 million!) customers whom the company has wronged. It will take down a Fortune 100 company, and transfer b…

"They're portraying the negligent company as the victim!" While I agree that things like sql injection are negligent, there were also credit card hacks/leaks(and an nsa leak) that were the result of malicious contractors. Saying "dont hire bad people" is easy, but how do you do that? And the standard for best practices is constantly moving in our industry, how do we decide when it is negligence, and when there was no…

I think I'm with Cory on this. It's negligence if you leak it. Period. Nobody is obligated to hoard and store a bunch of sensitive personal data from their customers.

Re: The privacy wars are about to get a whole lot worse

#109

Post by j2kun »

> However, there’s nothing intrinsic to self-driving cars that says that the data they gather needs to be retained or further processed. Remember that for many years, the server logs that recorded all your inter­actions with the web were flushed as a matter of course, because no one could figure out what they were good for, apart from debugging problems when they occurred.

Clearly someone who doesn't understand how machine learning works. The "further use" of the data is obvious: to train and improve the driving algorithm.

Re: The privacy wars are about to get a whole lot worse

#110

Post by hx87 »

pcunite wrote: post #23

There is coming a point in time where every person must have a mark in order to buy or sell. It will be your access and citizen membership to a new global order. Enjoy your temporary freedom. History has a nasty way of modernizing itself.

Privacy and freedom are orthogonal concepts. A lack of privacy can only lead to a lack of freedom if institutions have excessive coercive powers and if a society has strongly held but commonly broken rules. IMO, getting rid of the latter as much as possible is much easier than guaranteeing privacy for everyone.
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