When I place a sticker over my laptop's camera, people think I am freak or acting like a hacker. In fact, I just want to protect my freedom. However, society doesn't care freedom. They care just their popularity and don't want to be alienated. I think this is where problems come from.
When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests
91–100 of 264 posts
Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but privacy needs to be a mainstream political issue Honestly most people don't care and money talks... This is the new normal, better get used to it. This fight was lost a long time ago.
Cryptography is not magic, and it will become the standard. Privacy can either be provided, demanded, or created. Since nobody wants to demand it, and it is not being provided, there is only one option.
I would add that unless data security is the default, it is ineffective. Moreover, it's demonstrably false that data security is hard on usability. Skype became popular because easy-to-use data security made it possible to build a p2p communications product. Most users didn't know or care they were using encrypted communications.
Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests
#93"Opting out doesn’t work. It’s nonsense to tell people not to carry a credit card or not to have an email address. And “buyer beware” is putting too much onus on the individual. People don’t test their food for pathogens or their airlines for safety." This is a brilliant line and it works so well because he is absolutely right: it should not be on the burden of the consumer to make sure their products are safe, be it…
The comparison that Bruce Schneider makes is not correct. Governments are likely to control food pathogens and airline risks because they need living, productive, happy voters. But governments have also a fundamental distrust for all individuals and therefore want as much surveillance as possible. By allowing big companies to collect that, they have access as well. Therefore I think governments are not motivated to i…
That's an explanation of how this is happening, not an argument that it should happen. What governments do is not some mysterious black-box that we can't influence.
Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests
#94> My hope is that technologists also get involved in the political process — in government, in think-tanks, universities, and so on.
How does one do this? What might Bruce Schneier be thinking of that the EFF, Liberty, Privacy International, etc... are currently not doing?
In some sense, it seems like this might be solved "generationally", once the majority of elected representatives are "natively" computer-literate. Based on the average age of politicians, that might take 30-40 years.
Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's worth remembering how Facebook got to the userbase that it currently has -- they didn't start out targeting "everyone on the planet", which is an almost impossibly hard challenge because of the network effects you note. Instead, they started off providing closed social networks for existing groups of users -- colleges, starting with a small number of elite colleges and slowly broadening out from there -- until e…
I think discord has better potential to be the next social media juggernaut, I know most of my social media interaction goes through discord. As our lives move more and more online discord seems to be the digital equivalent of the roman forums and I appreciate the ability to jump into a conversation with my friends in the same way I would IRL. Mostly I appreciate the ability to be parts of different groups, the ease…
I love how, in a thread about the uncertainty of internet privacy, you're here slinging praises to a walled garden service that owns all of your chats. Another walled garden interested in collecting information and slinging adds to pay back VC funds is the last thing the internet needs and the fact that it's so successful is a better indicator than anything else that the consumer doesn't care a lick about privacy.
Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but privacy needs to be a mainstream political issue Honestly most people don't care and money talks... This is the new normal, better get used to it. This fight was lost a long time ago.
Not really. Surveillance as the primary way essential services are paid for is, in relative terms, an extremely new business model, and one that's already adverse to meaningful competition. It's escaped regulation so far mainly as a product of public ignorance and private lobbying. The EU and independent US states are already starting to legislate for consumer/citizen protections. The public response has generally be…
Surveillance? If the government doesn't monitor us directly they will just go after all the products and services that we use that monitors us already. I dont even think Im being pessimistic here but the line in the sand for legitimate privacy was drawn about a decade ago and we crossed that line. I really think this is the new norm, it's like asking us to use on-prem hardware instead of AWS, sure it's still an option but hardly anyone cares where the hardware is... This is just how it is now.
Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests
#97"Opting out doesn’t work. It’s nonsense to tell people not to carry a credit card or not to have an email address. And “buyer beware” is putting too much onus on the individual. People don’t test their food for pathogens or their airlines for safety." This is a brilliant line and it works so well because he is absolutely right: it should not be on the burden of the consumer to make sure their products are safe, be it…
This is the crux of the whole privacy issue for me.
I understand there is way too much money in advertising, and therefore data collection, to ever go away. What I want in an ideal world is transparency. If I opt-in to using web services that collect + sell my browsing data, I want to know what data is collected, how much, and who it is sold to and for what. Then I can make an informed decision about the services I'm utilizing and if I think they are handling data responsibly.
As far as I'm concerned, targeted ads are fine. If you're going to berate me with visual pollution for crap I don't need, at least let it be somewhat relevant to my life. What I don't want is "targeted information", "curation", or any other buzz word that describes showing me filtered content based on an algorithm. Of course that is already happening, but it could be much, much worse.
Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests
#98I appreciate Bruce Schneier's pragmatism and his acknowledgement that the problem is bigger than an individual can reasonably be expected to solve, if that individual wishes to participate in modern society. Too often, privacy concerns are met with, "Use Tails + Tor + a hosts file + a burner phone + a burner laptop, etc. etc." But Grandma isn't going to do that, and frankly neither am I. While an individual chooses t…
One particularly horrifying example of this is dating. In Brooklyn where I live, dating has moved online so thoroughly that many women I've talked to simply refuse to consider men they meet in person as potential partners. It's definitely still possible to date the old fashioned way, but it's obviously more difficult. I don't date online, but I've been blessed with fairly good looks, a successful career, and decent s…
That's very hard to believe. Is this 100% anecdotal or are there studies?
Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests
#99I'm already extremely pessimistic about these things. Computers were a mistake and represent the greatest threat to freedom in human history. The ability of those in power to mass produce perfectly obedient machines that can perform complex tasks without rest allow for a nightmare society. Additionally machine learning asymmetrically benefits those with the resources to fully leverage large amounts of data collection…
I like reading your darkly pessimistic perspective on the issue as I think a huge component to the problem is the fact that so many aren't pessimistic enough about technological development.
Everyone seems to think that, prima facie, or even de facto:
technological progress == good.
But there is nothing that guarantees that's the case.
A shiny new device or service launches and everyone is gung ho to jump on it--never mind questioning its negative impacts--what is the environmental and economic impact of this service (e.g. cryptocurrencies consuming electricity, a 'material' resource, and producing nothing but a representation--e.g. consumption of material with no production), who does the service marginalize, how does it propagate further cultural and global divisions...the list goes on
No one ever stops to ask these questions--or those who do are not nearly loud enough. We seem to follow a policy of progress by all means until we've developed our way into a future in which the continued subsistence of humanity (at least on earth) is untenable.
Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but privacy needs to be a mainstream political issue Honestly most people don't care and money talks... This is the new normal, better get used to it. This fight was lost a long time ago.
Cryptography is not magic, and it will become the standard. Privacy can either be provided, demanded, or created. Since nobody wants to demand it, and it is not being provided, there is only one option.
Yes, cryptography will become the standard. No, that won't protect you from the little brothers mentioned in the interview.
Your email will travel securely, so the government can't read it. It'll travel securely from Chrome on your Android device to a server somewhere in a Google datacenter. Your web browsing will be encrypted with https, so your ISP will need to use their DNS logs and traffic analysis in order to deduce parts of your browsing history. If you turn off location services, your location won't be stored with Apple, but your Telco needs to know in which cell your phone is located in order to route calls there. And it'd be a terrible waste to just throw that data away the day after, now wouldn't it.
Encryption helps. And we need encryption. Everywhere, and as quickly as possible. But privacy is also political issue, and a technical solution alone won't resolve it, no matter how advanced.
Oh, and not to forget: Ease of use is the way to mind share, not security. WhatsApp is by far the most widespread secure messenger. Not because of its security; in fact its security used to be terrible. The way in was ease of use, with security added to the mix at a later time. And, more importantly, without disrupting the user experience.