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When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

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Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

#111

Post by guelo »

samstave wrote: post #105
guelo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have representatives that are supposed to care about these types of technical issues so we don't have to. In our republican form of government their job is to make sure that government is working for us. The real problem is that billionaires and corporations have convinced a significant portion of the public that government is evil and should be destroyed and that any kind of commercial restraint is un-american co…

>> money talks >>> representatives that are supposed to care You can do the math.

I think there's more to it than that. A significant portion of the public sincerely believes that the government should not regulate anything.

Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

#112

Post by FilterSweep »

gglitch wrote: post #44
hnaccy wrote: post #8

I'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…

> 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. I think about that a lot. It suggests to me that the real problem lies not with technology, but with something unavoidable and self-destructive about human nature.

> It suggests to me that the real problem lies not with technology, but with something unavoidable and self-destructive about human nature.

Or the people in power not being fully clear about their means.

Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

#113

Post by ducttape12 »

I've gone down the rabbit hole of trying to protect my privacy. Basically, unless you move to the mountains with no cell phone, no internet access, and grow your own food, someone somewhere will be tracking you. You'll go crazy trying to close all the loopholes (ready to fry the RFID chips on your car tires?)

Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

#114

Post by notyourday »

kerkeslager wrote: post #90
carrier_lost wrote: post #5

I 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…

If you are planning on sleeping with them I find it quite curious that you do not want them to know who you are.

Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

#115

Post by svachalek »

nxsynonym wrote: post #97
Chardok wrote: post #60

"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…

Ideally instead of a wall of text preceding the use of a service, or even worse hidden away somewhere under a fine-print footer link, I'd like to see services have to do something like this:

"You've just entered some search text. May we store this text and future search queries?

[ ] yes, anonymously to help suggest searches for other users [ ] yes, along with your user name to help refine future searches, and to improve the targeting of our advertising [ ] oh god no, forget I asked"

When clicking a search result:

"Before we redirect you to this page, may we record the fact that you clicked on it?

(similar choices)"

And as they build up history:

"From information you've previously allowed us to save and information we've bought from authorized third parties, we've determined that you are a 35-year old green-skinned right-wing vegetarian with the following sexual fetishes: . May we share this information with our advertisers?"

I would hope things would change if permissions were this explicit.

Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

#116

Post by snarf21 »

Chardok wrote: post #60

"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…

It is very hard to turn privacy into a mainstream issue when billions of people actively share everything they see and do online to everyone all for a dopamine "like" fix it. Of course, they want it both ways. Share only what they want and all other things should be private.

Humorous anecdote: A few years a ago, an old colleague of mine got fired and posted all kinds of negative things about the company all over Facebook. The company got word of some of this (slander? libel?) and contacted her via an attorney to stop or be sued. This person then made a post on Facebook about how "... people need to mind their own business!". I think the irony was completely lost on them.

Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

#117

Post by newscracker »

pgodzin wrote: post #83

Google, for instance, has a ton of data about me. They don't sell that data directly to advertisers, because if they give up that data then it loses all value to Google because the advertisers would then be able to resell it. So instead they let advertisers target specific demographics of people, leveraging what they know about me. As long as I use an adblocker and individual information isn't sold to insurers for ex…

Democracy and freedom, in general, depend on people who fight against the powers of the time from trampling rights and controlling people through different means. So even if you're somehow not troubled by anyone who has or can obtain more (aka damaging) information to use against you, there are many people who struggle all the time so your life can be better (and not get worse). And for those people, corporations that collect a lot of data, who are in turn answerable to government requests (like NSLs in the U.S.), are landmines that could trip any moment and endanger them and everyone else they work with. Society has a lot to lose if we don't value privacy, because privacy is fundamental to have and to retain freedom in the constant struggle that we have with various entities.

So if you care about freedom for humans, you must care about privacy. Otherwise it'd be hypocritical.

For a better and concise article on this, read "Privacy protects bothersome people" [1] by Martin Fowler.

[1]: https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/bothersome-privacy.htm...

Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

#118

Post by 794CD01 »

nxsynonym wrote: post #97
Chardok wrote: post #60

"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…

It's easy to think "more logging/transparency never hurts" until you actually try it out and see how much data you get that you don't really care about. The EU cookie law is nothing but an annoyance already - making it even more laborious and universal is not going to help anyone. It'd basically be EULAs everywhere.

Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

#119

Post by yellow_postit »

svachalek wrote: post #115
nxsynonym wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Ideally instead of a wall of text preceding the use of a service, or even worse hidden away somewhere under a fine-print footer link, I'd like to see services have to do something like this: "You've just entered some search text. May we store this text and future search queries? [ ] yes, anonymously to help suggest searches for other users [ ] yes, along with your user name to help refine future searches, and to impr…

This would quickly become the incessant prompts about cookie usage that the UK enforces. Like most alerts users quickly become blind to them and click through to get to what they are trying to accomplish.

Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests

#120

Post by BenjiWiebe »

devrandomguy wrote: post #79
simias wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has a point though. Right now if you have an android smartphone, use gmail and google search you're telling google basically everything you do, where you are, what you have an interest in and the people you know. Each of these services in isolation can know a great deal about you but being able to correlate the data makes it so much worse. That's why I try to avoid putting all of my eggs in the same basket, I have…

Can you recommend a good source of info about running a personal email server? I have heard that it is extremely difficult to get mainstream email providers to accept email from unrecognized sources, but if that is not the case, or if there is a good method for dealing with that madness, then I am very much interested in managing my own email.

I didn't find it hard at all. Don't expect for it to work on a residential IP address though. I have dovecot and postfix running on a linode.
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