Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does the number of users matter?
because you get lots of market power when have zillions of users.
And 100M users is the tipping point? How many services have 100M users?
When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests
121–130 of 264 posts
Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests
#122Earlier 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…
If you got asked 5 questions for every page you visited, what would end up happening is people would start clicking yes without reading. You would get overwhelmed by requests that you would start paying less and less attention to them.
Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 optio…
Wouldn't people have said the same about cable TV in the 90s, CFCs in the 80s, slavery, child labor, etc. etc. ad nauseam?
I believe that the system is democratic enough that if people are organized and ask governments nicely, they can have privacy protections.
It's really only Google and Facebook that profit substantially from this crap, and there are good arguments that it would be beneficial to the rest of the economy to knock a bit of wind out of their sails for a while (a more diverse range of competitors, a stimulant to VC-investment to try new monetization strategies).
Disruption can happen democratically, too!
Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests
#124Earlier 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 just use dovecot, postfix and spamassassin. It did take me many hours and a lot of googling to configure it but it's very low maintenance after that.
I don't have any problem getting my emails accepted by gmail and friends.
The trick is to use an IP range that's not "fishy" (that basically precludes hosting email on your home connection, everybody expects spam from those and they're blacklisted everywhere). Then use DKIM, SMTPS, DMARC, SPF and be very careful not to allow any kind of open relay for spammers and you should be mostly fine, at least in my experience.
There are many websites online that offer to test your email setup for obvious flaws (open relay, missing headers etc...), for instance https://www.mail-tester.com/ and https://mxtoolbox.com/diagnostic.aspx . You should also check if some blacklists have your IP or domain blacklisted for some reason, and then request a delisting (after making sure that you're actually not sending spam because of a bad config): https://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx
It's definitely not plug-and-play but it's pretty interesting if you don't mind system admin. You also have a lot of flexibility if you want to filter and automate your emails in any way. I was also pleasantly surprised by the efficiency of spamassassin, properly trained there are very few false negatives and almost no false positives.
Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I think we've all seen the story over and over: populist politician gets in power and forgets everything. They start to sacrifice principles in return for staying in power in order to ostensibly do the right thing later. But later never comes.
So, maybe theoretically we can influence, but understanding the nature of what a self-interested, pragmatic government beaurocrat values is incredibly important.
I think the parent comment and idea behind it needs to be explored further. Maybe there is a solution, but it will perhaps require an entirely new type of government. Democracies, as we know them, don't seem capable of solving this problem.
Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests
#126"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…
> Perhaps we need to see what Google and Facebook actually have on us...
What do you have in mind?
Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests
#127Earlier 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…
Or just assume everything you send someone else will be saved by that person.
Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
But what have you done about it?
But what can you do as an individual? I think that's what we're all struggling with.
There is no single good answer; that's why people struggle with it. The solutions are disparate, and vary depending on your threat model. Answers to these problems aren't available and packaged in a one-size-fits-all solution that your average middle-class family has the time or ambition to take advantage of. Some solutions exist, however--and more are being developed.
In a lot of ways, I see the issue boiling down to how much you're willing to be inconvenienced.
Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests
#129Earlier 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…
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.
I see your point - I was thinking more along the lines of a directory of sorts that would show recent data purchases, partnerships, etc.
It's too easy to hide your true intentions behind generic EULAs that are inundated with lawyer speak.
Re: When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
We simply need laws against data brokerage. And prohibit ad-based monetization on services with >100M users.
Why does the number of users matter?
Well, I suspect that prohibiting data-brokerage basically helps big players like Google, because it eliminates smaller players who don't have access to such large amounts of data. See [1].
On the other hand, prohibiting ad-based monetization schemes lowers the incentive to excessively track users.
Of course, you could say that everything is proportional to the number of users, but I suspect that's not how it works.
[1] https://adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/eus-general-dat...