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Forget Equifax. Facebook and Google Have the Data That Should Worry You

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Re: Forget Equifax. Facebook and Google Have the Data That Should Worry You

#81

Post by solomatov »

traviscj wrote: post #2

Seems like there's a (difficulty/physical file size)/(profit or effort)*(likelihood of success) score that matters in these things: a terabyte of credit card numbers (alone) would be 62.5 billion card numbers, but a terabyte of facebook chat messages/private pictures is some small fraction of data. It'd be much easier for O(20 mb) to move off the network than O(500 GB). The former can be profitably resold, while the…

You're thinking in terms of today. Network throughput keeps growing and 500GB in 10 years might become really little. We should think ahead not try to fix it after the disaster.

Re: Forget Equifax. Facebook and Google Have the Data That Should Worry You

#82

Post by blfr »

ams6110 wrote: post #25

I think what we're seeing are the same sorts of things that led to building codes, fire codes, licensing of architects and civil engineers. After so many building collapses, bridge collapses, or disastrous fires, people finally demanded that "build whatever you want, however you want" is not OK if you are making something for use by the general public. I think ultimately we're going to see legislation requiring licen…

It might happen but I don't think it'll work. Codes work because they deal with known, predictable, and repeated problems. You can keep improving the fire code with each disastrous fire and fire will not actively try to outsmart you next time.

Security OTOH is anti-inductive because you're dealing with intelligent attackers adjusting their methods. In this environment, security code and certifications will just become another pile of papers for bureaucrats to verify after your data was leaked anyway.

But maybe it will at least force manufacturers to make their products' software updateable.

Re: Forget Equifax. Facebook and Google Have the Data That Should Worry You

#83

Post by alexasmyths »

bogomipz wrote: post #55

As a natural-born American you still have the choice to not sign up for a Google account or a Facebook account. You do not however have the option of refusing to apply for a social security number when your child is born. This piece looks likes little more than propaganda from the credit reporting agencies. Shame on you Bloomberg.

"This piece looks likes little more than propaganda from the credit reporting agencies. Shame on you Bloomberg."

No, it's not propaganda, it's regular journalism.

Google and FB are both 'large corps' whom journo bosses would be weary of offending, so no.

Whenever a journalist 'names names' of big companies, they're probably doing regular journalism.

The bad stuff happens when stories are suppressed to avoid upsetting advertisers.

Re: Forget Equifax. Facebook and Google Have the Data That Should Worry You

#84

Post by alexasmyths »

CaptSpify wrote: post #74
arkem wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read the reporting of Snowden's leaks and I have at least as much exposure to the inner workings of the five eyes as Snowden did and I have come to a different conclusion. I do not believe that Google is voluntarily handing over any sensitive customer data to the NSA without legal compulsion. I would not be surprised if intelligence agencies around the world including US based ones target Google's communications…

> I do not believe that Google is voluntarily handing over any sensitive customer data to the NSA without legal compulsion Why does it matter if it's under legal compulsion or not. At the end of the day they are handing over your data. They could choose not to store it, thus making it impossible to do, but they don't.

"Why does it matter if it's under legal compulsion or not. "

Because we are all obliged to follow the law.

Re: Forget Equifax. Facebook and Google Have the Data That Should Worry You

#85

Post by yeukhon »

ams6110 wrote: post #25

I think what we're seeing are the same sorts of things that led to building codes, fire codes, licensing of architects and civil engineers. After so many building collapses, bridge collapses, or disastrous fires, people finally demanded that "build whatever you want, however you want" is not OK if you are making something for use by the general public. I think ultimately we're going to see legislation requiring licen…

> I think ultimately we're going to see legislation requiring licenses/certifications for software designers and software companies and software service providers.

What will these licenses test us? I have no problem finding a software engineer guilty of negligence writing bad code because they were too lazy (but proving it is very difficult, what is the definition of "lazy"), but that means everyone is guilty! There are toooooo many corner cases, and we depend on upstream and downstream system to be non-faulty and 100% reliable.

Physical quality control is a lot easier to implement, so if someone fabricated lab inspection results they can go to jail because science doesn't lie right?

Now look at C++, even if we fix all the warning messages from the compiler, doesn't mean someone didn't cast the right type at runtime and boom (what about underflow, overflow, not freeing memory, reuse the wrong pointer)? We lost Mars Probe in 1999 because of a simple inch-to-meter conversion error. We don't have a formal verification system that we can all agree on.

Re: Forget Equifax. Facebook and Google Have the Data That Should Worry You

#86

Post by metaphorm »

bogomipz wrote: post #55

As a natural-born American you still have the choice to not sign up for a Google account or a Facebook account. You do not however have the option of refusing to apply for a social security number when your child is born. This piece looks likes little more than propaganda from the credit reporting agencies. Shame on you Bloomberg.

you're bending the word propaganda to the breaking point.

Re: Forget Equifax. Facebook and Google Have the Data That Should Worry You

#87

Post by fav_collector »

CaptSpify wrote: post #74
arkem wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read the reporting of Snowden's leaks and I have at least as much exposure to the inner workings of the five eyes as Snowden did and I have come to a different conclusion. I do not believe that Google is voluntarily handing over any sensitive customer data to the NSA without legal compulsion. I would not be surprised if intelligence agencies around the world including US based ones target Google's communications…

> I do not believe that Google is voluntarily handing over any sensitive customer data to the NSA without legal compulsion Why does it matter if it's under legal compulsion or not. At the end of the day they are handing over your data. They could choose not to store it, thus making it impossible to do, but they don't.

Protection through obscurity. If the NSA needs to go through the legal process to access data, the chances of them looking through your data is much lower than if they had unrestricted access. The cost of data inquiry discourages data inquiries.

Re: Forget Equifax. Facebook and Google Have the Data That Should Worry You

#89

Post by [deleted] »

ams6110 wrote: post #25

I think what we're seeing are the same sorts of things that led to building codes, fire codes, licensing of architects and civil engineers. After so many building collapses, bridge collapses, or disastrous fires, people finally demanded that "build whatever you want, however you want" is not OK if you are making something for use by the general public. I think ultimately we're going to see legislation requiring licen…

[deleted]

Re: Forget Equifax. Facebook and Google Have the Data That Should Worry You

#90

Post by cirenehc »

SilasX wrote: post #54
s73ver_ wrote: post #47

Do they? Cause Equifax has my financial info. Facebook and Google know that I like cat videos.

Google knows everything you searched for. Hope you never looked up an AIDS test.

I'll trade my entire browsing history for your SSN
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