A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe • Hacker News Board

Re: A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe

#31

Post by fmntf » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 3:05 PM UTC

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #7

I wish we could find a way to apply the model of the vending machine to mass commerce. A vending machine doesn't make notes of who buys its products. A vending machine doesn't keep logs of its transactions or of the payment methods used. A vending machine does not make "recommendations" of what the consumer might like based on their past purchases. You give the vending machine a dollar, it gives you a soda. The trans…

I'm sorry, but you are unfortunately wrong. Some colleagues are involved in the development of a vending machine that does all those nasty things. And I think there are similar products already deployed.

Re: A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe

#32

Post by LinuxBender » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 3:06 PM UTC

zzzeek wrote: post #19

> Video cameras should make a local recording that can be checked for the next few weeks if a crime occurs, but should not allow remote viewing without physical collection of the recording. it would suck if the terrorist bomb also took out the cameras themselves. I have cameras at my house wired to a local unit. It's mostly for convenience and looking for animals and not very serious for security; any well-respecting…

The data could be stored encrypted on a VM and cycled off after {n} hours. With the right codecs and encryption, you could likely store a couple days of motion on a small amount of storage. If uploaded in chunks, you might miss a couple minutes prior to the unit being destroyed. I suppose protecting your internet uplink becomes important at this point.

Re: A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe

#33

Post by mseebach » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 3:09 PM UTC

zzzeek wrote: post #19

> Video cameras should make a local recording that can be checked for the next few weeks if a crime occurs, but should not allow remote viewing without physical collection of the recording. it would suck if the terrorist bomb also took out the cameras themselves. I have cameras at my house wired to a local unit. It's mostly for convenience and looking for animals and not very serious for security; any well-respecting…

That's awfully close to movie plot threat thinking. Put your NAS in a secure back room and you're going to be fine for practically every scenario short of a 9/11 scale attack. And if you insist, just save your recordings to an off-site location. I'm pretty sure RMS is cool with co-located servers, as long as you control them.

Re: A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe

#34

Post by nkrisc » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 3:10 PM UTC

fmntf wrote: post #31

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #7

I wish we could find a way to apply the model of the vending machine to mass commerce. A vending machine doesn't make notes of who buys its products. A vending machine doesn't keep logs of its transactions or of the payment methods used. A vending machine does not make "recommendations" of what the consumer might like based on their past purchases. You give the vending machine a dollar, it gives you a soda. The trans…

I'm sorry, but you are unfortunately wrong. Some colleagues are involved in the development of a vending machine that does all those nasty things. And I think there are similar products already deployed.

I think the point is that a vending machine doesn't need to do all those things to fulfill its purpose. Dollar goes in, soda comes out. Yes you can make a vending machine do that, but that's not the point.

Re: A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe

#35

Post by LinuxBender » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 3:10 PM UTC

There are LED street lights that also double as security cameras. Soon, you won't even see where the cameras are. The cameras are nearly impossible to spot. They are being tested in a few cities. I believe there is still an ongoing legal battle in San Jose for these.

The cameras are placed in the public domain, but they can see into houses on every street. I believe Google had some issues with peering into homes and storing that data. Will cities face the same issues? The Google car only gets data when they drive down the street. These cameras will gather data 24/7 using low-lux (low light) cameras.

Re: A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe

#36

Post by mannykannot » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 3:20 PM UTC

rbranson wrote: post #22

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #7

I wish we could find a way to apply the model of the vending machine to mass commerce. A vending machine doesn't make notes of who buys its products. A vending machine doesn't keep logs of its transactions or of the payment methods used. A vending machine does not make "recommendations" of what the consumer might like based on their past purchases. You give the vending machine a dollar, it gives you a soda. The trans…

Problem is that vending machines don’t scale. Consider that much of the “tracking” on a site like Amazon.com are to overcome the inherent problems of finding products in such a massive catalog.

Maybe it is just my experience, but individual tracking (which is the sort of tracking under consideration here) does not seem to help, let alone be necessary. I do not think I have ever found something of interest in things that have been pushed at me, and the only thing that helps navigating a massive catalog is more extensive-in-scope and discriminating search capabilities.

Re: A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe

#37

Post by irq-1 » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 3:20 PM UTC

Well written and argued, but I have two issues.

First, it's arguing against the natural evolution of technology. Centralization is a re-occurring feature of software systems due to it's technical benefits. Data collection, organizational structure [0] and other considerations also affect centralization, but their existence doesn't negate the technical considerations. Whether an ATM or bus card system should be (de)centralized is partially a technical issue: what networks are available and how reliable are they, what's the cpu/mem/storage of the end points, how often do we update, etc...

Second, restraint of Governments might be aided by making collection more difficult, but Governments can deploy large groups of people for long periods, while individuals and smaller groups cannot. Youtube and cellphone cameras empower the weak, while the old technology of cameras belonging to local businesses [1] benefit only the Government (or very large groups.)

[0] "organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law

[1] "There is a gap in the footage from about 9:18 p.m. to 10:39 p.m., which covers the time when McDonald was shot by Officer Jason Van Dyke on a nearby street." http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-shooting-laquan-mcdona...

Re: A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe

#38

Post by discussedbefore » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 3:20 PM UTC

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #7

I wish we could find a way to apply the model of the vending machine to mass commerce. A vending machine doesn't make notes of who buys its products. A vending machine doesn't keep logs of its transactions or of the payment methods used. A vending machine does not make "recommendations" of what the consumer might like based on their past purchases. You give the vending machine a dollar, it gives you a soda. The trans…

How close is Apple Pay? Is there anything in an Apple Pay transaction identifying the customer (that can be correlated across purchases)?

I've heard good things but I have no idea about the details.

Edit: https://www.engadget.com/2014/10/02/apple-pay-an-in-depth-lo...

merchant sees NO account information but has the final four digits of the PAN [CC number] as an account identifier to use as a mechanism for tracking volume/activity per account

Re: A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe

#39

Post by andrewshadura » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 3:20 PM UTC

Ironically, the article is published under a non-free license.

Re: A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe

#40

Post by fortythirteen » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 3:24 PM UTC

Expecting groups of people (tech companies or government) to purposefully do something that is disadvantageous to their bottom line, for nothing more than ideals, is a pipe dream.

The real question is personal and harder to answer: "Do I really need this information technology? Is it making my quality of life any better than my ancestors?"

The more I ponder this question, the more I'm convinced I could live an equally happy and fulfilling life outside of the majority of consumer technology that has been introduced in the last 20 years. I benefit from a career creating that technology, but I'm partaking in it less and less once I clock out.