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A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe

theguardian.com

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Re: A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe

#121

Post by quadrangle »

andrewshadura wrote: post #39

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

I don't know if it's irony, but RMS has this (I assert WRONG) view that opinion statements like this article shouldn't be free culture. He wants to use the legal structures to make any translation or derivative work something he can censor unless he approves of it. He's worried about being misrepresented (even though the actual free CC licenses don't allow altered derivatives to be presented as though they were unaltered etc).

I think this article could very well be a valuable free-culture contribution. The chain of derivatives could go deep, and having to get permission at every step cuts it off.

This is a long-standing disagreement between RMS and those of us who support cultural freedom.

Re: A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe

#122

Post by Nomentatus »

So I can pay Amazon anonymously. That's nice. Now what about anonymous delivery? It could be done, with the address being sent to the Post Office as needed, for example; with Amazon not delivering the package.

RMS might want a law saying that whoever sold goods, couldn't also deliver them?

Re: A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe

#124

Post by admax88q »

dhimes wrote: post #24
rbranson wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To add to this, what if the vending machine was able to dispense 1000 things? And let's say that you are diabetic? Wouldn't it be nice if the sugar-free treats were easy for you to find? And the organic stuff easier for those seeking them to find? Etc. etc. Somewhere there must be an intelligent balance.

How did diabetics even manage to buy sugar-free snacks before Amazon's recommendation engine?

Thank god for Amazon profiling them, they must have been starving before.

Re: A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe

#125

Post by cobbzilla »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #52
cobbzilla wrote: post #26

I love RMS but I'm not holding my breath waiting for any government laws to protect me. For what it's worth, neither is RMS, if you've read about how he uses the Internet. Let's keep building the free software tools so anyone can easily get the level of privacy they want for whatever they're trying to do. We've made so much progress but there's still so far to go. Do not to look UP to authority for hope - look AROUND…

One of the problems is that the software you run on your own computer hasn't been the major source of privacy concerns in a long, long time. That isn't to say that software on your computer doesn't track you, but it's dwarfed by the amount of tracking and privacy issues that you need to compromise on to use the vast majority of the internet. It's noble and laudable to take the same stance towards freedom and privacy…

Give me a break, is this not classic fallacy of making "perfect" the enemy of "better"? With an attitude like that, things never improve.

Privacy protection exists along a gradient. Just because one does not want to sit at the far end with RMS does not mean we just throw up our hands and say "well, I guess I have to give up all my privacy, because I can't do what RMS does."

And as I said, there's still a lot of work to do. So let's get to it and stop the nay-saying!

Re: A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe

#126

Post by ryanbrunner »

cobbzilla wrote: post #125
ryanbrunner wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the problems is that the software you run on your own computer hasn't been the major source of privacy concerns in a long, long time. That isn't to say that software on your computer doesn't track you, but it's dwarfed by the amount of tracking and privacy issues that you need to compromise on to use the vast majority of the internet. It's noble and laudable to take the same stance towards freedom and privacy…

Give me a break, is this not classic fallacy of making "perfect" the enemy of "better"? With an attitude like that, things never improve. Privacy protection exists along a gradient. Just because one does not want to sit at the far end with RMS does not mean we just throw up our hands and say "well, I guess I have to give up all my privacy, because I can't do what RMS does." And as I said, there's still a lot of work…

I'm not arguing that at all - precisely the opposite, in fact. I'm saying that so long as we put privacy in the hands of end users and don't hold service providers responsible (the point I was replying to), we more-or-less cripple our ability to utilize the internet that exists today.

Re: A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe

#127

Post by dhimes »

pbalau wrote: post #105
dhimes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the way to go with this is to have an auditing system where third-party auditors go through the source code (with NDAs) and certify it meets $PrivacyStandards. This might be a way to appease the folks who want to keep their software proprietary and yet make sure they don't just get to do what they want. Kind of like financial audits.

Sorry, but no. For this to work you will need a select group of people with too much power. Why would I trust those people instead of the original creators? This is just going to create a parasitic industry, with no much value.

Man I'm so sorry I let this slip and didn't get back to you. It's not perfect for sure, but better than nothing and possibly something people will buy into.

The big problem is there is no licensing-yet- that could be removed if they were caught lying. So you're right- we would have to build a trust model somehow.

Re: A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe

#128

Post by cobbzilla »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #126
cobbzilla wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me a break, is this not classic fallacy of making "perfect" the enemy of "better"? With an attitude like that, things never improve. Privacy protection exists along a gradient. Just because one does not want to sit at the far end with RMS does not mean we just throw up our hands and say "well, I guess I have to give up all my privacy, because I can't do what RMS does." And as I said, there's still a lot of work…

I'm not arguing that at all - precisely the opposite, in fact. I'm saying that so long as we put privacy in the hands of end users and don't hold service providers responsible (the point I was replying to), we more-or-less cripple our ability to utilize the internet that exists today.

We can use strong end-to-end encryption to evade snooping middlemen. Beyond that, we hold service providers accountable by not using their services if they are not willing or able to provide the security and privacy we require.

If you want an authority to hold them accountable, you are just shifting your trust from one entity you have little/no control over, to another entity that you have little/no control over.

Look around, not up. An authority will not solve this. We must solve it, together.

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