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Twitter warns that private tweets were public for years

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Re: Twitter warns that private tweets were public for years

#161

Post by VikingCoder »

abj wrote: post #84
VikingCoder wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eric Schmidt: "If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place." People have taken this different ways, but personally I think it's sage advice. We've lost our ability to keep secrets. Information wants to be free. We're terrible at digital security. Pretend everything you type into a computer is on the front page of the New York Times.

This advice works great if a person is in a majority. The problem happens when a person is in a minority. Imagine if in America in the 1910's a person has a reasonable dissenting opinion like, "I think all citizens should have equal civil rights." If I was there I would be hesitant to attach to this opinion to my public identify. Especially if my employment relied on me voicing an opinion in agreement with the majori…

I think everyone here is misinterpreting what I meant, and I take full responsibility for that.

I think we thought of computers and the internet as our allies in privacy. They are not. They are our enemies.

I think we should stop trusting computers, any computers, as much as we possibly can.

Especially if you're in a minority that your government may try to punish or control.

Re: Twitter warns that private tweets were public for years

#162

Post by VikingCoder »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #128
VikingCoder wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eric Schmidt: "If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place." People have taken this different ways, but personally I think it's sage advice. We've lost our ability to keep secrets. Information wants to be free. We're terrible at digital security. Pretend everything you type into a computer is on the front page of the New York Times.

""If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place."" ... Says the billionaire to the gay man in Nigeria who could be killed if this were public knowledge? ... Says the billionaire to the journalist with private sources doing legit work? ... Says the billionaire to the person who votes 'ABC' but works in company who votes 'XYZ' and hate those 'ABC voters' an…

I think everyone here is misinterpreting what I meant, and I take full responsibility for that.

I think we thought of computers and the internet as our allies in privacy. They are not. They are our enemies.

I think we should stop trusting computers, any computers, as much as we possibly can.

Especially if you're in a minority that your government may try to punish.

---

I care deeply about all those people. I hate that computers have been weaponized against them. It's a tragedy to go from the optimism of improving the world with computers and networks, to where we are today.

I fundamentally disagree with you that we can achieve privacy.

Your ISP knows too much. Your phone carrier knows too much. Your DNS knows too much. The Credit Agencies know too much. Your CPU is too insecure. Your OS, browser, and other apps are, too. We keep turning decentralized / federated services into centralized ones. Every ad network knows too much. Your browser knows too much. It's too easy to identify you nearly uniquely from your browser, even if you try to stop it. TOR has a lot of problems, and exit nodes are the devil. Blockchain is too easy to track. Keyloggers are far too common. SMS verification and recovery are the worst things ever. Face Tracking is entirely too viable. License Plate tracking is entirely too viable. Credit Card companies know too much. Banks know too much. Employers know too much. Every online commerce site knows too much. Our phones know too much. Polling companies know too much. The political parties know too much. The NSA knows entirely too much. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Microsoft, all know too much.

I think things like Kenton Varda's Sandstorm are a good step. I hope to see more things like them.

If you want something to be secret, don't let a computer know you're doing it. Any computer.

When you say "we just need to make the choice," I don't believe you any more. I think that's kind of like saying Communist Utopia, or Libertarian Utopia can exist. All that needs to happen is all of human nature needs to change. :(

I think tech folks like us need to work our asses off to create systems with real privacy that are just as good or better than the ones that destroy privacy. Because if they're remotely worse, in basically any way, they won't catch on.

Note that Facebook will be almost entirely impossible to replace. Because of the Network effect.

Re: Twitter warns that private tweets were public for years

#163

Post by VikingCoder »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #140
VikingCoder wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eric Schmidt: "If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place." People have taken this different ways, but personally I think it's sage advice. We've lost our ability to keep secrets. Information wants to be free. We're terrible at digital security. Pretend everything you type into a computer is on the front page of the New York Times.

Am I missing something? That seems to be equivalent to "the innocent have nothing to fear" in assuming that no one is ever persecuted who doesn't deserve it.

I think everyone here is misinterpreting what I meant, and I take full responsibility for that. I think we thought of computers and the internet as our allies in privacy. They are not. They are our enemies.

I think we should stop trusting computers, any computers, as much as we possibly can.

Especially if you're in a minority that your government may try to punish. (PS, that's anyone.)

Re: Twitter warns that private tweets were public for years

#164

Post by VikingCoder »

schaefer wrote: post #81
VikingCoder wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eric Schmidt: "If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place." People have taken this different ways, but personally I think it's sage advice. We've lost our ability to keep secrets. Information wants to be free. We're terrible at digital security. Pretend everything you type into a computer is on the front page of the New York Times.

^^^ VikingCoder: That's simultaneously an admirable ethical stance... ...and total BS. Put your money where your mouth is. Post your full banking and personally identifying details immediately, without hesitation or regret. If you;d rather not, maybe you actually agree that not all issues of privacy come down to ethics. Some details of a person's life really do deserve privacy.

I think everyone here is misinterpreting what I meant, and I take full responsibility for that.

I think we thought of computers and the internet as our allies in privacy. They are not. They are our enemies.

I think we should stop trusting computers, any computers, as much as we possibly can.

Especially if you're in a minority that your government may try to punish.

---

We all deserve privacy, and we are all almost completely denied privacy, by design, by hundreds of systems we use daily.

I highly recommend the novels "Daemon" and "Freedom" by Daniel Suarez, which explore just how vulnerable our digital infrastructure is.

Re: Twitter warns that private tweets were public for years

#165

Post by rhizome »

bilbo0s wrote: post #9

Just my own opinion, but at this point I think it's prudent to assume that pretty much anything you send out into the digital network world is public. If it's not something you would want the world knowing you said, don't put it out there. Security breaches happen. Bugs happen. Sometimes law enforcement just comes by and says, "Give me everything that user X has ever done." In short, sh!t happens. "Everything I do on…

So in other words, stop holding business accountable for data leaks?

Re: Twitter warns that private tweets were public for years

#167

Post by WilliamEdward »

VikingCoder wrote: post #164
schaefer wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^^^ VikingCoder: That's simultaneously an admirable ethical stance... ...and total BS. Put your money where your mouth is. Post your full banking and personally identifying details immediately, without hesitation or regret. If you;d rather not, maybe you actually agree that not all issues of privacy come down to ethics. Some details of a person's life really do deserve privacy.

I think everyone here is misinterpreting what I meant, and I take full responsibility for that. I think we thought of computers and the internet as our allies in privacy. They are not. They are our enemies. I think we should stop trusting computers, any computers, as much as we possibly can. Especially if you're in a minority that your government may try to punish. --- We all deserve privacy, and we are all almost co…

The problem is with the initial line of reasoning: "If you don't like x, don't do x". It's the biggest load of crap that everyone buys into for some reason. It's like saying if you don't like air pollution, move to a different location. Like yes, true, but also I want to improve the situation in my current location, not abandon it.

That's how people feel on the internet, and you're asking them to throw in the towel completely and accept they'll never be able to share anything on the internet in private. You're even going as far as to say if they want something private they shouldn't be doing it. Both of these two things are untrue, but especially the idea that technology is inherently un-private and can never be so.

Re: Twitter warns that private tweets were public for years

#168

Post by WilliamEdward »

VikingCoder wrote: post #159
Zarath wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better not be openly gay in Russia! Or openly gay 15 years ago and have them scrape old data and find out.

I think everyone here is misinterpreting what I meant, and I take full responsibility for that. I think we thought of computers and the internet as our allies in privacy. They are not. They are our enemies. I think we should stop trusting computers, any computers, as much as we possibly can. Especially if you're in a minority that your government may try to punish.

I'm actually going to reply to you twice with a similar idea. You're blatantly telling people that technology can never be trusted to be private. I just don't see why such a cynical outlook on the situation is needed, especially when it's obviously not true and the odds are not necessarily stacked against people who want privacy online or on technology.

Re: Twitter warns that private tweets were public for years

#169

Post by doesnt_know »

isostatic wrote: post #113
ReidZB wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure it uses HTTPS, but if you're on a corporate network on corporate hardware, there is a real chance that there's a corporate MITM proxy that is capable of reading all of your HTTPS traffic.

Only if you have their root certificate trusted

From experience, if the org is doing https mitm then it almost certainly also has network device authentication (eg Cisco ICE) that would only allow corporate whitelisted devices. Usually with custom builds that would already have the corp root cert trusted.

Re: Twitter warns that private tweets were public for years

#170

Post by _4ziu »

ProAm wrote: post #103
dogecoinbase wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it is. This is the essence of the GDPR.

GDPR is nice on paper, I'd like to see it actually enforced as its been written. Seems like strong words and weak teeth so far. However, most companies are more concerned with hockey stick charts and are willing to ask for forgiveness later in terms of all things privacy related. I wish it weren't that way, but Ive yet to see that happen successfully.

Did you not see millions of emails sent out by companies about their new data policy? How then is GDPR not being enforced?
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