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Stop Saying, ‘We Take Your Privacy and Security Seriously’

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Re: Stop Saying, ‘We Take Your Privacy and Security Seriously’

#71

Post by Ensorceled »

resonanttoe wrote: post #44

This is slightly off topic and relatively minor, but man does it represent the piss poor state of Tech writers and their articles. "I was curious how often this go-to one liner was used. I scraped every reported notification to the California attorney general, a requirement under state law in the event of a breach or security lapse, stitched them together, and converted it into machine-readable text. About one-third…

I don't know of any journalism source that would do better than what you just quoted. They explained their source and their methodology. If you think they are lying it's not extremely hard to prove it, but why are you assuming they are lying?

Re: Stop Saying, ‘We Take Your Privacy and Security Seriously’

#72

Post by bmn__ »

dotancohen wrote: post #64
Fnoord wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On TC you are either opting-in or forbidden to access. And it remains to be seen whether that is legal.

According to the GDPR, it is not legal. What remains to be seen is whether the EU will enforce or not.

Complaints can be brought through ankle-biters like https://noyb.eu/projects-2/

Re: Stop Saying, ‘We Take Your Privacy and Security Seriously’

#73

Post by mattkevan »

winchling wrote: post #60
orlp wrote: post #46

You enter a coffee shop. Before you can do anything, the owner takes a photo of you, and grabs your hand to take your finger print. He quickly writes down the date, time and what clothes you are wearing. He gives you a smile as he starts his speech. "Before we continue, we at Coffee City want you to know we deeply value your privacy. We need your permission to store your information, improve your coffee experience, p…

The next time you stroll in he'll ask for your cellphone number. For security purposes. If you don't want to provide it now you'll have to tell him that you'll do so another time.

As you start drinking your coffee, a little shutter slides shut across the lid of your coffee cup.

It'll only open if you create an account, log in and agree to every sip you take being recorded and measured.

Sure, it's possible to prise the lid off manually or use a special shutter-blocker, but you often end up with a broken cup. And coffee shop owners call you a thief and find ways to thwart your blocker.

Re: Stop Saying, ‘We Take Your Privacy and Security Seriously’

#74

Post by JustSomeNobody »

emilis_info wrote: post #5

Also stop saying "Before you go further..." we need to share your data with tens of corporations. /s Note to non-EU users: Techcrunch is completely blocking the page with a popup asking me to share my location and behavioral data (for advertising purposes) with a probably very long list of companies (something called "Oath" family). The logos shown are for Yahoo, Aol, Autoblog, Huffpost and Engadget. Nah. I'll skip a…

I skipped the article when I saw it was TechCrunch. Their new web site is absolutely atrocious. I can't believe this is what web developers get paid to do. Just awful.

Anyway, I'll just read the comments here and that'll be enough for me.

Re: Stop Saying, ‘We Take Your Privacy and Security Seriously’

#75

Post by OliverJones »

I agree. The phrase "we take your privacy and security seriously" is an inherent oxymoron; meaning the opposite of what it says.

I really like, and have copied, Tesla's note to security researchers. https://www.tesla.com/about/security

I had to clean up one breach a few years ago. It was, gulp, a breach of HIPAA-covered health info. We wrote to our customers saying

"We're sorry. We unintentionally sent your blahblah sheet to the wrong hospital. We have spoken to the person at that hospital who received it and confirmed that they erased your information. Again, we apologize. If you have questions don't hesitate to call us at xxx-xxx-xxxx"

We could have blamed the the third-party vendor who actually made the mistake. We could have spewed oxymorons. But this message was successful and true: nobody sued us and the govt didn't write us up.

The breach, admittedly, was only a few dozen records. It could have been much worse.

A lesson for tech people: when you have a breach DRAFT THE PUBLIC STATEMENT RIGHT AWAY so you can hand it to your executives and crisis PR people. That way your company has a chance of doing it right.

Re: Stop Saying, ‘We Take Your Privacy and Security Seriously’

#76

Post by JustSomeNobody »

resonanttoe wrote: post #44

This is slightly off topic and relatively minor, but man does it represent the piss poor state of Tech writers and their articles. "I was curious how often this go-to one liner was used. I scraped every reported notification to the California attorney general, a requirement under state law in the event of a breach or security lapse, stitched them together, and converted it into machine-readable text. About one-third…

Why are you attempting to equate tech writers with journalistic integrity. TechCrunch is basically a blog.

Re: Stop Saying, ‘We Take Your Privacy and Security Seriously’

#78

Post by JustSomeNobody »

orlp wrote: post #46

You enter a coffee shop. Before you can do anything, the owner takes a photo of you, and grabs your hand to take your finger print. He quickly writes down the date, time and what clothes you are wearing. He gives you a smile as he starts his speech. "Before we continue, we at Coffee City want you to know we deeply value your privacy. We need your permission to store your information, improve your coffee experience, p…

But, see, this falls apart because at a coffee shop, you're actually buying something. Most services people use (FB, GMail, etc), are "free"[0].

[0] Your personal data is a currency, spend wisely.

Re: Stop Saying, ‘We Take Your Privacy and Security Seriously’

#79

Post by tremon »

formatkaka wrote: post #17

A question: What is privacy issue exactly about ? I see regular posts on HN about it. Is it about storing user-data on my end or sharing the user-data with third party or not taking the user consent. P.S. - Trying to understand the root cause because I work with a startup building SAAS and would like to avoid such mistakes.

Privacy is a question of agency. Who is in control of a person's intimate data? Who gets to determine which data is intimate? Who gets to determine which personal data is shared with whom? So far, the industry's response to these questions has always been an implicit "we, the masters". The current debate about online privacy is a (much overdue) challenge to those implicit assumptions.

So in principle, it is not about storing user-data nor is it about sharing that data. It is about determining who has the moral right to act on what data. And in order to have that debate on those moral rights, people need to know what happens wuth their online traces. As long as what really happens is shrouded in secrecy, legalese, or click-through patterns, there can be no meaningful debate.

Re: Stop Saying, ‘We Take Your Privacy and Security Seriously’

#80

Post by theandrewbailey »

jannes wrote: post #20
emilis_info wrote: post #5

Also stop saying "Before you go further..." we need to share your data with tens of corporations. /s Note to non-EU users: Techcrunch is completely blocking the page with a popup asking me to share my location and behavioral data (for advertising purposes) with a probably very long list of companies (something called "Oath" family). The logos shown are for Yahoo, Aol, Autoblog, Huffpost and Engadget. Nah. I'll skip a…

Just disable 1st-party scripts and 3rd-party scripts in the uBlock Origin popup for techcrunch.com and that modal should not appear anymore. https://prnt.sc/mo26b4

I have uMatrix set similarly.
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