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Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's remarkable how someone living in 2019 still finds grounds to complain about stiffing political correctness.
In 2019 the hand symbol for OK has been retconned as hate speech. There is no sign yet of this trend reversing.
The author: Privacy does not mean stopping the flow of data; it means channeling it wisely and justly to serve societal ends and values and the individuals who are its subjects, particularly the vulnerable and the disadvantaged. You are wrong, privacy mean stopping the flow of the data completely. No one should spy on your life.
No one should spy on your life. Absolute statements are always wrong. ;) The problem with this way of thinking is that it's very hard to define what 'spying' is, and what 'your life' is. This is best illustrated with an example - when you read this comment you'll have loaded a page on HN. That means HN's server probably has a log of your IP address, browser agent string, etc. There's a complete history of every artic…
> when you read this comment you'll have loaded a page on HN. That means HN's server probably has a log of your IP address, browser agent string, etc.
Such logging isn't technically necessary to serve web pages, and ideally shouldn't be done without consent.
> Am I spying on you when I read those pages?
That's not spying, because the user consented to making their comments public. (Not sure about favorites though, there's a small note on the profile page but maybe the favoriting action should make it more explicit.)
> Google Analytics isn't spying on you when it tracks everything you do on 50% of the websites you visit.
It's spying if you didn't consent to it.
var mi_track_user = true
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's remarkable how someone living in 2019 still finds grounds to complain about stiffing political correctness.
In 2019 the hand symbol for OK has been retconned as hate speech. There is no sign yet of this trend reversing.
I cannot help but wonder if the use of such tools as the ones listed in the article are not just "privacy theater", in the same sense that we have come to realize that much of what happens in the name of security is just "security theater". Ironically, of course, is that much of what happens in the name of security is exactly what takes away our privacy in the first place. What is needed is for people to tangibly suf…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In 2019 the hand symbol for OK has been retconned as hate speech. There is no sign yet of this trend reversing.
There are people still sore about swastikas and roman salute "retconned" too. But well maybe don't use them for supremacist signaling in the first place, that sure could help.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No one should spy on your life. Absolute statements are always wrong. ;) The problem with this way of thinking is that it's very hard to define what 'spying' is, and what 'your life' is. This is best illustrated with an example - when you read this comment you'll have loaded a page on HN. That means HN's server probably has a log of your IP address, browser agent string, etc. There's a complete history of every artic…
Grandparent's statement is pretty absolute, but I find myself in agreement with it. Data collection is the right place to intervene, because once collected, data can be copied and misused at any time in the future. > when you read this comment you'll have loaded a page on HN. That means HN's server probably has a log of your IP address, browser agent string, etc. Such logging isn't technically necessary to serve web…
There's no explicit consent but the fact you've told your computer to download some code and run it looks a lot like implied consent.
I actually sort of thought this was the common POV for anyone within tech. Controlling google searches for your name, putting fake content on social media, etc. are obviously only way to create enough noise to direct algorithms to outcomes you’d prefer no?
What an irony that I open the page source of this article and see this literally on the second line: var mi_track_user = true Then there are all the usual suspects: Google Analytics, Facebook, Twitter and a few others at the bottom. Is this the price I should pay for reading this article for free?
var mi_no_track_reason = '';
> Obfuscation may be our best digital weapon. From Dan Geer's talk "Cybersecurity as Realpolitik" (which everyone should hear[1]/read[2]): >> There are so many technologies now that power observation and identification of the individual at a distance. They may not yet be in your pocket or on your dashboard or embedded in all your smoke detectors, but that is only a matter of time. Your digital exhaust is unique hence…
I subscribe to this notion but this is very elegantly put.