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The Fantasy of Opting Out

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Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#61

Post by ad404b8a372f2b9 »

onion2k wrote: post #19
Altheasy wrote: post #11

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…

No, spying does not require malicious intent. If you look through your neighbours' blinds every night, just to ensure they're doing well, you're still invading their privacy and spying on them. By definition spying is to collect information furtively, which I think qualifies the behaviour of all internet trackers as 90% of the population is unaware of their existence and 99% of the population doesn't know the extent of their consolidated online profile. The uncontrolled collection of data is itself harmful, that's why the GDPR requires companies to justify the pieces of information they collect.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#62

Post by imgabe »

xorand wrote: post #60
imgabe wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technologies discussed in the article do not record account passwords, nor are there any such technologies proposed that would do so. Services you use already have a record of your account password (or a hash of it at least). It is necessary in order for you to be able to use the service. You supply your Amazon password to Amazon every time you log in. Are you saying you need to keep it a secret from them?

There is a famous analogy, I forgot the source (maybe Cory Doctorow?): why do you have a door at your toilet? everybody knows what you are doing there. So I don't need any of your private data. I voluntarily post my own, as concerns my passions. But let me choose what I make public and what I don't. That's the point. (I don't use Amazon. All my work is public, I use only free software, even at home.)

The article is not talking about recording people on the toilet. It's talking about the surveillance cameras that are placed outside, in public. There is no conceivable way for your actions outdoors, in public, to be private because they are taking place in public.

The article also seems to presume that there is some single source where the data from all these disparate systems is tied together, but no such thing exists afaik.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#63

Post by d3nj4l »

This article talks about the cost of opting out, but doesn't go into some of the more insidious ways in which companies have made it harder and harder to do so. I recently opened the Downloads app on my new Mi phone only to find a notice asking me to grant authorization to Xiami to "... collect, process and use [my] personal data" in order to use the app[1]. Why does a basic downloads app need to gather and analyze my personal data? Why can't I use a version of the app that doesn't collect that data, and why is the agreement framed almost as a carte blanche for Xiaomi to collect personal data? I can see that the downloads app is running in the background, because it sends me notifications every now and then about recent downloads, which was what prompted me to open the app in the first place as I wanted to disable those on the app level. Now there's an app on my phone that's constantly running in the background whose behaviour I cannot control except by blocking all permissions and internet access unless I decide to give Xiaomi the keys to my data. I won't even go into the "Security" app that comes pre-installed that cannot be removed and has permissions to record audio granted by default!

Similarly, Gitlab recently prevented people from logging in and even deleting their own repos unless they agreed to data collection[2]. They had the feature to "opt-out" by setting DNT on your browser - but only if you granted them permission to collect data first. They did turn that feature back, but only after widespread criticism from all quarters. I might just be cynical, but I think we might see more and more companies use basic features as Trojan horses for data collection that is unnecessary to the functioning of those basic features themselves, with options to "opt-out" as cover and PR.

[1] https://i.imgur.com/yxokdzY.jpg [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/dm72oa/gitlab_...

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#64

Post by hirako2000 »

ddiq wrote: post #49
hirako2000 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source?

Chase Bank shuts down prominent conservatives https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/chase-bank-conservati... AirBnB seeks out and blocks people going to the American Renaissance conference https://gizmodo.com/airbnb-doesnt-want-extremists-on-its-pla... Credit cards cancel payments to "hate" groups https://nypost.com/2017/08/16/credit-cards-are-clamping-down... These are all political censorship against people or gro…

Thanks, although it's the security checks at the border based on traced political views isn't sourced, I found some.

That's the one that bothers me, as there is hardly ant competition possible in the security checks business.

Airbnb, banks.. all it takes is some open minded provider to make those political police institution to loose ground. Although its matter a time before open minded providers also get pressured to police their customers.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#65

Post by bumblebee4 »

imgabe wrote: post #50

> But if we are nearly as observed and documented as any person in history, our situation is a prison that, although it has no walls, bars, or wardens, is difficult to escape. The defining characteristic of a prison is a loss of freedom. What is it that you want to do that these technologies are preventing you from doing? It's unlikely that we're going to put the technology genie back in the bottle. Instead we need t…

>What is it that you want to do that these technologies are preventing you from doing?

It's a spiritual thing. What does it mean if something is private? What do you allow yourself to do if nobody is watching? E.g. do you eat more sloppy when you are in private than in a restaurant?

If everything is public, there is no privacy. This comes with its own spiritual benefits but some people don't like that.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#66

Post by xorand »

imgabe wrote: post #62
xorand wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a famous analogy, I forgot the source (maybe Cory Doctorow?): why do you have a door at your toilet? everybody knows what you are doing there. So I don't need any of your private data. I voluntarily post my own, as concerns my passions. But let me choose what I make public and what I don't. That's the point. (I don't use Amazon. All my work is public, I use only free software, even at home.)

The article is not talking about recording people on the toilet. It's talking about the surveillance cameras that are placed outside, in public. There is no conceivable way for your actions outdoors, in public, to be private because they are taking place in public. The article also seems to presume that there is some single source where the data from all these disparate systems is tied together, but no such thing exi…

You know what "the map is not the territory" means, right? That one should not make a confusion between reality and (any form of) bureacracy. Now, technically any interaction a real person has on the net is influenced by the map of the person, i.e. by the classification of that real individual. The classification does not have to be geographically centralized, it is enough that the tags the real individual is blessed with by algorithms can travel effectively with the individual. This is technically possible and it is the root of the problem. So not that _they_ know, but that my interactions with other people are mediated not by the territory, but by the map. Who owns the map owns the territory, this way.

You can see that this is the problem in many places. One of those places which springs to mind is that, for example, Google argues that they are just like any user of the (infrastructure of the) internet. But whenever two individuals interact via anything Google, the communication goes mediated by Google. In a sense it is centralized, and there is a centralized map, even if physically spread between variously located data centers.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#67

Post by Retric »

viraptor wrote: post #35
cousin_it wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Such logging isn't technically necessary to serve web pages, and ideally shouldn't be done without consent. It's needed as soon as you want to do: non-trivial spam protection, context connection for errors/exceptions, dos mitigation, correlation of issues across browsers, and a few other things. For most of those you could theoretically hash the IP because you're interested in matches not actual values (although ma…

You can do all of those things without logging that information. It’s a cheaper solution to the problem, but that does not mean it’s required.

Which devolves your argument into collecting this information is significantly more profitable. Which I think is generally accepted as true, but not nessisarily enough to make it acceptable.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#68

Post by vincnetas »

imgabe wrote: post #56
antocv wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is it that you want to do that these technologies are preventing you from doing Organizing tea parties without being surveilled and oppressed? Inviting friends to a meeting, without tech giants knowing about it, and taking actions against said meeting.

Which actions are tech giants taking against people organizing meetings? Does Google have a goon squad that is busting people's doors down and breaking up meetings? It seems like something like that would be in the news somewhere.

it's a bit like global warming probably. untill it has no obvious effect. but it's too late to do something when goon squad is already knocking.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#69

Post by Merrill »

Security by obscurity is no security at all.

What is needed is stronger individual rights to access, correct, delete, and control the use of any information collected about us, as well as strong prohibitions on the use of data against our individual and collective interests.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#70

Post by peteradio »

worldsayshi wrote: post #45
pdkl95 wrote: post #12

> 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…

Misrepresentation is a good way to improve the training data sets for intelligence agencies.

Only if they have the truth set to compare against already.
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