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The Fantasy of Opting Out

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Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#101

Post by hos234 »

stereolambda wrote: post #79

This is one of the better articles on the subject, not written in inside-tech-bubble terms. I think they also describe something we may call "obfuscation of power": formally you can opt out, in practice you cannot, and people who have power over you are lost in a soup of legal entities. So first, you are alienated to face surveillance alone as an individual, taking all blame for losing your freedom because you "chose…

But framing things differently has been done, yet we have smoking, drinking, gambling, mcd and coke.

To me it fells like certain people (a percentage of any population) are just wired to exploit human weakness.

Sometimes they are unconsciously doing it and when made conscious don't know how to exit that path. And society needs to make it simpler for exits to happen.

Those that are consciously doing it...well we are just stuck with them like we will always have bugs in code.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#102

Post by Loughla »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #83
stereolambda wrote: post #79

This is one of the better articles on the subject, not written in inside-tech-bubble terms. I think they also describe something we may call "obfuscation of power": formally you can opt out, in practice you cannot, and people who have power over you are lost in a soup of legal entities. So first, you are alienated to face surveillance alone as an individual, taking all blame for losing your freedom because you "chose…

>The sooner it will be commonly framed as a question of freedom (i.e. absence of arbitrary power of other people above you [1]), and as a question in the interest of society as a whole, the better I agree but I don't think I'd use the word "soon" There's a reason this is an opinion piece by a person who specifically cares about these issues and not an article. Things are going to have to get worse before they get bet…

>Nobody's gonna care until it hits them personally or has the potential to do so imminently.

It's for this reason that I really, really want the US to implement some kind of formal, stated facial recognition across the board. I honestly don't think we'll see any mass movement on privacy issues from regular folks until something that big happens.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#103

Post by Nasrudith »

Merrill wrote: post #87
hrktb wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is not security though, but privacy. At its base privacy is obscurity. Also you seem to advocate for every single individual to run a race against the rest of the world to not misuse their data. We both wish there was decent safeguards, I am way more pessimistic about any effective rights regulation though (I think it’s just way too hard for any legislation body). Not saying nothing should be done on the el…

The problem with privacy by obscurity is that once broken it cannot be fixed. Once information is released and becomes public, there is no way to retrieve or expunge it from the public record. The only remedy is law, regulation, and a social compact that the continued dissemination and use against your interests is forbidden.

The real issue historically hasn't been privacy itself in many cases so much as people unduly giving a fuck about things they shouldn't because it doesn't actually affect them at all or their "requirements" are objectively barking mad. While surveillance is full of evils the true root of most damage from releases. Society's stupid reactions are and it would prefer to change anything execpt their dumb presumptions in the face of reality and morality.

It brings to mind the stacked absurdity of pagent winners losing their crown over nude picture releases. Clearly they should inspect the models to beforehand to be sure they have Barbie Doll crotches beforehand if having a naked body is a disqualifier. It would save them all embarassment once they realize there are no qualified human models which meet their standards and they will have to make due with giving trophies to department store mannequins.

Or the many who suffered from being outed as gay including dumbass tautologies where making a secret firing worthy because of a risk of blackmail - that they created.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#104

Post by mdorazio »

Loughla wrote: post #102
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The sooner it will be commonly framed as a question of freedom (i.e. absence of arbitrary power of other people above you [1]), and as a question in the interest of society as a whole, the better I agree but I don't think I'd use the word "soon" There's a reason this is an opinion piece by a person who specifically cares about these issues and not an article. Things are going to have to get worse before they get bet…

>Nobody's gonna care until it hits them personally or has the potential to do so imminently. It's for this reason that I really, really want the US to implement some kind of formal, stated facial recognition across the board. I honestly don't think we'll see any mass movement on privacy issues from regular folks until something that big happens.

I think you’re overestimating what the public response to such an event would be. The vast majority of the public doesn’t care if their privacy is utterly violated by the government as long as there’s some flimsy justification for it catching bad guys or saving children.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#105

Post by tomxor »

squiggleblaz wrote: post #97
tomxor wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your definition of a state of privacy will be my definition: the effective capacity to misrepresent yourself. This is true of the world we live in today, which comprises of almost completely centralised services. But in the future, I believe the second option will be: building and using local FOSS replacements for those services. Many of those local replacements will need no communication at all - So many things th…

What is the local FOSS replacement for Facebook and Instagram? It is not inherent in the notion of communicating publicly and privately using photos, videos and short text messages than I disclose some ungodly amount of private data. I have feel like writing some protocol and a few clients and servers, but I expect that there's already twenty four competing protocols that no-one uses because, if you're not the bigges…

Yes, as I said in my last sentence:

> Others are more difficult, because communication is inherent to the service, and centralization is the simplest and most obvious choice when being provided by a coorporation, so an infamous "decentralised" solution is needed, which are more difficult to create, organise and promote.

I think the only way a decentralised social network replacement will win out facebook is with a universal but progressive/gracefully degrading protocol is created as the single way lots of different clients/federated servers etc communicate, a protocol that also allows greater level of control over where your data goes... i.e email but better.

As i said these problems are the most difficult, but there are a lot of thing being "clouded" at the moment that have no need, those are the low hanging fruit.

Note that I am suggesting FOSS is the preferred option to obfuscating, rather than the only option... some services will always be centralised not only because it's simpler but because it's about/for a central authority... for those obfuscation is the only way.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#106

Post by bilbo0s »

Loughla wrote: post #102
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The sooner it will be commonly framed as a question of freedom (i.e. absence of arbitrary power of other people above you [1]), and as a question in the interest of society as a whole, the better I agree but I don't think I'd use the word "soon" There's a reason this is an opinion piece by a person who specifically cares about these issues and not an article. Things are going to have to get worse before they get bet…

>Nobody's gonna care until it hits them personally or has the potential to do so imminently. It's for this reason that I really, really want the US to implement some kind of formal, stated facial recognition across the board. I honestly don't think we'll see any mass movement on privacy issues from regular folks until something that big happens.

Just, Devil's Advocate - but what happens if you allow such a program to go forward, and no one outside the usual suspects objects? How would you reign it back in?

I believe it would be best not to allow such a program in the first place, because counting on the population to be opposed to it is, well, let's just label it "unwise".

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#107

Post by [deleted] »

tomxor wrote: post #105
squiggleblaz wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the local FOSS replacement for Facebook and Instagram? It is not inherent in the notion of communicating publicly and privately using photos, videos and short text messages than I disclose some ungodly amount of private data. I have feel like writing some protocol and a few clients and servers, but I expect that there's already twenty four competing protocols that no-one uses because, if you're not the bigges…

Yes, as I said in my last sentence: > Others are more difficult, because communication is inherent to the service, and centralization is the simplest and most obvious choice when being provided by a coorporation, so an infamous "decentralised" solution is needed, which are more difficult to create, organise and promote. I think the only way a decentralised social network replacement will win out facebook is with a un…

[deleted]

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#108

Post by bilbo0s »

excalibur wrote: post #98
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…

> If you are an optimist or an apparatchik, then your answer will tend toward rules of data procedure administered by a government you trust or control. Make the data public. All of it. Don't allow them any secrets. Knowledge is power, power to the people.

That would also spawn outrage mobs.

"This boy said right here in his Call of Duty chat that he was going to go to school with his dad's rifle and shoot people!!!"

The only thing you would do is put entirely unprofessional future mobs in place of the slightly unprofessional police we use currently. I would hope people could see the very real chance that your idea would make things worse.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#109

Post by bilbo0s »

gutnor wrote: post #75
pixl97 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, as an individual there is a very limited pool of activities that you can and will misrepresent yourself in, and you will tend to do that in low entropy also.

On the other hand if you are just a mostly normal guy with a dark secret, your normal life generates enormous amount of data and that's fairly easy to misrepresent the tiny bit you want to hide. If you are an avid facebook, instagram, youtube, reddit, twitter user, it should be fairly easy to hide your plan for world domination on HN.

Actually, misrepresentation is an especially bad strategy if you're a normal guy with a dark secret.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#110

Post by thenewnewguy »

squiggleblaz wrote: post #97
tomxor wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your definition of a state of privacy will be my definition: the effective capacity to misrepresent yourself. This is true of the world we live in today, which comprises of almost completely centralised services. But in the future, I believe the second option will be: building and using local FOSS replacements for those services. Many of those local replacements will need no communication at all - So many things th…

What is the local FOSS replacement for Facebook and Instagram? It is not inherent in the notion of communicating publicly and privately using photos, videos and short text messages than I disclose some ungodly amount of private data. I have feel like writing some protocol and a few clients and servers, but I expect that there's already twenty four competing protocols that no-one uses because, if you're not the bigges…

It's not 'local', but the FOSS replacement for Facebook/Instagram is email.
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