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Privacy concerns are breaking the Census

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Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census

#31

Post by tharne »

ironman1478 wrote: post #28
tharne wrote: post #27

The Census has really lost the thread. The original mission was simply to do a headcount to determine how many representatives and electoral votes each state was entitled to. One thing that annoyed me in particular was their creepy obsession around race. Even once you answer, "White", there are several more questions aimed at determining precisely what subcategory of white person you are. If anyone at the census is l…

This is important for understanding how gerrymandered a district is.

> This is important for understanding how gerrymandered a district is.

That's a bit circular. One of the main reasons that districts are so easy to gerrymander is precisely because there is so much rich census data that can be used to predict voting patterns.

Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census

#32

Post by katbyte »

arcbyte wrote: post #15
fuckcensorship wrote: post #2

I have similar hesitations about registering to vote in my state (North Carolina) because it makes voter record data available to “Any person upon request and for a fee. Free lists are provided upon request to political parties.” [1]. My name, address, etc. ended up on dozens of sketchy websites after registering to vote previously. Privacy conscious legislation can’t come soon enough. [1]: https://www.ncsl.org/resea…

If the government knows it, the same data should be available to all citizens. Traffic camera feeds, voter data, medicare claims, everything. With minor, very narrow restrictions for the very latest military secrets.

I see you’ve never been stalked harassed threatened or dealt with people trying to make your life hell.

Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census

#33

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

kodah wrote: post #26
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author doesn't care about that and says it pretty clearly. He doesn't (and I don't) think that it makes sense to think in terms of "deanonymization attacks" here, since your legal name, address, and basic demographic information are already semi-publicly linked together in a large variety of ways. Is it deanonymization if I go to the county registrar and pull the deed for someone's house?

I fixed the link, sorry about that. You can deanonymize block level data and the study shows as much. You just need to have some amount of information that is either unique or low enough in distribution. There's a tutorial on Twitter if you'd like to follow: https://mobile.twitter.com/john_abowd/status/111494218027827...

I see. You're right, I misunderstood what the attack vector is supposed to be here.

Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census

#34

Post by mullingitover »

tharne wrote: post #27

The Census has really lost the thread. The original mission was simply to do a headcount to determine how many representatives and electoral votes each state was entitled to. One thing that annoyed me in particular was their creepy obsession around race. Even once you answer, "White", there are several more questions aimed at determining precisely what subcategory of white person you are. If anyone at the census is l…

> One thing that annoyed me in particular was their creepy obsession around race. Even once you answer, "White", there are several more questions aimed at determining precisely what subcategory of white person you are.

This isn't really on the census. This is just the census trying to account for Americans' creepy obsession with race. Let's not forget that for most of this country's history, your race was everything.

Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census

#35

Post by skeptical2 »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #19
bigyellow wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is that definition from? I couldn't find it in DSM-5. Also, why is the Census (or any collective action) more important than an individual's subjective view of privacy (or any private thought)?

> Where is that definition from? I couldn't find it in DSM-5. The term defines itself. I assume you understand what is meant by Privacy Derangement Syndrome, something like: valuing privacy above all other virtues. For example, somebody who refuses to use a mobile phone due to iOS privacy concerns, and falls out of touch with family and friends. But I don't even really appreciate this point even as a joke. The idea t…

[dead]

Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census

#36

Post by caymanjim »

ironman1478 wrote: post #28
tharne wrote: post #27

The Census has really lost the thread. The original mission was simply to do a headcount to determine how many representatives and electoral votes each state was entitled to. One thing that annoyed me in particular was their creepy obsession around race. Even once you answer, "White", there are several more questions aimed at determining precisely what subcategory of white person you are. If anyone at the census is l…

This is important for understanding how gerrymandered a district is.

That's not the purpose of the census, though. That's a political and social concern, and people can debate the value of that data and who should collect it, but it's not part of the Constitutional mandate to count the number of people.

Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census

#37

Post by nobody9999 »

gruez wrote: post #10

>Private companies are already scrutinizing your purchase patterns to determine that you are pregnant and then potentially getting in hot water for notifying relatives you haven’t actually informed. >Given that baseline reality, compromising the usefulness of Census data for the sake of minimal privacy gains seems really bad. The difference is that you can opt out of various companies collecting data. Can you opt out…

>The difference is that you can opt out of various companies collecting data. Can you opt out of the census?

I'm going to assume that this isn't a rhetorical question.

Yes. Just don't fill out the form. And if the Census folks send folks to your house, you can pretend not to be home, politely ask them to leave, or in states that allow it, shoot such trespassers dead.

In fact, I'd prefer it if those who live in areas that consistently elect folks from $PARTY whose platform is more disagreeable to me do exactly that.

That way, when congressional districts are redrawn, the $PARTY that annoys me more will have a harder time getting elected. Redistricting is, after all, the primary purpose of the Census.

Edit: Less is more.

Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census

#38

Post by giaour »

bpodgursky wrote: post #29
HedgingPointer wrote: post #24

It seems as thought this author has never read any materials on inference control... Ross Anderson's Security Engineering Chapter 9 is all about this https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/SEv2-c09.pdf (Anderson releases the textbook free online) This is a fairly well developed field (i.e., in medicine there highly screened "Medical Statisticians" who give data to research groups only after it's properly anonymized.…

There is an enormous practical difference between allowing inference of medical conditions (PHI deidentification) and allowing in edge cases the inference of information that is already available in public voter registration rolls.

> allowing in edge cases the inference of information that is already available in public voter registration rolls.

This is a really inaccurate way to characterize what researchers were able to obtain from reidentification attacks on block-level data from the 2010 census: https://www.science.org/content/article/can-set-equations-ke...

Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census

#39

Post by skeptical2 »

katbyte wrote: post #32
arcbyte wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the government knows it, the same data should be available to all citizens. Traffic camera feeds, voter data, medicare claims, everything. With minor, very narrow restrictions for the very latest military secrets.

I see you’ve never been stalked harassed threatened or dealt with people trying to make your life hell.

The government goons are some of the worst stalkers and harassers, which is exactly why they should never be allowed to collect this data in the first place. Our Founders understood this, but unfortunately, humans generally never learn anything from history.

Re: Privacy concerns are breaking the Census

#40

Post by skeptical2 »

bigyellow wrote: post #14
jeffbee wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definition of privacy derangement syndrome, right there. This is superficial "privacy" which affords no marginal improvement in your actual privacy but does concretely break the Census.

Where is that definition from? I couldn't find it in DSM-5. Also, why is the Census (or any collective action) more important than an individual's subjective view of privacy (or any private thought)?

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