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FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

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Re: FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

#181

Post by doctorpangloss »

davisr wrote: post #149
digging wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and people are ok with that I've seen no evidence of this. People mostly either don't understand it for feel powerless against it.

> I've seen no evidence of this Over 99% of Americans point a camera at themselves while they take a shit.

Snowden couldn't convince people that the privacy he was talking about meant a limit on government power. Not sensitive data. And honestly, nobody cares about anyone taking a shit.

You can advocate for limiting govt. power ("LGP") without leaking any NSA docs. I don't think a single story about "LGP" changed due to the leaks. Everyone knows the government can do a lot of violence on you. So it's very hard.

If you're a high drama personality, yeah you can conflate all these nuanced issues. You can make privacy mean whatever you want.

Re: FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

#182

Post by layer8 »

ryanisnan wrote: post #5

I love the cognitive dissonance on display within the federal government. One arm: "everyone is a criminal; spy on everyone" Other arm: "hey you shouldn't really harvest all of that data"

Since the federal government isn’t a single mind (nor a hive mind), a cognitive dissonance can only be meaningfully located on the observer’s side.

Re: FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

#183

Post by malfist »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #144
brookst wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I agree, but people will have very different views on where liability should fall, and whether there is a malicious / negligent / no-fault model? Section 230? Is it the platform or the originating user that's liable? Protection of personal data? Is there a standard of care beyond which liability lapses (e.g. a nation state supply chain attack exfiltrates encrypted data and keys are broken due to novel quantum…

It's not a solvable problem. Like most tech problems it's political, not technical. There is no way to balance the competing demands of privacy, security, legality, and corporate overreach. It might be solvable with some kind of ID escrow, where an independent international agency managed ID as a not-for-profit service. Users would have a unique biometrically-tagged ID, ID confirmation would be handled by the agency,…

> It's not a solvable problem

Lawnmower manufacturers said the same thing about making safe lawnmowers. Until government regulations forced them to

Re: FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

#184

Post by tway_GdBRwW »

mgraczyk wrote: post #59
orthecreedence wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is really coming across as "well, nothing bad has happened yet so who cares?" If that's not the case, please let me know how you meant it. If it is the case, surely you can imagine a world in which dragnet surveillance of people who have an expectation of privacy can be abused by corporations, institutions, or private individuals. It really doesn't take a lot of imagination to picture this world.

It's been ubiquitous for around 20 years now (Google started doing mass surveillance for display ads in the early 2000s) and nothing bad has happened, so yes that's my point. If nothing bad happens for decades, and that is inconsistent with your model of danger, then the model is probably wrong

> nothing bad has happened

ummm, WTF?

10x increase in teen suicide doesn't qualify as "bad"?

or repeated DOJ lawsuits against Facebook because their advertising practices result in highly effective racial discrimination?

Re: FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

#185

Post by kart23 »

stiffenoxygen wrote: post #82
kart23 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you like having this option available, then you should like this FTC report and the position they are taking. I can like other positions and actions the FTC has done, like requiring the ability to turn off targeted ads, and not like others, like this one. This is among the biggest problems in politics right now. Supporting a political party doesn't mean you need to 100% back all their opinions and policies, that…

> I can like other positions and actions the FTC has done, like requiring the ability to turn off targeted ads, and not like others, like this one They weren't saying that was the case I think you're misunderstanding them here. But they are 100% correct, you are benefiting from other people fighting against this mass surveillance and yet speaking against it. I think you should do some research on why privacy is impor…

Read my first comment. I definitely agree privacy is important. All I'm saying is that this is not one of the harms we should be worrying about when saying targeted advertising is a problem, and I don't understand why this is an important issue that we should care about when targeted advertising can be turned off:

"Profound Threats to Users Can Occur When Targeting Occurs Based on Sensitive Categories"

Re: FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

#186

Post by layer8 »

cvnahfn wrote: post #38
ryanisnan wrote: post #5

I love the cognitive dissonance on display within the federal government. One arm: "everyone is a criminal; spy on everyone" Other arm: "hey you shouldn't really harvest all of that data"

The FTC is under the president's authority. This is election pandering, same as Zuckerberg's backpedaling on government censorship. This is for getting votes from the undecided. Everything will be back to normal (surveillance, data collection and censorship) after the election.

The FTC is bipartisan, no more than three of the five commissioners can belong to the same party. The present report was unanimously voted by all five.

Re: FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

#187

Post by tway_GdBRwW »

mgraczyk wrote: post #127
ryandrake wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't think anything bad happens from personal data being accessed without one's consent, please reply to this comment and share: 1. Your full name 2. Your home address 3. Your social security number (if you're American) 4. Your mother's maiden name If you're right, then you have nothing to worry about.

None of this data is included in the FTC report. They are not talking about this. My full name is Michael Graczyk, I live in San Francisco, none of these companies know any more detail than that about the questions you asked

Michael, I disagree with your point but I recognize your integrity. You just posted your name and city, and your HN profile shares more personal information.

I respect that you are willing to stand behind your claim. Best of success with your current venture.

Re: FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

#189

Post by dialup_sounds »

Clubber wrote: post #147
lesuorac wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are dense. Imagine a government authorizes 10B for a bridge and then in 5 years a bridge shows up. Now instead, imagine in 1978 [1] a government authorizes "United States federal law that establishes procedures for the surveillance and collection of foreign intelligence on domestic soil" and in 2008 [2] amends it to not be a big deal if they're foreign or not and then 5 years later it turns out they're doing just…

>You are dense. Well, maybe you're one of those propagandists. If you can't attack the idea, attack the person, right? Hand waves, nothing new to see here, carry on. The bills aren't what were exposed, it was more the techniques and scope. Like PRISM and XKeyScore and circumventing laws by sharing intelligence on US citizens with allies who aren't restricted by US laws. Spying on allied governments, etc. You know, th…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_SHAMROCK

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_and_Mitchell_defection

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

Et cetera. These aren't new issues. The obsession with Snowden as a messianic figure is unhelpful in contextualizing the information.

Re: FTC: Vast Surveillance of Users by Social Media and Video Streaming Companies

#190

Post by ToucanLoucan »

malfist wrote: post #183
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a solvable problem. Like most tech problems it's political, not technical. There is no way to balance the competing demands of privacy, security, legality, and corporate overreach. It might be solvable with some kind of ID escrow, where an independent international agency managed ID as a not-for-profit service. Users would have a unique biometrically-tagged ID, ID confirmation would be handled by the agency,…

> It's not a solvable problem Lawnmower manufacturers said the same thing about making safe lawnmowers. Until government regulations forced them to

https://i.imgur.com/mXU28ta.jpeg

Specifically, 1970.

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