41–50 of 240 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did... unique among their database...
You may be unique, but within a very small pool. For example, my current user agent string alone narrows me down to within one in ~2-3 million users/browsers. When taken with the intersection of all those other bits, it's very easy to get an incredibly high-resolution snapshot of an individual...
Unique means "only one."
I see the author's point, and users should be aware Quora does this and have the facility to disable this but ... is this not an over reaction? Viewing a question titled “Should I come out to my parents?” or “What is the best way to hide an affair?” doesn't in any way imply you are gay or hiding an affair... just that you showed some interesting the question and possible answers. I'd be interesting in both those topi…
Now, in this particular example, that child will almost certainly be 100% decided not to tell their parents and not need to read such a question, but work with me here. It's easy to fill in with scenarios that almost certainly do occur and could be legitimately dangerous in a number of ways. I mean, hell, a physically abusive spouse noticing you reading "How should I deal with my spouse abusing me?" is NOT GOING TO END WELL. Even if you try to explain "No, I just thought it was interesting. Of course I don't think you're abusive."
I'll freely admit these cases are sufficiently rare among the general population but they are also cases worth protecting to the point where we're still far from overreacting.
The new "social" web is really creepy . Browsing in an incognito browser and logged into nothing has sortof become my default. I don't want google chrome saving my search history, or to accidentally read an article on some news website that then broadcasts that fact to all of my facebook friends.
Unfortunately with supercookies, IP address-based identification (maybe even machine signature based id-ing?) and such, I think incognito mode is practically a placebo.
I get the impression that Quora is in a tough spot because of the perceived implosion of the "social bubble" after the FB IPO. They have $61M in funding [1], which means that their investors must be demanding bold moves. I don't personally know anyone who works there, so it's pure speculation. [1] http://www.crunchbase.com/company/quora
Like a business plan? Who knew that they'd be actually expected to offer a return on that money at some point?
I'd love to know where that money is going/has gone.
Edit: Oh.
http://www.quora.com/Quora-company/Why-is-Quora-moving-to-Mo...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately with supercookies, IP address-based identification (maybe even machine signature based id-ing?) and such, I think incognito mode is practically a placebo.
"supercookies"? What's that?
In short: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie#Supercookie
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm still confused how that gets by Google. The full text shows up in search results, but is blurred by CSS for humans. Isn't that not allowed? Even experts-exchange includes the readable plaintext answers way at the bottom if you scroll down, for that reason. edit: removed discussion of googleoff/googleon directives in the HTML source. Seemed suspicious, but apparently it's something to do with Google Search Applian…
That's insane, that's a bannable offense in Google. How do they still show up in search results?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You may be unique, but within a very small pool. For example, my current user agent string alone narrows me down to within one in ~2-3 million users/browsers. When taken with the intersection of all those other bits, it's very easy to get an incredibly high-resolution snapshot of an individual...
I have no idea what "unique, but within a very small pool" is supposed to mean. Unique means "only one."
One in a billion.
Do you think those two are the same?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Blhack, I ran across this comment of yours - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4377315 - and certainly appreciate your privacy concerns. A healthy private life is undoubtedly everyone's personal choice. At the same time, HackerNews is YCombinator's tech blog, and highly visible. Frankly, your opinion comes off as somewhat paranoid. It's not that it isn't justified, I'm not saying that one way or another, but I woul…
Relevant: (?) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4366002