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An American Privacy Emergency

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Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#101

Post by bdangubic »

atoav wrote: post #91
wxw wrote: post #63

> On June 4, 2026, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce issued a directive (DAO 216-26) > DAO-216-26 bans differential privacy and other modern (and not so modern) techniques. It restricts disclosure avoidance techniques to “coarsening,” > DAO-216-26 forbids “noise infusion”, described as “methods that involve modifying a dataset by adding random values, or noise.” > By forbidding noise infusion, the directive bans the dis…

It is not cursed. It is actively trying to cement its own power like the authoritarian fascists they are. And some of you still pretend if they just cheer enough for dear leader the tide will turn for them as well. As if this all was just a sports game where you have to cheer for your team even if they actively break the rules.

[flagged]

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#103

Post by [deleted] »

wxw wrote: post #63

> On June 4, 2026, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce issued a directive (DAO 216-26) > DAO-216-26 bans differential privacy and other modern (and not so modern) techniques. It restricts disclosure avoidance techniques to “coarsening,” > DAO-216-26 forbids “noise infusion”, described as “methods that involve modifying a dataset by adding random values, or noise.” > By forbidding noise infusion, the directive bans the dis…

[deleted]

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#104

Post by JoshTriplett »

cassonmars wrote: post #43
jmyeet wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a straw man argument. Consider health care. The US spends by far the most per-capita on health care of any OECD country [1]. It's roughly 50% more than the number 2 on the list, which is Switzerland , a notoriously expensive country. Yet (almost?) every other country on that list has universal healthcare. Yet life expectancy is lower than Costa Rica [2] and generally health outcomes are worse in the US t…

The problem with attempting to provide universal healthcare in the united states is that, despite health professionals attesting to the necessity and validity of certain health related topics, the current administration in particular is very keen about stripping away access to these forms of care, as far as they legally can (medicare/medicaid, VA, federal funding). UHC requires the removal of politicians from qualifi…

That's broken as well, yes, but that shouldn't stop us from fixing things incrementally.

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#105

Post by bertil »

wxw wrote: post #63

> On June 4, 2026, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce issued a directive (DAO 216-26) > DAO-216-26 bans differential privacy and other modern (and not so modern) techniques. It restricts disclosure avoidance techniques to “coarsening,” > DAO-216-26 forbids “noise infusion”, described as “methods that involve modifying a dataset by adding random values, or noise.” > By forbidding noise infusion, the directive bans the dis…

I have a very low opinion of the current US administration, which might be a blindspot when they do something both horrible and not caveman-like in its sophistication. I’m genuinely surprised they would look into differential privacy (again: this sounds judgmental, but I’m just trying to confess my prejudice).

I’m more surprised that they were able to look into it and come to the conclusion that they should get rid of it… What could be the logic here?

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#106

Post by Macha »

bertil wrote: post #105
wxw wrote: post #63

> On June 4, 2026, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce issued a directive (DAO 216-26) > DAO-216-26 bans differential privacy and other modern (and not so modern) techniques. It restricts disclosure avoidance techniques to “coarsening,” > DAO-216-26 forbids “noise infusion”, described as “methods that involve modifying a dataset by adding random values, or noise.” > By forbidding noise infusion, the directive bans the dis…

I have a very low opinion of the current US administration, which might be a blindspot when they do something both horrible and not caveman-like in its sophistication. I’m genuinely surprised they would look into differential privacy (again: this sounds judgmental, but I’m just trying to confess my prejudice). I’m more surprised that they were able to look into it and come to the conclusion that they should get rid o…

> The acting force behind this order is political interest, not scientific merit. DAO 216-26 bypassed legally required administrative procedures. It fulfills a promise made by the architects of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, and reflects both the rhetoric and misunderstandings of representatives of the Center for Renewing America (CRA), an organization founded by OMB Director Russell Vought. CRA’s explainer on the use of differential privacy in the 2020 Census is up-front about the stakes: “Even if the citizenship question is added to the Census, it will be impossible to ascertain the status of individuals so long as differential privacy is used.”

So from its supporters own statements, because it makes it harder to identify non citizens in statistics.

Making it harder to identify non-citizens sounds like it’s easy to fit into the amorphous bucket of things they don’t like of “wokeness”.

The other thing to consider is the current administration has plenty of chaos and snap decisions at its top level but at its mid level and among its backers are plenty of people able to take a more long term view of what they want and how to get there.

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#107

Post by cma »

stymaar wrote: post #100

Can anyone explain me why the Heritage foundation targeted these statistical techniques? What's the political motive behind it?

Probably related to things like "The Nazis utilized data from routine censuses, tax returns, and municipal police registrations. In Germany, and in occupied countries like the Netherlands, this information was systematically organized. In some instances, IBM technology (via Dehomag punch card machines) was used to tabulate and sort census data to identify individuals of Jewish descent."

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#108

Post by padjo »

bertil wrote: post #105
wxw wrote: post #63

> On June 4, 2026, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce issued a directive (DAO 216-26) > DAO-216-26 bans differential privacy and other modern (and not so modern) techniques. It restricts disclosure avoidance techniques to “coarsening,” > DAO-216-26 forbids “noise infusion”, described as “methods that involve modifying a dataset by adding random values, or noise.” > By forbidding noise infusion, the directive bans the dis…

I have a very low opinion of the current US administration, which might be a blindspot when they do something both horrible and not caveman-like in its sophistication. I’m genuinely surprised they would look into differential privacy (again: this sounds judgmental, but I’m just trying to confess my prejudice). I’m more surprised that they were able to look into it and come to the conclusion that they should get rid o…

The administration will do almost anything if asked, so long as the person asking is willing to offer tribute.

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#109

Post by BoppreH »

bertil wrote: post #105
wxw wrote: post #63

> On June 4, 2026, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce issued a directive (DAO 216-26) > DAO-216-26 bans differential privacy and other modern (and not so modern) techniques. It restricts disclosure avoidance techniques to “coarsening,” > DAO-216-26 forbids “noise infusion”, described as “methods that involve modifying a dataset by adding random values, or noise.” > By forbidding noise infusion, the directive bans the dis…

I have a very low opinion of the current US administration, which might be a blindspot when they do something both horrible and not caveman-like in its sophistication. I’m genuinely surprised they would look into differential privacy (again: this sounds judgmental, but I’m just trying to confess my prejudice). I’m more surprised that they were able to look into it and come to the conclusion that they should get rid o…

It could have been as simple as "noise infusion" being interpreted as "adding fake data". Especially if you don't trust the people adding the noise.

Wouldn't be the first administrative action taken at a keyword-level of understanding.

This could have also been how the administration got convinced by someone with deeper understanding and specific goals.

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#110

Post by AnthonyMouse »

alexpotato wrote: post #18

One of my favorite recently learned facts about Congress: Federally mandated parental leave (paternity and maternity leave) polls at about 80% in favor with the US adult population. This is regardless of political affiliation, by the way. Democrat and Republican voters both support it. Upon reading this, you might be surprised as to why it's NOT federally mandated given how popular it is. One group it's NOT popular w…

> Federally mandated parental leave (paternity and maternity leave) polls at about 80% in favor with the US adult population. This is regardless of political affiliation, by the way. Democrat and Republican voters both support it.

This sounds like the sort of thing where if you poll people yes/no, a majority of people support it, but then if you ask them whether they'll change their vote over it, the people who said yes say it's not their most important issue and they don't care about it enough to do anything. Whereas the people who said no are e.g. small business owners if you don't exempt them from it because they can't afford to pay someone for extended time off while simultaneously paying someone else to fill in for them, or large business owners if you do exempt the small businesses because they hate anything that gives smaller companies a relative advantage, and both of them will actually care if you try to do it and oppose the policy either way for fear that it might get changed during or after being enacted.

So then you have 80% wants x 1% cares vs. 20% wants x 75% cares and the second number ends up being bigger.

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