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Get Facebook WiFi for your business

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Re: Get Facebook WiFi for your business

#281

Post by diminoten »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #268
diminoten wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they have to give you free WiFi with no strings, stipulations, or benefit to them? You're free to not get on the WiFi if you don't want to, and frankly if you're hopping on any public WiFi, you've more or less lost any practical claim to privacy in the first place.

That might be your opinion, but I think you are wrong. And not only that, but where I live you would even be legally wrong. If you open your access point for public use here and you then go and look at other people's traffic, that is illegal and you can go to jail for it. And no, they don't have to give me free WiFi - they just have to not snoop on me. Just try to transfer your argument to a scenario that doesn't inv…

They are legally and morally permitted to make snooping on your Internet traffic part of what you have to agree to in order to use their WiFi.

The ability for a person to set the terms in which others interact with his private property is what makes this society worthwhile to live in. People can't force their way into your stuff without you setting conditions for that use.

And you're correct that looking at other people's traffic is illegal. It's illegal where I come from too.

So is speeding.

Re: Get Facebook WiFi for your business

#282

Post by lepht »

code_duck wrote: post #279
interpol_p wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it really is good enough for the business offering WiFi. If Facebook validation causes 90% of their visitors to simply hit the "sign in" button on their default Facebook account, they have probably reduced a significant amount of bad behaviour on their network. The fact is the vast majority of people are already connected to Facebook under their real names on their mobile device at all times. Taking advantage of…

The few people who do want to use the wifi maliciously will find creating a fake Facebook account a very minor obstacle to overcome. Therefore, I don't see what benefits it provides to the business.

How about data provided to the business on who their customers are? This seems especially genius in that it doesn't even require the extra step of "checking-in", but can provide the business with the same data.

Re: Get Facebook WiFi for your business

#283

Post by code_duck »

lepht wrote: post #282
code_duck wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The few people who do want to use the wifi maliciously will find creating a fake Facebook account a very minor obstacle to overcome. Therefore, I don't see what benefits it provides to the business.

How about data provided to the business on who their customers are? This seems especially genius in that it doesn't even require the extra step of "checking-in", but can provide the business with the same data.

I agree that could be useful. It's different then the claimed purpose of identity verification for prevention of malicious use, though.

Re: Get Facebook WiFi for your business

#284

Post by interpol_p »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #278
interpol_p wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be good to hear about some more concrete examples of this sort of power use (or abuse). Selling political ideas already happens (FOX news), and they don't even need to know your personal details. I do not like my personal information being collected, I find it tacky and generally only submit details when it's absolutely necessary. But I'm struggling to see the extreme short and long term consequences of a so…

Concrete examples are difficult in the same way that concrete examples for the abuses of "non-democratic societies" are difficult. I mean, it's not necessarily difficult to find some, but it's difficult to see the big picture from most examples. Yes, FOX news already happens, but I would argue it's not a good thing, and making it more effective thus probably is even worse? And yes, I guess much of the risk in a way a…

Thank you for the more detailed examples.

I agree that your examples present a worse case than I had initially thought. Although I wonder if there are positive benefits for society that balance those out (I can't think of any in particular).

So if there is a net overall negative effect for society, how big is the effect? Is it on the scale of a nuclear war, or more along the lines of the anti-vaccination movement (causes real problems, but not the end of the world).

Re: Get Facebook WiFi for your business

#285

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

diminoten wrote: post #281
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be your opinion, but I think you are wrong. And not only that, but where I live you would even be legally wrong. If you open your access point for public use here and you then go and look at other people's traffic, that is illegal and you can go to jail for it. And no, they don't have to give me free WiFi - they just have to not snoop on me. Just try to transfer your argument to a scenario that doesn't inv…

They are legally and morally permitted to make snooping on your Internet traffic part of what you have to agree to in order to use their WiFi. The ability for a person to set the terms in which others interact with his private property is what makes this society worthwhile to live in. People can't force their way into your stuff without you setting conditions for that use. And you're correct that looking at other peo…

There is no such thing as "ethically permitted". Ethics is not about being allowed or not being allowed to do things, but about how to do things in such a way that it's a nice way to live together. You see, the general principle that you have control over what you own is one that in general makes a nice way to live together. That does not mean, though, that any conditions you technically might be able to set also make for a nice way to live together. If you have tons of bread, say, and your neighbour is starving, you sure can set as a condition that he has to cut of his left arm before you give him bread, and he obviously is free to refuse your offer. But I hope you would not consider treating your neighbour that way to be the ethically right thing to do that would make for a generally nice way to live in society.

Oh, and by the way, there even are legal restrictions on the kinds of conditions you can set, at least where I live. If you reserve the right to cut off your neighbour's left arm after he has accepted your bread, for example, you would not be able to enforce that contract. And you wouldn't get your bread back either.

As I think that the ability to communicate privately is similary important as protection from bodily harm, I would think it would be appropriate to have similar norms as far as snooping on communication is concerned - and even where they are not legal norms, they would still make good ethical norms.

So, no, noone should be able to force you to provide access to your WiFi, but still, if you do provide access, you should go to jail if you do listen in, with contract clauses allowing you to do so being unenforcable.

Re: Get Facebook WiFi for your business

#286

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

interpol_p wrote: post #284
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Concrete examples are difficult in the same way that concrete examples for the abuses of "non-democratic societies" are difficult. I mean, it's not necessarily difficult to find some, but it's difficult to see the big picture from most examples. Yes, FOX news already happens, but I would argue it's not a good thing, and making it more effective thus probably is even worse? And yes, I guess much of the risk in a way a…

Thank you for the more detailed examples. I agree that your examples present a worse case than I had initially thought. Although I wonder if there are positive benefits for society that balance those out (I can't think of any in particular). So if there is a net overall negative effect for society, how big is the effect? Is it on the scale of a nuclear war, or more along the lines of the anti-vaccination movement (ca…

Well, on the one hand, there are positive effects of the technological development such as easy communication for people, which in turn might help strengthen social structure, which I would think, though, do not technically depend on such a centralized structure, but could instead be implemented as federated or peer to peer systems with much the same benefits but without the centralization, using cryptography where possible to protect information from eavesdroppers.

Then, well, yeah, arguably there are areas where lots and lots of centralized data collection in principle might be useful for solving real problems. For example, I would imagine that epidemiological studies would be much easier if researchers had access to all medical records of all people, and possibly that could be useful for fighting certain diseases. But then again, we do have some rules in place that allow collection of such data for the really bad stuff, and statistical analysis of anonymized data, so maybe we aren't really losing all that much.

I think the overall effect is more at the catastrophic end, though I would say it's more of a cold war than a nuclear war, at least in the short term: Surveillance does not directly kill you usually, but it can blow up with horrible consequences.

BTW, your anti-vaccination example might be chosen badly: If the anti-vaccination movement were to gain traction with a majority of people, that could indeed be pretty close to the end of the world, at least the world as we know it. It's only a relatively minor problem (on a societal scale) because relatively few people are taken in by it.

Re: Get Facebook WiFi for your business

#287

Post by diminoten »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #285
diminoten wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are legally and morally permitted to make snooping on your Internet traffic part of what you have to agree to in order to use their WiFi. The ability for a person to set the terms in which others interact with his private property is what makes this society worthwhile to live in. People can't force their way into your stuff without you setting conditions for that use. And you're correct that looking at other peo…

There is no such thing as "ethically permitted". Ethics is not about being allowed or not being allowed to do things, but about how to do things in such a way that it's a nice way to live together. You see, the general principle that you have control over what you own is one that in general makes a nice way to live together. That does not mean, though, that any conditions you technically might be able to set also mak…

"Ethically permitted" means "can do while being moral". It's a synonym for "moral".

And yes, people should be able to force you to provide your information in order to access their private property.

Re: Get Facebook WiFi for your business

#288

Post by tedd4u »

joosters wrote: post #160
msoad wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be surprised if Facebook gets to access to data about who purchases what and when I would sell all my transaction history for $5/month. Why should I care if their ads are getting better when I never pay attention to ads?

I never pay attention to ads Just about everyone thinks this. But you're wrong. It's pretty much impossible not to be affected by advertising. Sure, you don't click on the links, but the product placement and brand awareness is not something that you can turn off!

Unless Flash / ads disabled ... ?

Re: Get Facebook WiFi for your business

#289

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

diminoten wrote: post #287
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such thing as "ethically permitted". Ethics is not about being allowed or not being allowed to do things, but about how to do things in such a way that it's a nice way to live together. You see, the general principle that you have control over what you own is one that in general makes a nice way to live together. That does not mean, though, that any conditions you technically might be able to set also mak…

"Ethically permitted" means "can do while being moral". It's a synonym for "moral". And yes, people should be able to force you to provide your information in order to access their private property.

I disagree. Well, strictly speaking, asking for identifying information might be OK, but storing it or communicating it to other parties is not, at least not without some justification why that is needed.

Control over your personally identifiable information is similarly important in the modern world as is control over your property, and where the two come into conflict, appropriate solutions have to be found.

Re: Get Facebook WiFi for your business

#290

Post by diminoten »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #289
diminoten wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ethically permitted" means "can do while being moral". It's a synonym for "moral". And yes, people should be able to force you to provide your information in order to access their private property.

I disagree. Well, strictly speaking, asking for identifying information might be OK, but storing it or communicating it to other parties is not, at least not without some justification why that is needed. Control over your personally identifiable information is similarly important in the modern world as is control over your property, and where the two come into conflict, appropriate solutions have to be found.

Agreed regarding the property analogy, but you regularly give up your property for the use of a service.

It is not immoral to request someone's property as a form of payment for use of a private service.

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