Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 124 posts

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#51

Post by [deleted] »

takeitawaymike wrote: post #47
film42 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I firmly agree with you, these services can seem scary, and we're half way down that slippery slope. But it's hard for myself (the consumer) to leave a service (like dropbox) that makes my life easier. I can manage my own private dropbox like service, but I don't trust myself. Maybe that's even scarier.

"But it's hard for myself (the consumer) to leave a service (like dropbox) that makes my life easier." That's nonsensical and a strawman. No one is telling you to stop using such services. Just use an alternative that respects your rights. That's all there is to it.

[deleted]

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#52

Post by film42 »

pXMzR2A wrote: post #46
film42 wrote: post #5

I won't be getting rid of Dropbox, Google services, or Facebook anytime soon. I disagree with government spying, and would like to see major reform, but (disagreeing with Snowden) I actually have nothing to hide. I'm not excusing the companies that provide data to governments, but I like the services they provide. They solve problems I want solved, so I will continue to use them. Edit: Why all the down votes? If you…

> I actually have nothing to hide. FTFA > When you say, ‘I have nothing to hide,’ you’re saying, ‘I don’t care about this right.’ You’re saying, ‘I don’t have this right, because I’ve got to the point where I have to justify it.’ The way rights work is, the government has to justify its intrusion into your rights. Read TFA

Right, this was me disagreeing with that quote from the article. I understand you think differently, thank you for sharing.

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#54

Post by smtddr »

takeitawaymike wrote: post #47
film42 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I firmly agree with you, these services can seem scary, and we're half way down that slippery slope. But it's hard for myself (the consumer) to leave a service (like dropbox) that makes my life easier. I can manage my own private dropbox like service, but I don't trust myself. Maybe that's even scarier.

"But it's hard for myself (the consumer) to leave a service (like dropbox) that makes my life easier." That's nonsensical and a strawman. No one is telling you to stop using such services. Just use an alternative that respects your rights. That's all there is to it.

Go ahead and list those alternatives for me. Please make sure they're immune to the power of USgov & NSA.

Below is my list of tech companies that are immune to the USgov/NSA:

____

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#55

Post by TrevorJ »

film42 wrote: post #5

I won't be getting rid of Dropbox, Google services, or Facebook anytime soon. I disagree with government spying, and would like to see major reform, but (disagreeing with Snowden) I actually have nothing to hide. I'm not excusing the companies that provide data to governments, but I like the services they provide. They solve problems I want solved, so I will continue to use them. Edit: Why all the down votes? If you…

The issue is that the public discourse over this topic conflates the human need for privacy with the argument of "I have nothing to hide".

These two things are not the same thing. Whether or not you have something to hide has no bearing on our basic need or basic right to privacy.

Additionally, no one can really say "I have nothing to hide" and be intellectually honest. The honest statement is "I have nothing to hide yet, that I know of."

Why? Two reasons: number one, we live in an environment of selective enforcement. We all, knowingly or not run afoul of the law every day be it copyright law or something else. The corpus of legal code we exist under in this country is far to large for anyone to say with confidence that they have 'nothing to hide'.

Secondly: While it may be true that you have nothing to hide right now, how can you know what options, behaviors, or possessions might run afoul of future administrations? History is replete with examples of regimes cleaning house when they come into power, and the digital paper trial we leave makes that all too easy. I'm sure you can counter that argument by saying that could never happen here in the US, but there are plenty of less severe areas where it would be easy to see this happening. What if the federal gov. changes its mind on looking the other way when states legalize a controlled substance and your digital paper trial makes it clear that you may have partaken in the past? There are any number of scenarios where activities and opinions that you deem to be perfectly acceptable now are things you may desire to keep private in the future.

The point is, to say you have nothing to hide presumes you can predict the future, and have complete knowledge of the law, which no one person can reasonably posses. We have a system of warrants for a reason, and it is to protect you, as a citizen from these sorts of situations. Do not be so quick to give that up.

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#56

Post by TrevorJ »

csandreasen wrote: post #27
lern_too_spel wrote: post #13

"Even with that encryption, he said law enforcement officials can still ask for warrants that will give them complete access to a suspect’s phone, which will include the key to the encrypted data." What, pray tell, is the mechanism by which the key will be obtained? Snowden is bloviating here.

... and he advocates ditching Dropbox in favor of a closed source, proprietary encrypted file storage service... ... and he tells you not to use Google, but gives every one of his remote appearances through Google Hangouts...

Hypocrisy doesn't invalidate an opinion automatically.

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#57

Post by Havvy »

sauere wrote: post #44
Selfcommit wrote: post #20

Does no one else see the irony in Snowden warning everyong to avoid Google.. via a Google+ Hangout?

Word. I really feel that a lot of people talking about this whole thing fail to practice what they preach.

To be honest, he's not looking for privacy for this statement. He's looking for exactly the opposite, so using the thing that doesn't care for privacy doesn't matter for this instance.

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#58

Post by jerf »

swartkrans wrote: post #38
jayd16 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could build your own dropbox. It's not that complex. A social network and a search engine would be a bit harder.

> You could build your own dropbox. It's not that complex. It would be incredibly complex to build your own Dropbox. Maybe it wouldn't be "complex" to use rsync to automatically copy files over to some other drive if that's all you wanted, but Dropbox does way more than that and I don't plan on dropping Dropbox for some half baked solution that requires more effort to set up, maintenance and ends up in lost data beca…

http://owncloud.org/

You don't have to write your own Dropbox. You just have to host one.

And even beside the question of government surveillance there is the advantage that it is under your control, not somebody else's. File sharing is so generic that the lockin opportunity is less than it is in other domains (like social networking) but there still can be advantage to being the owner and not merely a renter.

Re: Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google

#60

Post by AJ007 »

Selfcommit wrote: post #20

Does no one else see the irony in Snowden warning everyong to avoid Google.. via a Google+ Hangout?

There is an interesting branding question here. Imagine an alternate history where all our historical footage of Stalin or Hitler all had Google watermarks.
Post reply on HN