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

Privacy is at a crossroads. Choose wisely

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 166 posts

Re: Privacy is at a crossroads. Choose wisely

#11

Post by dasboth »

dmschulman wrote: post #9

The myth of "partially anonymize" data is infuriating. As an academic exercise I've begun to pore over Privacy Policies for web new services I find, specifically how my account info will be used with third parties. No new consumer oriented web product in their right mind would advertise "we monetize your data with third parties", but they all include language in their Privacy Policies about sharing "partially anonymi…

"As an academic exercise I've begun to pour over Privacy Policies for web new services"

This is something I've been thinking of doing. I don't suppose you've shared these anywhere online by any chance? I always thought that would make a good site - somewhere where you can look up certain services' privacy policies in layman's terms. I suspect a good one already exists.

Re: Privacy is at a crossroads. Choose wisely

#12

Post by drdaeman »

dasboth wrote: post #11
dmschulman wrote: post #9

The myth of "partially anonymize" data is infuriating. As an academic exercise I've begun to pore over Privacy Policies for web new services I find, specifically how my account info will be used with third parties. No new consumer oriented web product in their right mind would advertise "we monetize your data with third parties", but they all include language in their Privacy Policies about sharing "partially anonymi…

"As an academic exercise I've begun to pour over Privacy Policies for web new services" This is something I've been thinking of doing. I don't suppose you've shared these anywhere online by any chance? I always thought that would make a good site - somewhere where you can look up certain services' privacy policies in layman's terms. I suspect a good one already exists.

https://tosdr.org/

Re: Privacy is at a crossroads. Choose wisely

#13

Post by shit_parade »

justcommenting wrote: post #2

I've also noticed the quality of DuckDuckGo search results has been steadily improving, especially over the past year. I would encourage anyone who tried it and went back to another search engine to consider giving DuckDuckGo another shot--you may be pleasantly surprised!

I also recommend people try startpage.com

Re: Privacy is at a crossroads. Choose wisely

#15

Post by j2kun »

There is a possibility to share statistical analysis of data privately. This is the subfield of computer science known as differential privacy, and I bet companies just looking for trend data (not specific targeting) would be able to benefit from user data without compromising user privacy.

In other words, there are good and bad ways to use user data, some of the good ones are provably private, and we shouldn't rule out all data sharing as inherently evil.

Re: Privacy is at a crossroads. Choose wisely

#16

Post by shit_parade »

goodmornings wrote: post #4

I don't want to sound too pessimistic and I agree with the sentiment of the article, but I think people need to come to terms with that there isn't really a choice to be made here. Just like you suddenly isn't going to change the at least decade old path of the NSA, you aren't suddenly going to change the fundamentals of the Internet. The choices that affects us now has to a large extent already been made and we are…

I'm also surprised that people are not more skeptical of anything coming out of the white house with Obama's name on it.

Obama has proven himself to be a warmonger with loose ethics unwilling to prosecute torture and also fully interested in continuing the surveillance state, killing Americans without due process, prosecuting whistle-blowers, and protecting the status quo above the constitution and civil rights.

Re: Privacy is at a crossroads. Choose wisely

#17

Post by nine_k »

dmschulman wrote: post #9

The myth of "partially anonymize" data is infuriating. As an academic exercise I've begun to pore over Privacy Policies for web new services I find, specifically how my account info will be used with third parties. No new consumer oriented web product in their right mind would advertise "we monetize your data with third parties", but they all include language in their Privacy Policies about sharing "partially anonymi…

/* spelling/autocorrect: it's 'pore over', not 'pour over' */

Re: Privacy is at a crossroads. Choose wisely

#18

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

And there are indeed a few solutions that actually grant you partial relief from the pains of online tracking. First, switch your search engine, email and other major services where your personal information is heavily tracked to good private alternatives. Second, add EFF’s HTTPS Everywhere plugin to your browser, which will encrypt web site connections where possible. Third, add EFF’s Privacy Badger plugin to your browser, which blocks third-party trackers. These three simple changes will pretty seamlessly and significantly reduce your digital footprint.

Since this is a quote from the article, I feel this is an appropriate space to ask: does anyone have a page explaining how these various privacy extensions interact/overlap with each other? I tend to install (or at least try out) pretty much every popular one at some point or another, and I'm hoping to reduce redundancies. Alot of these tools show up on recommended "Get These If You're Serious About Privacy" lists without indicating what exactly each extension does or how it might interact with another extension. These include:

- Adblock Plus - Ghostery - Disconnect - HTTPS Everywhere - EFF Privacy Badger - uBlock - NoScript

At this point, I've "slimmed" down to just HTTPS Everywhere and uBlock, although I'm debating adding Privacy Badger. However, their own page mentions that it's "based on ABP code" [0], so my thought is that uBlock is probably also taking care of it.

Is that sufficient? Is there any danger in installing Privacy Badger and uBlock, for instance, if they serve the same function? Will they step on each other's toes?

Some kind of comparison chart would be useful.

[0] - https://www.eff.org/privacybadger#how_is_it_different

Re: Privacy is at a crossroads. Choose wisely

#19

Post by drdaeman »

angersock wrote: post #14

The annoying thing is that, even if we prevent them from harvesting data on us, there's nothing to prevent them from convincing our friends/parents/coworkers from sharing that information on our behalves.

Except for the lack of data. Don't share things you consider private (and that are indeed private and not just things you don't want to expose but can't really do so, like your own face) with those who you don't trust. This is the most secure approach among all possibilities.

Re: Privacy is at a crossroads. Choose wisely

#20

Post by cheatsheet »

j2kun wrote: post #15

There is a possibility to share statistical analysis of data privately. This is the subfield of computer science known as differential privacy, and I bet companies just looking for trend data (not specific targeting) would be able to benefit from user data without compromising user privacy. In other words, there are good and bad ways to use user data, some of the good ones are provably private, and we shouldn't rule…

> provably private

citation?

Post reply on HN