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An American Privacy Emergency

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Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#121

Post by mikestew »

padjo wrote: post #108
bertil wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That might be accurate, but it doesn’t answer the question asked.

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#122

Post by bdangubic »

birdsongs wrote: post #112
bdangubic wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You're heavily downvoted, and while this admin is absolutely autocratic far beyond anything we've ever seen, and democracy is eroding rapidly: privacy has backslid under every administration. Obama had nearly a decade to revert the patriot act, along with other nefarious shit introduced after 9/11 like PRISM, but did nothing to touch it. America has been creeping towards a surveillance state for decades, regardless o…

couldn’t give two shits about being downvoted but of course tells you all you need to know about what HN has become :)

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#123

Post by cindyllm »

alex43578 wrote: post #117
NDlurker wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better to spend money on helping our neighbors than going around the world murdering people

Does free housing help people? The state of “the projects” in every metro would say otherwise. Does free food help people? Most Americans are already overweight, and far, far more die every year from diseases of excess consumption than hunger/malnutrition. Furthermore, when you give them food stamps, they try to sell and defraud the program to buy drugs or alcohol. We already “help” these people to the tune of many b…

[dead]

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#124

Post by 9x39 »

hilariously wrote: post #120
alex43578 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does free housing help people? The state of “the projects” in every metro would say otherwise. Does free food help people? Most Americans are already overweight, and far, far more die every year from diseases of excess consumption than hunger/malnutrition. Furthermore, when you give them food stamps, they try to sell and defraud the program to buy drugs or alcohol. We already “help” these people to the tune of many b…

>Does free housing help people? Studies say yes. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8513528/ Your vibes and general lack of empathy don't make you correct.

That disabled non-producers go to the ER less if given an apartment is true doesn't make it empathetic or correct to build enormous unproductive spending networks under the label of homelessness, either.

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/california-homeles...

$50,000 a year per homeless with minimal, if any, result - if it's empathy, it's suicidal empathy to emit those kinds of funds without results year after year into systems that have sprung up to capture them and ask for more.

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#125

Post by xhkkffbf »

stymaar wrote: post #100

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

The 2020 Census had a number of issues and many of them ended up giving the Democrats more seats in the House than they should have. Oh, and the Census results were due at the White House in December 2016, but somehow they didn't reach the WH until January 21, 2017.

Was Differential Privacy specifically involved? I don't think so, but I think it's being lumped into the mix and being blamed for the other issues.

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#126

Post by ls612 »

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 fucks over every econometric technique that researchers use (by design) I’ve been hearing people in academia beating the drum about this since like 2021.

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#127

Post by red-iron-pine »

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…

the current administration is owned by billionaires and foreign interests.

both want to see the US government collapse.

a lot of people are going to have to go to jail, hang, or be exiled before anyone will take the US seriously again.

where are all of these chickenhawk 2nd amendment gun nuts now? they'll talk about FREEDOM while the house burns down around them.

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#128

Post by red-iron-pine »

stymaar wrote: post #100

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

empower big corporations, and blow open statistical protections to allow for 1) better agit-prop efforts, to allow for more easy chasing of minorities they don't like, and 3) to target elections

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#129

Post by red-iron-pine »

dash2 wrote: post #84
kg wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people currently in power want every single byte of data they can get on people who reside in this country so they can divide them up by arbitrary criteria and do with those groups as they please. Depending on the person, that might mean imprisonment, it might mean deportation, it might mean something worse.

Alternative take that was expressed in the other post on this: census data users found DP extremely hard to work with, and viewed it as an imposed solution from the ivory tower. I wonder if any user could chime in on this.

if by census data users you mean "the heritage foundation" then yes.

they openly state why they want that data too in project 2025. take a guess...

Re: An American Privacy Emergency

#130

Post by red-iron-pine »

vineyardmike wrote: post #50
Fomite wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things I have found so alarming about a lot of recent revelations is just how cheap congress goes for.

I only-kinda-jokingly say that I'd be willing to be the sacrifice and get a second mortgage on my house if it could buy the entire nation some new rights. Our politicians routinely sell out smaller issues for "downpayment in a coastal metro" level of money. It's just about within reach of a middle-class urban adult to directly fund with some personal sacrifices. I feel like we like to imagine that these corporations…

> Our politicians routinely sell out smaller issues for "downpayment in a coastal metro" level of money

you act like 1) ideology doesn't play in, and that 2) it's not a long-con situation; you give 60k now, but they're gonna expect 60k next election cycle.

and remember: if you can buy them now, someone else could by them with more money. see also that asshole from PA, J Fetterman

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