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Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

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Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#161

Post by pclmulqdq »

filoleg wrote: post #160
pclmulqdq wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a lot easier to get a court order for something than you probably think. Dragnet versions of court orders also exist, such as geofence warrants. Also, that data is often sold packaged up and sold to third parties via data brokers. The FBI has been known to buy data from data brokers instead of getting it by court order.

Sure, those things might happen. None of those things happened in that Nebraska case though, so using it to as a specific example to support your claim feels a bit off. Especially considering the fact that the original comment omitted some pretty crucial details that end up painting the overall situation in a very different light.

What happened in the Nebraska case was more subtly bad: if the government had to subpoena HER for her location data on that day, there would likely be no criminal conviction at all. The 5th amendment would be a valid excuse to avoid giving out the data. However, they only had to subpoena Facebook, whose data is not covered by 5th amendment protections, and who would like to maintain a friendly relationship with governments.

EDIT: This is generally called the principal-agent problem, and there are lots of rules around agent behavior when it traditionally applies (eg attorney-client privilege and doctor-patient confidentiality).

Also, you should note that there are lots of crimes, and you probably commit a lot of them. If you have ever used someone else's WiFi without permission, that's one. If you carried a screwdriver or a sharpie into a store, that's a separate crime. The list goes on and on.

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#162

Post by eurleif »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #161
filoleg wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, those things might happen. None of those things happened in that Nebraska case though, so using it to as a specific example to support your claim feels a bit off. Especially considering the fact that the original comment omitted some pretty crucial details that end up painting the overall situation in a very different light.

What happened in the Nebraska case was more subtly bad: if the government had to subpoena HER for her location data on that day, there would likely be no criminal conviction at all. The 5th amendment would be a valid excuse to avoid giving out the data. However, they only had to subpoena Facebook, whose data is not covered by 5th amendment protections, and who would like to maintain a friendly relationship with gover…

The fifth amendment provides a right not to testify against yourself. It has little to do with documents, whether they are in your possession or someone else's. The fourth amendment is the one that applies there. If her phone were recording location data locally (or if she were keeping a paper diary of her location, for that matter), the government could have obtained that information with a search warrant, and it would have been perfectly admissible.

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#163

Post by pclmulqdq »

eurleif wrote: post #162
pclmulqdq wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened in the Nebraska case was more subtly bad: if the government had to subpoena HER for her location data on that day, there would likely be no criminal conviction at all. The 5th amendment would be a valid excuse to avoid giving out the data. However, they only had to subpoena Facebook, whose data is not covered by 5th amendment protections, and who would like to maintain a friendly relationship with gover…

The fifth amendment provides a right not to testify against yourself. It has little to do with documents, whether they are in your possession or someone else's. The fourth amendment is the one that applies there. If her phone were recording location data locally (or if she were keeping a paper diary of her location, for that matter), the government could have obtained that information with a search warrant, and it wo…

What you're saying is true only if the data is unencrypted or not password-protected. If the data is encrypted, the government would have to crack it (which is not usually possible with decent encryption and anything short of the NSA breathing down your neck). They could not just ask you for the password.

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#164

Post by scubbo »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #99
scubbo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting this in a sibling comment because it's tangential to my more-relevant response about an alternative business model. --- The claim that citizens of western-style democracies have mechanisms to modify government behaviour is technically true, but meaningless. The average Western citizen has more chance of becoming an Astronaut or solving a Millenium problem than they do of effecting real govenmental change with…

I disagree vehemently as someone involved in transit and housing activism. The cause did, does, and probably will continue to feel hopeless. There are days I walk out of talking with others about issues or days where a Mayor walks back a commitment that punch you in the gut. But through organization and by looking back over the last 5 years of activism in my community/area, I can see the real work that's been done. (…

> If you're concerned about this, contribute to the EFF

Doesn't this just prove my point? No individual can make a difference - only large organizations can.

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#165

Post by Karrot_Kream »

scubbo wrote: post #164
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree vehemently as someone involved in transit and housing activism. The cause did, does, and probably will continue to feel hopeless. There are days I walk out of talking with others about issues or days where a Mayor walks back a commitment that punch you in the gut. But through organization and by looking back over the last 5 years of activism in my community/area, I can see the real work that's been done. (…

> If you're concerned about this, contribute to the EFF Doesn't this just prove my point? No individual can make a difference - only large organizations can.

The EFF is hardly a "large organization". But yes, some amount of organization is necessary for political change. Fundamentally, an individual in a democracy pays into a system and cannot change the entire system at their behest.

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#166

Post by scubbo »

kylevedder wrote: post #96
scubbo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting this in a sibling comment because it's tangential to my more-relevant response about an alternative business model. --- The claim that citizens of western-style democracies have mechanisms to modify government behaviour is technically true, but meaningless. The average Western citizen has more chance of becoming an Astronaut or solving a Millenium problem than they do of effecting real govenmental change with…

And you think that complaining about tech companies , companies owned by share holders who have no particular obligation to satiate the complaints of non-shareholders, is a more rational strategy to achieve the outcomes you want? Let's be intellectually honest here; the only actual threat to tracking ads as a business is governmental legislation , something which we've already seen occur with the implementation of GD…

> And you think that complaining about tech companies[...] is a more rational strategy to achieve the outcomes you want?

No, I don't. I was pointing out that your claim that individuals can effect political change is broadly incorrect. That doesn't imply that the alternative (direct petitioning of companies) is effective.

Attempting political change probably _is_ a more rational strategy than petitioning tech companies. As an individual, neither seems powerful.

> Let's be intellectually honest here; the only actual threat to tracking ads as a business is governmental legislation

No disagreement here!

> I wholesale reject the argument that privacy is a niche complaint and you're powerless to create change in the government.

To be clear, these are two separate claims. Privacy might or might not be a niche complaint - I feel that it is (given how little my non-technical friends care about it), but I'm purely working off anecdata, and I concede that GDPR (and the slew of other Privacy regulations following in its wake) are datapoints that contradict me. The other claim - that individuals are powerless to effect political change - remains undisproven to me. In particular, I reject the position that _individual_ privacy advocates were responsible for GDPR. It's large groups like the EFF (as a sibling commenter pointed out) that cause governments to take notice, not individuals.

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#167

Post by scubbo »

kylevedder wrote: post #93
scubbo wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen such a concise and well-articulated statement of this position. Thank you for presenting it! I instinctively disagree with it, but I can't actually provide a coherent and convincing counter-argument, which is probably a sign that I need to think more on it. Thank you for that prompt. The best counter-argument I can think of is: > the claim that only Google (or, "only organizations large enough to requ…

A lot of AV companies bootstrapped their maps off of OpenStreetMaps -- it's great anything is free, but they kind of suck. The "cost" of a company using info about me to run more efficient ad auctions is totally worth the benefit of having highly accurate maps with up to date business info with stuff like hours and direct links to their website/contact info.

> The "cost" of a company using info about me to run more efficient ad auctions is totally worth the benefit of having highly accurate maps with up to date business info with stuff like hours and direct links to their website/contact info.

This is a perfect example of the "subjective statement that applies on a case-by-case basis" that I was referring to.

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#168

Post by eurleif »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #163
eurleif wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fifth amendment provides a right not to testify against yourself. It has little to do with documents, whether they are in your possession or someone else's. The fourth amendment is the one that applies there. If her phone were recording location data locally (or if she were keeping a paper diary of her location, for that matter), the government could have obtained that information with a search warrant, and it wo…

What you're saying is true only if the data is unencrypted or not password-protected. If the data is encrypted, the government would have to crack it (which is not usually possible with decent encryption and anything short of the NSA breathing down your neck). They could not just ask you for the password.

The case law on compelled decryption is less clear-cut than you're describing. (Possible exceptions include: biometric, as opposed to password/passcode, encryption; and the government being able to prove that the defendant knows the password.) Moreover, even when the government can't obtain the decryption key from the defendant, cracking the encryption is not the only possibility. They could also seize the device while it is running, with the decryption key and/or decrypted data already in memory. That was done in the arrest of Ross Ulbricht, for example.

Also, this is entirely different from your original claim, because it has nothing to do with where the encrypted data is stored. If you store encrypted data in the cloud, then the fifth amendment provides you with the same degree of protection from disclosing the decryption key as it would for locally-stored encrypted data.

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#169

Post by woopwoop »

kylevedder wrote: post #79
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not going to win this "fight" on HN, I've been here for years. People here are convinced that every piece of data being collected is a moral evil. They'll vaguely wave at things like DNS logs or server IP logs, and always assume that everything is always feeding huge tracking machines at big companies. They'll mix up tracking used for logs with tracking used for ads with tracking used to improve the product. T…

The target audience for my comments are the hundreds of people reading and not commenting. If you're casually reading the comments, without a foil of reasonability, I think it's easy to get sucked into implicitly accepting the premises of the zealots frothing at the mouth in the comments. You're right that I don't imagine I'm going to change the mind of the zealots.

I, for one, appreciate the points you are making here, and the doggedness with which you are making them. I basically feel the same way, but I don't usually comment on these discussions because of the general shrillness of the discussion.

Re: Audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google

#170

Post by mrhands556 »

water-your-self wrote: post #152
kylevedder wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they do not see how it is affecting them I'm an adult who understands tracking tech and in particular Google's level of tracking quite well (I used to work on AdWords), and I'm one of these people -- tracking doesn't seem to negatively impact my quality of life at all but it keeps the many free services I value greatly running. Visual or audio representations of the amount of data they're collecting are hardly an ar…

> tracking doesn't seem to negatively impact my quality of life at all but it keeps the many free services I value greatly running. Your data is not worthless, and generally I consider data harvesting harmful because of the nation-state subpoenas it enables. If I attend a protest for abortion rights, and my geo data is bound to that event and then I seek an abortion in another state, ive now created a wonderful finge…

Has this happened before?
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