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The dark side of big data

martinruenz.de

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Re: The dark side of big data

#21

Post by Agustus »

SeanDav wrote: post #20

Imagine the pain a modern day McCarthy, with Government sanctioned access to your data, could cause. Your lifestyle choices and everything you have ever read, posted or even been associated with, could be used to decide if you were a "threat" to 1 person in power's ideals and have you black listed, socially ostracised or even far worse. Sobering thought for all those people that say "I have nothing to hide"

Absolutely, imagine that you are applying for a government contract or position and that you are vehemently against (pick a topic) and have made a few comments on Hacker News about how bad this politician is. The politician pops up that you are minus on supporting them, maybe you do not get priority on the contract.

Re: The dark side of big data

#22

Post by Lawtonfogle »

SeanDav wrote: post #20

Imagine the pain a modern day McCarthy, with Government sanctioned access to your data, could cause. Your lifestyle choices and everything you have ever read, posted or even been associated with, could be used to decide if you were a "threat" to 1 person in power's ideals and have you black listed, socially ostracised or even far worse. Sobering thought for all those people that say "I have nothing to hide"

>and have you black listed, socially ostracised or even far worse.

Say by giving you a virus that begins to download certain photos in a pattern to make it look like a person doing such. Photos that would, when discovered, destroy any and all credibility to the point that even if you proved in a court of law that they got there by means of a virus, your social reputation is still dead.

Re: The dark side of big data

#23

Post by Lawtonfogle »

speeder wrote: post #19
PeterPat wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edward Snowden has documented extensively what is NSA is doing with big data, same goes for British intelligence. But it always them(Russians, bad asians, stazi) but not us (democratic Americans, westerners etc etc). You get my point eh?

Yesterday I had an argument on Quora... someone mentioned something about the Nazi being the ultimate evil country or something, and another guy complained that people think US is evil. Another post then said it was a "PR" problem... this made me take offense (since I am from one country where US did deliberate evil actions, and I know people personally affected), and I decided to past a list of stuff US did (Condor,…

It is us vs them mentality. Very few evil people think themselves evil. In the same way, very few people think the us are evil. Evil is something that only belongs to the them.

Re: The dark side of big data

#24

Post by progressive_dad »

waterhouse wrote: post #7
PeterPat wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edward Snowden has documented extensively what is NSA is doing with big data, same goes for British intelligence. But it always them(Russians, bad asians, stazi) but not us (democratic Americans, westerners etc etc). You get my point eh?

At least the NSA hasn't used the data to conduct large-scale campaigns of imprisonment and murder (so far). In an investigation of the sort the GP describes, it would make sense to start with the worst abuses of the data; though less-bad abuses should also be included.

Maybe not the NSA, but the US census bureau certainly has: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/confirmed-the-us-c...

Re: The dark side of big data

#25

Post by swah »

speeder wrote: post #19
PeterPat wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edward Snowden has documented extensively what is NSA is doing with big data, same goes for British intelligence. But it always them(Russians, bad asians, stazi) but not us (democratic Americans, westerners etc etc). You get my point eh?

Yesterday I had an argument on Quora... someone mentioned something about the Nazi being the ultimate evil country or something, and another guy complained that people think US is evil. Another post then said it was a "PR" problem... this made me take offense (since I am from one country where US did deliberate evil actions, and I know people personally affected), and I decided to past a list of stuff US did (Condor,…

Regarding Brazil, do you mean USA participating in the 1964 coup d'état?

Re: The dark side of big data

#26

Post by speeder »

swah wrote: post #25
speeder wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yesterday I had an argument on Quora... someone mentioned something about the Nazi being the ultimate evil country or something, and another guy complained that people think US is evil. Another post then said it was a "PR" problem... this made me take offense (since I am from one country where US did deliberate evil actions, and I know people personally affected), and I decided to past a list of stuff US did (Condor,…

Regarding Brazil, do you mean USA participating in the 1964 coup d'état?

Yes, and the ongoing actions of USA (CIA seemly helped some people here get "disappeared").

Until recently, some people here believed that accusing USA of participating in the coup was "tinfoil hat crazy", then CIA recently declassified stuff due to its age, and revealed that USA participation went more than expected (originally people just believed that CIA funded protests, propaganda, and gave intelligence support... the declassified documents showed that CIA did all that, AND US also sent a aircraft carrier + several ships to our coast, and threatened to bomb the loyalist army, this is why when the loyal army and the coup army faced each other near Rio de Janeiro the president suddenly told them to stand down and left the country).

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