Why we should end the data economy • Hacker News Board

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#211

Post by criddell » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 7:07 PM UTC

xibalba wrote: post #173

cs702 wrote: post #54

No one sane would ever want their relatives, friends, work colleagues, and neighbors to be able to know (quoting from the OP): > who you sleep with because both you and the person you share your bed with keep your phones nearby > whether you sleep soundly at night or whether your troubles are keeping you up > whether you pick up your phone in the middle of the night and search for things like "loan repayment" > your…

Would you please demonstrate to me how I, Joe Q. Public, can find out, via collected data that I can access, with whom another person is sleeping with? Or, in lieu of that, walk me through how that would be done with Facebook's, Google's, or Apple's data via your first-hand knowledge of those data and where and how they are stored and accessed? These fear mongering comments about data collection have never demonstrat…

Facebook, Google, et. al. might not make the data available to you, but they have it.

If the information is stored on servers in China, then the Chinese government has it as well. Maybe you aren't a Chinese citizen so you don't care, but it's at least worth considering.

The politicians we elect to craft and enact legislation that affects the big data companies are always at risk of being essentially blackmailed by those companies with the incredibly detailed and personal information that those companies have on politicians.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#212

Post by fuckyouriotshit » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

akdej27nd91ng wrote: post #167

fuckyouriotshit wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about intentional publishing of "anonymized" data? It's intentional, so it should be even less potentially harmful than an unintentional leak, right? Well, Yahoo's publishing of supposedly "anonymized" data still poses a privacy risk to any of their users: https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp3d8v/yahoos-gigantic-anony... That's just one of many apparently "anonymized" datasets that has been trivially deanonymized b…

Fun fact: one of the top 5 digital advertising platforms "anonymizes" user identifiers with a simple hash algorithm and "salts" all of the hashes with the same "salt". Can you guess the "salt"? Hint: it is commonly found on a dinner table and is used to season food.

I can't say I'm at all surprised. I've had similar conversations in a non-advertising field with non-technical managers where their attitude basically boiled down to "What do we care?" when it came to problems that would cost someone else money.

I also can't see attitudes like that changing until companies that collect data are seriously held to account for any leaks/abuses of the data that they collect.

Potential penalties would probably have to include criminal charges, in much the same way that individuals and companies can be held criminally liable for mishandling toxic waste.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#213

Post by crooked-v » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 7:09 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #174

nINYqGQadl wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this list makes a case for better sharing/access controls but I can see applications for most of the things listed here. I might just want the insights for myself but not want to share it with anyone or my data being sold without my consent e.g. monitor and improve my sleeping habits, monitor my expenditure by tracking my restaurant and shopping habits, my health data and/or insights into it. Maybe not your s…

don't track/collect data Only two of your examples (parental controls and location sharing) require any kind of network, and those could be done with a private VPN running at home. The design of cloud-based services is purely for convenience and collection. Sometimes if the collection can be controlled, the convenience is worth it, but every beneficial algorithm could be run locally.

An example here for "run locally" would be Apple Health, which uses end-to-end encryption to sync data between your devices, does all the analytics stuff locally, and has a extensive permissions scheme for voluntary sharing of info with doctors or research programs.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#214

Post by deep-root » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

matz1 wrote: post #191

shkkmo wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst thing about the information economy of today is absolutely the inequality of access. We would be better off if everything that is collected was public. I don't think that means we don't need privacy. It absolutely has value. The problem is when privacy is only available to the rich and powerful, while the details about the rest of us are hoarded and used by the very same powerful people who pay such a premi…

>I don't think that means we don't need privacy. It absolutely has value. I never heard any convincing argument about why privacy has value. >but that doesn't mean we should allow everything to be collected. Why ?

Perhaps you'd like some privacy to surprise a significant other with your purchase, rather than it show up on their Venmo feed in real-time.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#215

Post by Aunche » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 7:13 PM UTC

Disclaimer: I work at a company that collects user data.

The author is fearmongering big tech because she envies all the money they are making. Facebook does not sell user data, and I'm pretty sure the author knows this but intentionally perpetuates this misconception anyways. Facebook would collect about as much user data regardless of whether they used it for targeted advertising.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#216

Post by slim » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

websites3434 wrote: post #200

The people who are OK with this kind of thing -- "But nothing bad has ever happened to anyone IRL" -- are obviously not part of a minority ethnic/religious/sexual orientation/gender group. This kind of technology is already used to do harm in China. Those of us in those groups don't have the luxury of "waiting to see if the nightmare becomes real" because of some of us would be in the crosshairs, not potential bystan…

In Palestine too

https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/am/fmr-israeli-soldier...

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#217

Post by 9wzYQbTYsAIc » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

xibalba wrote: post #173

cs702 wrote: post #54

No one sane would ever want their relatives, friends, work colleagues, and neighbors to be able to know (quoting from the OP): > who you sleep with because both you and the person you share your bed with keep your phones nearby > whether you sleep soundly at night or whether your troubles are keeping you up > whether you pick up your phone in the middle of the night and search for things like "loan repayment" > your…

Would you please demonstrate to me how I, Joe Q. Public, can find out, via collected data that I can access, with whom another person is sleeping with? Or, in lieu of that, walk me through how that would be done with Facebook's, Google's, or Apple's data via your first-hand knowledge of those data and where and how they are stored and accessed? These fear mongering comments about data collection have never demonstrat…

Think along the lines of dating apps that show your distance to other users. That could be mined for changes in proximity over time - one day you are miles apart, then next day you are within 500ft of each other for the whole night.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#218

Post by jeffrogers » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 7:15 PM UTC

“They generate profits by compiling a profile of you from your data trail and then selling it to the highest bidder”

Connecting another dot on this point: The creation and widespread use of such profiles -which are not merely comprised of data, but are summary conclusions about people- may well make the U.S. into a genuinely caste society. Without rules regarding things like data aging, publicly accessible profile monitoring, and bad data correction… and when to provide some sort rehabilitation method, people will eventually become just a collection of their mistakes and forced into one bucket or another.

We need something akin to the Fair Credit Reporting Act and a set of laws that provide better guide-rails for when data can be collected, by who, for what purpose, when it can be sold or used for a purpose other than why it was first collected, etc.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#219

Post by 9wzYQbTYsAIc » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 7:16 PM UTC

saddlerustle wrote: post #210

rootusrootus wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think the problem is merely Facebook, Google, or Apple, then I think you are underestimating the amount of data and who is processing it. There is an entire industry of companies you have never heard of that are thinking up ever more creative ways to put data together from various sources, identify it, correlate it, and then sell the 'insights' to whoever wants to pay. At the very least, at a bare minimum, I t…

Which company, apart from Facebook, Google and Apple, would remotely have access to any of the data on that list? Facebook Google and Apple don't share data with data brokers.

Dating sites would have that kind of data and have been breached in the past (Ashley Madison was one high profile instance, as I recall).

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#220

Post by fuckyouriotshit » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 7:17 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #187

neolog wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think consent means?

"If you use Facebook we will collect and sell all your data" "Okay, cool"

"If you don't use Facebook we will still collect[1] and sell all the data about you we can"

"But I never agreed to that."

"Too bad."

Under what circumstances would you describe that as consensual?

And that's not even getting into the concept of _informed_ consent; something that they clearly don't have given the amount of user anger that gets directed at Facebook every time when a new leak/breach/data collection method is revealed.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5921092 In addition to the fact that they collect information about people who don't join Facebook (and agree to the ToS) by virtue of the information that others (often unwittingly) submit to Facebook, like group photos, mobile phone address books, etc.