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Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

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Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#321

Post by testing22321 »

kajman wrote: post #124

I "enumerated" for the last census. Trust in my community was already not high* and I had lots of interesting encounters. I really believed the rather invasive data I was collecting with a friendly face would be used and handled responsibly. I feel for the poor souls that'll sign up to go door to door for 2030 now that the firewalls against weaponizing and monetizing all of our sensitive government data has been torn…

> The comments that this rather expensive endeavour should just be about getting a head count are also amusing to me

Countries conduct censuses so they can understand, in great detail, what is going on with the people who make up the country.

With this accurate information, improvement plans can be made, and life can be improved for everyone.

The comments about just making it a head count give a very interesting window into the mentality of many these days. They don’t want to - it can’t fathom how to - make life better.

It’s sad, really

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#322

Post by poslathian »

throwawa1 wrote: post #232
LPisGood wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As planned by whom?

The Epstein class. Bankers, Zionists who lost their civilization and Temple 2000 years ago: A good google search to view art owned by one family: "Artist funded by de Rothschild's depicts racial violence and rape themes"

This take is oversimplified to where it’s literally scary - heres an honest book about the Rothchilds Bankers and Zionists with the additional context I hope you incorporate.

https://ia601309.us.archive.org/20/items/historyDEEPWEB/The%...

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#323

Post by Dylan16807 »

Bratmon wrote: post #92
arjie wrote: post #74

Pretty sad, in my opinion. In my ideal the state should have visibility into the shape of the people present so that we can make good decisions about our combined organization. I think we’re making a mistake we will come to regret by intentionally damaging our data collection infrastructure. I think a large amount of the US’s success is the result of good institutions handling granular data. Policies can be adjusted…

But this article is about a decision to damage the census less. If you value an accurate census, you should be celebrating!

If they follow the rules, preserving privacy via cruder methods, the data will be much more damaged.

For any particular level of privacy, the banned methods can give you more accurate data. For any particular level of accuracy, the banned methods can give you better privacy.

The only way we're getting more accurate data is if the new rule causes them to largely abandon privacy. That would be bad. Harm for no benefit.

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#325

Post by AnthonyMouse »

elictronic wrote: post #197
throwawayffffas wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The easy solution is to just reduce the resolution and scope of the data to the degree it is absolutely necessary. The census exists to inform representation decisions. All other concerns are addons. You can have all the data on the county or voting district level and strip data as you increase your resolution, to the point you only keep population number at the neighborhood, block level. Knowing the racial, ethnic a…

Demographic information is useful for medical, financial, educational, and so many other items. The current admin doesn’t need it to discriminate, you can just access cameras and license plate readers and target easily that way. The purpose is to scare people into misstating or obscuring data to reduce total house representation for an area. It’s to win votes, there are much better ways to do all these things than us…

> Demographic information is useful for medical, financial, educational, and so many other items.

What does this have to do with the census? A doctor would know the race of their patient without needing to deduce it statistically from their neighborhood.

Also, don't we not want financial institutions using demographic data decisions in making loans etc.?

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#326

Post by sylos »

kajman wrote: post #145
ShinyLeftPad wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You first gather the data while people don't know or care. Then you weaponize it later. It happened at least once not long ago in another country, seems not overreaction to be concerned about it

If this is a Nazi reference, Census data was used to send people to concentration camps here during the same era. Less awful than death camps, at least.

[flagged]

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#327

Post by Dylan16807 »

bagels wrote: post #59
asolove wrote: post #13

The replies here arguing we should publish it all are wild in the worst kind of first-order thinking way. It’s a census: it just asks questions. If you start publishing and weaponizing the data against people with various attributes, they’ll just lie or not answer. And then you are left with worse than nothing: bad data people try to act on.

The US Government is the entity that weaponizes the data. The most obvious example is the Census Bureau compiling lists of people of Japanese descent to imprison during WWII. That's just the most obvious one that I know of without looking up more. The real push for this now is to form lists of people to disenfranchise.

> The US Government is the entity that weaponizes the data.

Pointing at an example from so long ago to find "the" misuser is turning a blind eye to lots of active misuse.

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#328

Post by Forgeties79 »

appreciatorBus wrote: post #244

> Differential privacy makes this trade-off explicit, and thus impossible to ignore. I think he has it backwards here. Techniques like differential privacy hide the fact that a trade-off exists, except for a small cadre of experts who live and breathe this stuff. I don’t know enough to defend this decision, but it strikes me that if there is a real trade-off, not having access to these techniques will force people ot…

> If data about the public is so dangerous that we must disguise the results, then perhaps its data we shouldn’t be collecting in the first place.

By this logic no one should ever collect your address for any reason ever. How do we function as a society if we can’t ever give PII in any context? Anonymization/security is critical and makes a lot of critical functions possible.

How could you receive your mail in a world where we never give out/collect info that is potentially hazardous?

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#329

Post by wongarsu »

mschuster91 wrote: post #127
MinimalAction wrote: post #48

Whatever you do, there is a level of trust that is assumed when census takes place. The trust that this data is then not identified in a way that could be targeted for scams, frauds, and other such evils. But in NY, house sale records are made public but much to the detriment, many mortgage companies fake a bill for payment. Differential privacy is absolutely necessary, and the social scientists being unable to recon…

> But in NY, house sale records are made public but much to the detriment, many mortgage companies fake a bill for payment. That frankly sounds more like a failure of enforcement, on top of a failure of the construction of the financial system. Here in Germany, it is absolutely not a common thing that mortgages or the banks holding them get sold like a hot potato towards some other sucker, and thus such a letter woul…

Here in Germany, founding a company creates a public record. There are a number of companies who then send all newly formed companies an invoice that looks like a legitimate invoice for expenses related to creating said company, but on closer inspection actually contain a dense paragraph of text that details that this is not an invoice at all, merely an offer you accept by paying. Quite possibly even a subscription

It's a well-known trick, our notary warned us that these letters would come and we should scrutinize any invoice for a while. But they manage to skirt at the edge of legality

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#330

Post by fragmede »

rayiner wrote: post #302
estearum wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, more people should vote. Always funny when Trumpers try to this out as a gotcha lmao. As a believer in democracy, I think it's better that our government is more responsive rather than less responsive to the public.

High turnout brings out the low-information voters and changes the composition of the viable coalition for both parties. If we restricted the franchise, we might be able to sustain something closer to the Romney GOP versus the Mayor Pete Democratic Party. And that would make the government a lot more orderly and competent. I doubt the top 10-20% of either side wants a democracy. The difference is in where we want the…

I don't know who the

> The “Mayor Pete” neoliberal democrats

are, but yes, you want career bureaucrats running the show that follow the rules as set forth by Congress, with appointed officials that pass vetting at the top. Otherwise every position becomes political and the laws themselves go further out the window.

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