Why we should end the data economy • Hacker News Board

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#371

Post by fuckyouriotshit » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 1:58 PM UTC

matz1 wrote: post #369

fuckyouriotshit wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without some expectation of privacy it would have been impossible for people to gather together with others who had been similarly criminalized. Without those gatherings, organizing against anti-gay propaganda (equating it to pedophilia, claiming it would be the downfall of civilization, etc.) would have been impossible and it's unlikely that the laws criminalizing homosexuality would have ever been changed. If you k…

>Without some expectation of privacy it would have been impossible for people to gather together with others who had been similarly criminalized.. Impossible is a really strong word. I'm not saying that its going to be easy but I doubt that its impossible. That's my point lets spend the effort to figure out/solve this problem instead of trying to hide information. >I doubt you actually believe that privacy doesn't ma…

> I'm not saying that its going to be easy but I doubt that its impossible.

So you're willing to concede that people being unable to make the choice to keep something about themselves private will make it harder for them to promote their own rights? Can you understand how a lack of the ability to have private conversations, relationships, etc. could cause serious problems for some people?

Because earlier in the thread you said: "I never heard any convincing argument about why privacy has value." but now you are seem to be implying that privacy actually does have value to some people, correct?

> That's why I'm advocating we spent the effort on solving the problem that arise when the information is public rather than trying to hide information.

That would be a reasonable statement if you weren't also earlier criticizing the concept of privacy and stating that it had no value. You can choose to reject the idea that people should have individual privacy and try to push for a world where people didn't feel that they had to keep secrets, but you'd need to fix all the systemic issues before you could ethically promote the sort of radical transparency that you're talking about.

Trying to claim that privacy doesn't matter because it'd "be better if everything was public" without first addressing these other issues is terribly callous and could only seek to increase the amount of trauma in the world.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#372

Post by iso8859-1 » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

anm89 wrote: post #2

Explaining to people what they should do regarding matters that there are no ways to achieve the stated goals is the laziest, lowest value category of journalism. It's a plague.

Downvoted for clunky sentence construction.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#373

Post by matz1 » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 2:11 PM UTC

fuckyouriotshit wrote: post #371

matz1 wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Without some expectation of privacy it would have been impossible for people to gather together with others who had been similarly criminalized.. Impossible is a really strong word. I'm not saying that its going to be easy but I doubt that its impossible. That's my point lets spend the effort to figure out/solve this problem instead of trying to hide information. >I doubt you actually believe that privacy doesn't ma…

> I'm not saying that its going to be easy but I doubt that its impossible. So you're willing to concede that people being unable to make the choice to keep something about themselves private will make it harder for them to promote their own rights? Can you understand how a lack of the ability to have private conversations, relationships, etc. could cause serious problems for some people? Because earlier in the threa…

>Can you understand how a lack of the ability to have private conversations, relationships, etc. could cause serious problems for some people?

Yes it could cause serious problem but not the privacy itself that the problem, its other people using it to harm other people is the problem.

My conversation being public by itself is not a problem, the problem is when people use it to harm me.

>but now you are seem to be implying that privacy actually does have value to some people, correct?

In any case its not the privacy itself that has value.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#374

Post by matz1 » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 2:18 PM UTC

Jorengarenar wrote: post #370

matz1 wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want to know how do you imagine a method of authentication not requiring any privacy could work >Facial Recognition? That could be one way > I will just grab your profile picture. Then maybe fix it to detect whether its a real person or just a picture. Or maybe there are better way, I don't know. Like I said, I'm not the expert, I wouldn't know every solution to every problem. My point is we should spent the effo…

Since you yourself said you are not an expert, then ask yourself, why do experts make security based on hidden passwords instead of focusing on creating those public-indifferent solutions? Could it be that passwords/PINS/secrets are one of the easiest, cheapest and reliable way of preventing unauthorized access since the ancient times?

There are tons of problem with secret being leaked, forgotten, thats why we should start figuring out a better way.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#375

Post by fuckyouriotshit » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 2:24 PM UTC

matz1 wrote: post #373

fuckyouriotshit wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not saying that its going to be easy but I doubt that its impossible. So you're willing to concede that people being unable to make the choice to keep something about themselves private will make it harder for them to promote their own rights? Can you understand how a lack of the ability to have private conversations, relationships, etc. could cause serious problems for some people? Because earlier in the threa…

>Can you understand how a lack of the ability to have private conversations, relationships, etc. could cause serious problems for some people? Yes it could cause serious problem but not the privacy itself that the problem, its other people using it to harm other people is the problem. My conversation being public by itself is not a problem, the problem is when people use it to harm me. >but now you are seem to be imp…

> Yes it could cause serious problem but not the privacy itself that the problem, its other people using it to harm other people is the problem.

So is it OK to advocate for the destruction of people's privacy in this situation or not?

If it is, then you're admitting that you just don't care about the harm that could occur (and trying to minimize the responsibility you'd have by hand-waving the issue as being "other people")

If it is not OK to destroy people's privacy in this situation, then your entire argument about how the coerced loss of privacy isn't a problem is contradictory.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#376

Post by SavantIdiot » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

notamy wrote: post #311

SavantIdiot wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great list. SO many times people have said to me, "Let them track me, I've got nothing to hide." And you hit them with a few things off this list and they immediately change their mind. There should be a tinurl for website I can send people to that shows a simple list of all the ways personal information can be used.

> There should be a tinurl for website I can send people to that shows a simple list of all the ways personal information can be used. I just now set up a small site for it at https://whynottrack.com/ ! It's open source -- GitHub link in the footer -- so anyone can PR changes / reasons / etc.

Perfect!

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#377

Post by notamy » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 8:36 PM UTC

SavantIdiot wrote: post #376

notamy wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There should be a tinurl for website I can send people to that shows a simple list of all the ways personal information can be used. I just now set up a small site for it at https://whynottrack.com/ ! It's open source -- GitHub link in the footer -- so anyone can PR changes / reasons / etc.

Perfect!

Thanks :D

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#378

Post by weswpg » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 9:47 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…

> These fear mongering comments about data collection have never demonstrated real world harms

Notable examples:

* Strava revealed the position of US military bases

* Muslim prayer apps sharing location data with US military

In my own experience, I work for a call center. We have many important American companies as clients. They give us access to their systems so that we can service their clients. I am overseas dealing with their customers and I can access their personal information. I can see their face linked to their Facebook profile. I admit I've been tempted to misuse the information any time a customer makes me angry.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#379

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 10:52 PM UTC

TchoBeer wrote: post #231

nitrogen wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The funny thing is that the rise of cloud computing coincides with the rise of really powerful cheap personal computation, you'd think it would be the opposite.

What "the cloud" offers that personal servers don't is:

- Reliability. The cloud is available with little or no downtime, to 5-8 nines (5 minutes to 1/3 of a second of downtime per year). Each nine costs roughly 10x the previous one.

- Bandwidth. Residential service may work for your own personal file transfer needs, but if you're sharing to the world, even a modest degree of traffic results in a hug-of-death.

- Security. Ideally, cloud systems are managed and monitored against network attacks, as well as affording physical security practices.

- Updates. This becomes Somebody Else's Problem.

- Ongoing development. Dittos.

It's not that these aren't addressible by individuals, but it's a lot of effort to do so, and at population levels, people are simply unlikely to be able or willing to do so. A small percentage, yes. The vast majority? No.

Raw compute power is a tiny fraction of the concerns involved in service hosting.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#380

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Jun 05, 2021, 10:57 PM UTC

SavantIdiot wrote: post #336

old-gregg wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Let them track me, I've got nothing to hide." Interestingly, this attitude used to be default even here on Hacker News ~5 years ago. I am so glad to see it's changing. Why I'm finding this interesting? Because this audience always knew what's going on even without layman articles like this, but did not care for some reason. This shows how just knowing isn't enough sometimes. Public sentiment matters.

I think HN rules are still behind the times. One of the rules discourages multiple accounts, in an attempt to create a community. OTOH: a longer paper trail means more easy to identify. This is why I create a new account every few months. Since I cannot delete old posts to "cover my tracks", I have no choice if I want to use the site. Maybe I just shouldn't use HN. I dunno. I learn a lot from discussions, but I don't…

I've got some sympathy with this viewpoint, and have used HN myself under a pseudonym I take pains not to associate with my real-world identity.

But at the same time, the practice of regularly and routinely recycling user identities is ... well, it really does prevent the formation of a community.

The most toxic community I'd ever encountered was a supposedly "kinder and gentler Reddit", the late and unlamented Imzy. A core feature was that individuals could spin up a new pseudonym on each individual thread.

The result was both absolutely disorienting and gave rise to vicious bandwagon and brigade attacks.

Whatever problem Imzy was trying to solve, that was the wrong solution.

(I'm aware that chans often follow a similar tactic, and that ... they tend not to engender highly constructive behaviours.)