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What is Traitorware?

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Re: What is Traitorware?

#41

Post by bugsy »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #29
towelrod wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't care about things like this at all. Look at how many of them happily use Facebook. If Apple put in a warning screen that said, "Angry Birds is requesting the following information: your location, your contact list, and your phone number. Is that ok?", then I would bet at least 90% of the users would just click "sure, no problem". We are losing this battle because very few people care about privacy a…

We are losing this battle because very few people care about privacy any more. Rephrase: "We have lost this battle because privacy disappeared a long time ago." This isn't a new concern: I remember Usenet discussions over ten years ago about the loss of privacy due to the amount of personal data stored in large corporate databases and how easy it was for that data to be stored and transferred. It's increased exponent…

I've done the exact same thing to get someone's address I had forgotten.

Re: What is Traitorware?

#42

Post by sans-serif »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #29
towelrod wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't care about things like this at all. Look at how many of them happily use Facebook. If Apple put in a warning screen that said, "Angry Birds is requesting the following information: your location, your contact list, and your phone number. Is that ok?", then I would bet at least 90% of the users would just click "sure, no problem". We are losing this battle because very few people care about privacy a…

We are losing this battle because very few people care about privacy any more. Rephrase: "We have lost this battle because privacy disappeared a long time ago." This isn't a new concern: I remember Usenet discussions over ten years ago about the loss of privacy due to the amount of personal data stored in large corporate databases and how easy it was for that data to be stored and transferred. It's increased exponent…

What's wrong with driving down a street via Google Street View? Your house is already publicly visible as strangers physically drive past them everyday. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with Google reducing the cost of doing that, and if that's what you hope to hide behind, isn't that the kind of security-via-obscurity we all decry here?

Trying to stop people from seeing your front lawn via the Internet is comparable to DRM, both in principle and effectiveness. Merry Christmas.

Re: What is Traitorware?

#43

Post by cdibona »

nickpinkston wrote: post #2

I love the coining of this word - let's claim the language high ground on this. Do mainstream people even know/care about this yet?

Then you'll love Cory Doctorow's term for those that work on such hardward and software: Vichy-Nerds.

Seriously, hackers, maybe some on this site, write this software and design this hardware, to do these things. Maybe a better question is why do we as a profession do so?

Re: What is Traitorware?

#44

Post by frobozz »

Although I agree that there is a privacy problem with some of these things. The fact that geotagged photographs is lumped in with this is nonsense. This is not "acting behind your back to betray privacy", this is good archival practice. It is also a desirable marketed feature of such cameras.

If you take a photo of the stone under which your 90-year-old mother keeps her spare key in her front garden. Then publish it on the web, that's your own fault; not the fault of the camera.

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