Live data from Hacker News

Google’s GDPR Workaround

brave.com

401–410 of 629 posts

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#401

>I was branded as a 'privacy nut' Companies do actually employ shills to go on forums and try to sway public opinion. They call them something like public advocates, doesn't change the idea though.

> Companies do actually employ shills to go on forums and try to sway public opinion I'm inclined to believe you, but sources please. Especially interested if you (or anyone) have anything on Google in this respect.

Monsanto is a good example. Paid internet shills: https://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/monsanto-paid-internet-trolls.... Influenced research about its Roundup products: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/business/monsantos-sway-o....

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#402
post #325
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's mostly harmless to spill regular drinkable-temperature coffee on yourself, so she took appropriate level of precaution (i.e. very little) for that reasonable assumption. She shouldn't be to blame even if she showered in the coffee. To bring it back on topic: when web users are told "we care about your privacy", they should be able to take it at face value. When the company then weasels out of the headline promis…

Yes, once again, when an issue is systemic (in this case, all coffees by McDonalds are super-hot), the user is not to blame but the vendor/system designer. It reminds me of that recent case of 90%+ passengers "putting the oxygen masks wrong" because they are "idiots" - an opinion that seemed to be shared by a lot of people even here on HN, but even more so on Twitter. https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/travel-troubles/10…

It seems to me that the safety cards in the seat pockets show the the masks correctly worn, and the cabin crew demonstrate the proper fit when going through the routine before takeoff.

But I agree with you about high-pressure situations and not ascribing idiocy.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#403

This is exactly what happened in the McDonald's "hot coffee" lawsuit. It wasn't some "Karen" who hit a bump while driving. It was an elderly woman (in her 70s, IIRC), sitting in the passenger seat. McDonalds already had complaints (and some lawsuits) over the (significantly higher than industry standard) temperature of their coffee, so this wasn't exactly out of the blue. She ended up with 3rd degree burns on her leg…

How did the coffee spill? Did she hold a cup of a beverage that is traditionally served very hot between her legs? That lawsuit was frivolous. Coffee is hot. If you spill it, it might burn you. As far as just asking for medical bills — that might have been true until her lawyers smelled a multi-million payday. Lawyers like that are the reason we have warnings on hair dryers to not use while showering and warnings on…

Its pretty obvious you've not read up on the facts of the case and have jumped to a few conclusions. Nobody contests that hot coffee causes mild burns, hot coffee that causes third degree burns in seconds is another matter entirely.

https://segarlaw.com/blog/myths-and-facts-of-the-mcdonalds-h...

Have a read and then come back here and lets hear you argue that the lawsuit wasn't warranted.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#404

I think the HN community, and most consumers, tend to look at things from only one angle. Imagine you start work at some small shop that manufacturers widgets for consumers. What would you do when you have to advertise your product? You'd have to turn to Google is a similar company. Are there any real alternatives? (I am asking because I really want to know) I say this because I am in this position now. I have to fig…

You find your audience and you target them directly.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#405
post #349
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, once again, when an issue is systemic (in this case, all coffees by McDonalds are super-hot), the user is not to blame but the vendor/system designer. It reminds me of that recent case of 90%+ passengers "putting the oxygen masks wrong" because they are "idiots" - an opinion that seemed to be shared by a lot of people even here on HN, but even more so on Twitter. https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/travel-troubles/10…

Why the hell does that article not include a photo or diagram of a mask properly worn? Even despite knowing that it goes over your mouth and nose, the design of the mask makes it difficult to understand how one would actually do that. Seems like a huge, huge omission.

It's because they're doing it wrong as well

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#406
post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No it isn't. Please tell me how you achieve security without storing hashes in a DB? I bet the DB is small enough that you could default to just downloading it and syncing on your machine.

> I bet Care to maybe check real quick before making bets?

In the default configuration, the checksum database currently has 657 level-0 tiles. The raw log data associated with each level-0 tile seems to be about 50KB. You could store the entire current checksum database log in about 30 MiB. You could store the level-0 hash tiles in 5 MiB.

This makes sense right? Cargo, the rust package manager, does replicate the entire package index using git and it is ~250 MiB (~150MiB in .git/) (The cargo index stores much more metadata in a more verbose JSON format). It seems like a very reasonable bet considering prior art.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#407
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Go module hash checking seems to be more about avoiding the problems encountered by other language repos integrity and versioning issues ( cough NPM), and in terms of tracking it seems about as invasive as Debian's popcon. Enabled by default can and should be the default for security-related features. I tend to agree about the rest of the creepiness, especially anything personally behavioral.

On HN it is taken as gospel that any information sent to a server will absolutely compromise your privacy. If anyone points out that the information is trivial or useless the rebuttal is instant - it can be cross referenced with other sources to build a complete profile of you. If you want to know which Go modules I use, go check out my github. They're listed right there in import statements. If I'm hacking on a proj…

> not that they made no sense (they can't help that)

Try being a little less rude to the other folks on this thread.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most interesting thing to me about that McDonald's "hot coffee" lawsuit is how different the narrative is in popular circles vs. in legal circles. It's a little bit like in Rashomon . In popular circles, the story is framed in a way that does make the lawsuit look frivolous. But this is also a case that has made it into the legal textbooks as an example of corporate negligence that's clear-cut enough to use for d…

The reason the McDonald's lawsuit is framed that way in popular circles is because it is easily fits the mold for a frivolous lawsuit. 1. A woman willingly purchased hot coffee from McDonald's. 2. She spilled it on herself. 3. She sued McDonald's because of her injuries. Those three things are true no matter which circle you ask. A lot of people I talk to, even when given all of the facts of the case still consider i…

Mark me down as a person who considers it a frivolous lawsuit. And yes I've read the background.

She balanced the cup not in a cupholder, but between her knees. Even normally hot coffee is going to be bad news if it spills like that - the only difference the increased temp made was that the burns were more severe. But the coffee would not have spilled at all if she was not negligent in handling it (i.e. she should have given it to a passenger to hold or put in a cupholder).

If the coffee had been incorrectly sealed and it spilled out during normal operation of the cup (for example, drinking it) then I'd blame McD. But I don't see why it's reasonable to blame McD just because the coffee is 10 or 20 degrees above normal temp.

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#409
post #8

It's really funny to see that yesterday, I was branded as a 'privacy nut' after the release of Android 10 as I was concerned about the privacy issues that are in Android. Then the Go modules proxy issue around the Go Programming language that raised suspicions about tracking usage statistics around downloading modules turned on by default without any consent and now this. I think there are some folks at Google who ha…

FWIW, it is very easy to setup the athens proxy and run it. You could even have it route traffic through Tor if you were so inclined. We use it and are a fan as is works nicely:

https://github.com/gomods/athens

Re: Google’s GDPR Workaround

#410
post #290
post #8

It's really funny to see that yesterday, I was branded as a 'privacy nut' after the release of Android 10 as I was concerned about the privacy issues that are in Android. Then the Go modules proxy issue around the Go Programming language that raised suspicions about tracking usage statistics around downloading modules turned on by default without any consent and now this. I think there are some folks at Google who ha…

> It's really funny to see that yesterday, I was branded as a 'privacy nut' after the release of Android 10 as I was concerned about the privacy issues that are in Android. What are the privacy issues in Android 10? Anything new compared to previous versions?

I think the biggest one is some bad wording on the marketing around the "share your wifi" feature, where it mentions that you can share "secure" passwords with QR codes now but doesn't mention that the QR code has the plaintext password encoded in it.

Other than that, it seems that privacy controls have been generally improved in Android 10.

Post reply on HN