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Richard Stallman: Online Publishers Should Let Readers Pay Anonymously

theguardian.com

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Re: Richard Stallman: Online Publishers Should Let Readers Pay Anonymously

#61

Post by vertex-four »

blakeyrat wrote: post #58
jtrip wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the inherent idea is control of power. One would trust a small company over the government because the small company can't do much damage with only that much data, whereas the government can, combined with all the other data. The small company can earn more money, what we can rely on given that they are in it for the money, with helping us with the data than they can by selling the data. How ever, as the comp…

Hurtful how? I admit I've really never understood that part of the argument. To go with your example, ok, you have tracking data with a dozen smaller companies you've done transactions with online. Now they all merge and become one huge company, all that data is combined. How were you hurt by this action?

People have a right to privacy, and there's social expectations which ensure that people generally have it. Generally speaking, people don't like it when other people spend huge amounts of effort trying to learn things about them that they would prefer not to share.

It's more-or-less equivalent to if someone spent all their time looking through your trash and monitoring you 24/7 to learn if you're pregnant, what meds you're on, how much money you spend in a week, etc etc.

Re: Richard Stallman: Online Publishers Should Let Readers Pay Anonymously

#62

Post by knowtheory »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #57

I've thought before about online commerce, and wish we could find some way to adopt a Vending Machine model. A vending machine is autonomous. It neither tracks nor engages the customer. It takes your money, and dispenses product. Since cash is untraceable, it keeps no record of what was bought and by whom. I feel at peace knowing I will give a vending machine a dollar, and I will receive a Coke, without fearing that…

Are vending machines really that analogous?

Vending machines are all about placement & location, and the ability of a vendor to find high traffic locations to put machines.

Machines get placed based on info about locations whether it's demographics, or a kind of business or whatever.

Individual transactions may not have identity tied to them, but it's not like the business is devoid of information about users, or hypotheses about them.

And on the internet... how do you get that info from your users aside from usage analytics (even if it's gross analytics)?

Re: Richard Stallman: Online Publishers Should Let Readers Pay Anonymously

#63

Post by TelmoMenezes »

blakeyrat wrote: post #58
jtrip wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the inherent idea is control of power. One would trust a small company over the government because the small company can't do much damage with only that much data, whereas the government can, combined with all the other data. The small company can earn more money, what we can rely on given that they are in it for the money, with helping us with the data than they can by selling the data. How ever, as the comp…

Hurtful how? I admit I've really never understood that part of the argument. To go with your example, ok, you have tracking data with a dozen smaller companies you've done transactions with online. Now they all merge and become one huge company, all that data is combined. How were you hurt by this action?

This information can be used to infer things about you, such as your sexual orientation, political positions, personality type, unhealthy behaviors and so on. Then machine learning algorithms can be used to deny you health insurance, credit or employment based on this data.

Or they can sell that data to other companies that will deny you any of these things. So better be careful with out you say, with which books you read, who your friends are and so on.

Or they can make deals with governments to reveal information about you, in exchange for regulatory favors.

Or maybe you're a robot with nothing to hide, but they can still make mistakes or wrong inferences and hurt you in the above ways.

And advertisement can be improved to bypass your cognitive defenses, or catch you at a vulnerable moment (all things that can be detected with enough data) and manipulate you into making decisions against your best interests.

In short, data disclosure can get you killed, poor and/or sick. If that was not the case, why would corporations be so secretive about their own stuff?

By the way, all of the above examples are not hypothetical. They are all based on things that are demonstrably already happening.

Re: Richard Stallman: Online Publishers Should Let Readers Pay Anonymously

#64

Post by bo1024 »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #57

I've thought before about online commerce, and wish we could find some way to adopt a Vending Machine model. A vending machine is autonomous. It neither tracks nor engages the customer. It takes your money, and dispenses product. Since cash is untraceable, it keeps no record of what was bought and by whom. I feel at peace knowing I will give a vending machine a dollar, and I will receive a Coke, without fearing that…

I think you are thinking of cash in general rathe than vending machines in particular.

(But you can obtain receipts for cash transactions, which enable to legal recourse.)

And I agree with your point, and I've been using cash more often in my daily life for exactly this reason (anonymity and lack of data collection by credit card co's).

Re: Richard Stallman: Online Publishers Should Let Readers Pay Anonymously

#65

Post by blakeyrat »

TelmoMenezes wrote: post #63
blakeyrat wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hurtful how? I admit I've really never understood that part of the argument. To go with your example, ok, you have tracking data with a dozen smaller companies you've done transactions with online. Now they all merge and become one huge company, all that data is combined. How were you hurt by this action?

This information can be used to infer things about you, such as your sexual orientation, political positions, personality type, unhealthy behaviors and so on. Then machine learning algorithms can be used to deny you health insurance, credit or employment based on this data. Or they can sell that data to other companies that will deny you any of these things. So better be careful with out you say, with which books you…

> By the way, all of the above examples are not hypothetical.

Then you have some citations?

Re: Richard Stallman: Online Publishers Should Let Readers Pay Anonymously

#66

Post by blakeyrat »

vertex-four wrote: post #61
blakeyrat wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hurtful how? I admit I've really never understood that part of the argument. To go with your example, ok, you have tracking data with a dozen smaller companies you've done transactions with online. Now they all merge and become one huge company, all that data is combined. How were you hurt by this action?

People have a right to privacy, and there's social expectations which ensure that people generally have it. Generally speaking, people don't like it when other people spend huge amounts of effort trying to learn things about them that they would prefer not to share. It's more-or-less equivalent to if someone spent all their time looking through your trash and monitoring you 24/7 to learn if you're pregnant, what meds…

Well right, but that's not what I'm asking. The claim is that collating lots of small data sets together can cause harm to a person. That's what I'm asking about.

Re: Richard Stallman: Online Publishers Should Let Readers Pay Anonymously

#67

Post by ww520 »

blfr wrote: post #24
jtrip wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally block adds, not because of annoyance, but because of tracking. I find private collection of information a bigger threat than I do government tracking. I like neither, but given the option, I would rather be tracked by the government. I am not accusing the OP of any bias or failing in ideals, just pointing out an interesting perspective on things that I got from reading [0]. 'Mistrust of government is pre…

> I find private collection of information a bigger threat than I do government tracking Why?

Asymmetric information put you at a disadvantage when you deal with them.

Re: Richard Stallman: Online Publishers Should Let Readers Pay Anonymously

#68

Post by TelmoMenezes »

blakeyrat wrote: post #65
TelmoMenezes wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This information can be used to infer things about you, such as your sexual orientation, political positions, personality type, unhealthy behaviors and so on. Then machine learning algorithms can be used to deny you health insurance, credit or employment based on this data. Or they can sell that data to other companies that will deny you any of these things. So better be careful with out you say, with which books you…

> By the way, all of the above examples are not hypothetical. Then you have some citations?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.h...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targe...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2013/09/23/attveri...

http://gawker.com/5669316/is-facebook-outing-gay-users-to-ad...

http://americablog.com/2013/03/facebook-might-know-youre-gay...

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/why-go...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

http://bgr.com/2014/01/23/apple-targeted-ads-mood-based/

http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/10/denied-for-that-loan...

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487046486045756207...

Re: Richard Stallman: Online Publishers Should Let Readers Pay Anonymously

#69

Post by blakeyrat »

TelmoMenezes wrote: post #68
blakeyrat wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By the way, all of the above examples are not hypothetical. Then you have some citations?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.h... http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targe... http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2013/09/23/attveri... http://gawker.com/5669316/is-facebook-outing-gay-users-to-ad... http://americablog.com/2013/03/facebook-might-know-youre-gay... http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/why-go... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parall…

Ok well I'm not going to read like 500 links posted with no context.

The first one doesn't say anything about harm that I can see from my skimming, and the second one is the government paying the phone companies directly, which is concerning but it has nothing to do with tracking cookies or combining data sets. That's as far down as I went.

Re: Richard Stallman: Online Publishers Should Let Readers Pay Anonymously

#70

Post by skybrian »

lumberjack wrote: post #13
mjevans wrote: post #8

That is a nice and lovely idea... Only every government everywhere hates it. If it is possible to pay for something anonymously, then there is no following the money of others paying anonymously for other reasons. Including paying for products or services that are illegal or even with money from such sales. Yes, you might compare this to cash. Cash that everyone used to carry around. It the higher denominations are m…

He's plugging GNU Taler which was specifically designed to be government friendly (allows collection of taxes and AML compliance and not easy to implement black markets). He's not talking about other kind cryptocurrencies. Stallman isn't a "down with the government" type of person despite being sceptical of surveillance.

It does better than Bitcoin (taxes can be collected) but it looks like it could still be used for money laundering? The whole point is to make it impossible to find out who paid for what document, so money can be legally collected in one place without disclosing where it came from, beyond that it was sent through Taler.
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