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OkCupid gave 3M dating-app photos to facial recognition firm, FTC says

arstechnica.com

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Re: OkCupid gave 3M dating-app photos to facial recognition firm, FTC says

#71

Post by noman-land »

everdrive wrote: post #2

At this point, nearly every online service should be considered hostile. If they can make a small amount of money by compromising your privacy or your identity, they will. If they can make a small amount of money by stealing your attention and addicting you, they will. Are there exceptions? I'm sure. Will I be erring sometimes by being cautious? Definitely. But, there is really not much of an alternative these days.

My advice has long beem to delete every single account you've ever created on every platform.

The chance of the data leaking nears 100% with time.

The corporate cloud is a seriously unsafe place to be. It's a dangerous place to store your intimate secrets and a shaky foundation on which to build a culture.

Re: OkCupid gave 3M dating-app photos to facial recognition firm, FTC says

#72

Post by thowaway92731 »

andai wrote: post #44
everdrive wrote: post #2

At this point, nearly every online service should be considered hostile. If they can make a small amount of money by compromising your privacy or your identity, they will. If they can make a small amount of money by stealing your attention and addicting you, they will. Are there exceptions? I'm sure. Will I be erring sometimes by being cautious? Definitely. But, there is really not much of an alternative these days.

I want to say "we structured the system like that, right?", i.e. maximize profit at all costs. But it seems to be the natural outcome of the incentives, of an organization made of organisms in an entropy-based simulation. i.e. the problem might be slightly deeper than an economic or political model. That being said, we might see something approximating post-scarcity economics in our lifetimes, which will be very inte…

[dead]

Re: OkCupid gave 3M dating-app photos to facial recognition firm, FTC says

#73

Post by andy99 »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #62
JohnFen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have long wondered about the market size for privacy-focused apps. The real problem is how to trust that a "privacy-focused" app is actually privacy-focused. You certainly can't take the publisher's word for it. The only safe stance is to withhold as much personal information from as much software and services as possible.

If a company wanted to, they absolutely could include something along the lines of "If we violate the terms of this privacy policy, we owe all affected users $1000" in their Terms of Service. Pointing a gun at their own head to prove that they're serious. Companies don't do this, because they are cowards.

That is gimmicky and would be an extremely low trust signal.

Re: OkCupid gave 3M dating-app photos to facial recognition firm, FTC says

#74

Post by deepsun »

noman-land wrote: post #71
everdrive wrote: post #2

At this point, nearly every online service should be considered hostile. If they can make a small amount of money by compromising your privacy or your identity, they will. If they can make a small amount of money by stealing your attention and addicting you, they will. Are there exceptions? I'm sure. Will I be erring sometimes by being cautious? Definitely. But, there is really not much of an alternative these days.

My advice has long beem to delete every single account you've ever created on every platform. The chance of the data leaking nears 100% with time. The corporate cloud is a seriously unsafe place to be. It's a dangerous place to store your intimate secrets and a shaky foundation on which to build a culture.

Well you still have account on HN.

Re: OkCupid gave 3M dating-app photos to facial recognition firm, FTC says

#75

Post by wildpeaks »

prepend wrote: post #25
everdrive wrote: post #2

At this point, nearly every online service should be considered hostile. If they can make a small amount of money by compromising your privacy or your identity, they will. If they can make a small amount of money by stealing your attention and addicting you, they will. Are there exceptions? I'm sure. Will I be erring sometimes by being cautious? Definitely. But, there is really not much of an alternative these days.

I’ve never posted information anywhere off a machine that I control unless I’m comfortable with it being sold or made public. Reduces anxiety.

One issue is other people might still upload information about you, so you'd have to limit your irl interactions as well

Re: OkCupid gave 3M dating-app photos to facial recognition firm, FTC says

#76

Post by rdevilla »

noman-land wrote: post #71
everdrive wrote: post #2

At this point, nearly every online service should be considered hostile. If they can make a small amount of money by compromising your privacy or your identity, they will. If they can make a small amount of money by stealing your attention and addicting you, they will. Are there exceptions? I'm sure. Will I be erring sometimes by being cautious? Definitely. But, there is really not much of an alternative these days.

My advice has long beem to delete every single account you've ever created on every platform. The chance of the data leaking nears 100% with time. The corporate cloud is a seriously unsafe place to be. It's a dangerous place to store your intimate secrets and a shaky foundation on which to build a culture.

[flagged]

Re: OkCupid gave 3M dating-app photos to facial recognition firm, FTC says

#77

Post by OkayPhysicist »

andy99 wrote: post #73
OkayPhysicist wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a company wanted to, they absolutely could include something along the lines of "If we violate the terms of this privacy policy, we owe all affected users $1000" in their Terms of Service. Pointing a gun at their own head to prove that they're serious. Companies don't do this, because they are cowards.

That is gimmicky and would be an extremely low trust signal.

How is that a low trust signal? It's grounds to sue. Crank the number up to the limit of small claims in whatever jurisdiction you're based in.

If it was legal to say "If I break this oath, you can fucking shoot me" in a contract, I'd suggest that. The entire point of the exercise is "we promise do the right thing, and to keep us honest we have set up a system by which you can destroy us if we violate that promise".

Corporations can't swear on their life, as they have no life to offer. They can swear on their cash, and by such their ongoing existence.

Re: OkCupid gave 3M dating-app photos to facial recognition firm, FTC says

#78

Post by rglullis »

everdrive wrote: post #2

At this point, nearly every online service should be considered hostile. If they can make a small amount of money by compromising your privacy or your identity, they will. If they can make a small amount of money by stealing your attention and addicting you, they will. Are there exceptions? I'm sure. Will I be erring sometimes by being cautious? Definitely. But, there is really not much of an alternative these days.

> every online service

This deserves a few qualifiers. I think this should be applied to any service that is

- "free" or "freemium"

- wrapped as a black box which gives no way out for customers.

There are plenty of companies out there who provide services based on FOSS, but we collectively shy away from paying them because it seems "silly" to pay for software that people can run for free.

Re: OkCupid gave 3M dating-app photos to facial recognition firm, FTC says

#79

Post by crooked-v »

morkalork wrote: post #33
baldrunner2049 wrote: post #3

Counting the number of comments in this thread 50 minutes later (2 including mine), I can just extrapolate most of HNers have an OKCupid account

It was good. I can't tell you if it is anymore tho

It stopped being good when Match bought them and turned it into Tinder 2.

Re: OkCupid gave 3M dating-app photos to facial recognition firm, FTC says

#80

Post by deadbabe »

everdrive wrote: post #2

At this point, nearly every online service should be considered hostile. If they can make a small amount of money by compromising your privacy or your identity, they will. If they can make a small amount of money by stealing your attention and addicting you, they will. Are there exceptions? I'm sure. Will I be erring sometimes by being cautious? Definitely. But, there is really not much of an alternative these days.

I think eventually we will revert back to a Dark Forest model for online services, where people stay hidden and anonymous to carefully avoid being preyed on by looming corporations.
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