Privacy is at a crossroads. Choose wisely • Hacker News Board

Re: Privacy is at a crossroads. Choose wisely

#91

Post by tacoman » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 9:41 PM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #83

I believe that prudent compartmentalization is the best way to control tracking and reclaim privacy. Each compartment comprises interests, relationships and activities that you want observers to track and interrelate. For compartments where privacy is essential, it's best to use pseudonyms, and to avoid cross-linking with public compartments. Compartments are isolated in VMs, with separate network connectivity using…

This is incredibly hard to do well and takes a great deal of discipline. Unless you're a Belgacom or Gemalto sysadmin, the consequences of cross-contamination aren't grave. It's easy enough to burn an identity and create a new one.

Re: Privacy is at a crossroads. Choose wisely

#92

Post by chestnut-tree » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 9:49 PM UTC

mgreg wrote: post #5

I'm curious if data privacy & protection will ever emerge from its little corner where a few passionate folks worry about it while the masses blithely ignore how their personal data is used and abused. Couple of other related items just from today indicate this _may_ be taking on steam but we've seen this kind of blip before just to see it fade. 1. Helping Prove Mr. Weinberg's going (CEO of DuckDuckGo) is an article…

"...health web sites share your search queries with 3rd parties..."

For anyone looking for health information (in English), I recommend the NHS website. (Start your search from there rather than Google if you're worried about being tracked). It may not be the best-looking website, but the info is written by medical professionals and there are no commercial interests since the NHS is funded by the UK taxpayer.

They have an A-Z of conditions, a symptom checker, videos and much more. (I presume this is all available to anyone outside the UK)

http://www.nhs.uk

Re: Privacy is at a crossroads. Choose wisely

#93

Post by stcredzero » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 9:58 PM UTC

zipperhead wrote: post #44

falcolas wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have personally found that a hosts file can reduce the need for a bunch of those addons - it can block not only ads, but also many forms of tracking. I've found it very refreshing when surfing the web. For reference, I use: http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/

I've thought of using hosts file vs. plugins but have never really made the switch. I'm a bit concerned that I'll run into cases like a website is broken due to a hosts file setting, and I can't easily bypass it like I can with a plugin. Do you ever run into situations like this?

Are there any utilities for management of the hosts file?

Re: Privacy is at a crossroads. Choose wisely

#94

Post by stcredzero » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 10:02 PM UTC

kardos wrote: post #67

fixermark wrote: post #6

People are willing to trade personally-identifiable information for a Snickers bar.* Until and unless that changes, privacy doesn't have sufficient value to change the status quo very much. *Really, they'll even trade it for intangible gold. http://candycrushgametactics.com/get-free-gold-bars-in-candy...

Why is someone else's poor choice regarding privacy a justification for abandoning the fight for privacy? There's always a subset of people who don't care. There was a time when women didn't have the right to vote, and although I wasn't around during that time, I'm sure there was a subset of women who didn't care. Their apathy is not a justification for withholding that right from the rest.

There's always a subset of people who don't care.

The problem is when it's the seeming majority who don't care.

Re: Privacy is at a crossroads. Choose wisely

#95

Post by dasboth » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 10:02 PM UTC

drdaeman wrote: post #12

dasboth wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"As an academic exercise I've begun to pour over Privacy Policies for web new services" This is something I've been thinking of doing. I don't suppose you've shared these anywhere online by any chance? I always thought that would make a good site - somewhere where you can look up certain services' privacy policies in layman's terms. I suspect a good one already exists.

https://tosdr.org/

Exactly what I was after - thanks!

Re: Privacy is at a crossroads. Choose wisely

#96

Post by dasboth » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 10:04 PM UTC

tnhh wrote: post #70

drdaeman wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://tosdr.org/

http://www.docracy.com/tos/changes is also good for tracking changes. And today I saw a talk about http://commonterms.org/ which could be useful if widely implemented.

Common Terms looks like an interesting idea, I'd like to think I actually would read a summary of terms like what they're suggesting

Re: Privacy is at a crossroads. Choose wisely

#97

Post by Retra » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 10:05 PM UTC

cheatsheet wrote: post #76

j2kun wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They define what they mean by the word private, and then prove their mechanisms satisfy that definition. It's not a disagreement about the word "provable," it's that you don't agree that their definition of privacy is a good definition of privacy. That's fine, but your reason seems suspicious. If they could determine any information about you, then such an algorithm would fail if your data were not collected in the f…

> That's fine, but your reason seems suspicious. I prefer to avoid living my life in a fishbowl. > provably private This does not have a mathematics definition. Private means not accessible to anyone aside from the owner. That is something that is provably private. > information theoretic guarantee This sounds like hand waving to get rid of actual concerns.

If you think privacy is "power over what others perceive", then you are being selfish and short-sighted in a way that prevents mutual privacy, and is thus generally untenable.

Re: Privacy is at a crossroads. Choose wisely

#98

Post by cheatsheet » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 10:06 PM UTC

j2kun wrote: post #87

cheatsheet wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's fine, but your reason seems suspicious. I prefer to avoid living my life in a fishbowl. > provably private This does not have a mathematics definition. Private means not accessible to anyone aside from the owner. That is something that is provably private. > information theoretic guarantee This sounds like hand waving to get rid of actual concerns.

Again, you are disagreeing with their chosen definition for a word you prefer to think of in a different way. Maybe you should study the issue instead of griping about how lame their version is. What does accessible mean? Who is the owner of a piece of data? For example, just because of our interaction here, I could probably get a pretty good estimate of your occupation, age, and gender. Is that "accessing" something…

Definitions of words matter when people skim text as to determine how they communicate their opinions, form their opinions, and take action, including writing legislation.

If I was actually typing out the opinions of my spouse word for word: whose age combined with my own is divisible by 3, how would that change your view?

Re: Privacy is at a crossroads. Choose wisely

#99

Post by Retra » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 10:07 PM UTC

fixermark wrote: post #30

TruthWillFree wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You trust them? How do you know this just makes you more suspicious and gives them more of an illogical basis for placing you under increased surveillance.

Sure I trust them. The moment it's discovered that they've failed to hold up their end of the bargain, they're out $30 x some significant percentage of the users of that service per month. That's not chump change (to say nothing of the potential class action lawsuit for utterly failing to hold up a contract while continuing to charge customers for the services stipulated in said contract).

You are assuming there is a meaningful contract to uphold. So I ask you this: what exactly do you think you are buying from them?

Re: Privacy is at a crossroads. Choose wisely

#100

Post by stcredzero » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 10:08 PM UTC

Pretty much all technologies have facets where markets break down and require some form of corrective regulation to make things work the way we want them to.

No! Nooooooo! Say it isn't so! The market is a magical infallible oracle of laissez-faire goodness! (That snidely said, the market is absolutely a marvellous thing in precisely the contexts where situations are so complex that centralized control is hopeless and only massively distributed decision making can hope to keep up. Again, context is everything.)