3 ms·

'Gloating' is so diametrically opposed to the view expressed in the article that I have no idea how to respond. As for that part of the FAQ, it is intended as

'Gloating' is so diametrically opposed to the view expressed in the article that I have no idea how to respond. As for that part of the FAQ, it is intended as an explanation of some of the theorems proved in the paper and is a response to some of the theoretical objections we face from the data privacy community. It is not an issue that arises in practice.

pbh 17y ago
I think the parent is referring to an element of we-told-you-so in this letter. I think around the "instead, you brushed off our claims" part of the letter. It sounds a bit confrontational, though perhaps it's too late to rewrite.
- grandalf 17y ago
  It sure makes the writers sound like asses.
dasil003 17y ago
This is the part that did you in: Instead, you brushed off our claims, calling them “absolutely without merit,” among other things. Now even if you are all emotionless, 100% objective researchers with no interest other than the greater good, this very sentence will make it impossible for humans to read your letter without implying a certain level of snark. If you want to project pure motives for the letter then it would have been best to leave their reaction to your original research out of it, or, probably more appropriately, don't publish an open letter at all—contact them directly.
- madair 17y ago
  Ah yes, Appeal to Motive, that'll do it, now I'm not going to accept anything they said because of my interpretation of their motives. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_motive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_motive
  - dasil003 17y ago
    Open letters are about politics, not logic. What an individual critical thinker such as yourself believes has no bearing.
    - madair 17y ago
      Open letters are about communicating a message, they are also by definition political, and it's really helpful to our social systems when they are based on logic. Analysis of motives is of course valuable. But it's not an argument against the matter at hand. It may not have been clear that I was being facetious.
  - foldr 17y ago
    >now I'm not going to accept anything they said I don't think anyone is refusing to accept anything he says. They're just disapproving of his motives, which is fine.
nkurz 17y ago
Ironically (and I think this is a legitimate use of the term) I hadn't realized when writing my comment that 'randomwalker' and 'Arvind Narayanan' were one and the same. But I apologize for my misinterpretation. I've read it again, though, and still have to fight the same reaction. Perhaps I'm just prejudiced against the 'open letter' format, as I often see it used in that way. Still, if you can overlook my misreading, I would love your response. I understand that the example from the FAQ is not central to your argument, but I do think it's important in understanding your worldview. If I provide a tool that can be used, erroneously or not, to create or enable prejudice, at what point have I crossed the line into 'violation of privacy'?
- randomwalker 17y ago
  I responded to most of the points in a new top-level comment. As for whether there is a violation of privacy even if the conclusions are erroneous, no, I don't think that it is. Some of my colleagues argue that it is, but I don't agree with that point of view. In other words, in order to convince you that there is a privacy problem I have to convince you of the math in the paper. Merely the fact that we came up with an algorithm that may or may not be correct is not sufficient. That FAQ question is a big red herring. Some of the objections to our paper during peer-review were along the lines of "if Netflix had esentially duplicated every record in the database, how could you be sure you found the right record? What does right record even mean?" No really, it was that silly. So it was meant to be a way to justify the fact that de-anonymization can happen even if you didn't find "the right record."
earl 17y ago
Well, I can say this: congrats on getting one of the best industrial data sets locked up. I hope you're proud of the work you did. As for the possibility of netflix running a contest like this in an online fashion, well, maybe, but the benefits of having access to the data are enormous, plus you've now moved to a model where only the privileged few are allowed access via NDA, or Netflix has to provide computing resources to all researchers, etc. I don't see it happening.
- pyre 17y ago
  If Netflix had attached credit card info and social security numbers to the info would you be singing the same tune? You're basically saying that you don't like the outcome due to your perceived utility of the data. Thanks I don't see you talking about: - Do you view this as a breach of privacy? - What do you consider private? - Do you view this as a breach of privacy, but just don't care? - Do you feel that the utility of the data out-weighs the privacy concerns? - What about the people that view this as an invasion of privacy and have their Netflix user data in that set? Should they be thrown under the bus in the pursuit of progress because *you* feel that the data has more utility than the privacy concerns do? I see a lot of people arguing that this is 'stifling innovation,' but innovation is not an end unto itself. Banning using human test subjects against their will in the pursuit of scientific knowledge 'stifles innovation' too, but I think you would be hard-pressed to find many people to see that as a bad thing. "Stifling innovation" in the pursuit of privacy concerns should be a noble cause. It benefits the public. This is hardly the argument against intellectual property rights and I really find it annoying that people seem to be lumping it into the same ballpark with these boilerplate "stifling innovation" comments.
  - Jun8 17y ago
    I see it as a breach of privacy people might have prevented had they known about the dangers of their reviews getting linked to their accounts. Many companies have their large credit card databases stolen or hacked into through sheer incompetence. Netflix is not in the same boat with these.
whyenot 17y ago
Instead, you brushed off our claims, calling them “absolutely without merit,” among other things. It has taken negative publicity and an FTC investigation to stop things from getting worse. Some may make the argument that even if the privacy of some of your customers is violated, the benefit to mankind outweighs it, but the “greater good” argument is a very dangerous one. And so here we are. In other words, "we showed them!" -- seem an awful lot like gloating to me. It also doesn't appear that you ever seriously considered the "greater good" argument, beyond asserting that it's "dangerous." This leaves me with the suspicion that you chose to take the easy way out instead of weighting the actual costs and benefits of what you were doing.
- orangecat 17y ago
  This leaves me with the suspicion that you chose to take the easy way out instead of weighting the actual costs and benefits of what you were doing. You're shooting the messenger here. If a dataset can be de-anonymized, it's better to know that and be able to make informed decisions.

pbh 17y ago

I think the parent is referring to an element of we-told-you-so in this letter. I think around the "instead, you brushed off our claims" part of the letter. It sounds a bit confrontational, though perhaps it's too late to rewrite.

grandalf 17y ago
It sure makes the writers sound like asses.

dasil003 17y ago

This is the part that did you in: Instead, you brushed off our claims, calling them “absolutely without merit,” among other things. Now even if you are all emotionless, 100% objective researchers with no interest other than the greater good, this very sentence will make it impossible for humans to read your letter without implying a certain level of snark. If you want to project pure motives for the letter then it would have been best to leave their reaction to your original research out of it, or, probably more appropriately, don't publish an open letter at all—contact them directly.

madair 17y ago
Ah yes, Appeal to Motive, that'll do it, now I'm not going to accept anything they said because of my interpretation of their motives. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_motive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_motive
- dasil003 17y ago
  Open letters are about politics, not logic. What an individual critical thinker such as yourself believes has no bearing.
  - madair 17y ago
    Open letters are about communicating a message, they are also by definition political, and it's really helpful to our social systems when they are based on logic. Analysis of motives is of course valuable. But it's not an argument against the matter at hand. It may not have been clear that I was being facetious.
- foldr 17y ago
  >now I'm not going to accept anything they said I don't think anyone is refusing to accept anything he says. They're just disapproving of his motives, which is fine.

nkurz 17y ago

Ironically (and I think this is a legitimate use of the term) I hadn't realized when writing my comment that 'randomwalker' and 'Arvind Narayanan' were one and the same. But I apologize for my misinterpretation. I've read it again, though, and still have to fight the same reaction. Perhaps I'm just prejudiced against the 'open letter' format, as I often see it used in that way. Still, if you can overlook my misreading, I would love your response. I understand that the example from the FAQ is not central to your argument, but I do think it's important in understanding your worldview. If I provide a tool that can be used, erroneously or not, to create or enable prejudice, at what point have I crossed the line into 'violation of privacy'?

randomwalker 17y ago
I responded to most of the points in a new top-level comment. As for whether there is a violation of privacy even if the conclusions are erroneous, no, I don't think that it is. Some of my colleagues argue that it is, but I don't agree with that point of view. In other words, in order to convince you that there is a privacy problem I have to convince you of the math in the paper. Merely the fact that we came up with an algorithm that may or may not be correct is not sufficient. That FAQ question is a big red herring. Some of the objections to our paper during peer-review were along the lines of "if Netflix had esentially duplicated every record in the database, how could you be sure you found the right record? What does right record even mean?" No really, it was that silly. So it was meant to be a way to justify the fact that de-anonymization can happen even if you didn't find "the right record."

earl 17y ago

Well, I can say this: congrats on getting one of the best industrial data sets locked up. I hope you're proud of the work you did. As for the possibility of netflix running a contest like this in an online fashion, well, maybe, but the benefits of having access to the data are enormous, plus you've now moved to a model where only the privileged few are allowed access via NDA, or Netflix has to provide computing resources to all researchers, etc. I don't see it happening.

pyre 17y ago
If Netflix had attached credit card info and social security numbers to the info would you be singing the same tune? You're basically saying that you don't like the outcome due to your perceived utility of the data. Thanks I don't see you talking about: - Do you view this as a breach of privacy? - What do you consider private? - Do you view this as a breach of privacy, but just don't care? - Do you feel that the utility of the data out-weighs the privacy concerns? - What about the people that view this as an invasion of privacy and have their Netflix user data in that set? Should they be thrown under the bus in the pursuit of progress because *you* feel that the data has more utility than the privacy concerns do? I see a lot of people arguing that this is 'stifling innovation,' but innovation is not an end unto itself. Banning using human test subjects against their will in the pursuit of scientific knowledge 'stifles innovation' too, but I think you would be hard-pressed to find many people to see that as a bad thing. "Stifling innovation" in the pursuit of privacy concerns should be a noble cause. It benefits the public. This is hardly the argument against intellectual property rights and I really find it annoying that people seem to be lumping it into the same ballpark with these boilerplate "stifling innovation" comments.
- Jun8 17y ago
  I see it as a breach of privacy people might have prevented had they known about the dangers of their reviews getting linked to their accounts. Many companies have their large credit card databases stolen or hacked into through sheer incompetence. Netflix is not in the same boat with these.

whyenot 17y ago

Instead, you brushed off our claims, calling them “absolutely without merit,” among other things. It has taken negative publicity and an FTC investigation to stop things from getting worse. Some may make the argument that even if the privacy of some of your customers is violated, the benefit to mankind outweighs it, but the “greater good” argument is a very dangerous one. And so here we are. In other words, "we showed them!" -- seem an awful lot like gloating to me. It also doesn't appear that you ever seriously considered the "greater good" argument, beyond asserting that it's "dangerous." This leaves me with the suspicion that you chose to take the easy way out instead of weighting the actual costs and benefits of what you were doing.

orangecat 17y ago
This leaves me with the suspicion that you chose to take the easy way out instead of weighting the actual costs and benefits of what you were doing. You're shooting the messenger here. If a dataset can be de-anonymized, it's better to know that and be able to make informed decisions.