6 ms·

One implies the other.

tombrossman 10y ago
A fair percentage of people (myself included) are far more concerned about protecting our data from marketers, advertisers, and data brokers, than we are about going 100% 'tinfoil hat' mode and worrying whether the NSA is monitoring my messages for thought crimes. These are two very distinct issues and not everyone is concerned about both equally.
- alanwatts 10y ago
  Dr. King was monitored by the NSA for "thought crimes". Is that "100% tinfoil hat mode"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.#NSA_monitoring_of_King.27s_communications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.#NSA_mon...
  - kbart 10y ago
    And how many "Kings" do you know personally?/s What me (and presumably, OP) trying to say is, that an ordinal person should be much more worried about their private data being collected and used (virtually) unconstrained by the shady companies than three letter agencies. This doesn't imply that mass surveillance isn't wrong and evil, these two things are orthogonal.
  - jerf 10y ago
    How is that relevant to the fact that many people are more worried about marketers than the NSA? Nobody's questioning that some people are in fact so monitored. "I am more concerned about A than B" is not a claim that B does not exist, nor is it a claim that "I" am unconcerned about B.
    - alanwatts 10y ago
      >the fact that many people are more worried about marketers than the NSA? How do you know this is a fact, was a global survey done? >I am more concerned about A than B" is not a claim that B does not exist, nor is it a claim that "I" am unconcerned about B. Indeed, however the phrase "100% tinfoil hat mode" does imply being unconcerned about B, and that anyone who is is a lunatic.
      - jerf 10y ago
        You seem to have a problem with adjectives. "Many" is not most. I don't need a "survey" to establish the "many" when I can just read many people expressing their concerns on HN. That's "many" enough for me. Now, to be clear, by "people" I mean "humans" not "abstract sentients including AIs that don't yet exist", and by "concerns" I mean "things that are at least slightly negative to the thinker" and not "things that keep the thinker up at night wetting the bed and driving them to fits of existential madness", etc. etc.
        alanwatts 10y ago
        Ah, my mistake. I misread it as "many more people..."
  - tombrossman 10y ago
    > Dr. King was monitored by the NSA for "thought crimes". Is that "100% tinfoil hat mode"? Probably 'yes' for you, 'no' for him. Sorry, but a random HN commenter is extremely unlikely to be targeted for the level of surveillance and treachery that Dr King was. If he feared it, he had good reason. If you are some random IT worker building the next smart pillow you cannot expect them to prioritize spying on you, that's all I'm saying. Mass surveillance isn't the same as targeted.
    - alanwatts 10y ago
      Fair enough. Though my concern is not for myself, but rather for any potential great leader who could be silently neutralized/blackmailed/extorted by mass surveillance techniques. Whether the culprits' organizational classification is public or private is of negligible importance. >Mass surveillance isn't the same as targeted. Mass surveillance is the first step in the discovery process, targeted surveillance is the second step after a target has been flagged by the dragnet.
    - nzp 10y ago
      Actually, I'd say a random HN commenter is extremely likely to be targeted for surveillance and exploitation compared to general population at least. Not because they personally are important, but because of their jobs. So many administrators, programmers, etc. with access to relevant data.
      - NetStrikeForce 10y ago
        Yes, I almost mentioned the Belgacom sysadmins in one of my responses. How many people here work for Google, Facebook, Apple, etc? What if you could compromise their workstations and get privileged access to the backend of social networks, email systems, etc? We are being actively hunted and there's evidence of that.
        nzp 10y ago
        Some years ago FreeBSD had an intrusion via one of the commiter's machine or stolen SSH key, I don't remember which any more, but I do remember that it took months for the package building infrastructure to get fully operational again. I think they never got to the bottom of that (who did it or why). Linux had a very similar incident if I'm not mistaken. It's such a standard and effective method in human intelligence, that it's extremely naive to think an analogue wouldn't be used extensively in signals intelligence too.
- NetStrikeForce 10y ago
  > A fair percentage of people (myself included) are far more concerned about protecting our data from marketers, advertisers, and data brokers, than we are about going 100% 'tinfoil hat' mode and worrying whether the NSA is monitoring my messages for thought crimes. The main issue here is that people aren't worried about either of those problems :) otherwise Facebook, Google and other advertising companies would only have a handful of users. > These are two very distinct issues and not everyone is concerned about both equally. Divide and conquer... not. The issue is the same, we should fight together for more privacy, not disregard other people's reasons for requesting more privacy. In any case, as you were replying to my previous comment, my point was that if the company has access to your data, Law Enforcement has got it too. Also if Law Enforcement has access to your data it means it wasn't also available for the company. Hence why one implies the other. You might be worried about one, but you've got two :)
  - tombrossman 10y ago
    Thanks, that's clearer to me now. When marketers collect my personal info, it's far more likely to be distributed widely so I place a greater emphasis on protecting it from them. I don't like the fact that nation-states are spying on the citizenry, but I don't know what I can do about that. I DO know what to do about the surveillance capitalists.
  - eternalban 10y ago
    > we should fight together for more privacy It needs to be established as a human right. I'm personally very disappointed to see the how good intentions of the aware subset of the citizenry are consistently channeled towards technical solutions to a problem that is fundamentally political. At a meta-level, we saw the same (useless) dissipation of energies in the Occupy-x movement. And it should also be pointed out that the subtext of such approaches is de facto deligitimization of legal governance of societies and (speaking of "kings") establishing corporations as the arbitrators of social norms. Get congress to pass a comprehensive privacy act and "Alphabets" (of the corporate and governmental variety) will have to toe the law of the land. [edit:spelling]
    - 10y ago
- navait 10y ago
  One of those things can kill you, or imprison you. The other one can send you mildly annoying ads.
  - omouse 10y ago
    >The other one can send you mildly annoying ads. That isn't quite accurate. Your information is extremely valuable for identity thieves and for spammers and for running other scams. I guess you've never had your identity stolen or been harassed.

A fair percentage of people (myself included) are far more concerned about protecting our data from marketers, advertisers, and data brokers, than we are about going 100% 'tinfoil hat' mode and worrying whether the NSA is monitoring my messages for thought crimes. These are two very distinct issues and not everyone is concerned about both equally.

alanwatts 10y ago
Dr. King was monitored by the NSA for "thought crimes". Is that "100% tinfoil hat mode"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.#NSA_monitoring_of_King.27s_communications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.#NSA_mon...
- kbart 10y ago
  And how many "Kings" do you know personally?/s What me (and presumably, OP) trying to say is, that an ordinal person should be much more worried about their private data being collected and used (virtually) unconstrained by the shady companies than three letter agencies. This doesn't imply that mass surveillance isn't wrong and evil, these two things are orthogonal.
- jerf 10y ago
  How is that relevant to the fact that many people are more worried about marketers than the NSA? Nobody's questioning that some people are in fact so monitored. "I am more concerned about A than B" is not a claim that B does not exist, nor is it a claim that "I" am unconcerned about B.
  - alanwatts 10y ago
    >the fact that many people are more worried about marketers than the NSA? How do you know this is a fact, was a global survey done? >I am more concerned about A than B" is not a claim that B does not exist, nor is it a claim that "I" am unconcerned about B. Indeed, however the phrase "100% tinfoil hat mode" does imply being unconcerned about B, and that anyone who is is a lunatic.
    - jerf 10y ago
      You seem to have a problem with adjectives. "Many" is not most. I don't need a "survey" to establish the "many" when I can just read many people expressing their concerns on HN. That's "many" enough for me. Now, to be clear, by "people" I mean "humans" not "abstract sentients including AIs that don't yet exist", and by "concerns" I mean "things that are at least slightly negative to the thinker" and not "things that keep the thinker up at night wetting the bed and driving them to fits of existential madness", etc. etc.
      - alanwatts 10y ago
        Ah, my mistake. I misread it as "many more people..."
- tombrossman 10y ago
  > Dr. King was monitored by the NSA for "thought crimes". Is that "100% tinfoil hat mode"? Probably 'yes' for you, 'no' for him. Sorry, but a random HN commenter is extremely unlikely to be targeted for the level of surveillance and treachery that Dr King was. If he feared it, he had good reason. If you are some random IT worker building the next smart pillow you cannot expect them to prioritize spying on you, that's all I'm saying. Mass surveillance isn't the same as targeted.
  - alanwatts 10y ago
    Fair enough. Though my concern is not for myself, but rather for any potential great leader who could be silently neutralized/blackmailed/extorted by mass surveillance techniques. Whether the culprits' organizational classification is public or private is of negligible importance. >Mass surveillance isn't the same as targeted. Mass surveillance is the first step in the discovery process, targeted surveillance is the second step after a target has been flagged by the dragnet.
  - nzp 10y ago
    Actually, I'd say a random HN commenter is extremely likely to be targeted for surveillance and exploitation compared to general population at least. Not because they personally are important, but because of their jobs. So many administrators, programmers, etc. with access to relevant data.
    - NetStrikeForce 10y ago
      Yes, I almost mentioned the Belgacom sysadmins in one of my responses. How many people here work for Google, Facebook, Apple, etc? What if you could compromise their workstations and get privileged access to the backend of social networks, email systems, etc? We are being actively hunted and there's evidence of that.
      - nzp 10y ago
        Some years ago FreeBSD had an intrusion via one of the commiter's machine or stolen SSH key, I don't remember which any more, but I do remember that it took months for the package building infrastructure to get fully operational again. I think they never got to the bottom of that (who did it or why). Linux had a very similar incident if I'm not mistaken. It's such a standard and effective method in human intelligence, that it's extremely naive to think an analogue wouldn't be used extensively in signals intelligence too.
NetStrikeForce 10y ago
> A fair percentage of people (myself included) are far more concerned about protecting our data from marketers, advertisers, and data brokers, than we are about going 100% 'tinfoil hat' mode and worrying whether the NSA is monitoring my messages for thought crimes. The main issue here is that people aren't worried about either of those problems :) otherwise Facebook, Google and other advertising companies would only have a handful of users. > These are two very distinct issues and not everyone is concerned about both equally. Divide and conquer... not. The issue is the same, we should fight together for more privacy, not disregard other people's reasons for requesting more privacy. In any case, as you were replying to my previous comment, my point was that if the company has access to your data, Law Enforcement has got it too. Also if Law Enforcement has access to your data it means it wasn't also available for the company. Hence why one implies the other. You might be worried about one, but you've got two :)
- tombrossman 10y ago
  Thanks, that's clearer to me now. When marketers collect my personal info, it's far more likely to be distributed widely so I place a greater emphasis on protecting it from them. I don't like the fact that nation-states are spying on the citizenry, but I don't know what I can do about that. I DO know what to do about the surveillance capitalists.
- eternalban 10y ago
  > we should fight together for more privacy It needs to be established as a human right. I'm personally very disappointed to see the how good intentions of the aware subset of the citizenry are consistently channeled towards technical solutions to a problem that is fundamentally political. At a meta-level, we saw the same (useless) dissipation of energies in the Occupy-x movement. And it should also be pointed out that the subtext of such approaches is de facto deligitimization of legal governance of societies and (speaking of "kings") establishing corporations as the arbitrators of social norms. Get congress to pass a comprehensive privacy act and "Alphabets" (of the corporate and governmental variety) will have to toe the law of the land. [edit:spelling]
  - 10y ago
navait 10y ago
One of those things can kill you, or imprison you. The other one can send you mildly annoying ads.
- omouse 10y ago
  >The other one can send you mildly annoying ads. That isn't quite accurate. Your information is extremely valuable for identity thieves and for spammers and for running other scams. I guess you've never had your identity stolen or been harassed.