4 ms·

It's a ridiculous and naive view of the world. Of course it already exists. For example on facebook. For example in the mosques. Everybody was warned, everybo

by 1ris 10y ago

It's a ridiculous and naive view of the world. Of course it already exists. For example on facebook. For example in the mosques. Everybody was warned, everybody could have seen this coming. But most people didn't give a fuck. Welcome is post privacy. I didn't need have to be that way. We can still turn this into post-post-privacy. But only if we face what we have already done.

r3bl 10y ago
Well, to be honest, the title is highly misleading. Sure, they pledged to refuse to participate in the creation of such database, but that's just one of the things stated in the full pledge. I would emphasize more on the following parts of the pledge: * to scale back existing datasets with unnecessary racial, ethnic, and national origin data. * to implement security and privacy best practices, in particular, for end-to-end encryption to be the default wherever possible. * If we cannot stop these practices, we will exercise our rights and responsibilities to speak out publicly and engage in responsible whistleblowing without endangering users.
- drakonandor 10y ago
  > * to scale back existing datasets with unnecessary racial, ethnic, and national origin data. We already have this, as the foreigners Trump is referring to have to get US Travel Visas. Obviously we know their country of origin. Anyone paying attention at all knows Trump's current plan is keeping a close eye on all visitors and immigrants (allowed in) from countries with large anti-western terrorism contributions - which happens to of course coincide with some Islamic-majority countries. The whole article and 'pledge' is anti-Trump fluff.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - esrauch 10y ago
    That's his current plan, but some of his previous positions were a bit more draconian / extreme. I think the pledge implies level of drawing a clear line in the sand before it it ever comes to it.
- 1ris 10y ago
  That's all nice, but do they believe they can "scale" back? Like how? If facebook drops the table it won't be gone from all the scrapers and law enforcment and intelligence tools.
mozumder 10y ago
Mosques don't keep track of members. You can go into any Mosque and hang out if you wish.
- mikestew 10y ago
  Having never once stepped foot in a mosque, I find that a little difficult to believe unless there is a canonical religious text or other religious law that forbids it. Every Christian church I know of keeps track of members, if only for tracking donations so that a receipt can be issued at year-end. Sure, as with a mosque, one can just show up and anonymously participate, but much more participation than that and your name is going into a roll (list of members) of some sort, if for no other reason than, well, organizations like to put a name on the folks that show up regularly.
- exhilaration 10y ago
  What you said is true but active attendees like to formally join the mosque as members so they can vote for and participate on the board or other executive positions. Most mosques are incorporated as non-profit organizations and have the same governing structures and types of membership you would expect from typical NPO's.
- 1ris 10y ago
  While I believe that's true for non regular visitors I bet my ass most manage a donors and members list in google spreadsheets.
coldtea 10y ago
>Everybody was warned, everybody could have seen this coming. There has been nothing coming. Trumps pre-election stuff was BS, nothing will be done. Check back in 4 years. Besides government agencies obviously already have detailed profiles of such things, going far beyond the religion of a subject.
- interstitial 10y ago
  You're ruining their virtue-signaling party.
  - geofft 10y ago
    The only person here I see here who's virtue-signaling is Trump, by making statements that are widely acknowledged to be just for show and not serious promises.
    - interstitial 10y ago
      Another one-way function? Only people I declare "other" and bad can be guilty of virtue-signaling. Hard to keep up.
      - geofft 10y ago
        > Only people I declare "other" and bad can be guilty of virtue-signaling. ??? My definition of "virtue signaling" is the practice of loudly proclaiming that you believe X because of the benefit to your reputation from people seeing you proclaim X and not because you particularly care about believing X (and maybe you don't), a "they love to stand and pray in the street corners" thing. I find it hard to believe that people in this pledge are using it to enhance their social status; there are a lot of people in the pledge, and coverage tends to focus on aggregate behavior (e.g., how many people from Facebook have signed), not individuals. Only one signer is quoted in this article, at the very bottom. And I think the people signing are genuine in their beliefs. Meanwhile, quoting the comment above: "Trumps pre-election stuff was BS, nothing will be done." It's BS that people wanted to hear, and it got him elected to the most powerful office in the world. It is, quite literally, stuff he proclaimed because it enhanced his social status that he didn't actually care about intrinsically. I'm not sure what this has to do with people being other or bad (unless you think that virtue signaling makes someone other and bad, but I didn't say anything like that).
elevensies 10y ago
Right, The database already exists and it is called facebook. It can identify you by information you provide, by people you have relationships with, by your conversations, and by the largest database of photos of the world, many of which contain faces and are automatically tagged by the camera with a location and a time. Bought firearms with a background check? Thanks, now they know to send in SWAT instead of regular uniforms. You carry your tracking device with you at all times and keep it charged every night right? You've helpfully identified yourself as a subversive by encrypting your communications right? All your finances, communications, and your ability to navigate depends on government controlled networks and institutions right? - All network connected software is surveillance software - The reason for creating information is irrelevant to how it is used - Technology is being used activly by rulers for surveillance, repression, and assassination
idlewords 10y ago
This comment distills into "I told you so". Facebook has all this data. We're trying to do something about it. What are you doing?
- 1ris 10y ago
  Yes, it does, because I did. I tell people not to use facebook. That's not enough, but everything less is in vain. No technical solutions for political problems my ass. If politics is unfixable (witch was foreseeable) a technical defence was necessary. It was in plain sight what was going to be possible. Any people where talking about post privacy like it was good thing because they failed to acknowledge this. The first to undo this is to acknowledge the mistake. Without it we are bound to repeat it.
  - idlewords 10y ago
    So your contribution is telling people not to use Facebook? Thank you for your service.
    - 1ris 10y ago
      And teach them to use tor. As said, that's not enough. But nothing can safe a fool, so it's important people don't have to reley too much on other and take at least the basic precaution themselfs. If you have any better (as in working better) ideas I'm open to suggestion. But I'm sceptical. What did you do? And how did it work? I guess for me it did work out somewhat well.

by 1ris 10y ago

r3bl 10y ago

Well, to be honest, the title is highly misleading. Sure, they pledged to refuse to participate in the creation of such database, but that's just one of the things stated in the full pledge. I would emphasize more on the following parts of the pledge: * to scale back existing datasets with unnecessary racial, ethnic, and national origin data. * to implement security and privacy best practices, in particular, for end-to-end encryption to be the default wherever possible. * If we cannot stop these practices, we will exercise our rights and responsibilities to speak out publicly and engage in responsible whistleblowing without endangering users.

drakonandor 10y ago
> * to scale back existing datasets with unnecessary racial, ethnic, and national origin data. We already have this, as the foreigners Trump is referring to have to get US Travel Visas. Obviously we know their country of origin. Anyone paying attention at all knows Trump's current plan is keeping a close eye on all visitors and immigrants (allowed in) from countries with large anti-western terrorism contributions - which happens to of course coincide with some Islamic-majority countries. The whole article and 'pledge' is anti-Trump fluff.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- esrauch 10y ago
  That's his current plan, but some of his previous positions were a bit more draconian / extreme. I think the pledge implies level of drawing a clear line in the sand before it it ever comes to it.
1ris 10y ago
That's all nice, but do they believe they can "scale" back? Like how? If facebook drops the table it won't be gone from all the scrapers and law enforcment and intelligence tools.

mozumder 10y ago

Mosques don't keep track of members. You can go into any Mosque and hang out if you wish.

mikestew 10y ago
Having never once stepped foot in a mosque, I find that a little difficult to believe unless there is a canonical religious text or other religious law that forbids it. Every Christian church I know of keeps track of members, if only for tracking donations so that a receipt can be issued at year-end. Sure, as with a mosque, one can just show up and anonymously participate, but much more participation than that and your name is going into a roll (list of members) of some sort, if for no other reason than, well, organizations like to put a name on the folks that show up regularly.
exhilaration 10y ago
What you said is true but active attendees like to formally join the mosque as members so they can vote for and participate on the board or other executive positions. Most mosques are incorporated as non-profit organizations and have the same governing structures and types of membership you would expect from typical NPO's.
1ris 10y ago
While I believe that's true for non regular visitors I bet my ass most manage a donors and members list in google spreadsheets.

coldtea 10y ago

>Everybody was warned, everybody could have seen this coming. There has been nothing coming. Trumps pre-election stuff was BS, nothing will be done. Check back in 4 years. Besides government agencies obviously already have detailed profiles of such things, going far beyond the religion of a subject.

interstitial 10y ago
You're ruining their virtue-signaling party.
- geofft 10y ago
  The only person here I see here who's virtue-signaling is Trump, by making statements that are widely acknowledged to be just for show and not serious promises.
  - interstitial 10y ago
    Another one-way function? Only people I declare "other" and bad can be guilty of virtue-signaling. Hard to keep up.
    - geofft 10y ago
      > Only people I declare "other" and bad can be guilty of virtue-signaling. ??? My definition of "virtue signaling" is the practice of loudly proclaiming that you believe X because of the benefit to your reputation from people seeing you proclaim X and not because you particularly care about believing X (and maybe you don't), a "they love to stand and pray in the street corners" thing. I find it hard to believe that people in this pledge are using it to enhance their social status; there are a lot of people in the pledge, and coverage tends to focus on aggregate behavior (e.g., how many people from Facebook have signed), not individuals. Only one signer is quoted in this article, at the very bottom. And I think the people signing are genuine in their beliefs. Meanwhile, quoting the comment above: "Trumps pre-election stuff was BS, nothing will be done." It's BS that people wanted to hear, and it got him elected to the most powerful office in the world. It is, quite literally, stuff he proclaimed because it enhanced his social status that he didn't actually care about intrinsically. I'm not sure what this has to do with people being other or bad (unless you think that virtue signaling makes someone other and bad, but I didn't say anything like that).

elevensies 10y ago

Right, The database already exists and it is called facebook. It can identify you by information you provide, by people you have relationships with, by your conversations, and by the largest database of photos of the world, many of which contain faces and are automatically tagged by the camera with a location and a time. Bought firearms with a background check? Thanks, now they know to send in SWAT instead of regular uniforms. You carry your tracking device with you at all times and keep it charged every night right? You've helpfully identified yourself as a subversive by encrypting your communications right? All your finances, communications, and your ability to navigate depends on government controlled networks and institutions right? - All network connected software is surveillance software - The reason for creating information is irrelevant to how it is used - Technology is being used activly by rulers for surveillance, repression, and assassination

idlewords 10y ago

This comment distills into "I told you so". Facebook has all this data. We're trying to do something about it. What are you doing?

1ris 10y ago
Yes, it does, because I did. I tell people not to use facebook. That's not enough, but everything less is in vain. No technical solutions for political problems my ass. If politics is unfixable (witch was foreseeable) a technical defence was necessary. It was in plain sight what was going to be possible. Any people where talking about post privacy like it was good thing because they failed to acknowledge this. The first to undo this is to acknowledge the mistake. Without it we are bound to repeat it.
- idlewords 10y ago
  So your contribution is telling people not to use Facebook? Thank you for your service.
  - 1ris 10y ago
    And teach them to use tor. As said, that's not enough. But nothing can safe a fool, so it's important people don't have to reley too much on other and take at least the basic precaution themselfs. If you have any better (as in working better) ideas I'm open to suggestion. But I'm sceptical. What did you do? And how did it work? I guess for me it did work out somewhat well.