16 ms·

I think this is a great example to the tech world of what people actually care about. Your average American didn't understand or get worked up over Snowden and

• jcoffland 10y ago
  I think this is more of a case of "sex sells". I.e. the whole topic gets attention because people are interested in sex, not because they are interested in privacy.
  • follower 10y ago
    It certainly appears there's a large element of that and one of the challenges of our talk was to get the audience past the "sex lol" stage and to take the issues & implications seriously. Overall we were pretty happy with the degree to which the actual issues got coverage (albeit with varying degrees of accuracy/sensationalism)--even the Daily Mirror managed to communicate the key points.
• altendo 10y ago
  > Either most people don't care about privacy or we, the tech community, do a poor job of connecting things like encryption to what people do genuinely care about. Communication needs to be better for sure. The burden of that is on us - we know what's going on, but misinformation and technical jargon can make that knowledge less useful. To the broader point, though: I don't think it's necessarily that people don't care about privacy. It may be partly that some people don't know to what extent we share our lives online, but also partly that the convenience of using online services - shopping online, chatting online, etc - outweighs whatever perceived privacy risks exist. (I say perceived because they may not completely understand what gets shared, how, and when.)
• wslh 10y ago
  > Your average American didn't understand or get worked up over Snowden and the prospect of a surveillance state I think it is about a mindset change. I remember in the 90s when people were cautious about using credit cards online. Then, I remember in the early 2000s when a relative, in her 70s, called me, angry, because I published my genealogic tree online (only with names and relationships). A few years ago she started using Facebook.
  • elastic_church 10y ago
    its probably because the bastards were in the tree too most likely had nothing to do with her direct privacy
    • vidarh 10y ago
      I find it a bit amusing you're being downvoted, because while it's certainly possible that's not what said relative cared about, I've seen firsthand how much relatives care deeply about stories of dubious morality several generations back. My dad was very interested in genealogy, and one of the things that frustrated him for years was a particular dead end: An at the time young, unmarried woman a few generations back in our family tree had a child, and then moved in with her sister and her sisters husband. The father was named as so-and-so, "currently employed as a travelling hat maker, resident in Bremen". A "travelling hat-maker from Bremen" was not particular common in Norway at the time. He should have existed in the police register in Oslo for that time period (people had to register on arrival back then), and he's not. My dad found no trace of him in any other relevant registers from that time period either to my knowledge. All clues point to the girl inventing this hat-maker to hide that she either didn't know the father or that the father was someone it shouldn't be, or possibly that the father of her child gave her a made up story. At the time not giving the name of the father would have been a crime, hence it was not that strange to see likely false accounts. But here's the thing: That branch of the family had taken to the idea of a German ancestor that gave them justification for an upper-class sounding double-barreled last name, and even though that decision had been made a couple of generations before my dad started talking about this, that branch of the family reacted with intense anger at any idea that the woman in question had not been truthful, and were furious that he would not let it go. It was already scandalous enough that she was unmarried. That the name of the dad might be fake was too much. This came up in the 90's. People got angry over something that happened about 150 years back in time, several generations before even the oldest family members involved were born. Which goes to show that sensibilities around morality has an astounding power over people. (I still occasionally for fun do searches for the various possible spellings of this supposed hat-makers name, and have not found a single German family using it)
• Spone 10y ago
  It's exactly the point made by John Oliver when he interviewed Snowden for Last Week Tonight, and showed him a picture of his d*ck.
  • runesoerensen 10y ago
    Link to the relevant part of that interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M&t=24m46s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M&t=24m46s
• bitmapbrother 10y ago
  Facebook and Google don't sell customer data. Secondly, is there a reason why you left out Microsoft or how about Apple?
  • blowski 10y ago
    That's splitting hairs. Facebook and Google's main source of revenue is letting advertisers target users based on things Facebook and Google know about them.
    • bitmapbrother 10y ago
      I disagree. There's a big difference between selling customer data and selling selling ads to a demographic. Also, the excuse that companies like Microsoft and Apple get a free pass just because it's not their main source of revenue is a weak one. If you have an issue with the practice then don't be selective in your criticism.
      • pessimizer 10y ago
        Microsoft and Apple don't get any more of a free pass than Facebook and Google. Also, you could spend all day going into Google threads and asking why Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple are getting a free pass, or going into Apple threads and asking why Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Robert Mugabe are getting a free pass, but it isn't a positive defense.
      • alasdair_ 10y ago
        The issues occur when the demographic gets down to tiny sizes (or, it merged with other datasets to uniquely identify an individual).
• corysama 10y ago
  https://cantheyseemydick.com/ https://cantheyseemydick.com/
• jMyles 10y ago
  > Your average American didn't understand These five words are, as far as I can tell, the poison in the pudding of American politics today. 1) There is no "average" American. Everyone is close to a median in some metrics, and everyone is at out-lier in others. 2) The fact that huge outcry over the NSA is not visible might just mean we're looking in the wrong places. I've traveled across the country by land twice in two years, stopping at hundreds of rural campfires and urban watering holes. My experience is that people are very upset with the state and want their rights back. And that, one way or another, they'll get 'em.
  • kbuchanan 10y ago
    I think @tyre's point was dead on. It's one thing to hem and haw about civilization being doomed, but it's another thing altogether to delete your FB account.
    • ry_ry 10y ago
      Thing is, as an industry nerd i understand implicitly what FB are doing with their services, and yet i still use the messenger app to keep in contact with some of my friends. Ultimately I'm relatively comfortable trading some measure of my privacy for convenient communication with people whose friendship i value and might otherwise struggle to keep in touch with. If I'd purchased myself a physical good, regardless of it being a sex toy, I'm not sure i would necessarily expect to be entering into the same agreement. My fridge phones home, but my kettle doesn't, my TV is a CIA outpost, but my wallet is just made of cows and Faraday cages. Granted the app connectivity would be a red flag, but ultimately there needs to be some kind of 'privacy mark' in the same way films carry a cert to allow us all to instantly understand what using it will entail. For me that is the key difference here, and something that needs to change.
      • Stanish 10y ago
        I think the delusion you have fallen victim to here is that it all boils down to your personal choices. The issue is not whether--for you personally in the market--it makes sense to delete your facebook. The important point that outrages people rightly is that the system has evolved in such a way that the choice is not a reasonable one to have to make (between friends and privacy). We need policy changes that separate the choice to have privacy from state/corporate knowledge of our intimate lives from the choice to make connections with friends, advertise, reach out to the world, etc. The market as it currently exists is not an adequate mechanism to achieve these changes. The business model of people-farming and super-stasi state spying is the polar opposite of the utopian promises made by many in this industry at the emergence of the internet, and there need to be concrete proposals to stop it from every arena, because there will certainly be far more dire consequences as it evolves if it isn't checked in a comprehensive, thoughtful way.
• bogomipz 10y ago
  >"I think this is a great example to the tech world of what people actually care about." I am not following your suggestion that this article is indicative of disinterest. Are you suggesting that this is a really big news story or that this case might be a watershed moment? Because I don't see that. In fact I have had NPR on all day so far and haven't heard this mentioned.
  • rosser 10y ago
    Your specific cognizance of the case, and how it came to your attention, is orthogonal to the broader cultural forces in play.
    • bogomipz 10y ago
      The intent of my question was to ask for clarification if the OP thought that this was going be a watershed moment. My comment regarding the position of this story in the news cycle was only meant to be relevant to the question of whether the OP felt that this case was going to be a catalyst, nothing more. It was in no way meant to trivialize the importance of the case. That's an assumption you made, incorrectly. It was not meant to be a commentary on the importance of privacy or the importance of the conversation surrounding privacy which is something I care deeply about. Incidentally, what are the "broader cultural forces at play"? That's a pretty nebulous if not completely banal statement.
• denzil_correa 10y ago
  > People very much care about the privacy of their sex life. Relevant Plug : John Oliver Interview with Snowden (23m45s) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M&t=23m45s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M&t=23m45s Also, the "You have got nothing to hide" argument fails.
  • azernik 10y ago
    I'm very impressed at Snowden's straight face.
  • vxNsr 10y ago
    Is that really how I sound when I try to explain something tech related? I could fall asleep to his voice... That was terrifying.
    • mulmen 10y ago
      As the clip points out you need a strong sense of empathy to convey information to people who aren't already interested in that information. John knows what people care about, Edward doesn't.
    • M_Grey 10y ago
      In high school a good friend of mine was coming to realize that he was never going to be a great speaker. He found that he was able to explain things to me; that I was interested enough in the content and in him, than I didn't mind the delivery. Then in turn, I'd explain his points to the rest of our friends and give him credit for it. So they started to listen to him, more and more, they were willing to do what I had and just... pay attention. They accepted that maybe the guy who knew so much, might not be the guy who was best at expressing all of what they knew (without being given more a chance than normal). The thing is... that was high school, and a small group of friends. In theory science and tech journalism should be doing for you and Snowden and others, what I was able to do for my buddy. Unfortunately if I had been modern science/tech journalism, I would have given our friends a half-assed explanation, plugged my own views, and taken credit for all of it.
• blitmap 10y ago
  So what you're saying is... Instead of Edward Snowden releasing documents confirming the widespread surveillance methods, he should have stolen and released indecent photos of dignitaries and ordinary citizens alike. That would have brought it home. :-)
  • askafriend 10y ago
    I think you say this sarcastically but I actually believe this type of argument does have some legs to stand on. The public reaction to Snowden's revelations would have been very different.
    • mirimir 10y ago
      Well, remember LOVEINT?
  • TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Well... obviously, I guess. If you actually want people to care, you need to talk about something they can relate to. It can't be abstact.
  • pjc50 10y ago
    Remember when there was a huge leak of celebrity nudes and the internet went wild? There's a huge demand for other people's nude photos to be leaked. That's part of the problem: people don't have the solidarity to want to protect other people's privacy.
    • angry-hacker 10y ago
      There have been a lot of discussion and laws around "revenge porn also". For an example, in the UK it's now illegal. Also: "an incident with Scarlett Johansson photos that eventually lead to a ten year prison sentence of perpetrator Christopher Chaney." Exchange the word sexually exploited with privacy invaded: "It is a sexual violation. It's disgusting. The law needs to be changed, and we need to change. That's why these Web sites are responsible. Just the fact that somebody can be sexually exploited and violated, and the first thought that crosses somebody's mind is to make a profit from it. It's so beyond me," the "Hunger Games" actress said. http://www.kpopstarz.com/articles/123222/20141012/fappening-snappening-jennifer-lawrence-cybercrimes-law.htm http://www.kpopstarz.com/articles/123222/20141012/fappening-...
• dmritard96 10y ago
  In general, every issue - violence, privacy etc are much more hot button when they involve genitalia. was just talking to my wife about this this morning and trying to understand if its a result of long standing oppression from males to females or if its related to the puritanical treatment of sex as still largely a taboo subject.
  • WaxProlix 10y ago
    Those two things are probably not completely independent.
• cheez 10y ago
  If the options are to sue someone with essentially infinite resources (government) vs a company that needs to make money to survive, the latter is a better target for a lawsuit.
• randomdata 10y ago
  > People very much care about the privacy of their sex life. Or do they have different expectations depending on what they represent in the relationship? As far as the Snowden story goes, the public is the state. The public represents the product when it comes to Google and Facebook. In this case the public represents the customer, buying a product that appears to not come particularly cheap at that. If these devices were handed out to anyone who wanted one, akin to a Google/Facebook account, the expectations may have been different. Or, to put it another way, if you had to pay to have a Facebook account you may have different expectations about what they will do with the data.
• drewblaisdell 10y ago
  > We wonder why Snapchat first rose to popularity for sexting There isn't good evidence that sexting was ever the primary use case for Snapchat. This is more of a meme than reality.
  • hellbanner 10y ago
    Wish I could find the interview where the founder & friends talk about using it to discretely send photos of their genitals to female students. And given the mindset of him & his fraternity brothers in their emails, this isn't surprising: http://valleywag.gawker.com/fuck-bitches-get-leid-the-sleazy-frat-emails-of-snap-1582604137 http://valleywag.gawker.com/fuck-bitches-get-leid-the-sleazy...
    • stagbeetle 10y ago
      > And given the mindset of him & his fraternity brothers in their emails, this isn't surprising: Tbh, debauchery and sex are what frats are about. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that's been to a large college. Even at the least, you should have a basic understanding that frats are not representative of normal society. Many people have been in frats and transitioned to successful careers (and "toned it down.").
      • sjg007 10y ago
        I think it took a lot of PR and effort to shed that image.
• snarf21 10y ago
  It is a dichotomy. People want to share cause they need followers and likes like a Pavlovian dog. So they vomit every moment to everyone they can in search of another hit of dopamine. Except when someone shares something secret or embarrassing, then they want privacy, but still only for these few things. I think the problem is that we haven't matured as a culture yet to handle this amount of accessibility and sharing. The pendulum is currently in the full share quadrant but will swing back as the consequences of over sharing mount. I expect social media to look vastly different in 10 years time but lessons are only ever truly learned the hard way.
• platz 10y ago
  > People very much care about the privacy of their sex life. Because sex actually has a political dimension (or conscious lack thereof) as well The bedroom is the one refuge from the state/government and you can bet any attempts to take that intimacy away are going to be met with high resistance.
  • stagbeetle 10y ago
    > The bedroom is the one refuge from the state/government and you can bet any attempts to take that intimacy away are going to be met with high resistance. I can assure you, this is not the prevailing reason nor do most adults view the world through this lense. It's purely an emotional knee-jerk, the same as when you see nuclear reactor plans being turned down because of public outcry. There are some things the public is exuberantly irrational about where any deviation will cause business failure.
    • platz 10y ago
      The principle of charity demands when at first glance you want to attribute irrationality to an opponent you should instead seek to understand their motivations instead of simply dismissing them as 'irrational' There are good reasons for nuclear power but it's not irrational to say nuclear power poses risks. The public simply calculates a different expected value in the unlikely event of a problem because the outrage produced by such an event would be so high. Also, It doesn't have to be a conscious lens for it to have an effect on norms/behavior
      • stagbeetle 10y ago
        > The principle of charity demands when at first glance you want to attribute irrationality to an opponent you should instead seek to understand their motivations instead of simply dismissing them as 'irrational' I'm speaking of the U.S.A. Foundations never go away and the U.S.A was founded on puritan values, i.e shameism. There is no motivation, it's a rooted tradition that hasn't been uprooted yet. > There are good reasons for nuclear power but it's not irrational to say nuclear power poses risks. The public simply calculates a different expected value in the unlikely event of a problem because the outrage produced by such an event would be so high. This topic, nuclear vs. similarly-outputting-source, has been beaten to death. Nuclear power is one of the less dangerous, yet high output, sources of energy. The public "eyeballs" their calculations with old data, anecdotes, and inconsistencies. > Also, It doesn't have to be a conscious lens for it to have an effect on norms/behavior Yes, but then it starts to sway towards irrationality. When you can no longer understand the basis for your actions, how can you figure out if they're rational or not? If you don't know your reasons or logic, then by simplification your actions are irrational.
• narrator 10y ago
  The Snowden revelation didn't have any effect because the intelligence agencies are completely above the law.
• pjc50 10y ago
  > Obama isn't remembered for his actions around the NSA Your president's spokeswoman is going on about Obama spying on Trump through his microwave: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/13/kellyanne-conway-trump-wiretap-surveillance-obama https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/13/kellyanne-co... I seem to remember email security being a key election "issue" as well.
  • vonklaus 10y ago
    Maybe you personally know parent poster but I saw nothing indicating "his president" was Donald Trump. This false dichotomy is another poison. Obama was a man, he did good and bad things, and also had no say in others. To pretend a person is above criticism, or that these issues are 2 sided is absurd. This is an instance of what that poster (imo) is talking about. Edit: what user jmyles is talking about. People are close to the median and also outliers. Saying you hate obama (or implying you disagree with a single policy during his administration as that post did) isn't a tacit endorsement or ballot punch for someone running in an unrelated election after he left office. That logic is very flawed
    • callumlocke 10y ago
      pjc50 is probably from outside US, hence "your president" (original comment seems to be by an American as it says "we" about the US)
      • pjc50 10y ago
        Yes. He's "your" president if you're in the US whether you voted for him or not. Unfortunately.
• brilliantcode 10y ago
  The ironic and the most chilling thing is the people in the class action lawsuit aren't remotely aware their sex acts are already all recorded not by dildos but everyday appliances in the bedroom-microphones, cameras, now available to every hacker and selected government employees/contractors. Forfeiture of privacy as a free citizen to higher powers is absolutely okay but if my dildo starts recording how many times I've been penetrated with it and uploads it to the internet-pitchforks for all. Such is the mechanism of the common man/woman/ze. Incapable and unwilling to spend the extra brain power associated with understanding the underlying system but quick to get angry and play the victim when that oversight finally burns him. "A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance." - Some old white guy. In this case those who procrastinated in their acquisition of understanding and knowledge of systems and signed their privacy away, were unable to reverse their outcome when it turned out to be not in their best interests.
• olalonde 10y ago
  > most people don't care about privacy It's an unpopular idea on HN but this.
  • treehau5 10y ago
    People only care about privacy when it directly affects them. If we unveiled how the insurance industry is using / mining / buying social data to hike the rates on people they deem as higher risk, you would have a national debate front and center. As long as it doesn't directly affect them, most people don't care.
    • aianus 10y ago
      They already base my insurance rates primarily on my age and what's between my legs (something I can't control and never could control at all). No outrage. Mining my social data would be a welcome change, honestly. At least they would be trying to use more data points and be competitive.
      • treehau5 10y ago
        > At least they would be trying to use more data points and be competitive. Are you familiar with Actural science?
• thomas-b 10y ago
  There is an interview of Snowden by John Oliver where he comes to that conclusion as well, asking people about the usual things that surfaced and people just meh, then translates it into: gov got your d*ck pick and people get upset a whole lot more
  • pbhjpbhj 10y ago
    I've seen that interview. I lean to the side of "nothing to hide, not bothered". I've never taken pictures of my penis; I assume that it's not really that common. If it is common I'd expect it not to be common for people over maybe 25? Or only common for people who want others to see unsolicited pictures of their genitals. I mean if you did make "dick pics" and were bothered about people seeing them then you likely did it wrong and your ISP had access and your phone provider had access and your backup service provider had access. At that point, why would you - short of guilt - be bothered that the government might have potential access in a situation where you were accused of a crime. If you're on the "nothing to hide" side of things, how does that push you to any other position. In short, it's pithy, and Oliver probably made good talk-show level comments but I don't see it as really being a persuasive way to couch the argument for greater privacy.
    • sjg007 10y ago
      I mean it was used for comedic effect. But imagine in 15-20 years that you want to run for Congress. Anything you emailed, wrote, video chatted about in your past is fair game. For blackmail, to discredit etc... The context doesn't even matter as it can be manipulated. You see this in political attack ads already.
    • Sacho 10y ago
      I believe the underlying idea behind "dick pics" is that people are guided to think of something that is embarrassing to them. When you tell people they should stop using Facebook if they want to protect their privacy, they think of all the things they've freely shared and associate Facebook with positive memories - my friends liked my post, they laughed at it and shared it. When you make them think of "dick pics", they think of something that is taboo to share in most social circles, and associate it with embarrassment/negative memories. The issue is that many of the things people share on Facebook/Twitter/etc are actually "taboo", and people's evaluation of them is just wrong. As an example, the story of Justine Sacco, a person who would arguably be even more aware than the average of the impact of public statements, still did not manage to correctly evaluate that the things she was sharing on Twitter would lead to a serious backlash and witch hunt against her. The worst part is, you won't necessarily get instant feedback, like Justine did. You may post something "among your friends"(in reality, publicly on Twitter), all your friends may agree with you, and then several years down the line you will be judged by a completely different social group, looking through your records. We don't tend to accommodate evolution in people's beliefs as much as we do for ourselves - try the defense "I'm not that kind of person anymore" to strangers and see how often it works out(no need to try on your own, just check out how easy convicted felons have it when trying to reintegrate into society).
• M_Grey 10y ago
  People do care about privacy, but they don't understand how they can improve it or how their actions impact it. Then they are endlessly marketed to and told that a networked dildo is going to make their lives better, and hey, everyone else is doing it! People have been very steadily cooked from a low heat, and they're just starting to realize that it's getting hot in there. Unfortunately, like the frog, it brings them no closer to understanding the cause, their contribution, or any obvious solutions. ...And frankly when so many people here use FB, I find it hard to judge them.
• Johnny555 10y ago
  Your average American didn't understand or get worked up over Snowden and the prospect of a surveillance state... People very much care about the privacy of their sex life. Is there any reason to think that the average person actually cares about it in this case? This appears to be a class action suit with anonymous plaintiffs - I'm a member of lots of class action suits that I really don't care about, not even enough to return the post card to make me eligible for the $5 or whatever the paltry payout ends up being.
• follower 10y ago
  > Did this company violate their own privacy policy? The original suit claims "Defendant never informed Plaintiff that it would monitor, collect, and transmit her Usage Information" and "Plaintiff never provided her consent to Defendant to monitor, collect, and transmit her Usage Information". And the proposed settlement requires changes to disclosure statements. > but didn't actually do anything beyond collect standard usage data. Leaving aside the disclosure question, the product category itself raises the question of what do we consider "standard usage data" in this context? (We talk a bit about this aspect in our DEF CON presentation follow-up TEDx talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxRSjC1rPmA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxRSjC1rPmA ) The app transmitted: time of use (ergo duration); internal device temperature; and, real-time pattern & intensity settings. It was also aware of geographic location of the people using the app. Why does the later matter? At a minimum because adult toys are illegal in some locations. There's already examples of home automation units, car telemetry loggers and heart pacemakers being used in law enforcement investigations so it's not a stretch to imagine real-time sex toy data also being used. I believe that developers and manufacturers have a responsibility to the people who choose to buy/use their software/devices to not just "collect all the data" particularly when their product is of an intimate & personal nature.