4 ms·

The point is not whether this method is "sufficiently anonymous", the point is: I don't want my browser to collect any kind of data.

by xaldir 9y ago

Ajedi32 9y ago
Why? No, seriously; why? I don't get this mentality at all. Let's ignore the exact implementation here for a moment, and assume that Firefox is somehow magically doing this data collection in such a way that it is guaranteed the data collected cannot be traced back to you as an individual. (E.g. "sufficiently anonymous".) What problem do you have with that, specifically? How does this harm you in any way?
- 0134340 9y ago
  If it's through "secure" code, you can't always guarantee it in the future nor what Mozilla does with this data in the future. Also it doesn't set a good precedent to proceed in this direction of opt-out behavior in Firefox.
  - Ajedi32 9y ago
    In this case, it's not through secure code though, it's through the nature of the data being sent itself. Differential privacy is meant to ensure you _can't_ use the data to make any sort of inferences about individual users; only about users as a whole. That's kinda beside the point here though, as the GP seemed to be against collecting this data _regardless_ of whether or not it's anonymized or not. I'm interested in hearing why.
- quickben 9y ago
  Then why promote the browser as such? Remove all "we respect privacy" from the advertisement. It's misleading.
  - Ajedi32 9y ago
    Because data collection that is "sufficiently anonymous" _does_ respect privacy. If it's completely impossible to tie the data collected to any one particular user, how does the existence of that data compromise privacy in any way?
    - quickben 9y ago
      We can go into an amazing yet pointless semantical argument of what "privacy" means. But let's look at this from a different perspective: I like your faith. However, if this change goes in, and the capability is there, it will get misused. Because, statistically that's how these things go on this planet+capitalism.
      - Ajedi32 9y ago
        Actually, the way they're implementing this, even if Mozilla decided to try to misuse the data in the future, they still wouldn't be able to, since the data itself is "sufficiently anonymous" (unless of course you want to argue otherwise, like the root comment was suggesting you do). Or are you saying you're worried that they could _start_ collecting non-anonymized data in the future? If so, I don't really get that argument either. People always have the ability to change what they're going to do in the future, Mozilla deciding now not to collect this data wouldn't change that.
- kuschku 9y ago
  It’s a question of consent. Imagine I came to your house, and photocopied all your documents. Don’t worry, I blanked out the name, so it’s completely anonymous, and everything is where it used to be. Would you be okay with that? I certainly wouldn’t. Making this opt-in or opt-out is a question of consent, and choosing opt-out shows that you don’t give a flying fuck about me, and only want your own benefit.
  - dang 9y ago
    If you continue to post uncivil comments to HN we are going to ban you. You've had many more warnings than usual. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - kuschku 9y ago
      What is uncivil in this comment? I’m sorry, but I don’t see anything problematic in there, and I’d say the same to anyone’s face IRL, given the same circumstances. There is a swearword used, but it’s not in the context in any way uncivil, as the plural "you" that it is referring to is an abstract person, a hypothetical entity – not any actually involved person. (In this case, the potential future group of people at Mozilla who might decide to override an explicit choice I made for their own convenience)
      - dang 9y ago
        Profanity isn't an issue on HN but "you don’t give a flying fuck about me, and only want your own benefit" is not, to my ear, the sort of thing one says to an abstract entity.
        kuschku 9y ago
        Have you also read the "and choosing opt-out" before that? The topic is a choice that Mozilla plans to make, and is questioning users, and more about. The decision has not been made. My argument is that, if Mozilla (and whatever users Mozilla asks to give an opinion), choose to override the current decisions of users who do not want telemetry, and require a new hidden opt-out, then that would be proof that they (as group) don’t really care about the users choices. The user I was talking to has no power in making that choice, nor do I. Nor is all of Mozilla making that choice. I was using "you" with the meaning of the German word "man", (I’m natively German): one; you; they; people (indefinite pronoun; construed as a third-person singular).
- xaldir 9y ago
  And I don't get the mentality where I should justify why I don't want my tools to report what I am doing. I'm ok with testing things and sending feedback, but when I switch to a production environment, I just want my tools to behave like my tools, not the testing farm for somebody else. Why should I prove to you that it would harm me? I just do not want it, it should be enough.
  - Ajedi32 9y ago
    I don't know, to me that's a bit like running a torrent client and expecting the default setting to be "no seeding, download only". After all, the torrent client is _your_ tool, right? Why should it do anything except the bare minimum required to download the files you want? Why waste upload bandwidth on something that doesn't benefit the user? Obviously that's ridiculous, right? If the default setting was to not seed, torrent clients would be much less useful for everyone involved. Browsers sending usage stats are much the same way. While no individual user benefits from _their machine_ sending those statistics, it's better for the user population as a whole if the default setting is to send them, since those stats help the browser vendor build a better browser. (And before you cry "privacy", remember that in this context we're talking about a situation where the statistics are being sent in a way that is "sufficiently anonymous" such that privacy isn't an issue. See the GP.) So while I agree you certainly should have the right to disable sending usage statistics if you wish (just as many Torrent clients let you disable seeding), expecting that to be the default setting is a bit strange.

The point is not whether this method is "sufficiently anonymous", the point is: I don't want my browser to collect any kind of data.

by xaldir 9y ago

The point is not whether this method is "sufficiently anonymous", the point is: I don't want my browser to collect any kind of data.

Ajedi32 9y ago

Why? No, seriously; why? I don't get this mentality at all. Let's ignore the exact implementation here for a moment, and assume that Firefox is somehow magically doing this data collection in such a way that it is guaranteed the data collected cannot be traced back to you as an individual. (E.g. "sufficiently anonymous".) What problem do you have with that, specifically? How does this harm you in any way?

0134340 9y ago
If it's through "secure" code, you can't always guarantee it in the future nor what Mozilla does with this data in the future. Also it doesn't set a good precedent to proceed in this direction of opt-out behavior in Firefox.
- Ajedi32 9y ago
  In this case, it's not through secure code though, it's through the nature of the data being sent itself. Differential privacy is meant to ensure you _can't_ use the data to make any sort of inferences about individual users; only about users as a whole. That's kinda beside the point here though, as the GP seemed to be against collecting this data _regardless_ of whether or not it's anonymized or not. I'm interested in hearing why.
quickben 9y ago
Then why promote the browser as such? Remove all "we respect privacy" from the advertisement. It's misleading.
- Ajedi32 9y ago
  Because data collection that is "sufficiently anonymous" _does_ respect privacy. If it's completely impossible to tie the data collected to any one particular user, how does the existence of that data compromise privacy in any way?
  - quickben 9y ago
    We can go into an amazing yet pointless semantical argument of what "privacy" means. But let's look at this from a different perspective: I like your faith. However, if this change goes in, and the capability is there, it will get misused. Because, statistically that's how these things go on this planet+capitalism.
    - Ajedi32 9y ago
      Actually, the way they're implementing this, even if Mozilla decided to try to misuse the data in the future, they still wouldn't be able to, since the data itself is "sufficiently anonymous" (unless of course you want to argue otherwise, like the root comment was suggesting you do). Or are you saying you're worried that they could _start_ collecting non-anonymized data in the future? If so, I don't really get that argument either. People always have the ability to change what they're going to do in the future, Mozilla deciding now not to collect this data wouldn't change that.
kuschku 9y ago
It’s a question of consent. Imagine I came to your house, and photocopied all your documents. Don’t worry, I blanked out the name, so it’s completely anonymous, and everything is where it used to be. Would you be okay with that? I certainly wouldn’t. Making this opt-in or opt-out is a question of consent, and choosing opt-out shows that you don’t give a flying fuck about me, and only want your own benefit.
- dang 9y ago
  If you continue to post uncivil comments to HN we are going to ban you. You've had many more warnings than usual. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - kuschku 9y ago
    What is uncivil in this comment? I’m sorry, but I don’t see anything problematic in there, and I’d say the same to anyone’s face IRL, given the same circumstances. There is a swearword used, but it’s not in the context in any way uncivil, as the plural "you" that it is referring to is an abstract person, a hypothetical entity – not any actually involved person. (In this case, the potential future group of people at Mozilla who might decide to override an explicit choice I made for their own convenience)
    - dang 9y ago
      Profanity isn't an issue on HN but "you don’t give a flying fuck about me, and only want your own benefit" is not, to my ear, the sort of thing one says to an abstract entity.
      - kuschku 9y ago
        Have you also read the "and choosing opt-out" before that? The topic is a choice that Mozilla plans to make, and is questioning users, and more about. The decision has not been made. My argument is that, if Mozilla (and whatever users Mozilla asks to give an opinion), choose to override the current decisions of users who do not want telemetry, and require a new hidden opt-out, then that would be proof that they (as group) don’t really care about the users choices. The user I was talking to has no power in making that choice, nor do I. Nor is all of Mozilla making that choice. I was using "you" with the meaning of the German word "man", (I’m natively German): one; you; they; people (indefinite pronoun; construed as a third-person singular).
xaldir 9y ago
And I don't get the mentality where I should justify why I don't want my tools to report what I am doing. I'm ok with testing things and sending feedback, but when I switch to a production environment, I just want my tools to behave like my tools, not the testing farm for somebody else. Why should I prove to you that it would harm me? I just do not want it, it should be enough.
- Ajedi32 9y ago
  I don't know, to me that's a bit like running a torrent client and expecting the default setting to be "no seeding, download only". After all, the torrent client is _your_ tool, right? Why should it do anything except the bare minimum required to download the files you want? Why waste upload bandwidth on something that doesn't benefit the user? Obviously that's ridiculous, right? If the default setting was to not seed, torrent clients would be much less useful for everyone involved. Browsers sending usage stats are much the same way. While no individual user benefits from _their machine_ sending those statistics, it's better for the user population as a whole if the default setting is to send them, since those stats help the browser vendor build a better browser. (And before you cry "privacy", remember that in this context we're talking about a situation where the statistics are being sent in a way that is "sufficiently anonymous" such that privacy isn't an issue. See the GP.) So while I agree you certainly should have the right to disable sending usage statistics if you wish (just as many Torrent clients let you disable seeding), expecting that to be the default setting is a bit strange.