6 ms·

"Opting out doesn’t work. It’s nonsense to tell people not to carry a credit card or not to have an email address. And “buyer beware” is putting too much onus o

"Opting out doesn’t work. It’s nonsense to tell people not to carry a credit card or not to have an email address. And “buyer beware” is putting too much onus on the individual. People don’t test their food for pathogens or their airlines for safety." This is a brilliant line and it works so well because he is absolutely right: it should not be on the burden of the consumer to make sure their products are safe, be it from listeria or a spy device disguised as a children's toy. I don't know what needs to happen for people to get outraged, but privacy needs to be a mainstream political issue. Perhaps we need to see what Google and Facebook actually have on us...

ProAm 9y ago
> but privacy needs to be a mainstream political issue Honestly most people don't care and money talks... This is the new normal, better get used to it. This fight was lost a long time ago.
- kerkeslager 9y ago
  Yes, money talks. Which is why free software that is guaranteed to stay free is a resilient solution if we can develop it. Privacy violations exist so middle men can make money. Cutting out the middle men solves the privacy problem AND motivates people by saving them money.
  - ProAm 9y ago
    > Cutting out the middle men solves the privacy problem AND motivates people by saving them money. Too many middle men. How many middle men are inbetween you and me right now with this post? Probably 5 companies at a min? People are interested in saving money but not at the expense of their time or convenience. I agree with you, but it's just never going to happen.
    - kerkeslager 9y ago
      There is definite value in cutting out a few of those middlemen or even just decreasing their capabilities.
- sova 9y ago
  Cryptography is not magic, and it will become the standard. Privacy can either be provided, demanded, or created. Since nobody wants to demand it, and it is not being provided, there is only one option.
  - Zigurd 9y ago
    I would add that unless data security is the default, it is ineffective. Moreover, it's demonstrably false that data security is hard on usability. Skype became popular because easy-to-use data security made it possible to build a p2p communications product. Most users didn't know or care they were using encrypted communications.
  - phlo 9y ago
    Yes, cryptography will become the standard. No, that won't protect you from the little brothers mentioned in the interview. Your email will travel securely, so the government can't read it. It'll travel securely from Chrome on your Android device to a server somewhere in a Google datacenter. Your web browsing will be encrypted with https, so your ISP will need to use their DNS logs and traffic analysis in order to deduce parts of your browsing history. If you turn off location services, your location won't be stored with Apple, but your Telco needs to know in which cell your phone is located in order to route calls there. And it'd be a terrible waste to just throw that data away the day after, now wouldn't it. Encryption helps. And we need encryption. Everywhere, and as quickly as possible. But privacy is also political issue, and a technical solution alone won't resolve it, no matter how advanced. Oh, and not to forget: Ease of use is the way to mind share, not security. WhatsApp is by far the most widespread secure messenger. Not because of its security; in fact its security used to be terrible. The way in was ease of use, with security added to the mix at a later time. And, more importantly, without disrupting the user experience.
- confounded 9y ago
  Not really. Surveillance as the primary way essential services are paid for is, in relative terms, an extremely new business model, and one that's already adverse to meaningful competition. It's escaped regulation so far mainly as a product of public ignorance and private lobbying. The EU and independent US states are already starting to legislate for consumer/citizen protections. The public response has generally been positive. It's easy to forget that 'surveillance capitalism' was seen by most outside of our bubble as a trivial little industry until fairly recently.
  - ProAm 9y ago
    Surveillance? If the government doesn't monitor us directly they will just go after all the products and services that we use that monitors us already. I dont even think Im being pessimistic here but the line in the sand for legitimate privacy was drawn about a decade ago and we crossed that line. I really think this is the new norm, it's like asking us to use on-prem hardware instead of AWS, sure it's still an option but hardly anyone cares where the hardware is... This is just how it is now.
    - confounded 9y ago
      Wouldn't people have said the same about cable TV in the 90s, CFCs in the 80s, slavery, child labor, etc. etc. ad nauseam? I believe that the system is democratic enough that if people are organized and ask governments nicely, they can have privacy protections. It's really only Google and Facebook that profit substantially from this crap, and there are good arguments that it would be beneficial to the rest of the economy to knock a bit of wind out of their sails for a while (a more diverse range of competitors, a stimulant to VC-investment to try new monetization strategies). Disruption can happen democratically, too!
- guelo 9y ago
  We have representatives that are supposed to care about these types of technical issues so we don't have to. In our republican form of government their job is to make sure that government is working for us. The real problem is that billionaires and corporations have convinced a significant portion of the public that government is evil and should be destroyed and that any kind of commercial restraint is un-american communism.
  - samstave 9y ago
    >>money talks >>>representatives that are supposed to care You can do the math.
    - guelo 9y ago
      I think there's more to it than that. A significant portion of the public sincerely believes that the government should not regulate anything.
      - samstave 9y ago
        Yeah - its not an easy statement... For your privacy protections you must fill out the proper regulations in triplicate: * Be white * Be American* (all restrictions apply) * Be not poor * Be ignorant (Provision already covered under the US Department of Education, so likely you qualify if you dont meet "not poor" provision) * Do not understand politics * etc other factors
      - KGIII 9y ago
        I am in that camp. Except, I'm very much on the left side of the political spectrum. I don't think the government should prohibit this behavior. I would rather they established regulations that ensured notice was given and loss/abuse of this data was prosecuted.
- samstave 9y ago
  "people dont care" There are pleny of ppl that care. the problem is the tools allotted to them to affect change.... ...few....
Gys 9y ago
The comparison that Bruce Schneider makes is not correct. Governments are likely to control food pathogens and airline risks because they need living, productive, happy voters. But governments have also a fundamental distrust for all individuals and therefore want as much surveillance as possible. By allowing big companies to collect that, they have access as well. Therefore I think governments are not motivated to improve privacy at all. On the contrary.
- Anderkent 9y ago
  That's an explanation of how this is happening, not an argument that it should happen. What governments do is not some mysterious black-box that we can't influence.
  - ballenf 9y ago
    I think we've all seen the story over and over: populist politician gets in power and forgets everything. They start to sacrifice principles in return for staying in power in order to ostensibly do the right thing later. But later never comes. So, maybe theoretically we can influence, but understanding the nature of what a self-interested, pragmatic government beaurocrat values is incredibly important. I think the parent comment and idea behind it needs to be explored further. Maybe there is a solution, but it will perhaps require an entirely new type of government. Democracies, as we know them, don't seem capable of solving this problem.
    - clarkmoody 9y ago
      > populist politician gets in power and forgets everything. They start to sacrifice principles in return for staying in power in order to ostensibly do the right thing later. But later never comes. Remove the word "populist" and you've just described most politicians ;-)
    - zipwitch 9y ago
      Politicians aren't the problem. They don't exist in a vaccuum. They're a symptom. Democracy is only the problem insofar as we (here in the US) do not have one, we just pretend we do. Democracy and Republic both mean a government by the public. Voting once a year, donating money, and writing stuff on the net are utterly inadequate for that end. Public government needs educated and involved citizenry. It means putting in quite a bit of time.
nxsynonym 9y ago
This is the crux of the whole privacy issue for me. I understand there is way too much money in advertising, and therefore data collection, to ever go away. What I want in an ideal world is transparency. If I opt-in to using web services that collect + sell my browsing data, I want to know what data is collected, how much, and who it is sold to and for what. Then I can make an informed decision about the services I'm utilizing and if I think they are handling data responsibly. As far as I'm concerned, targeted ads are fine. If you're going to berate me with visual pollution for crap I don't need, at least let it be somewhat relevant to my life. What I don't want is "targeted information", "curation", or any other buzz word that describes showing me filtered content based on an algorithm. Of course that is already happening, but it could be much, much worse.
- svachalek 9y ago
  Ideally instead of a wall of text preceding the use of a service, or even worse hidden away somewhere under a fine-print footer link, I'd like to see services have to do something like this: "You've just entered some search text. May we store this text and future search queries? [ ] yes, anonymously to help suggest searches for other users [ ] yes, along with your user name to help refine future searches, and to improve the targeting of our advertising [ ] oh god no, forget I asked" When clicking a search result: "Before we redirect you to this page, may we record the fact that you clicked on it? (similar choices)" And as they build up history: "From information you've previously allowed us to save and information we've bought from authorized third parties, we've determined that you are a 35-year old green-skinned right-wing vegetarian with the following sexual fetishes: <redacted>. May we share this information with our advertisers?" I would hope things would change if permissions were this explicit.
  - yellow_postit 9y ago
    This would quickly become the incessant prompts about cookie usage that the UK enforces. Like most alerts users quickly become blind to them and click through to get to what they are trying to accomplish.
    - 9y ago
samstave 9y ago
>privacy needs to be a mainstream political issue There was a great piece on NPR this weekend: They developed StingRay and what-not cell tracking devices to fight terror, then Obama expanded it, now Trump is "doubling down" on using surveillance tech to find and deport illegals -- and the government is paying police depts to have the tech... Snowden was right, and now, its way worse. What is even more abhorrent than this, is that tech companies (yes even ones that YC is funding) collude with government for expanding even deeper.
dalbasal 9y ago
At least part of the problem is that no one knows exactly what the fix should be, legislatively. How do you define what info Google and Facebook shouldn't be able to collect?
snarf21 9y ago
It is very hard to turn privacy into a mainstream issue when billions of people actively share everything they see and do online to everyone all for a dopamine "like" fix it. Of course, they want it both ways. Share only what they want and all other things should be private. Humorous anecdote: A few years a ago, an old colleague of mine got fired and posted all kinds of negative things about the company all over Facebook. The company got word of some of this (slander? libel?) and contacted her via an attorney to stop or be sued. This person then made a post on Facebook about how "... people need to mind their own business!". I think the irony was completely lost on them.
jrvidal 9y ago
> Perhaps we need to see what Google and Facebook actually have on us... What do you have in mind?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- nebabyte 9y ago
  FOIA requests! /s
  - goialoq 9y ago
    https://myaccount.google.com/ https://myaccount.google.com/
kiliantics 9y ago
> Perhaps we need to see what Google and Facebook actually have on us... A great approach to spreading awareness is doing exactly this. There are groups like the one linked below who have been staging immersive theatre pieces which simulate a scenario where a devious actor has gained access to your data. And they do this with the audience's actual social media data (voluntarily given and erased after the show) so that the implications really hit home to them. https://quantifiedselfless.tumblr.com/ https://quantifiedselfless.tumblr.com/
SN76477 9y ago
I think the solution is simple.. yet unethical. Expose politicians personal data. Privacy will quickly become much more important.
savanaly 9y ago
>I don't know what needs to happen for people to get outraged, but privacy needs to be a mainstream political issue. Almost totally orthogonal to discussions about how bad lack of privacy is getting, but the answer to the question posed is certainly any tangibly bad results of lack of privacy in my everyday life, ever. Which there really are none, so far. Certainly none that the average person would attribute to lack of privacy.
- Zarath 9y ago
  The consequences are distributed over a long period of time, whereas the convenience of ignoring privacy is very tangible and immediate.
- grwthckrmstr 9y ago
  Availability bias. You're not able to see it around you, or immediately. It doesn't mean there's no effect.
saimiam 9y ago
> Perhaps we need to see what Google and Facebook actually have on us... Maybe we should hit them where it hurts by actively promoting and cajoling friends and family to use adblockers. Collect all the information you want, Big Internet, but good luck monetizing it.
clarkmoody 9y ago
> privacy needs to be a mainstream political issue No way. The political process will not produce a workable, sustainable, reasonable solution. The only way that privacy becomes important to existing large companies is if their users demand it -- and leave for competitors if they don't get it. I'm afraid that average people don't understand why privacy is important, and it will take a change in cultural mindset to improve the situation (read: a generation). Another (and better) way for users to regain privacy is a technological shift in which new companies with a better business model and technology replace the current batch of incumbents. This is the more likely outcome, as billion-dollar profits tend to make companies conservative and ripe for disruption.
- zpghjll 9y ago
  The political process should represent the will of the people and find solutions that represent the will of the people. The free market is not necessarily the best solution because it is arguable that we don't really live in a free market; consumers aren't all that educated or rational. The problem is that companies will find ways to subvert their users into thinking privacy is not important. They already have a large captive audience and they can condition then to think as they please.
  - clarkmoody 9y ago
    I do not share your faith in democracy :-) At best, the government represents the will of a voting majority and imposes it upon the rest of the population. So what you really have is minority rule. Look at public funding for science, NASA budget, etc to see the "will of the people" in action on technical topics. > consumers aren't all that educated or rational Be that as it may, I would rather make decisions for myself than have them made on my behalf, "for my own good," by someone who doesn't know me and whom I will never meet.
    - specialist 9y ago
      Have you lobbied? Testified? Met with any of your legislators, representatives, councilmembers? Other forms of participation? Voting is the smallest part of democracy.
amelius 9y ago
> Perhaps we need to see what Google and Facebook actually have on us... I'm still curious about the worst case. What are some doom scenarios?
- Rotareti 9y ago
  Orwell 1984
colordrops 9y ago
The elephant in the room is that most of the information people get today is filtered through the same entities that are benefiting from all of these privacy invasions. The conflict of interest is real and intense. That doesn't even touch on the other prong of the problem, being that the ones responsible for legislating privacy rights also benefiting greatly from the lack of it.
EGreg 9y ago
The question is, can the curation and rating be done by private agencies like Zagat instead of the Meat Inspection Act? Can it be turtles all the way down? Or must there be monopolies?
mirimir 9y ago
It's impractical to opt out, yes. But one can compartmentalize. So I have a rich online life using my real name. But it's not in English. Everything that Mirimir does online is interlinked. But it's not at all linked to my real name. Or to my other online personas. For sure, I'm a zealot about this. I use nested VPN chains and Tor, and multiple VMs on multiple hosts. But anyone can use a VPN service that respects privacy. Such as AirVPN, IVPN or PIA. Not HideMyAss, however ;)
- goialoq 9y ago
  insufficient. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/21/fbi-cracks-silk-road/2984921/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/21/fbi-cr...
  - mirimir 9y ago
    It was stupid mistakes that led to takedowns of Silk Road, KickassTorrents, The Love Zone, Sheep Marketplace, AlphaBay, and Sabu de LulzSec. However, Operation Onymous did rely on Tor deanonymization data provided by CMU researchers to the FBI. The CMU group had exploited a bug in Tor to get ISP-assigned IPs for numerous users and onion servers. Even so, Operation Onymous would arguably have failed if those users and onion servers had accessed Tor through nested chains of at least three VPN services. And used firewall rules, and isolated VPN and Tor gateways in separate machines/VMs. Isolated from workspace machines/VMs. Also, operators and users of those onion servers would have remained safe if they had done the same. In a few other cases, such as Freedom Hosting and Playpen, the FBI used NIT malware to deanonymize users of onion sites that had already been confiscated. The malware bypassed Tor to send IPs and other information to FBI servers. But only Windows users were affected, because the NIT only ran on Windows. Also, users that used firewall rules and/or separate Tor gateway machines (such as Whonix) were unaffected. And finally, even Tor browser users would have remained safe if they had accessed Tor through nested chains of at least three VPN services. So yes, use nested chains of at least three VPN services to access Tor. And watch your OPSEC. Compartmentalize, compartmentalize, compartmentalize! So, the approach is insufficient only if you're sloppy.
dickbasedregex 9y ago
I've given up on people being outraged or even informed. Maybe I should just say I've given up on people.

ProAm 9y ago

> but privacy needs to be a mainstream political issue Honestly most people don't care and money talks... This is the new normal, better get used to it. This fight was lost a long time ago.

kerkeslager 9y ago
Yes, money talks. Which is why free software that is guaranteed to stay free is a resilient solution if we can develop it. Privacy violations exist so middle men can make money. Cutting out the middle men solves the privacy problem AND motivates people by saving them money.
- ProAm 9y ago
  > Cutting out the middle men solves the privacy problem AND motivates people by saving them money. Too many middle men. How many middle men are inbetween you and me right now with this post? Probably 5 companies at a min? People are interested in saving money but not at the expense of their time or convenience. I agree with you, but it's just never going to happen.
  - kerkeslager 9y ago
    There is definite value in cutting out a few of those middlemen or even just decreasing their capabilities.
sova 9y ago
Cryptography is not magic, and it will become the standard. Privacy can either be provided, demanded, or created. Since nobody wants to demand it, and it is not being provided, there is only one option.
- Zigurd 9y ago
  I would add that unless data security is the default, it is ineffective. Moreover, it's demonstrably false that data security is hard on usability. Skype became popular because easy-to-use data security made it possible to build a p2p communications product. Most users didn't know or care they were using encrypted communications.
- phlo 9y ago
  Yes, cryptography will become the standard. No, that won't protect you from the little brothers mentioned in the interview. Your email will travel securely, so the government can't read it. It'll travel securely from Chrome on your Android device to a server somewhere in a Google datacenter. Your web browsing will be encrypted with https, so your ISP will need to use their DNS logs and traffic analysis in order to deduce parts of your browsing history. If you turn off location services, your location won't be stored with Apple, but your Telco needs to know in which cell your phone is located in order to route calls there. And it'd be a terrible waste to just throw that data away the day after, now wouldn't it. Encryption helps. And we need encryption. Everywhere, and as quickly as possible. But privacy is also political issue, and a technical solution alone won't resolve it, no matter how advanced. Oh, and not to forget: Ease of use is the way to mind share, not security. WhatsApp is by far the most widespread secure messenger. Not because of its security; in fact its security used to be terrible. The way in was ease of use, with security added to the mix at a later time. And, more importantly, without disrupting the user experience.
confounded 9y ago
Not really. Surveillance as the primary way essential services are paid for is, in relative terms, an extremely new business model, and one that's already adverse to meaningful competition. It's escaped regulation so far mainly as a product of public ignorance and private lobbying. The EU and independent US states are already starting to legislate for consumer/citizen protections. The public response has generally been positive. It's easy to forget that 'surveillance capitalism' was seen by most outside of our bubble as a trivial little industry until fairly recently.
- ProAm 9y ago
  Surveillance? If the government doesn't monitor us directly they will just go after all the products and services that we use that monitors us already. I dont even think Im being pessimistic here but the line in the sand for legitimate privacy was drawn about a decade ago and we crossed that line. I really think this is the new norm, it's like asking us to use on-prem hardware instead of AWS, sure it's still an option but hardly anyone cares where the hardware is... This is just how it is now.
  - confounded 9y ago
    Wouldn't people have said the same about cable TV in the 90s, CFCs in the 80s, slavery, child labor, etc. etc. ad nauseam? I believe that the system is democratic enough that if people are organized and ask governments nicely, they can have privacy protections. It's really only Google and Facebook that profit substantially from this crap, and there are good arguments that it would be beneficial to the rest of the economy to knock a bit of wind out of their sails for a while (a more diverse range of competitors, a stimulant to VC-investment to try new monetization strategies). Disruption can happen democratically, too!
guelo 9y ago
We have representatives that are supposed to care about these types of technical issues so we don't have to. In our republican form of government their job is to make sure that government is working for us. The real problem is that billionaires and corporations have convinced a significant portion of the public that government is evil and should be destroyed and that any kind of commercial restraint is un-american communism.
- samstave 9y ago
  >>money talks >>>representatives that are supposed to care You can do the math.
  - guelo 9y ago
    I think there's more to it than that. A significant portion of the public sincerely believes that the government should not regulate anything.
    - samstave 9y ago
      Yeah - its not an easy statement... For your privacy protections you must fill out the proper regulations in triplicate: * Be white * Be American* (all restrictions apply) * Be not poor * Be ignorant (Provision already covered under the US Department of Education, so likely you qualify if you dont meet "not poor" provision) * Do not understand politics * etc other factors
    - KGIII 9y ago
      I am in that camp. Except, I'm very much on the left side of the political spectrum. I don't think the government should prohibit this behavior. I would rather they established regulations that ensured notice was given and loss/abuse of this data was prosecuted.
samstave 9y ago
"people dont care" There are pleny of ppl that care. the problem is the tools allotted to them to affect change.... ...few....

Gys 9y ago

The comparison that Bruce Schneider makes is not correct. Governments are likely to control food pathogens and airline risks because they need living, productive, happy voters. But governments have also a fundamental distrust for all individuals and therefore want as much surveillance as possible. By allowing big companies to collect that, they have access as well. Therefore I think governments are not motivated to improve privacy at all. On the contrary.

Anderkent 9y ago
That's an explanation of how this is happening, not an argument that it should happen. What governments do is not some mysterious black-box that we can't influence.
- ballenf 9y ago
  I think we've all seen the story over and over: populist politician gets in power and forgets everything. They start to sacrifice principles in return for staying in power in order to ostensibly do the right thing later. But later never comes. So, maybe theoretically we can influence, but understanding the nature of what a self-interested, pragmatic government beaurocrat values is incredibly important. I think the parent comment and idea behind it needs to be explored further. Maybe there is a solution, but it will perhaps require an entirely new type of government. Democracies, as we know them, don't seem capable of solving this problem.
  - clarkmoody 9y ago
    > populist politician gets in power and forgets everything. They start to sacrifice principles in return for staying in power in order to ostensibly do the right thing later. But later never comes. Remove the word "populist" and you've just described most politicians ;-)
  - zipwitch 9y ago
    Politicians aren't the problem. They don't exist in a vaccuum. They're a symptom. Democracy is only the problem insofar as we (here in the US) do not have one, we just pretend we do. Democracy and Republic both mean a government by the public. Voting once a year, donating money, and writing stuff on the net are utterly inadequate for that end. Public government needs educated and involved citizenry. It means putting in quite a bit of time.

nxsynonym 9y ago

This is the crux of the whole privacy issue for me. I understand there is way too much money in advertising, and therefore data collection, to ever go away. What I want in an ideal world is transparency. If I opt-in to using web services that collect + sell my browsing data, I want to know what data is collected, how much, and who it is sold to and for what. Then I can make an informed decision about the services I'm utilizing and if I think they are handling data responsibly. As far as I'm concerned, targeted ads are fine. If you're going to berate me with visual pollution for crap I don't need, at least let it be somewhat relevant to my life. What I don't want is "targeted information", "curation", or any other buzz word that describes showing me filtered content based on an algorithm. Of course that is already happening, but it could be much, much worse.

svachalek 9y ago
Ideally instead of a wall of text preceding the use of a service, or even worse hidden away somewhere under a fine-print footer link, I'd like to see services have to do something like this: "You've just entered some search text. May we store this text and future search queries? [ ] yes, anonymously to help suggest searches for other users [ ] yes, along with your user name to help refine future searches, and to improve the targeting of our advertising [ ] oh god no, forget I asked" When clicking a search result: "Before we redirect you to this page, may we record the fact that you clicked on it? (similar choices)" And as they build up history: "From information you've previously allowed us to save and information we've bought from authorized third parties, we've determined that you are a 35-year old green-skinned right-wing vegetarian with the following sexual fetishes: <redacted>. May we share this information with our advertisers?" I would hope things would change if permissions were this explicit.
- yellow_postit 9y ago
  This would quickly become the incessant prompts about cookie usage that the UK enforces. Like most alerts users quickly become blind to them and click through to get to what they are trying to accomplish.
  - 9y ago

samstave 9y ago

>privacy needs to be a mainstream political issue There was a great piece on NPR this weekend: They developed StingRay and what-not cell tracking devices to fight terror, then Obama expanded it, now Trump is "doubling down" on using surveillance tech to find and deport illegals -- and the government is paying police depts to have the tech... Snowden was right, and now, its way worse. What is even more abhorrent than this, is that tech companies (yes even ones that YC is funding) collude with government for expanding even deeper.

dalbasal 9y ago

At least part of the problem is that no one knows exactly what the fix should be, legislatively. How do you define what info Google and Facebook shouldn't be able to collect?

snarf21 9y ago

It is very hard to turn privacy into a mainstream issue when billions of people actively share everything they see and do online to everyone all for a dopamine "like" fix it. Of course, they want it both ways. Share only what they want and all other things should be private. Humorous anecdote: A few years a ago, an old colleague of mine got fired and posted all kinds of negative things about the company all over Facebook. The company got word of some of this (slander? libel?) and contacted her via an attorney to stop or be sued. This person then made a post on Facebook about how "... people need to mind their own business!". I think the irony was completely lost on them.

jrvidal 9y ago

> Perhaps we need to see what Google and Facebook actually have on us... What do you have in mind?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
nebabyte 9y ago
FOIA requests! /s
- goialoq 9y ago
  https://myaccount.google.com/ https://myaccount.google.com/

kiliantics 9y ago

> Perhaps we need to see what Google and Facebook actually have on us... A great approach to spreading awareness is doing exactly this. There are groups like the one linked below who have been staging immersive theatre pieces which simulate a scenario where a devious actor has gained access to your data. And they do this with the audience's actual social media data (voluntarily given and erased after the show) so that the implications really hit home to them. https://quantifiedselfless.tumblr.com/ https://quantifiedselfless.tumblr.com/

SN76477 9y ago

I think the solution is simple.. yet unethical. Expose politicians personal data. Privacy will quickly become much more important.

savanaly 9y ago

>I don't know what needs to happen for people to get outraged, but privacy needs to be a mainstream political issue. Almost totally orthogonal to discussions about how bad lack of privacy is getting, but the answer to the question posed is certainly any tangibly bad results of lack of privacy in my everyday life, ever. Which there really are none, so far. Certainly none that the average person would attribute to lack of privacy.

Zarath 9y ago
The consequences are distributed over a long period of time, whereas the convenience of ignoring privacy is very tangible and immediate.
grwthckrmstr 9y ago
Availability bias. You're not able to see it around you, or immediately. It doesn't mean there's no effect.

saimiam 9y ago

> Perhaps we need to see what Google and Facebook actually have on us... Maybe we should hit them where it hurts by actively promoting and cajoling friends and family to use adblockers. Collect all the information you want, Big Internet, but good luck monetizing it.

clarkmoody 9y ago

> privacy needs to be a mainstream political issue No way. The political process will not produce a workable, sustainable, reasonable solution. The only way that privacy becomes important to existing large companies is if their users demand it -- and leave for competitors if they don't get it. I'm afraid that average people don't understand why privacy is important, and it will take a change in cultural mindset to improve the situation (read: a generation). Another (and better) way for users to regain privacy is a technological shift in which new companies with a better business model and technology replace the current batch of incumbents. This is the more likely outcome, as billion-dollar profits tend to make companies conservative and ripe for disruption.

zpghjll 9y ago
The political process should represent the will of the people and find solutions that represent the will of the people. The free market is not necessarily the best solution because it is arguable that we don't really live in a free market; consumers aren't all that educated or rational. The problem is that companies will find ways to subvert their users into thinking privacy is not important. They already have a large captive audience and they can condition then to think as they please.
- clarkmoody 9y ago
  I do not share your faith in democracy :-) At best, the government represents the will of a voting majority and imposes it upon the rest of the population. So what you really have is minority rule. Look at public funding for science, NASA budget, etc to see the "will of the people" in action on technical topics. > consumers aren't all that educated or rational Be that as it may, I would rather make decisions for myself than have them made on my behalf, "for my own good," by someone who doesn't know me and whom I will never meet.
  - specialist 9y ago
    Have you lobbied? Testified? Met with any of your legislators, representatives, councilmembers? Other forms of participation? Voting is the smallest part of democracy.

amelius 9y ago

> Perhaps we need to see what Google and Facebook actually have on us... I'm still curious about the worst case. What are some doom scenarios?

Rotareti 9y ago
Orwell 1984

colordrops 9y ago

The elephant in the room is that most of the information people get today is filtered through the same entities that are benefiting from all of these privacy invasions. The conflict of interest is real and intense. That doesn't even touch on the other prong of the problem, being that the ones responsible for legislating privacy rights also benefiting greatly from the lack of it.

EGreg 9y ago

The question is, can the curation and rating be done by private agencies like Zagat instead of the Meat Inspection Act? Can it be turtles all the way down? Or must there be monopolies?

mirimir 9y ago

It's impractical to opt out, yes. But one can compartmentalize. So I have a rich online life using my real name. But it's not in English. Everything that Mirimir does online is interlinked. But it's not at all linked to my real name. Or to my other online personas. For sure, I'm a zealot about this. I use nested VPN chains and Tor, and multiple VMs on multiple hosts. But anyone can use a VPN service that respects privacy. Such as AirVPN, IVPN or PIA. Not HideMyAss, however ;)

goialoq 9y ago
insufficient. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/21/fbi-cracks-silk-road/2984921/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/21/fbi-cr...
- mirimir 9y ago
  It was stupid mistakes that led to takedowns of Silk Road, KickassTorrents, The Love Zone, Sheep Marketplace, AlphaBay, and Sabu de LulzSec. However, Operation Onymous did rely on Tor deanonymization data provided by CMU researchers to the FBI. The CMU group had exploited a bug in Tor to get ISP-assigned IPs for numerous users and onion servers. Even so, Operation Onymous would arguably have failed if those users and onion servers had accessed Tor through nested chains of at least three VPN services. And used firewall rules, and isolated VPN and Tor gateways in separate machines/VMs. Isolated from workspace machines/VMs. Also, operators and users of those onion servers would have remained safe if they had done the same. In a few other cases, such as Freedom Hosting and Playpen, the FBI used NIT malware to deanonymize users of onion sites that had already been confiscated. The malware bypassed Tor to send IPs and other information to FBI servers. But only Windows users were affected, because the NIT only ran on Windows. Also, users that used firewall rules and/or separate Tor gateway machines (such as Whonix) were unaffected. And finally, even Tor browser users would have remained safe if they had accessed Tor through nested chains of at least three VPN services. So yes, use nested chains of at least three VPN services to access Tor. And watch your OPSEC. Compartmentalize, compartmentalize, compartmentalize! So, the approach is insufficient only if you're sloppy.

dickbasedregex 9y ago

I've given up on people being outraged or even informed. Maybe I should just say I've given up on people.