4 ms·

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd think there was something nefarious going on when I see articles like this. What if the intended result is not actually bro

by KGIII 9y ago

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd think there was something nefarious going on when I see articles like this. What if the intended result is not actually browbeating DDG but, rather, making people think that DDG is no better than Google in the privacy arena so why invest the energy in switching? If DDG isn't any better than maybe nobody is, so we might as well get used to the lack of privacy. Why switch if you're just going to get worse results, expend more energy, and not actually get increased privacy? You might just as well give up the struggle... Fortunately, I'm not a conspiracy theorist,

api 9y ago
Conspiracy just means multiple people working together in secret toward some common goal. People do that all the time. Why just last week we had a closed door meeting at my company about how we might conspire to create more interest in the user community for our product. That's a conspiracy. Of course there are nutty conspiracy theories but there are nutty math and physics papers too. I feel like the blanket ridicule of any notion of conspiratorial action is meant to discourage any form of investigative journalism or deeper probing below the surface of the narrative. Your hypothesis is reasonable and plausible.
- KGIII 9y ago
  Sorry, my post was mostly satire/tongue-in-cheek. If I were in a position of power, and I knew that DDG was more difficult to get user data from, then I'd absolutely find a way to have articles published like this. I imagine that disenfranchised people are less likely to seek alternatives and are more likely to resign themselves to being monitored. It also seems like it would be more politically acceptable as well as offering a layer for plausible deniability. Were I in charge, and a nefarious actor, I'd be slipping stories like this into the media quite frequently. It's low cost, low risk, and probably has a good chance at success with at least some percentage of the population. I'm not sure I have the lack of ethics required to really do such a job. I'd like to hope that I'd resign before I helped do those sorts of things.
  - raugustinus 9y ago
    If you were in that position of power and had this article published you might not be doing such a great job. Streisand effect maybe? Since this article I have, which was in the making for some time already, switched from Chrome to Firefox with duckduckgo as my main search engine. Added Disconnect and Ublock origin as well. And yes I realize it doesn't help against NSA tracking of a certian magnitude.
- atomicnumber1 9y ago
  >Conspiracy just means multiple people working together in secret toward some common goal. I checked various dictionaries available online and all of them have a common definition like "a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful."
- nickpsecurity 9y ago
  It's good to finally see someone else say that. If you want more data to use, I tried to hit this in a systematic way in a counterpoint to Bruce Schneier on psychology of conspiracy theory: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/06/the_psychology_7.html#c1503021 https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/06/the_psycholog... I meant to turn that into a standalone essay, too, but forgot about it. Thanks for the reminder.

by KGIII 9y ago

api 9y ago

Conspiracy just means multiple people working together in secret toward some common goal. People do that all the time. Why just last week we had a closed door meeting at my company about how we might conspire to create more interest in the user community for our product. That's a conspiracy. Of course there are nutty conspiracy theories but there are nutty math and physics papers too. I feel like the blanket ridicule of any notion of conspiratorial action is meant to discourage any form of investigative journalism or deeper probing below the surface of the narrative. Your hypothesis is reasonable and plausible.

KGIII 9y ago
Sorry, my post was mostly satire/tongue-in-cheek. If I were in a position of power, and I knew that DDG was more difficult to get user data from, then I'd absolutely find a way to have articles published like this. I imagine that disenfranchised people are less likely to seek alternatives and are more likely to resign themselves to being monitored. It also seems like it would be more politically acceptable as well as offering a layer for plausible deniability. Were I in charge, and a nefarious actor, I'd be slipping stories like this into the media quite frequently. It's low cost, low risk, and probably has a good chance at success with at least some percentage of the population. I'm not sure I have the lack of ethics required to really do such a job. I'd like to hope that I'd resign before I helped do those sorts of things.
- raugustinus 9y ago
  If you were in that position of power and had this article published you might not be doing such a great job. Streisand effect maybe? Since this article I have, which was in the making for some time already, switched from Chrome to Firefox with duckduckgo as my main search engine. Added Disconnect and Ublock origin as well. And yes I realize it doesn't help against NSA tracking of a certian magnitude.
atomicnumber1 9y ago
>Conspiracy just means multiple people working together in secret toward some common goal. I checked various dictionaries available online and all of them have a common definition like "a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful."
nickpsecurity 9y ago
It's good to finally see someone else say that. If you want more data to use, I tried to hit this in a systematic way in a counterpoint to Bruce Schneier on psychology of conspiracy theory: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/06/the_psychology_7.html#c1503021 https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/06/the_psycholog... I meant to turn that into a standalone essay, too, but forgot about it. Thanks for the reminder.