5 ms·

Isn't this already known for years? I might be wrong but feel like the whole thing with Cambridge Analytica was more about accurately influencing public opinion

by praet 9y ago

Isn't this already known for years? I might be wrong but feel like the whole thing with Cambridge Analytica was more about accurately influencing public opinion than it was about data being leaked. This is kind of dumbing down the issue, but: anyone not well-versed in implications of privacy violations would feel way stronger when claiming "Mark Zuckerburg is partly responsible for Donald Trump becaming president" versus "Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft have data which will make you more susceptible to spending slightly more money [...on something you don't actually need]"

blat001 9y ago
100% agree, Im a little surprised how shocked everyone is in this "exposure" as if you look at any AdTech they talk about this as a standard feature (audience matching etc...)
- jackvalentine 9y ago
  > 100% agree, Im a little surprised how shocked everyone is in this "exposure" I'd recommend you try and spend more time with 'regular' people rather than tech bubble then. What you're seeing here is this knowledge breaking further in to the mainstream.
  - stareatgoats 9y ago
    I disagree. What we're seeing here IMO is targeted influencing in it's own right. "Regular people" are way too susceptible to influence - period. In this case it is the joint forces of old media (who are vying to keep their obsolete business idea of peddling influence using paid ads), and governments who are seeing their tax-base dwindle when global tech companies move to tax havens, and certain tech competitors pointing fingers away from themselves: all whom are targeting Facebook to set an example. Add a sprinkle of righteous outrage at the unethical tactics of Cambridge Analytica and how the Trump Campaign was able to use data that the DNC would rather have exclusive access to. "Regular people" don't care that their data is hoarded, they only start caring when it is framed nefariously (and disingenuously) by interests like the above.
    - jackvalentine 9y ago
      > "Regular people" don't care that their data is hoarded, they only start caring when it is framed nefariously (and disingenuously) by interests like the above. If the framing is a good or bad thing is just a matter of opinion. A 'good' way of flipping what you've written is 'we've finally found a way to break through to regular people about these issues on a level they understand and resonate with'. To call general articles on websites like cnn.com "targetted influencing " is a bit of a stretch.
      - stareatgoats 9y ago
        I think it's the other way round. We are not "breaking through to regular people", the current campaign against Facebook is rather exploiting peoples superficial knowledge and unfounded fears to build a disingenuous case. Facebook has been too slack, and the good part about this whole thing is that they may finally might get their sh*t together. At least they have the power to bring this under control, as the various decentralized alternatives being touted here on HN won't have. > To call general articles on websites like cnn.com "targetted influencing " is a bit of a stretch. Yeah, well. Depends on your definition of targeting, but influencing it is. And as usual, how good or bad you think that influencing might be depends on if you like what you are being led to believe or not.
        jackvalentine 9y ago
        You've said disingenuous a lot, what exactly is disingenuous about the current reporting?
        jochung 9y ago
        I'm not OP, but... The fact that it is not consistently connected to other instances of political campaigns previously is a big one. The narrative is that the West is radicalizing to the right because of the evil propaganda, unlike the pure and virtuous honest reporting that brought us "change we can believe in" or "Clinton is 95% sure to win" and so on. When the good tribe does it, it's "remarkable insight into the political base and clever use of modern technology", when the bad tribe does it, it's "disturbingly sophisticated targeting and an automated violation of consent". Really, go read the write ups about previous democrat campaigns, the narrative was of tech savvy modern progressives leaving the conservative old timers in the dust. Russel conjugation is the favorite trick or the press today as they hawk their narratives: "I am trying to get an important message out. You are running a political campaign. They are spreading harmful propaganda." But 99% of harvested data is gathered with only proxy consent of 1% of the users, and most of either group is unaware of what's happening. Ignoring this ratio in order to haggle about exactly how the 1% was or wasn't tricked is entirely beside the point. The bigger problem with this whole affair is that people correctly diagnose a breakdown in the mechanisms for forming consensus reality, which makes a lot of information suspect. This should make you question your in-groups' world view as much as the out-group. But instead of going back to primary sources and reevaluating what they know, people only double down on it more, and use it to justify why the out group is even more clueless/insidious than before. But one of the biggest hallmarks of propaganda is that the enemy is both horribly inept and terrifyingly powerful at the same time, swapping between the two seamlessly to serve the current narrative.
- starchild_3001 9y ago
  The fact that your personal information is being sold (with your name, user id, email address, possibly physical address + political opinions) is probably news to most people. Another thing: Did you know that facebook recorded your phone calls (time and recipient)? Or, it sold your personal info to brands for marketing outside of facebook, say by email?
mch82 9y ago
The difference is a military contractor built military grade tools for running an information operation and deployed those tools on the general public. That is new, and not a concept I can recall reading about in popular media coverage of online privacy. Edit: Even at this point, we're not seeing a lot of the news coverage focus in on this element of the story.
candiodari 9y ago
Facebook is pretty bad, but this is a general thing. https://www.icloud.com/#contacts https://www.icloud.com/#contacts http://contacts.google.com http://contacts.google.com Even many games collect this information. Even really, really popular ones. https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/11/pokemon-go-wants-to-catch-almost-all-your-permissions/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/11/pokemon-go-wants-to-catch-... And with graph theory this means that if they got, say 10% (more likely 1% or so) of people to do this, they can reconstruct 99% or more of the total graph easily. Hence the constant astonishment by privacy advocates that actually watch their own usage. "I don't use a smartphone and yet they figure out the email addresses of people I only ever call" type of comments. Meanwhile government organizations have become famous in recent years for subpoenaing this information at the drop of a hat ... especially for divorces, but even for commercial conflicts (e.g. non-payment). Everybody's in on it and this fight has been fought ... and comprehensively lost. The justice system is not going to let this source of information go, and that means companies aren't going to let it go. You just can't have applications in the cloud and privacy, because the cloud means that aggregating the information from many sources is easy. Not that it isn't theoretically possible, but it just doesn't work in practice.
- grzm 9y ago
  iCloud and Google contacts are explicitly for syncing contact information. This is what one expects when using these services. Syncing with iCloud is optional. I not familiar with Google Contacts to know the details. TOS for games and social networks like Facebook may mention they access this information but it's not their sole purpose and users are may be surprised this is happening. Also, at least in the case of iCloud, contacts data is encrypted in flight and at rest. Apple doesn't have access to the data, and can't be shared with authorities even under subpoena.[0] Again, I don't know the situation with Google Contacts. I agree that the situation with games and social networks is much more problematic and something to be concerned about. Yeah, there are definitely concerns when storing information on others' servers, but it's also important to weigh them appropriately. That said, depending on your level of paranoia, you might not accept anything anyone says, and that's your choice. [0]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303
astronautjones 9y ago
It's more like an opium war thing, like how did we let this company get this level of power over regular folks? and how do we respond as a society?
- some_account 9y ago
  It's always like this. People who get exposed to new scary information always react with 'you are a tinfoil hat person arent you', until it's obvious to everybody that something is true. Takes many years, every time. I'm usually someone who sees these things well before they get public, but there is no point talking about it until the public is ready for it and the thing has again become obvious.
uiflbc 9y ago
Whether it has been known or not is not relevant. The right thing is long over due. Engineers build stuff for income. More than a few actions in tech sector appear as theft to me. When I shared my data with google and Facebook, I trusted them same way I trust my cell phone company to not record all my calls. The sector should've been regulated much sooner.

by praet 9y ago

blat001 9y ago

100% agree, Im a little surprised how shocked everyone is in this "exposure" as if you look at any AdTech they talk about this as a standard feature (audience matching etc...)

jackvalentine 9y ago
> 100% agree, Im a little surprised how shocked everyone is in this "exposure" I'd recommend you try and spend more time with 'regular' people rather than tech bubble then. What you're seeing here is this knowledge breaking further in to the mainstream.
- stareatgoats 9y ago
  I disagree. What we're seeing here IMO is targeted influencing in it's own right. "Regular people" are way too susceptible to influence - period. In this case it is the joint forces of old media (who are vying to keep their obsolete business idea of peddling influence using paid ads), and governments who are seeing their tax-base dwindle when global tech companies move to tax havens, and certain tech competitors pointing fingers away from themselves: all whom are targeting Facebook to set an example. Add a sprinkle of righteous outrage at the unethical tactics of Cambridge Analytica and how the Trump Campaign was able to use data that the DNC would rather have exclusive access to. "Regular people" don't care that their data is hoarded, they only start caring when it is framed nefariously (and disingenuously) by interests like the above.
  - jackvalentine 9y ago
    > "Regular people" don't care that their data is hoarded, they only start caring when it is framed nefariously (and disingenuously) by interests like the above. If the framing is a good or bad thing is just a matter of opinion. A 'good' way of flipping what you've written is 'we've finally found a way to break through to regular people about these issues on a level they understand and resonate with'. To call general articles on websites like cnn.com "targetted influencing " is a bit of a stretch.
    - stareatgoats 9y ago
      I think it's the other way round. We are not "breaking through to regular people", the current campaign against Facebook is rather exploiting peoples superficial knowledge and unfounded fears to build a disingenuous case. Facebook has been too slack, and the good part about this whole thing is that they may finally might get their sh*t together. At least they have the power to bring this under control, as the various decentralized alternatives being touted here on HN won't have. > To call general articles on websites like cnn.com "targetted influencing " is a bit of a stretch. Yeah, well. Depends on your definition of targeting, but influencing it is. And as usual, how good or bad you think that influencing might be depends on if you like what you are being led to believe or not.
      - jackvalentine 9y ago
        You've said disingenuous a lot, what exactly is disingenuous about the current reporting?
        jochung 9y ago
        I'm not OP, but... The fact that it is not consistently connected to other instances of political campaigns previously is a big one. The narrative is that the West is radicalizing to the right because of the evil propaganda, unlike the pure and virtuous honest reporting that brought us "change we can believe in" or "Clinton is 95% sure to win" and so on. When the good tribe does it, it's "remarkable insight into the political base and clever use of modern technology", when the bad tribe does it, it's "disturbingly sophisticated targeting and an automated violation of consent". Really, go read the write ups about previous democrat campaigns, the narrative was of tech savvy modern progressives leaving the conservative old timers in the dust. Russel conjugation is the favorite trick or the press today as they hawk their narratives: "I am trying to get an important message out. You are running a political campaign. They are spreading harmful propaganda." But 99% of harvested data is gathered with only proxy consent of 1% of the users, and most of either group is unaware of what's happening. Ignoring this ratio in order to haggle about exactly how the 1% was or wasn't tricked is entirely beside the point. The bigger problem with this whole affair is that people correctly diagnose a breakdown in the mechanisms for forming consensus reality, which makes a lot of information suspect. This should make you question your in-groups' world view as much as the out-group. But instead of going back to primary sources and reevaluating what they know, people only double down on it more, and use it to justify why the out group is even more clueless/insidious than before. But one of the biggest hallmarks of propaganda is that the enemy is both horribly inept and terrifyingly powerful at the same time, swapping between the two seamlessly to serve the current narrative.
starchild_3001 9y ago
The fact that your personal information is being sold (with your name, user id, email address, possibly physical address + political opinions) is probably news to most people. Another thing: Did you know that facebook recorded your phone calls (time and recipient)? Or, it sold your personal info to brands for marketing outside of facebook, say by email?

mch82 9y ago

The difference is a military contractor built military grade tools for running an information operation and deployed those tools on the general public. That is new, and not a concept I can recall reading about in popular media coverage of online privacy. Edit: Even at this point, we're not seeing a lot of the news coverage focus in on this element of the story.

candiodari 9y ago

Facebook is pretty bad, but this is a general thing. https://www.icloud.com/#contacts https://www.icloud.com/#contacts http://contacts.google.com http://contacts.google.com Even many games collect this information. Even really, really popular ones. https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/11/pokemon-go-wants-to-catch-almost-all-your-permissions/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/11/pokemon-go-wants-to-catch-... And with graph theory this means that if they got, say 10% (more likely 1% or so) of people to do this, they can reconstruct 99% or more of the total graph easily. Hence the constant astonishment by privacy advocates that actually watch their own usage. "I don't use a smartphone and yet they figure out the email addresses of people I only ever call" type of comments. Meanwhile government organizations have become famous in recent years for subpoenaing this information at the drop of a hat ... especially for divorces, but even for commercial conflicts (e.g. non-payment). Everybody's in on it and this fight has been fought ... and comprehensively lost. The justice system is not going to let this source of information go, and that means companies aren't going to let it go. You just can't have applications in the cloud and privacy, because the cloud means that aggregating the information from many sources is easy. Not that it isn't theoretically possible, but it just doesn't work in practice.

grzm 9y ago
iCloud and Google contacts are explicitly for syncing contact information. This is what one expects when using these services. Syncing with iCloud is optional. I not familiar with Google Contacts to know the details. TOS for games and social networks like Facebook may mention they access this information but it's not their sole purpose and users are may be surprised this is happening. Also, at least in the case of iCloud, contacts data is encrypted in flight and at rest. Apple doesn't have access to the data, and can't be shared with authorities even under subpoena.[0] Again, I don't know the situation with Google Contacts. I agree that the situation with games and social networks is much more problematic and something to be concerned about. Yeah, there are definitely concerns when storing information on others' servers, but it's also important to weigh them appropriately. That said, depending on your level of paranoia, you might not accept anything anyone says, and that's your choice. [0]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

astronautjones 9y ago

It's more like an opium war thing, like how did we let this company get this level of power over regular folks? and how do we respond as a society?

some_account 9y ago
It's always like this. People who get exposed to new scary information always react with 'you are a tinfoil hat person arent you', until it's obvious to everybody that something is true. Takes many years, every time. I'm usually someone who sees these things well before they get public, but there is no point talking about it until the public is ready for it and the thing has again become obvious.

uiflbc 9y ago

Whether it has been known or not is not relevant. The right thing is long over due. Engineers build stuff for income. More than a few actions in tech sector appear as theft to me. When I shared my data with google and Facebook, I trusted them same way I trust my cell phone company to not record all my calls. The sector should've been regulated much sooner.