13 ms·

A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe

363 points by ngcazz 9y ago

empath75 9y ago
I think creating a legal regime where corporations are financially responsible for damages created by misuse or leaking of personal data would discourage companies from collecting the data in the first place. By all rights, the equifax databreach should have ended the company. Instead, they're likely to profit from it.
ballenf 9y ago
I don't know about this, but I'd love to see Apple make 3rd party data aggregators individually authorized or not via system dialogs. It would require some policing, but shifting these to opt-in instead of opt-out would be an amazing step in the right direction. App authors would then be able to decide whether they wanted to let you use their app despite you declining to let them send/sell* your data to a third party. * most app creators would claim they don't sell users data. But they need to acknowledge that when they receive free telemetry services for their app from a 3rd party, they are doing exactly that: selling user data in exchange for a service that would otherwise have some expense (in dev time or otherwise).
madez 9y ago
The article raises good points. One important aspect is missing though; the reliance on web services, SaaS, and the like. Free software is not enough. We need free software that runs locally and offline.
- DataWorker 9y ago
  Alan Kay has made this point rather eloquently in the past. Like stallman, his good points were not enough to stop free market from perverting the technology, with disastrous consequences.
- adrianN 9y ago
  RMS is also against SaaS (or Software as a Service Substitute, SaaSS), but AGPLv3 SaaS would be a step in the right direction. At least then you could examine the source code and see what data is collected. Edit: s/GPL/AGPL/
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    The source you directly interact with perhaps. Can you say for sure that the code running at the server end is the one in the repo or tarball?
    - adrianN 9y ago
      Of course not, but the same can be said for local software. You usually don't build from source. But at least you can inspect your own network traffic more or less reliably. Having everything be AGPLv3 is not perfect, but I think it would be an improvement over the current state of affairs.
  - nothrabannosir 9y ago
    That sounds like exactly the Affero GPL.
    - adrianN 9y ago
      Whew, I confused those. Thanks for pointing that out
      - nothrabannosir 9y ago
        No I mean, the license you’re describing sounds like the AGPL. If you use AGPL licensed code on a server which a user interacts with, you must provide them with the source code. That’s perhaps the biggest difference between the GPL and the AGPL. AGPL is “GPL for SaaS”.
- pmlnr 9y ago
  When it's RMS, free means Free (under Libre terms) & Open Source. And yes, I agree; back to local and offline first applications is a must.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    Best i understand, open source it charitably seen as a subset of the freedoms fronted by the FSF. If you claim that RMS does open source in his presence, he will sternly correct you.
- dhimes 9y ago
  Maybe the way to go with this is to have an auditing system where third-party auditors go through the source code (with NDAs) and certify it meets $PrivacyStandards. This might be a way to appease the folks who want to keep their software proprietary and yet make sure they don't just get to do what they want. Kind of like financial audits.
  - pbalau 9y ago
    Sorry, but no. For this to work you will need a select group of people with too much power. Why would I trust those people instead of the original creators? This is just going to create a parasitic industry, with no much value.
    - dhimes 9y ago
      Man I'm so sorry I let this slip and didn't get back to you. It's not perfect for sure, but better than nothing and possibly something people will buy into. The big problem is there is no licensing-yet- that could be removed if they were caught lying. So you're right- we would have to build a trust model somehow.
- Too 9y ago
  Apples privacy policy actually says they will always do "on device processing whenever possible". Where the line between possible and feasible is drawn isn't really specified but If they really live up to this it is reason enough for me to only buy apple products as the other 2 options seem to have a completely different view of this.
  - CaptSpify 9y ago
    I'd love it if this were true, but we don't really know if it is true or not, and Apple refuses to allow us to see for ourselves. I really want to like Apple, but they won't put their money where their mouth is.
walterbell 9y ago
We need new business models which depend on user-owned data, rather than treating privacy like a charitable contribution for saving the trees. Instead of citizens sending data to the cloud, corporations can send code to citizen-owned devices where local computation can take place, with data only leaving via an open-source content inspection engine that enforces citizen-consent policy.
- pmlnr 9y ago
  You mean something like this?: https://ruben.verborgh.org/blog/2017/12/20/paradigm-shifts-for-the-decentralized-web/ https://ruben.verborgh.org/blog/2017/12/20/paradigm-shifts-f...
- lowglow 9y ago
  It's interesting and something we're investigating at my company. Merely building out the marketplace/exchange for this stuff raises a ton of questions (which is good).
DataWorker 9y ago
Obviously this proposal will be rejected because both companies and governments are addicted to the power to control and manipulate that data gives them. We need a strong leader who will go against the grain of these massive entrenched interests and be willing to stand up to the media onslaught such a stance will bring. The mainstream media will attack anyone who threatens their advertising based business model. When will there ever be a leader that doesn’t bend to the will of the media and deep state surveillance machine.
- drivingmenuts 9y ago
  Simply put, never. Future strong leaders will employ all of those means of deep state surveillance and invest in new ones in order to remain strong. That cats out of the bag and it ain’t going back.
- jonathanstrange 9y ago
  1. We don't need a strong leader. Fascism and authoritarianism have zero interest in the privacy of citizens. Never had, never will. 2. Power corrupts, so the overall answer is: never.
  - confounded 9y ago
    Leadership != fascism. Change from below requires organization and coordination, and those things require leadership. Were MLK or Ghandi fascist, because they were effective leaders? Frankly, I find more of a fascistic tinge in the stock HN response to surveillance: - Governments will never do anything; democracy is not fit for purpose - A ‘natural elite’ of hacker Übermensch can avoid dystopia for themselves with hacking skills and expensive crypto currencies. The masses cannot be saved as they are inherently stupid and submissive. Things will always get worse, especially for them; abandon them. Why such fatalism? The GDPR hasn’t even hit the books yet, and it’s having a transformative effect on how large US tech companies process data for everyone. We’re just beginning to see the tide turn on public opinion on Facebook. I’ve hope for popular interest in privacy and anti-authoritarianism yet.
    - 9y ago
chme 9y ago
Even if such a law would become effective somewhere I could imagine ways around this: What would happen if a transportation service provider would also offer the service of collecting points dependant on the used stations and those points can be used for special offers. This way they 'need' to collect movement data to check for abuse of the system in order to offer the 'basic' functionality. I agree with RMS, but it might be difficult to express such law without loopholes for companies.
AdmiralAsshat 9y ago
I wish we could find a way to apply the model of the vending machine to mass commerce. A vending machine doesn't make notes of who buys its products. A vending machine doesn't keep logs of its transactions or of the payment methods used. A vending machine does not make "recommendations" of what the consumer might like based on their past purchases. You give the vending machine a dollar, it gives you a soda. The transaction between consumer and vendor is done, and no tangible evidence of the transaction remains, other than the exchanged goods. But we haven't figured out a way to scale the vending machine model yet, because when the machine gets stuck and fails to dispense its product, the consumer gets an attendant to help or kicks the thing a few times in frustration and walks away, because the lost dollar isn't worth the hassle. If someone paid $1500 for their laptop, however, they're going to want that convenience of being able to prove they purchased the laptop from XX retailer and be compensated if the thing is a lemon. I'm not sure we can solve this problem, completely. But we might do better if we actively aspired to make our services more like vending machines. EDIT: Yes, I'm aware that some vending machines these days can be paid by credit card. My university even had one where you could pay using your Student ID, which was linked to the balance allocated for your meal plan.
- abakker 9y ago
  It sounds like you are describing the problem of trust. In a vending machine, you trust the brands to deliver a standardized product. You know what you are buying ahead of time with no doubt at all. the cost is also low enough that you trust the delivery mechanism within a given level of risk tolerance. Finally, you don't expect the product to last, it is a consumable by nature, so no relationship needs to exist - your relationship is with the brand, not the individual can of soda. If you choose to give the soda away, the person you gave it do also knows what they are getting, and the brand doesn't care who drinks the soda. To take your laptop example, though, you may trust the brand, but, you expect it to last. therefore, your relationship is with the brand AND the product. You will need to service that laptop, and they, as the vendor will need to set parameters around what services they will and will not provide in which circumstances. They have a kind of "contract" with you that doesn't necessarily extend beyond you. In fact, there are some situations with a laptop where giving it away to the wrong person could be a crime. My only question is: if we could "solve" this problem, would we actually want to? Do we really want to make every interaction we have into some kind of transaction, with no obligations beyond payment for goods? I don't think so. I think most of our consumer protection laws have been developed to protect consumers from the considerable costs that such a system will create - warranties, lemon laws, etc. Critically, all aimed at improving the amount of trust between brands and consumers. Instead, I think we probably need to more carefully define what kind of trust is required, and what the covenants of brand/consumer trust actually include regarding data. GDPR is an admirable model, and probably a step in the right direction, but certainly not a perfect effort.
zzzeek 9y ago
> Video cameras should make a local recording that can be checked for the next few weeks if a crime occurs, but should not allow remote viewing without physical collection of the recording. it would suck if the terrorist bomb also took out the cameras themselves. I have cameras at my house wired to a local unit. It's mostly for convenience and looking for animals and not very serious for security; any well-respecting house prowler would want to take the recording unit from my server area so that I wouldn't have any video of who broke into my house.
- LinuxBender 9y ago
  The data could be stored encrypted on a VM and cycled off after {n} hours. With the right codecs and encryption, you could likely store a couple days of motion on a small amount of storage. If uploaded in chunks, you might miss a couple minutes prior to the unit being destroyed. I suppose protecting your internet uplink becomes important at this point.
  - QasimK 9y ago
    Just store the encrypted files in AWS S3 (or equivalent)?
    - LinuxBender 9y ago
      That works too. And maybe use ffmpeg to encode + 7-zip (p7zip 7za on linux) to encrypt and name the chunks based on date in a programmatic / deterministic manor.
    - zzzeek 9y ago
      then I can view the recordings remotely without physical collection of the recordings, exactly what RMS proposes should be illegal.
- mseebach 9y ago
  That's awfully close to movie plot threat thinking. Put your NAS in a secure back room and you're going to be fine for practically every scenario short of a 9/11 scale attack. And if you insist, just save your recordings to an off-site location. I'm pretty sure RMS is cool with co-located servers, as long as you control them.
tuukkah 9y ago
For a privacy-centric approach that is also compatible with GDPR and business needs, there's the MyData conference in the end of August: https://mydata2018.org/ https://mydata2018.org/
cobbzilla 9y ago
I love RMS but I'm not holding my breath waiting for any government laws to protect me. For what it's worth, neither is RMS, if you've read about how he uses the Internet. Let's keep building the free software tools so anyone can easily get the level of privacy they want for whatever they're trying to do. We've made so much progress but there's still so far to go. Do not to look UP to authority for hope - look AROUND at your fellow citizens working hard to bring free privacy software to everyone - that's who's going to fix this, because no one else will.
- ryanbrunner 9y ago
  One of the problems is that the software you run on your own computer hasn't been the major source of privacy concerns in a long, long time. That isn't to say that software on your computer doesn't track you, but it's dwarfed by the amount of tracking and privacy issues that you need to compromise on to use the vast majority of the internet. It's noble and laudable to take the same stance towards freedom and privacy that RMS does, essentially check out of the modern internet, and reduce your web usage to calling wget on a shell, but that's not a workable solution for the vast majority of people.
  - klez 9y ago
    > essentially check out of the modern internet, and reduce your web usage to calling wget on a shell Minor nitpick, but he also uses icecat + Tor when needed https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html (grep for icecat)
  - heisenbit 9y ago
    wget leaks via dns
  - cobbzilla 9y ago
    Give me a break, is this not classic fallacy of making "perfect" the enemy of "better"? With an attitude like that, things never improve. Privacy protection exists along a gradient. Just because one does not want to sit at the far end with RMS does not mean we just throw up our hands and say "well, I guess I have to give up all my privacy, because I can't do what RMS does." And as I said, there's still a lot of work to do. So let's get to it and stop the nay-saying!
nwah1 9y ago
This seems like such a losing battle. Payments on public transit could become anonymous, but the video feeds would still be recorded, and facial recognition could be easily performed. The cat is out of the bag. Information technology makes this data accumulation inevitable. Likely even for those who walk around with a face covering all day, pay only cash, and don't use smartphones. By doing those things you actually make yourself more noticeable, in a lot of ways, and are still trackable. There are some cryptoanarchist ways to achieve practical privacy, to all but the most dedicated governments. Yet, those technologies have severe downsides for both individuals and society at large. There's no obvious way out of this conundrum. The concept of the Participatory Panopticon is one proposed solution, and is less top-down, but not necessarily any less capricious than centralized authority. The best safeguards are to create strong institutions, informed citizens, stable economies, and all the usual boring social reform stuff that tech geeks hate and think is mushy, unchangeable, hard to study, and likely irrelevant.
- dcow 9y ago
  It's also interesting to look at Stallman's tone: he's defeated. "What can be done about privacy Mr Stallman?" "Society needs to care more." It's the same tone JPB had when asked about how the EFF can have an impact on younger generations who take the internet for granted. "They need to care more. And education." They're not wrong, of course. And your comment is very similar: the problem isn't the technology, it's the impetus of society that needs to change.
  - ABCLAW 9y ago
    I mean, they're kinda wrong. You can care plenty about these issues but not see an actual way to have impact such that your concerns are addressed. If society isn't caring, then either society doesn't see why there's a concern, or society recognizes that atomically it does not have agency to address the issue, and the people who do have that agency are the ones that don't give a shit.
    - gameswithgo 9y ago
      They mean that the majority of society needs to care more collectively. If that were to happen then there would be impact.
LinuxBender 9y ago
There are LED street lights that also double as security cameras. Soon, you won't even see where the cameras are. The cameras are nearly impossible to spot. They are being tested in a few cities. I believe there is still an ongoing legal battle in San Jose for these. The cameras are placed in the public domain, but they can see into houses on every street. I believe Google had some issues with peering into homes and storing that data. Will cities face the same issues? The Google car only gets data when they drive down the street. These cameras will gather data 24/7 using low-lux (low light) cameras.
irq-1 9y ago
Well written and argued, but I have two issues. First, it's arguing against the natural evolution of technology. Centralization is a re-occurring feature of software systems due to it's technical benefits. Data collection, organizational structure [0] and other considerations also affect centralization, but their existence doesn't negate the technical considerations. Whether an ATM or bus card system should be (de)centralized is partially a technical issue: what networks are available and how reliable are they, what's the cpu/mem/storage of the end points, how often do we update, etc... Second, restraint of Governments might be aided by making collection more difficult, but Governments can deploy large groups of people for long periods, while individuals and smaller groups cannot. Youtube and cellphone cameras empower the weak, while the old technology of cameras belonging to local businesses [1] benefit only the Government (or very large groups.) [0] "organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law [1] "There is a gap in the footage from about 9:18 p.m. to 10:39 p.m., which covers the time when McDonald was shot by Officer Jason Van Dyke on a nearby street." http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-shooting-laquan-mcdonald-burger-king-video-met-20151203-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-shooting-laquan-mcdona...
andrewshadura 9y ago
Ironically, the article is published under a non-free license.
- ssaew333 9y ago
  Look what I found at the bottom of the article: "Released under Creative Commons NoDerivatives License 4.0" So you can distribute this freely, as long as you acknowledge the author. And since it's content, not software, it's not imperative to allow modification. (Fair use still applies to critical responses) You're being way too picky.
- quadrangle 9y ago
  I don't know if it's irony, but RMS has this (I assert WRONG) view that opinion statements like this article shouldn't be free culture. He wants to use the legal structures to make any translation or derivative work something he can censor unless he approves of it. He's worried about being misrepresented (even though the actual free CC licenses don't allow altered derivatives to be presented as though they were unaltered etc). I think this article could very well be a valuable free-culture contribution. The chain of derivatives could go deep, and having to get permission at every step cuts it off. This is a long-standing disagreement between RMS and those of us who support cultural freedom.
fortythirteen 9y ago
Expecting groups of people (tech companies or government) to purposefully do something that is disadvantageous to their bottom line, for nothing more than ideals, is a pipe dream. The real question is personal and harder to answer: "Do I really need this information technology? Is it making my quality of life any better than my ancestors?" The more I ponder this question, the more I'm convinced I could live an equally happy and fulfilling life outside of the majority of consumer technology that has been introduced in the last 20 years. I benefit from a career creating that technology, but I'm partaking in it less and less once I clock out.
- f_allwein 9y ago
  Well, the example given here is Transport for London, which is almost impossible to travel without using an Oyster smart card. So yes, pushing for legislation along the lines proposed in the article would make sense.
  - fortythirteen 9y ago
    Would a government that has a CCTV on every street enact legislation to limit its surveillance abilities? I agree that it's a good ideal, it's just incredibly naive to think that it will be achieved. Even if legislation were passed, it would very likely make things worse, in that the government wouldn't stop surveilling - they would just do it even more covertly.
    - confounded 9y ago
      There’s already quite a bit of legislation about how CCTV can be used in the UK. Our democracies have lots of problems, but they basically work, and on issues like this, the main issue is apathy. I’m a firm believer that if people are informed and they care legislation like the above could be enacted.
      - fortythirteen 9y ago
        > on issues like this, the main issue is apathy Is it? Or is it the notion that if you scream about something you don't like enough, someone else will fix it, through legislation, so you can stop worrying about it? And, of course, that legislation will work perfectly and never be abused or radically reinterpreted a generation down the line. I'm for the belief that if you don't like something then don't partake in it - short of it being something being physically forced on you.
fit2rule 9y ago
I want OS vendors to wake up to this and give me a way of storing all the social-network'y stuff on a USB stick. When I'm using that social networks interface, I put the USB stick in my computer - and my computer makes that data available to the network. Then, when I'm done using it, I turn off the interface, take the USB stick out and put it in storage somewhere. The only parts of the data that are available, are the bits I copied to the social network while I was using it, and it can have those bits while I'm away to do with as it pleases. I truly believe this is a function and responsibility of the local operating system, not the network. If only the OS vendors were paying attention to these issues instead of .. you know .. trying hard to be the next big social network.
cik 9y ago
The larger issue is the natural tug of war between government and industry. Pretending that such a 'law' could be passed - and globally, ultimately industry would find some way to effectively collect this data by doing something that is completely legal - based on the text of the law. In some cases (say a public data company...) there could even be a legal duty to do so, in order to comply with varying edicts already on the book. The real issue is that people opt to ignore Stallman - he was right. By opting to use these services, whether you pay for them or not, you're acquiescing to being the product.
yarrel 9y ago
GNU Taler seems to be such a betrayal of the GNU project's principles. Baking state surveillance into software isn't something GNU should be doing. It's as if GPG was an implementation of the Clipper Chip algorithm because, you know, otherwise it might be used for ~~tax fraud~~ terrorism.
- confounded 9y ago
  Personally, of all the crypto currencies it's the one I'd like to pay with most. I want companies I transact with to pay taxes, while preserving my psuedo-anonymity. I have no interest in using a volatile asset for an single transaction. Happily there are plenty of others to choose from, too, but I'm glad that one with these overall design principles exists.
MrQuincle 9y ago
Tell me how someone anonymous travels from day to day and I will tell you who he or she is. To decouple identity data from other data does already not work in theory. Moreover, it is also in conflict with the ability to retract personal data. If data is anonymized, it is not possible anymore to get rid of your personal records. Homeomorphic encryption is the only method that might make a dent here. Laws will be broken.
eecc 9y ago
The Netherlands used to have https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipknip https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipknip but then it was retired. Weird, I thought it was pretty sweet, and anonymous. Maybe not, or perhaps it was too good and that’s why it’s gone
feelin_googley 9y ago
"There are so many ways to use data to hurt people that the only safe database is the one that was never collected. ... The basic principle is that a system must be designed not to collect certain data, if its basic function can be carried out without that data." Frills on the system, such as [some feature conceived by PM or developer], are not part of the basic function, so they can't justify incorporating any additional surveillance." These additional services could be offered separately to users who request them." The title is "A radical proposal to keep your data safe." But this doesnt sound "radical" at all. To recap: 1. Dont collect data when unnecessary for the user. 2. Applications which perform a single function. 3. Additional "features" (i.e. more code) that add more functionality and make applications more complex are fine but they should be optional (e.g. not pre-installed or automatically added via "updates").
- admax88q 9y ago
  > But this doesnt sound "radical" at all. It really is radical to the current culture of silicon valley where every product must be "smart," collect user data to provide recommendations and "analytics." There is little restraint done by companies on what data they collect, only on access to that data once collected. It really is a radical culture shift for these companies, and all the engineers that work for them, to switch to a attitude of only collecting what is truly necessary.
Nomentatus 9y ago
So I can pay Amazon anonymously. That's nice. Now what about anonymous delivery? It could be done, with the address being sent to the Post Office as needed, for example; with Amazon not delivering the package. RMS might want a law saying that whoever sold goods, couldn't also deliver them?
voidmain 9y ago
Hoping that governments are going to outlaw surveillance, when they are the biggest practitioners and customers of surveillance, seems... optimistic.

363 points by ngcazz 9y ago

I think creating a legal regime where corporations are financially responsible for damages created by misuse or leaking of personal data would discourage companies from collecting the data in the first place. By all rights, the equifax databreach should have ended the company. Instead, they're likely to profit from it.

ballenf 9y ago

I don't know about this, but I'd love to see Apple make 3rd party data aggregators individually authorized or not via system dialogs. It would require some policing, but shifting these to opt-in instead of opt-out would be an amazing step in the right direction. App authors would then be able to decide whether they wanted to let you use their app despite you declining to let them send/sell* your data to a third party. * most app creators would claim they don't sell users data. But they need to acknowledge that when they receive free telemetry services for their app from a 3rd party, they are doing exactly that: selling user data in exchange for a service that would otherwise have some expense (in dev time or otherwise).

madez 9y ago

The article raises good points. One important aspect is missing though; the reliance on web services, SaaS, and the like. Free software is not enough. We need free software that runs locally and offline.

DataWorker 9y ago
Alan Kay has made this point rather eloquently in the past. Like stallman, his good points were not enough to stop free market from perverting the technology, with disastrous consequences.
adrianN 9y ago
RMS is also against SaaS (or Software as a Service Substitute, SaaSS), but AGPLv3 SaaS would be a step in the right direction. At least then you could examine the source code and see what data is collected. Edit: s/GPL/AGPL/
- digi_owl 9y ago
  The source you directly interact with perhaps. Can you say for sure that the code running at the server end is the one in the repo or tarball?
  - adrianN 9y ago
    Of course not, but the same can be said for local software. You usually don't build from source. But at least you can inspect your own network traffic more or less reliably. Having everything be AGPLv3 is not perfect, but I think it would be an improvement over the current state of affairs.
- nothrabannosir 9y ago
  That sounds like exactly the Affero GPL.
  - adrianN 9y ago
    Whew, I confused those. Thanks for pointing that out
    - nothrabannosir 9y ago
      No I mean, the license you’re describing sounds like the AGPL. If you use AGPL licensed code on a server which a user interacts with, you must provide them with the source code. That’s perhaps the biggest difference between the GPL and the AGPL. AGPL is “GPL for SaaS”.
pmlnr 9y ago
When it's RMS, free means Free (under Libre terms) & Open Source. And yes, I agree; back to local and offline first applications is a must.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  Best i understand, open source it charitably seen as a subset of the freedoms fronted by the FSF. If you claim that RMS does open source in his presence, he will sternly correct you.
dhimes 9y ago
Maybe the way to go with this is to have an auditing system where third-party auditors go through the source code (with NDAs) and certify it meets $PrivacyStandards. This might be a way to appease the folks who want to keep their software proprietary and yet make sure they don't just get to do what they want. Kind of like financial audits.
- pbalau 9y ago
  Sorry, but no. For this to work you will need a select group of people with too much power. Why would I trust those people instead of the original creators? This is just going to create a parasitic industry, with no much value.
  - dhimes 9y ago
    Man I'm so sorry I let this slip and didn't get back to you. It's not perfect for sure, but better than nothing and possibly something people will buy into. The big problem is there is no licensing-yet- that could be removed if they were caught lying. So you're right- we would have to build a trust model somehow.
Too 9y ago
Apples privacy policy actually says they will always do "on device processing whenever possible". Where the line between possible and feasible is drawn isn't really specified but If they really live up to this it is reason enough for me to only buy apple products as the other 2 options seem to have a completely different view of this.
- CaptSpify 9y ago
  I'd love it if this were true, but we don't really know if it is true or not, and Apple refuses to allow us to see for ourselves. I really want to like Apple, but they won't put their money where their mouth is.

walterbell 9y ago

We need new business models which depend on user-owned data, rather than treating privacy like a charitable contribution for saving the trees. Instead of citizens sending data to the cloud, corporations can send code to citizen-owned devices where local computation can take place, with data only leaving via an open-source content inspection engine that enforces citizen-consent policy.

pmlnr 9y ago
You mean something like this?: https://ruben.verborgh.org/blog/2017/12/20/paradigm-shifts-for-the-decentralized-web/ https://ruben.verborgh.org/blog/2017/12/20/paradigm-shifts-f...
lowglow 9y ago
It's interesting and something we're investigating at my company. Merely building out the marketplace/exchange for this stuff raises a ton of questions (which is good).

DataWorker 9y ago

Obviously this proposal will be rejected because both companies and governments are addicted to the power to control and manipulate that data gives them. We need a strong leader who will go against the grain of these massive entrenched interests and be willing to stand up to the media onslaught such a stance will bring. The mainstream media will attack anyone who threatens their advertising based business model. When will there ever be a leader that doesn’t bend to the will of the media and deep state surveillance machine.

drivingmenuts 9y ago
Simply put, never. Future strong leaders will employ all of those means of deep state surveillance and invest in new ones in order to remain strong. That cats out of the bag and it ain’t going back.
jonathanstrange 9y ago
1. We don't need a strong leader. Fascism and authoritarianism have zero interest in the privacy of citizens. Never had, never will. 2. Power corrupts, so the overall answer is: never.
- confounded 9y ago
  Leadership != fascism. Change from below requires organization and coordination, and those things require leadership. Were MLK or Ghandi fascist, because they were effective leaders? Frankly, I find more of a fascistic tinge in the stock HN response to surveillance: - Governments will never do anything; democracy is not fit for purpose - A ‘natural elite’ of hacker Übermensch can avoid dystopia for themselves with hacking skills and expensive crypto currencies. The masses cannot be saved as they are inherently stupid and submissive. Things will always get worse, especially for them; abandon them. Why such fatalism? The GDPR hasn’t even hit the books yet, and it’s having a transformative effect on how large US tech companies process data for everyone. We’re just beginning to see the tide turn on public opinion on Facebook. I’ve hope for popular interest in privacy and anti-authoritarianism yet.
  - 9y ago

chme 9y ago

Even if such a law would become effective somewhere I could imagine ways around this: What would happen if a transportation service provider would also offer the service of collecting points dependant on the used stations and those points can be used for special offers. This way they 'need' to collect movement data to check for abuse of the system in order to offer the 'basic' functionality. I agree with RMS, but it might be difficult to express such law without loopholes for companies.

AdmiralAsshat 9y ago

I wish we could find a way to apply the model of the vending machine to mass commerce. A vending machine doesn't make notes of who buys its products. A vending machine doesn't keep logs of its transactions or of the payment methods used. A vending machine does not make "recommendations" of what the consumer might like based on their past purchases. You give the vending machine a dollar, it gives you a soda. The transaction between consumer and vendor is done, and no tangible evidence of the transaction remains, other than the exchanged goods. But we haven't figured out a way to scale the vending machine model yet, because when the machine gets stuck and fails to dispense its product, the consumer gets an attendant to help or kicks the thing a few times in frustration and walks away, because the lost dollar isn't worth the hassle. If someone paid $1500 for their laptop, however, they're going to want that convenience of being able to prove they purchased the laptop from XX retailer and be compensated if the thing is a lemon. I'm not sure we can solve this problem, completely. But we might do better if we actively aspired to make our services more like vending machines. EDIT: Yes, I'm aware that some vending machines these days can be paid by credit card. My university even had one where you could pay using your Student ID, which was linked to the balance allocated for your meal plan.

abakker 9y ago
It sounds like you are describing the problem of trust. In a vending machine, you trust the brands to deliver a standardized product. You know what you are buying ahead of time with no doubt at all. the cost is also low enough that you trust the delivery mechanism within a given level of risk tolerance. Finally, you don't expect the product to last, it is a consumable by nature, so no relationship needs to exist - your relationship is with the brand, not the individual can of soda. If you choose to give the soda away, the person you gave it do also knows what they are getting, and the brand doesn't care who drinks the soda. To take your laptop example, though, you may trust the brand, but, you expect it to last. therefore, your relationship is with the brand AND the product. You will need to service that laptop, and they, as the vendor will need to set parameters around what services they will and will not provide in which circumstances. They have a kind of "contract" with you that doesn't necessarily extend beyond you. In fact, there are some situations with a laptop where giving it away to the wrong person could be a crime. My only question is: if we could "solve" this problem, would we actually want to? Do we really want to make every interaction we have into some kind of transaction, with no obligations beyond payment for goods? I don't think so. I think most of our consumer protection laws have been developed to protect consumers from the considerable costs that such a system will create - warranties, lemon laws, etc. Critically, all aimed at improving the amount of trust between brands and consumers. Instead, I think we probably need to more carefully define what kind of trust is required, and what the covenants of brand/consumer trust actually include regarding data. GDPR is an admirable model, and probably a step in the right direction, but certainly not a perfect effort.

zzzeek 9y ago

> Video cameras should make a local recording that can be checked for the next few weeks if a crime occurs, but should not allow remote viewing without physical collection of the recording. it would suck if the terrorist bomb also took out the cameras themselves. I have cameras at my house wired to a local unit. It's mostly for convenience and looking for animals and not very serious for security; any well-respecting house prowler would want to take the recording unit from my server area so that I wouldn't have any video of who broke into my house.

LinuxBender 9y ago
The data could be stored encrypted on a VM and cycled off after {n} hours. With the right codecs and encryption, you could likely store a couple days of motion on a small amount of storage. If uploaded in chunks, you might miss a couple minutes prior to the unit being destroyed. I suppose protecting your internet uplink becomes important at this point.
- QasimK 9y ago
  Just store the encrypted files in AWS S3 (or equivalent)?
  - LinuxBender 9y ago
    That works too. And maybe use ffmpeg to encode + 7-zip (p7zip 7za on linux) to encrypt and name the chunks based on date in a programmatic / deterministic manor.
  - zzzeek 9y ago
    then I can view the recordings remotely without physical collection of the recordings, exactly what RMS proposes should be illegal.
mseebach 9y ago
That's awfully close to movie plot threat thinking. Put your NAS in a secure back room and you're going to be fine for practically every scenario short of a 9/11 scale attack. And if you insist, just save your recordings to an off-site location. I'm pretty sure RMS is cool with co-located servers, as long as you control them.

tuukkah 9y ago

For a privacy-centric approach that is also compatible with GDPR and business needs, there's the MyData conference in the end of August: https://mydata2018.org/ https://mydata2018.org/

cobbzilla 9y ago

I love RMS but I'm not holding my breath waiting for any government laws to protect me. For what it's worth, neither is RMS, if you've read about how he uses the Internet. Let's keep building the free software tools so anyone can easily get the level of privacy they want for whatever they're trying to do. We've made so much progress but there's still so far to go. Do not to look UP to authority for hope - look AROUND at your fellow citizens working hard to bring free privacy software to everyone - that's who's going to fix this, because no one else will.

ryanbrunner 9y ago
One of the problems is that the software you run on your own computer hasn't been the major source of privacy concerns in a long, long time. That isn't to say that software on your computer doesn't track you, but it's dwarfed by the amount of tracking and privacy issues that you need to compromise on to use the vast majority of the internet. It's noble and laudable to take the same stance towards freedom and privacy that RMS does, essentially check out of the modern internet, and reduce your web usage to calling wget on a shell, but that's not a workable solution for the vast majority of people.
- klez 9y ago
  > essentially check out of the modern internet, and reduce your web usage to calling wget on a shell Minor nitpick, but he also uses icecat + Tor when needed https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html (grep for icecat)
- heisenbit 9y ago
  wget leaks via dns
- cobbzilla 9y ago
  Give me a break, is this not classic fallacy of making "perfect" the enemy of "better"? With an attitude like that, things never improve. Privacy protection exists along a gradient. Just because one does not want to sit at the far end with RMS does not mean we just throw up our hands and say "well, I guess I have to give up all my privacy, because I can't do what RMS does." And as I said, there's still a lot of work to do. So let's get to it and stop the nay-saying!

nwah1 9y ago

This seems like such a losing battle. Payments on public transit could become anonymous, but the video feeds would still be recorded, and facial recognition could be easily performed. The cat is out of the bag. Information technology makes this data accumulation inevitable. Likely even for those who walk around with a face covering all day, pay only cash, and don't use smartphones. By doing those things you actually make yourself more noticeable, in a lot of ways, and are still trackable. There are some cryptoanarchist ways to achieve practical privacy, to all but the most dedicated governments. Yet, those technologies have severe downsides for both individuals and society at large. There's no obvious way out of this conundrum. The concept of the Participatory Panopticon is one proposed solution, and is less top-down, but not necessarily any less capricious than centralized authority. The best safeguards are to create strong institutions, informed citizens, stable economies, and all the usual boring social reform stuff that tech geeks hate and think is mushy, unchangeable, hard to study, and likely irrelevant.

dcow 9y ago
It's also interesting to look at Stallman's tone: he's defeated. "What can be done about privacy Mr Stallman?" "Society needs to care more." It's the same tone JPB had when asked about how the EFF can have an impact on younger generations who take the internet for granted. "They need to care more. And education." They're not wrong, of course. And your comment is very similar: the problem isn't the technology, it's the impetus of society that needs to change.
- ABCLAW 9y ago
  I mean, they're kinda wrong. You can care plenty about these issues but not see an actual way to have impact such that your concerns are addressed. If society isn't caring, then either society doesn't see why there's a concern, or society recognizes that atomically it does not have agency to address the issue, and the people who do have that agency are the ones that don't give a shit.
  - gameswithgo 9y ago
    They mean that the majority of society needs to care more collectively. If that were to happen then there would be impact.

LinuxBender 9y ago

There are LED street lights that also double as security cameras. Soon, you won't even see where the cameras are. The cameras are nearly impossible to spot. They are being tested in a few cities. I believe there is still an ongoing legal battle in San Jose for these. The cameras are placed in the public domain, but they can see into houses on every street. I believe Google had some issues with peering into homes and storing that data. Will cities face the same issues? The Google car only gets data when they drive down the street. These cameras will gather data 24/7 using low-lux (low light) cameras.

irq-1 9y ago

Well written and argued, but I have two issues. First, it's arguing against the natural evolution of technology. Centralization is a re-occurring feature of software systems due to it's technical benefits. Data collection, organizational structure [0] and other considerations also affect centralization, but their existence doesn't negate the technical considerations. Whether an ATM or bus card system should be (de)centralized is partially a technical issue: what networks are available and how reliable are they, what's the cpu/mem/storage of the end points, how often do we update, etc... Second, restraint of Governments might be aided by making collection more difficult, but Governments can deploy large groups of people for long periods, while individuals and smaller groups cannot. Youtube and cellphone cameras empower the weak, while the old technology of cameras belonging to local businesses [1] benefit only the Government (or very large groups.) [0] "organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law [1] "There is a gap in the footage from about 9:18 p.m. to 10:39 p.m., which covers the time when McDonald was shot by Officer Jason Van Dyke on a nearby street." http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-shooting-laquan-mcdonald-burger-king-video-met-20151203-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-shooting-laquan-mcdona...

andrewshadura 9y ago

Ironically, the article is published under a non-free license.

ssaew333 9y ago
Look what I found at the bottom of the article: "Released under Creative Commons NoDerivatives License 4.0" So you can distribute this freely, as long as you acknowledge the author. And since it's content, not software, it's not imperative to allow modification. (Fair use still applies to critical responses) You're being way too picky.
quadrangle 9y ago
I don't know if it's irony, but RMS has this (I assert WRONG) view that opinion statements like this article shouldn't be free culture. He wants to use the legal structures to make any translation or derivative work something he can censor unless he approves of it. He's worried about being misrepresented (even though the actual free CC licenses don't allow altered derivatives to be presented as though they were unaltered etc). I think this article could very well be a valuable free-culture contribution. The chain of derivatives could go deep, and having to get permission at every step cuts it off. This is a long-standing disagreement between RMS and those of us who support cultural freedom.

fortythirteen 9y ago

Expecting groups of people (tech companies or government) to purposefully do something that is disadvantageous to their bottom line, for nothing more than ideals, is a pipe dream. The real question is personal and harder to answer: "Do I really need this information technology? Is it making my quality of life any better than my ancestors?" The more I ponder this question, the more I'm convinced I could live an equally happy and fulfilling life outside of the majority of consumer technology that has been introduced in the last 20 years. I benefit from a career creating that technology, but I'm partaking in it less and less once I clock out.

f_allwein 9y ago
Well, the example given here is Transport for London, which is almost impossible to travel without using an Oyster smart card. So yes, pushing for legislation along the lines proposed in the article would make sense.
- fortythirteen 9y ago
  Would a government that has a CCTV on every street enact legislation to limit its surveillance abilities? I agree that it's a good ideal, it's just incredibly naive to think that it will be achieved. Even if legislation were passed, it would very likely make things worse, in that the government wouldn't stop surveilling - they would just do it even more covertly.
  - confounded 9y ago
    There’s already quite a bit of legislation about how CCTV can be used in the UK. Our democracies have lots of problems, but they basically work, and on issues like this, the main issue is apathy. I’m a firm believer that if people are informed and they care legislation like the above could be enacted.
    - fortythirteen 9y ago
      > on issues like this, the main issue is apathy Is it? Or is it the notion that if you scream about something you don't like enough, someone else will fix it, through legislation, so you can stop worrying about it? And, of course, that legislation will work perfectly and never be abused or radically reinterpreted a generation down the line. I'm for the belief that if you don't like something then don't partake in it - short of it being something being physically forced on you.

fit2rule 9y ago

I want OS vendors to wake up to this and give me a way of storing all the social-network'y stuff on a USB stick. When I'm using that social networks interface, I put the USB stick in my computer - and my computer makes that data available to the network. Then, when I'm done using it, I turn off the interface, take the USB stick out and put it in storage somewhere. The only parts of the data that are available, are the bits I copied to the social network while I was using it, and it can have those bits while I'm away to do with as it pleases. I truly believe this is a function and responsibility of the local operating system, not the network. If only the OS vendors were paying attention to these issues instead of .. you know .. trying hard to be the next big social network.

cik 9y ago

The larger issue is the natural tug of war between government and industry. Pretending that such a 'law' could be passed - and globally, ultimately industry would find some way to effectively collect this data by doing something that is completely legal - based on the text of the law. In some cases (say a public data company...) there could even be a legal duty to do so, in order to comply with varying edicts already on the book. The real issue is that people opt to ignore Stallman - he was right. By opting to use these services, whether you pay for them or not, you're acquiescing to being the product.

yarrel 9y ago

GNU Taler seems to be such a betrayal of the GNU project's principles. Baking state surveillance into software isn't something GNU should be doing. It's as if GPG was an implementation of the Clipper Chip algorithm because, you know, otherwise it might be used for ~~tax fraud~~ terrorism.

confounded 9y ago
Personally, of all the crypto currencies it's the one I'd like to pay with most. I want companies I transact with to pay taxes, while preserving my psuedo-anonymity. I have no interest in using a volatile asset for an single transaction. Happily there are plenty of others to choose from, too, but I'm glad that one with these overall design principles exists.

MrQuincle 9y ago

Tell me how someone anonymous travels from day to day and I will tell you who he or she is. To decouple identity data from other data does already not work in theory. Moreover, it is also in conflict with the ability to retract personal data. If data is anonymized, it is not possible anymore to get rid of your personal records. Homeomorphic encryption is the only method that might make a dent here. Laws will be broken.

eecc 9y ago

The Netherlands used to have https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipknip https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipknip but then it was retired. Weird, I thought it was pretty sweet, and anonymous. Maybe not, or perhaps it was too good and that’s why it’s gone

feelin_googley 9y ago

"There are so many ways to use data to hurt people that the only safe database is the one that was never collected. ... The basic principle is that a system must be designed not to collect certain data, if its basic function can be carried out without that data." Frills on the system, such as [some feature conceived by PM or developer], are not part of the basic function, so they can't justify incorporating any additional surveillance." These additional services could be offered separately to users who request them." The title is "A radical proposal to keep your data safe." But this doesnt sound "radical" at all. To recap: 1. Dont collect data when unnecessary for the user. 2. Applications which perform a single function. 3. Additional "features" (i.e. more code) that add more functionality and make applications more complex are fine but they should be optional (e.g. not pre-installed or automatically added via "updates").

admax88q 9y ago
> But this doesnt sound "radical" at all. It really is radical to the current culture of silicon valley where every product must be "smart," collect user data to provide recommendations and "analytics." There is little restraint done by companies on what data they collect, only on access to that data once collected. It really is a radical culture shift for these companies, and all the engineers that work for them, to switch to a attitude of only collecting what is truly necessary.

Nomentatus 9y ago

So I can pay Amazon anonymously. That's nice. Now what about anonymous delivery? It could be done, with the address being sent to the Post Office as needed, for example; with Amazon not delivering the package. RMS might want a law saying that whoever sold goods, couldn't also deliver them?

voidmain 9y ago

Hoping that governments are going to outlaw surveillance, when they are the biggest practitioners and customers of surveillance, seems... optimistic.