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I've just about had it with these GDPR shitposts on HN. The website the author talks about (datenschutzhelden.de meaning "data protection heroes") was apparent

I've just about had it with these GDPR shitposts on HN. The website the author talks about (datenschutzhelden.de meaning "data protection heroes") was apparently a platform to share tools and best practices for online privacy. Now it turns out the same guy running that website thinks it's too much hassle to remove Facebook integration and offer a cookie opt-out. That's truly next level hypocrisy.

arendtio 8y ago
Exactly what I thought. Yes, respecting all the legal parameters can be time consuming when you are building something new features (especially in corporate environments), but actually I think laws like the GDPR are quite important in our modern day life and as a EU citizen I am thankful we got it.
oytis 8y ago
I can't get into Simon's head, but I've got a feeling that GDPR contradicts the basic maxim of hacker culture that my computer belongs to me. The website seems to teach how those who care enough can protect their privacy by getting control over one's own computer, not imposing requirements on the others'.
- pluma 8y ago
  Your computer belongs to you. My data belongs to me. I can give you my data and you can keep that data if you tell me what you are going to keep it for and how you are going to use it and when I agree with all of that, but you don't get to abuse it for anything else and I can revoke that permission at any moment and you have to comply. It's not "imposing requirements", it's called "respecting consent". The more I hear arguments like this the more it reinforces my impression that "hacker culture" isn't really about experimenting with technology but more about self-entitled rich kids abusing other people and shared property for their own fun and profit (like young Zuckerberg marveling at being trusted with access to people's private information without understanding the implied mutual understanding his users assumed to be self-evident). I feel like the GDPR is the Code of Conduct of privacy laws: it codifies a modicum of respect that should need not explicit mentioning but seems to have been entirely lost on entire generations of (aspiring) Silicon Valley hacker types and thus catches them by surprise when it really should be the least you can do. At the very least you are now aware that when you're violating your users' privacy (if only by handing off their data to random BigCo's you have no formal contract with) you're breaking the law just as clearly as those cool '80s kids were breaking the law when they whistled into phones to cheat their way to free phone calls.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    young Zuckerberg marveling at being trusted with access to people's private information without understanding the implied mutual understanding his users assumed to be self-evident I disagree; he understood just fine, hence saying "they trust me". I'd say he was marveling at the naivety of those users for putting such faith in a random stranger. He probably, like so many of us into computers back then, had an understanding that you didn't use your real name online, let alone pictures or addresses. Seeing 4000 people blindly disregard basic safety rules would certainly be remarkable. Where I diverge from him is that my action after calling them dumb fucks would be to kill the experiment and warn people of the dangers of what they were doing, not doubling down.
    - pluma 8y ago
      Sure, it was seen as a social faux pas at the time but mostly because the web was much more personal: companies had no need to do anything nefarious with your data, so they wouldn't have cared, but a lone individual running a random website could potentially know you and ridicule you in front of your friends (especially when it's some random kid at the same university). What Facebook did was prove that you could make a business out of exploiting those users' personal data without needing to cause obvious harm to them directly (i.e. in ways that were still potentially unethical but 100% legal). The reason I'm saying he was being unethical at the time is that he saw their misplaced trust as an opportunity to exploit them (initially by snooping for fun, later by exploiting their data for profit). The ethical response would have been to either reject the responsibility (as you describe) or acknowledge it and start thinking about how to protect that data for the users.
  - oytis 8y ago
    Not to start a long philosophical discussion, but hacker culture (you might not like it, but the author seems to be sympathetic to it) has been traditionally critical to the notion of 'intellectual property', that is that by creating some intellectual work I can prohibit the others from redistributing it. The idea that I 'own' my personal data seems to be another step further is diluting the notion of property: this time I don't even need to create anything to impose limitations on the others. It is also not about 'rich' and 'poor', it's about clear rules that are the same for the rich and for the poor alike.
l1am0 8y ago
Hey uhnuhnuhn, we actually dropped datenschutzhelden.org because of other (mostly time) reasons. But after we closed it in february, we still would have been legally responsible for the site. As the project was already dead I decided to go the described path. So just to be clear: Datenschutzhelden.org was not closed because of GDPR. But keeping the archive of it up and running in a GDRP World was to risky for me.
- uhnuhnuhn 8y ago
  That makes more sense. Maybe better to change the article because it states the opposite: "I found myself at a point where I got so desperate that I was close to taking all of my stuff offline. But in the end I didn’t. I decided for the middle way: For some projects it’s worth the hustle and for others not. One project I ditched was datenschutzhelden.org." That reads as: GDPR compliance was such a hassle you almost closed all your projects, in the end you only closed some of them and replaced them with WBM.
  - l1am0 8y ago
    The article is updated :D

arendtio 8y ago

Exactly what I thought. Yes, respecting all the legal parameters can be time consuming when you are building something new features (especially in corporate environments), but actually I think laws like the GDPR are quite important in our modern day life and as a EU citizen I am thankful we got it.

oytis 8y ago

I can't get into Simon's head, but I've got a feeling that GDPR contradicts the basic maxim of hacker culture that my computer belongs to me. The website seems to teach how those who care enough can protect their privacy by getting control over one's own computer, not imposing requirements on the others'.

pluma 8y ago
Your computer belongs to you. My data belongs to me. I can give you my data and you can keep that data if you tell me what you are going to keep it for and how you are going to use it and when I agree with all of that, but you don't get to abuse it for anything else and I can revoke that permission at any moment and you have to comply. It's not "imposing requirements", it's called "respecting consent". The more I hear arguments like this the more it reinforces my impression that "hacker culture" isn't really about experimenting with technology but more about self-entitled rich kids abusing other people and shared property for their own fun and profit (like young Zuckerberg marveling at being trusted with access to people's private information without understanding the implied mutual understanding his users assumed to be self-evident). I feel like the GDPR is the Code of Conduct of privacy laws: it codifies a modicum of respect that should need not explicit mentioning but seems to have been entirely lost on entire generations of (aspiring) Silicon Valley hacker types and thus catches them by surprise when it really should be the least you can do. At the very least you are now aware that when you're violating your users' privacy (if only by handing off their data to random BigCo's you have no formal contract with) you're breaking the law just as clearly as those cool '80s kids were breaking the law when they whistled into phones to cheat their way to free phone calls.
- icebraining 8y ago
  young Zuckerberg marveling at being trusted with access to people's private information without understanding the implied mutual understanding his users assumed to be self-evident I disagree; he understood just fine, hence saying "they trust me". I'd say he was marveling at the naivety of those users for putting such faith in a random stranger. He probably, like so many of us into computers back then, had an understanding that you didn't use your real name online, let alone pictures or addresses. Seeing 4000 people blindly disregard basic safety rules would certainly be remarkable. Where I diverge from him is that my action after calling them dumb fucks would be to kill the experiment and warn people of the dangers of what they were doing, not doubling down.
  - pluma 8y ago
    Sure, it was seen as a social faux pas at the time but mostly because the web was much more personal: companies had no need to do anything nefarious with your data, so they wouldn't have cared, but a lone individual running a random website could potentially know you and ridicule you in front of your friends (especially when it's some random kid at the same university). What Facebook did was prove that you could make a business out of exploiting those users' personal data without needing to cause obvious harm to them directly (i.e. in ways that were still potentially unethical but 100% legal). The reason I'm saying he was being unethical at the time is that he saw their misplaced trust as an opportunity to exploit them (initially by snooping for fun, later by exploiting their data for profit). The ethical response would have been to either reject the responsibility (as you describe) or acknowledge it and start thinking about how to protect that data for the users.
- oytis 8y ago
  Not to start a long philosophical discussion, but hacker culture (you might not like it, but the author seems to be sympathetic to it) has been traditionally critical to the notion of 'intellectual property', that is that by creating some intellectual work I can prohibit the others from redistributing it. The idea that I 'own' my personal data seems to be another step further is diluting the notion of property: this time I don't even need to create anything to impose limitations on the others. It is also not about 'rich' and 'poor', it's about clear rules that are the same for the rich and for the poor alike.

l1am0 8y ago

Hey uhnuhnuhn, we actually dropped datenschutzhelden.org because of other (mostly time) reasons. But after we closed it in february, we still would have been legally responsible for the site. As the project was already dead I decided to go the described path. So just to be clear: Datenschutzhelden.org was not closed because of GDPR. But keeping the archive of it up and running in a GDRP World was to risky for me.

uhnuhnuhn 8y ago
That makes more sense. Maybe better to change the article because it states the opposite: "I found myself at a point where I got so desperate that I was close to taking all of my stuff offline. But in the end I didn’t. I decided for the middle way: For some projects it’s worth the hustle and for others not. One project I ditched was datenschutzhelden.org." That reads as: GDPR compliance was such a hassle you almost closed all your projects, in the end you only closed some of them and replaced them with WBM.
- l1am0 8y ago
  The article is updated :D