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Ask HN: How do you see privacy on Internet ?

• devmonk 16y ago
  Privacy is almost non-existant. When you can be video/audiorecorded anywhere and that information posted up on Youtube without question to share with the world, how is there privacy? When all of your bank's data, your government records, and eventually your health records can be accessed by more and more people, where is the privacy? If your friends and family post pictures of you up on Facebook and tell of your latest deeds without your permission, when they would certainly not call all of your friends and family on the phone to tell them those things, where is the privacy? The question I think that is more relevant is how we should try to protect ourselves and what we should try to protect in the coming years. It would be one thing if all data were raw and public, but people can take all of that data and alter it or put a spin on it to fabricate a reality much more convincing and much more easily year-by-year as we share more data and technology advances. So the answer can't be that their should be no attempt at privacy, but at the same time, we all have to embrace the fact that we basically have no true protection anymore. We are wide open and the only way to keep from getting hurt is to live outside of that world, something I'm not sure is possible anymore.
  • skbohra123 16y ago
    The one big question that comes to mind is, privacy issues are worse with bigger companies. I am more worried about Google or Facebook using my data then any smaller company and at the same time they provide such great services 'free' that I just can't help using them.
• aberkowitz 16y ago
  Privacy does not exist on the internet - Usernames, IP addresses, email, and WHOIS information link multiple accounts on the internet up to one identity. Mentions of people, places, activities, interests help create an accurate profile of a user that can match them up with other online accounts. Even those who forgo non anonymous online personalities can be found through a subpoena of an access log. Edit: To add - OP's Name, Picture, Email, Address, Domain Names, Telephone Number, etc can be found through this methodology.
• aspir 16y ago
  Privacy began to quickly wilt away with the widespread use of credit cards and cell phones. Both of these allow for us to be tracked via spending and calls (now with apps and gps in phones). But, we've always had phone books, directory assistance, and the US census. 72% of the national population in both 2000 and 2010 filled out the first form, not including the second form, and not including the door to door. In many ways, the privacy issues that companies like Google and Facebook are dealing with were instigated decades, or even centuries earlier. Each step has met resistance, always has become the norm in a few years. I expect this recent privacy wave will be similar. We could've opted out intrusive things many, many years ago but, as a society, we have not done so.
• iuguy 16y ago
  It depends on how you define internet privacy. If you mean individual awareness and a person's concern for the security of their data on the Internet, I think that we're in a better place than 10 years ago, but there's still a long way to go. I think the actual privacy and protection of data runs contrary to the way Internet collaboration is heading, at the individual, group, company and governmental level. The Internet is such a good tool for information exchange, it seems weird to restrict the exchange of that information. But restrict we must, for when we fail to effectively do so, bad shit happens(tm). But don't worry, PCI DSS will solve everything. A vendor told me so it must be true ;)