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Does anyone else feel a sense of overwhelming futility with respect to internet privacy? I'm at the point where I feel like I might as well just use all the fan

Does anyone else feel a sense of overwhelming futility with respect to internet privacy? I'm at the point where I feel like I might as well just use all the fancy features and devices, privacy be damned. It feels like it's a giant waste of time, even if you go out of your way to use "privacy protecting" expensive devices and software. Use an iPhone or LineageOS! Use Firefox! Don't use Google services! Don't use iCloud, back up everything to a local NAS! Pay for your email services! It all feels mostly pointless. There's always another thing right around the corner. You're always defeated and tracked -- this time with "behavioral biometrics." For the average person, why not just give up? Throw an Amazon Echo in the corner and at least you can control your lights and play Jeopardy. It's totally exhausting.

blakesterz 8y ago
A helpful Venn Diagram: http://flowingdata.com/2010/10/22/privacy-and-the-internet/ http://flowingdata.com/2010/10/22/privacy-and-the-internet/ I've had that in my Privacy & Security slide deck for years. I say unless you're willing to go to EXTRAORDINARY lengths, there really is very little privacy. IT's been gone for years. Maybe new laws like the GDPR will help push things in the right direction?
Kenji 8y ago
Not at all. I only use the services that are the most simple, down-to earth and privacy friendly. Then every time I hear about a data leak, big hack or privacy violation, I'm happy about the fact that it didn't hit me.
bogomipz 8y ago
I completely agree its exhausting and I think that's by design. And even given the measures you outlined, if your friend uses FB,Google services you will be exposed to those services via their address book being hoovered up, their photo tagging, their WIFI etc. I think legislation and regulation is the only thing that's going to provide any meaningful recourse.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
394549 8y ago
I kinda feel like a best-effort attempt to minimize data-leakage + some kind of noise injection might be the best approach right now. Ultimately though, I think we'll need legislative and platform solutions if we want to keep a good amount of online privacy. This just isn't something an individual can solve on their own.
beat 8y ago
I deal with it mostly by asking myself what "privacy" I'm really concerned about. Let's see... I don't want anyone actually stealing my money. I don't want sensitive security information that can be used to steal my money (ie passwords) falling into unauthorized hands. But my personal history? My photos? Words I've written? Oh well. If someone wants that stuff, they can probably get it. And the gaping maw of robotic commerce doesn't actually care about me personally, it only cares what it can sell me. I'm not worried about the police or some authoritarian tyranny on a personal level, on the level where what I say on the internet matters. I worry about it in an impersonal way. When the robot overlords are rounding up the granola-munching people of south Minneapolis for extermination, they won't be checking our internet history first.
- extralego 8y ago
  Like you, I don’t worry about it on a personal level. Unlike you, I do worry about how such a breach of human rights affects my neighbors today. This is a matter of prejudice and discrimination on a level we have never contended with. The people most vulnerable are those who do have something to hide. Even if it’s not something I want them to hide (sex offenses are a popular example), I still support due process by a public justice system. I think anything else is asking for tyranny, so I think it’s important we consider those who are more likely to be marginalized. Some things people might want to hide to prevent unjust prejudice and discrimination against them: -Unpopular political views: It is in the interest of a healthy democracy to protect freedom of opinion . In the event that we fear their opinion, it is in our own interest that they feel free to educate themselves and grow. Freedom of access to education resources free of prejudice should not be confused with supporting online communities of hate. -Lower/working class: discriminated against by potential employers, hampering the social mobility possible in our society -Sick people: discriminated against by insurance companies, employers, advertisers -People with STDs: The discrimination here is especially in humane. And separately, we should all understand the role that freedom of information and research resources has played in the progress we’ve made here. -People of color: classically discriminated against by law enforcement and others -Parents: well known to be targets of extreme advertising -Aspiring parents: discriminated against by potential employers
ryandrake 8y ago
I stay sane by believing that as long as I stay active in the tech industry and do my best to constantly push to make things a little better, then I’m doing net good. The worst thing we can do is throw up our hands and admit defeat. I try not to think about all those engineers out there on the other side, acting in opposition to user privacy, happily writing all this monitoring, tracking, fingerprinting, and profiling software. Many are probably readers here. I hope the paycheck is worth it.
pishpash 8y ago
It has all been predicted, and when you throw hordes of PhD's at the problem, solutions will come. I think we should heed the more serious warnings about AI too and not be so cavalier.
rurounijones 8y ago
> Does anyone else feel a sense of overwhelming futility with respect to internet privacy? You had me at overwhelming futility
LeftTurnSignal 8y ago
Almost all of my friends are this way now. They just gave up on any sense of privacy and accepted it. I can't say I blame them. They have different needs / wants than I do, but I will admit it's pretty disheartening too. I haven't given up yet, but it's such a pain in the ass if you don't keep up on it. I ended up just ditching any service that doesn't respect my privacy or at the very least, stick with ones that say they respect it. If there's anything real important I have a few friends who usually let me know. I still do miss some events but I figure if no one remembered to ask me, it's not important, or I'm not that important. Either way, it's not my issue.
tdb7893 8y ago
Emotionally I didn't want companies to know about my life but practically it's going okay. Having companies know random information about me doesn't really affect my day to day life much (except for I have more targeted ads, which honestly isn't a negative).
Nasrudith 8y ago
I see it as an unfortunate consequence corollary to freedom of math and speech. If you give people the right to record and calculate everything they know it allows for invasive analytics in an attempt to soothsay by automating superstitions. If you don't have them then it opens abuses such as reporting that a scumbag serial Ponzi schemer convicted of doing so is "violating his right to be forgotten" and reporting that the local police just spend four hours loitering in diners and coffee shops is "illicitly tracking law enforcement". Restricting others to try to prevent it would prove lossy to freedom overall. Even a "no financialization" limit would allow shutting down a voting record of congress mapped to donor contributions because they are making money off of someone else's data if they try to cover their costs in any way. I believe that the achievable thing to aim for is a transparent society instead of a half-mirror one.
blitmap 8y ago
I am probably very unaware of a Chrome or Firefox extension that allows this: I wish I could Browse to... and set scripts to run before a page is navigated to. I know you can do this from the Dev Tools console just by hooking into events, but i wish there were something more user-friendly so it'd be easy to pass around scripts to average users. Simply to unreference or wrap JS APIs that allow things like this. You'd still need to be impossibly aware of what new API Google is introducing in Chrome every week. I wish they defined subsets of JS, like how there's a C++ embedded standard and such. I know in JS land you go by feature detection not profile selection (like OpenGL?). We're just learning more ways to sandbox I suppose. PS: I want the ability to easily re-order the scripts that run before/after an event fires.
- Too 8y ago
  Greasemonkey does exactly what you ask for, it's super easy to use and has a big library of website enhancers already.
pokemongoaway 8y ago
It isn't that hard to -- strip down and make your social media private -- enable dual factor for everything that has it available -- use ublock origin properly -- use good passwords and a password manager -- opt out of "upload all my contacts to you" whenever possible -- default deny location sharing -- use a VPN -- Use the Lite app instead of FB app, and generally use less social media I'd say that's minimal effort and private enough for most purposes.
vbezhenar 8y ago
I never cared much about that stuff. I trust big corporations, I always opt-in for telemetry and similar stuff, because I genuinely believe that it helps to make better software. And yes, I enjoy all fancy features and never had any problems with that. It's hard for me to understand people who don't want to use Windows 10 because of telemetry. It's awesome OS, who cares. It's not like Windows 98 was open source, you never really know what was collected back then, at least they are honest this time.
tcfunk 8y ago
> Throw an Amazon Echo in the corner and at least you can control your lights and play Jeopardy. This is where I have landed, sadly. Especially now that I have a family, I simply don't have time or energy to think about privacy all the time. And that's the only way you can fight it, is to think about it constantly.
codegeek 8y ago
I am totally with you on this. I only care about protecting what really matters to me. You cannot win. Companies are getting smarter on how to track you and they WILL track you no matter what you do. Hey I may be getting tracked right now typing all this. Who cares. Go ahead, show me some stupid ads. I won't click on them anyway. Or yea, get some sales guy to call my cell because I was labeled as a potential lead for some stuff based on a page I visited. I never pick up unknown calls. Next.
godelski 8y ago
I have a few comments on this subject. 1) We are in tech. So what we do signals to others. How much we care signals to the public how much they care. If we don't, then why should they? And if they don't, how does legislation pass to prevent extreme invasion? It is in our (and companies') nature to push boundaries. If we don't get upset and do something then they push back. 2) There is more that I care about than Company X has Y data on me. Do I trust that company to be secure? Maybe now, but later? And that's where the government issue comes in. It isn't always about what the government is now, but can become. It should always be set up to be that IF there somehow became a dictator or oligarch, that they couldn't gain trivial access to tools that would exert extreme control. Or can a foreign adversary exert control by using these tools (cough Russia cough)? Yes, that kind of thing is unlikely in America, but it is much more likely to happen in other countries and what we do in the First World affects them. I personally am not worried about Trump trying to become dictator, but do we really want to set the ground for someone 50-100 years down the line that might try? Or do we want to make such an action as difficult as possible? And if they do gain that power we want to limit it as much as possible. (What happens when your system fails? Design FOR failure) 3) The argument of "we'll always be fighting" is a sadly true, but one that you can't let yourself be disheartened by. Because that would be like someone saying "well hackers are always going to try to get into my bank account, so I might as well let them." Currently we are the underdogs, and that is why it is so much harder now. But the only way to change that is to gain a critical mass. So I ask, even if you don't think there is anything you can do and you can not take the steps to add more than minimal protection, then TALK about it. To me, the worst thing that can happen is that the public becomes (stays) complacent. While they are complacent and do not understand the consequences, then there can be no change and it will be a fruitless fight. But I think right now we have the best opportunity we've had in a long time to convince average people to care. (Facebook, Equifax, GDPR, Russian Hacks (which show how VERY real the adversarial abuse of data from non-malicious actors can be), etc).
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
cm2187 8y ago
It's not like you have a choice for everything. You want a phone? Chose your evil: apple or google. And try using one of those without an account.

blakesterz 8y ago

A helpful Venn Diagram: http://flowingdata.com/2010/10/22/privacy-and-the-internet/ http://flowingdata.com/2010/10/22/privacy-and-the-internet/ I've had that in my Privacy & Security slide deck for years. I say unless you're willing to go to EXTRAORDINARY lengths, there really is very little privacy. IT's been gone for years. Maybe new laws like the GDPR will help push things in the right direction?

Kenji 8y ago

Not at all. I only use the services that are the most simple, down-to earth and privacy friendly. Then every time I hear about a data leak, big hack or privacy violation, I'm happy about the fact that it didn't hit me.

bogomipz 8y ago

I completely agree its exhausting and I think that's by design. And even given the measures you outlined, if your friend uses FB,Google services you will be exposed to those services via their address book being hoovered up, their photo tagging, their WIFI etc. I think legislation and regulation is the only thing that's going to provide any meaningful recourse.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

394549 8y ago

I kinda feel like a best-effort attempt to minimize data-leakage + some kind of noise injection might be the best approach right now. Ultimately though, I think we'll need legislative and platform solutions if we want to keep a good amount of online privacy. This just isn't something an individual can solve on their own.

beat 8y ago

I deal with it mostly by asking myself what "privacy" I'm really concerned about. Let's see... I don't want anyone actually stealing my money. I don't want sensitive security information that can be used to steal my money (ie passwords) falling into unauthorized hands. But my personal history? My photos? Words I've written? Oh well. If someone wants that stuff, they can probably get it. And the gaping maw of robotic commerce doesn't actually care about me personally, it only cares what it can sell me. I'm not worried about the police or some authoritarian tyranny on a personal level, on the level where what I say on the internet matters. I worry about it in an impersonal way. When the robot overlords are rounding up the granola-munching people of south Minneapolis for extermination, they won't be checking our internet history first.

extralego 8y ago
Like you, I don’t worry about it on a personal level. Unlike you, I do worry about how such a breach of human rights affects my neighbors today. This is a matter of prejudice and discrimination on a level we have never contended with. The people most vulnerable are those who do have something to hide. Even if it’s not something I want them to hide (sex offenses are a popular example), I still support due process by a public justice system. I think anything else is asking for tyranny, so I think it’s important we consider those who are more likely to be marginalized. Some things people might want to hide to prevent unjust prejudice and discrimination against them: -Unpopular political views: It is in the interest of a healthy democracy to protect freedom of opinion . In the event that we fear their opinion, it is in our own interest that they feel free to educate themselves and grow. Freedom of access to education resources free of prejudice should not be confused with supporting online communities of hate. -Lower/working class: discriminated against by potential employers, hampering the social mobility possible in our society -Sick people: discriminated against by insurance companies, employers, advertisers -People with STDs: The discrimination here is especially in humane. And separately, we should all understand the role that freedom of information and research resources has played in the progress we’ve made here. -People of color: classically discriminated against by law enforcement and others -Parents: well known to be targets of extreme advertising -Aspiring parents: discriminated against by potential employers

ryandrake 8y ago

I stay sane by believing that as long as I stay active in the tech industry and do my best to constantly push to make things a little better, then I’m doing net good. The worst thing we can do is throw up our hands and admit defeat. I try not to think about all those engineers out there on the other side, acting in opposition to user privacy, happily writing all this monitoring, tracking, fingerprinting, and profiling software. Many are probably readers here. I hope the paycheck is worth it.

pishpash 8y ago

It has all been predicted, and when you throw hordes of PhD's at the problem, solutions will come. I think we should heed the more serious warnings about AI too and not be so cavalier.

rurounijones 8y ago

> Does anyone else feel a sense of overwhelming futility with respect to internet privacy? You had me at overwhelming futility

LeftTurnSignal 8y ago

Almost all of my friends are this way now. They just gave up on any sense of privacy and accepted it. I can't say I blame them. They have different needs / wants than I do, but I will admit it's pretty disheartening too. I haven't given up yet, but it's such a pain in the ass if you don't keep up on it. I ended up just ditching any service that doesn't respect my privacy or at the very least, stick with ones that say they respect it. If there's anything real important I have a few friends who usually let me know. I still do miss some events but I figure if no one remembered to ask me, it's not important, or I'm not that important. Either way, it's not my issue.

tdb7893 8y ago

Emotionally I didn't want companies to know about my life but practically it's going okay. Having companies know random information about me doesn't really affect my day to day life much (except for I have more targeted ads, which honestly isn't a negative).

Nasrudith 8y ago

I see it as an unfortunate consequence corollary to freedom of math and speech. If you give people the right to record and calculate everything they know it allows for invasive analytics in an attempt to soothsay by automating superstitions. If you don't have them then it opens abuses such as reporting that a scumbag serial Ponzi schemer convicted of doing so is "violating his right to be forgotten" and reporting that the local police just spend four hours loitering in diners and coffee shops is "illicitly tracking law enforcement". Restricting others to try to prevent it would prove lossy to freedom overall. Even a "no financialization" limit would allow shutting down a voting record of congress mapped to donor contributions because they are making money off of someone else's data if they try to cover their costs in any way. I believe that the achievable thing to aim for is a transparent society instead of a half-mirror one.

blitmap 8y ago

I am probably very unaware of a Chrome or Firefox extension that allows this: I wish I could Browse to... and set scripts to run before a page is navigated to. I know you can do this from the Dev Tools console just by hooking into events, but i wish there were something more user-friendly so it'd be easy to pass around scripts to average users. Simply to unreference or wrap JS APIs that allow things like this. You'd still need to be impossibly aware of what new API Google is introducing in Chrome every week. I wish they defined subsets of JS, like how there's a C++ embedded standard and such. I know in JS land you go by feature detection not profile selection (like OpenGL?). We're just learning more ways to sandbox I suppose. PS: I want the ability to easily re-order the scripts that run before/after an event fires.

Too 8y ago
Greasemonkey does exactly what you ask for, it's super easy to use and has a big library of website enhancers already.

pokemongoaway 8y ago

It isn't that hard to -- strip down and make your social media private -- enable dual factor for everything that has it available -- use ublock origin properly -- use good passwords and a password manager -- opt out of "upload all my contacts to you" whenever possible -- default deny location sharing -- use a VPN -- Use the Lite app instead of FB app, and generally use less social media I'd say that's minimal effort and private enough for most purposes.

vbezhenar 8y ago

I never cared much about that stuff. I trust big corporations, I always opt-in for telemetry and similar stuff, because I genuinely believe that it helps to make better software. And yes, I enjoy all fancy features and never had any problems with that. It's hard for me to understand people who don't want to use Windows 10 because of telemetry. It's awesome OS, who cares. It's not like Windows 98 was open source, you never really know what was collected back then, at least they are honest this time.

tcfunk 8y ago

> Throw an Amazon Echo in the corner and at least you can control your lights and play Jeopardy. This is where I have landed, sadly. Especially now that I have a family, I simply don't have time or energy to think about privacy all the time. And that's the only way you can fight it, is to think about it constantly.

codegeek 8y ago

I am totally with you on this. I only care about protecting what really matters to me. You cannot win. Companies are getting smarter on how to track you and they WILL track you no matter what you do. Hey I may be getting tracked right now typing all this. Who cares. Go ahead, show me some stupid ads. I won't click on them anyway. Or yea, get some sales guy to call my cell because I was labeled as a potential lead for some stuff based on a page I visited. I never pick up unknown calls. Next.

godelski 8y ago

I have a few comments on this subject. 1) We are in tech. So what we do signals to others. How much we care signals to the public how much they care. If we don't, then why should they? And if they don't, how does legislation pass to prevent extreme invasion? It is in our (and companies') nature to push boundaries. If we don't get upset and do something then they push back. 2) There is more that I care about than Company X has Y data on me. Do I trust that company to be secure? Maybe now, but later? And that's where the government issue comes in. It isn't always about what the government is now, but can become. It should always be set up to be that IF there somehow became a dictator or oligarch, that they couldn't gain trivial access to tools that would exert extreme control. Or can a foreign adversary exert control by using these tools (cough Russia cough)? Yes, that kind of thing is unlikely in America, but it is much more likely to happen in other countries and what we do in the First World affects them. I personally am not worried about Trump trying to become dictator, but do we really want to set the ground for someone 50-100 years down the line that might try? Or do we want to make such an action as difficult as possible? And if they do gain that power we want to limit it as much as possible. (What happens when your system fails? Design FOR failure) 3) The argument of "we'll always be fighting" is a sadly true, but one that you can't let yourself be disheartened by. Because that would be like someone saying "well hackers are always going to try to get into my bank account, so I might as well let them." Currently we are the underdogs, and that is why it is so much harder now. But the only way to change that is to gain a critical mass. So I ask, even if you don't think there is anything you can do and you can not take the steps to add more than minimal protection, then TALK about it. To me, the worst thing that can happen is that the public becomes (stays) complacent. While they are complacent and do not understand the consequences, then there can be no change and it will be a fruitless fight. But I think right now we have the best opportunity we've had in a long time to convince average people to care. (Facebook, Equifax, GDPR, Russian Hacks (which show how VERY real the adversarial abuse of data from non-malicious actors can be), etc).

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

cm2187 8y ago

It's not like you have a choice for everything. You want a phone? Chose your evil: apple or google. And try using one of those without an account.