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It's Time to Panic About Privacy
- chejazi 8y agoSponsored by Apple™
- skummetmaelk 8y agoThe enemy of my enemy is my friend, until they're not.
- Causality1 8y agoWow that's an incredibly annoying format for an article.
- wetpaws 8y agoRelated: https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1116354502032932865 https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1116354502032932865
- jlc 8y agoI wonder if there's an interesting essay behind that interface. I'll never know.
- sevensor 8y agoThere's not. I use w3m, so there was no annoyance other than a very lightweight argument and a call for panic. Panic does not make for good public policy. Don't panic. Text follows: Privacy is a thing we all say we want. You get mad when it’s invaded or mishandled. Say, when Equifax leaks your credit info, when your nudes show up on 4chan or when your health data is held ransom. But privacy is also something a lot of people are happy to trade away at a moment’s notice, for the slightest reward. We claim to want it, companies claim to provide it, neither side is really being entirely honest about the trade, and we all just kind of accept that… You don’t have any privacy online. But the latest innovations in tech are elevating questions of privacy into much larger social, moral, political and economic issues. Consider digital home security cameras, a key part of your “smart home.” Privacy-wise, they don’t seem especially novel. You want to be alerted when a “bad guy” comes to your door, but not when your neighbor walks by. So you get a camera that scans and remembers faces. Very convenient! But what do you do when it spots someone — wink, wink — “suspicious”? What happens when concerned neighbors start sharing these faces on the neighborhood social network? What if law enforcement gets in on the act? Maybe every new face is checked against sex-offender databases, or maybe Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Is that O.K.? Ring, one of the biggest doorbell-cam companies, already has a creepy neighborhood watch social network. It has filed a patent for creating a “database of suspicious persons.” Wait, that’s crazy. You don’t want to profile people. You just want peace of mind that your family is safe. You like these cameras because you can get alerted when your kids come home, and watch your dog from afar. Isn’t that cute? But where’s all that data going? Can your abusive spouse get it? Your internet company? The smart home is becoming a treasure trove of the most intimate data about your life — and there are few controls over it. Domestic abusers are already using smart-home devices to spy on their victims. And even if they don’t literally watch your videos, Congress passed rules in 2017 that allow broadband companies to track your digital data, including smart-home data. O.K., you didn’t sign up for all that. You’re really just worried about package thieves! Isn’t it your right to monitor your front door to make sure your toilet paper isn’t getting stolen? Sure, but have you ever considered the privacy of the workers delivering your toilet paper? Thanks to doorbell cameras, delivery drivers can be watched and tracked on the job. Is that O.K.? Of course, it’s about more than doorbells. Each time you buy some new device or service that trades in private information — your DNA, your location, your online activity — you are gambling on an uncertain and unprotected future. Here is the stark truth: We in the West are building a surveillance state no less totalitarian than the one the Chinese government is rigging up. But while China is doing it through government … … we are doing it through corporations and consumer products, in the absence of any real regulation that recognizes the stakes at hand. It is time to start caring about the mess of digital privacy. In fact, it’s time to panic.
- qnsi 8y agoThis is soft paywalled (you get few articles a month) so you are sharing text that is not freely available
- sevensor 8y agoDid not realize that. I suppose I've never hit my limit. That or NYT can't be bothered to implement their paywall for a browser that doesn't load javascript or images. Usually (WSJ, WaPo, Bloomberg, many others) the content doesn't load at all.
- Procrastes 8y agoJust want to point out how appropriate this reply was on many levels. The core article was about privacy and using w3m overcomes most intrusions. The presentation on the site is apparently awful, but w3m removes all that and distills the page to text. As a developer I use w3m (and previously lynx) for all these reasons, but also as a first-pass proxy for more exhaustive accessibility checks. I guess what this makes me think about, is, for the moment, while we still have access to general purpose computers, we do still have a choice in how we consume what we are forcefed. Maybe if we exercise it enough, we'll get to keep that choice. Maybe not. Worth a try.
- sevensor 8y agoThanks! I like w3m because the web in general is insanely overstimulating. w3m lets me engage with the text without having to see all manner of distractions. I'm willing to accept being locked out of some sites to preserve my sanity. I also use firefox, but only as an application client for things I've already opted in to, like webmail, banking, and work-related stuff. Like you say, this is the freedom afforded to us by general purpose computers, and it's worth exercising.
- jlc 8y agoThank you for the actually useful reply to my flip comment.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- charliepark 8y agoPretty shitty to have absolutely zero keyboard interactivity on that page. Tabbing gets you … the NYT homepage, a bunch of YouTube videos — which you can't even see on the screen — and a "privacy project" link of some sort.
- Shengbo 8y agoOn my end it was completely unresponsive even to clicks until I refreshed the page twice.
- draw_down 8y agoHoly shit, is anyone here interested in discussing the actual story?!
- theandrewbailey 8y agoI was able to navigate using the arrow keys.
- rchaud 8y agoKB navigation works. The response is delayed, probably because part of the "page" were still loading. Terrible UI, IMO. No signage about how to navigate, except for "Click to Proceed" on the "main" screen. Why not just create a PowerPoint/Google Slides and be done with it? Probably would have saved the poor design team a ton of time and had the exact same impact.
- Nav_Panel 8y agoclaps hands okay folks, it's time to panic. let's get this train rolling. (as if "panic" was that sort of phenomenon, like a protest or something)
- floatingatoll 8y agoThat's literally correct, though I imagine you meant this as sarcasm. Crowd panic is a phenomenon that is in the same category as spontaneous protests. It's quite nice to see NYT telling the non-hackers to worry, because I've been trying to explain that to them ever since Google bought Dejanews and with the help of NYT and others they're finally starting to understand.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- noarchy 8y agoIs there an article here? I couldn't navigate beyond the initial page.
- defanor 8y agoNot exactly an article: it's more like a series of statements, and apparently requires JS to navigate (which is tricky even then). But more easily readable with CSS disabled (or in textual browsers with no CSS).
- jsnider3 8y agoSame, but that's because I have both cookies and javascript disabled on nytimes.com. I could turn them back on, but I usually regret doing that.
- ficiek 8y agoBroken without JavaScript.
- jak92 8y agoReading the source code... Starts at line 7871 Look for text within class "slide-bar-text"
- reaperducer 8y agoIf you're not using JavaScript, there's probably not much a general news publication can tell you about privacy that you don't already know.
- tannhaeuser 8y agoMake this "if you're required to use JavaScipt, then there's probably not much a general news publication can tell you that you would like to know and don't already"
- dingus 8y agoBroken with JavaScript… I couldn't navigate beyond the first screen.
- nwni 8y ago>/interactive/ Is this going to be the trend for how they deliver news now?
- blakesterz 8y agoI didn't get much out of that, but the very last page says "This column is part of The Privacy Project, a series from The New York Times Opinion." which does seem much more useful and has a bunch more: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/opinion/internet-privacy-project.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/opinion/internet-pr... And yes, The Privacy Project has a bunch of trackers on it.
- nerdjon 8y agoThank you for linking to that page. As far as the trackers, is it really that surprising? Any news site advocating for privacy, while much of their business relies on tracking their users so they can keep them "engaged". Almost as ironic as anytime Google says anything about Privacy
- blakesterz 8y ago>> As far as the trackers, is it really that surprising? Nope, not surprising. I'd bet the people that wrote the articles aren't the same people that put the trackers on the pages or sell the ads or do budgets and so on. It would've been nice of someone there to say "Hey maybe we shouldn't pile on the ad stuff in this area". Though, maybe someone tried and couldn't convince the boss.
- oflannabhra 8y agoI don’t think it is surprising, but it is hypocritical. I think such hypocrisy is worth pointing out, even if it is routine at this point.
- daveslash 8y agoI didn't get much either, but this is a link that I will be sharing with many of my less privacy concerned friends and family members; the ones who keep asking me why I refuse to get a doorbell camera or smart light-bulbs. I think this article makes privacy concerns accessible to people newly thinking about it.
- tysone 8y agorelated: The Times's publisher wrote that we're examining our policies and practices around data, too. > "As with a politician railing against high drug prices while accepting campaign donations from big pharma, a news organization cannot talk about privacy on the internet without skeptical readers immediately, and rightly, examining its own practices for signs of hypocrisy." https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/opinion/sulzberger-new-york-times-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/opinion/sulzberger-new-yo...
- kristianc 8y agoThis makes a pretty anodyne set of talking points around privacy and wraps it in the web version of a PowerPoint. In text form, this would barely qualify as a blog. On a more general point these articles really should do more to balance the privacy constraints against the benefits. Google is not just 'a free service', it is all of the world's knowledge, plus mapping, plus email, plus god knows what else all completely on demand, five nines reliable and free to the end user.
- reaperducer 8y agoweb version of a PowerPoint It felt more GeoCities to me. But yeah, this isn't the Times' best moment. Some of the paper's interactive pieces are really well done, and innovative. This... wasn't. Maybe that's because it came from the Opinion section, not one of the news sections. Maybe that's why when I get the paper the first section that goes in the recycling bin is Opinion.
- fb03 8y agoTiming couldn't be better with today's arrest of Julian Assange. Bravo.
- andrethegiant 8y agoFirst time Automatic Reader View has really come in handy! (Safari on iOS)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- joshstrange 8y agoWhat a terrible format. There was nothing added to the "Article" (which was like a paragraph in length) by using that format other than pretending it was more that it really was.
- lotu 8y agoThis kinda feels like worrying about how the telephone would allow people to spread rumors and damaging information about each faster and further. Or perhaps discriminate against a potential job applicant based on their voice, instead only getting to see a letter. This feels like a non-tech person has realized what tech people realized 20 years ago. Technology makes everything we do faster and more efficient even if those things are bad. What they don't propose is any general statement of the problem or any type of solution.
- fb03 8y agoI don't think the article does a disservice to readers by not postulating any kind of way out or solution. I believe that there isn't a solid solution to be posted right now because first we need to get the majority of people to care. Laypeople are not concerned about all of this at all. All they care is that they can, like the article stated, do things like watch their dog from afar, or share funny videos with their relatives. Companies provide their "free" service in exchange for your data. Right now we need to do exactly this: scream and inform everyone that this exists. As long as the population keeps still, there's nothing left to lose for them and much to gain: behavioral insights, health data, trends, ....
- crispyambulance 8y ago>...what tech people realized 20 years ago. OK, but don't forget it has been "tech people" blindly driving us to the edge of dystopia for the purpose getting people to click on stuff.
- navaati 8y agoThey are not necessarily the same persons…
- crispyambulance 8y agoSure, but this is a problem that goes far beyond "tech". There is no technical solution, no killer app which will address it. Surveillance capitalism and its consequences require a multidisciplinary approach that involves non-tech people in the most critical way. I think dismissing non-tech people as effectively clueless (as the parent comment does) is the wrong approach.
- monsterbash506 8y ago"It's time to panic" - translated: stop thinking rationally and become emotional.
- Flyingdeep 8y agoGreat design, Bad UX. I felt like playing tomb rider... looking for creative ways to get to the next page
- kadendogthing 8y agoWell, looks like they need to make the whole page clickable. And not just invisible sidebars. Or make the sidebars visible.
- mherrmann 8y agoThis was surprisingly weak. Security cameras? Who cares? Here's what we really should be worried about: Google. They know everything. Our browsing history. Probably which porn sites we visit. Our emails. Which services we use. Our passwords (if stored in Chrome). Our schedule. Where we are and where we're going (Maps). Security cameras? Laughable. Google (and to some extent FB, Microsoft and Amazon) is where the danger lies.
- StavrosK 8y agoSo switch off them. Fastmail is better than Gmail, Firefox is better than Chrome, DuckDuckGo is pretty good, etc. Even switching some stuff is better than not switching any of it.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoIndeed, I've recently switched from Chrome to Firefox and from Google search to DDG for this very reason. Every little helps.
- toasterlovin 8y agoSeriously people, Duck Duck Go is fine for most work-a-day search. I occasionally use Google search for some obscure technical stuff, but that's it.
- WalterSear 8y agoIME, Duck Duck Go is not a usable alternative - for any 'kind' of searching. And not because it knows less about me: I would copy text directly from a web page and not have it show up. It's particularly bad for academic journal searches. Since those pages change so infrequently, this points to further shortcomings in the breadth of their search methods. Ostensibly, they are polling 'many' sources, but whatever their strategy, it's not working.
- cmroanirgo 8y agoIs there a reason why startpage never gets a look in, but it's always ddg? I get better results with sp.
- amelius 8y agoHow is it that, say two decades ago, telephone companies or banks would not dare to think about selling their clients' information, but right now it seems like it's the most normal thing in the world? What went wrong? Why do we accept this behavior now?
- mikestew 8y agoYou're reminiscing about good ol' days that never were. My wife and I got our first mortgage twenty five years ago. The junk mail started arriving almost the next day. Damned straight the banks were selling your information. Every time you wrote down your name and address on a warranty card, a car loan, or anything else, that went into an IBM DB/2 database running on someone's System/38, packaged to be sold to the highest bidder at the first opportunity. The only reason you might think there is a difference is because the tools got a lot better.
- hprotagonist 8y agoIt was time to panic about privacy in about 1998, and don't think i haven't been!
- js2 8y agoImgur version for folks who are having trouble with the interactivity: https://imgur.com/a/ibC1RZa https://imgur.com/a/ibC1RZa
- jak92 8y agoThanks, but javascript still required for the album..
- sequoia 8y agoIs there a text version of this somewhere? Not interested in attempting to navigate some web designer's idea of a fun mirror maze.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago8 trackers blocked by uBlock Origin, including google-analytics.com and scorecardresearch.com.
- pcmaffey 8y agoBecause panic is an appropriate response... never? What a terrible framing. Participating in mob tactics, especially for an issue you care deeply about, is worse than doing nothing at all.
- dreamcompiler 8y agoThe New York Times must think we're all illiterate ADHD idiots. The subject is interesting and the NYT seem very proud of their flashy graphics, but the signal/noise ratio here is quite low.
- torkable 8y ago"click to advance" na
- OnlyRepliesToBS 8y agocriminalize the data collectors