4 ms·

COVID will eventually pass even with unnecessary fatalities in its wake. E2e encryption and loss of rights will stay around much longer.

api 6y ago
What does encryption even have to do with COVID? All the disinformation I see is cleartext on social media.
- eanzenberg 6y ago
  Gates is scared people are passing bad information through encrypted platforms such as whatsapp. Next, he will require 24/7 monitoring of every private citizen to make sure we don’t call him mean names.
  - philliphaydon 6y ago
    I'm not convinced e2e encryption exists in WhatsApp. Every time I have conversations about products in whats app I get those products as adverts in Facebook.
    - mewpmewp2 6y ago
      I have had this happen without any devices nearby, consistently, meaning we must be chipped already.
    - Buge 6y ago
      Did you or your correspondent view a web page related to the product before or after the conversation? Viewing web pages is quite common. Facebook also has a button next to ads saying why you were shown the ad. What does that say? Also the causation might be in the other direction. You and your correspondent might have seen an ad that then caused you to have the conversation.
      - philliphaydon 6y ago
        Nope. So my current apartment is on the 28th floor. It's common to have gates/grills on the windows here in Singapore. But this apartment, AFAIK the family didn't have kids so they never got it done. So I messaged my agent and said "i love the apartment but the windows don't have any gates or safety catches, my understanding is gates are pretty expensive, would it be possible to atleast get safety catches on the windows?" Never googled or anything like that. For the next couple of months I had constant adverts for windows gates in Facebook.
        Buge 6y ago
        Your landlord might have immediately googled them and viewed some sites about them. And do you and your landlord have the same internet connection? How did you know gates are expensive?
        cranekam 6y ago
        Sharing an internet connection isn’t enough for ads tracking, otherwise everyone behind the same NAT would get the same ads.
        rsfern 6y ago
        I think this has started happening to me lately! I use pihole with the default block lists as well (in the US), which of course doesn’t get everything, but generally works pretty well. So today my wife and I were looking at dogs that need forever homes using her laptop Later I got a dog food ad on my laptop that specifically mentioned shelter rescue pets. I haven’t used any of my devices or accounts for dog-related searches for at least two months.
        jlokier 6y ago
        IP address is one of many signals used to build a statistical profile. It doesn't match you exactly to the other persons behind the same NAT, but it adds some information, raising the likelihood of ad coincidences a little. I have no idea how much. It's likely to depend on which IP address, and other tracking statistics. If you have diligently blocked lots of tracking state, then IP address will be a relatively stronger signal, and this might (ironically) increase the likelihood of ad coincidences.
    - SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago
      That doesn't mean there's no E2E encryption. WhatsApp can take the text of your conversations and also send plaintext to Facebook for ad targeting, while the actual conversation to the other person is still E2E encrypted. Or do "local" analytics on the phone to find keywords for ad targeting. Etc.
      - philliphaydon 6y ago
        So literally defeating the purpose of e2e encryption where the conversations are between me and the other person. Not parsed prior for advertising. In any case people should avoid WhatsApp as it’s clearly less secure now that Facebook owns it.
        SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago
        Certainly! Just that with a closed-source endpoint the use (or not) of E2EE is meaningless.
artellectual 6y ago
That in and of itself is a testament to how problematic our man-made legal system is. Compare a nature made system to a man made system. Nature changes over time. Our laws and regulations however do not get updated to reflect the times. That is the reason why human progress is slow. It's because humans don't change. That is the root cause of all evil. Humans like the comfort of not having to change.
- akiselev 6y ago
  > Nature changes over time. Our laws and regulations however do not get updated to reflect the times. That is the reason why human progress is slow. It's because humans don't change. That is the root cause of all evil. Humans like the comfort of not having to change. That is the most ridiculous thing I've heard today. It took a billion plus years for nature to come up with humans and about ten thousand years for us to go from written language to causing a mass extinction. To call such a comparison "hyperbolic" would be an understatement.
- avindroth 6y ago
  > Nature changes over time. Our laws and regulations however do not get updated to reflect the times. That is the reason why human progress is slow. It's because humans don't change. That is the root cause of all evil. Humans like the comfort of not having to change. You have put together arguments that make sense individually, but do not make sense when you weave them together. Nature changes over time, but over a long period of time (e.g. evolution is slow). Our laws and regulations do not get updated to reflect the times, yes, but the times that are changing is because of humans, not nature. A manmade part of society is having a tough time catching up with another manmade part of society. Human progress is NOT slow, at least when you are comparing it with nature. Humans do not change on an individual level, but they change a great deal en masse culturally, psychologically, etc. We are actually almost built for adaptation and change intergenerationally. There is a subtle point here about institutions refusing change, but you cannot make a valid comparison of speed between human institutions and nature.

api 6y ago

What does encryption even have to do with COVID? All the disinformation I see is cleartext on social media.

eanzenberg 6y ago
Gates is scared people are passing bad information through encrypted platforms such as whatsapp. Next, he will require 24/7 monitoring of every private citizen to make sure we don’t call him mean names.
- philliphaydon 6y ago
  I'm not convinced e2e encryption exists in WhatsApp. Every time I have conversations about products in whats app I get those products as adverts in Facebook.
  - mewpmewp2 6y ago
    I have had this happen without any devices nearby, consistently, meaning we must be chipped already.
  - Buge 6y ago
    Did you or your correspondent view a web page related to the product before or after the conversation? Viewing web pages is quite common. Facebook also has a button next to ads saying why you were shown the ad. What does that say? Also the causation might be in the other direction. You and your correspondent might have seen an ad that then caused you to have the conversation.
    - philliphaydon 6y ago
      Nope. So my current apartment is on the 28th floor. It's common to have gates/grills on the windows here in Singapore. But this apartment, AFAIK the family didn't have kids so they never got it done. So I messaged my agent and said "i love the apartment but the windows don't have any gates or safety catches, my understanding is gates are pretty expensive, would it be possible to atleast get safety catches on the windows?" Never googled or anything like that. For the next couple of months I had constant adverts for windows gates in Facebook.
      - Buge 6y ago
        Your landlord might have immediately googled them and viewed some sites about them. And do you and your landlord have the same internet connection? How did you know gates are expensive?
        cranekam 6y ago
        Sharing an internet connection isn’t enough for ads tracking, otherwise everyone behind the same NAT would get the same ads.
        rsfern 6y ago
        I think this has started happening to me lately! I use pihole with the default block lists as well (in the US), which of course doesn’t get everything, but generally works pretty well. So today my wife and I were looking at dogs that need forever homes using her laptop Later I got a dog food ad on my laptop that specifically mentioned shelter rescue pets. I haven’t used any of my devices or accounts for dog-related searches for at least two months.
        jlokier 6y ago
        IP address is one of many signals used to build a statistical profile. It doesn't match you exactly to the other persons behind the same NAT, but it adds some information, raising the likelihood of ad coincidences a little. I have no idea how much. It's likely to depend on which IP address, and other tracking statistics. If you have diligently blocked lots of tracking state, then IP address will be a relatively stronger signal, and this might (ironically) increase the likelihood of ad coincidences.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago
    That doesn't mean there's no E2E encryption. WhatsApp can take the text of your conversations and also send plaintext to Facebook for ad targeting, while the actual conversation to the other person is still E2E encrypted. Or do "local" analytics on the phone to find keywords for ad targeting. Etc.
    - philliphaydon 6y ago
      So literally defeating the purpose of e2e encryption where the conversations are between me and the other person. Not parsed prior for advertising. In any case people should avoid WhatsApp as it’s clearly less secure now that Facebook owns it.
      - SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago
        Certainly! Just that with a closed-source endpoint the use (or not) of E2EE is meaningless.

artellectual 6y ago

That in and of itself is a testament to how problematic our man-made legal system is. Compare a nature made system to a man made system. Nature changes over time. Our laws and regulations however do not get updated to reflect the times. That is the reason why human progress is slow. It's because humans don't change. That is the root cause of all evil. Humans like the comfort of not having to change.

akiselev 6y ago
> Nature changes over time. Our laws and regulations however do not get updated to reflect the times. That is the reason why human progress is slow. It's because humans don't change. That is the root cause of all evil. Humans like the comfort of not having to change. That is the most ridiculous thing I've heard today. It took a billion plus years for nature to come up with humans and about ten thousand years for us to go from written language to causing a mass extinction. To call such a comparison "hyperbolic" would be an understatement.
avindroth 6y ago
> Nature changes over time. Our laws and regulations however do not get updated to reflect the times. That is the reason why human progress is slow. It's because humans don't change. That is the root cause of all evil. Humans like the comfort of not having to change. You have put together arguments that make sense individually, but do not make sense when you weave them together. Nature changes over time, but over a long period of time (e.g. evolution is slow). Our laws and regulations do not get updated to reflect the times, yes, but the times that are changing is because of humans, not nature. A manmade part of society is having a tough time catching up with another manmade part of society. Human progress is NOT slow, at least when you are comparing it with nature. Humans do not change on an individual level, but they change a great deal en masse culturally, psychologically, etc. We are actually almost built for adaptation and change intergenerationally. There is a subtle point here about institutions refusing change, but you cannot make a valid comparison of speed between human institutions and nature.