19 ms·

Why Privacy Matters

262 points by Clo_S 6y ago

tremon 6y ago
... published on a site that accesses 7 different top-level domains. And that's even before allowing any javascript to run. Oh the ironing.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  Ironing? Are we going to see the same comment on every article about privacy?
  - atoav 6y ago
    If you are writing about the importance of privacy, you might consider what you are doing about it yourself if you want to be taken seriously. It is 2020, setting up a website that doesn't send off the data of your trusting visitors to third parties should be totally standard. Yet not even people advocating for privacy can get this done. BTW. one benefit of not collecting and tracking is that you won't have to show that silly cookie banner.
    - Clo_S 6y ago
      Oh I'm well aware and I wish I didn't have to show the banner. If you know an alternative with which I could build that website, that doesn't force me to use cookies on users, I'm all ears
      - jpttsn 6y ago
        HTML
        rexpop 6y ago
        This is awfully dismissive. Not everyone with technical skills in one domain or another are capable of building a website from scratch, and that's perfectly fine.
    - leakr 6y ago
      Yeah that's a great theorical piece of advice. But here's the thing. In 2020 if you don't wanna self-host your website and have a resilient and flexible website, you don't have other options than squarespace/wix and other platforms using cookies.
      - sanderjd 6y ago
        Sure you do. Those may be the easiest ones, but they are not the only options. There is probably a discoverability problem though. It's not great if the best way to learn about the other options is through HN comments...
        leakr 6y ago
        Your "standard" user without any git or HTML/CSS/JS or command line knowledge hasn't a lot of options imho. Obviously, self-hosting with https://sitejs.org/ https://sitejs.org/ or something similar would be ideal but when you don't have a dev/IT background and you're looking for a way to host a blog there isn't a plethora of viable and easy-to-use solutions, especially if you don't want to use a service provided by Microsoft, Google, Facebook etc... I did the research a few months ago and maybe I missed some options though? If you have resources I'm interested!
        sanderjd 6y ago
        There are options like GitHub pages (mentioned here) where you write in markdown. But I agree that this is not a priority of the market.
      - Nextgrid 6y ago
        I use Squarespace and you can configure it to disable any tracking and not have to show a consent banner. Not sure about Wix.
- Clo_S 6y ago
  Yes, that's something I'd love to do differently. The problem is I don't have the technical skills to build that website myself. As I said in the cookie banner, I disabled all the trackers I could. Unfortunately, Squarespace doesn't let its customers disable all of them, which is extremely annoying.
  - Karunamon 6y ago
    You may wish to give Wordpress a look. It's infamously easy to install, and will happily run on a $5/month digitalocean VM. Installing a caching addon (one or two clicks from the store) will make a site that can survive being linked to directly on HN. Last I knew Squarespace had an export option, so you might be able to just bring all your content over without much hassle.
    - leakr 6y ago
      Unfortunately WordPress is a pain in the butt to maintain, every plugin and even the core is a security liability if you don't auto update everything (which is likely to randomly wreck your blog someday) and Wordpress's default configuration (with its XMLRPC API) is far from perfect.
    - Clo_S 6y ago
      Thanks! I had a WP site before, but it was getting too complicated for me. I have basic CSS skills, but they weren't enough so I was always asking my SO for help. I had plugins to update but I was never sure of how safe they were, if they were going to break the site, etc. With the skills I have, something like Squarespace is more manageable and easier to tailor
      - user5994461 6y ago
        Get a fully managed wordpress from wordpress.com. That will cost you a few dollars per month and you won't have to manage Linux/PHP/SQL or any plugin. There is a bunch of themes included that look pretty good overall. GitHub Pages are also a good suggestion but they don't come with comments, stats or themes. There's quite a bit of development and design to do to match squarespace/wordpress.
- encom 6y ago
  uBlock says 9 domains, and the article starts with a "trigger warning". Hard pass.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    > trigger warning I dislike them, but I have met people who genuinely do not want to think about bad things. I can accept the viewpoint, but these are the people that turn a blind eye during genocides. If you really can't handle discussing topics like these I don't mind a warning, at least rather than self-censoring. However, I'm reminded of the fuss that was made over the term "Joyplot" due to the term Joy Division - ignoring that band is named after the historical term as an artistic statement, it just seems like pandering into the void.
    - mLuby 6y ago
      If you saw your family and friends murdered in a genocide and were understandably traumatized, it's reasonable to not force you to relieve that experience unprepared. A trigger warning for genocide would help you emotionally prepare to engage with the topic, or if you're still not ready, to avoid it. It's not for society at large to dismiss controversial topics (though some people mistakenly use it that way).
  - driverdan 6y ago
    > the article starts with a "trigger warning". Hard pass. You're passing because someone is attempting to help people with mental health problems? Perhaps the problem is with you, not the warning.
    - rexpop 6y ago
      It's truly horrific how many people are disdainful of those of us who have PTSD, as though this "weakness" were a moral failing, and therefore also a moral failing to accommodate.
    - encom 6y ago
      Or perhaps the problem is taking a concept that is poorly understood by most, and running it into the ground until it loses its meaning. Triggers and warnings are concepts that are absolutely real, but in most usage is instead a fad and a virtue signal. That much is obvious in this case, when the author puts up a warning for authoritarianism. Please.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
  If you control your own "DNS" this site does not access any of those different domains. I do this, for speed and reliability, not privacy. When I access this site, the only domain my client accesses is "thistooshallgrow.com", which is hosted on squarespace. That hosting company requires a UA in addition to Host and Connection headers otherwise no others are required. Most sites do not require a UA header. I like to control the headers I send, too. Not for privacy; I just like the control and minimalism. This site, like most any site, works just fine for me in a text-only browser. I read the same content as anyone using a "modern" browser, minus the ads, tracking or other nonsense. I see no irony. Except perhaps that you are using a browser that defaults to enabling those automatic accesses to different domains, a browser that is in fact supported by the web advertising industry. You need an extension to modify the program's behaviour to block ads, etc.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
yboris 6y ago
Somewhat related: Privacy is Power - Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data by Carissa Véliz https://www.amazon.com/Privacy-Power-Should-Take-Control-ebook/dp/B08788L77V/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=veliz&qid=1598969278&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Privacy-Power-Should-Take-Control-ebo...
css 6y ago
I do not understand what this article is trying to communicate. It starts with a rambling anecdote and ends with a list of some unrelated terms barely tangential to privacy.
- Clo_S 6y ago
  I see a lot of non-technical people around me who don't get the importance of privacy. Family who buys Alexa and use Facebook for everything. I wrote this in an attempt to explain how far privacy breaches can get, how the implications can be. Then, I tried defining some security terms that non-technical people might run into. Security helps protect their privacy, so I hope to help them make sense of what those terms mean and how they benefit from them.
  - css 6y ago
    Are you trying to equate buying an Alexa device or using Facebook to your anecdote? I do not really understand how the concepts are related.
    - Clo_S 6y ago
      No, that's not what I said. I'm trying to show what sharing sensitive information with companies and governments can lead to.
      - stickfigure 6y ago
        Your thesis seems to be "Facebook knows you're shopping for a new car therefore Nazis." However well intentioned, it strains credulity. You should make a better case for why privacy matters.
        AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        Turn it around. Not "Facebook knows things about you, therefore Nazis" but rather "Nazis existed as a historical fact, therefore what Facebook knows about you is incredibly dangerous."
mhh__ 6y ago
When I discuss privacy with a friend who doesn't share the same liberalism as me (Chinese, make of that what you will), I often have to point out that it's easy to forget that the spooks will get into bed with political conspiracy - Watergate, COINTELPRO for example. There are very few checks and balances in the US, and arguable none in the UK (You can at least put the US Constitution on your pocket) "I have nothing to hide" should be considered equal to "I have nothing to say, therefore I have nothing to say"
- Koshkin 6y ago
  The "I have nothing to hide" trope is patently false. We hide all the time - we hide our private parts under the clothing; in our dwellings, we hide ourselves behind blinds and curtains; we hide most of our thoughts by keeping them to ourselves. 99% of all information is hidden (and should stay that way).
chaostheory 6y ago
With the existence of shadow profiles, is ideal privacy even possible unless you live in a remote area with a tech averse population? What about the census? The data you provide to the gov is also very sensitive and has a history of being abused (see the role of the US Census Bureau in Japanese Internment Camps). However if you don’t provide it, it affects gov funding for your demographic. What about the computer in your pocket? Most of it isn’t open source
- leakr 6y ago
  "is ideal privacy even possible" - It is, but 99% of the world population won't be able to attain it. Your machines (smartphone, PCs) can be fingerprinted with a 99% accuracy even if you navigate using Tor or a VPN. I think https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/ can be part of an answer!
- mLuby 6y ago
  It is possible. A census counts people. It might need to know who's a citizen or who's eligible to vote, or maybe even generation or sex. It doesn't need to know name, address, eye color, medical history, fingerprint, etc. The aggregation provides privacy (unless the sample size is incredibly small, like in an extremely remote district). Another example is the TSA: their job is to protect vehicles and passengers, which means preventing weapons on airplanes. But it doesn't matter who's wielding the weapons. So they don't need ID to do their job, and asking for it (and worse, recording it where it can be leaked) is an unnecessary breach of privacy. The general problem is there are incentives for collecting excessive information and very few disincentives. Laws and regulation can change that.
- tboyd47 6y ago
  Satoshi Nakamoto apparently did it.
  - chaostheory 6y ago
    I feel that the public doesn't know that for sure; same with Banksy.
teddyh 6y ago
I vastly prefer Bruce Schneier’s take (from 2006): The Eternal Value of Privacy https://www.wired.com/2006/05/the-eternal-value-of-privacy/ https://www.wired.com/2006/05/the-eternal-value-of-privacy/
- Clo_S 6y ago
  Oh thanks, I'll give it a read
wnd_pn 6y ago
I totally agree with you. Unfortunately as of today, people are not putting enough attention on who they give their sensitive information to. Data breaches are increasing in number, billion of accounts are hacked every day (I just discovered one of my side-accounts got hacked through https://haveibeenpwned.com/ https://haveibeenpwned.com/), nevertheless the majority of us is still not protecting its data properly (perhaps the problem relies on ignoring the problem itself?). And the situation is even more dramatic in the B2B market: I work in the cybersecurity industry and every day I see companies being hit by these attacks. That is why, I always advice the people I know to start using privacy-oriented tools that could actually prevent or help preventing something like this to happen. Like using a password manager (https://1password.com)to https://1password.com)to create strong password and store them, or a secure email system (https://protonmail.com https://protonmail.com), or "simply" by keeping your systems and softwares up-to-date or by backing up your data. We, at Cubbit, are contributing to the mission of getting back our privacy by building a distributed and encrypted cloud storage service that puts users in control of their data (https://business.cubbit.io https://business.cubbit.io).
- Clo_S 6y ago
  Oooh yes! The 2nd part of this article is about all the tools I use that help with privacy and security, including ProtonMail and Have I Been Pwned! I will look into Cubbit, thank you
- devanon 6y ago
  https://privacytoolslist.com/#leak-test-tools https://privacytoolslist.com/#leak-test-tools full list of such tools and many others. And protonmail is anti-privacy. They have access to emails and happy to give access to any data on demand
  - wnd_pn 6y ago
    Hi Devanon, why would you say so? Rather than the fact that it's not a decentralized service, it still ticks many of the boxes that make the service very private and secure: 1. it's open source 2. They use end-to-end encryption 3. No personal information is required to create an account Can you explain your position please?
matz1 6y ago
So privacy matters because the information can be used against you. That is reasonable but hiding information is not the only the way to fix the issue. Knife can be used to harm people, sure you can fix it by banning/destroying knife but thats not the only way to fix the issue. I'm more interested to solution where we assume the information will be public and fix the issue that arise due to that.
- auslegung 6y ago
  I think your knife analogy is poor. Banning/destroying data is not what privacy is about. Privacy is about ensuring no one has your data who shouldn't. Knife safety also involves ensuring no one has a knife who shouldn't, such as toddlers. Assuming all information is public and fixing the issues that arise is like giving everyone (even toddlers) a knife and then fixing the issues that arise from that. There is no fixing the issues that arise from a toddler having a knife. The solution is to take the knife away, they should not have a knife. The same solution is there for data, take the data away from the people who shouldn't have it, they should not have it. Or even better, don't get a knife to a toddler/your data to people who shouldn't have it in the first place.
  - matz1 6y ago
    >Privacy is about ensuring no one has your data who shouldn't Yes and that is because that someone can use it to harm you and you'll suffer. Ensuring no one has your data who shouldn't is only one way but not the only way to prevent the suffering. Let say you know my credit card account number, the reason I don't want other people to know the number is because it can be used to stole my money. But what if there is way that even though you know my credit card number, you can't stole my money, then having my credit card number public would not be an issue for me. Analogy is not perfect, but with knife, my point is we let everyone to easily obtain knife even though we know that it can be used to harm people. One way we do this is by having a severe enough punishment as a deterrent for people who use it to harm other. This is what I mean by fixing the issue that arise due to easily accessible knife.
    - 6y ago
oshea64bit 6y ago
Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like the foreword has little to do with the rest of the article. I was hooked after reading the beginning anecdote, but the transition to a general overview of security concepts felt a bit abrupt. I agree with the general sentiment of the article though. I'm glad that there's been an increasing amount of attention placed on privacy lately.
XCSme 6y ago
So, why does it matter? The article talks about random security things, that have nothing to do with the title.
mindfulhack 6y ago
I like this article because it reminds us of the relationship between privacy and freedom. Important freedom. Freedoms that go far beyond our computer code. In fact, survival.
- thedoubleu 6y ago
  I love your comment. I got distracted by what others have already mentioned about the title not matching the content and then failed to see the big picture. Very admirable (to me at least).
wuliwong 6y ago
The title of the article is "The Why and How of Privacy and Security." That should be the title on this HN post as well.
epoch_100 6y ago
Related: https://whyprivacymatters.org https://whyprivacymatters.org
ryosuke 6y ago
I'm not sure who this article is meant for. If the idea is to convince non-technical people of the importance of privacy, the article should have just stuck to that. Parts like the free vs. open source discussion seem unnecessary.
whhone 6y ago
I learnt "why privacy matters" from this Glenn's TED: https://www.ted.com/talks/glenn_greenwald_why_privacy_matters https://www.ted.com/talks/glenn_greenwald_why_privacy_matter...
stereolambda 6y ago
I don't think that striking high chords, historical and political, is all that useful when talking to people about these things. They tend not to take it seriously or at best just file it mentally with other bad things in the world that they have little agency about. Of course, you may already get the broad societal ramifications if you're already in the privacy camp, but perhaps it's not a very effective entry point. (It's another thing if we're talking about politics, not about individual choices. In pure politics big picture arguments, like "what if there'll be a dictatorship", might be more proper). I would try to frame it, for individual people, as a question of quality and technical savvyness. If a supposedly hi-tech company behaves like a scammy phone marketing operation selling you garbage bundled with hidden subscriptions, we should treat is as such. They should be able to treat you seriously, i.e. give you good quality, reliable products for the money, without scheming behind your back and siphoning all the data they can. Their business model should be sound without this. If they don't, it's just an inferior product and you're being exploited. A related point is that I don't like products being sold solely on privacy. The tone should be more, we provide you an excellent thing (inside our capital constraints) and of course, it also respects your data. Currently I see a tendency among people to be more-or-less aware of privacy invasions and their potential, but to think that's ultimately a fact of life and they'd have to be some crazy nerds to do something about it. The thinking should be more that they're using low quality stuff and hurting themselves. (I'm not saying that you should now go and antagonize people in your social bubble, just that it may be a communication strategy if there's an opportunity.) Besides, trying to defend ourselves from the future state will be probably always perceived as kooky. Better do something about politics directly if you're in a moderately free country. It's more about rogue actors inside the companies and in the broad underworld. There was a time when people installed the damn antivirus.
maproot 6y ago
Privacy tools and OS really matter: privacytoolslist.com
erikerikson 6y ago
These discussions never seem to recognize the role of privacy for empowering oppressors. Shining light into the darkness is the metaphor used by journalists. What if there was no or drastically less darkness? How would the Uyghur example be different if the Chinese governments discussions, plans, and actions were public knowledge? More implementable, if every citizen concerned that they were at risk ran a self monitoring system that could be purchased or issued by NGOs or reporters which created a public document of their treatment. What if the German population had been shown the images of torture and abuse so that they could know what the politics were doing? What if married soldier's philandering and rape were shared with their partners? What if today in the U.S. the smaller scale oppressions of domestic violence were thoroughly documented for courts and automatically detected to provide systemic support? What if "he said, she said" was a problem of the past? What if every government official's behavior was publicly documented so that any bad actors could be proactively and clearly identified and their good actions could be commended? What if your argument with your partner(s) or friends were reviewable so that you never had to argue about what you said, you could check it and apologize for what you said (or be apologized to) and get back on track to building understanding instead of entrenching in conflict? There are obvious challenges that would need to be thought through but it might be worth considering.
bad_user 6y ago
> "On the other hand, open-source software has a less strict definition, and a different philosophy. You can also see the source code, amongst other things." No it doesn't. The Open Source definition is very much equivalent with that of Free Software, while having the virtue of being more clear, and I wish FS advocates would take the time to actually read it before talking nonsense. The political vs non-political aspects have nothing to do with their definitions, but with the organizations behind them. Also not sure what this had to do with the subject of the article.
Stierlitz 6y ago
We don't have any privacy, we gave it away in exchange for the promise of safety: “.. the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, think, and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillence coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? ..” “.. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now High Chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent ..” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKnjxT5HRJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKnjxT5HRJQ
haylem 6y ago
That grandfather and two of his brothers left [...] with no plan [...]. They were helped by strangers and survived. Their mother however, along with two other siblings, had a plan. They had a deal with a smuggler [...] and all 3 of them died in deportation. Lesson: each person who has information on you represents an additional chance for it to be leaked. This puzzles me... The paragraph clearly states that the grandfather had contacts with strangers (and we can then assume there was some exchange of information of some kind), and the ending was positive, whereas another exchange with a single point of contact had a negative outcome. But goes on to present as a lesson that the chance of a negative outcome increases with the number of contacts. I see the point the author is trying to make, but I think this part fails to prove it satisfyingly. It either doesn't prove anything, or it's missing key information (shared information with the strangers and the smugglers) to support the point. To me, it proves that luck (and maybe the grand-father's ability to be a good judge of character in picking which strangers to rely on) were more likely deciding factors. (Or that having no plan helps. But that's for a different perspective.)

262 points by Clo_S 6y ago

... published on a site that accesses 7 different top-level domains. And that's even before allowing any javascript to run. Oh the ironing.

jacquesm 6y ago
Ironing? Are we going to see the same comment on every article about privacy?
- atoav 6y ago
  If you are writing about the importance of privacy, you might consider what you are doing about it yourself if you want to be taken seriously. It is 2020, setting up a website that doesn't send off the data of your trusting visitors to third parties should be totally standard. Yet not even people advocating for privacy can get this done. BTW. one benefit of not collecting and tracking is that you won't have to show that silly cookie banner.
  - Clo_S 6y ago
    Oh I'm well aware and I wish I didn't have to show the banner. If you know an alternative with which I could build that website, that doesn't force me to use cookies on users, I'm all ears
    - jpttsn 6y ago
      HTML
      - rexpop 6y ago
        This is awfully dismissive. Not everyone with technical skills in one domain or another are capable of building a website from scratch, and that's perfectly fine.
  - leakr 6y ago
    Yeah that's a great theorical piece of advice. But here's the thing. In 2020 if you don't wanna self-host your website and have a resilient and flexible website, you don't have other options than squarespace/wix and other platforms using cookies.
    - sanderjd 6y ago
      Sure you do. Those may be the easiest ones, but they are not the only options. There is probably a discoverability problem though. It's not great if the best way to learn about the other options is through HN comments...
      - leakr 6y ago
        Your "standard" user without any git or HTML/CSS/JS or command line knowledge hasn't a lot of options imho. Obviously, self-hosting with https://sitejs.org/ https://sitejs.org/ or something similar would be ideal but when you don't have a dev/IT background and you're looking for a way to host a blog there isn't a plethora of viable and easy-to-use solutions, especially if you don't want to use a service provided by Microsoft, Google, Facebook etc... I did the research a few months ago and maybe I missed some options though? If you have resources I'm interested!
        sanderjd 6y ago
        There are options like GitHub pages (mentioned here) where you write in markdown. But I agree that this is not a priority of the market.
    - Nextgrid 6y ago
      I use Squarespace and you can configure it to disable any tracking and not have to show a consent banner. Not sure about Wix.
Clo_S 6y ago
Yes, that's something I'd love to do differently. The problem is I don't have the technical skills to build that website myself. As I said in the cookie banner, I disabled all the trackers I could. Unfortunately, Squarespace doesn't let its customers disable all of them, which is extremely annoying.
- Karunamon 6y ago
  You may wish to give Wordpress a look. It's infamously easy to install, and will happily run on a $5/month digitalocean VM. Installing a caching addon (one or two clicks from the store) will make a site that can survive being linked to directly on HN. Last I knew Squarespace had an export option, so you might be able to just bring all your content over without much hassle.
  - leakr 6y ago
    Unfortunately WordPress is a pain in the butt to maintain, every plugin and even the core is a security liability if you don't auto update everything (which is likely to randomly wreck your blog someday) and Wordpress's default configuration (with its XMLRPC API) is far from perfect.
  - Clo_S 6y ago
    Thanks! I had a WP site before, but it was getting too complicated for me. I have basic CSS skills, but they weren't enough so I was always asking my SO for help. I had plugins to update but I was never sure of how safe they were, if they were going to break the site, etc. With the skills I have, something like Squarespace is more manageable and easier to tailor
    - user5994461 6y ago
      Get a fully managed wordpress from wordpress.com. That will cost you a few dollars per month and you won't have to manage Linux/PHP/SQL or any plugin. There is a bunch of themes included that look pretty good overall. GitHub Pages are also a good suggestion but they don't come with comments, stats or themes. There's quite a bit of development and design to do to match squarespace/wordpress.
encom 6y ago
uBlock says 9 domains, and the article starts with a "trigger warning". Hard pass.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  > trigger warning I dislike them, but I have met people who genuinely do not want to think about bad things. I can accept the viewpoint, but these are the people that turn a blind eye during genocides. If you really can't handle discussing topics like these I don't mind a warning, at least rather than self-censoring. However, I'm reminded of the fuss that was made over the term "Joyplot" due to the term Joy Division - ignoring that band is named after the historical term as an artistic statement, it just seems like pandering into the void.
  - mLuby 6y ago
    If you saw your family and friends murdered in a genocide and were understandably traumatized, it's reasonable to not force you to relieve that experience unprepared. A trigger warning for genocide would help you emotionally prepare to engage with the topic, or if you're still not ready, to avoid it. It's not for society at large to dismiss controversial topics (though some people mistakenly use it that way).
- driverdan 6y ago
  > the article starts with a "trigger warning". Hard pass. You're passing because someone is attempting to help people with mental health problems? Perhaps the problem is with you, not the warning.
  - rexpop 6y ago
    It's truly horrific how many people are disdainful of those of us who have PTSD, as though this "weakness" were a moral failing, and therefore also a moral failing to accommodate.
  - encom 6y ago
    Or perhaps the problem is taking a concept that is poorly understood by most, and running it into the ground until it loses its meaning. Triggers and warnings are concepts that are absolutely real, but in most usage is instead a fad and a virtue signal. That much is obvious in this case, when the author puts up a warning for authoritarianism. Please.
1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
If you control your own "DNS" this site does not access any of those different domains. I do this, for speed and reliability, not privacy. When I access this site, the only domain my client accesses is "thistooshallgrow.com", which is hosted on squarespace. That hosting company requires a UA in addition to Host and Connection headers otherwise no others are required. Most sites do not require a UA header. I like to control the headers I send, too. Not for privacy; I just like the control and minimalism. This site, like most any site, works just fine for me in a text-only browser. I read the same content as anyone using a "modern" browser, minus the ads, tracking or other nonsense. I see no irony. Except perhaps that you are using a browser that defaults to enabling those automatic accesses to different domains, a browser that is in fact supported by the web advertising industry. You need an extension to modify the program's behaviour to block ads, etc.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

yboris 6y ago

Somewhat related: Privacy is Power - Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data by Carissa Véliz https://www.amazon.com/Privacy-Power-Should-Take-Control-ebook/dp/B08788L77V/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=veliz&qid=1598969278&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Privacy-Power-Should-Take-Control-ebo...

css 6y ago

I do not understand what this article is trying to communicate. It starts with a rambling anecdote and ends with a list of some unrelated terms barely tangential to privacy.

Clo_S 6y ago
I see a lot of non-technical people around me who don't get the importance of privacy. Family who buys Alexa and use Facebook for everything. I wrote this in an attempt to explain how far privacy breaches can get, how the implications can be. Then, I tried defining some security terms that non-technical people might run into. Security helps protect their privacy, so I hope to help them make sense of what those terms mean and how they benefit from them.
- css 6y ago
  Are you trying to equate buying an Alexa device or using Facebook to your anecdote? I do not really understand how the concepts are related.
  - Clo_S 6y ago
    No, that's not what I said. I'm trying to show what sharing sensitive information with companies and governments can lead to.
    - stickfigure 6y ago
      Your thesis seems to be "Facebook knows you're shopping for a new car therefore Nazis." However well intentioned, it strains credulity. You should make a better case for why privacy matters.
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        Turn it around. Not "Facebook knows things about you, therefore Nazis" but rather "Nazis existed as a historical fact, therefore what Facebook knows about you is incredibly dangerous."

mhh__ 6y ago

When I discuss privacy with a friend who doesn't share the same liberalism as me (Chinese, make of that what you will), I often have to point out that it's easy to forget that the spooks will get into bed with political conspiracy - Watergate, COINTELPRO for example. There are very few checks and balances in the US, and arguable none in the UK (You can at least put the US Constitution on your pocket) "I have nothing to hide" should be considered equal to "I have nothing to say, therefore I have nothing to say"

Koshkin 6y ago
The "I have nothing to hide" trope is patently false. We hide all the time - we hide our private parts under the clothing; in our dwellings, we hide ourselves behind blinds and curtains; we hide most of our thoughts by keeping them to ourselves. 99% of all information is hidden (and should stay that way).

chaostheory 6y ago

With the existence of shadow profiles, is ideal privacy even possible unless you live in a remote area with a tech averse population? What about the census? The data you provide to the gov is also very sensitive and has a history of being abused (see the role of the US Census Bureau in Japanese Internment Camps). However if you don’t provide it, it affects gov funding for your demographic. What about the computer in your pocket? Most of it isn’t open source

leakr 6y ago
"is ideal privacy even possible" - It is, but 99% of the world population won't be able to attain it. Your machines (smartphone, PCs) can be fingerprinted with a 99% accuracy even if you navigate using Tor or a VPN. I think https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/ can be part of an answer!
mLuby 6y ago
It is possible. A census counts people. It might need to know who's a citizen or who's eligible to vote, or maybe even generation or sex. It doesn't need to know name, address, eye color, medical history, fingerprint, etc. The aggregation provides privacy (unless the sample size is incredibly small, like in an extremely remote district). Another example is the TSA: their job is to protect vehicles and passengers, which means preventing weapons on airplanes. But it doesn't matter who's wielding the weapons. So they don't need ID to do their job, and asking for it (and worse, recording it where it can be leaked) is an unnecessary breach of privacy. The general problem is there are incentives for collecting excessive information and very few disincentives. Laws and regulation can change that.
tboyd47 6y ago
Satoshi Nakamoto apparently did it.
- chaostheory 6y ago
  I feel that the public doesn't know that for sure; same with Banksy.

teddyh 6y ago

I vastly prefer Bruce Schneier’s take (from 2006): The Eternal Value of Privacy https://www.wired.com/2006/05/the-eternal-value-of-privacy/ https://www.wired.com/2006/05/the-eternal-value-of-privacy/

Clo_S 6y ago
Oh thanks, I'll give it a read

wnd_pn 6y ago

I totally agree with you. Unfortunately as of today, people are not putting enough attention on who they give their sensitive information to. Data breaches are increasing in number, billion of accounts are hacked every day (I just discovered one of my side-accounts got hacked through https://haveibeenpwned.com/ https://haveibeenpwned.com/), nevertheless the majority of us is still not protecting its data properly (perhaps the problem relies on ignoring the problem itself?). And the situation is even more dramatic in the B2B market: I work in the cybersecurity industry and every day I see companies being hit by these attacks. That is why, I always advice the people I know to start using privacy-oriented tools that could actually prevent or help preventing something like this to happen. Like using a password manager (https://1password.com)to https://1password.com)to create strong password and store them, or a secure email system (https://protonmail.com https://protonmail.com), or "simply" by keeping your systems and softwares up-to-date or by backing up your data. We, at Cubbit, are contributing to the mission of getting back our privacy by building a distributed and encrypted cloud storage service that puts users in control of their data (https://business.cubbit.io https://business.cubbit.io).

Clo_S 6y ago
Oooh yes! The 2nd part of this article is about all the tools I use that help with privacy and security, including ProtonMail and Have I Been Pwned! I will look into Cubbit, thank you
devanon 6y ago
https://privacytoolslist.com/#leak-test-tools https://privacytoolslist.com/#leak-test-tools full list of such tools and many others. And protonmail is anti-privacy. They have access to emails and happy to give access to any data on demand
- wnd_pn 6y ago
  Hi Devanon, why would you say so? Rather than the fact that it's not a decentralized service, it still ticks many of the boxes that make the service very private and secure: 1. it's open source 2. They use end-to-end encryption 3. No personal information is required to create an account Can you explain your position please?

matz1 6y ago

So privacy matters because the information can be used against you. That is reasonable but hiding information is not the only the way to fix the issue. Knife can be used to harm people, sure you can fix it by banning/destroying knife but thats not the only way to fix the issue. I'm more interested to solution where we assume the information will be public and fix the issue that arise due to that.

auslegung 6y ago
I think your knife analogy is poor. Banning/destroying data is not what privacy is about. Privacy is about ensuring no one has your data who shouldn't. Knife safety also involves ensuring no one has a knife who shouldn't, such as toddlers. Assuming all information is public and fixing the issues that arise is like giving everyone (even toddlers) a knife and then fixing the issues that arise from that. There is no fixing the issues that arise from a toddler having a knife. The solution is to take the knife away, they should not have a knife. The same solution is there for data, take the data away from the people who shouldn't have it, they should not have it. Or even better, don't get a knife to a toddler/your data to people who shouldn't have it in the first place.
- matz1 6y ago
  >Privacy is about ensuring no one has your data who shouldn't Yes and that is because that someone can use it to harm you and you'll suffer. Ensuring no one has your data who shouldn't is only one way but not the only way to prevent the suffering. Let say you know my credit card account number, the reason I don't want other people to know the number is because it can be used to stole my money. But what if there is way that even though you know my credit card number, you can't stole my money, then having my credit card number public would not be an issue for me. Analogy is not perfect, but with knife, my point is we let everyone to easily obtain knife even though we know that it can be used to harm people. One way we do this is by having a severe enough punishment as a deterrent for people who use it to harm other. This is what I mean by fixing the issue that arise due to easily accessible knife.
  - 6y ago

oshea64bit 6y ago

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like the foreword has little to do with the rest of the article. I was hooked after reading the beginning anecdote, but the transition to a general overview of security concepts felt a bit abrupt. I agree with the general sentiment of the article though. I'm glad that there's been an increasing amount of attention placed on privacy lately.

XCSme 6y ago

So, why does it matter? The article talks about random security things, that have nothing to do with the title.

mindfulhack 6y ago

I like this article because it reminds us of the relationship between privacy and freedom. Important freedom. Freedoms that go far beyond our computer code. In fact, survival.

thedoubleu 6y ago
I love your comment. I got distracted by what others have already mentioned about the title not matching the content and then failed to see the big picture. Very admirable (to me at least).

wuliwong 6y ago

The title of the article is "The Why and How of Privacy and Security." That should be the title on this HN post as well.

epoch_100 6y ago

Related: https://whyprivacymatters.org https://whyprivacymatters.org

ryosuke 6y ago

I'm not sure who this article is meant for. If the idea is to convince non-technical people of the importance of privacy, the article should have just stuck to that. Parts like the free vs. open source discussion seem unnecessary.

whhone 6y ago

I learnt "why privacy matters" from this Glenn's TED: https://www.ted.com/talks/glenn_greenwald_why_privacy_matters https://www.ted.com/talks/glenn_greenwald_why_privacy_matter...

stereolambda 6y ago

I don't think that striking high chords, historical and political, is all that useful when talking to people about these things. They tend not to take it seriously or at best just file it mentally with other bad things in the world that they have little agency about. Of course, you may already get the broad societal ramifications if you're already in the privacy camp, but perhaps it's not a very effective entry point. (It's another thing if we're talking about politics, not about individual choices. In pure politics big picture arguments, like "what if there'll be a dictatorship", might be more proper). I would try to frame it, for individual people, as a question of quality and technical savvyness. If a supposedly hi-tech company behaves like a scammy phone marketing operation selling you garbage bundled with hidden subscriptions, we should treat is as such. They should be able to treat you seriously, i.e. give you good quality, reliable products for the money, without scheming behind your back and siphoning all the data they can. Their business model should be sound without this. If they don't, it's just an inferior product and you're being exploited. A related point is that I don't like products being sold solely on privacy. The tone should be more, we provide you an excellent thing (inside our capital constraints) and of course, it also respects your data. Currently I see a tendency among people to be more-or-less aware of privacy invasions and their potential, but to think that's ultimately a fact of life and they'd have to be some crazy nerds to do something about it. The thinking should be more that they're using low quality stuff and hurting themselves. (I'm not saying that you should now go and antagonize people in your social bubble, just that it may be a communication strategy if there's an opportunity.) Besides, trying to defend ourselves from the future state will be probably always perceived as kooky. Better do something about politics directly if you're in a moderately free country. It's more about rogue actors inside the companies and in the broad underworld. There was a time when people installed the damn antivirus.

maproot 6y ago

Privacy tools and OS really matter: privacytoolslist.com

erikerikson 6y ago

These discussions never seem to recognize the role of privacy for empowering oppressors. Shining light into the darkness is the metaphor used by journalists. What if there was no or drastically less darkness? How would the Uyghur example be different if the Chinese governments discussions, plans, and actions were public knowledge? More implementable, if every citizen concerned that they were at risk ran a self monitoring system that could be purchased or issued by NGOs or reporters which created a public document of their treatment. What if the German population had been shown the images of torture and abuse so that they could know what the politics were doing? What if married soldier's philandering and rape were shared with their partners? What if today in the U.S. the smaller scale oppressions of domestic violence were thoroughly documented for courts and automatically detected to provide systemic support? What if "he said, she said" was a problem of the past? What if every government official's behavior was publicly documented so that any bad actors could be proactively and clearly identified and their good actions could be commended? What if your argument with your partner(s) or friends were reviewable so that you never had to argue about what you said, you could check it and apologize for what you said (or be apologized to) and get back on track to building understanding instead of entrenching in conflict? There are obvious challenges that would need to be thought through but it might be worth considering.

bad_user 6y ago

> "On the other hand, open-source software has a less strict definition, and a different philosophy. You can also see the source code, amongst other things." No it doesn't. The Open Source definition is very much equivalent with that of Free Software, while having the virtue of being more clear, and I wish FS advocates would take the time to actually read it before talking nonsense. The political vs non-political aspects have nothing to do with their definitions, but with the organizations behind them. Also not sure what this had to do with the subject of the article.

Stierlitz 6y ago

We don't have any privacy, we gave it away in exchange for the promise of safety: “.. the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, think, and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillence coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? ..” “.. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now High Chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent ..” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKnjxT5HRJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKnjxT5HRJQ

haylem 6y ago

That grandfather and two of his brothers left [...] with no plan [...]. They were helped by strangers and survived. Their mother however, along with two other siblings, had a plan. They had a deal with a smuggler [...] and all 3 of them died in deportation. Lesson: each person who has information on you represents an additional chance for it to be leaked. This puzzles me... The paragraph clearly states that the grandfather had contacts with strangers (and we can then assume there was some exchange of information of some kind), and the ending was positive, whereas another exchange with a single point of contact had a negative outcome. But goes on to present as a lesson that the chance of a negative outcome increases with the number of contacts. I see the point the author is trying to make, but I think this part fails to prove it satisfyingly. It either doesn't prove anything, or it's missing key information (shared information with the strangers and the smugglers) to support the point. To me, it proves that luck (and maybe the grand-father's ability to be a good judge of character in picking which strangers to rely on) were more likely deciding factors. (Or that having no plan helps. But that's for a different perspective.)