6 ms·

The way you choose to live your life sounds like punishment.

by pb7 6y ago

uniqueid 6y ago
Over the next decade, a lot of Google data will leak, piling up in giant torrents (literally) forever on the net. Photos and emails and search histories from millions of users. Over the next decade, downloading and storing and processing such dumps of leaked data will continue to become quicker, and require smaller devices. Over the next decade, mobile devices will shrink, resulting in smart glasses much more powerful than today's smart phones. Put that all together... It's 2030 and you're walking down the street. You pass by a stranger wearing Apple Glasses. The stranger once spent an hour installing an "Intel on Everybody!" app, and downloaded 100 TB of random leaked data from a torrent site on everyone in the world. As you enter the stranger's view, the glasses use the leaked data to facially identify you. Now that the glasses know who you are, they automatically alert the wearer of the types of data they know about you. The bored stranger occupies himself by reading your gmails from 2022, perusing compromising photos you saved, checking out your medical records, reading arguments you had here in the comments of HN, etc etc. Maybe my understanding of technology and security is wrong somehow, but that future seems awfully plausible to me. If the downside to minimizing my footprint is that I use DDG instead of Google, the upside is worth it.
- pb7 6y ago
  You have a very active imagination. What’s your favorite metal to make hats out of?
  - uniqueid 6y ago
    I get why that would be someone's reaction. Unfortunately there's no way for me to explain what concerns me about the way things are going that doesn't make me sound like a prat :( As outlandish as my comment may come off, all the pieces (maybe aside from Google leaking data) leading to such a future are conventional takes. As far as big companies leaking data, it's not that it happens every day, so much as it is the cumulative nature of leaks: each leak adds to the pile.
    - CookieMon 6y ago
      And if entrusting everything about your life to one company ever does backfire, you still won't get to call this out, because then it will be 'blaming the victims' ;) I don't know the likelihood of this all going dystopian, but I did realise a while back that it isn't hard to pick a not-google option early when a thing is new. Rather than attempting to go cold-turkey you can just stop growing more locked in. After a few years you notice you're not stuck any more.
  - dang 6y ago
    No personal attacks, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- uniqueid 6y ago
  I do wonder which part of my premise readers find unrealistic? - technology is getting more powerful and smaller - large companies can be hacked - leaked data is easily available on the net - smart glasses will become more common - apps can be made to facially id people using leaked data Are any of those statements outlandish?
  - AnotherTechie 6y ago
    >Are any of those statements outlandish? websites that host the leaked celebrity nudes are torn down constantly. I can't imagine that you can upload that chunk of data or that app onto any platform without repercussions. On top of that, my tin-foil hat take is that internet access will eventually be completely de-anonymized. Social security or gov. ID to sign on. It becomes much harder then to spread TB of personal information. Especially since even in 2035 I can't imagine there being very many hundred(S) of terabyte datasets being passed around social circles.
    - uniqueid 6y ago
      websites that host the leaked celebrity nudes are torn down constantly That is true, yet surely most live on as torrents (and discoverable via hundreds of sketchy torrent websites that pop up and fizzle away)? Even before most people had broadband, nerds traded collections of pirated software via "sneaker net" internet access will eventually be completely de-anonymized. Social security or gov. ID to sign on. That scenario seems possible to me, too, and I agree its outcome would make what I envisioned less likely. It's not guaranteed to happen though.
  - judge2020 6y ago
    I find it hard to imagine Google being leaked, though. The sheer amount of data (drive files, gmail data, etc) Google has in its silos makes it almost impossible to copy anywhere else other than on Google's own servers or another giant's DCs. Even just the metadata of every GMail message is probably a few dozen exabytes at the least. Any sort of Google data leak that would allow for you to find a random person would require a persistent backdoor into their systems. The only realistic attack on Google would be some targeted/filtered dump of celebrities or perhaps entire GSuite organizations' emails and files - and even then it would only make headlines, not cause any real trouble for Google outside of <1% of their regular user base ditching for protonmail or what have you.
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  I agree with your prognosis completely, and I think it will not just be Google, but all the big data troves out there, even NSA and such. It is just inevitable that on a long enough time scale, all data will either become public or fade away. I think that there will be a new form of entertainment which will basically generate a soap opera-like experience from real lives based on aggregated camera data, recorded conversations, and the blanks filled in by guessing. I've adapted a different strategy from you, however. I have accepted the new privacy terrain, and I lead my life as if someone is always watching, which means I try to be my best self at all times. :)
  - uniqueid 6y ago
    Alas, there exist photos of me wearing multicolored parachute pants back in my nightclubbing phase that I can never allow to come to light under any circumstances. So it's too late for me.
jakeogh 6y ago
How would you know? It's entirely possible that not using google is a fantastic choice.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pb7 6y ago
  Could be. Maybe the Amish are living the peak human experience. I'm not going to find out but you can.
  - uniqueid 6y ago
    I find Bing considerably closer to Google than a horse-and-buggy to an automobile. In some ways, Google is more like a horse-and-buggy, since, like an aging horse, Google Search increasingly ignores the user's instructions, and does its own thing instead.
    - pb7 6y ago
      Consider that the vast majority of users are not like you and they need help using the right search terms. Searching used to be an art and I vividly recall a lot of folks struggle to articulate in search query terms what they were looking for. Nowadays those types of people find what they're looking for at the cost of you not being able to treat it like a command line interface. I'm sure Google has the data to back up that it's a net gain. You're welcome to use whatever you'd like.
      - uniqueid 6y ago
        I see two ways in which Google Search is changing. Neither of them work for me. It is true that, as you point out, the majority of Google users probably prefer a less literal algorithm. Do the ways Google Search is changing benefit people who aren't me? One way that Search is changing does align with what the average user wants: it increasingly interprets results semantically (synonyms,contextual data,domain-specific knowledge,etc) instead of just 'grepping' text content. The other way Search is changing is user-hostile. Google is an established monopoly now, whose founders have ridden off into the sunset. As its competition and idealism have waned, so has its willingness to put search quality above profits and strategy. It does not serve the user to include more paid content, to find excuses to personalize search, to cross-promote other Google products, to make Privacy settings inscrutable, to steer customers to AMP pages, and so on. Google has "actually, it's a feature!" rationalizations for these changes, I am sure. No matter! If the only metric Google cared about were customer satisfaction, I would agree that their surveys, statistics, and A/B tests matter. Sadly, Google seems increasingly concerned with attributes that are at odds with their users: advertising revenue, marketing, etc. In my judgment, even for normal users, Google Search's bad changes already outweigh the good. I reckon the bad incentives will remain in effect for years to come, too, which does not bode well for Google users.

The way you choose to live your life sounds like punishment.

by pb7 6y ago

The way you choose to live your life sounds like punishment.

Over the next decade, a lot of Google data will leak, piling up in giant torrents (literally) forever on the net. Photos and emails and search histories from millions of users. Over the next decade, downloading and storing and processing such dumps of leaked data will continue to become quicker, and require smaller devices. Over the next decade, mobile devices will shrink, resulting in smart glasses much more powerful than today's smart phones. Put that all together... It's 2030 and you're walking down the street. You pass by a stranger wearing Apple Glasses. The stranger once spent an hour installing an "Intel on Everybody!" app, and downloaded 100 TB of random leaked data from a torrent site on everyone in the world. As you enter the stranger's view, the glasses use the leaked data to facially identify you. Now that the glasses know who you are, they automatically alert the wearer of the types of data they know about you. The bored stranger occupies himself by reading your gmails from 2022, perusing compromising photos you saved, checking out your medical records, reading arguments you had here in the comments of HN, etc etc. Maybe my understanding of technology and security is wrong somehow, but that future seems awfully plausible to me. If the downside to minimizing my footprint is that I use DDG instead of Google, the upside is worth it.

pb7 6y ago
You have a very active imagination. What’s your favorite metal to make hats out of?
- uniqueid 6y ago
  I get why that would be someone's reaction. Unfortunately there's no way for me to explain what concerns me about the way things are going that doesn't make me sound like a prat :( As outlandish as my comment may come off, all the pieces (maybe aside from Google leaking data) leading to such a future are conventional takes. As far as big companies leaking data, it's not that it happens every day, so much as it is the cumulative nature of leaks: each leak adds to the pile.
  - CookieMon 6y ago
    And if entrusting everything about your life to one company ever does backfire, you still won't get to call this out, because then it will be 'blaming the victims' ;) I don't know the likelihood of this all going dystopian, but I did realise a while back that it isn't hard to pick a not-google option early when a thing is new. Rather than attempting to go cold-turkey you can just stop growing more locked in. After a few years you notice you're not stuck any more.
- dang 6y ago
  No personal attacks, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
uniqueid 6y ago
I do wonder which part of my premise readers find unrealistic? - technology is getting more powerful and smaller - large companies can be hacked - leaked data is easily available on the net - smart glasses will become more common - apps can be made to facially id people using leaked data Are any of those statements outlandish?
- AnotherTechie 6y ago
  >Are any of those statements outlandish? websites that host the leaked celebrity nudes are torn down constantly. I can't imagine that you can upload that chunk of data or that app onto any platform without repercussions. On top of that, my tin-foil hat take is that internet access will eventually be completely de-anonymized. Social security or gov. ID to sign on. It becomes much harder then to spread TB of personal information. Especially since even in 2035 I can't imagine there being very many hundred(S) of terabyte datasets being passed around social circles.
  - uniqueid 6y ago
    websites that host the leaked celebrity nudes are torn down constantly That is true, yet surely most live on as torrents (and discoverable via hundreds of sketchy torrent websites that pop up and fizzle away)? Even before most people had broadband, nerds traded collections of pirated software via "sneaker net" internet access will eventually be completely de-anonymized. Social security or gov. ID to sign on. That scenario seems possible to me, too, and I agree its outcome would make what I envisioned less likely. It's not guaranteed to happen though.
- judge2020 6y ago
  I find it hard to imagine Google being leaked, though. The sheer amount of data (drive files, gmail data, etc) Google has in its silos makes it almost impossible to copy anywhere else other than on Google's own servers or another giant's DCs. Even just the metadata of every GMail message is probably a few dozen exabytes at the least. Any sort of Google data leak that would allow for you to find a random person would require a persistent backdoor into their systems. The only realistic attack on Google would be some targeted/filtered dump of celebrities or perhaps entire GSuite organizations' emails and files - and even then it would only make headlines, not cause any real trouble for Google outside of <1% of their regular user base ditching for protonmail or what have you.
forgotmypw17 6y ago
I agree with your prognosis completely, and I think it will not just be Google, but all the big data troves out there, even NSA and such. It is just inevitable that on a long enough time scale, all data will either become public or fade away. I think that there will be a new form of entertainment which will basically generate a soap opera-like experience from real lives based on aggregated camera data, recorded conversations, and the blanks filled in by guessing. I've adapted a different strategy from you, however. I have accepted the new privacy terrain, and I lead my life as if someone is always watching, which means I try to be my best self at all times. :)
- uniqueid 6y ago
  Alas, there exist photos of me wearing multicolored parachute pants back in my nightclubbing phase that I can never allow to come to light under any circumstances. So it's too late for me.

jakeogh 6y ago

How would you know? It's entirely possible that not using google is a fantastic choice.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pb7 6y ago
Could be. Maybe the Amish are living the peak human experience. I'm not going to find out but you can.
- uniqueid 6y ago
  I find Bing considerably closer to Google than a horse-and-buggy to an automobile. In some ways, Google is more like a horse-and-buggy, since, like an aging horse, Google Search increasingly ignores the user's instructions, and does its own thing instead.
  - pb7 6y ago
    Consider that the vast majority of users are not like you and they need help using the right search terms. Searching used to be an art and I vividly recall a lot of folks struggle to articulate in search query terms what they were looking for. Nowadays those types of people find what they're looking for at the cost of you not being able to treat it like a command line interface. I'm sure Google has the data to back up that it's a net gain. You're welcome to use whatever you'd like.
    - uniqueid 6y ago
      I see two ways in which Google Search is changing. Neither of them work for me. It is true that, as you point out, the majority of Google users probably prefer a less literal algorithm. Do the ways Google Search is changing benefit people who aren't me? One way that Search is changing does align with what the average user wants: it increasingly interprets results semantically (synonyms,contextual data,domain-specific knowledge,etc) instead of just 'grepping' text content. The other way Search is changing is user-hostile. Google is an established monopoly now, whose founders have ridden off into the sunset. As its competition and idealism have waned, so has its willingness to put search quality above profits and strategy. It does not serve the user to include more paid content, to find excuses to personalize search, to cross-promote other Google products, to make Privacy settings inscrutable, to steer customers to AMP pages, and so on. Google has "actually, it's a feature!" rationalizations for these changes, I am sure. No matter! If the only metric Google cared about were customer satisfaction, I would agree that their surveys, statistics, and A/B tests matter. Sadly, Google seems increasingly concerned with attributes that are at odds with their users: advertising revenue, marketing, etc. In my judgment, even for normal users, Google Search's bad changes already outweigh the good. I reckon the bad incentives will remain in effect for years to come, too, which does not bode well for Google users.