9 ms·

Would you please demonstrate to me how I, Joe Q. Public, can find out, via collected data that I can access, with whom another person is sleeping with? Or, in

Would you please demonstrate to me how I, Joe Q. Public, can find out, via collected data that I can access, with whom another person is sleeping with? Or, in lieu of that, walk me through how that would be done with Facebook's, Google's, or Apple's data via your first-hand knowledge of those data and where and how they are stored and accessed? These fear mongering comments about data collection have never demonstrated real world harms, AFAIK. It reminds me of the genetically engineered foods bogeyman that, in spite of a complete lack of empirical evidence, continues to be trotted out as a huge danger.

weswpg 5y ago
> These fear mongering comments about data collection have never demonstrated real world harms Notable examples: * Strava revealed the position of US military bases * Muslim prayer apps sharing location data with US military In my own experience, I work for a call center. We have many important American companies as clients. They give us access to their systems so that we can service their clients. I am overseas dealing with their customers and I can access their personal information. I can see their face linked to their Facebook profile. I admit I've been tempted to misuse the information any time a customer makes me angry.
dredmorbius 5y ago
There was Uber's "God View" which showed travel history of customers, which was at one point available to anyone who could pass Uber's driver onboarding process. Venture capitalist Peter Sims wrote about being tracked in a blog post this September. Back in 2011, he wrote, he was in an Uber car in Manhattan when he started receiving text messages from someone he barely knew telling him exactly where he was. That person later told him that she was at an Uber launch party in Chicago, where Sims' movements were being tracked via God View on a large public screen. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/johanabhuiyan/uber-is-investigating-its-top-new-york-executive-for-privacy#.cnWMObQ3V https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/johanabhuiyan/uber-is-i... https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/6/10726004/uber-god-mode-settlement-fine https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/6/10726004/uber-god-mode-set... https://www.vice.com/en/article/ypw5n7/ubers-god-view-was-once-available-to-drivers https://www.vice.com/en/article/ypw5n7/ubers-god-view-was-on...
Raidion 5y ago
I'm undecided on this topic, but playing devil's advocate: Does the fact that this knowledge exists, and only in the hands of some of the largest (and most pervasive) tech companies in the world, make this information 'safer', or does it mean that it's a 'force multiplier' that increases the risk that this information will be used a) to enable anti-competitive behavior or b) be co-opted by authoritarian governments to suppress dissent. I personally think that if I give this data to a company, and they keep it "safe" and only to support features that are beneficial to me, that's totally OK, but I wouldn't like companies reselling my mobility data to health insurers (without aggregation or cohorting) to give me a 100% customized insurance rate, regardless of how beneficial that would be. Data that's used to distill people down to a number and value them precisely seems to have a potential to enforce systematic inequalities and further improve the lives of "haves" at the cost of "have nots".
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y ago
  Or on the flip side of that question: is it safer in the hands of the user, to be shared as desired, by explicitly opting in, or would it be safer in the hands of a corporate entity?
- kbsspl 5y ago
  Safer in what sense ? What would be your take on government tolerance to the existence of such data ? Someone from the clandestine teams would always want to utilise it ? How well could the businesses resist. Anti competitive behavior, I would think comes automatically with such massive centralisation. What's scary is the ability to mass incite riots, using knowledge of the most susceptible audience to fake news and pushing it out incendiary posts to exactly that audience. India has faced multiple such incidents already. Deliberate ? Maybe in the sense of affinity algorithms. With the backdrop of the Stanford experiment, and a host of other biases giving almost tribal warrior behavior, should such affinity data be allowed for collection ? My apologies if this sounds drastic, but data collection generates micro nukes, generated based on turning individuals into an array of microcrucibles.
supercanuck 5y ago
Here you go… https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2014/08/00015-92370.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2...
rootusrootus 5y ago
If you think the problem is merely Facebook, Google, or Apple, then I think you are underestimating the amount of data and who is processing it. There is an entire industry of companies you have never heard of that are thinking up ever more creative ways to put data together from various sources, identify it, correlate it, and then sell the 'insights' to whoever wants to pay. At the very least, at a bare minimum, I think we need legislation that covers how this kind of data processing happens by third-party companies and we need to provide a way for citizens to at least see what data has been collected about them and what 'insights' it has generated.
- saddlerustle 5y ago
  Which company, apart from Facebook, Google and Apple, would remotely have access to any of the data on that list? Facebook Google and Apple don't share data with data brokers.
  - 9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y ago
    Dating sites would have that kind of data and have been breached in the past (Ashley Madison was one high profile instance, as I recall).
    - TchoBeer 5y ago
      I've somehow never heard of this, that's a wild story.
    - saddlerustle 5y ago
      I don't recall the Ashley Madison leak having anything remotely similar to the data on OP's list.
      - 9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y ago
        I was replying a later comment that was considering whether that list should include knowing who you’ve slept with.
criddell 5y ago
Facebook, Google, et. al. might not make the data available to you, but they have it. If the information is stored on servers in China, then the Chinese government has it as well. Maybe you aren't a Chinese citizen so you don't care, but it's at least worth considering. The politicians we elect to craft and enact legislation that affects the big data companies are always at risk of being essentially blackmailed by those companies with the incredibly detailed and personal information that those companies have on politicians.
- smithza 5y ago
  I am very skeptical about the implications of this take. You paint this as "big data companies are actively lobbying/threatening politicians to enact legislation helpful for big data using their big data troves." There are politicians who work in good faith and have non-controversial backgrounds who would not be liable to these blackmails and still don't work hard enough to enact legislation to protect citizens. This is not a big data conspiracy as much as lack of political willpower.
9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y ago
Think along the lines of dating apps that show your distance to other users. That could be mined for changes in proximity over time - one day you are miles apart, then next day you are within 500ft of each other for the whole night.
bluGill 5y ago
Not all of it is data you can access as the public. However as the author of a program with access to internet and location you can easily upload where the phone is at all times and thus figure out when two are near each other. (this is why newer phones OSes let users choose if the program can access these things all the time or only when active)
korse 5y ago
You need to know something about your person of interest, other than a name. Then you need access to multiple data sets. Use a list like this as a starting point. https://www.oag.ca.gov/data-brokers https://www.oag.ca.gov/data-brokers Commuter data is good, so is foot traffic. Data sets centered around health and income or quality of life can be beneficial as well. The game is to use publicly available information about your person to tie them conclusively to set of entries in an 'anonymized' data set. If you aren't at least investigative journalist tier or the resources you need cost too much/require a corporate presence, then hire someone to do it for you who already has the pipeline set up. PI's have been available to Joe Q. for years and they still are. This all just makes them even more efficient.
zarify 5y ago
There have been a number of instances here in .au where centralised location/health/etc data has been misused (stalking, checking out potential dates, domestic abuse or aiding domestic abusers) through inappropriate access. I doubt we're unique. I'd argue that it doesn't need to be "Joe Q. Public", because companies are made up of Joe Q. Publics.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lobocinza 5y ago
You don't get it. It's not just FAANG and the risk adds everyday. Eventually some of those companies will go bankrupt, be hacked and the data will get in the hands of malicious actors and will be use to commit fraud, to blackmail, etc. Also even if it's used legally and 'ethically' it means things like: 1- we will pay you less because you only earned X at your last job, 2 - we will increase your healthcare costs because you bought a pregnancy test online. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/largest-personal-data-leakage-brazilian-history/ https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/largest-personal-data-leaka...

weswpg 5y ago

> These fear mongering comments about data collection have never demonstrated real world harms Notable examples: * Strava revealed the position of US military bases * Muslim prayer apps sharing location data with US military In my own experience, I work for a call center. We have many important American companies as clients. They give us access to their systems so that we can service their clients. I am overseas dealing with their customers and I can access their personal information. I can see their face linked to their Facebook profile. I admit I've been tempted to misuse the information any time a customer makes me angry.

dredmorbius 5y ago

There was Uber's "God View" which showed travel history of customers, which was at one point available to anyone who could pass Uber's driver onboarding process. Venture capitalist Peter Sims wrote about being tracked in a blog post this September. Back in 2011, he wrote, he was in an Uber car in Manhattan when he started receiving text messages from someone he barely knew telling him exactly where he was. That person later told him that she was at an Uber launch party in Chicago, where Sims' movements were being tracked via God View on a large public screen. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/johanabhuiyan/uber-is-investigating-its-top-new-york-executive-for-privacy#.cnWMObQ3V https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/johanabhuiyan/uber-is-i... https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/6/10726004/uber-god-mode-settlement-fine https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/6/10726004/uber-god-mode-set... https://www.vice.com/en/article/ypw5n7/ubers-god-view-was-once-available-to-drivers https://www.vice.com/en/article/ypw5n7/ubers-god-view-was-on...

Raidion 5y ago

I'm undecided on this topic, but playing devil's advocate: Does the fact that this knowledge exists, and only in the hands of some of the largest (and most pervasive) tech companies in the world, make this information 'safer', or does it mean that it's a 'force multiplier' that increases the risk that this information will be used a) to enable anti-competitive behavior or b) be co-opted by authoritarian governments to suppress dissent. I personally think that if I give this data to a company, and they keep it "safe" and only to support features that are beneficial to me, that's totally OK, but I wouldn't like companies reselling my mobility data to health insurers (without aggregation or cohorting) to give me a 100% customized insurance rate, regardless of how beneficial that would be. Data that's used to distill people down to a number and value them precisely seems to have a potential to enforce systematic inequalities and further improve the lives of "haves" at the cost of "have nots".

9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y ago
Or on the flip side of that question: is it safer in the hands of the user, to be shared as desired, by explicitly opting in, or would it be safer in the hands of a corporate entity?
kbsspl 5y ago
Safer in what sense ? What would be your take on government tolerance to the existence of such data ? Someone from the clandestine teams would always want to utilise it ? How well could the businesses resist. Anti competitive behavior, I would think comes automatically with such massive centralisation. What's scary is the ability to mass incite riots, using knowledge of the most susceptible audience to fake news and pushing it out incendiary posts to exactly that audience. India has faced multiple such incidents already. Deliberate ? Maybe in the sense of affinity algorithms. With the backdrop of the Stanford experiment, and a host of other biases giving almost tribal warrior behavior, should such affinity data be allowed for collection ? My apologies if this sounds drastic, but data collection generates micro nukes, generated based on turning individuals into an array of microcrucibles.

supercanuck 5y ago

Here you go… https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2014/08/00015-92370.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2...

rootusrootus 5y ago

If you think the problem is merely Facebook, Google, or Apple, then I think you are underestimating the amount of data and who is processing it. There is an entire industry of companies you have never heard of that are thinking up ever more creative ways to put data together from various sources, identify it, correlate it, and then sell the 'insights' to whoever wants to pay. At the very least, at a bare minimum, I think we need legislation that covers how this kind of data processing happens by third-party companies and we need to provide a way for citizens to at least see what data has been collected about them and what 'insights' it has generated.

saddlerustle 5y ago
Which company, apart from Facebook, Google and Apple, would remotely have access to any of the data on that list? Facebook Google and Apple don't share data with data brokers.
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y ago
  Dating sites would have that kind of data and have been breached in the past (Ashley Madison was one high profile instance, as I recall).
  - TchoBeer 5y ago
    I've somehow never heard of this, that's a wild story.
  - saddlerustle 5y ago
    I don't recall the Ashley Madison leak having anything remotely similar to the data on OP's list.
    - 9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y ago
      I was replying a later comment that was considering whether that list should include knowing who you’ve slept with.

criddell 5y ago

Facebook, Google, et. al. might not make the data available to you, but they have it. If the information is stored on servers in China, then the Chinese government has it as well. Maybe you aren't a Chinese citizen so you don't care, but it's at least worth considering. The politicians we elect to craft and enact legislation that affects the big data companies are always at risk of being essentially blackmailed by those companies with the incredibly detailed and personal information that those companies have on politicians.

smithza 5y ago
I am very skeptical about the implications of this take. You paint this as "big data companies are actively lobbying/threatening politicians to enact legislation helpful for big data using their big data troves." There are politicians who work in good faith and have non-controversial backgrounds who would not be liable to these blackmails and still don't work hard enough to enact legislation to protect citizens. This is not a big data conspiracy as much as lack of political willpower.

9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y ago

Think along the lines of dating apps that show your distance to other users. That could be mined for changes in proximity over time - one day you are miles apart, then next day you are within 500ft of each other for the whole night.

bluGill 5y ago

Not all of it is data you can access as the public. However as the author of a program with access to internet and location you can easily upload where the phone is at all times and thus figure out when two are near each other. (this is why newer phones OSes let users choose if the program can access these things all the time or only when active)

korse 5y ago

You need to know something about your person of interest, other than a name. Then you need access to multiple data sets. Use a list like this as a starting point. https://www.oag.ca.gov/data-brokers https://www.oag.ca.gov/data-brokers Commuter data is good, so is foot traffic. Data sets centered around health and income or quality of life can be beneficial as well. The game is to use publicly available information about your person to tie them conclusively to set of entries in an 'anonymized' data set. If you aren't at least investigative journalist tier or the resources you need cost too much/require a corporate presence, then hire someone to do it for you who already has the pipeline set up. PI's have been available to Joe Q. for years and they still are. This all just makes them even more efficient.

zarify 5y ago

There have been a number of instances here in .au where centralised location/health/etc data has been misused (stalking, checking out potential dates, domestic abuse or aiding domestic abusers) through inappropriate access. I doubt we're unique. I'd argue that it doesn't need to be "Joe Q. Public", because companies are made up of Joe Q. Publics.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

lobocinza 5y ago

You don't get it. It's not just FAANG and the risk adds everyday. Eventually some of those companies will go bankrupt, be hacked and the data will get in the hands of malicious actors and will be use to commit fraud, to blackmail, etc. Also even if it's used legally and 'ethically' it means things like: 1- we will pay you less because you only earned X at your last job, 2 - we will increase your healthcare costs because you bought a pregnancy test online. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/largest-personal-data-leakage-brazilian-history/ https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/largest-personal-data-leaka...