3 ms·

You're acting like people couldn't opt out of phone books, but it turns out that was actually a very common thing to do.

by tedivm 5y ago

seoaeu 5y ago
If I recall correctly, the phone books even included instructions on them of how to opt out. And given that they were broadly distributed it was very apparent to people that opting out was necessary if they were worried about being stalked, etc.
kxrm 5y ago
You could opt out, I used to, however I had to pay a fee to opt out. At the time I did it, it added $1 to my bill.
- nullc 5y ago
  I recall there being two levels, unlisted and unpublished numbers and one you had to pay for but the other IIRC you didn't.
drivebycomment 5y ago
tshaddox didn't say anything to imply that people couldn't opt out, so I think you're beating a strawman. They pointed out the seeming change in expectations in this thread (where SSID location mapping collection being opt-out is outrage) vs the phone book (which, sensitive PII was broadly shared by a profit-motivated entity that had no relationship with you and you have to opt out to not be included). If anything, SSID location is generally less sensitive than your name + phone number + city.
tshaddox 5y ago
I didn’t act as if one couldn’t opt out. That’s actually in line with my point. The behavior was opt-out, and from what I remember hearing you actually had to pay in order to do so. My point is that it used to be well-accepted that one’s home address and telephone number were explicitly public and indexed for easy access by anyone (at least anyone within the regional phone book’s coverage area). Now we get spooked that someone could obtain a home address using a fairly convoluted, difficult to target, and presumably expensive method involving the target’s smartphone attempting to connect to a wireless network and a large commercial database of wireless network locations. I’m not even making judgements about this. I’m truly fascinated at how privacy threat models can vary so much from person to person and over time.

You're acting like people couldn't opt out of phone books, but it turns out that was actually a very common thing to do.

by tedivm 5y ago

You're acting like people couldn't opt out of phone books, but it turns out that was actually a very common thing to do.

seoaeu 5y ago

If I recall correctly, the phone books even included instructions on them of how to opt out. And given that they were broadly distributed it was very apparent to people that opting out was necessary if they were worried about being stalked, etc.

kxrm 5y ago

You could opt out, I used to, however I had to pay a fee to opt out. At the time I did it, it added $1 to my bill.

nullc 5y ago
I recall there being two levels, unlisted and unpublished numbers and one you had to pay for but the other IIRC you didn't.

drivebycomment 5y ago

tshaddox didn't say anything to imply that people couldn't opt out, so I think you're beating a strawman. They pointed out the seeming change in expectations in this thread (where SSID location mapping collection being opt-out is outrage) vs the phone book (which, sensitive PII was broadly shared by a profit-motivated entity that had no relationship with you and you have to opt out to not be included). If anything, SSID location is generally less sensitive than your name + phone number + city.

tshaddox 5y ago

I didn’t act as if one couldn’t opt out. That’s actually in line with my point. The behavior was opt-out, and from what I remember hearing you actually had to pay in order to do so. My point is that it used to be well-accepted that one’s home address and telephone number were explicitly public and indexed for easy access by anyone (at least anyone within the regional phone book’s coverage area). Now we get spooked that someone could obtain a home address using a fairly convoluted, difficult to target, and presumably expensive method involving the target’s smartphone attempting to connect to a wireless network and a large commercial database of wireless network locations. I’m not even making judgements about this. I’m truly fascinated at how privacy threat models can vary so much from person to person and over time.