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Why to care about privacy after years of sharing data

257 points by Bright_Machine 5y ago

Aeolun 5y ago
I think there is a bit of a problem with the initial analogy in the proceeding in the wrong direction won’t get me where I want to go. For most people, privacy isn’t a goal in itself.
- ls65536 5y ago
  Privacy may not be a goal in itself, but it sure would be painful to wake up one day and realise one has given it up for perhaps more trivial and ephemeral "benefits" along the way, especially if this took place relatively slowly over many years. Privacy (among other things like personal freedom, health, etc.) really seems to be one of those things many people take for granted until they realise they have lost it, or willingly gave it up, not able to easily get it back, only then realising how important it was in hindsight.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    For this to matter there will have to be a turning point event that causes masses of people to re-think their privacy. The NSA reveal didn’t do much because nobody was financially or socially affected; maybe if the dataset itself was leaked and anyone could search it, we’d see real repercussions and changes made to stop any sort of surveillance (think the Congresspeople being personally affected by the data leak), but that didn’t happen. The only thing that comes close is the Equifax breach, and no citizen can avoid working with them with how everything from home purchases/apartment leases to auto loans relies on their databases.
    - Clubber 5y ago
      I think most people are busy just trying to make ends meet. I have a family member who said, "Obama fixed the NSA thing." I also read where the Patriot Act expires, so they aren't doing it anymore.
      - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
        >I think most people are busy just trying to make ends meet. This, or are plugged in too tightly into the various digital dopamine dispensers to care about the flip sides.
  - nicbou 5y ago
    The best way to get the point across: think about sending nudes. Once they’re sent, there is no recalling them, even if your relationship goes south or they end up in the wrong hands. It’s the same for all that data about you out there. If anyone who accesses your data goes rogue or leaks it, it’s hanging over your head forever. It could be that this data will be judged against changing standards, so that your once innocuous behaviour is now considered bad. It could be that your data is misinterpreted and the judgement used against you. Once you get bitten, it’s too late.
FreeHugs 5y ago
Thought experiment: What if we just continue like we did in the last two decades? Would there be any real harm if we simply returned to the pre "cookie banner world" of the internet?
- BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  Why do you think there is so much outrage on the internet these days ? It's a consequence of 2 decades of optimizing for engagement, because they make money not by providing a product people pay once and use at their will, but a product that gets a minuscule amount of cash any time someone does something with it. And this ad based system only works if you spy a lot on people. Everything is affected by this: the vaccine opposition in the covid crisis, the presidential election... Everything.
  - philjohn 5y ago
    I'd argue that the outrage began far before the internet, it goes back to moral panics of yesteryear, and outrage being peddled on talk radio.
- peppermint_tea 5y ago
  the internet is more than browsers and http, we have email, irc, sftp, torrents and lots of other cool stuff that I would hate to see centralized in the hands of a few private companies and serve to the masses with browser, mandatory https and google tag manager all in order to track people behaviors. I feel like promoting alternatives is a better idea than participating in the creation of a dystopian future for the generations to come. out of question for me to just "let it slide", we have too much to loose here
- goodpoint 5y ago
  Ever heard of Cambridge Analytica and brexit?
- Jiejeing 5y ago
  I’m sorry to break it to you, but the issue is not the cookie banners but the fact that website share your personal information with thousand of entities and brokers. You do not need a cookie banner if you do not track your users beyond what is needed for the website to work.
wintermutestwin 5y ago
1. Some amount of yesterday's data is "yesterday's news" 2. Any reduction of data theft is progress 3. As a greybeard, I care more about the next and future generation's loss of privacy and impending totalitarian enslavement. In a capitalistic system, people should be able to charge what they want for their commodities. My data is worth more than the thieves could pay.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  Aren't you handing that data out for free by using their servers? Seems like you aren't happy with the price they charge for access.
  - wintermutestwin 5y ago
    I believe that is a disingenuous argument: 1. The monopolistic position of many of these service providers drastically limits the ability to choose alternatives and creates social and economic hardships for those who would avoid the use of these services altogether. For example, my ISP lobbied my government to allow them to steal my data. I have exactly one choice of ISP. 2. When we look back on the colonizers handing the natives trinkets in exchange for land, we consider that egregious theft. Most people lack any real understanding of the price that they are paying for these services and the intrinsic value of their data. They also lack an understanding of how this data can and will be used against them now and in the future. 3. And what about the data thieves who build shadow profiles on people who have not signed up for their services? (e.g. Facecrook)
    - shadowgovt 5y ago
      Competition is always one click way on the internet. The "monopolistic" practices would not be sufficient if people actually cared enough to stand up an alternative that respected your privacy. The market does not care enough about its own privacy to justify those alternatives. DDG has been available for years... It's doing fine, and it's a great alternative to Google, but it's not doing the gangbusters that one would expect if people weren't mostly satisfied with the privacy trade off. And personally, I think it's extremely elitist for us to assume that we can better evaluate the privacy / service trade-off than most users can. Comparing the average user to a native being taken advantage of by European colonials is a view terribly dismissive of people's self-determination.
falcolas 5y ago
Simply because it sometimes takes governments years to act on industry abuses (giving time for market correction, etc) doesn’t mean the government should not act. Information based industries are absolutely abusing their access to our personal information, and they’re refusing to self correct. The governments of the world are now stepping in to correct that. To be blunt, the corporations have only themselves to blame.
narush 5y ago
This is a cool article. I like the narrative of "Change to a life where you are in control of your direction." I am probably the most privacy conscious person of my friends (not that I do a particularly good job of it), so I spent lots of time thinking about how to communicate about privacy in a way that is effective. [We're all mid-twenties, for context.] The main issue, I find, is that people just mostly don't care. That being said, most of my friends do relate (and dislike) the loss of agency that comes with giving your brain to an algorithmic feed that decides what you eat. The narrative of "control your life and decisions" would be an effective piece of rhetoric, I think! The other argument I've found really effective is one that convinced me after reading Edward Snowden's memoir Permanent Record. A sketch of the point: Person 1: privacy matters. Person 2: I don't care about privacy, because I don't have anything to hide. Person 1: Historically, the folks who were hurt because of a lack of privacy weren't us (young professionals), but rather the civil rights movement in the 1960s and the Vietnam anti-war movement, etc. Privacy is about protecting those people who the government/institutions/etc already squash down. It's an argument that comes from Permanent Record, pretty much, and I think for me it is the most compelling reason that I care about privacy! Not as much for myself (although that's nice), but mostly for the people that privacy protects who really need it. In my experience, it goes over very well, as people can see that privacy isn't just about doomsday preppers not wanting anyone to know where they bury their gold, but rather about protecting those people who need/deserve/would benefit from protection! P.S. I'd recommend reading Permanent Record. I was only 15 or so when all that stuff went down, and really didn't know anything about it except "Snowden good or bad idk," but the book is a fantastically interesting and well-written story. I think he's kinda awesome.
- ls65536 5y ago
  > Ignoring our own privacy, shouldn't we protect those people who the government/institutions/etc already squash down? And this should resonate even among the individualistic and self-interested who might believe they're unaffected, as those who aren't "squashed down" right now would be wise to not get caught in the thinking that the set of people affected today by certain state, corporate and institutional actions is immutable. "They would never do it to us" (along with the often heard "it could never happen here") is one of the most dangerous ways of discounting problems affecting "others" in the present. When you see people, either as individuals or as groups, being treated a certain way by those with greater power, remember that this could just as easily also be you in the future.
ouid 5y ago
If you're being served ads on the internet, just install ublock origin.
bdominy 5y ago
Identity theft, scams, robocalls, spam, etc. all get started by harvesting people’s personal information. It’s a commodity hackers trade for big bucks. The question is how to protect yourself? I use end-to-end encryption wherever possible, so WhatsApp for chats and Neucards for contact sharing. It makes collecting my data much tougher.
- BlueTemplar 5y ago
  I don't see how you can trust WhatsApp when it's closed source and owned by Facebook ? (Who, furthermore, already violated their promise made when buying WhatsApp to not use the phone numbers and contact books they got from them for their other services.)
  - bdominy 5y ago
    They care about end-to-end encryption and let me use the app after I denied them access to my contacts. Signal is another possibility, but I don't like they require my phone number to make an account.
    - BlueTemplar 5y ago
      WhatsApp doesn't require a phone number any more ?
spansoa 5y ago
I used to have a large online presence pre-Snowden leaks and was signed up to hundreds of services, some even in my legal name. Gradually I attempted to 'go dark' and delete all those accounts, which was tedious, but worth it. There's two extremes to being online: you can wear your heart on your shirt sleeve and post under your legal name, and share details about your private life, or you can be a ghost and leave no traces, or at least minimize your footprint. There is this thing: some people are just so famous online, that reverting back to some private mode is nearly impossible for them. They're so out there and involved with so many services, that 'going dark' for them would be very difficult, but there are steps you can take to minimize your footprint. It's not too late to take those initial steps. I encourage everyone to attempt to 'go dark' gradually and make it very expensive for people to dox you. If you turn it into a game, it's even better. I said it was tedious, but honestly I kind of like becoming a ghost. I'm so opaque to big tech now, that it must really piss them off, including dragnet surveillance. It's not a life for everyone however, and sometimes I have to participate in big tech like using my smartphone to do online banking, or buying something on Amazon, but 99% of my activities online are all more-or-less anonymous and private now, and I'm happy with that.
- gonehome 5y ago
  I think there's an accessible middle ground for most people. My first suggestion would be to get every account in a password manager like 1Password. In addition to the obvious security benefits, this creates a record of where all your accounts are. For the average person it'll take time for them to remember everything (and they'll realize ones they forgot) - having a place for it all to get documented is the first step. Once you have that, the next step is to go through every account and close the ones you don't need. After that, go into the ones you do need and modify the settings to disable as much of the tracking as possible. I'd also suggest people sign up for deleteme: https://joindeleteme.com/ https://joindeleteme.com/ since these public data collectors can't be stopped without continued effort and I don't think there will be laws to stop them anytime soon. For more technical users, I'd suggest they get their own domain and use fastmail with aliased emails for each account - but realistically regular people will not do that. There are also advantages to having a public presence online (both professional and personal) - the issue isn't so much that you need to be 100% dark, it's that your public presence should be under your own control. One of the reasons I'm excited about Urbit is because it has the potential to give this control back in a way that could actually work. I think culturally we also need to be more understanding of people making mistakes as the grow up and saying stupid things as they learn, but that's somewhat of an orthogonal issue so I'll leave it there.
wolverine876 5y ago
The value of data declines over time, often rapidly. Think about what a business would pay for current user data, data one year old, data five years old, etc.; who buys five year old data? I suppose it depends on the application. Imagine how your life changes over time, an accumulation of small and large changes. Data on your health, finances, social network, interests, politics, activities, etc. was different 1 year ago, 5 years ago, etc. The question seems like a justification for what many want to do, which is just close their eyes to the problems and not put the energy into resisting the tide toward compliance and giving power to government/corporations; it's easier, right now, to give up, and despair and powerlessness are normalized - instead of quitting being at least a bit shameful, it's cynically embraced, flauted as rebellious.
- freebuju 5y ago
  You are just wrong. Some of your data such as health data stays constant throughout your life. Especially for guys living with chronic conditions. Your key identifiers stay the same too. E.g your phone number etc. These are then used to re-establish your advertising identity. This theory that old data declines in value couldn't be more wrong given that the "old" data is never deleted. Just waiting to find its original purpose.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    That cherry-picks examples, phone numbers and chronic conditions. We can think of plenty more that change. (Even phone numbers change sometimes.)
    - freebuju 5y ago
      Sure. But what if those two data points are the only things I need to tag and target you.
    - vineyardmike 4y ago
      Cherry picked examples are proof that the OP is wrong, at least to an extent, and that there exists data that doesn't change or changes slow enough to be re-tagged (and this poses the issue in question). Proof of existence is enough to invalidate a claim of non-existence, even if it doesn't hold for any condition in the world.
thenerdhead 5y ago
I don't think everyone changes as fast as the data can get stale. Humans are both creatures of habit and agents of change. For the former, this data is still relevant and ads can do their jobs. For the latter, the data is stale and ads do not convert. Age may be a huge factor here. I do believe in data privacy. Mostly from the lens of not living in a future world where data removes an individual's critical thinking ability and engagement of new experiences. This is already pretty true in corporate america & reliance on technology like map apps instead of getting lost like the article mentions. For ads, I think we have to accept the reality of the world such as Jerry Mander did in 1978: “If you accept the existence of advertising, you accept a system designed to persuade and to dominate minds by interfering in people's thinking patterns. You also accept that the system will be used by the sorts of people who like to influence people and are good at it. No person who did not wish to dominate others would choose to use advertising, or choosing it, succeed in it. So the basic nature of advertising and all technologies created to serve it will be consistent with this purpose, will encourage this behaviour in society, and will tend to push social evolution in this direction.” - Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Mander is strongly recommended reading. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television https://www.worldcat.org/title/four-arguments-for-the-elimination-of-television/oclc/49786854 https://www.worldcat.org/title/four-arguments-for-the-elimin... https://archive.org/search.php?query=mander+Four+arguments+for+the+elimination+of+television https://archive.org/search.php?query=mander+Four+arguments+f... http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=F119513A778FC924D7ED96B4D5263BB0 http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=F119513A778FC924D7ED96B4...
jdfedgon 5y ago
I like the blog post and the thought experiment. However, I wish the author wouldn't have stopped with the reasoning and would have stressed his arguments further. Example where his reasoning in the article is coming short, one might answer: Yes, I wanted to go to store a, and yes, after my 'highway hypnosis' I went or was brought to store b instead. So what? It doesn't really matter if I go shopping in store a or b. The important thing is - I am at a store now and can start my shopping. If we evaluate that from an ethical point of view then we would have to ask about emancipation and sovereignty in regard to the choices we make, and where that fine line is, where it really starts to matter, if we go for store a or b.
closeparen 5y ago
Life is an iterated game. I can see an appeal in living in a video-game kind of world where your counterparty to each interaction treats it as fresh, doesn't even really have an interior experience while it's happening, and forgets it immediately after. I can also see downsides. But that's besides the point. We don't live in that world. In our universe, interaction is a two way street. Both parties to an interaction have an interior experience of it, and that experience contributes to memory (both literal records and subtle formation of impressions/intuitions), and those memories shape the next experience. The framings "your privacy," "your data," "stealing" are interesting and provocative in some cases but I see the more extreme forms of this as pining for a world in which you are the only stateful or intelligent agent. We have never lived in that world, and I don't share your conviction that we obviously or morally ought to.
- dylan604 5y ago
  I have much less of an issue when a company runs analytics on the information gained from each time I order from them. It's when they continue to follow you across the internet to keep tabs on you when you are not using their site. It's not much different than having someone like a private investigator shadow you every where you go in real life taking detailed notes. You don't know who's paying the PI, you don't know to what purpose they are investigating, but there's just nothing you can do about. Only the internet tracking continues to follow in places where the PI can't go. It's just flat out creepy
noasaservice 5y ago
HN itself is one such black-hole of data permanentness. They do not support deletion of your data, modifying of your data after 1h, and are what I would describe as a data-tarpit. Nor do they support any of the European privacy directives. Sure, they're in the US, but they should definitely be forward-thinking about this stuff - The writing's on the wall. It's why I create junk accounts and abandon them after a bit. Then again, this too is the endemic problem with how silicon valley is run.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Can I delete my account? We try not to delete entire account histories because that would gut the threads the account had participated in. However, we care about protecting individual users and take care of privacy requests every day, so if we can help, please email hn@ycombinator.com. We don't want anyone to get in trouble from anything they posted to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23623799 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23623799
  - noasaservice 5y ago
    I figured SOMEONE would have responded to that. This has the same energy as "Click here to create account, but do a whole bunch outside the account to delete it". It's like NYT doing the scammy "pay online, but cancel after calling on business hours to a retention specialist, and they may also just ignore your *request*" The simple answer: put this in the website, not some email that may or may not actually request anything.
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      Though I've not requested deletion, I've found HN's mod team exceptionally responsive in general. Have you actually tried to follow the process? Are you aware of any instances in which requests have been denied?
      - 4y ago
slvrspoon 5y ago
Co founder of deleteme here. Ama. Fyi to the thread posters, Deleteme removes customer data by default after 6 months. Happy to hear views on what we could do better and examples of companies operating to high standards as well. Thx!
grammers 5y ago
It's definitely worth the hassle to reduce data - even though I believe it's impossible to go dark completely. Whenever possible I try to not use Big Tech. My choice: Firefox, Tutanota, DuckDuckGo.
philjohn 5y ago
The thing is, "big tech" aren't really the really scary data collectors, the data brokers are. They buy details from your supermarket, health insurer etc. And yet people here don't often bring them up.
- iamdamian 5y ago
  I agree that data brokers are underscrutinized and probably the least ethical of the companies who make money from user data. I didn't realize that they could buy my data from a health insurer—where can I read more about this?
  - philjohn 5y ago
    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-data-brokers-make-money-off-your-medical-records/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-data-brokers-...
    - iamdamian 4y ago
      Wow. Thanks for sharing, I was not aware.
  - vineyardmike 4y ago
    I don't know about this case in particular, but generally these things are hard to pin down for a reason. But start with the privacy policy.
meerita 5y ago
Well, in the beginning I wasn't aware of the entire privacy topic. But now I am and I don't want any big corpo to censor me just because they already have all my life in a database.
evancoop 5y ago
One useful regulation might be to prevent neutering the functionality of a product if the user does not elect to share their data. Unless those data are part and parcel of the core functionality, choosing not to share should not prevent receiving software updates, etc.
cascom 5y ago
I find the only way I can get a little traction with people on this subject is through the consequences on insurance markets: “Imagine you your car insurance is triple because waze said you speed” “Imagine you and your entire extended family can’t get health insurance because of genetic conditions discovered via 23andme” (assumes law change) “Imagine your health insurance goes up because you buy too much junk food” Etc

I think there is a bit of a problem with the initial analogy in the proceeding in the wrong direction won’t get me where I want to go. For most people, privacy isn’t a goal in itself.

ls65536 5y ago
Privacy may not be a goal in itself, but it sure would be painful to wake up one day and realise one has given it up for perhaps more trivial and ephemeral "benefits" along the way, especially if this took place relatively slowly over many years. Privacy (among other things like personal freedom, health, etc.) really seems to be one of those things many people take for granted until they realise they have lost it, or willingly gave it up, not able to easily get it back, only then realising how important it was in hindsight.
- judge2020 5y ago
  For this to matter there will have to be a turning point event that causes masses of people to re-think their privacy. The NSA reveal didn’t do much because nobody was financially or socially affected; maybe if the dataset itself was leaked and anyone could search it, we’d see real repercussions and changes made to stop any sort of surveillance (think the Congresspeople being personally affected by the data leak), but that didn’t happen. The only thing that comes close is the Equifax breach, and no citizen can avoid working with them with how everything from home purchases/apartment leases to auto loans relies on their databases.
  - Clubber 5y ago
    I think most people are busy just trying to make ends meet. I have a family member who said, "Obama fixed the NSA thing." I also read where the Patriot Act expires, so they aren't doing it anymore.
    - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
      >I think most people are busy just trying to make ends meet. This, or are plugged in too tightly into the various digital dopamine dispensers to care about the flip sides.
- nicbou 5y ago
  The best way to get the point across: think about sending nudes. Once they’re sent, there is no recalling them, even if your relationship goes south or they end up in the wrong hands. It’s the same for all that data about you out there. If anyone who accesses your data goes rogue or leaks it, it’s hanging over your head forever. It could be that this data will be judged against changing standards, so that your once innocuous behaviour is now considered bad. It could be that your data is misinterpreted and the judgement used against you. Once you get bitten, it’s too late.

FreeHugs 5y ago

Thought experiment: What if we just continue like we did in the last two decades? Would there be any real harm if we simply returned to the pre "cookie banner world" of the internet?

BiteCode_dev 5y ago
Why do you think there is so much outrage on the internet these days ? It's a consequence of 2 decades of optimizing for engagement, because they make money not by providing a product people pay once and use at their will, but a product that gets a minuscule amount of cash any time someone does something with it. And this ad based system only works if you spy a lot on people. Everything is affected by this: the vaccine opposition in the covid crisis, the presidential election... Everything.
- philjohn 5y ago
  I'd argue that the outrage began far before the internet, it goes back to moral panics of yesteryear, and outrage being peddled on talk radio.
peppermint_tea 5y ago
the internet is more than browsers and http, we have email, irc, sftp, torrents and lots of other cool stuff that I would hate to see centralized in the hands of a few private companies and serve to the masses with browser, mandatory https and google tag manager all in order to track people behaviors. I feel like promoting alternatives is a better idea than participating in the creation of a dystopian future for the generations to come. out of question for me to just "let it slide", we have too much to loose here
goodpoint 5y ago
Ever heard of Cambridge Analytica and brexit?
Jiejeing 5y ago
I’m sorry to break it to you, but the issue is not the cookie banners but the fact that website share your personal information with thousand of entities and brokers. You do not need a cookie banner if you do not track your users beyond what is needed for the website to work.

wintermutestwin 5y ago

1. Some amount of yesterday's data is "yesterday's news" 2. Any reduction of data theft is progress 3. As a greybeard, I care more about the next and future generation's loss of privacy and impending totalitarian enslavement. In a capitalistic system, people should be able to charge what they want for their commodities. My data is worth more than the thieves could pay.

shadowgovt 5y ago
Aren't you handing that data out for free by using their servers? Seems like you aren't happy with the price they charge for access.
- wintermutestwin 5y ago
  I believe that is a disingenuous argument: 1. The monopolistic position of many of these service providers drastically limits the ability to choose alternatives and creates social and economic hardships for those who would avoid the use of these services altogether. For example, my ISP lobbied my government to allow them to steal my data. I have exactly one choice of ISP. 2. When we look back on the colonizers handing the natives trinkets in exchange for land, we consider that egregious theft. Most people lack any real understanding of the price that they are paying for these services and the intrinsic value of their data. They also lack an understanding of how this data can and will be used against them now and in the future. 3. And what about the data thieves who build shadow profiles on people who have not signed up for their services? (e.g. Facecrook)
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    Competition is always one click way on the internet. The "monopolistic" practices would not be sufficient if people actually cared enough to stand up an alternative that respected your privacy. The market does not care enough about its own privacy to justify those alternatives. DDG has been available for years... It's doing fine, and it's a great alternative to Google, but it's not doing the gangbusters that one would expect if people weren't mostly satisfied with the privacy trade off. And personally, I think it's extremely elitist for us to assume that we can better evaluate the privacy / service trade-off than most users can. Comparing the average user to a native being taken advantage of by European colonials is a view terribly dismissive of people's self-determination.

falcolas 5y ago

Simply because it sometimes takes governments years to act on industry abuses (giving time for market correction, etc) doesn’t mean the government should not act. Information based industries are absolutely abusing their access to our personal information, and they’re refusing to self correct. The governments of the world are now stepping in to correct that. To be blunt, the corporations have only themselves to blame.

narush 5y ago

This is a cool article. I like the narrative of "Change to a life where you are in control of your direction." I am probably the most privacy conscious person of my friends (not that I do a particularly good job of it), so I spent lots of time thinking about how to communicate about privacy in a way that is effective. [We're all mid-twenties, for context.] The main issue, I find, is that people just mostly don't care. That being said, most of my friends do relate (and dislike) the loss of agency that comes with giving your brain to an algorithmic feed that decides what you eat. The narrative of "control your life and decisions" would be an effective piece of rhetoric, I think! The other argument I've found really effective is one that convinced me after reading Edward Snowden's memoir Permanent Record. A sketch of the point: Person 1: privacy matters. Person 2: I don't care about privacy, because I don't have anything to hide. Person 1: Historically, the folks who were hurt because of a lack of privacy weren't us (young professionals), but rather the civil rights movement in the 1960s and the Vietnam anti-war movement, etc. Privacy is about protecting those people who the government/institutions/etc already squash down. It's an argument that comes from Permanent Record, pretty much, and I think for me it is the most compelling reason that I care about privacy! Not as much for myself (although that's nice), but mostly for the people that privacy protects who really need it. In my experience, it goes over very well, as people can see that privacy isn't just about doomsday preppers not wanting anyone to know where they bury their gold, but rather about protecting those people who need/deserve/would benefit from protection! P.S. I'd recommend reading Permanent Record. I was only 15 or so when all that stuff went down, and really didn't know anything about it except "Snowden good or bad idk," but the book is a fantastically interesting and well-written story. I think he's kinda awesome.

ls65536 5y ago
> Ignoring our own privacy, shouldn't we protect those people who the government/institutions/etc already squash down? And this should resonate even among the individualistic and self-interested who might believe they're unaffected, as those who aren't "squashed down" right now would be wise to not get caught in the thinking that the set of people affected today by certain state, corporate and institutional actions is immutable. "They would never do it to us" (along with the often heard "it could never happen here") is one of the most dangerous ways of discounting problems affecting "others" in the present. When you see people, either as individuals or as groups, being treated a certain way by those with greater power, remember that this could just as easily also be you in the future.

ouid 5y ago

If you're being served ads on the internet, just install ublock origin.

bdominy 5y ago

Identity theft, scams, robocalls, spam, etc. all get started by harvesting people’s personal information. It’s a commodity hackers trade for big bucks. The question is how to protect yourself? I use end-to-end encryption wherever possible, so WhatsApp for chats and Neucards for contact sharing. It makes collecting my data much tougher.

BlueTemplar 5y ago
I don't see how you can trust WhatsApp when it's closed source and owned by Facebook ? (Who, furthermore, already violated their promise made when buying WhatsApp to not use the phone numbers and contact books they got from them for their other services.)
- bdominy 5y ago
  They care about end-to-end encryption and let me use the app after I denied them access to my contacts. Signal is another possibility, but I don't like they require my phone number to make an account.
  - BlueTemplar 5y ago
    WhatsApp doesn't require a phone number any more ?

spansoa 5y ago

I used to have a large online presence pre-Snowden leaks and was signed up to hundreds of services, some even in my legal name. Gradually I attempted to 'go dark' and delete all those accounts, which was tedious, but worth it. There's two extremes to being online: you can wear your heart on your shirt sleeve and post under your legal name, and share details about your private life, or you can be a ghost and leave no traces, or at least minimize your footprint. There is this thing: some people are just so famous online, that reverting back to some private mode is nearly impossible for them. They're so out there and involved with so many services, that 'going dark' for them would be very difficult, but there are steps you can take to minimize your footprint. It's not too late to take those initial steps. I encourage everyone to attempt to 'go dark' gradually and make it very expensive for people to dox you. If you turn it into a game, it's even better. I said it was tedious, but honestly I kind of like becoming a ghost. I'm so opaque to big tech now, that it must really piss them off, including dragnet surveillance. It's not a life for everyone however, and sometimes I have to participate in big tech like using my smartphone to do online banking, or buying something on Amazon, but 99% of my activities online are all more-or-less anonymous and private now, and I'm happy with that.

gonehome 5y ago
I think there's an accessible middle ground for most people. My first suggestion would be to get every account in a password manager like 1Password. In addition to the obvious security benefits, this creates a record of where all your accounts are. For the average person it'll take time for them to remember everything (and they'll realize ones they forgot) - having a place for it all to get documented is the first step. Once you have that, the next step is to go through every account and close the ones you don't need. After that, go into the ones you do need and modify the settings to disable as much of the tracking as possible. I'd also suggest people sign up for deleteme: https://joindeleteme.com/ https://joindeleteme.com/ since these public data collectors can't be stopped without continued effort and I don't think there will be laws to stop them anytime soon. For more technical users, I'd suggest they get their own domain and use fastmail with aliased emails for each account - but realistically regular people will not do that. There are also advantages to having a public presence online (both professional and personal) - the issue isn't so much that you need to be 100% dark, it's that your public presence should be under your own control. One of the reasons I'm excited about Urbit is because it has the potential to give this control back in a way that could actually work. I think culturally we also need to be more understanding of people making mistakes as the grow up and saying stupid things as they learn, but that's somewhat of an orthogonal issue so I'll leave it there.

wolverine876 5y ago

The value of data declines over time, often rapidly. Think about what a business would pay for current user data, data one year old, data five years old, etc.; who buys five year old data? I suppose it depends on the application. Imagine how your life changes over time, an accumulation of small and large changes. Data on your health, finances, social network, interests, politics, activities, etc. was different 1 year ago, 5 years ago, etc. The question seems like a justification for what many want to do, which is just close their eyes to the problems and not put the energy into resisting the tide toward compliance and giving power to government/corporations; it's easier, right now, to give up, and despair and powerlessness are normalized - instead of quitting being at least a bit shameful, it's cynically embraced, flauted as rebellious.

freebuju 5y ago
You are just wrong. Some of your data such as health data stays constant throughout your life. Especially for guys living with chronic conditions. Your key identifiers stay the same too. E.g your phone number etc. These are then used to re-establish your advertising identity. This theory that old data declines in value couldn't be more wrong given that the "old" data is never deleted. Just waiting to find its original purpose.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  That cherry-picks examples, phone numbers and chronic conditions. We can think of plenty more that change. (Even phone numbers change sometimes.)
  - freebuju 5y ago
    Sure. But what if those two data points are the only things I need to tag and target you.
  - vineyardmike 4y ago
    Cherry picked examples are proof that the OP is wrong, at least to an extent, and that there exists data that doesn't change or changes slow enough to be re-tagged (and this poses the issue in question). Proof of existence is enough to invalidate a claim of non-existence, even if it doesn't hold for any condition in the world.

thenerdhead 5y ago

I don't think everyone changes as fast as the data can get stale. Humans are both creatures of habit and agents of change. For the former, this data is still relevant and ads can do their jobs. For the latter, the data is stale and ads do not convert. Age may be a huge factor here. I do believe in data privacy. Mostly from the lens of not living in a future world where data removes an individual's critical thinking ability and engagement of new experiences. This is already pretty true in corporate america & reliance on technology like map apps instead of getting lost like the article mentions. For ads, I think we have to accept the reality of the world such as Jerry Mander did in 1978: “If you accept the existence of advertising, you accept a system designed to persuade and to dominate minds by interfering in people's thinking patterns. You also accept that the system will be used by the sorts of people who like to influence people and are good at it. No person who did not wish to dominate others would choose to use advertising, or choosing it, succeed in it. So the basic nature of advertising and all technologies created to serve it will be consistent with this purpose, will encourage this behaviour in society, and will tend to push social evolution in this direction.” - Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander

dredmorbius 5y ago
Mander is strongly recommended reading. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television https://www.worldcat.org/title/four-arguments-for-the-elimination-of-television/oclc/49786854 https://www.worldcat.org/title/four-arguments-for-the-elimin... https://archive.org/search.php?query=mander+Four+arguments+for+the+elimination+of+television https://archive.org/search.php?query=mander+Four+arguments+f... http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=F119513A778FC924D7ED96B4D5263BB0 http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=F119513A778FC924D7ED96B4...

jdfedgon 5y ago

I like the blog post and the thought experiment. However, I wish the author wouldn't have stopped with the reasoning and would have stressed his arguments further. Example where his reasoning in the article is coming short, one might answer: Yes, I wanted to go to store a, and yes, after my 'highway hypnosis' I went or was brought to store b instead. So what? It doesn't really matter if I go shopping in store a or b. The important thing is - I am at a store now and can start my shopping. If we evaluate that from an ethical point of view then we would have to ask about emancipation and sovereignty in regard to the choices we make, and where that fine line is, where it really starts to matter, if we go for store a or b.

closeparen 5y ago

Life is an iterated game. I can see an appeal in living in a video-game kind of world where your counterparty to each interaction treats it as fresh, doesn't even really have an interior experience while it's happening, and forgets it immediately after. I can also see downsides. But that's besides the point. We don't live in that world. In our universe, interaction is a two way street. Both parties to an interaction have an interior experience of it, and that experience contributes to memory (both literal records and subtle formation of impressions/intuitions), and those memories shape the next experience. The framings "your privacy," "your data," "stealing" are interesting and provocative in some cases but I see the more extreme forms of this as pining for a world in which you are the only stateful or intelligent agent. We have never lived in that world, and I don't share your conviction that we obviously or morally ought to.

dylan604 5y ago
I have much less of an issue when a company runs analytics on the information gained from each time I order from them. It's when they continue to follow you across the internet to keep tabs on you when you are not using their site. It's not much different than having someone like a private investigator shadow you every where you go in real life taking detailed notes. You don't know who's paying the PI, you don't know to what purpose they are investigating, but there's just nothing you can do about. Only the internet tracking continues to follow in places where the PI can't go. It's just flat out creepy

noasaservice 5y ago

HN itself is one such black-hole of data permanentness. They do not support deletion of your data, modifying of your data after 1h, and are what I would describe as a data-tarpit. Nor do they support any of the European privacy directives. Sure, they're in the US, but they should definitely be forward-thinking about this stuff - The writing's on the wall. It's why I create junk accounts and abandon them after a bit. Then again, this too is the endemic problem with how silicon valley is run.

dredmorbius 5y ago
Can I delete my account? We try not to delete entire account histories because that would gut the threads the account had participated in. However, we care about protecting individual users and take care of privacy requests every day, so if we can help, please email hn@ycombinator.com. We don't want anyone to get in trouble from anything they posted to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23623799 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23623799
- noasaservice 5y ago
  I figured SOMEONE would have responded to that. This has the same energy as "Click here to create account, but do a whole bunch outside the account to delete it". It's like NYT doing the scammy "pay online, but cancel after calling on business hours to a retention specialist, and they may also just ignore your *request*" The simple answer: put this in the website, not some email that may or may not actually request anything.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    Though I've not requested deletion, I've found HN's mod team exceptionally responsive in general. Have you actually tried to follow the process? Are you aware of any instances in which requests have been denied?
    - 4y ago

slvrspoon 5y ago

Co founder of deleteme here. Ama. Fyi to the thread posters, Deleteme removes customer data by default after 6 months. Happy to hear views on what we could do better and examples of companies operating to high standards as well. Thx!

grammers 5y ago

It's definitely worth the hassle to reduce data - even though I believe it's impossible to go dark completely. Whenever possible I try to not use Big Tech. My choice: Firefox, Tutanota, DuckDuckGo.

philjohn 5y ago

The thing is, "big tech" aren't really the really scary data collectors, the data brokers are. They buy details from your supermarket, health insurer etc. And yet people here don't often bring them up.

iamdamian 5y ago
I agree that data brokers are underscrutinized and probably the least ethical of the companies who make money from user data. I didn't realize that they could buy my data from a health insurer—where can I read more about this?
- philjohn 5y ago
  https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-data-brokers-make-money-off-your-medical-records/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-data-brokers-...
  - iamdamian 4y ago
    Wow. Thanks for sharing, I was not aware.
- vineyardmike 4y ago
  I don't know about this case in particular, but generally these things are hard to pin down for a reason. But start with the privacy policy.

meerita 5y ago

Well, in the beginning I wasn't aware of the entire privacy topic. But now I am and I don't want any big corpo to censor me just because they already have all my life in a database.

evancoop 5y ago

One useful regulation might be to prevent neutering the functionality of a product if the user does not elect to share their data. Unless those data are part and parcel of the core functionality, choosing not to share should not prevent receiving software updates, etc.

cascom 5y ago

I find the only way I can get a little traction with people on this subject is through the consequences on insurance markets: “Imagine you your car insurance is triple because waze said you speed” “Imagine you and your entire extended family can’t get health insurance because of genetic conditions discovered via 23andme” (assumes law change) “Imagine your health insurance goes up because you buy too much junk food” Etc