3 ms·

1. End users don't configure web servers 2. Since when is "it's too hard" an acceptable solution for HN or Google? Have you ever tried to tell someone nontechn

1. End users don't configure web servers 2. Since when is "it's too hard" an acceptable solution for HN or Google? Have you ever tried to tell someone nontechnical how to reboot their router over the phone? "Just unplug it and plug it back in" "Unplug what?" "The router - the thing with the network cables in it" "The one with the tv cable?" etc. Now try to tell them how to reconfigure their SSID, and then reconfigure all their connected devices to match.

myspy 15y ago
Exactly. Useless solution for the majority. But who gives a shit anyway? In tech it's hard to decide what's good for you and what not. Privacy is nothing trivial anymore. You are out there or you live in a forest without any technical device at all.
- niels_olson 15y ago
  > You are out there or you live in a forest What he said. At some point, if people want to eat, they need to belly up to the big table called society. The Enlightenment came with great discussion of the social contract for good reason. Opting out of the social contract is a hard problem. Even the guy in the forest was born to a mother. Even the orphan depends on someone to survive the first years of life. Anyone who can formulate solid arguments got an education that someone provided and paid for. You're router is a flashlight shining in the GHz range. If it was in the visible range, your neighbors would get an injunction because it would keep them up at night.
hello_moto 15y ago
Not to mention firmware updates or reset-ing the router back to factory default and forgot to do whatever Google suggested you to do. Suddenly it becomes a burden.
feral 15y ago
So, Google could be forced to not gather this information at all. Whether its in the public interest is a tradeoff between the utility provided vs the privacy loss. I think its a net utility gain - I like my phone to resolve quickly, and see little downside - so I have no general objection. Some people might object strenuously to this information being gathered; they now have a mechanism - albeit kludgey - to opt-out. Could the opt-out be implemented better? You say you don't accept 'its too hard' as an excuse. But sometimes there's a limit to how well a problem can be solved, given its importance and the set of people who care about it. You could build a physical switch on the router (perhaps even one that appends '_nomap' to the SSID). But we don't expect Google to ship everyone a new router, right? If there's ever sufficient consumer demand, router manufacturers could add this feature. But there probably isn't going to be. We live in a world where Telcos track and log our locations, to a resolution of the nearest cell, or nearer, all the time. They typically have our identity and demographic information. They know who we call and message, and for how long. I'm studying social network analysis, and you can infer an awful lot from data like this. So, how do I turn my phone on 'do not track' mode? I think its pretty decent of Google to enable this feature; yes, the solution is inelegant, but the people that care enough about this can probably figure out how to enable it. I think anger about privacy violations should be directed at worse offenders.
- kiiski 15y ago
  Maybe it would be better to have people who don't mind it opt-in rather than expecting people to opt-out of something they might not even know they're in. "...anger about privacy violations should be directed at worse offenders." No, it should be directed at every offender.
  - TeMPOraL 15y ago
    > Maybe it would be better to have people who don't mind it opt-in rather than expecting people to opt-out of something they might not even know they're in. No, because it will render this service useless, as almost no one will know or care about it. Sad truth, but you can't have 'opt-in' for everything if you actually want to accomplish something.

myspy 15y ago

Exactly. Useless solution for the majority. But who gives a shit anyway? In tech it's hard to decide what's good for you and what not. Privacy is nothing trivial anymore. You are out there or you live in a forest without any technical device at all.

niels_olson 15y ago
> You are out there or you live in a forest What he said. At some point, if people want to eat, they need to belly up to the big table called society. The Enlightenment came with great discussion of the social contract for good reason. Opting out of the social contract is a hard problem. Even the guy in the forest was born to a mother. Even the orphan depends on someone to survive the first years of life. Anyone who can formulate solid arguments got an education that someone provided and paid for. You're router is a flashlight shining in the GHz range. If it was in the visible range, your neighbors would get an injunction because it would keep them up at night.

hello_moto 15y ago

Not to mention firmware updates or reset-ing the router back to factory default and forgot to do whatever Google suggested you to do. Suddenly it becomes a burden.

feral 15y ago

So, Google could be forced to not gather this information at all. Whether its in the public interest is a tradeoff between the utility provided vs the privacy loss. I think its a net utility gain - I like my phone to resolve quickly, and see little downside - so I have no general objection. Some people might object strenuously to this information being gathered; they now have a mechanism - albeit kludgey - to opt-out. Could the opt-out be implemented better? You say you don't accept 'its too hard' as an excuse. But sometimes there's a limit to how well a problem can be solved, given its importance and the set of people who care about it. You could build a physical switch on the router (perhaps even one that appends '_nomap' to the SSID). But we don't expect Google to ship everyone a new router, right? If there's ever sufficient consumer demand, router manufacturers could add this feature. But there probably isn't going to be. We live in a world where Telcos track and log our locations, to a resolution of the nearest cell, or nearer, all the time. They typically have our identity and demographic information. They know who we call and message, and for how long. I'm studying social network analysis, and you can infer an awful lot from data like this. So, how do I turn my phone on 'do not track' mode? I think its pretty decent of Google to enable this feature; yes, the solution is inelegant, but the people that care enough about this can probably figure out how to enable it. I think anger about privacy violations should be directed at worse offenders.

kiiski 15y ago
Maybe it would be better to have people who don't mind it opt-in rather than expecting people to opt-out of something they might not even know they're in. "...anger about privacy violations should be directed at worse offenders." No, it should be directed at every offender.
- TeMPOraL 15y ago
  > Maybe it would be better to have people who don't mind it opt-in rather than expecting people to opt-out of something they might not even know they're in. No, because it will render this service useless, as almost no one will know or care about it. Sad truth, but you can't have 'opt-in' for everything if you actually want to accomplish something.