2 ms·

Being tracked and profiled is both an issue of security AND privacy. Being private (i.e. protecting privacy) ensures a higher level of security. Being secure

by ildon 4y ago

Being tracked and profiled is both an issue of security AND privacy. Being private (i.e. protecting privacy) ensures a higher level of security. Being secure ensures a higher level of privacy. Under many aspects, these are two very correlated concepts. Say, for example, that a user makes it public where they live and when and where they were born. Now it's easier for a bad actor to perform an attack impersonating that user in online services (social hacking)

ratorx 4y ago
I get the idea, but being pedantic if a system can be compromised using only externally discoverable information and no additional factors, I don’t think it was ever particularly secure. It’s really difficult to guarantee the secrecy of IRL factors. Privacy should be valued, but I think it’s hard to reason about any system that attempts to rely on it for security, so they shouldn’t be considered particularly secure.
vineyardmike 4y ago
> Being private (i.e. protecting privacy) ensures a higher level of security. Being secure ensures a higher level of privacy. Both of those are only incidentally related for a subset of cases. Literal file storage is where security and privacy align. It’s hard to be secure and not private but it’s possible to be private and not secure. The problem is that a lot of cases of privacy aren’t applicable to security. Like most tracking isn't targeting your address it’s targeting your purchases preferences. Most of the time you can’t own that data, so security is irrelevant. Most of privacy guidelines shouldn’t be around “save your files on IPFS” like the article said since then it’s literally open to everyone and anyone can see the requests for those files, even if google drive can’t sniff them. Is it secure to keep your files in a public p2p system on your personal desktop (which you have to ensure is virus free and doesn’t burn down) instead of s3/GDrive/etc? It would be less private but I wouldn't make strong security claims towards self hosting your files while opening it to the public internet. Privacy guidelines should instead be “ad block and block tracking scripts” instead. Or “stop using social media publicly”. Much better privacy wins. But privacy is much more ambiguous what a win is. Most people don’t care about ad tracking. Government tracking is usually not a concern until it’s too late, and much harder. Privacy for most people is not letting grandma see your drunk social media posts in college. Or keeping a stalker from finding you. Despite that, “we” the technical community should push people to stop freely giving away data in return for nothing (eg stop tracking JS but keep using Dropbox because it’s useful). The goal is to minimize the size of the data bases that get built around you passively.
- ildon 4y ago
  The article does not suggest to use IPFS, the article says that the better alternative is to give users the freedom to choose whatever they want to do with their data. And to give some perspectives the article then says that when the user is in control, the user can then choose any options, from something centralized such as Dropbox, to something decentralized such as IPFS, or even "vanilla" P2P communication. The point is the freedom to choose, not the choice.

by ildon 4y ago

ratorx 4y ago

I get the idea, but being pedantic if a system can be compromised using only externally discoverable information and no additional factors, I don’t think it was ever particularly secure. It’s really difficult to guarantee the secrecy of IRL factors. Privacy should be valued, but I think it’s hard to reason about any system that attempts to rely on it for security, so they shouldn’t be considered particularly secure.

vineyardmike 4y ago

> Being private (i.e. protecting privacy) ensures a higher level of security. Being secure ensures a higher level of privacy. Both of those are only incidentally related for a subset of cases. Literal file storage is where security and privacy align. It’s hard to be secure and not private but it’s possible to be private and not secure. The problem is that a lot of cases of privacy aren’t applicable to security. Like most tracking isn't targeting your address it’s targeting your purchases preferences. Most of the time you can’t own that data, so security is irrelevant. Most of privacy guidelines shouldn’t be around “save your files on IPFS” like the article said since then it’s literally open to everyone and anyone can see the requests for those files, even if google drive can’t sniff them. Is it secure to keep your files in a public p2p system on your personal desktop (which you have to ensure is virus free and doesn’t burn down) instead of s3/GDrive/etc? It would be less private but I wouldn't make strong security claims towards self hosting your files while opening it to the public internet. Privacy guidelines should instead be “ad block and block tracking scripts” instead. Or “stop using social media publicly”. Much better privacy wins. But privacy is much more ambiguous what a win is. Most people don’t care about ad tracking. Government tracking is usually not a concern until it’s too late, and much harder. Privacy for most people is not letting grandma see your drunk social media posts in college. Or keeping a stalker from finding you. Despite that, “we” the technical community should push people to stop freely giving away data in return for nothing (eg stop tracking JS but keep using Dropbox because it’s useful). The goal is to minimize the size of the data bases that get built around you passively.

ildon 4y ago
The article does not suggest to use IPFS, the article says that the better alternative is to give users the freedom to choose whatever they want to do with their data. And to give some perspectives the article then says that when the user is in control, the user can then choose any options, from something centralized such as Dropbox, to something decentralized such as IPFS, or even "vanilla" P2P communication. The point is the freedom to choose, not the choice.