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The Kagi founder believes only criminals need privacy: > I think that a class of people, who ask kind of questions that need absolute guarantee of anonymity (I

by dmm 4y ago

The Kagi founder believes only criminals need privacy: > I think that a class of people, who ask kind of questions that need absolute guarantee of anonymity (I am thinking terrorists, drug dealers, traffickers etc) are: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29844665 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29844665 That's the main reason I haven't tried it.

mlry 4y ago
Thank you for this heads up. I stumbled across Kagi a lot in recent months looking for better search results, but with this statement from the founder the case is settled.
danpalmer 4y ago
Unless I’m mistaken that’s literally the opposite of what he’s saying? He says: there are a class of people, criminals, who need x/y/z properties of a search engine… and that’s not what we provide. He makes the difference between Privacy (which Kagi apparently provides) and true anonymity (which appears to be out of scope for them). Sounds a lot like DDG vs, say, Tor. The former is very privacy conscious, the latter is attempting to be provably anonymous to a level sufficient for life-or-death personal safety.
- dmm 4y ago
  He setting up a strawman: only criminals(specifically terrorists, drug dealers, traffickers) would care more about privacy than what their vague promises provide. There are endless scenarios where a person may not want their searches being individually identifiable where they aren't a terrorists, drug dealers or trafficker. Imagine the scenario where 13 US states banned women eating Fuji apples and a new administration takes over and is really motivated to enforce that ban. Kagi is absolutely able to report the identity of users who search for specific keywords, "mail order Fuji apples", etc. A malicious Kagi engineer could track someone's searches, for example as part of a campaign of stalking or harassment.
  - danpalmer 4y ago
    He says that Kagi doesn’t keep any identifying logs, so I think your example would not be possible. He makes a useful distinction between designing for privacy, and being unable to report on what users are doing, and building a system that is anonymous at a level of something like Tor. He could certainly have added in another example to his list, perhaps a dissident under a dangerous regime, but the meaning was clear to me. Personally, I think the comment is a fair one, and that it’s unreasonable to take offence to it, although I can see why some at the fringes of privacy advocacy, perhaps those already using Tor for all their web usage, or only paying with cash, might consider Kagi to be beneath them.
    - freediver 4y ago
      I can only say, thanks! English is my second language and looking back I agree what I wrote may sound clumsy. I am also an active HNer and do not miss a chance to contribute to a discussion!
  - freediver 4y ago
    Kagi founder here. Not sure why you misinterpreted what I said while having my quote right in front of you ? Note that I used the word "anonymity" in that sentence, and not the word "privacy" like you interpreted (perhaps you took the two as synonyms, but these are two very different things and are often conflated). I am not sure that true discrete anonymity is possible on the web and if it is, it would be very expensive to get. Kagi is definetely not pretending to be offering anything of the kind (mostly due to paid nature of the service, although there are steps that can be taken like near-anonoymous email addresses and payment cards to achieve a solid level of anonymity with Kagi). On the other hand, I do believe that privacy online should be a right of every single person on this planet. We are 100% commited to user-privacy. Our products - both search and browser - have zero tracking and zero telemetry (this is easilly verifiable). User private information is only a liability for us and is not something we need or want. We are in the business of selling search as a product, not selling ads or data. Happy that clarifies it, happy to answer any questions.

by dmm 4y ago

mlry 4y ago

Thank you for this heads up. I stumbled across Kagi a lot in recent months looking for better search results, but with this statement from the founder the case is settled.

danpalmer 4y ago

Unless I’m mistaken that’s literally the opposite of what he’s saying? He says: there are a class of people, criminals, who need x/y/z properties of a search engine… and that’s not what we provide. He makes the difference between Privacy (which Kagi apparently provides) and true anonymity (which appears to be out of scope for them). Sounds a lot like DDG vs, say, Tor. The former is very privacy conscious, the latter is attempting to be provably anonymous to a level sufficient for life-or-death personal safety.

dmm 4y ago
He setting up a strawman: only criminals(specifically terrorists, drug dealers, traffickers) would care more about privacy than what their vague promises provide. There are endless scenarios where a person may not want their searches being individually identifiable where they aren't a terrorists, drug dealers or trafficker. Imagine the scenario where 13 US states banned women eating Fuji apples and a new administration takes over and is really motivated to enforce that ban. Kagi is absolutely able to report the identity of users who search for specific keywords, "mail order Fuji apples", etc. A malicious Kagi engineer could track someone's searches, for example as part of a campaign of stalking or harassment.
- danpalmer 4y ago
  He says that Kagi doesn’t keep any identifying logs, so I think your example would not be possible. He makes a useful distinction between designing for privacy, and being unable to report on what users are doing, and building a system that is anonymous at a level of something like Tor. He could certainly have added in another example to his list, perhaps a dissident under a dangerous regime, but the meaning was clear to me. Personally, I think the comment is a fair one, and that it’s unreasonable to take offence to it, although I can see why some at the fringes of privacy advocacy, perhaps those already using Tor for all their web usage, or only paying with cash, might consider Kagi to be beneath them.
  - freediver 4y ago
    I can only say, thanks! English is my second language and looking back I agree what I wrote may sound clumsy. I am also an active HNer and do not miss a chance to contribute to a discussion!
- freediver 4y ago
  Kagi founder here. Not sure why you misinterpreted what I said while having my quote right in front of you ? Note that I used the word "anonymity" in that sentence, and not the word "privacy" like you interpreted (perhaps you took the two as synonyms, but these are two very different things and are often conflated). I am not sure that true discrete anonymity is possible on the web and if it is, it would be very expensive to get. Kagi is definetely not pretending to be offering anything of the kind (mostly due to paid nature of the service, although there are steps that can be taken like near-anonoymous email addresses and payment cards to achieve a solid level of anonymity with Kagi). On the other hand, I do believe that privacy online should be a right of every single person on this planet. We are 100% commited to user-privacy. Our products - both search and browser - have zero tracking and zero telemetry (this is easilly verifiable). User private information is only a liability for us and is not something we need or want. We are in the business of selling search as a product, not selling ads or data. Happy that clarifies it, happy to answer any questions.