4 ms·

Indeed, with all the Facebook sharing buttons around the web they have more than your bookmarks too, they have the equivalent of uploading your browser history

by drats 15y ago

Indeed, with all the Facebook sharing buttons around the web they have more than your bookmarks too, they have the equivalent of uploading your browser history each day to them. With current machine learning technology, let alone improvements over the coming years, they'd know more or less what someone would know if they stood behind every time you were browsing for the last few years. Even if you were to cancel your account you'd turn up in photos of parties on other people's accounts and they'd follow pretty well you after you'd left too. With their dodgy history, Zuckerberg's contempt for his own users as evidenced by his quotes, the idea that this won't be abused is laughable. Given national security letters (NSL) it's almost certain the intelligence community has access. Hell you could hit a mid-level admin at one of their data-centers with a NSL and the top level management and legal wouldn't even be aware that there are outside entities with a connection to their database. That's to say nothing of the extra-legal capacities of these people. While people like to think that it's more or less anonymized clusters and demographics that are being passed to advertisers to target ads better - not a terribly scary thought, just more relevant ads - I think we need to be far more cautious.

nitrogen 15y ago
While people like to think that it's more or less anonymized clusters and demographics that are being passed to advertisers to target ads better - not a terribly scary thought, just more relevant ads - I think we need to be far more cautious. How do you go about convincing the "I have nothing to hide" majority of the population that giving away such vast quantities of information is not in their best interests? I'm thinking of friends, family members, etc. who honestly don't care whether the TSA sees them naked at the airport, or how much the other agencies know about them. Where does such extreme deference to authority come from in the first place?
- rhizome 15y ago
  Where does such extreme deference to authority come from in the first place? Gilles Deleuze said it comes from a desire to be led.
- r00fus 15y ago
  > How do you go about convincing the "I have nothing to hide" majority of the population that giving away such vast quantities of information is not in their best interests? Continuing and possibly gruesome examples where such data mining ruins lives. I spoke with a recruiter who prided himself on their HR department's willingness to deny entry based on FB profile (unsure if was public or obtained through some "secret friends" policy, or through a backdoor). Furthermore, it's becoming almost a certainty that some foolish judge will set precedent somewhere that essentially makes FB account data public (or forces publicity of formerly private data).
- guygurari 15y ago
  I think this article, "Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have 'Nothing to Hide'" [1], makes a compelling case. There are essentially two reasons why privacy is important. The first is that privacy can be used to 'hide bad things'. This is what the 'nothing to hide' argument addresses: if you don't do bad things, you should not worry about privacy. The problem is that not everyone agrees on which things are bad. For example, do you agree that the OWS protesters terrorists? But privacy is not just about hiding bad things. A multitude of innocuous facts about many people, collected in a database, are themselves a powerful tool. The data can be mined by governments to look for 'suspicious' behavior, by insurance companies to deny insurance, by criminals to commit fraud, etc. I think the basic problem is that violations of privacy give power in the hands governments and corporations, and these entities tend to abuse whatever power you give them. [1] http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/ http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127...
- mkjones 15y ago
  You can ask to watch them having sex. They have nothing to hide, right?
- MrRage 15y ago
  I'm not sure how compelling my argument is... but if I have nothing to hide then why does anybody need to look? For example does the TSA seeing everybody naked actually improve security?
  - rhizome 15y ago
    Everybody has something to hide. If you don't understand what I mean by this, post your credit card number in a reply.

by drats 15y ago

nitrogen 15y ago

While people like to think that it's more or less anonymized clusters and demographics that are being passed to advertisers to target ads better - not a terribly scary thought, just more relevant ads - I think we need to be far more cautious. How do you go about convincing the "I have nothing to hide" majority of the population that giving away such vast quantities of information is not in their best interests? I'm thinking of friends, family members, etc. who honestly don't care whether the TSA sees them naked at the airport, or how much the other agencies know about them. Where does such extreme deference to authority come from in the first place?

rhizome 15y ago
Where does such extreme deference to authority come from in the first place? Gilles Deleuze said it comes from a desire to be led.
r00fus 15y ago
> How do you go about convincing the "I have nothing to hide" majority of the population that giving away such vast quantities of information is not in their best interests? Continuing and possibly gruesome examples where such data mining ruins lives. I spoke with a recruiter who prided himself on their HR department's willingness to deny entry based on FB profile (unsure if was public or obtained through some "secret friends" policy, or through a backdoor). Furthermore, it's becoming almost a certainty that some foolish judge will set precedent somewhere that essentially makes FB account data public (or forces publicity of formerly private data).
guygurari 15y ago
I think this article, "Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have 'Nothing to Hide'" [1], makes a compelling case. There are essentially two reasons why privacy is important. The first is that privacy can be used to 'hide bad things'. This is what the 'nothing to hide' argument addresses: if you don't do bad things, you should not worry about privacy. The problem is that not everyone agrees on which things are bad. For example, do you agree that the OWS protesters terrorists? But privacy is not just about hiding bad things. A multitude of innocuous facts about many people, collected in a database, are themselves a powerful tool. The data can be mined by governments to look for 'suspicious' behavior, by insurance companies to deny insurance, by criminals to commit fraud, etc. I think the basic problem is that violations of privacy give power in the hands governments and corporations, and these entities tend to abuse whatever power you give them. [1] http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/ http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127...
mkjones 15y ago
You can ask to watch them having sex. They have nothing to hide, right?
MrRage 15y ago
I'm not sure how compelling my argument is... but if I have nothing to hide then why does anybody need to look? For example does the TSA seeing everybody naked actually improve security?
- rhizome 15y ago
  Everybody has something to hide. If you don't understand what I mean by this, post your credit card number in a reply.