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Do you realize how far we have come if not wanting to install an app that track your movements/voices/actions on your phone and not wanting pictures of your chi

by ploum 4y ago

Do you realize how far we have come if not wanting to install an app that track your movements/voices/actions on your phone and not wanting pictures of your children in shady databases is seen as "dysfunctional quirk" ? 15 years ago, when working in the automotive industry, I made the prototype of a GPS feature that would record your travels and use simple AI techniques to predict your next destination. Prototype was working really fine (all was done onboard, not connection to external servers). When I first demoed it, upper-management told me that "no one will ever agree to have a car that record your travels. That’s too creepy!" That was 2008. This is exactly the point of such articles and experiments: demonstrating how creepy the world become and how people pointing it are seen as the weirdos.

wellthisisgreat 4y ago
Sure, my sentiment in regards to “extreme data privacy” is that the world has an evolved and there are more benefits to the new lack of privacy than downsides overall. I loathe the “real name policy” introduced by Facebook for the internet but can’t close my eyes to the fact that I am also benefitting from all that tracking as an individual and in business. As a [thought] experiment I am ok following even a medieval way of life for a week to see what the difference is, I just wouldn’t present it as a virtue. The pro-privacy stance is great and helps everyone, the extreme pro-privacy stance is akin to using burner phones for everything despite not being involved in any activities that truly require that level of opsec. It’s quirky, borderline comical and provides little insight into how to deal with current state of normalcy
- ploum 4y ago
  I feel you are not really understanding the point privacy advocates are trying to make. Yes, you feel that you benefit from less privacy now in the current context. Using a burner phone only when something should be really hidden is like having a red light on your face. The point to not share any data voluntarly is that you never know when you will truly want to hide something. You don’t decide what is good and what is bad. What is happening with anti-abortion asking women to share the period data should be enough of an example. The big point about privacy is also that it is not a personal choice. As soon as someone write about her personal choice of "not disclosing any private data", she’s seen as a weirdo. Proving one major point: you don’t really have the choice anymore. You must share your data. You have no control about who access your data. And as Trump demonstrated, any country is one inch away of switching to a government where each of your data can be used against you. Sounds paranoid? Well, the bad news is that most people perceived as paranoid about that subject in the last 40 years were not even close to imagine what we currently have.
  - wellthisisgreat 4y ago
    > Proving one major point: you don’t really have the choice anymore. You must share your data. You have no control about who access your data. That’s sort of my point. That battle is long lost. There are certainly people personally responsible for the loss of privacy, but the current state of affairs in that regard is such a complex, indecipherable mess, that the reasonable way forward is to work within it not against it. Invent solutions that somehow hijack the system rather than try to reject it outright in favor of some 1999 way of life. Making statements about “not sharing any data ever” is at best as reasonable as insisting on eating only the food you’ve grown yourself.

by ploum 4y ago

wellthisisgreat 4y ago

Sure, my sentiment in regards to “extreme data privacy” is that the world has an evolved and there are more benefits to the new lack of privacy than downsides overall. I loathe the “real name policy” introduced by Facebook for the internet but can’t close my eyes to the fact that I am also benefitting from all that tracking as an individual and in business. As a [thought] experiment I am ok following even a medieval way of life for a week to see what the difference is, I just wouldn’t present it as a virtue. The pro-privacy stance is great and helps everyone, the extreme pro-privacy stance is akin to using burner phones for everything despite not being involved in any activities that truly require that level of opsec. It’s quirky, borderline comical and provides little insight into how to deal with current state of normalcy

ploum 4y ago
I feel you are not really understanding the point privacy advocates are trying to make. Yes, you feel that you benefit from less privacy now in the current context. Using a burner phone only when something should be really hidden is like having a red light on your face. The point to not share any data voluntarly is that you never know when you will truly want to hide something. You don’t decide what is good and what is bad. What is happening with anti-abortion asking women to share the period data should be enough of an example. The big point about privacy is also that it is not a personal choice. As soon as someone write about her personal choice of "not disclosing any private data", she’s seen as a weirdo. Proving one major point: you don’t really have the choice anymore. You must share your data. You have no control about who access your data. And as Trump demonstrated, any country is one inch away of switching to a government where each of your data can be used against you. Sounds paranoid? Well, the bad news is that most people perceived as paranoid about that subject in the last 40 years were not even close to imagine what we currently have.
- wellthisisgreat 4y ago
  > Proving one major point: you don’t really have the choice anymore. You must share your data. You have no control about who access your data. That’s sort of my point. That battle is long lost. There are certainly people personally responsible for the loss of privacy, but the current state of affairs in that regard is such a complex, indecipherable mess, that the reasonable way forward is to work within it not against it. Invent solutions that somehow hijack the system rather than try to reject it outright in favor of some 1999 way of life. Making statements about “not sharing any data ever” is at best as reasonable as insisting on eating only the food you’ve grown yourself.