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> “If you’re an average internet user, you may not think too much about your privacy when you visit a random website,” says Reza Curtmola, one of the study auth

by kodah 3y ago

> “If you’re an average internet user, you may not think too much about your privacy when you visit a random website,” says Reza Curtmola, one of the study authors and a computer science professor at NJIT. "But there are certain categories of internet users who may be more significantly impacted by this, like people who organize and participate in political protest, journalists, and people who network with fellow members of their minority group." I get so dizzied by statements like this. It's almost as if researchers want to undermine their own work. Privacy can be essential for certain groups, but it should be a priority for everyone. Frankly I'm not even sure the statement about minority groups is true anymore. We've seen unmasking used by corporations, interest groups, governments, etc against a wide variety of people with dangerous outcomes. I'd prefer we refactor messaging to make people realize that this is important to everyone and that we lay an impotus to do something about it, especially as governments all over the world are moving to eliminate personal and online privacy.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
zztop44 3y ago
I don’t understand. This seems pretty innocuous to me. >“If you’re an average internet user, you may not think too much about your privacy when you visit a random website” Surely you don’t dispute that? Like, maybe the average user should think about their privacy when they visit a random website, but it’s not dizzying to say that they probably don’t. And the rest of statement is just saying that some users are more at risk of what is a targeted exploit. Probably both in terms of the chance it is used against them, and the consequences of that use. Your point that unmasking gets used against a wide range of people is well taken, but it hardly invalidates the argument being made here, does it? You believe it’s more important to emphasize that everyone should care about privacy. The author seems to believe that it’s more important to emphasize the impact on populations more likely to be targeted. Both are fair perspectives.
- OJFord 3y ago
  It's impossible to know the author's intent of course, but I think the problem/confusion is the choice of the word 'impacted' - GP is saying essentially 'everyone is impacted, even if only a few are aware/care'. Your reading I assume is impacted in the sense of thinking and worrying about it; affected (strictly speaking) by it.
  - zztop44 3y ago
    The article says there “certain categories of internet users who may be more significantly impacted by this”. I think that’s probably true. And regardless of whether or not everyone is impacted at some level, I think it’s reasonable to point out that some may be impacted more significantly. Regardless of which version of “impacted” you mean.
- rendaw 3y ago
  In the next sentence, by saying that minorities etc. are more significantly impacted the author is implying that average internet users are justified in not worrying about privacy. This is what GP is arguing against.
  - zztop44 3y ago
    Is that what the author is implying? That certainly wasn’t my takeaway. If that was the author’s intended message, I’d certainly agree it’s not a good one. But I doubt that was the intended message, to be honest. One population being more significantly impacted by something does not imply that other populations are not also meaningfully impacted.
    - l33tman 3y ago
      Maybe the author's intent wasn't that, but the phrasing is a bit apologetic, like (exaggerating here...) "we're sorry to bother you, the average internet user with this discovery, but just so you know there ARE minorities that care about privacy"
- 3y ago
askin4it 3y ago
You really should at least make an effort to get what the author is telling instead of just reading their words. It's astonishing how narrow minded people can be when the fixate on unrelated things that the author is saying instead of understanding what they meant.
- kodah 3y ago
  Particularly academics use the language the author used. It narrows who is severely affected by a lack of privacy to small groups. It's akin to the folks who say, "Privacy? I have nothing to hide!" The reality is that as the fragile pillars of privacy that exist in most governments are eroded the impact radius grows exponentially. I'd really like them to be stressing that losing privacy is life or death for just about everyone. I can't tell you what the author meant other than what they said, but I can tell you that there's an abundance of folks who believe privacy is a niche issue for small groups which is far from the truth.
- spfzero 3y ago
  We should assume that what someone says is unrelated to what they meant? That's an interesting viewpoint. I have to guess at your meaning since I can't fixate on what you're saying, but I think you mean that language is meaningless?
Zetice 3y ago
I really don't think privacy is something everyone should value equally. "Unmaskings" don't generally happen to most folks, and these "dangerous outcomes" are exceedingly rare. If your threat model includes the possibility of things you do online having negative consequences for you should they be discovered, that's one thing. But the vast majority of people do not fall into that category, and pretending like they do is a great way to numb folks to the very real risk some people carry. Having something to hide or not, privacy doesn't mean the same thing to everyone, and that's completely okay.
- hedora 3y ago
  If you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide from the giant surveillance apparatus the government's been hiding. -Stephen Colbert
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  The other side of the question is too often left out: a vast majority of people are empowering surveilling entities. They're giving a trove of information to establish a baseline that will impact anyone diverging from there, while also helping further manipulation as the feedback loop between what they're pushed and how they react to it is transparent. So IMHO, privacy should be enforced by default if we look at it from the group's perspective.
  - Zetice 3y ago
    Except that's not happening. Could my DNA be used to scan for racial anomalies in newborns? Yes. Is that actually happening? Hell no. Doomsday screeching is not a productive activity, and privacy is not the issue here. It's how people are using their collected data. Besides, caring about other people's treatment of privacy is, if you actually believe what you're saying, none of your business.
    - makeitdouble 3y ago
      > that actually happening? Hell no. I'm kinda tired of blanket dismissal of anything that could be mildly tinfoil hat looking. Not falling into a panic every thursday about random corporate action is a thing, being ultra confident that no one is ever doing anything harmful on a specific subject is unwarranted. Eugenism was a thing baked into laws not that long time ago and is still in the books depending on where you live. Patients are still suing govs for reparation because their claims were memoryholed. You can't just throw around "Is that actually happening? Hell no." rhetoric as if you were due a demonstration served on a plate before accepting that the world is 't as skweeky clean as you seem to assume it is.
falsandtru 3y ago
This says only about a specific attack vector. Privacy should not be trivialized to the issue of only one attack vector (However, it is unclear who trivialized it).
jonas21 3y ago
Think about it from the researcher's perspective. They're used to being asked all the time to justify why their research matters. In fact, it's critical that they do so in order to get funding. If they answer, "well, privacy is important for everyone" or "corporations can use this to serve more targeted ads," most people are going to say, "who cares?" -- or at least that it's less important than other projects the agency or foundation could be funding. If they talk about political dissidents and journalists, then it becomes much easier to make the case that it matters.
- DarkmSparks 3y ago
  maybe its late, but this sounds utterly contradictory to me. we are well passed the time and millions in fines from a time when nobody cared about GDPR.
  - JPLeRouzic 3y ago
    > "we are well passed the time ... when nobody cared about GDPR" You probably meant that now giant providers care about GDPR because of risk of (mostly small) fines, but most users do not care, because of GDPR fatigue, they just click on "accept all", which is defeating the purpose of GDPR.
    - geysersam 3y ago
      GDPR is not about cookies.
iguana_lawyer 3y ago
If you can’t see yourself possibly being on in a protest in the future, you’re not someone who cares about the world and you’ll never care about privacy no matter what arguments they use.
pcthrowaway 3y ago
> Frankly I'm not even sure the statement about minority groups is true anymore I think gay people in most of the world are still legally persecuted by their states. At least in a number of countries, the penalties for being homosexual or engaging in homosexual activities range from imprisonment to execution.
- kodah 3y ago
  That sentence is explicitly with respect to privacy, it does not negate aggregate oppression trends. A lack of privacy opens new doors for oppression, and that harms everyone is more my point. Many people here, if you read the thread entirely, think the status quo is a constant.
Ilnsk 3y ago
It really isn't that important for most people though, most people are only looked at in terms of large aggregate metrics, most people don't feel that participation in a survey constitutes a violation of one's privacy, why are large aggregate marketing statistics any different?
divan 3y ago
> but it should be a priority for everyone It's not black and white, though. There are a lot of people who accept that some levels of sacrificing privacy is an acceptable price for security (i.e. street cameras that allow police to track a criminal who attacked you, plus add some deterrence value). The question, of course, is how to keep this sacrifice under checks and balances to prevent/minimize abuse, but that's another discussion.

by kodah 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

zztop44 3y ago

I don’t understand. This seems pretty innocuous to me. >“If you’re an average internet user, you may not think too much about your privacy when you visit a random website” Surely you don’t dispute that? Like, maybe the average user should think about their privacy when they visit a random website, but it’s not dizzying to say that they probably don’t. And the rest of statement is just saying that some users are more at risk of what is a targeted exploit. Probably both in terms of the chance it is used against them, and the consequences of that use. Your point that unmasking gets used against a wide range of people is well taken, but it hardly invalidates the argument being made here, does it? You believe it’s more important to emphasize that everyone should care about privacy. The author seems to believe that it’s more important to emphasize the impact on populations more likely to be targeted. Both are fair perspectives.

OJFord 3y ago
It's impossible to know the author's intent of course, but I think the problem/confusion is the choice of the word 'impacted' - GP is saying essentially 'everyone is impacted, even if only a few are aware/care'. Your reading I assume is impacted in the sense of thinking and worrying about it; affected (strictly speaking) by it.
- zztop44 3y ago
  The article says there “certain categories of internet users who may be more significantly impacted by this”. I think that’s probably true. And regardless of whether or not everyone is impacted at some level, I think it’s reasonable to point out that some may be impacted more significantly. Regardless of which version of “impacted” you mean.
rendaw 3y ago
In the next sentence, by saying that minorities etc. are more significantly impacted the author is implying that average internet users are justified in not worrying about privacy. This is what GP is arguing against.
- zztop44 3y ago
  Is that what the author is implying? That certainly wasn’t my takeaway. If that was the author’s intended message, I’d certainly agree it’s not a good one. But I doubt that was the intended message, to be honest. One population being more significantly impacted by something does not imply that other populations are not also meaningfully impacted.
  - l33tman 3y ago
    Maybe the author's intent wasn't that, but the phrasing is a bit apologetic, like (exaggerating here...) "we're sorry to bother you, the average internet user with this discovery, but just so you know there ARE minorities that care about privacy"
3y ago

askin4it 3y ago

You really should at least make an effort to get what the author is telling instead of just reading their words. It's astonishing how narrow minded people can be when the fixate on unrelated things that the author is saying instead of understanding what they meant.

kodah 3y ago
Particularly academics use the language the author used. It narrows who is severely affected by a lack of privacy to small groups. It's akin to the folks who say, "Privacy? I have nothing to hide!" The reality is that as the fragile pillars of privacy that exist in most governments are eroded the impact radius grows exponentially. I'd really like them to be stressing that losing privacy is life or death for just about everyone. I can't tell you what the author meant other than what they said, but I can tell you that there's an abundance of folks who believe privacy is a niche issue for small groups which is far from the truth.
spfzero 3y ago
We should assume that what someone says is unrelated to what they meant? That's an interesting viewpoint. I have to guess at your meaning since I can't fixate on what you're saying, but I think you mean that language is meaningless?

Zetice 3y ago

I really don't think privacy is something everyone should value equally. "Unmaskings" don't generally happen to most folks, and these "dangerous outcomes" are exceedingly rare. If your threat model includes the possibility of things you do online having negative consequences for you should they be discovered, that's one thing. But the vast majority of people do not fall into that category, and pretending like they do is a great way to numb folks to the very real risk some people carry. Having something to hide or not, privacy doesn't mean the same thing to everyone, and that's completely okay.

hedora 3y ago
If you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide from the giant surveillance apparatus the government's been hiding. -Stephen Colbert
makeitdouble 3y ago
The other side of the question is too often left out: a vast majority of people are empowering surveilling entities. They're giving a trove of information to establish a baseline that will impact anyone diverging from there, while also helping further manipulation as the feedback loop between what they're pushed and how they react to it is transparent. So IMHO, privacy should be enforced by default if we look at it from the group's perspective.
- Zetice 3y ago
  Except that's not happening. Could my DNA be used to scan for racial anomalies in newborns? Yes. Is that actually happening? Hell no. Doomsday screeching is not a productive activity, and privacy is not the issue here. It's how people are using their collected data. Besides, caring about other people's treatment of privacy is, if you actually believe what you're saying, none of your business.
  - makeitdouble 3y ago
    > that actually happening? Hell no. I'm kinda tired of blanket dismissal of anything that could be mildly tinfoil hat looking. Not falling into a panic every thursday about random corporate action is a thing, being ultra confident that no one is ever doing anything harmful on a specific subject is unwarranted. Eugenism was a thing baked into laws not that long time ago and is still in the books depending on where you live. Patients are still suing govs for reparation because their claims were memoryholed. You can't just throw around "Is that actually happening? Hell no." rhetoric as if you were due a demonstration served on a plate before accepting that the world is 't as skweeky clean as you seem to assume it is.

falsandtru 3y ago

This says only about a specific attack vector. Privacy should not be trivialized to the issue of only one attack vector (However, it is unclear who trivialized it).

jonas21 3y ago

Think about it from the researcher's perspective. They're used to being asked all the time to justify why their research matters. In fact, it's critical that they do so in order to get funding. If they answer, "well, privacy is important for everyone" or "corporations can use this to serve more targeted ads," most people are going to say, "who cares?" -- or at least that it's less important than other projects the agency or foundation could be funding. If they talk about political dissidents and journalists, then it becomes much easier to make the case that it matters.

DarkmSparks 3y ago
maybe its late, but this sounds utterly contradictory to me. we are well passed the time and millions in fines from a time when nobody cared about GDPR.
- JPLeRouzic 3y ago
  > "we are well passed the time ... when nobody cared about GDPR" You probably meant that now giant providers care about GDPR because of risk of (mostly small) fines, but most users do not care, because of GDPR fatigue, they just click on "accept all", which is defeating the purpose of GDPR.
  - geysersam 3y ago
    GDPR is not about cookies.

iguana_lawyer 3y ago

If you can’t see yourself possibly being on in a protest in the future, you’re not someone who cares about the world and you’ll never care about privacy no matter what arguments they use.

pcthrowaway 3y ago

> Frankly I'm not even sure the statement about minority groups is true anymore I think gay people in most of the world are still legally persecuted by their states. At least in a number of countries, the penalties for being homosexual or engaging in homosexual activities range from imprisonment to execution.

kodah 3y ago
That sentence is explicitly with respect to privacy, it does not negate aggregate oppression trends. A lack of privacy opens new doors for oppression, and that harms everyone is more my point. Many people here, if you read the thread entirely, think the status quo is a constant.

Ilnsk 3y ago

It really isn't that important for most people though, most people are only looked at in terms of large aggregate metrics, most people don't feel that participation in a survey constitutes a violation of one's privacy, why are large aggregate marketing statistics any different?

divan 3y ago

> but it should be a priority for everyone It's not black and white, though. There are a lot of people who accept that some levels of sacrificing privacy is an acceptable price for security (i.e. street cameras that allow police to track a criminal who attacked you, plus add some deterrence value). The question, of course, is how to keep this sacrifice under checks and balances to prevent/minimize abuse, but that's another discussion.