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How about complaining that brain waves get sent to a server? I'm a neuroscientist, so I'm not going to say that the EEG data is mind reading or anything, but a
by SubiculumCode 8mo ago
How about complaining that brain waves get sent to a server?
I'm a neuroscientist, so I'm not going to say that the EEG data is mind reading or anything, but as a precedent, non privacy of brain data is very bad.
- amarant 8mo agoHow useful could something like this be for research? I'm not a neuroscientist so I have no clue, but it seems like the only justification I can think of..
- AnimalMuppet 8mo agoIf they're taking patient data for research without permission, they are not ethical researchers.
- sneak 8mo agoIs it really “without permission” if it’s from a server for which the access credentials have been deliberately published to the entire internet?
- AnimalMuppet 8mo agoIf it's without the patient's permission, then yes, it is without the only permission that matters for medical ethics.
- wlonkly 8mo agoFrom the perspective of research ethics: it is very much without permission in that situation
- minimalthinker 8mo agoI believe they use it for sleep tracking
- brabel 8mo agoNot a neuroscientist either but I would imagine that raw data without personal information would not be useful for much. I can imagine that it would be quite valuable if accompanied with personal data plus user reports about how they slept each night, what they dreamed about if anything, whether it was positive dreams or nightmares etc. And I think quite a few people wouldn’t mind sharing all of that in the name of science, but in this case they don’t seem to have even tried to ask.
- iberator 8mo agoWhat if you gonna think about your social security number 30000 times in your dreams, and someone knows the pattern? See the danger? That's evil.
- mattkrause 8mo agoThe general idea of an EEG system that posts data to a network? Very, but there are already tons of them at lots of different price, quality, openness levels. A lot of manufacturers have their own protocols; there are also quasi/standards like Lab Streaming Layer for connecting to a hodgepodge of devices. This particular data? Probably not so useful. While it’s easy to get something out of an EEG set, it takes some work to get good quality data that’s not riddled with noise (mains hum, muscle artifacts, blinks, etc). Plus, brain waves on their own aren’t particularly interesting—-it’s seeing how they change in response to some external or internal event that tells us about the brain.
- minimalthinker 8mo agoI would presume data privacy laws already have good precedent for health data?
- baby_souffle 8mo ago> I would presume data privacy laws already have good precedent for health data? Google for a list of all the exceptions to HIPPA. There are a lot of things that _seem_ like they should be covered by HIPPA but are not...
- minimalthinker 8mo agoInteresting...
- freedomben 8mo agoOnly for "covered entities" under HIPAA (at least in the US)
- delichon 8mo agoYou could read the alertness level from an EEG, which could be helpful to a burglar. The device with slow-wave status seems ideal.
- b00ty4breakfast 8mo agoPeople will be lining up to have their brainwaves harvested because it'll be mildly easier to send emails or something similarly inane.
- RobotToaster 8mo agoCorporations will be lining up to require their employees have their brainwaves harvested, so they can fire employees who aren't alert enough.
- kyleee 8mo agoWill someone invent the equivalent of a mouse jiggler to get around this?
- HowTheStoryEnds 8mo agoPorn?
- masfuerte 8mo agoThey'll update the required brain state to "alert but not enjoying yourself".
- willturman 8mo agoNon-privacy of this person is currently sleeping data is very bad as well, for different reasons. You know, now that I'm thinking about it, I'm beginning to wonder if poor data privacy could have some negative effects.
- fc417fc802 8mo agoUnsecured fitness monitor data revealed military guard post (IIRC) activity a while back.
- werrett 8mo agoYawp. T’was Strava. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/28/fitness-tracking-app-gives-away-location-of-secret-us-army-bases https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/28/fitness-tracki...
- iririririr 8mo agonot because you knew how much someone worked out. But because it had GPS.
- fc417fc802 8mo agoTrue. But keep in mind that other less obvious data sources can often lead to similar issues. For example phone accelerometer data can be used to precisely locate someone driving in a car in a city by comparing it with a street map. In the context of the military even just inferring a comprehensive map of which people are on which shift and when they change might be considered a threat.
- thayne 8mo agoIt sounds like there was "presence in room" data as well, which could be very bad
- andai 8mo agoThis is the easiest signal though, on basically any account. You can see the time that communication happens, and the times when it doesn't. For example a while back I wanted to map out my sleep cycle and I found a tool that charts your browser history over a 24 hour period, and it mapped almost perfectly to my sleep / wake periods.
- sneak 8mo agoMillions of people voluntarily use Gmail which gives a lot more useful data than EEG output to DHS et al without a warrant under FAA702. What makes you think people who “have nothing to hide” would care about publishing their EEG data?
- zephen 8mo ago"Broker" is right there in the title of the post. Baby's gotta get some cash somewhere.
- Kuinox 8mo agoAn MQTT Broker just mean server, that's MQTT terminology.
- zephen 8mo agoDark humor is like food. Not everybody gets it.
- Kuinox 8mo agoHere it's more Poe's law.
- zephen 8mo agoMaybe? Poe's law is always described as being about parodies of extreme viewpoints, not about perceived misunderstandings of what is being commented on. I don't think that the viewpoint that these people will sell your data in a heartbeat is extreme.