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The oddest thing about this is that people seem totally fine that corporations control all of their personal data (and use it to develop new revenue streams), b

by jmagoon 13y ago

The oddest thing about this is that people seem totally fine that corporations control all of their personal data (and use it to develop new revenue streams), but if the government gets that data (that already exists), then there's a serious problem. What?

honzzz 13y ago
The government has way more power to hurt you.
coldcode 13y ago
They don't share everything about everyone, just what they have. Also they can't force other people to do what they want.
VikingCoder 13y ago
I just love watching people complain about government surveillance while accessing Comcast Internet with Google Chrome on Microsoft Windows on an HP computer that was shipped by FedEx after being purchased from Amazon over a Motorola phone on a Verizon 4G network with a VISA debit card from FDIC-backed Wells Fargo that was issued after a credit check from Equifax, Experian or TransUnion, using currency controlled by the Federal Reserve System by someone who went to a for-profit college with a Pell Grant. Did I mention they're complaining on a website, owned by another corporation? Which more often than not sells ad space (and user information!) to dozens or hundreds of other corporations? It's comforting to think that these companies don't know everything about you. But right now, a 4 TB hard drive can be bought from NCIX for $159.99. And right now there are 313.9 million US citizens. That means, for $159.99, you could store 14,011 bytes of information per every US citizen. If you don't want the government to look over a company's shoulder at data they've collected, maybe we should make it illegal for companies to collect that information in the first place. I clock the United States Constitution at 19 kB in EPUB format, according to Project Gutenberg. That means that you wouldn't even need two 4 TB hard drives to store an entire copy of the Constitution, for every single US Citizen.
- thesis 13y ago
  What? Because we rely on a massive infrastructure we aren't allowed to complain about government surveillance? Also not sure how prices for hard drives got brought up. What relevance does cheap disk space have on this?
  - VikingCoder 13y ago
    My point was, "If you don't want the government to look over a company's shoulder at data they've collected, maybe we should make it illegal for companies to collect that information in the first place." And, before the age of massive hard drives it was easy to imagine that we were anonymous - that it would be impossible for any government or corporation to keep many records on us. I was highlighting that information is so shockingly cheap to store now, that even your local burger joint could trivially afford to own a database storing a huge amount of information on every single person in this country.
hga 13y ago
Echoing honzzz, in the last century governments killed upwards of a quarter billion of their own people. No corporation has any such power.
mpyne 13y ago
The second oddest thing is that the same people who complain about how the corporations are running the world are for some reason much more incensed about governments getting access to this personal data for actual useful reasons (however minor they're perceived) than they are about corporations accumulating this data to sell to each other and anyone with enough dollars (as clearly mentioned in the privacy policies that no one cares to read). I mean, if corporations are really running the world then we should be more worried about them, I would think.
- nathan_long 13y ago
  Both are troubling, but governments can imprison and/or kill you. Corporations usually can't or won't. The "actual useful reasons" you mention may exist alongside personal or political reasons of individual government employees.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    It's not as if the average individual government employee has the ability to spawn black helicopters or deploy police assets just to settle a neighborhood rivalry. If anything they have less actual power than a corporate drone nowadays (just ask the bankers). Teenagers have killed themselves over stuff posted to Facebook so I wish people would quit acting like the government is really that much more directly important to the day-to-day lives of people. If you're going to be worried then be worried, but at least be consistently worried. http://xkcd.com/1200&#x2F http://xkcd.com/1200/ is also close to relevant.
    - hnal943 13y ago
      If you believe Obama, regular IRS employees can harass organizations and individuals they don't like.
      - mpyne 13y ago
        Someone has already fallen on their sword for that, with more sure to follow. This isn't really a great example of Obama condoning poor behavior by public servants.
darkarmani 13y ago
Which one can you opt out of?
djrogers 13y ago
Which one of those two entities has a demonstrated history of eroding personal freedoms? Which of those institutions, has over the span of human history, taken more personal freedoms by force? Which of those institutions has an Army?
Tycho 13y ago
I find it deeply alarming that you would even ask this question.

by jmagoon 13y ago

honzzz 13y ago

The government has way more power to hurt you.

coldcode 13y ago

They don't share everything about everyone, just what they have. Also they can't force other people to do what they want.

VikingCoder 13y ago

I just love watching people complain about government surveillance while accessing Comcast Internet with Google Chrome on Microsoft Windows on an HP computer that was shipped by FedEx after being purchased from Amazon over a Motorola phone on a Verizon 4G network with a VISA debit card from FDIC-backed Wells Fargo that was issued after a credit check from Equifax, Experian or TransUnion, using currency controlled by the Federal Reserve System by someone who went to a for-profit college with a Pell Grant. Did I mention they're complaining on a website, owned by another corporation? Which more often than not sells ad space (and user information!) to dozens or hundreds of other corporations? It's comforting to think that these companies don't know everything about you. But right now, a 4 TB hard drive can be bought from NCIX for $159.99. And right now there are 313.9 million US citizens. That means, for $159.99, you could store 14,011 bytes of information per every US citizen. If you don't want the government to look over a company's shoulder at data they've collected, maybe we should make it illegal for companies to collect that information in the first place. I clock the United States Constitution at 19 kB in EPUB format, according to Project Gutenberg. That means that you wouldn't even need two 4 TB hard drives to store an entire copy of the Constitution, for every single US Citizen.

thesis 13y ago
What? Because we rely on a massive infrastructure we aren't allowed to complain about government surveillance? Also not sure how prices for hard drives got brought up. What relevance does cheap disk space have on this?
- VikingCoder 13y ago
  My point was, "If you don't want the government to look over a company's shoulder at data they've collected, maybe we should make it illegal for companies to collect that information in the first place." And, before the age of massive hard drives it was easy to imagine that we were anonymous - that it would be impossible for any government or corporation to keep many records on us. I was highlighting that information is so shockingly cheap to store now, that even your local burger joint could trivially afford to own a database storing a huge amount of information on every single person in this country.

hga 13y ago

Echoing honzzz, in the last century governments killed upwards of a quarter billion of their own people. No corporation has any such power.

mpyne 13y ago

The second oddest thing is that the same people who complain about how the corporations are running the world are for some reason much more incensed about governments getting access to this personal data for actual useful reasons (however minor they're perceived) than they are about corporations accumulating this data to sell to each other and anyone with enough dollars (as clearly mentioned in the privacy policies that no one cares to read). I mean, if corporations are really running the world then we should be more worried about them, I would think.

nathan_long 13y ago
Both are troubling, but governments can imprison and/or kill you. Corporations usually can't or won't. The "actual useful reasons" you mention may exist alongside personal or political reasons of individual government employees.
- mpyne 13y ago
  It's not as if the average individual government employee has the ability to spawn black helicopters or deploy police assets just to settle a neighborhood rivalry. If anything they have less actual power than a corporate drone nowadays (just ask the bankers). Teenagers have killed themselves over stuff posted to Facebook so I wish people would quit acting like the government is really that much more directly important to the day-to-day lives of people. If you're going to be worried then be worried, but at least be consistently worried. http://xkcd.com/1200&#x2F http://xkcd.com/1200/ is also close to relevant.
  - hnal943 13y ago
    If you believe Obama, regular IRS employees can harass organizations and individuals they don't like.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      Someone has already fallen on their sword for that, with more sure to follow. This isn't really a great example of Obama condoning poor behavior by public servants.

darkarmani 13y ago

Which one can you opt out of?

djrogers 13y ago

Which one of those two entities has a demonstrated history of eroding personal freedoms? Which of those institutions, has over the span of human history, taken more personal freedoms by force? Which of those institutions has an Army?

Tycho 13y ago

I find it deeply alarming that you would even ask this question.