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I agree with you that it's a false choice. But the part about never sharing anything private with anyone, regardless of the media used... maybe I'm misundersta

by coda_ 13y ago

I agree with you that it's a false choice. But the part about never sharing anything private with anyone, regardless of the media used... maybe I'm misunderstanding it. That sounds like a terrible way to live. By living that way, you are not retaining your privacy... you've already lost it. You could die when get on plane, but you still do it, because the reward is worth the risk. Someone could wire tap my house, but I don't let that stop me from having private conversations with my family. There's a risk/reward balance that each of us have to set with respect to our privacy and our ability to share and interact with other people. To say the risk always outweighs the reward seems a little extreme.

VikingCoder 13y ago
Pretend I choose that the risk of me sharing something with you (that you might make it public) is worth it. By doing that, and using any given media that I don't entirely control and that I can't guarantee I can perfectly secure, I'm also accepting the risk that either the provider of the service(s), or a hacker, could also make the information public or share it with the government. Think about the risk of my friends making the information public, intentionally or unintentionally (they have lousy passwords, or share passwords with friends, or don't use SSL in a cafe, or have an easy to guess Password Recovery answers, or they forget to log out on a computer someone can sneak onto, or they get hit by a keylogger and don't use two-factor authentication like I do, or they get hit by phishing). I think that risk is ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more likely than the risk that the media provider (Google, Facebook) will, intentionally or unintentionally, make the information public. Or somehow use it to harm me. Also, the damage, should that risk occur, to me, is very low. (Based on the type of information I share.) Now, every layer of the service provider is also demonstrably sharing with the government. That's happening. And many people here are blaming Google (the victim) rather than the government (the abuser), which makes no sense to me. I accept the argument that we ALL need protection from government spying. I really do. But I have yet to see someone propose how to avoid using an ISP. And many of the people abandoning Google are still running Windows. Or how to abandon a major cell provider. Dropping Google, while continuing to use major ISPs and Cell providers is like changing which STAMP you put on your postcard, and expecting that will somehow stop the postman from reading it.

by coda_ 13y ago

VikingCoder 13y ago

Pretend I choose that the risk of me sharing something with you (that you might make it public) is worth it. By doing that, and using any given media that I don't entirely control and that I can't guarantee I can perfectly secure, I'm also accepting the risk that either the provider of the service(s), or a hacker, could also make the information public or share it with the government. Think about the risk of my friends making the information public, intentionally or unintentionally (they have lousy passwords, or share passwords with friends, or don't use SSL in a cafe, or have an easy to guess Password Recovery answers, or they forget to log out on a computer someone can sneak onto, or they get hit by a keylogger and don't use two-factor authentication like I do, or they get hit by phishing). I think that risk is ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more likely than the risk that the media provider (Google, Facebook) will, intentionally or unintentionally, make the information public. Or somehow use it to harm me. Also, the damage, should that risk occur, to me, is very low. (Based on the type of information I share.) Now, every layer of the service provider is also demonstrably sharing with the government. That's happening. And many people here are blaming Google (the victim) rather than the government (the abuser), which makes no sense to me. I accept the argument that we ALL need protection from government spying. I really do. But I have yet to see someone propose how to avoid using an ISP. And many of the people abandoning Google are still running Windows. Or how to abandon a major cell provider. Dropping Google, while continuing to use major ISPs and Cell providers is like changing which STAMP you put on your postcard, and expecting that will somehow stop the postman from reading it.