6 ms·

Well, said ice cream shop had a fully open wifi before going through the hassle of creating the captive portal by themselves two years ago. The thing that real

by carlob 13y ago

Well, said ice cream shop had a fully open wifi before going through the hassle of creating the captive portal by themselves two years ago. The thing that really irks me is the assumption that nowadays everyone has facebook. Isn't it surprising that in a country that finds national IDs liberticide the problem of identifying people is being outsourced to a corporate monopoly?

caprad 13y ago
This is not about accepting that everyone has facebook, it is about accepting a very easy way for them to solve a problem they are having, which is people doing illegal stuff through their wifi.
sbt 13y ago
> Isn't it surprising that in a country that finds national IDs liberticide the problem of identifying people is being outsourced to a corporate monopoly? This was the core of the problem during all the Snowden leaks last year; A fraction of the population recognized how serious it was, but for the vast majority it just didn't compute. This terrifies me and I fear that we may have to see an entire generation before society learns to recognize risks to digital privacy.
- interpol_p 13y ago
  But what if the vast majority of the population is right? What if there are no detrimental long term effects to our society when our digital privacy is compromised? What if the majority of the population ignoring the risks and simply being productive in the areas they work best is the best thing for society? I'm not arguing this point of view, but I think risks are often be exaggerated by the security conscious.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 13y ago
    I think one has to distinguish between no privacy and privacy controlled by some central entity, though. If essentially everyone knows everything about everyone, that might work (though I have some doubts how one could get there from here, especially as it would need some fundamental changes in our economic system), but having the control concentrated in one place seems to me to be very risky indeed, as that is a huge pile of power in the hands of a few.
    - interpol_p 13y ago
      Is it power? What does it allow one to do? If the average person in the population simply does not care if their private details are exposed, transferred, or looked at, then does the person who holds those details hold power over anyone? Again, I generally think having some privacy is a good thing, and personally do not use my Facebook or other social accounts outside of a professional context. But sometimes I wonder whether most people care at all, and whether that is actually detrimental to society. Security advocates can often sounds like doomsday prophets, suggesting that the downfall of society begins with private companies amassing personal information.
      - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 13y ago
        Yes, it is power, tons of it, in a wide variety of forms. That someone doesn't care has little effect on how others can use the information - the only power that that removes is the power to embarrass. Any party that you depend on economically can still use the information to their advantage (and your disadvantage). And mind you that that might not only be for irrational reasons - any statistically significant correlation is a perfectly rational reason for some company to refuse you as a customer or to increase prices for you, for example. In securities markets, there even is a name for using private information about planned transactions to gain an advantage, it's called front running, and it's illegal, because it is considered to be essentially stealing the customer's money. But also, much of the power is not power over individuals, but power over society as a whole, in that such direct access to inter-human communication allows you to find patterns in social dynamics and thus allows you to predict future actions, and what it would need to change the outcome. In essence, that is what marketing is all about - but of course, its applicability is not limited to selling you washing powder, but it can also be used to "sell" political ideas. And in the case of Facebook, they can directly manipulate what people get to see, of course. And then, there is the intersection between the two, in that there are some people who themselves have more power than others, possibly over you - and if someone gains some power over them directly, that means they might transitively also be gaining power over you.
        interpol_p 13y ago
  - tripzilch 13y ago
    > But what if the vast majority of the population is right? Honestly what would be the odds of that? The track record of the vast majority of the population isn't exactly stellar. We tend to be concerned about whatever some smaller minority tells us to be. (Note that I say "we". We are not immune: Just look at the amount of strictly incompatible opposing viewpoints on HN. At least half of those must be wrong for each viewpoint, making the aggregate of even this collection of relatively smart people, dumber than a sack of bricks. Okay, maybe two sacks of bricks) So what then? My point is, it's much better to base your assumptions and viewpoints on the particular merits and flaws of an idea, than on whether or not the majority of the population agrees with it. It's just not relevant. Not at all. The only relevance might be how to steer the majority public opinion, if you want to affect change. A very wise man once said: THINK FOR YOURSELF, SCHMUCK! My personal view is that the "security conscious" (which includes myself, to some extent, I guess) is in possession of a lot more facts than the majority of the public. Also their track record is pretty good. Especially since the Snowden revelations, nearly all of the things that used to dismissed to tinfoil territory turned out to be exactly right. Even RMS' "wacky paranoia" turned out to be not so crazy after all. Heh, even the "tinfoil hat" itself turned out to be useful, in a sense: wrapping your phone in tinfoil prevents you being tracked (and it's easier than removing the batteries). At least this works perfectly for GSM signals (just try calling a phone wrapped in tinfoil), haven't tried with Wifi or Bluetooth.
    - interpol_p 13y ago
      > My personal view is that the "security conscious" (which includes myself, to some extent, I guess) is in possession of a lot more facts than the majority of the public. Also their track record is pretty good. Especially since the Snowden revelations, nearly all of the things that used to dismissed to tinfoil territory turned out to be exactly right. Even RMS' "wacky paranoia" turned out to be not so crazy after all. Right, but I'm coming from a pragmatic stance when I put forward the position of the majority of people being "right". That is, maybe everything the security conscious predict comes to pass. And maybe it has no practical effect on the quality of our lives. That's what I'm suggesting. Maybe I still go to work, live in the same house, have the same family, and do all the same things I would have otherwise done. Only if I'm security conscious, I feel slightly more worried about it all. Again, I'm not arguing this personally. Just entertaining the thought.
encoderer 13y ago
> The thing that really irks me is the assumption that nowadays everyone has facebook With over a billion users, you'll have that. My POV is... look, you get to be as contrarian as you want. Feel free to never jump on the FB band wagon. But understand you're in the minority. Facebook is that big, and is that established in our culture. So, feel free, choose your own path, but then stop whining about the hassle of being in the minority. Nobody cares about your privacy concerns.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 13y ago
  My POV is... look, you get to be as contrarian as you want. Feel free to never jump on the Dictatorship band wagon. But understand you're in the minority. The Dictator is that big, and is that established in our culture. So, feel free, choose your own path, but then stop whining about the hassle of being in the minority. Nobody cares about your freedom concerns.
  - debt 13y ago
    Like a drug, nobody knows yet the long term effects of Facebook. So when someone acts super paranoid about the effects of something yet unproven, other people come out of the woodwork and try to give the guy some perspective. It's kind of the same negative attitudes we see towards GMO's, drones or RF radiation. I mean people could easily flip their perspective and, instead, see these tools as very powerful and, if used correctly, could have massive positive impact on humanity. They can then educate themselves about these tools and figure out how to be the very ones to incur that massive positive impact on humanity using these tools.
    - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 13y ago
      Your point is? That we should not argue ("whine") because we might be wrong? Also, how come you only list other negative attitudes to things that are either still controversial or scientifically validated as probably harmless? How about asbestos, PCB, lots of CO2 in the atmosphere, the Stasi? Also, are you arguing that we only ever should take action when the end results are in, never because of predictions, because those might be wrong? Or are you saying that all degrees of uncertainty are the same unless zero, and essentially equivalent to total uncertainty? Seriously, I don't get what you are actually trying to tell me.
bertil 13y ago
It's pretty much the definition of fascism (corporations assuming Regalian tasks) and the main motivation behind my PhD — so yes, it’s freaky. But it shouldn’t be surprising, not as a first step. Decades after widespread e-mail and web use, very little progress has been made to improve identity and relation representation with a usable design outside of Facebook and its competitors (currently: LinkedIn, twitter; and the less public: Instagram, WhatsApp, SnapChat, Lime) all self-centric platforms. Open social media initiatives have been legions, from blog-based solutions (mainly on top of WordPress) to some revitalisation of OpenSocialNetwork spearheaded by Facebook employees. However, standard-based platform hit the contradictions raised by social presentation (what is a friend, a follower, should a non-physical person have identity? what should be public?) even harder than a single platform does. At least a corporate monopoly headed by people who don’t mind being called prejudiced can leap over a semester long nasty debate on gender classification, and focus on scalability and fixing bugs. My ever-disappointed hope is that after a handful of social network generations, current decision-makers know how to recognise a coming tide. To preserve their market share, they hopefully will support a working standard. In that regard, having Facebook and Instagram under the same super-management might help agree on some commonalities. I believe it will be in their interest to suggest a usable OpenSocial-4.0 that will first let one connect their accounts within one corporate group. In Facebook/Instagram case, that means articulate multiple identity facets, pseudonyms, challenge the need for civil criteria such as age and gender. Moving further out, it might mean discuss information-sharing for ad-targeting to avoid commercial conflict with competitors. Possibly it might finally let you connect your own server, and your multiple identities to your less savvy friends WordPress blog or twitter feed. From there on, one can hope proving their integrity to their ice-cream clerk without having to bow to too Orwellian institutions. An alternative is to ask a Facebook competitor more agreeable to your concerns (reddit? Moot’s Canvas?) to offer a similar service: though luck if what matters is law enforcement. That war of leaky abstractions against our own laziness to express our social ties has been raging since the 80’s. As icky as post-libertarian can seem, their focus on usability helps set up great services far before any more respectful entity can. Rather than code along and be overtaken, we might benefit from learning how to shift those to more open practice later in their development.
- rsync 13y ago

by carlob 13y ago

caprad 13y ago

This is not about accepting that everyone has facebook, it is about accepting a very easy way for them to solve a problem they are having, which is people doing illegal stuff through their wifi.

sbt 13y ago

> Isn't it surprising that in a country that finds national IDs liberticide the problem of identifying people is being outsourced to a corporate monopoly? This was the core of the problem during all the Snowden leaks last year; A fraction of the population recognized how serious it was, but for the vast majority it just didn't compute. This terrifies me and I fear that we may have to see an entire generation before society learns to recognize risks to digital privacy.

interpol_p 13y ago
But what if the vast majority of the population is right? What if there are no detrimental long term effects to our society when our digital privacy is compromised? What if the majority of the population ignoring the risks and simply being productive in the areas they work best is the best thing for society? I'm not arguing this point of view, but I think risks are often be exaggerated by the security conscious.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 13y ago
  I think one has to distinguish between no privacy and privacy controlled by some central entity, though. If essentially everyone knows everything about everyone, that might work (though I have some doubts how one could get there from here, especially as it would need some fundamental changes in our economic system), but having the control concentrated in one place seems to me to be very risky indeed, as that is a huge pile of power in the hands of a few.
  - interpol_p 13y ago
    Is it power? What does it allow one to do? If the average person in the population simply does not care if their private details are exposed, transferred, or looked at, then does the person who holds those details hold power over anyone? Again, I generally think having some privacy is a good thing, and personally do not use my Facebook or other social accounts outside of a professional context. But sometimes I wonder whether most people care at all, and whether that is actually detrimental to society. Security advocates can often sounds like doomsday prophets, suggesting that the downfall of society begins with private companies amassing personal information.
    - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 13y ago
      Yes, it is power, tons of it, in a wide variety of forms. That someone doesn't care has little effect on how others can use the information - the only power that that removes is the power to embarrass. Any party that you depend on economically can still use the information to their advantage (and your disadvantage). And mind you that that might not only be for irrational reasons - any statistically significant correlation is a perfectly rational reason for some company to refuse you as a customer or to increase prices for you, for example. In securities markets, there even is a name for using private information about planned transactions to gain an advantage, it's called front running, and it's illegal, because it is considered to be essentially stealing the customer's money. But also, much of the power is not power over individuals, but power over society as a whole, in that such direct access to inter-human communication allows you to find patterns in social dynamics and thus allows you to predict future actions, and what it would need to change the outcome. In essence, that is what marketing is all about - but of course, its applicability is not limited to selling you washing powder, but it can also be used to "sell" political ideas. And in the case of Facebook, they can directly manipulate what people get to see, of course. And then, there is the intersection between the two, in that there are some people who themselves have more power than others, possibly over you - and if someone gains some power over them directly, that means they might transitively also be gaining power over you.
      - interpol_p 13y ago
- tripzilch 13y ago
  > But what if the vast majority of the population is right? Honestly what would be the odds of that? The track record of the vast majority of the population isn't exactly stellar. We tend to be concerned about whatever some smaller minority tells us to be. (Note that I say "we". We are not immune: Just look at the amount of strictly incompatible opposing viewpoints on HN. At least half of those must be wrong for each viewpoint, making the aggregate of even this collection of relatively smart people, dumber than a sack of bricks. Okay, maybe two sacks of bricks) So what then? My point is, it's much better to base your assumptions and viewpoints on the particular merits and flaws of an idea, than on whether or not the majority of the population agrees with it. It's just not relevant. Not at all. The only relevance might be how to steer the majority public opinion, if you want to affect change. A very wise man once said: THINK FOR YOURSELF, SCHMUCK! My personal view is that the "security conscious" (which includes myself, to some extent, I guess) is in possession of a lot more facts than the majority of the public. Also their track record is pretty good. Especially since the Snowden revelations, nearly all of the things that used to dismissed to tinfoil territory turned out to be exactly right. Even RMS' "wacky paranoia" turned out to be not so crazy after all. Heh, even the "tinfoil hat" itself turned out to be useful, in a sense: wrapping your phone in tinfoil prevents you being tracked (and it's easier than removing the batteries). At least this works perfectly for GSM signals (just try calling a phone wrapped in tinfoil), haven't tried with Wifi or Bluetooth.
  - interpol_p 13y ago
    > My personal view is that the "security conscious" (which includes myself, to some extent, I guess) is in possession of a lot more facts than the majority of the public. Also their track record is pretty good. Especially since the Snowden revelations, nearly all of the things that used to dismissed to tinfoil territory turned out to be exactly right. Even RMS' "wacky paranoia" turned out to be not so crazy after all. Right, but I'm coming from a pragmatic stance when I put forward the position of the majority of people being "right". That is, maybe everything the security conscious predict comes to pass. And maybe it has no practical effect on the quality of our lives. That's what I'm suggesting. Maybe I still go to work, live in the same house, have the same family, and do all the same things I would have otherwise done. Only if I'm security conscious, I feel slightly more worried about it all. Again, I'm not arguing this personally. Just entertaining the thought.

encoderer 13y ago

> The thing that really irks me is the assumption that nowadays everyone has facebook With over a billion users, you'll have that. My POV is... look, you get to be as contrarian as you want. Feel free to never jump on the FB band wagon. But understand you're in the minority. Facebook is that big, and is that established in our culture. So, feel free, choose your own path, but then stop whining about the hassle of being in the minority. Nobody cares about your privacy concerns.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 13y ago
My POV is... look, you get to be as contrarian as you want. Feel free to never jump on the Dictatorship band wagon. But understand you're in the minority. The Dictator is that big, and is that established in our culture. So, feel free, choose your own path, but then stop whining about the hassle of being in the minority. Nobody cares about your freedom concerns.
- debt 13y ago
  Like a drug, nobody knows yet the long term effects of Facebook. So when someone acts super paranoid about the effects of something yet unproven, other people come out of the woodwork and try to give the guy some perspective. It's kind of the same negative attitudes we see towards GMO's, drones or RF radiation. I mean people could easily flip their perspective and, instead, see these tools as very powerful and, if used correctly, could have massive positive impact on humanity. They can then educate themselves about these tools and figure out how to be the very ones to incur that massive positive impact on humanity using these tools.
  - zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 13y ago
    Your point is? That we should not argue ("whine") because we might be wrong? Also, how come you only list other negative attitudes to things that are either still controversial or scientifically validated as probably harmless? How about asbestos, PCB, lots of CO2 in the atmosphere, the Stasi? Also, are you arguing that we only ever should take action when the end results are in, never because of predictions, because those might be wrong? Or are you saying that all degrees of uncertainty are the same unless zero, and essentially equivalent to total uncertainty? Seriously, I don't get what you are actually trying to tell me.

bertil 13y ago

It's pretty much the definition of fascism (corporations assuming Regalian tasks) and the main motivation behind my PhD — so yes, it’s freaky. But it shouldn’t be surprising, not as a first step. Decades after widespread e-mail and web use, very little progress has been made to improve identity and relation representation with a usable design outside of Facebook and its competitors (currently: LinkedIn, twitter; and the less public: Instagram, WhatsApp, SnapChat, Lime) all self-centric platforms. Open social media initiatives have been legions, from blog-based solutions (mainly on top of WordPress) to some revitalisation of OpenSocialNetwork spearheaded by Facebook employees. However, standard-based platform hit the contradictions raised by social presentation (what is a friend, a follower, should a non-physical person have identity? what should be public?) even harder than a single platform does. At least a corporate monopoly headed by people who don’t mind being called prejudiced can leap over a semester long nasty debate on gender classification, and focus on scalability and fixing bugs. My ever-disappointed hope is that after a handful of social network generations, current decision-makers know how to recognise a coming tide. To preserve their market share, they hopefully will support a working standard. In that regard, having Facebook and Instagram under the same super-management might help agree on some commonalities. I believe it will be in their interest to suggest a usable OpenSocial-4.0 that will first let one connect their accounts within one corporate group. In Facebook/Instagram case, that means articulate multiple identity facets, pseudonyms, challenge the need for civil criteria such as age and gender. Moving further out, it might mean discuss information-sharing for ad-targeting to avoid commercial conflict with competitors. Possibly it might finally let you connect your own server, and your multiple identities to your less savvy friends WordPress blog or twitter feed. From there on, one can hope proving their integrity to their ice-cream clerk without having to bow to too Orwellian institutions. An alternative is to ask a Facebook competitor more agreeable to your concerns (reddit? Moot’s Canvas?) to offer a similar service: though luck if what matters is law enforcement. That war of leaky abstractions against our own laziness to express our social ties has been raging since the 80’s. As icky as post-libertarian can seem, their focus on usability helps set up great services far before any more respectful entity can. Rather than code along and be overtaken, we might benefit from learning how to shift those to more open practice later in their development.

rsync 13y ago