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I find myself also questioning this often. It leads to me regularly switching between iOS and Android, Google services and Apple services. Ideally I would like

I find myself also questioning this often. It leads to me regularly switching between iOS and Android, Google services and Apple services. Ideally I would like privacy but I think as we go forward keeping privacy would leave you in the same kind of position someone like RMS is in by sticking to his Free Software philosophy so strongly. I'm always surprised at the number of friends and family I see who have their Facebook set to public - especially considering what they post. When I tell them they don't care. I think the majority of people want some semblance of privacy but they are willing to give up a lot for the efficiency these new products, that require us to give up privacy, provide.

Touche 13y ago
> I'm always surprised at the number of friends and family I see who have their Facebook set to public - especially considering what they post. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe they are set to public by default... in fact, IIRC they even reset everyone to public when they released that "feature" a couple of years ago. > When I tell them they don't care. I think the majority of people want some semblance of privacy but they are willing to give up a lot for the efficiency these new products, that require us to give up privacy, provide. Sure, and smokers are willing to risk a slow painful death to forgo the pain of quitting. Humans are short-term thinkers.
lutusp 13y ago
> It leads to me regularly switching between iOS and Android, Google services and Apple services. The difference between Apple and Google has recently occurred to me: with Apple, their secrets are in jeopardy. With Google, yours are.
- danford 13y ago
  I feel the only reason your secrets may not be in jeopardy with Apple is because they don't know as many... If you really want your secrets to be safe you wouldn't use any closed source code at all and would take security precautions to secure the code you do use. Unfortunately we live in a time when closed-source software is the norm and too many people think having a secure, open, communications infrastructure is too complicated and don't quite understand the reasoning behind it (thankfully that attitude seems to be changing a little), but I hope one day we'll look back on this time and wonder what we were thinking by allowing digital goods to be closed source. With 3D printers, neural implants, augmented reality, food and organ printers, and the age of automation, what the future holds is a digital realm that's going to be very scary for people who understand it, especially if the infrastructure is completely owned by corporations and un-trustable governments and even a small amount of the source is closed. I mean look around the room and think of all the things that could be augmented or replaced with 3D printed components.. Why have a physical laptop in front of you when you can augment the key board, 25 screens, and everything else? Not only that, but you can do it for nothing if you know how to code it. We can already print organs and I don't think it will be too long until we can print good tasting food, but what if you execute some code on your food printer that prints a steak with anthrax in it? I think in the next 50 years all this is going to be fairly common place in the developed world and I really hope I have confidence in the system that we have in place at that time.
  - happyscrappy 13y ago
    >but I hope one day we'll look back on this time and wonder what we were thinking by allowing digital goods to be closed source Yes, let's have the government mandate what license your code should have! Facepalm.
    - danford 13y ago
      http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > In Comments >Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation. >When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." Public facing code shouldn't be closed source. Sure, if you want to run something on your own and for your self, you don't have to share that with anyone, but when you put something out into the wild that can't be conclusively shown to not be malicious it should be treated like malware. Edit: and also, what do you think the government should do for the people when it comes to digital rights? Or do you believe corporations know what's best? I for one don't believe in either.
      - happyscrappy 13y ago
        I am sorry if that offended you but I take issue with the idea that adding more restrictions improves freedom. If you want to download possible malware that is your choice.
        lutusp 13y ago
        > I take issue with the idea that adding more restrictions improves freedom. Yes, but that isn't an idea the OP posted, it's an idea that you posted. A discussion of software license types doesn't automatically lead to either a preference for one kind of license over another, or the idea of governmental involvement. Those were things you made up on your own. > If you want to download possible malware that is your choice. Both closed and open-source code are susceptible to malware. The issues of licensing and malware are orthogonal. Closed-source code should in principle prevent malware, but it's quite obvious that it doesn't. Open-source, by being visible and readable, should reveal any vulnerabilities and prevent malware, but that doesn't work either, primarily because the more interesting vulnerabilities aren't obvious to someone reading the code. Which means your argument is just an argument.
- angryasian 13y ago
  I'm curious on this thought , care to expand ?
  - lutusp 13y ago
    I just notice that Apple often finds themselves in court, suing someone (usually a company) for trying to steal one of their (corporate) secrets. And Google is often in court, defending themselves against someone (or a group) suing them for trying to steal their (personal) secrets. It might all be more balanced in reality, it's just an impression from online articles.
    - angryasian 13y ago
      if you want to call patent trolling protecting company secrets thats questionable. As soon as you issue a patent its no longer a secret.
wutbrodo 13y ago
> It leads to me regularly switching between iOS and Android Is this only because of the app permissions model? AFAIK, other than that, Android per se isn't any less privacy-oriented than iOS. iOS apps also much more commonly retrieve various user data and marginally more often send data around unencrypted.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  It's because I find Android works best when using Google's services and as I'm not paying for those (and they are using my info to sell ads) I trust Apple more to protect my data (it's in their interest).
  - jhvh1134 13y ago
    Weren't they recently caught silently logging GPS coordinates and transmitting them once the phone was connected to a computer? How is it not in there interest to utilize personalized data?
  - psbp 13y ago
    Aren't Google's ad monetization practices fairly transparent? You can see all the data collected in the dashboard, you can see how ads are targeted under the ad settings. It seems like people are alluding to Google's data usage as some sort of black box where it seems pretty open to me.
    - nfoz 13y ago
      Their practices are fairly transparent, they show me that they sell my info in a way that I dislike.
      - psbp 13y ago
        Selling info is a misnomer.
      - hahainternet 13y ago
        Except they don't. They sell your potential clicks.
nawitus 13y ago
>I'm always surprised at the number of friends and family I see who have their Facebook set to public - especially considering what they post. I think that's actually smart. In reality the privacy setting on Facebook has no real effect on privacy, because companies and the NSA will still get your information. You might as well treat everything you post on Facebook as public.
- astrange 13y ago
  > because companies Which companies? > the NSA You mean, law enforcement agencies who specifically request your information with a subpoena?

Touche 13y ago

> I'm always surprised at the number of friends and family I see who have their Facebook set to public - especially considering what they post. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe they are set to public by default... in fact, IIRC they even reset everyone to public when they released that "feature" a couple of years ago. > When I tell them they don't care. I think the majority of people want some semblance of privacy but they are willing to give up a lot for the efficiency these new products, that require us to give up privacy, provide. Sure, and smokers are willing to risk a slow painful death to forgo the pain of quitting. Humans are short-term thinkers.

lutusp 13y ago

> It leads to me regularly switching between iOS and Android, Google services and Apple services. The difference between Apple and Google has recently occurred to me: with Apple, their secrets are in jeopardy. With Google, yours are.

danford 13y ago
I feel the only reason your secrets may not be in jeopardy with Apple is because they don't know as many... If you really want your secrets to be safe you wouldn't use any closed source code at all and would take security precautions to secure the code you do use. Unfortunately we live in a time when closed-source software is the norm and too many people think having a secure, open, communications infrastructure is too complicated and don't quite understand the reasoning behind it (thankfully that attitude seems to be changing a little), but I hope one day we'll look back on this time and wonder what we were thinking by allowing digital goods to be closed source. With 3D printers, neural implants, augmented reality, food and organ printers, and the age of automation, what the future holds is a digital realm that's going to be very scary for people who understand it, especially if the infrastructure is completely owned by corporations and un-trustable governments and even a small amount of the source is closed. I mean look around the room and think of all the things that could be augmented or replaced with 3D printed components.. Why have a physical laptop in front of you when you can augment the key board, 25 screens, and everything else? Not only that, but you can do it for nothing if you know how to code it. We can already print organs and I don't think it will be too long until we can print good tasting food, but what if you execute some code on your food printer that prints a steak with anthrax in it? I think in the next 50 years all this is going to be fairly common place in the developed world and I really hope I have confidence in the system that we have in place at that time.
- happyscrappy 13y ago
  >but I hope one day we'll look back on this time and wonder what we were thinking by allowing digital goods to be closed source Yes, let's have the government mandate what license your code should have! Facepalm.
  - danford 13y ago
    http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > In Comments >Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation. >When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." Public facing code shouldn't be closed source. Sure, if you want to run something on your own and for your self, you don't have to share that with anyone, but when you put something out into the wild that can't be conclusively shown to not be malicious it should be treated like malware. Edit: and also, what do you think the government should do for the people when it comes to digital rights? Or do you believe corporations know what's best? I for one don't believe in either.
    - happyscrappy 13y ago
      I am sorry if that offended you but I take issue with the idea that adding more restrictions improves freedom. If you want to download possible malware that is your choice.
      - lutusp 13y ago
        > I take issue with the idea that adding more restrictions improves freedom. Yes, but that isn't an idea the OP posted, it's an idea that you posted. A discussion of software license types doesn't automatically lead to either a preference for one kind of license over another, or the idea of governmental involvement. Those were things you made up on your own. > If you want to download possible malware that is your choice. Both closed and open-source code are susceptible to malware. The issues of licensing and malware are orthogonal. Closed-source code should in principle prevent malware, but it's quite obvious that it doesn't. Open-source, by being visible and readable, should reveal any vulnerabilities and prevent malware, but that doesn't work either, primarily because the more interesting vulnerabilities aren't obvious to someone reading the code. Which means your argument is just an argument.
angryasian 13y ago
I'm curious on this thought , care to expand ?
- lutusp 13y ago
  I just notice that Apple often finds themselves in court, suing someone (usually a company) for trying to steal one of their (corporate) secrets. And Google is often in court, defending themselves against someone (or a group) suing them for trying to steal their (personal) secrets. It might all be more balanced in reality, it's just an impression from online articles.
  - angryasian 13y ago
    if you want to call patent trolling protecting company secrets thats questionable. As soon as you issue a patent its no longer a secret.

wutbrodo 13y ago

> It leads to me regularly switching between iOS and Android Is this only because of the app permissions model? AFAIK, other than that, Android per se isn't any less privacy-oriented than iOS. iOS apps also much more commonly retrieve various user data and marginally more often send data around unencrypted.

k-mcgrady 13y ago
It's because I find Android works best when using Google's services and as I'm not paying for those (and they are using my info to sell ads) I trust Apple more to protect my data (it's in their interest).
- jhvh1134 13y ago
  Weren't they recently caught silently logging GPS coordinates and transmitting them once the phone was connected to a computer? How is it not in there interest to utilize personalized data?
- psbp 13y ago
  Aren't Google's ad monetization practices fairly transparent? You can see all the data collected in the dashboard, you can see how ads are targeted under the ad settings. It seems like people are alluding to Google's data usage as some sort of black box where it seems pretty open to me.
  - nfoz 13y ago
    Their practices are fairly transparent, they show me that they sell my info in a way that I dislike.
    - psbp 13y ago
      Selling info is a misnomer.
    - hahainternet 13y ago
      Except they don't. They sell your potential clicks.

nawitus 13y ago

>I'm always surprised at the number of friends and family I see who have their Facebook set to public - especially considering what they post. I think that's actually smart. In reality the privacy setting on Facebook has no real effect on privacy, because companies and the NSA will still get your information. You might as well treat everything you post on Facebook as public.

astrange 13y ago
> because companies Which companies? > the NSA You mean, law enforcement agencies who specifically request your information with a subpoena?