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Personally I don't think takedowns are the biggest threat facing cloud users. By far the larger threat is having your cloud data harvested and used against you

by na85 12y ago

Personally I don't think takedowns are the biggest threat facing cloud users. By far the larger threat is having your cloud data harvested and used against you by adversaries such as advertising firms and three-letter agencies.

xionon 12y ago
That's not what this article is about at all. The technology described in this article is a distributed database. Github project: https://github.com/cockroachdb/cockroach/ https://github.com/cockroachdb/cockroach/
lern_too_spel 12y ago
Neither of those are realistic problems. (How and why would an advertising firm use your data against you, anyway?) Servers go down every day, and data centers go down every month. This project solves a real problem.
- na85 12y ago
  Targeting me with ads is absolutely an adversarial situation. I and most of the population would rather not see ads at all. I do not want advertising agencies building a profile of me so they can sell me stuff. Do you? Maybe you'll come back with a completely-bogus, typical hackernews-ish response, deluding yourself, saying that yes you like it when advertisers target you based on the data they collect about you because of reasons X Y and Z, something something "better for me". Ads targeted at you do not benefit you in any way unless you work for an advertising firm. And are you seriously arguing that NSA et al do not peek into cloud storage? Have you been living under a rock?
  - eropple 12y ago
    > Ads targeted at you do not benefit you in any way unless you work for an advertising firm. They mean I don't have to pay every website that generates content in order to have them...you know...exist.
    - na85 12y ago
      You sure about that? You can't think of a single site that produces content without ads? I can.
      - eropple 12y ago
        I certainly cannot think of a single site that produces professional content without income. I did not say without ads. Ads do mean, however, that I don't have to pay sites directly and the value I get is well in excess of the value I pay by providing ad impressions. Economics is not a hard subject. Stop being a reductivist. Or stop being a sneering jerk (and let's not pretend you aren't trying to pick a fight with your tone, 'kay?). Both not-reductivist and not-sneering-jerk would be nice, though.
        icebraining 12y ago
        the value I get is well in excess of the value I pay by providing ad impressions. You don't pay value. You pay a price, which provides value to the recipient. And the value received by the site being low does not mean the price is, since they're both subjective. Which is the problem with ads: for many, the price paid - the loss in privacy - is much greater than the pennies received by the advertiser. I'm glad you value your loss so low, but you shouldn't assume everyone does.
        eropple 12y ago
        Alternate character interpretation: you wildly overvalue your individual privacy. You, and I, are just not that important.
        icebraining 12y ago
        Oh, but this is where you're wrong; you seem to think one only values privacy if they're scared of black helicopters, but that's not the case. I value my privacy because I dislike the everyday intrusions on people's lives. As Raoul Vaneigem wrote, "The economy of everyday life is based on a continuous exchange of humiliations and aggressive attitudes", and tracking is nothing more than an automated and therefore efficient version of this. Besides, privacy is like vaccination - it also needs herd immunity. If everyone is exposed, the few "important" people who really need it will stand out like a sore thumb.
  - cwyers 12y ago
    Most of the population seems to have determined that, given the tradeoff between "seeing ads" and "paying more for content," they are more willing to do the former than the later.
    - tormeh 12y ago
      I think that's because it's perfect price differentiation. The alternative is that advertisement is massively overvalued.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      Given current transaction costs, yes, but we don't really know what would happen if these were lower (both in money and hassle). In any case, it's not every day people are given the choice. There's probably a handful of sites you can pay to remove ads, and the cost is usually much higher than the value the user would have provided in ad revenue.

by na85 12y ago

xionon 12y ago

That's not what this article is about at all. The technology described in this article is a distributed database. Github project: https://github.com/cockroachdb/cockroach/ https://github.com/cockroachdb/cockroach/

lern_too_spel 12y ago

Neither of those are realistic problems. (How and why would an advertising firm use your data against you, anyway?) Servers go down every day, and data centers go down every month. This project solves a real problem.

na85 12y ago
Targeting me with ads is absolutely an adversarial situation. I and most of the population would rather not see ads at all. I do not want advertising agencies building a profile of me so they can sell me stuff. Do you? Maybe you'll come back with a completely-bogus, typical hackernews-ish response, deluding yourself, saying that yes you like it when advertisers target you based on the data they collect about you because of reasons X Y and Z, something something "better for me". Ads targeted at you do not benefit you in any way unless you work for an advertising firm. And are you seriously arguing that NSA et al do not peek into cloud storage? Have you been living under a rock?
- eropple 12y ago
  > Ads targeted at you do not benefit you in any way unless you work for an advertising firm. They mean I don't have to pay every website that generates content in order to have them...you know...exist.
  - na85 12y ago
    You sure about that? You can't think of a single site that produces content without ads? I can.
    - eropple 12y ago
      I certainly cannot think of a single site that produces professional content without income. I did not say without ads. Ads do mean, however, that I don't have to pay sites directly and the value I get is well in excess of the value I pay by providing ad impressions. Economics is not a hard subject. Stop being a reductivist. Or stop being a sneering jerk (and let's not pretend you aren't trying to pick a fight with your tone, 'kay?). Both not-reductivist and not-sneering-jerk would be nice, though.
      - icebraining 12y ago
        the value I get is well in excess of the value I pay by providing ad impressions. You don't pay value. You pay a price, which provides value to the recipient. And the value received by the site being low does not mean the price is, since they're both subjective. Which is the problem with ads: for many, the price paid - the loss in privacy - is much greater than the pennies received by the advertiser. I'm glad you value your loss so low, but you shouldn't assume everyone does.
        eropple 12y ago
        Alternate character interpretation: you wildly overvalue your individual privacy. You, and I, are just not that important.
        icebraining 12y ago
        Oh, but this is where you're wrong; you seem to think one only values privacy if they're scared of black helicopters, but that's not the case. I value my privacy because I dislike the everyday intrusions on people's lives. As Raoul Vaneigem wrote, "The economy of everyday life is based on a continuous exchange of humiliations and aggressive attitudes", and tracking is nothing more than an automated and therefore efficient version of this. Besides, privacy is like vaccination - it also needs herd immunity. If everyone is exposed, the few "important" people who really need it will stand out like a sore thumb.
- cwyers 12y ago
  Most of the population seems to have determined that, given the tradeoff between "seeing ads" and "paying more for content," they are more willing to do the former than the later.
  - tormeh 12y ago
    I think that's because it's perfect price differentiation. The alternative is that advertisement is massively overvalued.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Given current transaction costs, yes, but we don't really know what would happen if these were lower (both in money and hassle). In any case, it's not every day people are given the choice. There's probably a handful of sites you can pay to remove ads, and the cost is usually much higher than the value the user would have provided in ad revenue.