5 ms·

You do research using bookmarks on Pinboard as your dataset? May I ask how this data is used and disclosed to others?

by sillysaurus3 12y ago

idlewords 12y ago
https://blog.pinboard.in/2014/08/researching_link_rot/ https://blog.pinboard.in/2014/08/researching_link_rot/
- sillysaurus3 12y ago
  To run the experiment, I am going to be drawing a few thousand links at random from the entire pool of Pinboard bookmarks. This will include private bookmarks, which make up about half the Pinboard collection. You chose to include everyone's private bookmarks in your research without asking their consent? What? I will publish some aggregate information about what I find, and use it to seek glory, and persuade people to sign up for archiving. But I won't release anything that could lead back to specific users or links. There is roughly a boatload of evidence that anonymized datasets can be deanonymized in unexpected ways. Even if you don't release any anonymized datasets, it's really not good that you decided to take such liberties with people's private links in the first place.
  - idlewords 12y ago
    Why would I need consent to study the global link rot rate? Publishing it reveals no information about users, either individually or in the aggregate. I've made an effort to let anyone who wants to opt out of the research, because I know people can have strong feelings about privacy. I agree with you that publishing an 'anonymized' dataset would be a violation of privacy guarantees. I wouldn't even do it for public bookmarks.
    - sillysaurus3 12y ago
      "Private" means "private," not "private unless Maciej wants to study them." I didn't get an email saying "There's a chance I might select your private bookmarks and examine them." A blog post doesn't count when you're messing with people's private data. Certainly it should be opt-in, and not opt-out? You're doing this for a noble purpose, but for what it's worth, this is the first time my trust in you has ever felt violated. People have entrusted you with years worth of private data, and you just asked, "Why should I ask permission to study their private links?" Actually, as far as I can tell, your comment seems to implicitly assume that you already have consent to examine all private links, and that asking consent would only be necessary if you were planning on publishing something that might reveal some of their private links. Isn't that the opposite of privacy?
      - c_c_c 12y ago
        I don't share your outrage. The blog post linked clearly states the scope and purpose, the researcher says aggregated data will not be released and individual user data is unnecessary for the purposes described. He then offers those that are still wary of the research an option to not have their data used. Maybe I have a blind spot but this seems pretty straightforward and harmless to individual privacy.
        sillysaurus3 12y ago
        Is it okay for any owner of a website to go through their userbase's private data, simply because they own that website? I don't mean "okay" in a legal sense, but rather a moral sense. It reminds me quite a lot of http://i.imgur.com/5quY1Iq.png http://i.imgur.com/5quY1Iq.png except that the difference is that Maciej is a researcher and isn't disclosing the data to people. However, he's still going through people's private stuff. Notifying them that you're planning to go through their private stuff is the most basic common courtesy; it's why landlords can't simply walk in to a tenant's house whenever they feel like it, even though they own the property. Let's put it another way: I didn't know Maciej was the type of person to trawl through people's private information that they trusted him with. If I did, I would've investigated other options for a bookmarking site a couple years ago, or would've written my own, and I wouldn't have breathlessly recommended Pinboard to whoever would listen. The recommendation would be more like "Pinboard is great, but the owner likes to look at your stuff, even if it's marked 'private,' so keep that in mind."
        idlewords 12y ago
        I like the image of myself sitting at the computer with a box of bon-bons, lazily hitting 'next' on the special admin page that selects only the juiciest private bookmarks for my delectation. The reality is less fun. I have to look at (potentially) private bookmarks when: - someone's import file fails to parse, or has an encoding problem - there are garbled or missing results for a search query - I need to answer questions like 'how much disk space does a typical bookmark use', so I can provision what I need - there's a bug in the fulltext parser - the twitter API client misses some tweets or mutilates a URL - the pinboard API is misbehaving in one of a thousand ways - I need to verify that backups I make actually contain everything they're supposed to - I want to find and fix privacy bugs! Along with a thousand other scenarios that will be familiar to anyone who has ever had the misfortune to import, format and store user-provided data. Anywhere bookmarks come into or leave the site, or are displayed on the site, there will be bugs. If I tried to enforce some kind of viewing restrictions on myself, it would just introduce an additional layer of bugs while making my job completely intractable. I'm not a landlord walking into a tenant's house without permission. I'm a hotel manager, doing my best to be discreet, but ultimately requiring full access to everything in order to do my job. I'm going in to check the sprinklers and fire alarm even if you've left the 'do not disturb' sign on. This will be the case on any outside site you use, even one that makes sweeter promises to you than I ever did. Please think twice, and then three times, before uploading your data anywhere if you have these kinds of expectations.

You do research using bookmarks on Pinboard as your dataset? May I ask how this data is used and disclosed to others?

idlewords 12y ago

https://blog.pinboard.in/2014/08/researching_link_rot/ https://blog.pinboard.in/2014/08/researching_link_rot/

sillysaurus3 12y ago
To run the experiment, I am going to be drawing a few thousand links at random from the entire pool of Pinboard bookmarks. This will include private bookmarks, which make up about half the Pinboard collection. You chose to include everyone's private bookmarks in your research without asking their consent? What? I will publish some aggregate information about what I find, and use it to seek glory, and persuade people to sign up for archiving. But I won't release anything that could lead back to specific users or links. There is roughly a boatload of evidence that anonymized datasets can be deanonymized in unexpected ways. Even if you don't release any anonymized datasets, it's really not good that you decided to take such liberties with people's private links in the first place.
- idlewords 12y ago
  Why would I need consent to study the global link rot rate? Publishing it reveals no information about users, either individually or in the aggregate. I've made an effort to let anyone who wants to opt out of the research, because I know people can have strong feelings about privacy. I agree with you that publishing an 'anonymized' dataset would be a violation of privacy guarantees. I wouldn't even do it for public bookmarks.
  - sillysaurus3 12y ago
    "Private" means "private," not "private unless Maciej wants to study them." I didn't get an email saying "There's a chance I might select your private bookmarks and examine them." A blog post doesn't count when you're messing with people's private data. Certainly it should be opt-in, and not opt-out? You're doing this for a noble purpose, but for what it's worth, this is the first time my trust in you has ever felt violated. People have entrusted you with years worth of private data, and you just asked, "Why should I ask permission to study their private links?" Actually, as far as I can tell, your comment seems to implicitly assume that you already have consent to examine all private links, and that asking consent would only be necessary if you were planning on publishing something that might reveal some of their private links. Isn't that the opposite of privacy?
    - c_c_c 12y ago
      I don't share your outrage. The blog post linked clearly states the scope and purpose, the researcher says aggregated data will not be released and individual user data is unnecessary for the purposes described. He then offers those that are still wary of the research an option to not have their data used. Maybe I have a blind spot but this seems pretty straightforward and harmless to individual privacy.
      - sillysaurus3 12y ago
        Is it okay for any owner of a website to go through their userbase's private data, simply because they own that website? I don't mean "okay" in a legal sense, but rather a moral sense. It reminds me quite a lot of http://i.imgur.com/5quY1Iq.png http://i.imgur.com/5quY1Iq.png except that the difference is that Maciej is a researcher and isn't disclosing the data to people. However, he's still going through people's private stuff. Notifying them that you're planning to go through their private stuff is the most basic common courtesy; it's why landlords can't simply walk in to a tenant's house whenever they feel like it, even though they own the property. Let's put it another way: I didn't know Maciej was the type of person to trawl through people's private information that they trusted him with. If I did, I would've investigated other options for a bookmarking site a couple years ago, or would've written my own, and I wouldn't have breathlessly recommended Pinboard to whoever would listen. The recommendation would be more like "Pinboard is great, but the owner likes to look at your stuff, even if it's marked 'private,' so keep that in mind."
        idlewords 12y ago
        I like the image of myself sitting at the computer with a box of bon-bons, lazily hitting 'next' on the special admin page that selects only the juiciest private bookmarks for my delectation. The reality is less fun. I have to look at (potentially) private bookmarks when: - someone's import file fails to parse, or has an encoding problem - there are garbled or missing results for a search query - I need to answer questions like 'how much disk space does a typical bookmark use', so I can provision what I need - there's a bug in the fulltext parser - the twitter API client misses some tweets or mutilates a URL - the pinboard API is misbehaving in one of a thousand ways - I need to verify that backups I make actually contain everything they're supposed to - I want to find and fix privacy bugs! Along with a thousand other scenarios that will be familiar to anyone who has ever had the misfortune to import, format and store user-provided data. Anywhere bookmarks come into or leave the site, or are displayed on the site, there will be bugs. If I tried to enforce some kind of viewing restrictions on myself, it would just introduce an additional layer of bugs while making my job completely intractable. I'm not a landlord walking into a tenant's house without permission. I'm a hotel manager, doing my best to be discreet, but ultimately requiring full access to everything in order to do my job. I'm going in to check the sprinklers and fire alarm even if you've left the 'do not disturb' sign on. This will be the case on any outside site you use, even one that makes sweeter promises to you than I ever did. Please think twice, and then three times, before uploading your data anywhere if you have these kinds of expectations.