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I'm scratching my head wondering if I'm being unclear. Let me try again: You created a program whose sole purpose was to analyze private user data and report

I'm scratching my head wondering if I'm being unclear. Let me try again: You created a program whose sole purpose was to analyze private user data and report on the results. (In fact, not merely "private user data," but "data which users explicitly marked as 'private.'") What you did was equivalent to a hotel manager sending employees to peep into 1,000 random rooms and compile a detailed report of what those rooms contained and what its occupants were doing, and then claiming it was for the betterment of all hotels. Yes, that may be true, and the data may be quite helpful, but people still expected their rooms to be private. Intentions matter. You weren't accessing the private bookmarks in order to fix a bug or test a new feature.

idlewords 12y ago
If you want to run with this metaphor, I sent employees to look into random rooms and tell me what proportion of occupants were dead.
- sillysaurus3 12y ago
  Not quite. The bookmark is someone's "stuff." The fact that they were interested in a certain site is something they trusted you with. It looks like you and I won't see eye to eye on this, and it also looks like I'm apparently the only person in the world to be naive enough to trust that you'd refrain from going through other people's private belongings that they entrusted you with.
  - idlewan 12y ago
    You seem to have a weird understanding of web services. All of pinboard's servers belong to pinboard. All of pinboards hard drives belong to pinboard. All of the bits on those hard drives belong to pinboard. Your private data on pinboard's server belongs to pinboard. This is how web services work. If the web service couldn't access its own data, it wouldn't be able to operate. You can only assume that some bits are yours (to use your terms: your private belongings) when it runs on your own service/when your programs are the only ones with access to it. Pinboard is not a hosting company (a la DigitalOcean), it's a web service, i.e. it's not a hotel, it's not a bank giving you a safe.
    - sillysaurus3 12y ago
      If the web service couldn't access its own data, it wouldn't be able to operate. He intentionally created a program to trawl through data which was explicitly marked by users as private. He didn't do that for operational reasons.
      - tptacek 12y ago
        No, once again, what you just wrote is a lie. You can be cavalier with logic, consistency, tone, thoughtfulness, thoroughness, and even basic correctness. You cannot be cavalier with immediately evident facts. No amount of squirreling back to how Pinboard actually touches private links in this experiment will ever make what you wrote here truthful. It is much better to lose an argument, even one you're right about, than to be a liar.
        sillysaurus3 12y ago
        This is the most hurtful comment I've ever received on HN, and it's the only one that's ever made me want to leave the site altogether. You didn't even explain how, precisely, I'm a liar. You know what a liar is? It's someone who deliberately goes out of their way to distort the truth in order to gain some kind of advantage, even when they know they're not being truthful. Do you think I'm sitting here trying to win this debate merely because I have a problem with being wrong? If that's the case, then I had no idea you thought so lowly of me. This isn't about even about me. Fact: When a user submits a bookmark to Pinboard and flags the bookmark as 'private,' they have a reasonable expectation of privacy. That includes privacy from the admin: it's acceptable for them to use the data for debugging or to test new features, but not to write a script whose purpose is to delve through data marked as private. Fact: The owner deliberately wrote a script whose purpose was to go through private data. You can read the original blogpost on the topic. It doesn't matter that it was for an experiment for the betterment of all of the web. The fact is, he didn't seek consent, and users had no idea their data that they flagged as 'private' were being examined by his script. Now, you can call me a charlatan, a dilettante, or whatever other harmful thing you wish to call me, but I have no idea how this case warrants me being called a liar. Normally, I'd let this drop, but you have publicly targeted my character and reputation. I'd like an explanation, please.

idlewords 12y ago

If you want to run with this metaphor, I sent employees to look into random rooms and tell me what proportion of occupants were dead.

sillysaurus3 12y ago
Not quite. The bookmark is someone's "stuff." The fact that they were interested in a certain site is something they trusted you with. It looks like you and I won't see eye to eye on this, and it also looks like I'm apparently the only person in the world to be naive enough to trust that you'd refrain from going through other people's private belongings that they entrusted you with.
- idlewan 12y ago
  You seem to have a weird understanding of web services. All of pinboard's servers belong to pinboard. All of pinboards hard drives belong to pinboard. All of the bits on those hard drives belong to pinboard. Your private data on pinboard's server belongs to pinboard. This is how web services work. If the web service couldn't access its own data, it wouldn't be able to operate. You can only assume that some bits are yours (to use your terms: your private belongings) when it runs on your own service/when your programs are the only ones with access to it. Pinboard is not a hosting company (a la DigitalOcean), it's a web service, i.e. it's not a hotel, it's not a bank giving you a safe.
  - sillysaurus3 12y ago
    If the web service couldn't access its own data, it wouldn't be able to operate. He intentionally created a program to trawl through data which was explicitly marked by users as private. He didn't do that for operational reasons.
    - tptacek 12y ago
      No, once again, what you just wrote is a lie. You can be cavalier with logic, consistency, tone, thoughtfulness, thoroughness, and even basic correctness. You cannot be cavalier with immediately evident facts. No amount of squirreling back to how Pinboard actually touches private links in this experiment will ever make what you wrote here truthful. It is much better to lose an argument, even one you're right about, than to be a liar.
      - sillysaurus3 12y ago
        This is the most hurtful comment I've ever received on HN, and it's the only one that's ever made me want to leave the site altogether. You didn't even explain how, precisely, I'm a liar. You know what a liar is? It's someone who deliberately goes out of their way to distort the truth in order to gain some kind of advantage, even when they know they're not being truthful. Do you think I'm sitting here trying to win this debate merely because I have a problem with being wrong? If that's the case, then I had no idea you thought so lowly of me. This isn't about even about me. Fact: When a user submits a bookmark to Pinboard and flags the bookmark as 'private,' they have a reasonable expectation of privacy. That includes privacy from the admin: it's acceptable for them to use the data for debugging or to test new features, but not to write a script whose purpose is to delve through data marked as private. Fact: The owner deliberately wrote a script whose purpose was to go through private data. You can read the original blogpost on the topic. It doesn't matter that it was for an experiment for the betterment of all of the web. The fact is, he didn't seek consent, and users had no idea their data that they flagged as 'private' were being examined by his script. Now, you can call me a charlatan, a dilettante, or whatever other harmful thing you wish to call me, but I have no idea how this case warrants me being called a liar. Normally, I'd let this drop, but you have publicly targeted my character and reputation. I'd like an explanation, please.