5 ms·

So you're saying you're ok with me knowing everywhere you've been for the past few years? I'm going to assume then that you don't visit strip clubs, bars, 'adu

by Carrok 12y ago

So you're saying you're ok with me knowing everywhere you've been for the past few years? I'm going to assume then that you don't visit strip clubs, bars, 'adult book' stores, the house of your drug dealer, the house of your secret lover, a proctologists office, an OBGYN, an abortion clinic, or a million other places. You may not visit these places, but many others do, and having that information publicly available could be devastating to families, careers, entire lives. On the other end of the spectrum, say you happen to be in the general vicinity of multiple burglaries at the time these crimes are believed to have happened. You're arrested and have to prove your own innocence. Or maybe someone who wants to do you harm looks at your data for patterns, and goes to the right place at the right time to rob, extort, harass, rape, even murder you. In general, I think having your location information public is a terrifying prospect.

Valseuss 12y ago
You don't even have to have been there at all. Once an entity holds all your personal information like that, they can just say "Oh you were here, here, here and here at these times" even if it was not true. Who would doubt them? After all they have all the information right? RIGHT? Perfect way to set up someone you don't like.
- imgabe 12y ago
  If the government has devolved to the point that we have to worry about them framing people unjustly, we have FAR, FAR bigger problems than a database of location information. Hiding the information in that scenario is, at best, a temporary band aid. The appropriate fix is limiting the power of the government and requiring strict and transparent conditions on when and why someone can be arrested.
  - billiam 12y ago
    I'm sorry, I just don't follow this slippery slope argument. We have lots of examples of the government abusing their use of online information. For the haves, we have the still-minor indignities of the no-fly list and targeting certain political stripes for IRS audits. For the have-nots, it is terrorism fusion data centers, predatory civil forfeiture and, jeez, a lot of the criminal justice system. So that world does exist now. Many of these excesses have been driven by "limiting the size of government" by defunding local governments and relying on private information brokers (license plate readers, etc), rather than passing better laws.
    - Guvante 12y ago
      > We have lots of examples of the government abusing their use of online information. That isn't what he said. He said that if the government is going to forge information, then the availability of location information is not necessary nor useful for that task.
    - imgabe 12y ago
      The things you've mentioned are all generally Bad Things and things that we should be fighting to stop. Fighting to obscure your location information and even protect your privacy in general doesn't stop any of the things you mentioned if you believe the government is acting in bad faith.
      - seanflyon 12y ago
        It mitigates the risk. Someone cannot do bad things with your location information if they do not have your location information.
        imgabe 12y ago
        I think it is naive to think that a bad actor who intends you harm will be stopped or even slowed down by the fact that there isn't a log of every location you've visited.
        seanflyon 12y ago
        I think that that is a ridiculous statement. Of course giving a bad actor more opportunity to act badly increases the risk.
        imgabe 12y ago
        A threat to your safety or your freedom needs to be dealt with directly by eliminating it, not hiding from it. If you're envisioning a bad actor with the resources to compile and analyze a comprehensive log of your location, the simple fact that you use service A instead of service B is not going to do a thing to stop them if they're out to get you. You have far bigger problems on your hands.
  - x0x0 12y ago
    The government has so devolved -- they're using (most likely illegal) nsa spy tools and stolen data to arrest drug dealers, then lying to everyone involved about how they "stumbled" across the information, or so-called "parallel construction" [1]. While all the tools whine about slippery slope fallacies, the fact of the matter is we're already sliding down. The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant's Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don't know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence - information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses. [2] Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges. [3] [1] http://my.firedoglake.com/wendydavis/2014/02/10/dea-parallel-construction-manuals-available-now-online/ http://my.firedoglake.com/wendydavis/2014/02/10/dea-parallel... [2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/05/dea-surveillance-cover-up_n_3706207.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/05/dea-surveillance-co... [3] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE...
  - mathrawka 12y ago
    One thing that people do is just say "the government" like it is a single entity. It is not one entity. It is made up of hundreds of thousands of individuals. You know that guy that used to scare your wife/daughter with his stalking? Well he just happens to have a government job and may be in a position to abuse the knowledge that he has access to for personal gains.
imgabe 12y ago
strip clubs, bars, 'adult book' stores - these are all perfectly legal and innocuous activities. Who cares? the house of your drug dealer - being in someone's house in circumstantial at best. By your logic they would also have to arrest the drug dealer's mailman, maid, meter reader, etc. burglaries - again, circumstantial. Someone who wants to do me harm doesn't need a database full of comprehensive location information. They'd only have to find out where I live and wait for me there.
- mirkules 12y ago
  Without intending to invoke Godwin's Law, I think what happened in WWII is a good lesson in dangers of overexposing your private life. Before WWII, Germany used "tax deductions" to entice people to reveal their religion to the government. Data which was later used to identify Jews during wartime. Nobody is saying you need to unplug your machine from the internet, but just that because something doesn't impact you today, might not be true tomorrow. If you decide to run for office in 10 years, for example, you can bet your location data will become relevant (and it's not that far-fetched that the other party will try to obtain that data - reference the IRS email scandal). The point is to minimize the aggregation of your data, to limit the impact it will have on your life once it leaks. After all, you never know who will get a hold of all your data once a company goes out of business (fir example).
  - imgabe 12y ago
    The problem in WWII was not that the government had a list of who all the Jews were. The problem was that there was a government that wanted to kill all the Jews. If the latter is true, they'll find out the information they want one way or another. Hiding a list does not solve the problem, which is that you have elected genocidal maniacs to your government.
    - mirkules 12y ago
      Your line of thinking hinges on an optimistic view: "As long as X doesn't happen, we're fine". But what will you do when X does happen? You'll be completely unprepared for it. I prefer to take the "hope for the best, prepare for the worst" approach: if something bad were to happen, I would have a better chance of not being impacted.
Pxtl 12y ago
It suddenly occurred to me that I live an intensely boring life. I'm unblackmailable, yay!
- joeclark77 12y ago
  But somebody who wants to burglarize your house, or worse, could figure out when you're likely not to be home.
  - imgabe 12y ago
    This supposes that burglars work by picking out a person, then waiting until they're not home to go rob their house. Instead, burglars search through a neighborhood to find houses where nobody is home, then break in and steal things. It's the other way around. Regardless, if you're an average adult in the US, "weekdays between 9 and 5" is a fairly reasonable assumption of when you won't be home. No giant database needed.
    - joeclark77 12y ago
      I didn't want to expand on what I meant by "or worse", but let's imagine you have a teenage daughter...

by Carrok 12y ago

Valseuss 12y ago

You don't even have to have been there at all. Once an entity holds all your personal information like that, they can just say "Oh you were here, here, here and here at these times" even if it was not true. Who would doubt them? After all they have all the information right? RIGHT? Perfect way to set up someone you don't like.

imgabe 12y ago
If the government has devolved to the point that we have to worry about them framing people unjustly, we have FAR, FAR bigger problems than a database of location information. Hiding the information in that scenario is, at best, a temporary band aid. The appropriate fix is limiting the power of the government and requiring strict and transparent conditions on when and why someone can be arrested.
- billiam 12y ago
  I'm sorry, I just don't follow this slippery slope argument. We have lots of examples of the government abusing their use of online information. For the haves, we have the still-minor indignities of the no-fly list and targeting certain political stripes for IRS audits. For the have-nots, it is terrorism fusion data centers, predatory civil forfeiture and, jeez, a lot of the criminal justice system. So that world does exist now. Many of these excesses have been driven by "limiting the size of government" by defunding local governments and relying on private information brokers (license plate readers, etc), rather than passing better laws.
  - Guvante 12y ago
    > We have lots of examples of the government abusing their use of online information. That isn't what he said. He said that if the government is going to forge information, then the availability of location information is not necessary nor useful for that task.
  - imgabe 12y ago
    The things you've mentioned are all generally Bad Things and things that we should be fighting to stop. Fighting to obscure your location information and even protect your privacy in general doesn't stop any of the things you mentioned if you believe the government is acting in bad faith.
    - seanflyon 12y ago
      It mitigates the risk. Someone cannot do bad things with your location information if they do not have your location information.
      - imgabe 12y ago
        I think it is naive to think that a bad actor who intends you harm will be stopped or even slowed down by the fact that there isn't a log of every location you've visited.
        seanflyon 12y ago
        I think that that is a ridiculous statement. Of course giving a bad actor more opportunity to act badly increases the risk.
        imgabe 12y ago
        A threat to your safety or your freedom needs to be dealt with directly by eliminating it, not hiding from it. If you're envisioning a bad actor with the resources to compile and analyze a comprehensive log of your location, the simple fact that you use service A instead of service B is not going to do a thing to stop them if they're out to get you. You have far bigger problems on your hands.
- x0x0 12y ago
  The government has so devolved -- they're using (most likely illegal) nsa spy tools and stolen data to arrest drug dealers, then lying to everyone involved about how they "stumbled" across the information, or so-called "parallel construction" [1]. While all the tools whine about slippery slope fallacies, the fact of the matter is we're already sliding down. The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant's Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don't know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence - information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses. [2] Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges. [3] [1] http://my.firedoglake.com/wendydavis/2014/02/10/dea-parallel-construction-manuals-available-now-online/ http://my.firedoglake.com/wendydavis/2014/02/10/dea-parallel... [2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/05/dea-surveillance-cover-up_n_3706207.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/05/dea-surveillance-co... [3] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE...
- mathrawka 12y ago
  One thing that people do is just say "the government" like it is a single entity. It is not one entity. It is made up of hundreds of thousands of individuals. You know that guy that used to scare your wife/daughter with his stalking? Well he just happens to have a government job and may be in a position to abuse the knowledge that he has access to for personal gains.

imgabe 12y ago

strip clubs, bars, 'adult book' stores - these are all perfectly legal and innocuous activities. Who cares? the house of your drug dealer - being in someone's house in circumstantial at best. By your logic they would also have to arrest the drug dealer's mailman, maid, meter reader, etc. burglaries - again, circumstantial. Someone who wants to do me harm doesn't need a database full of comprehensive location information. They'd only have to find out where I live and wait for me there.

mirkules 12y ago
Without intending to invoke Godwin's Law, I think what happened in WWII is a good lesson in dangers of overexposing your private life. Before WWII, Germany used "tax deductions" to entice people to reveal their religion to the government. Data which was later used to identify Jews during wartime. Nobody is saying you need to unplug your machine from the internet, but just that because something doesn't impact you today, might not be true tomorrow. If you decide to run for office in 10 years, for example, you can bet your location data will become relevant (and it's not that far-fetched that the other party will try to obtain that data - reference the IRS email scandal). The point is to minimize the aggregation of your data, to limit the impact it will have on your life once it leaks. After all, you never know who will get a hold of all your data once a company goes out of business (fir example).
- imgabe 12y ago
  The problem in WWII was not that the government had a list of who all the Jews were. The problem was that there was a government that wanted to kill all the Jews. If the latter is true, they'll find out the information they want one way or another. Hiding a list does not solve the problem, which is that you have elected genocidal maniacs to your government.
  - mirkules 12y ago
    Your line of thinking hinges on an optimistic view: "As long as X doesn't happen, we're fine". But what will you do when X does happen? You'll be completely unprepared for it. I prefer to take the "hope for the best, prepare for the worst" approach: if something bad were to happen, I would have a better chance of not being impacted.

Pxtl 12y ago

It suddenly occurred to me that I live an intensely boring life. I'm unblackmailable, yay!

joeclark77 12y ago
But somebody who wants to burglarize your house, or worse, could figure out when you're likely not to be home.
- imgabe 12y ago
  This supposes that burglars work by picking out a person, then waiting until they're not home to go rob their house. Instead, burglars search through a neighborhood to find houses where nobody is home, then break in and steal things. It's the other way around. Regardless, if you're an average adult in the US, "weekdays between 9 and 5" is a fairly reasonable assumption of when you won't be home. No giant database needed.
  - joeclark77 12y ago
    I didn't want to expand on what I meant by "or worse", but let's imagine you have a teenage daughter...