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Health insurance is going to advance it's ways of knowing about your risks wether you like it or not. And denying them ways of estimating your risk will likely

Health insurance is going to advance it's ways of knowing about your risks wether you like it or not. And denying them ways of estimating your risk will likely just boost your cost beacuse of high-risk outliers. If you don't think it's fair that some people will have a much higher health charge you should not argue against companies gathering insurance data but the fundamental problem -- probably by introducing universal health care legislation. It's also a fallacy to suppose that companies have to know your data at all (assuming they would even have such a huge interest in selling your stool sample data to risk their reputation). Encryption was created to solve exactly this privacy problem, and homomorphic encryption goes even further (although it's still early in development). Worst case, you just run the analysis on your own desktop. As technolgy progresses it's only natural our inference and survaillance prowess will increase and the battle can't be won by restricting technology itself. The only way out is for society to put proper value on privacy as a right and put proper regulations and legislation to defend it. (although the NSA scandals have shown most of the US doesn't care)

icebraining 12y ago
It's also a fallacy to suppose that companies have to know your data at all (assuming they would even have such a huge interest in selling your stool sample data to risk their reputation). Encryption was created to solve exactly this privacy problem, and homomorphic encryption goes even further (although it's still early in development). Worst case, you just run the analysis on your own desktop. But that's exactly the point. The "hell no" comment wasn't directed at any toilet with sensors - it was directed at a toilet implementing the Internet of Things. If you run it on your own desktop, you're not talking about the same thing at all.
mindslight 12y ago
Your second paragraph is exactly what I'm getting at - companies do not need to know your data, and analysis should be run locally with software under your control. You would then be free to choose from various non-exclusive analysis options via informed consent. However, I think it's deluding oneself to sign up for today's proprietary share-everything services, and expect them to magically transform into privacy respecting ones as time goes on. For these type of applications, mentioning homomorphic encryption comes from that same wishful thinking that a third party will work to preserve your privacy more than you will.

icebraining 12y ago

It's also a fallacy to suppose that companies have to know your data at all (assuming they would even have such a huge interest in selling your stool sample data to risk their reputation). Encryption was created to solve exactly this privacy problem, and homomorphic encryption goes even further (although it's still early in development). Worst case, you just run the analysis on your own desktop. But that's exactly the point. The "hell no" comment wasn't directed at any toilet with sensors - it was directed at a toilet implementing the Internet of Things. If you run it on your own desktop, you're not talking about the same thing at all.

mindslight 12y ago

Your second paragraph is exactly what I'm getting at - companies do not need to know your data, and analysis should be run locally with software under your control. You would then be free to choose from various non-exclusive analysis options via informed consent. However, I think it's deluding oneself to sign up for today's proprietary share-everything services, and expect them to magically transform into privacy respecting ones as time goes on. For these type of applications, mentioning homomorphic encryption comes from that same wishful thinking that a third party will work to preserve your privacy more than you will.