
When it comes to internet privacy, be afraid, analyst suggests - petethomas
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/08/when-it-comes-to-internet-privacy-be-very-afraid-analyst-suggests/
======
Chardok
"Opting out doesn’t work. It’s nonsense to tell people not to carry a credit
card or not to have an email address. And “buyer beware” is putting too much
onus on the individual. People don’t test their food for pathogens or their
airlines for safety."

This is a brilliant line and it works so well because he is absolutely right:
it should not be on the burden of the consumer to make sure their products are
safe, be it from listeria or a spy device disguised as a children's toy.

I don't know what needs to happen for people to get outraged, but privacy
_needs_ to be a mainstream political issue. Perhaps we need to see what Google
and Facebook actually have on us...

~~~
Gys
The comparison that Bruce Schneider makes is not correct.

Governments are likely to control food pathogens and airline risks because
they need living, productive, happy voters.

But governments have also a fundamental distrust for all individuals and
therefore want as much surveillance as possible. By allowing big companies to
collect that, they have access as well.

Therefore I think governments are not motivated to improve privacy at all. On
the contrary.

~~~
kinkrtyavimoodh
People downvoting you are probably taking your statement as normative, whereas
it's purely positive. It's not about what the govt should do. It is what it
does.

For example, the police, the IRS, DHS etc etc. (and hence the state) WILL be
helped in their jobs by increasing surveillance, and so will always be trying
to increase its scope.

Whether it's _worth_ the loss of privacy is of course a valid debate.

~~~
barrkel
It is not a positive statement. It sounds like one, by it's actually a
judgement about how effective government is. I'm quite certain that it is
false.

~~~
alethiophile
It would certainly be interesting to hear some evidence or justification for
this position, given that the record of governments with respect to privacy
over the Internet era (at least) has been uniformly dismal and getting worse.

It certainly seems like the positive statement "government is not motivated to
protect individual privacy and will not effectively do so" is well-supported
by current experience.

------
carrier_lost
I appreciate Bruce Schneier's pragmatism and his acknowledgement that the
problem is bigger than an individual can reasonably be expected to solve, if
that individual wishes to participate in modern society. Too often, privacy
concerns are met with, "Use Tails + Tor + a hosts file + a burner phone + a
burner laptop, etc. etc." But Grandma isn't going to do that, and frankly
neither am I. While an individual chooses to use online services, at a certain
point societal and career expectations make it not really much of a choice at
all. There must be a better way than placing all of the burden on the
individual.

~~~
benbenolson
Perhaps this is a good reason to have some sort of technocracy element to the
federal government. I lean extremely far right, but in this case, this seems
like one of the few things that the federal government should be doing--
breaking up stout monopolies that can't be competed with.

I'm unfamiliar with the decision, but why split up a company like Microsoft in
1999, but leave Facebook and Google alone?

~~~
richardwhiuk
It's not against the law to have a monopoly - it's against the law to exploit
having a monopoly to enter another market.

Microsoft was seen to be exploiting it's consumer OS market share to gain a
monopoly in the browser market and the productivity software market, AIUI.

~~~
pmoriarty
_" It's not against the law to have a monopoly - it's against the law to
exploit having a monopoly to enter another market."_

What about the breakup of Ma Bell?

~~~
richmarr
> What about the breakup of Ma Bell?

 _" AT&T was, at the time, the sole provider of telephone service throughout
most of the United States. Furthermore, most telephonic equipment in the
United States was produced by its subsidiary, Western Electric. This vertical
integration led AT&T to have almost total control over communication
technology in the country, which led to the antitrust case, United States v.
AT&T. The plaintiff in the court complaint asked the court to order AT&T to
divest ownership of Western Electric"_

i.e. AT&T used its network monopoly to maintain control over hardware
manufacture.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System)

------
rdtsc
> Snowden’s revelations made people aware of what was happening, but little
> changed as a result.

Things got worse and that's expected. After all these things were made public,
if there was no mass outrage the perpetrators learned a valuable lesson - they
can increase their activities without much fear. Pretty sure at this point NSA
doesn't even have to play games with masking / unmasking filtering US
citizens, they might as well stop jumping through hoops and just record and
search everything they like.

------
ProfessorLayton
Mobile has certainly made things worse.

I recently kicked off every google app from my phone. The dark UX pattern of
shared logins (login to google express = login to gmaps etc) was too annoying
to deal with.

It's not that I've stopped using their services, but instead switched to their
web version. Same with Twitter et al. Even Uber has very serviceable web
versions of their app.

As a bonus I get better battery life, and the use of Safari's content blocker,
so YouTube web is even better than the app. I'm also able to silo these
services into their own browser if don't want to keep logging in every time
due to private browsing.

~~~
Rotareti
> Mobile has certainly made things worse.

I totally agree! It's easy and convenient to run a PC on FOSS, but it's a real
pain to do the same with a smart phone. I just tried to run a FOS OS on my
phone. I gave up because in order to flash the OS image I had to install non-
reproducible binaries from some website and there was no sane way around.

------
benbenolson
The difficult part isn't getting people to understand that Internet privacy is
important or at risk; nearly every person that I know (tech-savvy or not)
understands that companies like Google and Facebook are in the business of
collecting their data, and don't want them to. However, companies like these
have human habit on their side: most people use these services daily, and will
continue doing so unless it's easier or more convenient to do otherwise. That
means that in order to reverse the trend of users continuously using these
services, an alternative must be created that's better in every way, and
default on all platforms that people use.

In the case of Facebook, it's a chicken-and-egg problem: many people that I
know will not use another social media platform because nobody else that they
know uses it, but nobody else that they know uses it because they don't use
it.

~~~
Kadin
It's worth remembering how Facebook got to the userbase that it currently has
-- they didn't start out targeting "everyone on the planet", which is an
almost impossibly hard challenge because of the network effects you note.

Instead, they started off providing closed social networks for existing groups
of users -- colleges, starting with a small number of elite colleges and
slowly broadening out from there -- until eventually it became a public social
network and the de facto standard at least within the US.

The networks that have attempted from the start to get everyone to sign up
have mostly failed. E.g. Google Plus, which had some feature advantages over
FB at the time, started out much too ambitiously in my opinion and suffered
from a "Potemkin village" issue where (unless you had a circle of friends who
all joined it) it felt empty, and I suspect many users never used it more than
a few times.

The only recent network I've seen to go the Facebook route is Nextdoor, which
at least in my anecdotal experience seems to be becoming a thing. By providing
a semi-closed social network based on physical proximity (neighborhoods), it
provides immediate value to a new user. I'm not sure of the details of their
rollout strategy, but at least at one point they insisted on mailing you a
physical postcard in order to verify your address (much like FB's original
validation on specific .edu email domains).

Anyway, if anyone out there is thinking of challenging Facebook on the social-
network front, I would put some significant thought into the rollout strategy
and aim _not_ to compete with Facebook circa 2017, but instead to compete with
Facebook circa 2004. As other networks have opened themselves up, there's a
constant vacuum at the lower, more-specific, more-exclusive, closed end of the
spectrum which provides a lower barrier to entry.

~~~
SimbaOnSteroids
I think discord has better potential to be the next social media juggernaut, I
know most of my social media interaction goes through discord. As our lives
move more and more online discord seems to be the digital equivalent of the
roman forums and I appreciate the ability to jump into a conversation with my
friends in the same way I would IRL.

Mostly I appreciate the ability to be parts of different groups, the ease with
which you can join groups, and the fact that you can host your own friend
group. I realize this isn't Discord's mission statement or intent but it is a
position they find themselves in.

~~~
lordCarbonFiber
I love how, in a thread about the uncertainty of internet privacy, you're here
slinging praises to a walled garden service that owns all of your chats.
Another walled garden interested in collecting information and slinging adds
to pay back VC funds is the last thing the internet needs and the fact that
it's so successful is a better indicator than anything else that the consumer
doesn't care a lick about privacy.

~~~
SimbaOnSteroids
You can't unopen Pandora's Box, and trying to close it is a bit of a sisphyian
task. Might as well enjoy the terrors of the box.

~~~
lordCarbonFiber
But there are better chat solutions out there. Discord is pretty awful,
terrible audio quality, limited room sizes, the aforementioned privacy
concerns stemming from no self hosting and lack of interoperability with other
chat protocols.

When technologies like Matrix [matrix.org] exist and we've had superior
dedicated voip programs (mumble et al) for decades there's nothing appealing
about discord is the AoL mail of chat clients; great for people with 0
interest in technology, but, why.

~~~
SimbaOnSteroids
Free, browser based, integrated well with games, widespread.

------
j_s
One resource I haven't seen mentioned on HN much: Michael Bazzell is an expert
on both sides of internet privacy.

[https://privacy-training.com/](https://privacy-training.com/) vs.
[https://inteltechniques.com/](https://inteltechniques.com/)

"Hiding from the Internet" vs. "Open Source Intelligence Techniques"

[https://www.amazon.com/Michael-
Bazzell/e/B007GNUI92/](https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Bazzell/e/B007GNUI92/)

"The Complete Privacy & Security Podcast" (42 episodes so far)

[https://inteltechniques.com/podcast.html](https://inteltechniques.com/podcast.html)

~~~
acobster
Definitely interested in that podcast, but I must say I find it ironic that
they're running JS from Google Analytics and Scorecard Research. :D

------
hnaccy
I'm already extremely pessimistic about these things.

Computers were a mistake and represent the greatest threat to freedom in human
history. The ability of those in power to mass produce perfectly obedient
machines that can perform complex tasks without rest allow for a nightmare
society. Additionally machine learning asymmetrically benefits those with the
resources to fully leverage large amounts of data collection and compute power
AKA not you or me.

Any state in history would have loved to have been able to watch its citizens
at all times and know what they're doing and likely thinking. It just wasn't
feasible until now. The big last line we haven't but will inevitably crossed
will be the automation of force.

At least suicide is always an option.

~~~
gglitch
> Computers were a mistake and represent the greatest threat to freedom in
> human history. The ability of those in power to mass produce perfectly
> obedient machines that can perform complex tasks without rest allow for a
> nightmare society.

I think about that a lot. It suggests to me that the real problem lies not
with technology, but with something unavoidable and self-destructive about
human nature.

~~~
FilterSweep
> It suggests to me that the real problem lies not with technology, but with
> something unavoidable and self-destructive about human nature.

Or the people in power not being fully clear about their means.

~~~
crush-n-spread
Look at the root cause. Humans are driven by the exact forces that caused
evolution. Those forces are to gather resources and maintain social dominance.
Anything other than that will never be a force that shapes the world.

"Not being fully clear about their means" is just a manifestation or symptom
of someone's quest to acquire more resources. I repeat that you must look at
the root force and not the symptom.

------
archvile
"Snowden’s revelations made people aware of what was happening, but little
changed as a result."

Actually I'd be willing to bet the level of spying the alphabet agencies are
doing now is 10 times worse than it was when Snowden stole those documents.

------
rm_-rf_slash
I once asked Bruce Schneier at a conference to scare me.

He told me to consider the associations between data. Bits and pieces that
Google knows about me, that Facebook knows about me, that Amazon knows about
me...think of all of those little meaningless bits of data being associated
all together to build a picture perfect model of my life, and then sold to
advertisers, who know enough about your life to attempt to manipulate it at
every step. And if advertisers can pull up every saleable bit of data about me
with enough accuracy to sell me products that I actually want, then anyone
with enough money and desire can get that same data, use the same
associations, and understand more about me than most of my closest friends,
all before taking one step away from the computer.

I'm still afraid.

~~~
Kadin
I am honestly surprised there is not more ultra-targeted advertising to either
ultra-high-net-worth individuals, or to individuals in key positions within
large institutions.

E.g., there are ads all over the DC Metro for huge defense-sector projects,
like a particular company's bid for fighter-jet engines. They're spending huge
sums on these ad buys, which presumably are aimed at only a handful of people
who actually have influence over the procurement process. Similarly, there are
lots of ads in trade publications aimed at buyers, of whom there might only be
a few dozen in a particular niche industry. It only follows that this is, the
ad-buyers believe, the best they can do.

But consider what they could do if they really drilled down and tried to
target the specific individuals with control over the money: instead of a
shotgun ad buy in the subway or in a magazine, they could build a model of
that person's life -- where they go, what they buy, what makes them happy (at
least, happy enough to be externally perceptible), what pisses them off enough
to complain about it, etc. And then you could Skinner-box the living shit out
of them.

In the limiting case -- I'm thinking here of someone who works in government
procurement; maybe not even the person who makes the ultimate decision, but
the person who builds the briefing slide deck for the person who makes the
decision, or the advisor, or the advisor's assistants -- for the price of a
big ad buy, you could probably hire up a bunch of unemployed acting students
and follow them around for a few months. Every time something good happens to
the contract or in negotiations, make sure they have a really, really good
day. Someone offers them a seat on the train, or lets them into traffic,
anonymously buys them coffee, randomly compliments their shoes, pulls out of a
parking space just as they're looking for one... every little thing just goes
right. And every time the negotiations _aren 't_ going well, make sure they
have a really _shit_ day. They get cut off in traffic, get coffee spilled on
them, yelling everywhere, can't even get the machine they want at the gym,
takeout place is closed for a special event, rental house down the street is
having a loud all-night party _again_... Pretty soon you'd condition them that
when things go right for your company, and when things move fractionally
closer to the outcome you want, they have a good day. And when they don't,
_they_ don't. It's advertising by gaslighting, basically.

AFAICT the only reason this isn't done is because nobody's really tried it
yet, perhaps out of some remaining shred of propriety. I'm not even sure it
would be illegal, necessarily (you'd have to get some lawyers to work around
anti-stalking laws, I suppose, but they are pretty weak in a lot of states).
While there's nothing that would have prevented you from doing this 50 years
ago with an army of P.I.s to gather the information, now you could build up
all the dossiers in advance and have them ready to go, pretty much turnkey, on
anyone you thought you might want to influence. Or, more likely, a company
could set all of that up and then offer it as an arms-length service to other
companies looking to achieve a particular outcome.

No reason, I suppose, why it might not be going on right now.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Interesting premise. Could even be the plot of a present day sci-fi novel (an
executive goes about their day of seemingly random inconveniences amidst a
high-stakes battle between advertising firms directing the exec towards their
clients). Almost reminds me of The Game, which was the greatest film ever made
and I will hear NO argument.

That being said, most of the wealthy people I know personally tend not to use
computers when they can call up concierge services to handle complex tasks for
them. That most wealthy people I know happen to be older and not as used to
using computers for every problem may just be more of an age rather than
economic dissonance.

------
pronik
One point that I think comes too short in every discussion on privacy is that
you are not always in control of your data and you never can be fully.

Say we consider a privacy-paranoid individual who is taking great care not to
put his personal data online. And then we take a look at his or her parents or
friends or colleagues who most certainly will keep his or her real name
bundled with phone number(s) and (e-mail) address(es) in their address book
synced to their Google or Apple or Microsoft account. It just happens, there
is only so much you can do about it. Your data is out there and it's only the
question of the security measures the data holder implemented that's keeping
it safe.

(Basically, it's nothing new, many people have your data, but possibly only in
the "offline world" \-- think insurance, prospective or current employers,
even your go-to car repair guy. It's just that we normally have a law for
protecting the offline data and ways to enforce it and almost nothing alike in
the online world.)

Privacy is something that has to be enforced on a population, and not simply
recommended to an individual. The only institution that can reasonably do that
is the government, by introducing data protection laws, abiding by them and
allowing a third-party to verify they really keep their promise. Until then,
we might not have a choice.

------
komali2
They caught me at line 1 with a curious thought:

>and have grudgingly accepted that being monitored by corporations and even
governments is just a fact of modern life.

I wonder which is the more "shocking" or "surprising" that society deems it
acceptable - monitoring by corporations, or monitoring by governments?

~~~
nocman
Just because people have accepted something doesn't mean they deem it
"acceptable".

When your choices are "use a service and be monitored" or "don't use the
service", it can be quite limiting if you really need that service to, say, do
your job and feed your family. Yes I know there are alternative services, but
often they either 1) don't work well enough to really be a viable alternative
and/or 2) don't provide any more confidence that they are not monitoring you
also.

Of course all of this is made worse by the fact that the monitoring is mostly
happening in the background, so it isn't "in your face" all of the time. I
think most people who are aware of it have chosen to just ignore it as best
they can, because there doesn't appear to be any practical way of avoiding it.

~~~
jack6e
> _Just because people have accepted something doesn 't mean they deem it
> "acceptable"._

Actually, that is exactly, literally what it means. Perhaps you mean that just
because we find something acceptable, we don't deem it moral, or optimal, or
desirable. The distressing reality presented in the interview is that we
accept non-benevolent, non-ideal options because they are good enough to be
accepted, and not bad enough to be rejected. But accepting something, by
definition, means you consider it accept-able, or, "able to be accepted."

~~~
nocman
Yeah I knew someone would come back with that -- but that's only true if you
tie a very strict one-to-one meaning between every use of the verb "accept"
and the adjective "acceptable".

Words have subtle meanings. If you paid attention to my post, I was clearly
drawing a line between the fact that people _accept_ the fact that they really
don't have a good alternative to using, say, Google. But they may not find it
_acceptable_ that Google data mines their searches to sell their info to
advertisers.

So while they "accept" their situation, they clearly don't find it
"acceptable". Much as you might accept the fact that you have to work for a
boss who is a jerk, because you have no other employment options. So you don't
find the situation acceptable, but you have to accept it anyway.

~~~
axedwool
I don't think people in an unacceptable situation 'accept' it. With your
example of unacceptable workplaces, they express their resentment in other
ways. Maybe they find the minimum they can produce without being disciplined
and only do that much. Maybe they spread malicious gossip at the office. Maybe
they go home and abuse their spouse or children. Maybe they become alcoholics,
or political extremists, or religious fanatics. Maybe they become depressed
and commit suicide. The world offers plenty of examples. People trapped in
situations they find unacceptable don't suffer in silence; they become
pathological, dangerous people.

The issues of unacceptable mass surveillance can and will, eventually, cause
some kind of response by people who don't accept it. If there are a lot of
those people, I doubt the response will be pretty.

~~~
nocman
Here again is another example of the subtlety of words. The fact that someone
"accepts" a situation doesn't automatically mean that they are happy about it,
and it also doesn't mean that they do nothing to change it. It can just mean
that they realize that is the way it is for now, and they deal with it as best
they can -- often while looking for ways to change the situation.

Also, while it is true that people do often respond to unacceptable situations
in extreme ways, it is most definitely not the case that people _always_ do
so. There is a such thing as patience and perseverance, and people do often
accept that they are in an unacceptable situation for a time (often a very
long time), while actively seeking to change the situation. People can
overcome adversity.

The phrase "People trapped in situations they find unacceptable don't suffer
in silence; they become pathological, dangerous people." is most definitely
not universally true. It does happen yes, but many people also just press on
and keep looking for a way out until they find it.

And yes, some of them _do_ suffer in silence without becoming "pathological,
dangerous people". One common example is a case where an unacceptable
situation permits them to achieve something that is more important to them.
For instance, people work some pretty nasty jobs (either due to jerk
employers/employees, or just the necessary work conditions of the job -- some
jobs are hot/smelly/hard-on-the-body, etc). But there are people who take
and/or keep these kind of jobs in order to feed their families. Often they
have tried to find other work, but lack the necessary skills, or there just
isn't any other work available. So these people work under these conditions
only because that's the only route to feeding their families. It is an
admirable thing to do, and I find it sad that so many people don't respect
others who make that kind of sacrifice in order to take care of others.

------
septarol
When I place a sticker over my laptop's camera, people think I am freak or
acting like a hacker. In fact, I just want to protect my freedom. However,
society doesn't care freedom. They care just their popularity and don't want
to be alienated. I think this is where problems come from.

~~~
peterwwillis
I could wear a tinfoil hat and claim I was protecting my freedom. That doesn't
make it a great idea.

Of course nobody wants to be alienated. We do a lot of stupid shit to fit into
society. But with the range of potential attacks on your freedom, putting a
post-it note on your webcam is right up there with tinfoil hats.

There are real actions you could be taking to defend your freedom - like
contacting your representatives in government, or donating to organizations
that fight for your rights, or telling your friends and family why they should
care. You can vote with your dollars, and vote with your actual vote, and your
feedback.

After all that's done, fine, put up the post-it note. But you can at least
write "remember to get milk" on it so people don't assume it's a tinfoil hat.

~~~
0xBA5ED
I wouldn't call it "tinfoil hat" because the cost/benefit is extremely low.
Negligible effort in exchange for piece of mind. It's a reasonable trade-off.
You can never be sure what all your software is doing unless you piece
together your own linux system from scratch.

~~~
peterwwillis
That's what a tinfoil hat is. Nobody wants to watch your particular webcam,
just like the government does not want to influence your particular brain. But
people put on the tinfoil hat anyway because it's cheap and it gives them
piece of mind.

You could also just implement strong security guarantees according to best
practice for your OS, but the piece of paper is definitely much cheaper and
more effective for this one purpose.

~~~
0xBA5ED
I believe "tinfoil hat" implies illogic as well. Reasonable trade-offs aren't
illogical. Also, it's been proven that it's entirely inside the realm of
possibility that state agents are infiltrating our systems and gathering
sensor data, and it's far more likely than alien mind probes that can be
thwarted with tinfoil...

------
astrobe_
When a company includes in their TOS a clause that prohibits their customer to
speak online negatively about their product, everyone draw the pitchforks
because that's an unacceptable violation of the freedom of speech. Why doesn't
it happen for the right to privacy?

Perhaps people feel powerless or don't care. People are also powerless against
the food industry or don't always care about security. One of the roles of
states and governments is to fix those situations.

Law makers should focus their efforts on strongly protecting the fundamental
right to privacy. It should be made easy (and free) for anyone to challenge
those abusive EULAs, TOS and other contracts that require end users to abandon
their rights in order to use a service. If the contract is deemed abusive, the
service should be blocked until the contract is rewritten.

------
peterwwillis
> In the 1970s, Congress passed a law to make a particular form of subliminal
> advertising illegal because it was believed to be morally wrong. That
> advertising technique is child’s play compared to the kind of personalized
> manipulation that companies do today. The legal question is whether this
> kind of cyber-manipulation is an unfair and deceptive business practice,
> and, if so, can the Federal Trade Commission step in and prohibit a lot of
> these practices.

Three things here:

1\. Nobody has ever proved subliminal messaging can actually subvert a
person's will, which was reflected in court cases. Even a modern experiment
set up by the BBC (apparently the only such study since the 50's) showed no
effect.

2\. The FTC has never said anything about subliminal messaging, so it's
unlikely they would now.

3\. Subliminal messaging never helped pay for users' free services.

Let's face it - we live in a different world. The old ideas of privacy,
whatever they were, are erased when there's a carrot attached to it, and no
stick. Schneider is doing a great deed in trying to drum up support for
increased privacy regulations, but this is a stupid argument toward that end.

------
newscracker
I'm dejected by two things - that privacy invasions are increasing over time
and that there's barely any outrage (or outrage that lasts) against these. I
feel more and more trapped when I see that most people I know don't care about
privacy on the Internet or Internet based services. I point them to how it
could be bad for them (including Martin Fowler's excellent article, "Privacy
protects bothersome people" [1]), but it all falls on deaf ears. Or they shrug
their shoulders in defeat saying it's a lost cause and that it's better not
even to think about it.

I'm truly stumped, and can't imagine what tragic event or events will wake
people up and get them to take action at a personal level, along with
organizing and campaigning for privacy. As of now, I doubt if there will ever
be a mass resistance for several decades (leaving the gates wide open for more
invasions and power grabs).

[1]: [https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/bothersome-
privacy.htm...](https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/bothersome-privacy.html)

------
EternalData
I think there's something to be said about looking at the business incentives
of the people you deal with on the Internet. Google, plain as day, is using
you as training data. DuckDuckGo bills itself as the privacy-minded
alternative. You shouldn't be surprised if Google violates your privacy. If
DuckDuckGo does, that's the end of their business model.

------
cinquemb
Only thing people should fear are the downside risks of submitting themselves
and becoming reliant upon walled gardens, people in mass only give such their
power… perhaps most have decided that the convenience of such gardens are
worth it for now.

The mass surveillance/advertising state runs on abundant and prevalent
hardware and software full of flaws that can be used in favor for those who
seek to exploit such, from nation states, to well financed actors, to
individuals.

The common man has less to loose, than an general's affair with his aid
conducted over gmail… and hey, when you are a relative nobody in a society,
whats sitting on a couple of iOS 0days from your dev exp, waiting for a better
day? I guess succumbing to fear porn from our best institutions is an option…

------
carapace
"Internet privacy" is an oxymoron.

I've come to believe that total surveillance is the perfection of democracy,
not its antithesis.

We are experiencing a fundamental phase shift in the entire structure of
society.

The true horror of technological omniscience is that it shall force us for
once to live according to our own rules. For the first time in history we
shall have to do without hypocrisy and privilege. The new equilibrium will not
involve tilting at the windmills of ubiquitous sensors and processing power
but rather learning what explicit rules we can actually live by, finding, in
effect, the real shape of human society.

------
krisclarkdev
Internet privacy is a farce. From the way the technology was designed to the
way the information that's collected is used/misused. I do think there are
equal parts buyer beware on the client side as well as ethics on the
implementation side.

I think that "internet privacy" will be akin to "the war on drugs" in the long
term. A good idea but in the end just another way for government line it's
pockets.

Until the internet is completely redesigned the best hope we've got it
encryption and VPN's and that's a strech.

------
zerebubuth
> My hope is that technologists also get involved in the political process —
> in government, in think-tanks, universities, and so on.

How does one do this? What might Bruce Schneier be thinking of that the EFF,
Liberty, Privacy International, etc... are currently not doing?

In some sense, it seems like this might be solved "generationally", once the
majority of elected representatives are "natively" computer-literate. Based on
the average age of politicians, that might take 30-40 years.

------
pgodzin
Google, for instance, has a ton of data about me. They don't sell that data
directly to advertisers, because if they give up that data then it loses all
value to Google because the advertisers would then be able to resell it. So
instead they let advertisers target specific demographics of people,
leveraging what they know about me. As long as I use an adblocker and
individual information isn't sold to insurers for example, what's the harm to
me?

~~~
newscracker
Democracy and freedom, in general, depend on people who fight against the
powers of the time from trampling rights and controlling people through
different means. So even if you're somehow not troubled by anyone who has or
can obtain more (aka damaging) information to use against you, there are many
people who struggle all the time so your life can be better (and not get
worse). And for those people, corporations that collect a lot of data, who are
in turn answerable to government requests (like NSLs in the U.S.), are
landmines that could trip any moment and endanger them and everyone else they
work with. Society has a lot to lose if we don't value privacy, because
privacy is fundamental to have and to retain freedom in the constant struggle
that we have with various entities.

So if you care about freedom for humans, you must care about privacy.
Otherwise it'd be hypocritical.

For a better and concise article on this, read "Privacy protects bothersome
people" [1] by Martin Fowler.

[1]: [https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/bothersome-
privacy.htm...](https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/bothersome-privacy.html)

------
cramer40
Check this out. [https://stallman.org/stallman-
computing.html](https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html)

------
pnathan
Consider lobbying your government officials to improve regulations concerning
this. Maybe get together with other people in your city who care about this
particular issue.

This needs to be changed at a _regulatory_ national level, but it's usually
the case that major cities or states lead the charge in the US.

The system _can_ be made to work for you, if you're willing to work with it.

------
ducttape12
I've gone down the rabbit hole of trying to protect my privacy. Basically,
unless you move to the mountains with no cell phone, no internet access, and
grow your own food, someone somewhere will be tracking you. You'll go crazy
trying to close all the loopholes (ready to fry the RFID chips on your car
tires?)

------
rjplatte
The problem is, many people know how much they're being monitored each day,
and simply don't care.

------
lowbloodsugar
Really enjoyed William Hertling's Kill Process on this very subject.

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30658546-kill-
process](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30658546-kill-process)

------
rotrux
We're all screwed. But at least we're all screwed together!

~~~
to_bpr
And there's a great many HN users/readers who've been happy to write the code
that is totally f-ing us over.

------
PeterisP
What internet privacy?

I seemed to have it a dozen years ago, but I must have misplaced it because I
haven't seen it in a long, long time.

------
stephengillie
What does a post-privacy world look like?

~~~
1001101
Roll up the shades.

~~~
stephengillie
Maybe fear isn't the right reaction. We have almost no privacy, and the world
isn't ending. Many of us goto work or school, just as before we were so
heavily surveiled.

Also, who makes money off us being afraid of not having privacy?

~~~
482794793792894
The already linked Panopticon shows that a lack of privacy can lead to severe
mental problems.

The Stasi subdued an entire country via surveillance and that before the
internet, before CCTV and before everyone voluntarily carried a microphone in
their pocket.

~~~
1001101
Watching The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) had a profound impact on
me. I was aware of ECHELON, Carnivore, DCS, Wm. Binney, etc. before Snowden,
but since Snowden/Greenwald, it really became visceral. It's been a rough ride
for me, and many people I know.

------
fundabulousrIII
No one I know in my world uses Facebook and we only use Google for search
because the experience with other engines are lackluster. Give me a better
search engine and I'll use that if the obvious abuses aren't too egregious.

There is another way to opt out of data collection and that is to deep packet
rewrite every communication out of your computer from every application (where
suddenly encryption is your enemy) :P

~~~
drukenemo
Use www.startpage.com, you search Google via a proxy.

------
denisehilton
There is no such thing as privacy anymore. Even the encrypted communication is
not private as far as i know.

------
almonj
a Basket of Figs and a Letter, did by the way eat up a great part of his
Carriage, conveying the remainder unto the Perfon to whom he was di- rected,
who when he had read the Letter, and not finding the quantity of Figs
anfwerable to what was there fpoken of, he accufes the Slave of eating them,
telling him what the Letter faid againft him. But the In- dian
(notwithftanding this proof) did confidently abjure the Fa&, curling the
Paper, as being a falfe and lying Witnefs. After this, being lent again with
the like Carriage, and a Letter expreffing the juft number of Figs that were
to be delivered, he did again, according to his former Pra- ctice, devour a
great part of them by the way.

~~~
bwanab
Censorship is a valid concern, but I'm not sure what it has to do with on-line
privacy.

------
grondilu
Can someone explain to me why this so-called "privacy" is such a big deal on
internet? Can't internet, or at least a major part of it, be considered a
public place? I mean, when I walk in the street, I do not wear a mask (I
suspect that'd be illegal in my country), yet I do not worry about someone
using surveillance cameras to track all my activities. Sure, it _could_
technically be done but I'm not _that_ important : nobody would bother.
Therefore I vaguely consider myself anonymous when I walk in the street, not
because my identity is hidden, but because it's mixed in thousands of others :
"hidden in plain sight", as they say.

Couldn't things be similar on internet? Or do we really all have to hide our
identity like criminals?

~~~
vbuwivbiu
ok go ahead and publish all your email, chat messages and bank account details
here now

~~~
grondilu
Continuing with my analogy that would be like shouting my name and address in
the street. Why would I do that?

My point is that I tend to consider myself as anonymous on the internet
because I believe nobody is interested enough in me to bother gathering the
data. Or if it's done, it's a robot that does it for statistical purpose[1].
No human cares.

But if I publish personal infos in plain text, like email, phone number and
stuff, surely there will be trolls that will have fun with it, or thieves that
will try to use it for profit. I have zero reason to do that.

1\. BTW I believe this has tremendous scientific value, from an
anthropological point of view. It'd be a shame not to do it.

~~~
takeda
So you don't think it is a big deal because you believe your private data is
not important.

The issue is that perhaps your data is not as important right now, but it is
possible that one day you might do something that might upset someone in the
power and any information about you might be used against you (and that would
be years and years of your past since that data wouldn't be gone).

Just look at Snowden, how they tried to use every petty detail about him. He
was careful though and did not leave much, but there were strong forces trying
to discredit him.

Maybe you think you would never did anything like what Snowden did, but what's
considered bad depends on what current administration thinks. With our current
president it feels like insulting him on twitter might be good enough cause.

Second issue is that Big Data done on you, it can infer a lot about you based
on the data that you provided, often it can know more about you than yourself.

That data then can be used against you, here's one example of a company that
does this and in fact not only tries to learn about people but actually
influence them[1]. It's suspected that they are behind Bexit and Trump
victory.

[1] [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mg9vvn/how-our-
li...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mg9vvn/how-our-likes-helped-
trump-win)

