
Privacy By Design - pytrin
http://www.binpress.com/blog/2014/05/30/privacy-by-design/
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krschultz
Forget the actual thesis of the post. I am immensely troubled by the flippant
comment _" ordinary municipal water fountains are replaced by hi-tech
fountains, providing clean water for residents, ... and less of the dirt and
homelessness often associated with water fountains"_.

So reducing access to free drinking water for homeless people is a feature?
Maybe the real problem here is that municipal water fountains need to be
improved, not that they should be discarded in favor of a private network.

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phpnode
agree about that sentence, really that's horrible. _Replacing_ free water
fountains with a private, paid alternative? The product itself is like a
glimpse into some weird dystopia.

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madaxe_again
Somewhat beside the point of the article, but Woosh doesn't sound amazing, it
sounds positively dystopian.

Water fountains are typically put up as a public amenity, and are intended at
least in part for those who would otherwise not be able to water themselves.
This would lock the neediest people out of an essential resource.

I mean - what possible benefit is there to me to have to sign up and have my
identity logged in order to drink water? Oh, none. What benefit is there to
eugenics, social exclusion, and racial cleansing? Plenty.

It's not about improving accessibility drinking water, it's about locking an
entire sector of the Israeli populace (ethnic Palestinians) out of clean
potable water.

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ds9
"My recommendation is to plan privacy ahead. Think of your product as
something that should not 'keep everything, analyze later' but 'keep what we
must, and dump the rest'."

This is what we call "solving the wrong problem". Yes, those observations are
good ones (albeit obvious) for anyone seeking to design a privacy-respecting
service. But how do we get anyone to do that?

As long as companies are profit-oriented and legally able to do so, they will
data-mine everyone as far as they can. What can be done about this? The author
has nothing to say on this latter question.

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masaladosa
While the article starts with a sort of moralistic and noble sentiment it has
very little to do with privacy. It's more concerned with reducing risk for the
company than increasing privacy for its clients. It's a happy coincidence that
both company and clients are benefitting in the scenario described.

