

A quick guide to our current privacy threats - fHbjKlf6
http://www.ivpn.net/blog/a-quick-guide-to-current-online-privacy-threats

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victork2
Interesting. On the other hand it shows a very American reality distortion
field: the government is the main threat to privacy.

Two things:

The biggest threats are probably coming from private companies and private
initiatives such as Google, Facebook because of the extent of the data they
gather about you. The most worrying part about these kind of threats is that
they can be kept secret and can be passed by just one manager.

These bills are backed up or even pushed by the companies mentioned in the
previous point. It's not the result of some crazy politician trying to
restrain your freedom on the internet but these bills are very often the
result of lobbying. It's because the government is not implicated enough in
the internet that this happens. Private interest with (relative) little
efforts can go in this breach and push for legislation because the politicians
are very mildly interested and think it's not a big deal.

If you want to win this war, it's really necessary to identify the real
threats and enemies without any knee jerk reaction of typical internet crowds.

~~~
rohern
This is spot on. There was a certain irony to the outcry over employers
demanding Facebook logins when the victims had already volunteered all of
their information over to another company, Facebook.

On the other hand, these bills are disastrous and need to be beaten and
destroyed with fire. The politicians behind them need to be evicted in
November.

~~~
amirmc
> _"There was a certain irony to the outcry over employers demanding Facebook
> logins when the victims had already volunteered all of their information
> over to another company, Facebook"_

I understand the point but FB 'knowing' about you isn't the same as your
employer 'knowing' about you. People spend time cultivating a professional
persona (via CVs, how they interact with peers at work etc) and all of this
could be damaged by an unsympathetic employer seeing a drunken pic on FB
(which your friend probably uploaded/tagged).

It's the 'intent' that's different. FB doesn't single people out. Your
employer (by asking for FB access) is _explicitly_ singling people out.

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bstpierre
They'll keep at it -- inventing new TLAs as needed -- until all of the
individual pieces are passed.

I'd bet a shiny nickel that (at least in the US) the worst bits won't be part
of any big standalone legislation, they'll be buried in some giant "must pass"
spending bill. Nobody will realize the provisions are in there until after
it's already been signed.

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loeschg
All of these acronyms are starting to make my head spin, and in turn apathy is
definitely creeping in. I was all about doing my part to stop SOPA/PIPA -
migrating domain names away, shutting down my website on blackout day (those 6
visitors really missed it I'm sure). Now it's just kind of like... what do I
do?

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jiganti
A common maxim I've heard involving bootstrapped startups is that if you don't
have the cash to get things done conventionally, you'll be more creative in
solving problems that money would've been able to.

So when it comes to governmental privacy threats, I think the same ought to
hold true- we don't have the power to stop them, therefore we ought to find
creative solutions. I don't know where to start, but a longterm solution in my
mind involves more than articles on the Reddit front page. How can we
indefinitely protect our right to use the internet in the ways that we choose?

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timmaxw
What did SOPA have to do with privacy? I'm only aware of provisions for
shutting down websites accused of copyright infringement.

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alexenko
This is getting out of hand....

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BoxPwn
Silly people and their illusions of 'privacy'.

If you want privacy, stay off the internet. It's not yours.

~~~
cjmauthor
Privacy can exist on the web if people got together and requested changes
politically. That is the beauty in democracy. As an example, there is no
reason for Google to be able to read our emails, so why do we permit it. There
should be a private and public option, and we should control the switch.

~~~
noarchy
I understand what you're saying, but Google does not have a monopoly on
anything. You don't have to use their search, their email, or their cloud
storage.

Ideally, if privacy is important to a person, then they'll gravitate towards
services that cater to that need. DuckDuckGo is a great example, where search
is concerned. I'm not saying that this is easy. Unfortunately, I don't think
that many people care about privacy unless the lack of it gets them into
trouble, and then it is only 20/20 hindsight.

The burden for maintaining your privacy lies mostly in your own hands. I don't
expect governments to do anything other than to remove privacy rights, at this
point.

