
If You're Not Paranoid, You're Crazy - ForHackernews
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/11/if-youre-not-paranoid-youre-crazy/407833/?single_page=true
======
GigabyteCoin
>I’d driven to meet a friend at an art gallery in Hollywood, my first visit to
a gallery in years. The next morning, in my inbox, several spam e-mails urged
me to invest in art. That was an easy one to figure out: I’d typed the name of
the gallery into Google Maps.

I don't see how the author makes the connection here.

How does searching for an art gallery on Google Maps translate into spam
emails? Is he accusing Google of selling your email address and search
information to spammers?

~~~
unshift
Google runs display ads, which are bid on by third parties who can use that
data to target emails.

~~~
stvswn
So your hypothesis is that Google took the knowledge of the search query and
attached some sort of indicator that the user was interested in AA onto the
user's personal data (in violation of its own policies for interest-based
advertising on sensitive topics). Then, it mapped that user to a cookie (in
violation of its own policy towards cookie-user matching). Then it gave a list
of cookies associated with alcohol rehab to a 3rd party (also not how any
Google systems work, this would be in violation of many internal policies).
Then, someone was able to match cookies to email addresses (available,
unfortunately, in the shadier black markets of the marketing world, but
totally in violation of Google remarketing standards such that the 3rd party
would be likely barred, if caught, from all Google systems). Then, the spammer
bought the email addresses and sent the emails.

Alternate theory: someone at AA sold an email list to a shady marketer.

~~~
flashman
You're misremembering the article. The spam emails were claimed to be because
of a Google Maps search. The AA link was because an app on the phone (probably
Facebook) was mining the address book.

------
thaumaturgy
Paranoia is a specific thing. It requires irrational, unjustifiable fears and
a sense of blame or persecution. You're not "paranoid" if you've changed your
behavior in the wake of the Snowden documents or if you're cautious regarding
the amount of information you share with third party services and devices.

I'm not being pedantic, I've seen a lot of arguments recently from actual
paranoid conspiracy theorists that feel smug in the wake of Snowden. I'd hate
to see people start to confuse real paranoia with informed caution.

~~~
damosneeze
Good point. But the author probably didn't choose the title. I hear they
rarely do at large publications.

~~~
dfc
Good point but...? I don't understand the point of your comment. If the
editors at the large publication chose the title does that assuage some of
GP's concern that people will "start to confuse real paranoia with informed
caution"? If the editors did chose the title AND the author used the term
paranoia five times in the article how does that change GP's concern that
people will start to confuse real paranoia with informed caution?

------
radiorental
Somewhat ironic and paradoxical
[http://imgur.com/Z2BIMcw](http://imgur.com/Z2BIMcw)

~~~
ljk
And all the tracking cookies -
[http://s13.postimg.org/64047bamv/track.png](http://s13.postimg.org/64047bamv/track.png)

~~~
task_queue
There are better options than to use Ghostery for the same reasons you don't
want a private company having a say in your privacy ;)

~~~
razster
Don't forget Privacy Badger

------
mfoy_
Think of how many apps you've installed which request permission to a whole
laundry list of phone functions.

"Oh, it's reasonable that this app wants access to my text messages, that way
when it sends me a confirmation code it can automatically read it."

"Oh, it's reasonable that this app wants access to my mic, maybe it will
implement voice chat in a coming update."

"Oh, it's reasonable that this app wants access to my call history and
whatnot, that way it can mute itself or pause itself when I get a phone call."

... oh, I guess it's reasonable that if I text, or talk with my phone nearby,
about walnuts I'll start seeing targeted ads for walnuts.

~~~
0xffff2
Really? There's no way I would install any of those theoretical apps. Hell, I
probably wouldn't install any app that requires mic permissions period.

~~~
mercora
One feature i really like about cyanogenmod is the ability to revoke most
privacy related permissions or deploy a dialog when accessed, asking for
permission on a case by case basis.

I think it should have been that way from the beginning forcing app developers
to handle cases where some permissions aren't granted. It makes for much
better visibility when some data is used and to some degree for what.

~~~
stvswn
The next version of Android ("M") does this.

~~~
ionised
From what I have read so far the new Android M permissions system is still
lacking a lot compared to CyanogenMod's Privacy Guard implementation.

------
TeMPOraL
> _Had merely typing seduction into a search engine marked me as a rascal? Or
> was the formula more sophisticated? Could it be that my online choices in
> recent weeks—the travel guide to Berlin that I’d perused, the Porsche
> convertible I’d priced, the old girlfriend to whom I’d sent a virtual
> birthday card—indicated longings and frustrations that I was too deep in
> denial to acknowledge?_

While a lot of those examples are true instances of tracking and inference, in
some cases I think author is imagining things. People have a scary capability
to see patterns and intelligent agents where none exists. It's incredibly easy
to cause this.

I'm running a simple IRC bot that "pretends to be human" by means of hand-
tailored regular expressions matching input and some witty responses. I can't
count the times I tricked people into believing they were talking to human.
It's like, write out some simple regexes and you're 90% way to passing a
Turing test. People prime and then fool themselves.

So yeah, I'm betting those results in the part I quoted were caused just by
"seduction techniques" search. And if he _clicked_ on that Ashley Madison
banner, he basically sealed his fate.

~~~
nommm-nommm
The classic story is how Target figures out when women are pregnant by their
buying habits. I honestly don't know how true it is but it gets repeated quite
often. Sounds fishy to me.
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-
targe...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-
figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/)

~~~
TeMPOraL
That actually sounds perfectly realistic to me. Those are results you expect
to have if you did your job right (knowing the girl was pregnant, not pissing
off her father in the process).

~~~
nommm-nommm
The fishy part is where the dad goes to Target and demands and apology. I also
was unaware that Target sent out targeted coupons.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yeah, that is probably the least plausible part of the story, but then again,
not everyone is a technology-conscious person. My SO used to deal with
"general population" on the phone and after hearing weird stories almost every
day, I stopped being surprised about people anymore.

~~~
tim333
There's a discussion of why the story seems iffy here
[http://www.kdnuggets.com/2014/05/target-predict-teen-
pregnan...](http://www.kdnuggets.com/2014/05/target-predict-teen-pregnancy-
inside-story.html)

------
cubano
Reminds me of poster I saw in dude's house way way back in my stoner days...

"I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?"

~~~
Nadya
I like that quote... thanks for sharing. I've also followed that vein of
thought since the Snowden leaks.

I was aware of government surveillance before the Snowden leaks. I was always
considered a "crazy conspiracy theorist". I didn't have concrete proof, but
strong evidence. Looking back, I find it was odd that I was really dismissive
of the FBI Spy Planes [0] that I had occasionally heard about. They seemed
inefficient and far-fetched and I considered _those_ people to be crazy
conspiracy theorists. Woops.

After the Snowden leaks, I stopped being so dismissive of conspiracy
theorists. I don't necessarily take them very seriously or believe them - but
I don't treat them like they are claiming leprechauns exist. Unless there's a
more reasonable or scientific explanation available, such as with
"chemtrails". I'm still readily dismissive of that theory... just normal
contrails.

[0] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/02/fbi-surveillance-
fl...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/02/fbi-surveillance-
flights_n_7490396.html)

------
hyperion2010
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y
trouverai de quoi le faire pendre. \--Cardinal Richelieu

~~~
esnard
English translation for people who don't understand French:

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I
will find something in them which will hang him."

~~~
TeMPOraL
Which suggests that it's not the surveillance that's the problem, it's that if
the decisionmaker is an idiot, there's nothing that can save you (yes, killing
people because of politics is total, counterproductive idiocy, even if it
doesn't seem as it from within the system).

EDIT: seriously. This quote most definitely doesn't mean people should stop
writing out of fear of execution.

~~~
maxerickson
It's frustrating how many people are preparing to carefully live in hell,
rather than working to head the whole thing off.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I don't know. I'm still not convinced that what most here would consider
"heading the whole thing off" would really result in a better world. If, on
the other hand, instead of playing around with surveillance we embraced the
lack of (expectation of) privacy altogether, went with in full-steam, we could
probably get used to it and move forward as a society, reaping the benefits of
society-level data analysis.

I'm not sure about this, but I haven't heard that many serious arguments
against to offset the potential benefits. I think we either have to go all-in
or all-out; hesitation and aiming for middle ground will give too much power
to wrong actors while leaving the society powerless.

------
xkiwi
It is scary for me to know:

#Majority of people post photo of friends on Facebook without understand
facial recognition always scans.

#Prefer convenient over privacy, such as Toll Tag on cars.

#Follow trends.

~~~
linkregister
Do you think that paying in cash at the toll booth is any more private? A
photo of your license plate is taken at cash toll booths (Northeastern
corridor E-ZPass and California Fastrak).

If someone keeps their Twitter handle disambiguated from their personal life,
is there a reason why they can't #followallthehashtags?

~~~
xkiwi
It is more than that.

most traffic condition on map rely on Toll Tag to measure travel time and
speed between points, on normal highway.

Unless you have a detachable tag, otherwise your tag ID will appear on every
single major interception, with time, speed between blocks. Most of Tag will
ship to your house, and/or auto fill by credit card once the balance is low.

People probably imagine they will be erased after few years, but $sudo
happeneds.

[http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/08/17/1412811/-AT-T-
and-N...](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/08/17/1412811/-AT-T-and-NSA-
besties-since-1985-in-warrantless-surveillance)

~~~
privong
> Unless you have a detachable tag, otherwise your tag ID will appear on every
> single major interception, with time, speed between blocks. Most of Tag will
> ship to your house, and/or auto fill by credit card once the balance is low.

In principle there's no reason the same thing couldn't happen with license
plate readers in all but the most dense of traffic. The tags likely make it
easier, but with plate-reader technology it should still be possible to do
just using license plates.

------
cardamomo
I really enjoyed reading this piece, not only for its discussion of privacy,
but also for its poetic and reflective language. There's something more than
technical about today's surveillance problem, and the author approaches this
issue from a philosophical and, at times, almost spiritual angle.

These are the kinds of discussions we need to have more often: not only what's
going on and what it means in practical terms, but also how today's
surveillance explosion changes who we are and how we relate to ourselves.

------
mattmanser
If you are a sci-fi fan, an interesting new trilogy to read is the Imperial
Radch trilogy by Anne Leckie starting with Ancillary Justice.

One of the interesting themes is that everyone is surveilled totally and
intimately down to even their feelings, but it's not the point of the book and
the protagonist treats it as totally normal and it's never really discussed
nor is there any suggestion it would be better if that wasn't the case.

I really enjoyed the trilogy but as someone who's pro-privacy it was a strange
read.

~~~
TeMPOraL
In Jacek Dukaj's "Black Oceans", the portrayed world also has surveillance
everywhere that is treated as normal. Moreover, it serves an important social
function there - it facilitates insurance claims. If anything happens and it
was registered on cameras, victims are determined and reimbursed properly.
Conversely, you can opt out of the surveillance and e.g. have a camera-free
zone in your home or conduct your meetings in such - but by doing so, you
forefit the right to get insurance if anything happens to you while you're
outside monitoring range.

------
msutherl
I still don't quite comprehend why people feel _personally_ bothered by such
things. Yes, it is better for society to have safeguards in place to prevent
certain kinds of surveillance as a check on governmental and corporate power –
and we need to fight for this – but some data about you stored on some
servers, a targeted advertisement? What exactly is the immediate personal
threat?

~~~
PavlovsCat
If the data exists, there is a way to get it, theoretically. We're so far from
a provably "secure" anything, that is, a complete chain, that until we have
that, why risk it? "Some servers" can be collated before you can say "fascist
takeover". And while this might seem like fear mongering, considering that the
"benefit" is advertising, well, I personally think even a slim risk for a
grave occurance outweighs that, and that advertisement in the way it's
employed most of the time is a problem we should solve, not "improve". Talking
about free markets with one side of the mouth, while constantly seeking to
badger and influence people is the same abomination as it was when it was
invented, no matter how used to it people get. Though personally, I'm for a
social solution: total boycott of those who advertise that way, turning ad-
block off to make black lists for shopping. I know it's a pipe dream, but it's
mine.

~~~
msutherl
I think this downplays the panoply of great things that advertising-based
business models have made possible, not to mention that actual function of
advertising in society. Why risk it? Because the risk is worth taking, unless
you'd like to dismantle all television networks, newspapers, magazines,
Google, Facebook, and put a huge dent in the earnings of every company that
gets a return on its advertising investment. Sounds like economic collapse to
me.

~~~
PavlovsCat
> not to mention that actual function of advertising in society.

Which is? Are you denying manipulation being an objective?

> unless you'd like to dismantle all television networks, newspapers,
> magazines, Google, Facebook, and put a huge dent in the earnings of every
> company that gets a return on its advertising investment

I said "advertisement in the way it's employed most of the time". Admittedly
this is vague, and I've have to think more about it to be precise, but I
didn't say "advertisting, period" on purpose, because I do acknowledge the
general idea to get honest information out to potential customers. But let's
not use that as a fig leaf.

Television, newspapers and magazines get destroyed and become destructive
anyway to the degree they are beholden to advertisers. It might reduce the
variety of products peddling the same things worded slightly differently, but
since there IS a demand for information and entertainment, the remaining ones
providing value might be able to live from, you know, getting paid for the
work they do by the people they do it for. Are you for example saying there
have been no newspapers in the US before 1840? (
[http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa/timeline/](http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa/timeline/)
)

And Google and Facebook are so new, my response is "maybe, so what?" You're
talking about a business model, not technology. Besides, I think the web
really needs to ponder some form of micropayments or subscriptions again,
either way. Advertisement allows the situation that there are readers for
something, but no advertisers. So in a way it's a middleman, that often enough
is as manipulative as it can get away with. It's not a sustainable situation
IMHO.

> put a huge dent in the earnings of every company that gets a return on its
> advertising investment

Again, so? If there is a "huge dent" across the board, it ends up as no dent
at all. And maybe it wouldn't be across the board, maybe it would be a huge
dent for those who live on manipulation of emotions, people identifying with
brands and so on, and a huge boon for those who make the better products...?
Who knows?

~~~
msutherl
> Again, so? If there is a "huge dent" across the board, it ends up as no dent
> at all.

The issue is that there's no way to have a huge dent across the board because
we now live in a global economy. Advertising-based businesses would have to be
dismantled globally. Frankly, I think this is unrealistic and not really worth
speculating about.

------
euske
Paranoid or not, we should develop a healthy skepticism about this in the
society. A scary thing to me is that most people don't know about the true
capability of information linking/correlating from multiple sources. It's not
intuitive for us that you can get seemingly innocuous data and combine them to
magically tell one's behavior. These kinds of threats should be systematically
studied and made consciously known to the public.

------
zbyte64
The part about voluntarily giving up confessions reminds me of something
similar during the Vietnam war. People would be grouped together and would
need to "confess" the allures of capitalism. You could only graduate from the
program once you procured enough drama to guarantee you were a comrade.

~~~
MagnumOpus
The Viet Cong learned from the one true master - these torture/coercion
methods are copied from Mao's "struggle sessions" where any successful
farmers/craftsmen and university graduates were publicly tortured in front of
the proletariat until they admitted to any and all crimes (and in a few
million cases they were killed anyway, pour encourager les autres).

------
Simulacra
Paranoia can be healthy sometimes

~~~
qwertyFish
This was not the seniment the community expressed yesterday to me...

~~~
throwaway459730
I remember your post. I don't think you have any mental health issues, I mean
long-standing ones. Your comments recently as well as your original post is in
some ways quite cogent. But as I replied to you in that thread (I don't
remember my throwaway pwd), the Reddit CO2 poisoning guy also sounded quite
fine. He wrote in quite a similar style as you, in the sense that there are no
stylistic clues, it sounded well-reasoned.

But you gave HN a _lot_ of information other than the hacking facts -
specifically, your exact adderal dosage, and also feeling ill physically.

I initialled replied by asking about who would have a motive to send you that
email - but after I saw the linked Reddit article about the CO2 poisoning guy,
I decided that it's probably more important for you to lower your adderall
usage and make sure you're not physically ill. I mean what are the downsides
to not taking so much adderal? None. People specifically pointed out the
effects that you describe matching the adderall dosage, and also I think what
you said about your family being concerned is a BIG clue. After all, I doubt
the author's family (of the Atlantic article in this thread) is concerned
about him for writing it (as a point of comparison). So what I mean is that
just because you believe you're being hacked doesn't mean you would tell your
whole family - their conern doesn't come from the facts, it comes from your
behavior. So that to me also said that it is likely that you should get the
primary things that might be causing this into check.

All that said, I found the facts you reported to be completely plausible. But,
like, so what? The matrix of reward/loss for you looks like this:

There are two questions: are you temporarily ill, and are you being hacked.
You now have two choices: explore your possible illness or ignore it. Here is
the reward table:

    
    
      Expl = explore possibility of illness
      
              Being hacked?
                       No                          Yes
      Ill?  No  [ Expl.: -30 Ignore: 0      ] [Expl: -30 Ignore: 0]
            Yes [ Expl.: -30 Ignore: -10000 ] [Expl: -30 Ignore: -10000]
     

If the above boxes are taken in this order: 1 2 3 4

1: You're not being hacked and not ill. Simply mistaken. In this case,
exploring illness will take you time and trouble, denoted by -30. If you
ignore the possibility of illness (and the possibility of being hacked) you
suffer no consequences.

2: In this case you ARE being hacked, and not ill. You're correct about
feeling like you're being hacked. In this case, exploring illness possibility
takes you the same -30. But if you ignore the possibility of illness, you
suffer no negative consequences, EVEN THOUGH you're actively being hacked.

3: This is what happened to C02 guy. He has permanent brain damage now. He was
NOT "being hacked" but was very seriously ill. In your story, this is a
possibility since you reported physical illness, since your family was worried
(even though if you wre genuinely being hacked you would have no reason to
share with them, since it would be obvoius to you that it would sound
paranoid), and you were taking huge adderal dosage. In addition, you could
have some genuine issue like CO2 poisoning - for example is there a fireplace
in the place you moved to? Is it ventilated. This is just one possibility,
there are many other illnesses you could have contracted in the recent past,
or external causes of your feeling.

4: The situation is EXACTLY THE SAME if you actually are under surveillance.
if you ignore and don't treat your illness, you are under the exact same
risks, even if at the same time your surveillance or being hacked is real. You
gain nothing from not exploring the possibility of illness.

Why do I put -10,000 into the illness box?

Because this is what Co2 guy reports (after reddit successfully diagnosed him
and his Co2 meter was off the charts): "Likely permanent damage. I can't work.
I get confused watching movies. I can't remember anything. I confuse my
reflection for a different person." [1] If he hadn't told reddit, today he
would very likely be dead.

What happenes if you're being hacked? Nothing. So given the barest glance at
the matrix above, it should seem completely obvious that you MUST explore
health-related possibilities while completely ignoring the possibility that
you're being hacked. You get no benefit from deciding this now, rather than
after you're feeling normal.

I very strongly advise you to follow up as everyone suggested!

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/3iycro/fl_i_am...](https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/3iycro/fl_i_am_being_harassed_by_an_leo_agency_please/cup3gyf?context=3)

------
shogun21
People are afraid of what they don't understand. If you just thought of the
cloud as a server somewhere instead of a mysterious "ghostly entity", you'd
know it's really not as smart as you think it is.

------
geggam
Amazes me that anyone familiar with data online thinks there aren't ways to
track and store everyone's internet usage.

------
graycat
In your Web browser, be careful what cookies you are willing to accept.

------
em3rgent0rdr
20+ trackers blocked by Privacy Badger while reading this article.

------
powera
Actually, this guy is paranoid and crazy. It doesn't mean he isn't right, but
by any definition he is both paranoid and crazy.

