

Everything the Internet Knows About Me (Because I Asked It To) - dannyv
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/12/22/everything-the-internet-knows-about-me-because-i-asked-it-to

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mickdj
If you are interested in life tracking, you might want to try out one of our
(Whereoscope, YC10) apps called DriveTime.

Passively monitors your location every 10 minutes, collates, and then lets you
view graphs etc. from within the app. Information is not shared with anyone -
it's designed purely for an individual user.

I realize this is a self-serving post, but thought it might be relevant. The
app just got dropped to $0.99.

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erreon
Any chance this will show up in the Android marketplace? Seems like it'd be
pretty neat to see that kind of data.

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adlep
It may come back to hunt the author down the road. I am not sure why anyone
would expose themselves like that in public. Reminds me a story of lifelock
service. CEO of lifelock exposed his SSN number to the public only to find it
used for fraudulent activities.

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maeon3
This data about all of us, what we are doing, where we go, who we date, what
cars we drive, etc is going to become publicly available eventually. There are
going to be tons of companies who _really_ want that data.

If we don't make a system where that data can be bought and sold based on the
preferences of the person being data mined, then privacy will be blown out the
window in just 30 years. There will be no reason to introduce yourself to
people, all they have to do is access your logs.

~~~
EwanG
Of course in David Brin's novel Earth (published in 1990 believe it or not),
he shows a world we seem to rapidly be approaching - where privacy and secrecy
are considered to be somewhat evil. Looking at the growth of Facebook and
other sites where stuff that 20 years ago no one would want you to know about
them is now considered great material for your "Wall", I have to wonder if the
solution to the privacy problem will turn out to be no one caring? If you look
at it, a lot of the privacy issue comes down to asynchronous knowledge - i.e.
what you know about me that I don't know about you. If we make sure we can
know virtually everything about everyone, is privacy still a problem?

~~~
veb
Then again, does anybody really have _any_ privacy these days, compared with
50 years ago?

All it takes is one person who knows what they're doing to find out a -LOT-
about you.

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gommm
Then again, did people really have privacy when living in small villages in
the countryside where everybody knew each other? I think the rise of privacy
came with the development of big urban areas...

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eagleal
There is an old Albanian movie called _14 vjeç dhëndër_ (14 years old groom)
which shows also the privacy keeping problems they had in small villages.

There are some secrets that everyone, even in a family, keeps. People can't
know if you don't tell them, but with the advent of the computerized era,
information escapes even if you don't tell it.

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veb
Information can only escape if you let it escape.

~~~
eagleal
I strongly disagree. There is information about you that you can't control:
such as friends that share photos of you; NSA, CIA, etc, data about you;
government records; etc.

The one I am concerned is not my friend sharing a photo, is the data
corporations and governments capture about me (with or without me knowing
about). It was said here also, if you can make an infringement of the law,
never know about it, and be held guilty by data you didn't even know to exist
(the example being the import of foreign cheese in the US, even for personal
use).

