
Berners-Lee: WWW is spy net - gustavson
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/10/bernerslee_warns_of_spying
======
_Understated_
I don't have a problem with Google, Facebook and Twitter dominating the web as
such because I don't have any accounts with them: They are commercial entities
filling a need. Capitalism at work I suppose.

We all have a choice not to use them and I think this is the point he's
missing (or the article is omitting). The opening paragraph should be
"Inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has warned that the
internet has become the "world's largest surveillance network for those that
use Twitter, Facebook and Google".

I have had lengthy conversations with my family and friends about Facebook and
Google and what they do with your information and the majority shrug and say
either "I'm not bothered" or "They would get bored looking at my stuff". I
don't bring it up with anyone anymore.

I feel that something monumentally bad will happen in the future related to
the information these companies have amassed, something epically bad and the
public will (perhaps) say "Enough is enough" but it will be too late... just
my $0.02

~~~
athenot
Do you really have a choice to not use them? If so:

\- You must not use android and have Google know your location for traffic
purposes (and other ad-related data-mining)

\- You must ensure all your friends never post pictures of you on FB,
preventing them from building a profile about you by association

\- You must block every single ad that originates from the Google ad network
(and which is eager to learn your browsing habits)

\- You must never fly on an airline belonging to Star Alliance, as Google
bought ITA Software (formerly known as Sabre) to get a hold of all the airline
reservations done for those airlines

\- You must never send an email to someone with a Gmail address

This is a case where choosing to not use Google is a bit more complicated than
choosing to not drink Coke.

~~~
bizarref00l
> \- You must never send an email to someone with a Gmail address

You can be sending to gmail without knowing. Many business use gmail
enterprise. I've been told that their EULA states no mining on private data,
but that's very hard to believe.

~~~
vollmond
Even my personal email goes to a GApps account, grandfathered from when it was
free for individuals.

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kinofcain
The NYT article from a few days ago has much more context:
[http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/technology/the-webs-
cre...](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/technology/the-webs-creator-
looks-to-reinvent-it.html)

Original discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11859395](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11859395)

------
infodroid
Berners-Lee said:

> "The web is already decentralized... We don't have a technology problem; we
> have a social problem."

I am not sure I follow. Surely censorship and mass surveillance are
facilitated by the hierarchical topology of the internet and the reliance on
central authorities like IANA for key resources. This does not look like a
social problem to me. Maybe a political problem, yes.

~~~
rodionos
My interpretation is as follows. Despite the distributed nature of the
Internet, the society at large seems to promote centralized services on top of
it. One gov't, one legal system, one language, one search engine etc.
Something in the nature of people motivates this type of organization.

~~~
scholia
See: Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality by Clay Shirky (February 8, 2003)
[http://www.shirky.com/writings/herecomeseverybody/powerlaw_w...](http://www.shirky.com/writings/herecomeseverybody/powerlaw_weblog.html)

"In systems where many people are free to choose between many options, a small
subset of the whole will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or
attention, or income), even if no members of the system actively work towards
such an outcome. This has nothing to do with moral weakness, selling out, or
any other psychological explanation. The very act of choosing, spread widely
enough and freely enough, creates a power law distribution."

For a much bigger look at similar effects, see Critical Mass by Philip Ball
[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Critical-Mass-Thing-Leads-
Another/d...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Critical-Mass-Thing-Leads-
Another/dp/0099457865)

------
oliveoil
am I naive to think we all would get spied on a lot less if we cleared our
browser cookies every couple of hours or at least daily?

~~~
Sylos
Clearing Cookies is definitely a good start. Cookies take essentially no
effort on the trackers' part, so they are deployed a lot.

I personally usually just recommend installing the EFF's Privacy Badger [0],
which eats Cookies and blocks tracking scripts all in one, while almost never
breaking webpages, so while it's not perfect protection, it's a good
compromise for most people.

[0] [https://www.eff.org/privacybadger](https://www.eff.org/privacybadger)

------
ilaksh
[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=technopoly](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=technopoly)

Facebook CIA project: The Onion News Network
[https://youtu.be/cqggW08BWO0](https://youtu.be/cqggW08BWO0)

------
chris_wot
Oh, thanks Tim.

[http://boingboing.net/2013/10/04/firefox-bug-pledge-never-
to...](http://boingboing.net/2013/10/04/firefox-bug-pledge-never-to.html)

------
rdxm
this seems ilke a re-hash of Schneier's piece from 2013...

[http://us.cnn.com/2013/03/16/opinion/schneier-internet-
surve...](http://us.cnn.com/2013/03/16/opinion/schneier-internet-
surveillance/)

------
admax88q
This from the guy that helped push DRM for the Web.

~~~
nickjackson
No, this from the guy who helped found the web. In my book, that gives him the
right to say whatever he wants. DRM or not.

~~~
chris_wot
Well, he can say whatever he likes but just because he started the web doesn't
mean he gets to change it to a less open version of his original vision.

