These five words are, as far as I can tell, the poison in the pudding of American politics today.
1) There is no "average" American. Everyone is close to a median in some metrics, and everyone is at out-lier in others.
2) The fact that huge outcry over the NSA is not visible might just mean we're looking in the wrong places. I've traveled across the country by land twice in two years, stopping at hundreds of rural campfires and urban watering holes. My experience is that people are very upset with the state and want their rights back. And that, one way or another, they'll get 'em.
I think @tyre's point was dead on. It's one thing to hem and haw about civilization being doomed, but it's another thing altogether to delete your FB account.
Thing is, as an industry nerd i understand implicitly what FB are doing with their services, and yet i still use the messenger app to keep in contact with some of my friends.
Ultimately I'm relatively comfortable trading some measure of my privacy for convenient communication with people whose friendship i value and might otherwise struggle to keep in touch with.
If I'd purchased myself a physical good, regardless of it being a sex toy, I'm not sure i would necessarily expect to be entering into the same agreement.
My fridge phones home, but my kettle doesn't, my TV is a CIA outpost, but my wallet is just made of cows and Faraday cages. Granted the app connectivity would be a red flag, but ultimately there needs to be some kind of 'privacy mark' in the same way films carry a cert to allow us all to instantly understand what using it will entail.
For me that is the key difference here, and something that needs to change.
The problem with discussions about "trading privacy" is the tendency to think only about known, temporally local risks. The actual risk from surveillance from the current "smart"-device manufacturer today or in the near future is probably low.
We are used to information deteriorating over time, and the non-zero cost of distribution and analysis limiting how far information about you could spread. Our heuristics that estimate risk are not prepared to evaluate risks that extend indefinitely into the future.
You say your are comfortable trading (some) privacy. Are you prepared for that data being sold/hacked/subpoenaed after 20 years? Are you sure you're comfortable with future machine learning tricks and other advanced analysis techniques reconstructing a detailed patter-of-life from several decades of data?
The worst ways to abuse all this surveillance data probably hasn't been discovered yet. Nobody should be comfortable trading away their privacy, because we don't even know the risks. We only know that risk only increases with time.
A "privacy mark" doesn't help (much). Instead, what we need is an education campaign similar to anti-smoking efforts that attempt to realign the common wildly inaccurate perceived risks to be a closer match to the actual risks.
Completely agree with your diagnosis. As for the prognosis, social policy may be a good idea, but it is not what HackerNews readers are best positioned to facilitate. Rather, we should be implementing technologies to faciltate the increase of entropy in information actually and unavoidably collected. Plausible deniability will be the best safety net against future risks unknown.
If my dildo is publicly known to have reported its use whilst I was also known to have been watching Trump's Presidential Address (don't ask!), I would have an out in that all such data has long been known to have been poisoned. Spam is our friend.
I like the idea of a privacy classification system, along the lines of movies or video games. With at least some public focus on privacy, perhaps this is the time to create an industry standard?
I've been wishing for something more along the lines of open source licenses. GPL might be a complicated contract but once you know it, all you need is 3 letters to describe it. You've still got the option to write up your Special Snowflake 1.0 license, but most products won't need that or want it, so a few common contracts emerge and then we don't all need to skim pages of legalese (subject to change at whim) every time we visit a new website.
A standard could certainly contribute to informed consent by the people who purchase/use devices. It's a complex concept to summarise and distill into iconography though.
> ultimately there needs to be some kind of 'privacy mark' in the same way films carry a cert to allow us all to instantly understand what using it will entail.
That was the direction we were wanting to go with the Private Play Accord mentioned at the end of our DEF CON presentation: http://www.privateplayaccord.com/
We got as far as drafting an initial star-based grading system but turns out writing code is easier... :)
Is a log of ip addresses and times that your smart toaster was used acceptable?
What if said smart toaster really needs to contact a server to decide exactly how long to heat the toast for?
It's difficult to have an internet-connected widget with an App that doesn't generate some kind of information in logs somewhere.
I agree with you but I think it's something that needs laws around it, and unfortunately can't be simplified down to your one sentence solution.
Unfortunately with the apathy of the general population and the flat-out corruption of our own untrustworthy governments, I think those laws are unlikely to materialize.
Yes, there is some information that can be collected, for example, in server logs. But does the company need to keep those logs forever? And does it need to collect it all?
But the problem is not only in the IP addresses. Companies just want to save everything they can collect. Remember Amazon Echo that was storing everything said to the device on the server. And almost every mobile app now has Google Analytics or similar system inside.
It is obvious that companies do this for profit because the information could have some commercial value and could be sold later or used for marketing purposes. But the users want the device just to serve its purpose and not to be a modern implementation of a telescreen.
I think this problem can be only solved by government regulation too.
So for example a store owner that has a CCTV system would not be allowed to keep the records forever or recognize faces on the video and sell this information to marketers. A security system should serve just its purpose.
> It's difficult to have an internet-connected widget with an App that doesn't generate some kind of information in logs somewhere.
The server can be run on the phone or user's computer or router. Why should the data from the toaster travel across the world?
> Yes, there is some information that can be collected, for example, in server logs. But does the company need to keep those logs forever? And does it need to collect it all?
No, but companies will continue to do it if there is no cost and no consequences, which is the current state.
> The server can be run on the phone or user's computer or router. Why should the data from the toaster travel across the world?
Exactly. But people should be given the information to be able to make that decision.
Either mandatory rules on what any IoT appliance is allowed to send and rules on how much of and for how long that information will be stored, or a system that will reasonably allow consumers to make the decision between devices.
But nothing will happen if the consumers continue to not care and buy toasters that send your toasting information back to China.
I think the delusion you have fallen victim to here is that it all boils down to your personal choices. The issue is not whether--for you personally in the market--it makes sense to delete your facebook. The important point that outrages people rightly is that the system has evolved in such a way that the choice is not a reasonable one to have to make (between friends and privacy).
We need policy changes that separate the choice to have privacy from state/corporate knowledge of our intimate lives from the choice to make connections with friends, advertise, reach out to the world, etc. The market as it currently exists is not an adequate mechanism to achieve these changes.
The business model of people-farming and super-stasi state spying is the polar opposite of the utopian promises made by many in this industry at the emergence of the internet, and there need to be concrete proposals to stop it from every arena, because there will certainly be far more dire consequences as it evolves if it isn't checked in a comprehensive, thoughtful way.
Deleting your FB account actually is a lot easier than most people imagine. Instead of spending my idle time [1] on stupid online arguments, I can do all sorts of fun and productive stuff.
Migrating away from GMail or Google search? Now that's something I don't think I can pull off. I tried switching to DDG several times and I could never stick with it. It's the Linux desktop of search engines.
That's how you use FB. I avoid arguments there (though inevitably I get into one once in a while) but it's a hugely important social outlet for me. I've got a lot of wholly virtual relationships that go back years, and trying to organize them into other channels would be a major headache. I know quite a few of my other friends on other platforms/forums, but the very generality of FB (vs the extreme siloing of most websites) is an asset despite its many flaws.
See I'm the exact opposite. Outlook.com and DuckDuckGo are working just fine for me, but when my friends are having a get-together, it's an event on Facebook. When my sister takes pictures of my niece, they're on Facebook.
I instituted a personal policy a long while back of never friending someone on Facebook that I don't know more than casually in real life. That means my friends list is limited to actual, real friends (and coworkers), and there's a distinct lack of stupid online arguments.
Everything is relative, but to me, throwing that phone to thrash bin and buying a rootable/non-fb-craplet-pre-installed phone instead does not sound overtly complicated.
> My experience is that people are very upset with the state and want their rights back.
It's easy to _say_ you're upset about something. It's another thing to take action or even vote (with the ballot, your feet or your wallet). How many people out there who will say they are vaguely "concerned" about Company Xyz's service actually have an account at Company Xyz and use that service?!
How is one to vote when neither major party candidate was pro-privacy?
There are a number of pro-privacy representatives, and one or two senators, so it is not like people aren't votinig at all, but if you don't get a choice then you cannot be blamed for failing to make the choice.
Perhaps we should try to institute laws that break up parties if they get too big the same way we can break up corporations that are too big? Monopolies being bad an all.
It's not like the major parties woke up one day and put forth Clinton and Trump and told the plebs "vote one or the other". The US especially has a very extensive election process, with the party primaries and all, plus, there are also minor parties which do get votes. Is it really true that out of all the democratic and republican candidates at the primaries, and out of all the minor party candidates, none of them were pro-privacy? Or more likely, some of them were pro-privacy, but people voted for others because they don't see privacy as the be-all end-all of life issues.
I don't think the ~15% of people who are at poverty level care as much about privacy as they do about getting a better job or getting proper healthcare, for example. You'd have to form a pretty strong voting bloc just to offset those votes.
I'm torn on this issue.
If they have limited terms, then they can't play long-term political games and that seems like it should simplify the system.
But it also means that at the end of the last term they could more easily disregard their constituents in favor of some last minute lobbying-endorsed legislature.
> How is one to vote when neither major party candidate was pro-privacy?
You vote 3rd party for someone who is and bitch at whichever major candidate wins regardless (which is why they resort to form letters, so at this point its newspaper outlets/townhalls/etc).
Democracy doesn't end at the voting booth and you have to put continual, sustained effort to create change. Look at the GOP running and hiding from their townhalls over Healthcare. Imagine if that was for privacy-related issues (or whatever). Sure, it may not work with the GOP but the Democrats might seriously consider adopting it to try to split voters away from the GOP.
If anything, being involved with Company XYZ correlates positively with (paying lip service to) being concerned about its policies. Example, I quit Facebook so I stopped caring about their privacy violations, but I'm still attached to Google so I still am "concerned" about theirs.
> These five words are, as far as I can tell, the poison in the pudding of American politics today.
> 2) The fact that huge outcry over the NSA is not visible might just mean we're looking in the wrong places. I've traveled across the country by land twice in two years, stopping at hundreds of rural campfires and urban watering holes. My experience is that people are very upset with the state and want their rights back. And that, one way or another, they'll get 'em.
If they genuinely wanted to be alone, in substantial numbers, they wouldn't be voting for either major party in the US which are both "big government" parties.
I understand its a popular meme and thing to bitch about. The reality of people's actions, the degree of effort they expend in that direction, and so forth sends a completely different message.
Actions speak far louder than words.
Now, you can argue those aren't "their" actions but if you do so you are conceding the OP's point that the problem is ignorance.
To be honest, I think its a combination of those things. Some people "care" but not more than they care about enforcing a certain social conservative world view. Some people simply do not have the time/energy for politics and simply believe the words that politicians say.
Let me know when those people delete their FB accounts and stop using most of Google's services.
> If they genuinely wanted to be alone, in substantial numbers, they wouldn't be voting for either major party in the US which are both "big government" parties.
Sure they would, so long as they are trying to have their vote directly effect a change. Outside of "sending a message that I support someone else," the logical voter must consider that their vote will only change an outcome if there's a tie between candidates, and it's usually obvious which two candidates that tie will be between. Such a voter will need, then, to choose the candidate between those two that they would prefer, even if they hate them both. To do otherwise may help send a message, may help them feel that they are uncompromising in their moral fortitude, or may feel good, but their actual vote will not matter.
That's one of the reasons that ranked voting systems are so nice. It allows you to say "I prefer X to Y if it comes down to that, but I much prefer N,A,D, and Q over them both."
> Sure they would, so long as they are trying to have their vote directly effect a change. Outside of "sending a message that I support someone else," the logical voter must consider that their vote will only change an outcome if there's a tie between candidates, and it's usually obvious which two candidates that tie will be between. Such a voter will need, then, to choose the candidate between those two that they would prefer, even if they hate them both. To do otherwise may help send a message, may help them feel that they are uncompromising in their moral fortitude, or may feel good, but their actual vote will not matter.
That logic presumes that A over B results in government getting less involved in people's lives which is what the person I was responding to argued.
If you are genuinely voting on that issue as your primary and core issue, "sending a message" even if it renders your vote otherwise worthless is the only option that has the slightest chance of success. Voting for A or B (as both do nothing in relationship to your single issue) will always ultimately bring about failure.
I guess what I'm trying to say is if people never stand on principle, the principle isn't relevant and is not a genuine want but rather a trivial wish of no real impact. I can also wish to win the lottery or to become a millionaire through an inheritance too. It doesn't mean its a genuine desire I take action on.
"rural campfires and urban watering holes" lol...I too have had similar experience. Basically it boils down to the media severely downplaying it and avoiding the topic. Because that's what the powers that be tell them to do. The same way US Intelligence was able to tell them, "look Russia without a doubt did it [the DNC hack]" and they repeated that without question and without proof ad nauseum, the media by and large does what they're told. It's ultimately a recipe for the sort of revolutions that took over Russia 100 years ago. People in those watering holes are getting fed up and have no outlet and feel like nobody is listening to them--cuz nobody is listening to them.
Also, older generations are less concerned. They understand technology less, so my assessment is they kinda throw in the towel. Maybe 10-20 more years of those 20-30 year olds at those watering holes and we'll be the majority of the country--at that point they'll have no choice but to hear us, because we'll be working at and running those media companies, congress as well. That's my hope. Otherwise, it means violent revolution. The state can't be trusted anymore.
My experience is that people are very upset with the state and want their rights back. And that, one way or another, they'll get 'em.
I think that's likely true with a huge segment of Americans, but the definition of "the state" probably varies widely. For example, there are folks that want municipal police powers curtailed and the EPA unleashed, while other folks want the opposite.
I don't think the definition of the state is what varies as much as the circumstances of the person who wants their "rights back".
As an example:
In rural America restriction on gun ownership are pure crazy talk, a gun is a tool just like a shovel. You keep varmint off your land, scare bobcats away from the sheep, and keep your home safe because the police are 30 minutes away.
If someone in NY is carrying a gun it's a huge liability to the people that are in close proximity to that person. There are also police and emergency services very nearby.
In rural America your house can burn down before the fire department arrives. Gravel roads aren't a problem. Largely what you do on your land doesn't have any affect on anyone else. Nobody should be able to tell you what you can flush into your own septic system.
In a dense city what you flush down the toilet can cause big problems for other people. Well maintained roads and an understanding that you should walk on the left and stand on the right contribute to sense that your actions affect others and what they do affect you.
I don't see enough respect for how rightfully different the perspectives of people are.
> For example, there are folks that want municipal police powers curtailed and the EPA unleashed, while other folks want the opposite.
Curtail them both. I'm building a barn, not a running an open pit mine. A federal agency shouldn't have a say in what kind of barn I build for my own personal use on my own personal property.
> These five words are, as far as I can tell, the poison in the pudding of American politics today.
In the abstract, you're right, but I feel like it's worth noting that there's nothing exceptionally ignorant about voters of _today_. If anything they're more knowledgeable than any voters in American history.
> there's nothing exceptionally ignorant about voters of _today_
What makes you think that? It certainly doesn't seem true based on direct observation.
It seems to me that Americans today a lot more certain of various false things than they were during the 1970s, 80s, or 90s.
Not that people haven't always believed lots of incorrect things, but if we could (magically) get the data and find out, I'd be very surprised if it didn't show people believe more incorrect things today than in (say) the 1980s and they are more confident (sure they are right) in their wrong beliefs as well.
Of course, this is one of those very tricky subjects, and I am not aware of any high-quality data on it. So I could be wrong, my experience may not be representative, and maybe people were historically as ignorant as they are today. But I doubt it.
The "filter bubble" and the explosion of authoritative-looking-but-totally-full-of-shit sources are probably major contributors to the phenomenon.
Also, I think that the ratio of basically correct, informative information to garbage info has inverted. For example, IIRC in the 1970s and 1980s, seems to me people had maybe a dozen or two dozen regular news sources. Most news sources -- major newspapers, ABC/CBS/NBC news -- were mostly accurate.
That's certainly not the case today. The overwhelming majority of information most people intake is completely inaccurate or fabricated. It's not really "news", it's advertising, propaganda, for-profit clickbait, whatever. And yet, many people seem to have the same confidence in it and it seems to shape their beliefs in a similar way.
It feels like people know more things than in the old days, but if they know more incorrect things, then I think that's "more ignorant" when you tally it up.
If you read about "Yellow Journalism" and how newspapers were used to accomplish things rich people wanted to happen, you will realize that Americans, and humans in general, have been subject to mass manipulation via the media for centuries.
I do know about that, and find it interesting. And that stuff still goes on, of course, and likely always will.
But there's a lot of other stuff also going on today. It feels more organic, rather than intentionally directed, but I think the effects on the collective mind are still huge.
The clickbait articles that don't have any underlying motivation other than getting people to click on them (along with those that do). The web of people out there providing each other confirmation of truly nuts conspiracy theories, whether it be "the Sandy Hook massacre of children was a government hoax" or "thousands of children have gotten autism from the measles vaccine". Youtube comment threads.
There's no cohesive agenda behind a lot of this stuff, and no ultimate benefit achieved by any party. It's more like these things are memetic prions, folding onto each other and interacting in their unthinking inanimate way, having significant effects on the host but without any intention driving them.
> 1) There is no "average" American. Everyone is close to a median in some metrics, and everyone is at out-lier in others.
I've always read it as "average countryman in the relevant metrics" (here views on privacy/knowledge of implications of mass surveillance), rather than suggesting that there is an hypothetical average person who fits for all contexts. It's obviously flawed, but I don't think it's a useless concept.
Yet, when John Oliver switched to Dick Pic program, almost everyone who previously didnt get the risk suddenly got the risk. My own experiences talking to hundreds of them about the topic confirms that. Many dont get it. You have to give specific examples they can understand before they start opposing it. Even smart, non-IT folks were like that in many cases.
These five words are, as far as I can tell, the poison in the pudding of American politics today.
1) There is no "average" American. Everyone is close to a median in some metrics, and everyone is at out-lier in others.
2) The fact that huge outcry over the NSA is not visible might just mean we're looking in the wrong places. I've traveled across the country by land twice in two years, stopping at hundreds of rural campfires and urban watering holes. My experience is that people are very upset with the state and want their rights back. And that, one way or another, they'll get 'em.