I'm not sure if many people have experienced losing the "practical obscurity" this article talks about firsthand. Property records are public. So are WHOIS records. But it's unrealistic to manually search all the property records, phone books, WHOIS records to find someone you're looking for. However, some websites index these, and some search engines index those sites. I've had people contact me that I would prefer couldn't find me because my information was searchable due to a WHOIS record.
There are people out there slurping up all the information they can find in the public and attempting to connect it together. If you want to see what I mean, go check out your mylife.com profile. Mine has a big red warning because I have neighbors with court records. It says I "may" have sex offenses. What the actual fuck? This company needs to eat shit.
This isn't about people tracking you to give you better ads. Its about people tracking you to sell information to whoever wants to pay them. Its way fucking worse.
I think that website might have a goal of making money from people paying to remove the bad content. I've seen this for arrest record sites. If they can get high SEO for your name it could affect job/interviews, especially low level stuff.
I didn't know about this site, but checking myself out with it, its information is remarkably incorrect. Maybe that means I'm doing a good job of being a hermit? It claims I'm Christian (I was born into a Lutheran family, so that's an understandable mistake), am married (ha!) and maintain relationships with many people (ha), proceeding to list 5 people I've never heard of[0]. Salary is wrong, home value is wrong, and the only email address it lists is about 20 years out of date. Really no better than the other various people search pages I've seen, which also failed to impress. Hell it even does the fake "we're looking up all this full report information for you... please pay at the next window" thing that they do. If this were the best the corps could track me I would say we have nothing to worry about, but I doubt it is.
This can be entertaining. Much of my information is incorrect or pending. My sister's information is almost entirely wrong and does not note she has been dead for several years. It also says she "may" have sex offenses. My father's first and last name are correct, as is the age he was when he died. On the other hand, the date of his death is more than 20 years off and everyone "related" to him is wrong, other than myself.
And this is exactly what GDPR is meant to prevent. My registrar now provides free whois privacy, so people can't see what domains I own at a cursory glance. There are still a lot of (government) public records on me, but at least companies can no longer combine their own data with this and sell it to the highest bidder without my consent.
Yep. There I am. I put in an old address, and it found me at my current (new state). Job is way wrong. Relations are mostly correct with a few unrelated people.
But I didn't want to click. I'm paranoid about click-through. I just scrolled past. Nothing to see here. Who's this guy? Who cares... (>_<)
I continue to be amazed by the level of nearly complete indifference that the general populace still has towards privacy. I don't think the politicians are going to do much of consequence until their constituents think it is important. Those who understand the danger of what is happening should take every opportunity to help others become aware. Possibly the biggest challenge of this is how to avoid coming across as a total paranoid wacko.
That's because to the average person, the privacy fears of the average HNer make no sense. Even if something extremely bad might happen as a result of violations of my privacy, the chances seem fairly low. In that sense, it's no different than millions of other fears high-impact-low-chance fears that we happily go through life ignoring.
What's your most convincing argument for why an average person should care more? Explain it to me like I'm 5.
I agree that it's shocking to see how indifferent people are, but I think an even bigger issue is the detriment a lack of privacy might have for mental health. For a lot of people (myself included), there's a visceral repulsion to having other people know things about you that you didn't consent to sharing. It's even worse when there are multiple other entities profiting from that.
There's also the fact that so many people who have grown up posting anything and everything don't have an easy way to easily remove things that they've posted. While there's a lot of interesting stuff on the right to be forgotten in the EU, I think we're really lagging behind in the US. So far, only California is making some forward strides. [0]
the problem is that it is hard to figure out what to do about it.
i can't avoid public cameras.
should i run around with a full-face mask? (illegal in austria).
refuse to go outside? (not healty, and hardly possible for most without risking your job)
move to the countryside? (away from the crowd?)
seriously? what can the average person do against all this privacy invasion except for burying their head in the sand?
the only viable action is education. as you say, talk about the problem, spread awareness, until the majority of the population is better informed. and even that looks futile (though i believe it isn't) everything else is hopeless.
Here we have some of the brightest and most privacy-aware people in the world trying to come up with ways to convince family and friends that privacy is important. And still, I can't see a single compelling argument that would actually work or even make my friends and family think twice about it.
The only thing that will make politicians sit up and take notice of privacy issues is for them to experience first-hand what loss of control of their private data does to someone's life - identity theft, poor decisions or benign mistakes catching up with you/being re-interpretted, merciless judgment from others, relentless targeted advertising... Especially since politicians are notoriously cagey about their private lives, this sort of experience would be quite an eye-opener.
"I continue to be amazed by the level of nearly complete indifference that the general populace still has towards privacy."
Where should it fit on their list of concerns? Let's say the average person is struggling to fit their current life into their day, to add their aspirations and bucket lists. Then they have concerns or arguments about the political landscape or the climate or they're worried about job security. Or they're worried about immigration one way or another. Or about security of themselves and their property. About the future for their children. Personal health concerns. When are they going to have time to go through a seemingly distant issue which isn't impacting them right now and doesn't really have an analog in basic instincts?
> I don't think the politicians are going to do much of consequence until their constituents think it is important.
My fear is that most politicians don't often seem to do much about any given issue even what their constituents do think it is important. I would guess that when there isn't much campaign financing/donor money behind any particular issue, even if it has popular support, then most politicians feel relatively safe ignoring it.
Certainly some politicians care about average voters' issues. A long time ago, I worked for one who did. But most seem like they don't. Most seem like they care mainly about their own pet issues, or merely getting re-elected as many times as they can.
Or I am just getting more cynical as I get older. I guess that could be as well.
I totally agree. I think part of the problem is finding a specific case that applies to as many people as possible (a common denominator), but also elicits an extreme visceral reaction so that it easy to empathize with.
There was a comment that I read here on HN about privacy being something like "everyone knows what you do in the bathroom, but you still don't want anyone to see", but I can't find it using https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page... . Maybe it was reddit?
People are concerned. They just don't understand what's what. This is not an easy issue to grok.
A friend is writing a book about privacy, surveillance. I had done some policy work (voting, medical records). He solicited my input. I shared my conclusions. What I was saying didn't match his preconceived notions, so he blew me off.
Some time later, friend contacts me, apologizes.
Him: "You tried to tell me, I just didn't get it yet."
Me: "Yup. Me neither at first. This issue is an ass kicker."
today my wife did a search and found her info on a site called mylife<dot com>. She was seriously creeped out.
I did a little research into that site. I hope they scrape more data on everybody, so when the public finally becomes aware of it it'll finally bring some sane regulations to all this
"And until lawmakers, corporate leaders and citizens embrace obscurity and move to protect it, your freedom and opportunities to flourish will be in jeopardy."
True! Look no further than NYT's initiatives to collect and sell their readerbase's emotional engagement to their content.[0] From their very own publisher:
"People have little transparency into what is being gathered, where it’s being shared and how it’s being used — to follow their movements, to charge them more for health insurance or to manipulate them with political messages — and even less agency to do anything about it." Mr. Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times [1]
I don't mean to detract from the essay, but I'm pretty skeptical of NYT's "Privacy Project". NYT is the only publication that I read frequently that aggressively tries to prevent me from browsing in private mode with Firefox Focus and I wouldn't be surprised if they collect and sell the most reader information out of all major US publishers. I can only posit that though because they don't disclose any of that information. NYT's attempts at "data transparency"[1] are just excuses justifying the sale of reader information instead of answers regarding what information they collect, what information they sell, and who they sell this information to.
How long until NYT writers start facing pressure to produce stories that will maximize "emotional engagement", even if they're divisive and inflammatory? How long until emotional engagement is inadvertently used to discriminate against certain groups based on their reactions to controversial topics? These outcomes are an inevitability when profit motives are involved because humans are incapable of exercising restraint and saying "That's enough information, we don't need to collect any more or expand our current profit levels." NYT is repeating the same mistakes they're currently criticizing tech companies for and, as usual, the individual will suffer.
About the only way to get actual privacy is: individuals valuing privacy, individuals having the tools to protect their privacy, and states not actively removing those tools (which can mostly be prevented by protest and refusal).
This isn't I think this will happen. Every indication is that you won't see individuals caring about privacy. Every day the attitude that there's something insincere about not being online with your real name seems to get more traction, along with the belief that "sharing your life with your friends" can somehow now be compatible with privacy.
It's just that individual is about the only way this could happen. Because no institution wants to do more than protect your privacy from everyone else.
The business side of a big news organisation is slow and sprawling, and intentionally separated from the editorial side. It’s a good thing that editorial teams are willing to question and debate the ethics of common business practices even when that means criticising their own respective corp/product/tech departments. Progress has to start somewhere.
They are not “collecting” emotional reactions. Reading comprehension: they used a training set to predict emotions, and sell ads based solely on content.
Seisent, ChoicePoint, others were tracking everyone in North America by at least 2005, with partial coverage for Central America, South America, Caribbean. Just from public records, which at the time was ~1600 data feeds. Seisent's sales person told us the NSA bought one of their clusters and included their own data feeds (communications, transactions).
I assume by now multiple parties, both private and governmental, know everything about everyone, living and dead, in near real time.
And that's the reason we need the EU to make more laws like GDPR and the "right to be forgotten".
The US is controlled by big business, so there is no realistic hope that the US will make laws to protect our privacy from corporations, but the EU works for its citizens.
Data protection laws need to basically create this sort of ephemerality in collected data in that data is destroyed by law after a certain period of time. Outside of that we're a step away from a total surveillance state where everything that you do in any major city outside of your house is on record for eternity.
Here Louis Rossman talks about how all recordings that he has made using his Android phone's voice-to-text feature and Google recording all that audio for years and all of that is on record under his account.
So in terms of storage, if Google is storing that level of data. Then yeah we have the ability to store everything, forever. If that's what we as a society want to do.
I guess I'd argue that we as a society don't really want to do that, and if we as a society paid attention to privacy/security more then we'd force the companies doing this to stop. Or we'd force our government to pass laws that would stop it. But we as a society only have a limited number of hours in our day, and most of society just doesn't care enough to apply pressure where it would make changes. I think most people just don't see why it matters.
Future historians don't care about who was in line in the bakery this morning etc. Data that should legitimately be obscure is about personal/small scale everyday actions that could be identifying given a small sample. I'm the first one to fall into data hoarding, but we need to repeatedly acknowledge that most of the things we do are not worth being recorded, and actively not recording them (or making them easily accessible, standardized) does have a lot of value, in terms of social structure.
Now that privacy is gone, I'm surprised that we haven't seen this technology used to unfortunately tarnish people's reputations. I don't want to quite spell it out.
I fear that scandals could retroactively breakout: you're no longer safe from your past. Old public recordings could be used to frame nearly anyone in unfavorable light.
I really think at this point that it would be more effective for "privacy advocates" to switch gears. Trying to end the war on drugs, legalize prostitution, make the culture more permissive, etc. actually has a chance of succeeding while privacy has only been losing ground for decades at this point.
Miniaturized, cheap, low-power electronics and ubiquitous wireless Internet, plus modern image and audio process/recognition, are the end of it, really. It's over. War's lost as long as those exist, and good luck getting rid of them. Cell phones and giving all our data to 3rd parties who can track us without restriction are making it much worse, but the other tools are there, now. We built the ultimate totalitarian toolkit, and a massive disinformation machine that leaves us even less certain what's "grassroots" and what's enemy action than we ever have been.
We split the privacy atom and no non-proliferation treaty equivalent is anywhere near the Overton window, nor likely to be any time soon.
Online, at least. In meatspace, not so much. So you just gotta stay present to that fact that you're under observation at all times. Potentially, at least.
The author may know of a great deal of harm caused, but so far I remain about ten pole lengths away from panic over my privacy. My Life did not seem to have much, and I have found more on myself in the past by simply googling. Yeah, I don’t like how easy it is for people to see my mostly measly political donations, but only a stalker would give a darn about the facade of my home. Seems like it is more likely we need to fear identity theft than a lack of obscurity. Here’s an idea, if you want more privacy/obscurity, refrain from social media or using your real name in comments sections.
What all of us are witnessing and living through right now is data in its infancy. There is no one to nurture it and help it develop and grow. Only us - to learn as it grows. To change direction on its growth. I wish I would be alive when it truly becomes what it becomes. My grandkids will likely not even be alive. And I don’t have grandkids yet.
[+] [-] sbov|7 years ago|reply
There are people out there slurping up all the information they can find in the public and attempting to connect it together. If you want to see what I mean, go check out your mylife.com profile. Mine has a big red warning because I have neighbors with court records. It says I "may" have sex offenses. What the actual fuck? This company needs to eat shit.
This isn't about people tracking you to give you better ads. Its about people tracking you to sell information to whoever wants to pay them. Its way fucking worse.
[+] [-] dillondoyle|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AnIdiotOnTheNet|7 years ago|reply
[0] Turns out they're my neighbors.
[+] [-] 5555624|7 years ago|reply
This can be entertaining. Much of my information is incorrect or pending. My sister's information is almost entirely wrong and does not note she has been dead for several years. It also says she "may" have sex offenses. My father's first and last name are correct, as is the age he was when he died. On the other hand, the date of his death is more than 20 years off and everyone "related" to him is wrong, other than myself.
[+] [-] luc4sdreyer|7 years ago|reply
mylife.com has been down for at least a week according to https://www.isitdownrightnow.com/mylife.com.html
[+] [-] fyfy18|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xtiansimon|7 years ago|reply
But I didn't want to click. I'm paranoid about click-through. I just scrolled past. Nothing to see here. Who's this guy? Who cares... (>_<)
[+] [-] 1e-9|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] privacyELI5|7 years ago|reply
What's your most convincing argument for why an average person should care more? Explain it to me like I'm 5.
[+] [-] ivoallasap|7 years ago|reply
There's also the fact that so many people who have grown up posting anything and everything don't have an easy way to easily remove things that they've posted. While there's a lot of interesting stuff on the right to be forgotten in the EU, I think we're really lagging behind in the US. So far, only California is making some forward strides. [0]
[0] https://iapp.org/news/a/how-does-californias-erasure-law-sta...
[+] [-] em-bee|7 years ago|reply
i can't avoid public cameras.
should i run around with a full-face mask? (illegal in austria).
refuse to go outside? (not healty, and hardly possible for most without risking your job)
move to the countryside? (away from the crowd?)
seriously? what can the average person do against all this privacy invasion except for burying their head in the sand?
the only viable action is education. as you say, talk about the problem, spread awareness, until the majority of the population is better informed. and even that looks futile (though i believe it isn't) everything else is hopeless.
[+] [-] Kiro|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gargravarr|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tokyodude|7 years ago|reply
it worked for video rental history back in the 80s
[+] [-] prawn|7 years ago|reply
Where should it fit on their list of concerns? Let's say the average person is struggling to fit their current life into their day, to add their aspirations and bucket lists. Then they have concerns or arguments about the political landscape or the climate or they're worried about job security. Or they're worried about immigration one way or another. Or about security of themselves and their property. About the future for their children. Personal health concerns. When are they going to have time to go through a seemingly distant issue which isn't impacting them right now and doesn't really have an analog in basic instincts?
The apathy doesn't amaze me at all.
[+] [-] checkyoursudo|7 years ago|reply
My fear is that most politicians don't often seem to do much about any given issue even what their constituents do think it is important. I would guess that when there isn't much campaign financing/donor money behind any particular issue, even if it has popular support, then most politicians feel relatively safe ignoring it.
Certainly some politicians care about average voters' issues. A long time ago, I worked for one who did. But most seem like they don't. Most seem like they care mainly about their own pet issues, or merely getting re-elected as many times as they can.
Or I am just getting more cynical as I get older. I guess that could be as well.
[+] [-] tareqak|7 years ago|reply
There was a comment that I read here on HN about privacy being something like "everyone knows what you do in the bathroom, but you still don't want anyone to see", but I can't find it using https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page... . Maybe it was reddit?
[+] [-] specialist|7 years ago|reply
A friend is writing a book about privacy, surveillance. I had done some policy work (voting, medical records). He solicited my input. I shared my conclusions. What I was saying didn't match his preconceived notions, so he blew me off.
Some time later, friend contacts me, apologizes.
Him: "You tried to tell me, I just didn't get it yet."
Me: "Yup. Me neither at first. This issue is an ass kicker."
[+] [-] novaleaf|7 years ago|reply
I did a little research into that site. I hope they scrape more data on everybody, so when the public finally becomes aware of it it'll finally bring some sane regulations to all this
[+] [-] waffleguy|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] o10449366|7 years ago|reply
True! Look no further than NYT's initiatives to collect and sell their readerbase's emotional engagement to their content.[0] From their very own publisher:
"People have little transparency into what is being gathered, where it’s being shared and how it’s being used — to follow their movements, to charge them more for health insurance or to manipulate them with political messages — and even less agency to do anything about it." Mr. Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times [1]
I don't mean to detract from the essay, but I'm pretty skeptical of NYT's "Privacy Project". NYT is the only publication that I read frequently that aggressively tries to prevent me from browsing in private mode with Firefox Focus and I wouldn't be surprised if they collect and sell the most reader information out of all major US publishers. I can only posit that though because they don't disclose any of that information. NYT's attempts at "data transparency"[1] are just excuses justifying the sale of reader information instead of answers regarding what information they collect, what information they sell, and who they sell this information to.
How long until NYT writers start facing pressure to produce stories that will maximize "emotional engagement", even if they're divisive and inflammatory? How long until emotional engagement is inadvertently used to discriminate against certain groups based on their reactions to controversial topics? These outcomes are an inevitability when profit motives are involved because humans are incapable of exercising restraint and saying "That's enough information, we don't need to collect any more or expand our current profit levels." NYT is repeating the same mistakes they're currently criticizing tech companies for and, as usual, the individual will suffer.
[0] https://investors.nytco.com/press/press-releases/press-relea...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/opinion/sulzberger-new-yo...
[+] [-] joe_the_user|7 years ago|reply
About the only way to get actual privacy is: individuals valuing privacy, individuals having the tools to protect their privacy, and states not actively removing those tools (which can mostly be prevented by protest and refusal).
This isn't I think this will happen. Every indication is that you won't see individuals caring about privacy. Every day the attitude that there's something insincere about not being online with your real name seems to get more traction, along with the belief that "sharing your life with your friends" can somehow now be compatible with privacy.
It's just that individual is about the only way this could happen. Because no institution wants to do more than protect your privacy from everyone else.
[+] [-] consumer451|7 years ago|reply
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/opinion/data-privacy.html...
[+] [-] gubbrora|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] playpause|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matt4077|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tedunangst|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CapitalistCartr|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] specialist|7 years ago|reply
I assume by now multiple parties, both private and governmental, know everything about everyone, living and dead, in near real time.
[+] [-] petilon|7 years ago|reply
The US is controlled by big business, so there is no realistic hope that the US will make laws to protect our privacy from corporations, but the EU works for its citizens.
[+] [-] devoply|7 years ago|reply
Here Louis Rossman talks about how all recordings that he has made using his Android phone's voice-to-text feature and Google recording all that audio for years and all of that is on record under his account.
So in terms of storage, if Google is storing that level of data. Then yeah we have the ability to store everything, forever. If that's what we as a society want to do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vWAF13KigI
[+] [-] blakesterz|7 years ago|reply
I guess I'd argue that we as a society don't really want to do that, and if we as a society paid attention to privacy/security more then we'd force the companies doing this to stop. Or we'd force our government to pass laws that would stop it. But we as a society only have a limited number of hours in our day, and most of society just doesn't care enough to apply pressure where it would make changes. I think most people just don't see why it matters.
[+] [-] JKCalhoun|7 years ago|reply
And yet, legally speaking, does "a reasonable expectation of privacy" exist outside of your or someone else's home?
Just asking. I've been on the fence about this issue for years now.
[+] [-] jodrellblank|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sn41|7 years ago|reply
https://nader.org/2018/10/04/the-root-of-the-internets-disre...
Of course, other forms of surveillance, like rulers spying on their own citizens, are time-honoured cornerstones of civilisation. (/s)
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] tyscorp|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lapinot|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lilsoso|7 years ago|reply
I fear that scandals could retroactively breakout: you're no longer safe from your past. Old public recordings could be used to frame nearly anyone in unfavorable light.
[+] [-] jsnider3|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asark|7 years ago|reply
We split the privacy atom and no non-proliferation treaty equivalent is anywhere near the Overton window, nor likely to be any time soon.
Whoops.
[+] [-] HNLurker2|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mirimir|7 years ago|reply
Online, at least. In meatspace, not so much. So you just gotta stay present to that fact that you're under observation at all times. Potentially, at least.
[+] [-] KineticLensman|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnmapes89|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] GrryDucape|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FerosMorgen|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Wyndtroy2012|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] qrbLPHiKpiux|7 years ago|reply