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A Day In the Life of Privacy
wiredmikey writes "Here's an interesting read on the state of privacy and how technology, along with government and social media have changed the idea, and reality of privacy forever. The article takes the reader through a typical day, and highlights many of the privacy issues that we face, from our mobile phones, Internet at local coffee shops, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, all the way down to cars equipped with OnStar, public cameras, facial recognition technology and more. The author concludes everyday we make compromises in the face of Privacy, and none of us will ever have as much privacy as we want."
If social networks would just fall under the same laws as telecom companies, then those companies would simply be prohibited to inspect the messages that their users send around (even if their services are "free", and even if those messages are intended for a group of people instead of just one person a time).
Why aren't we just approaching the problem from this angle?
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
"My point is that everyday, all day, we make compromises in the face of privacy, and that, in reality, probably none of us have as much privacy as we want."
Speak for yourself. I have a satisfying, fulfilling life without giving away my privacy for no apparent reason. The author chooses to make those compromises. Not everybody needs a MegaPixel2000AndroidiPhone. Not everybody feels the need to announce their current location to the world. Not everybody chooses to contribute to the banks by using credit for trivial purchases. The guy's just another lemming.
I don't respond to AC's.
Even without the internet, you already have no privacy.
Everything you do in public with relation to transactions is recorded and inspected somewhere. (even if it is automatic)
Even non-transactions can be recorded, such as CCTV.
I remember a TV production was done about "disappearing" and there was someone who requested all the information held on him from pretty much every organization in existence.
Packs of pages, probably 2000+ pages in each.
Stuff from credit card purchases, dental records, hospital records, licences, so much stuff.
If you really, really want to vanish from society, learn how to live off the land and drop your whole life.
Maybe find a job in a random diner or bar, typically somewhere in the remote parts of town where you get cash by hand.
Ditch the vehicle, you are now a biker or walker.
Stay out of busy parts of towns since they almost always have CCTV somewhere. In fact, any main road sections.
Of course, I am speaking of a situation where you are completely paranoid and not just wanting to get away from all the tracking, ignore the camera parts if you wish, most data isn't even cared about that they spit out every second.
Your house is now a caravan / hotel / motel / rented apartment. Cash up front, no name required, if you want to stay away from banking of any sort.
No need to pay utilities either with this, that is a bonus.
Either that or be awesome and build a treehouse.
Best be in perfect health too. No medical (probably) and I believe that almost all medical institutions around the world require addressing information. I also believe that it is illegal to provide incorrect information.
Of course, if you are a rational individual and realize that this recording in almost all cases helps people, you'd be thankful that they are recording it.
Even if it is only indirectly, you are still helped by it. Be it advertising, payment history, or your dental health.
There are a minority of people on the internet who would happily pay for services if they were ad-free, I still have no idea why websites do not implement such premium services in to their websites.
They'd actually make a more money in most cases, probably more from advertising from that single person. Advertising is typically in the thousands of clicks/impressions for a relatively small amount.
Even a small amount such as $1-5, that'd be quite a bit of input to the company. All for additional services such as previews, betas, priority feedback, even decision making, mention on some random page, whatever. Why aren't they doing this?! It takes such a little amount of effort to implement through paypal or even directly through banks these days, such little effort for a potential larger income.
They'd also feel a little less paranoid since advertising seems to be hated these days by the types who tend to pay for sites as it is.
People were going crazy at the whole paywall to some news site I forgot about the other year I think it was. I believe it was a pretty great success, even though it lost them a considerable number of their readers.
It's a mad world out there.
And things are different now. It's mostly corporations who are tracking you, often in bulk, to sell you things. In other cases it's simply data that gets stored and sifted without human interaction.
In the past, if you lived in a small town (hell, if you do today), you had very little privacy. Everybody knows what everybody is doing. We've gotten used to the illusion that anything we do in our homes is private. While the internet and communication have allowed us to do more stuff at home, they've also brought the lack of privacy that comes with public interaction inside as well.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
So, really, what bad thing will happen?
I once had very similar feelings about this issue.
Nothing bad will happen, until it does. When the information is used and a horrible thing occurs, you'll kick yourself for not protecting your loved ones. It has happened to me and it will happen to many others.
In my own experience, it wasn't "Big Brother" - it was a tech-savvy business partner and I spent half a year in jail, accused of a "capital" crime I didn't commit - then 4 years and ten's of thousands of dollars fighting for my freedom in courts. My "friend" got me out of the business, which is still a large and profitable company today.
Hey, walking around with on all fours with no pants and your ass in the air seems to be the cool thing these days. So, have fun. Just don't cry when you get raped.
Me, I'll try to keep my pants (mostly) on.
The main concern I have is future employability. We've already reached the point where employers routinely google on candidates before offering a job - it's not that much of a stretch to see them contracting with data-mining firms to run more detailed background checks, correlating data to determine pseudonyms and checking if the candidate might have any embarassing hobbies or political views, has been writing posts badmouthing his former boss or has financial problems that could render him a security risk.
So exploiting personal information becomes lucrative and profitable, and not much is sacred except the almighty dollar.
This information craze seems to have the same feeling as the tulip bulb mania in 17th century Holland. In the final analysis, the only value this information has about people is its ability to generate sales or other financial transactions. And in my case, and for most of my friends, targeted advertising is all but useless. We don't buy cars/TV sets/iPhones just because we received tweets, junk mail or spam. We buy stuff when we need it or when we want it. And we aren't fooled by marketing attempts at generating groups of faux peers who all went out and bought product X. The Internet is a pull environment. When I need something, make it easy to find. Otherwise, poking it in my face is mostly useless and occasionally counter productive.
Yes, this approach tends to work with some people. But generally not the self motivated, independent thinking groups that are also tend to be the wealthier segments of society. There is only so much return on the information investment that companies can get when what they have is lists of stupid, poor people. And when they realize this, they'll stop paying big money for these lists. And the incentive to compile them will be reduced.
Have gnu, will travel.
Stalker? There are many easier ways of stalking me, starting with just following my car or bike when I leave my house.
Much of the point is trying to keep the stalker from finding out where you live. Harassing phone calls and emails can be very upsetting, but physical confrontation by a stalker is much worse.
So, really, what bad thing will happen?
Well, off the top of my head, when we reach the point that any commercial, professional or government contact you have can effectively dig up as much dirt on you as they feel like from any source they can find:
So sure, maybe you don't mind a bit of junk mail. You'll be fine as long as you also don't mind crazy people turning up on your door step several times per month asking you to sign up to their political party/donate to their charity/buy their dubiously sourced goods, tax inspectors inviting themselves into your life for six months and wasting dozens or hundreds of hours of your free time to comply with their demands, though at least you'll have a lot more free time in future because you won't be able to get a full-time job as a tax evasion suspect anyway, and even if you did you wouldn't be able to get paid because no bank will give you an account without a credit rating, which you no longer have, even if that account offers no loan or credit facilities anyway, and you can't complain because no phone company will let you sign up for a calling plan without a credit check and photo ID, which in turn you can't get because you couldn't afford the statutory motor insurance after three of your friends got DUI'd last year and so when go
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
You do realize that many ad plans are pay-per-click rather than pay-per-view, meaning that, unless you click madly on the ads, you won't get them any money? And, even if you do, you will only earn them pennies? Using a donate button (if one exists) is a far more convenient, efficient (they are getting most of the money, not Google) and effective way to fund sites you like and it ultimately gives people a choice rather than trying to force ads on them.
Ads are almost never a winning proposition for a site -- unless you are high-profile (and can negotiate favourable advertising contracts) and high-traffic, you probably won't be able to recoup your hosting costs from them if you have any amount of content at all. It also leads you to re-engineering your site, such as those sites which split articles onto multiple pages so they can double the amount of ads served. It slows down loading, looks garishly ugly at best, and turns you into a virus vector. It also sets a bad precedent of using JavaScript to load unknown content served from another website, usually without the knowledge or consent of the user.
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