Slashdot Mirror
Your Privacy Is a Sci-Fi Fantasy
snydeq writes "Deep End's Paul Venezia discusses the 'sci-fi fantasy' that is privacy in the digital era. 'The assault on personal privacy has ramped up significantly in the past few years. From warrantless GPS tracking to ISP packet inspection, it seems that everyone wants to get in on the booming business of clandestine snooping — even blatant prying, if you consider reports of employers demanding Facebook passwords prior to making hiring decisions,' Venezia writes. 'What happened? Did the rules change? What is it about digital information that's convinced some people this is OK? Maybe the right to privacy we were told so much about has simply become old-fashioned, a barrier to progress.'"
The best way to get geeks to care about privacy is to make the argument about Facebook. Geeks HATE Facebook. If you make it about Google, who is much worse when it comes to privacy abuses, you will be ignored, because Google has successful propagandized itself as a harmless, techie-driven web search company and not a multi-billion dollar, data-collecting, advertising behemoth.
The article actually reaches a conclusion that is far different from what the intro would imply.
( Fascist invasion of ) privacy .
I hope this helps to resolve your fantasy.
Yours In Minsk,
K. Trout
The problem is that far to many people look about as far ahead as a goldfish. "Sure I will give you access to all my facebook data for a cheap beer..." And that makes it had for the rest of us with a clue.
If I post something to an online site and I allow them to save cookies, then it's my fault if they find out demographic information on me. That I can handle. If I subscribe to a free email account and they mine that information for demographic information, I guess I'm okay with that. It's free. If either of those companies sell that information to the government to keep better tabs on me, it's my fault for using free online services. If they tap my phones or spy in my residence, that is a breach of privacy. The other is a breach of private non-critical data.
Mark Anthony Collins
Wiretapping laws came about because wiretapping was seen as an invasion of privacy, you were in effect joining a real-time conversation that would not normally be recorded.
All digital communication is inherently recorded, so in some twisted sense it's more like dumpster diving and less like wiretapping to snoop in e-mail.
Similarly for GPS tracking, that's just like old-school tailing a car, but cheaper and more clandestine - what's not to like?
The rules need to be rewritten, give it 30 or 40 years and it should settle down, it's all still very new - judicial time runs much slower than internet time.
In an effort to find the needle, we're burning down the haystack.
I might add that burning down a haystack to find a needle in it not only destroys the hay, but makes the needle useless..
It's also my fantasy that people are prying at my privates
I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.
It's just that in the past that information was in different locations, like the phone book (name, address, phone) or state government (birthdate, annual income), or federal government (SS number, lifetime income). Companies have always sought to find information on us, from Arbitron measuring how many people listened local stations, to Nielsen adding PeopleMeters to boxes. Now Google and Facebook are doing the same, but more directly through the net.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
The picture of the comment you link to is actually a defense of freedom, not a defense of "child pornography". The writer was denouncing censorship; he was not advocating anything.
Sorry, but you don't get to turn it around and say the author stated something that in fact he did not.
It simply has to be fought for and lately it seems it will require some very real bloodshed. The government of the U.S. and all of the other major free society governments of the world are hell bent on stripping away privacy in order to defend intellectual property and to assure themselves of better control over the people "they serve." The last time we saw these kinds of problems, there was a revolution in the US. The next time we see it, it may be a global "civil war" against the tyrants of the nations of the world.
I'm sorry to all the business people out there who believe their right to "grow and proper" outweighs the needs, rights and the very nature of humanity but they don't. You don't have the right to unlimited profits. You don't have the right to sell data you have collected about people to other businesses or governments. You will all find this out before too long "French Revolution" style.
I just hope we have enough "fathers of the new world democracy" or whatever we end of calling it to write a new constitution guaranteeing everything the US constitution guaranteed and adds to it all of the lessons we have learned since that document was written. Among these should include bits like "There shall be no law which impedes, restricts, hinders or limits the rights of humanity, its arts or its legacy."
Frankly, I'm getting to the point where I feel we have little else to lose. And when that happens, a special kind of hell will break loose all over the globe.
...but we all know who started it; MySpace and FaceBook.
Indoctrinate the children into an environment where even the unwanted breaches in privacy just make you more popular (or at least more talked about) then this type of downhill slide into a complete lack of respect for personal information is practically inevitable.
Once the politicians and corporations realize how popular you can make it to be irresponsible with your personal data and just how much easier that makes it to harvest said data then basically everyone is on board with it.
By the time society as a whole catches up in understanding (the "Oh my God, what has science done?!" factor) its already too late for anyone to do anything about.
I'm not giving up on my demands for tough laws (and enforcement) to restrict the collection and use of personal/individualized information.
Old-fashioned, my arse. /some/ of us can't imagine how damaging the collection and distribution of personal/individualized information is--or could be some time in the future--doesn't mean the rest of us should be complacent.
We have relatively new laws governing the use and release of medical information, where people generally agree privacy is important and the lack of privacy can be detrimental.
Just because
If you put your telephone number or address on Facebook, Twitter, Or Google + your not concerned with privacy. If later you decide that this was a bad decision and decide your privacy has been invaded your an idiot for sharing that much in the first place. Think long and hard (Giggity) about what you decide to share with any of these services because it can come back to bite you.
Chris Sheppard
...with a lack of privacy is that there's a lack of accountability. If an institution gets incorrect data on you, it's not that institution's fault - it's not their data - and even if they fix it it will break again because the bad data is still out there. There's no central authoritative source when there's no privacy, which means that nobody is at fault when mistakes are made, and nobody is responsible for cleaning the mess up.
There's a whole raft of other problems, but I fail to see how reliable data could possibly be an impediment to anything - let alone progress. Quality and reliability are surely the pillars on which sustainable progress is achievable. Eliminate privacy, you eliminate the only means by which progress is possible.
Yeah, I know, TFA says nothing about privacy being an impediment, but TFS (the "fine" summary) does and I suspect far too many buy into the whole idea.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Maybe it's different in other countries but in the U.S. people barely seem to care about personal privacy. Between Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Myspace, and so on, people seem more than willing to put their private lives and information out on the internet. And if you look at the type of news that Americans read most often, it is celebrity gossip, tabloids and paparazzi that stalk famous people and report on their every movement.
We put our political beliefs on our t-shirts and bumper stickers. Wear our sports teams on our hats. And now we can share those things on Twitter and YouTube. I think I'm the only employee at my work that doesn't have a LinkedIn, Myspace, Facebook, or a Twitter.
Between Jeremy Lin, Tim Tebow, Kim Kardashian, and the 15-minutes-of-fame type reality TV show people, we have an endless cycle of gossip news available online and on your television. And people seem to love it. The more invasive the questions are at a sports press conference with Tim Tebow the better. The more we can dig up on Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries the better. Whitney Houston having cocaine in her system was more reported than anything else in the last week on the mainstream news.
The Slashdot crowd is the exception not the rule. When most people are all about getting themselves more friends on Facebook and more followers on YouTube the "geeks" are holding onto their privacy. Personal privacy is simply not cool in America. When America stops everything because Tim Tebow is coming to the Jets (I hope everyone at /. has familiarized themselves with the Wildcat Offense) they are there for the spectacle and not for the actual sport.
Sure no one wants their credit card information online. But too many people in the U.S. seem to think that putting their email, phone number, personal likes and hobbies, thousands of pictures of themselves, and so on, all over the internet, is not only okay but it is preferred. It's fun for them.
Dear author:
Puleeze. Science fiction (scifi) and fantasy fiction are separate genres. Everybody knows this most basic fact! To use the adjective "scifi" to describe the noun "fantasy" is Not correct.
Signed,
Comic Book Guy
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
A type-1 society requires global surveillance - in order to maintain strict controls on type-1 assets and technologies. And all the "bad" things that people think will happen as a result of privacy going out the window (such as book burning, anti-subculture and people being spirited away in the night, probably wont happen, or at least not very much anyway). Oh well, I guess privacy is a small price to pay for the Age of Abundance.
My two cents:
Companies which ask for Facebook login information are wasting money on non-work related information gathering. In other words, the company has too much money and is spending it on a non-recoverable cost center. Potential employees who deny access are saving the company money and should be the preferred hires. When I took a computer ethics class in my bachelor of science degree, I was amazed there were people in the class were willing to play cop and "get him" without any evidence that the suspicions are affecting job performance. I was even more amazed at the majority of the class who were against the searches and would said they would not assist an employer by writing software to do so, but began to do so in class when it was re-framed as an "interesting exercise" to demonstrate competance. The IT and IS fields are becoming the Catch-22 of legal responsibility.
There were never any laws stopping someone from watching the outside of your house. There never needed to be. Long ago, the only ones who could were your neighbours, and long-distance enemies camping out. Either way there were very easy deterents. But when remotely operating camperas and such appeared, the law said supported my right to see the outside of your house. So I was allowed to aim a camera at your house. That camera later became infrared and could see through walls. But you posted a photograph of your living room online, so you had no expectation of privacy for your living room, even to my camera. It spiralled like that a few times to wind up here.
The problem is that there was no old law not because people should have the right to view other people's houses. There was no old law because there didn't need to be -- it wasn't an actual problem. When it became a problem, well, our laws are based on precedent. In this case, a lack thereof.
The real law should have been aimed at objectives, like supporting privacy not as an abstract concept but as a control over something. That something can become public but the control over that something should never have been.
We see this in commercial IP all the time. "reserve all rights", duplication rights, publication rights, and more. But those never existing to the outside of your house. So I could publish the outside of your house any way I choose. The result is this.
The rules don't need to be re-written. The old ones work just fine as long as we don't throw out all reason as soon as "on a computer" is added.
The thing is, the old ones don't work just fine. If you pause to consider why privacy matters, the implications of actions that might have been seen as acceptable or a minor social faux pas twenty years ago could be profound today, and it is the implications that we really care about, not the actions themselves.
For example, consider Google's Street View project. When the privacy debate around their data collection flared up, some people defended them on the grounds that the cars were only driving down the street and photographing things any passer-by could see from a public place. Leaving aside the fact that this turned out not to be true, there are still many practical differences between the two scenarios.
For one thing, the individual in the street can themselves be seen. Being in a public place is a two-way deal, and if you're going around peering in through people's windows, you're going to attract unwelcome attention.
Even if you do, your presence is temporary. What you see isn't being recorded for all time, and certainly not in a searchable form or a way that can easily be corrolated with many other data sources.
Anything seen is seen by one private individual, not a vasty corporation with potentially a global audience.
Even if we accept as reasonable an individual taking a photograph in a public place that potentially diminishes someone else's privacy, perhaps because the latter person wasn't the subject of the photo and appeared in the background only coincidentally, such photos are still typically only for private, personal use, not being collected by a commercial entity that exists only to exploit anything it can for profit.
And finally, building on that idea of corrolating data from different sources, we get the kicker: one individual walking down the street can only see as much as, well, one individual walking down the street. This fundamentally and naturally limits the implications of anything they might see or do, even if their actions are unpleasant. Google, on the other hand, have vast resources and were conducting systematic surveillance on a national and even international scale.
Many of these distinctions also apply in other controversial privacy cases today, even those that aren't based on direct physical observation: mass surveillance by the state, for example, or the kind of insidious data mining operations going on at places like Facebook.
In short, privacy today needs to take into account not just the scale of any one "invasion", but the cumulative effect of all "invasions". In a world where the Internet provides quick and easy communication of any information from anyone to everyone, where some organisations have resources so vast that they didn't realise downloading that Internet was meant to be a joke, and where data storage and mining capabilities allow the co-ordination and interpretation of thousands of data points about any given individual in an instant, that means minor invasions are a much bigger deal than they used to be.
There is no reason we should tolerate this, and arguing the inevitability of technological progress is a weak straw man. Technology is neutral, and it's how we choose to use it that matters. After all, the technology has long existed for someone to kill you before you even heard the shot, yet we don't see an epidemic of sniper murders, because murder is wrong and (almost) everyone accepts that. For those whose values are incompatible with that societal norm, there are rules and penalties to act as a further deterrent. The same goes for any crime; absolute prevention is very rarely possible, but between the moral standards of the general population and imposing laws on disproportionately powerful entities like governments and megacorps we keep unwelcome behaviour in check.
The problem with privacy is just that it's
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Maybe the right to privacy we were told so much about has simply become old-fashioned, a barrier to progress.
Just maybe the generation growing up is more accepting of the intrusions, the same way manners and morals dissolved over the years, compare TV in the 1950's to TV today to see a graphic example of this.
For the record you can maintain your privacy, just learn to think like this; that everything done on the Internet is like shouting in a restaurant so don't post or discuss things you wouldn't yell in a restaurant.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Only slashdot visitors get all worked up about privacy invasions. As far as I can tell, the rest of the world is pretty happy openly letting everyone know of their social, economic, emotional, physical, geographic or mental status. People want to share all this information. We get a kick out of it. Remember that thing about humans - Humans are social animals. Somehow, we want humans to unlearn their biological craving to share information and close themselves in? Good luck!
Which companies have asked employees for their FB data? I haven't seen a single company mentioned in any of these articles, except FB. Is this all just a big FB commercial?
If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
Instantly thought of "Your Body is a Wonderland" with that title.
On a more relevant note, it's very apparent nowadays that privacy is becoming less and less of a guarantee and more of a perk in society today. I somewhat agree and disagree with this personal data trend. On the one hand, I'd like to think that this means people will be more willing to be themselves and be more honest and open with others (e.g., based on experience, we in America hardly even associate with our next-door neighbors). I personally would love to not have to be so cryptic and secretive about my information. However, on the other hand and being the cynic I am, I know this is only going to lead to even bigger identity and privacy problems.
Still, asking for a Facebook username and password is tantamount to invasion of privacy. If companies want to check someone's Facebook, there are plenty of options for allowing others to look at a specific profile without the need of a password or even a username. Digital personal information is still personal information, and this sounds like a "good vs service" kind of problem. Something tells me that this is only the beginning...
The more you know, the more you have to say and the more you should listen.
Maybe the right to privacy we were told so much about has simply become old-fashioned, a barrier to progress
Memo to Mr. Venezia:
GO TO HELL!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Some of the sockpuppets they use here are:
DavidSell
ByOhTek
antitithenai
Bonch
TechGuys
Overly Critical Guy
CmdrPony
InsightIn140Bytes
InterestingFella
SharkLaser
jo_ham
DCTech
smithz
HankMoody
There are many others, including disposable accounts used to moderate and deflect discussions in directions they promote. If you see a post by any of the accounts in this list in a Slashdot discussion you know for certain that discussion is polluted and likely to contain misdirection and lies. Avoid feeding the astroturf machine by posting sensible comments in these threads.
At all times while reading Slashdot and other tech sites, be aware that you are being manipulated by professional reputation managers.
who drone on and on about there being "No inherent right to privacy" in the Constitution. Problem is these same idiots are more than eager to construct nearly impenetrable walls of secrecy on behalf of their corporate donors.
"For the adversary, if the cipher(s) are random, they have to try to attack all combinations. "
No, all they have to do is one or more of the following:
- Install pinhole wireless camera(s) aimed at the workstation/keyboard and/or at something which reflects towards the target area, example: a tiny camera aimed at your tv screen or other surface which is positioned in such a way where it can, by reflection, capture your keystrokes and other work at your workstation
- Hardware keylogger or special blackop device inserted around or in a targeted hw device, recent announcements of special devices which go directly into the wall socket/power strip which are made to look like something innocent like an air freshener, etc.
- Laser microphone for keyboard clicks
- Stand outside or b.s. their way inside for sniffing of the keyboard
- TEMPEST attacks
- whitelisted or unable to be found malware slipped in through any number of online vectors
- poisoned router and/or modem firmware with commercially supplied backdoor(s)
- Powerline analysis (smartmeters may ease the lubrication)
- Attacks on wifi from within or outside
- Attacks on wired connections from within or outside / spliced connections
- Force a kernel/memory dump (usually easier on Windows systems) which is logged to disk unless you disable it and possibly sent in part or in whole to Microsoft unless you disable this
- social engineered or otherwise manipulated individuals friendly and allowed inside said workstation area or invited in under the disguise of a religious group or other spoofed organization to plant devices or otherwise access the workstation
- discovering your TC password written somewhere in your environment or on your person (missing time, medical procedures where you're "under", otherwise out of the workstation area during a sneaky entry and exit)
- new electronic or other bugged/poisoned gifts sent to you and you place within your workstation environment, simple envelopes or magazines, books, with a miniture bug(s)
- that slut or stud you brought home with you for a one nighter
- more and more and more
Given wikileaks' exposure of some of the vast companies foreign and domestic willing to sell spyware software and hardware if THEY want your (you meaning anyone and THEY meaning any determined enemy) TC password, they already have it or will obtain it, and it won't be through brute force.
&
what of:
"modified coins?"
You visit a store to buy something,
an evil person arrives before you,
slips the cashier through a handoff or fake prearranged (or real) transaction,
one or more "special" coins, containing a video and/or audio "bug", maybe with a nice wire which wraps around inside of the modified coinage several times,
convinces or through some other motivating factor(s) (or by chance) the cashier to give you said coin(s) for change during your transaction,
evil person exits the store and the fun begins.
How often do YOU check YOUR coins to make sure they are really the real thing or do you just dump them in the same room as your computer(s)?
Misspelled "barrier to profit."
Maybe the right to privacy we were told so much about has simply become old-fashioned, a barrier to progress.
The "right to privacy" you've been "told so much about" didn't really come into play in the United States until the Supreme Court was looking to overturn states laws banning contraception in Griswold v. Connecticut. Currently, we're looking at a GOP presidential primary where at least one of the major candidates would like to see that overturned outright, to be able to ban contraception specifically and other privacy protections generally.
I guess somebody didn't get the memo about GPS searches requiring a warrant.
If you think its bad that your surfing activity gets tracked online, consider the mind reading technology that's currently being developed. you can read more about it here:
http://www.bringbackprivacy.com
Unless 600000 iterations make a truth.
What are you talking about?
Two Supreme Court Justices wrote that defining Harvard Law Review article approximately 75 years before Griswold v. Connecticut. By 1909 five states had already passed statutes recognizing the right to privacy.
Dear Comic Book Guy,
Genre crossing is more likely than you'd think.
Signed,
Me
it was always just a matter of time and money
"Maybe the right to privacy we were told so much about has simply become old-fashioned, a barrier to progress.'"
Knowing that someone would seriously entertain that concept kinda tastes like mental bile.
"...Maybe the right to privacy we were told so much about has simply become old-fashioned, a barrier to profits".
Privatized profits, socialized losses - socialism for the rich and megacorps.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
The term *privacy* is, from a philosophical standpoint, simply a way to hide dishonestly... if you have nothing to hide, and are resolutely honest about it, this is all a non-issue. Culture has advanced beyond "privacy" and we'll be just fine without it.
Cheers.
As to the question, "Did the rules change?", I hope your kidding... It's name was DHS.
A major company concludes that the political climate for peace is bad for business, solution, change politics.
A government, in bed with company, see's privacy(and free speech) as a barrier to their vision of change, so when the opportunity presents it's self, why not kill two birds with one stone.
Shock & awe or smoke & mirrors, for right or wrong, we will be suffering from the ramification to privacy, personal liberty's and an apparent justification for mistrust for years to come, convenient for anyone with a vested interest, but how pervasive are we going to allow it to become?
Dose the justification remain, was the response appropriate(or justified), are those who made the decisions accountable, was it legal, the outcome positive and is the new framework being exploited; how long will we allow the specters of the past haunt us?
Are we citizens or subjects(of company)?
We can progress in many directions. Maybe progress in a direction that destroys everybody's privacy for the profit of a few people is not the right direction to progress to.
I want all your money. Do you also find this idea to be "old-fashioned" and "a barrier to progress"?
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master." -Pravin Lal
1 - Privacy is a right. Yes, that's right - a Human Right. Quite a lot of expensive people sat around a large table for quite some time working this stuff out, and if they didn't think it was important I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be in their list.
2 - Laws are made to be followed. Excuses such as "too big to comply", "we're from abroad" or "too costly to comply" (Google Streetview) are not acceptable.
3 - Law enforcement gets a privilege to break the laws to fight crime. It has to be kept VERY clear, that this is a PRIVILEGE, and absolutely NOT a right.
Now, was that so hard?
Insert
Old fashioned and a barrier to progress: rep that's privacy...national laws...international borders...a lot of traditional forms yep. Good riddance.
Actually many of the supposed privacy rights now claimed would not have enjoyed legal protection in the 1960 era. For example a car on public streets or that could be seen from other private or public property would never had any expectation of privacy to begin with. People in view from a public place are fair game. If you are out and about you can be filmed, studied, etc.. The current wave of privacy nonsense is off the wall stupid. Suppose that you feel that I am compiling records about you on my PC and take me to court. You can bet a search will be made of all the files on all of the devices in my home. So where is my privacy right? You get to have my private material ransacked in minute detail based only upon your supposition that i have reports about you on my PC.. And it gets worse. The courts have gone insane and can force me to surrender passwords to help you search my drives under a very real fear of perpetual imprisonment. Yet, just like rape, there is no penalty if i have no records about you on my gear and your accusation was a figment of your imagination. The privacy advocates appear to be the worst enemies of privacy. Does it dawn upon them at all that I can turn around a get the same legal process and accuse them of storing information about me forcing you to reveal every tidbit on your drives, CDs, DVDs etc..
It surprises me that no one has pointed out that in the U.S. at least, there is no explicit right to privacy. You only have to pick up a copy of the Constitution - it's not a very long document (even with the amendments) - and no where does it mention any right to privacy. What legal scholars say about this is that the right to privacy is *implied* in the Constitution by the nature of the rights enumerated there - for example, the right to be free from most search and seizure implies there is a right to privacy in the home. But there is no explicit right to privacy. The *implied* right was the basis for the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion in the U.S. (simplified, a woman's implied right to privacy gives her the right to terminate a pregnancy). This is not to say that there isn't an assault on privacy, but understanding the right is the first step to combating those trying to take it away.
I hope you bring another book.
I dont have facebook, google+, iTunes, none of all that crap... damn, I m almost 24 years old and I m still dont have a cellphone... I choose not to, so far so good...
It wants to be free, baby. Works both ways. Want privacy? Give it to the corporations. Want free music/movies/news/etc? Gotta give a little to get a littler.
in this age we are no more than neurons plugged into the greater network with little to no autonomy.
Privacy for the individual developed as a concept when we moved away from living in small settings where everybody knew your name, your family, your business, what you bought and sold, and so on, and where families lived in one or two rooms, to the big cities where anonymity was possible. Even in the big city,people had their privacy only through anonymity and technical limitations--very few organizations had the ability to identify individuals out of the crowd unless that individual had done something to draw attention and they had the resources to track them.
My guess is that the perceived right to privacy is going to disappear very soon that virtually any corporation can track individuals.
The biggest precedent for a perceived right disappearing because it's 1) possible and 2) desirable for a large/powerful enough group to make it disappear is actually sharing media.
Society at large used to think that media couldn't be shared without paying for it and that there was an inherent right of the manufacturer to control how books and music were distributed. But when books and music went to a digital and easily reproduced and easily shared format, for many individuals, probably even the majority, a lot of people perceive it as a right that belong to the individual, once it was possible. It started small-scale, with audio cassettes, and now is wide-scale online.
Now that information about the individual can be as easily gathered and shared, corporations and individuals are changing their perspective of privacy and their rights. Because an organization can gather data about individuals incredibly easily, it will, and share it equally easily. I'd estimate that in 50-100 years, individuals will have redress for data gathering only if they can prove direct harm, not whether it was done with or without their knowledge or consent.
The previous was a troll comment? I was just sharing an opinion civilly and suggesting that people take some (not all) responsibility for their lack of privacy. The intention was not to incite hatred, just to engage in debate. Can I get a meta-moderator? geeze