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When it Comes To Privacy, Consent is Immaterial. Corporate and Gov't Surveillance Systems Must Be Stopped Before They Ask For Consent: Richard Stallman (theguardian.com)
In a rare op-ed, Richard Stallman, the president of the Free Software Foundation, says that the surveillance imposed on us today is worse than in the Soviet Union. He argues that we need laws to stop this data being collected in the first place. From his op-ed: The surveillance imposed on us today far exceeds that of the Soviet Union. For freedom and democracy's sake, we need to eliminate most of it. There are so many ways to use data to hurt people that the only safe database is the one that was never collected. Thus, instead of the EU's approach of mainly regulating how personal data may be used (in its General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR), I propose a law to stop systems from collecting personal data.
The robust way to do that, the way that can't be set aside at the whim of a government, is to require systems to be built so as not to collect data about a person. The basic principle is that a system must be designed not to collect certain data, if its basic function can be carried out without that data. Data about who travels where is particularly sensitive, because it is an ideal basis for repressing any chosen target.
The robust way to do that, the way that can't be set aside at the whim of a government, is to require systems to be built so as not to collect data about a person. The basic principle is that a system must be designed not to collect certain data, if its basic function can be carried out without that data. Data about who travels where is particularly sensitive, because it is an ideal basis for repressing any chosen target.
I may agree that companies have no business collecting 99% of what they collect about me, but the idea that I shouldn't even be able to consent to that when or if I deem it acceptable is tyranny by any other name. My body, my rights :: my privacy, my rights. You're not the only one who should be allowed freedom, King Richard.
This train has left the station. Passing laws is laughable; then they'll just do it in secret. All efforts should be focused on encryption and privacy protection software, and generation of mountains of false data to confuse the expert systems.
"the only safe database is the one that was never collected."
Been saying this for years. SO glad someone with a louder voice agrees.
On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
When it Comes To Toejam, Taste is Immaterial. Corporate and Gov't Toejam Systems Must Be Stopped Before They Ask For Toejam: Richard Stallman
And the latest developments with FB and more has proven him right.
Yes, he is a bit extreme, but then again he needs to be.
And I for one am glad he is out there, fighting for us who have given up.
Perhaps it's rare for him to write an op-ed himself, but Stallman's opinions being transcribed into published words is about as rare as picnics in the summer.
I was buying groceries at Target, and happened to get a case of beer - for which I was fully expecting to have to show ID (I'm >40 years old btw).
When the cashier asked to "see my ID" (emphasize the "SEE"), I held out my license. She physically snatched it from my fingers and before I could even react she turned it over and scanned the barcode on the back into their POS system. That bar code contains all kinds of personal data including my address and biometric info. I did NOT consent to them collecting that info, and yet I have no way to get them to expunge it from their system. Not only am I being tracked in 17 different ways with their marketing and other systems, but they're likely selling that info of to other "partners", and putting it at risk WHEN they eventually have a systems breach.
That type of collection should be illegal. I've contacted their guest relations team about my concern, and have yet to hear back.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
How about stopping the data from being retained more than a specific length of time?
Example -- if you have a cell phone bill, the company needs to retain call records for a few months in case you need to dispute a bill or if there's fraud involved. But once the bill is paid without dispute, the records should be deleted after a few months.
Same with security camera footage. Unless there's evidence of a violent crime, it doesn't need to be retained forever -- overwriting it after a few weeks provides enough time to keep it in case a violent crime is discovered, without creating a "permanent record."
Of course, some data should NOT be released in the first place. US sheriff's departments posting photos of arrestees online is abhorrent. These photos and records typically get archived by search engines or third-party providers in perpetuity. "Arrested" (by some cop with an IQ at room temp) doesn't mean "guilty" -- with "innocent till proven guilty" there's no sense in jeopardizing someone's career or even safety unless they're PROVEN, IN COURT to actually have committed the crime.
The beauty of the US constitution is that it assumes the people in charge are greedy, self interested, power hungry assholes, and then uses their self interest against them in a balance of power to restrain the overall (usually) growing power of a centralized government.
Stallman, otoh, seems to prefer to pronounce a world of pleasant fantasy where companies and government are going to build applications and tools voluntarily limiting their self-interested benefit.
In short, unless he can devise a mechanism in which these groups own self interest lies in conforming to his vision, it's utopian and pointless.
My $0.02 would be to recognize that organizations are made up of people after all, & to try to go after the people's PERSONAL self interest...something like requiring developers and sponsors of such projects to provide publicly about themselves any info their service/program/system collects on users.
-Styopa
What he points out is that people click "yes" to usage agreements and terms of service without reading them, and as an example, links to a test where the terms of service explicitly state giving up your first-born child... and people still agreed to them.
People don't read terms of service, they just click yes.
Have you ever read terms of service? The damn things are pages and pages of boring small print.
I have to update my location on Four Square, my status on Facebook and Tweet about the nice cat I saw on the street. You were saying something about privacy and consent?
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
What I find interesting about this, is a combination of two things:
1) most "surveillance" is just about paying attention to the data that people send you. You take totally benign logging, but then think cleverly about what you logged, and suddenly you've inferred too much.
2) Richard f'ing Stallman, of all people, is saying I should not be allowed to do whatever I want on my own computers (since letting me do what I want with my own computer, is what makes the above surveillance possible). This is the exact opposite of his usual pro-freedom position on things. That doesn't necessarily mean he's wrong or inconsistent, but it does mean that freedom is not his absoloute highest value. There's some deeper human thing that he thinks is more important than freedom, though freedom is usually the most compatible with it.
I'm with you in spirit, but the Constitution doesn't work to actually prevent this. It's just paper cover and has been almost wholly ineffectual in limiting government's reach. Check out this classic 19th century article on the subject:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/1970/01/lysander-spooner/no-treason-the-constitution-of-no-authority/
When it comes to the spying industry, you can safely assume malice by default.
I live in Michigan and have a bar code scanner. The code contains your driver's license number and birth date. It is the exact same thing that is on the front of the card in clear text. The cashier may be typing/scanning it in to check it against a database. More likely, the DOB field is being verified to authorize the purchase.
In before American shills (Shareblue, US govt, etc..) and their brainwashed gang of Facebook/reddit users attack Stallman as a Russian agent.
... when you submit as much of your personal info as possible to the corporate or government interests. If you refuse or attempt to fight this system, you are a traitor to the country-- you're a Russian spy!
If you merely show the card, then they have everything. They don't need to touch it. You might be right to be concerned (about the various consequences of data collection), but you're also making a mountain out of a molehill with the barcode thing, since the barcode was merely a convenience.
The mere presence of a camera is enough to get most of that biometric data (from you, not the card) and your address is probably on the front of the card, and most importantly, so is your driver's license # (a unique key, i.e. a "cookie").
You didn't lose anything that wasn't already lost. If you want to fix this problem, you need to totally get rid of checking-IDs being a thing. That she scanned the barcode or that she touched it, isn't what's important here.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Law enforcement and politicians would firmly and flatly give you a resounding "NO!" to this idea, citing public safety and national security concerns -- true or not
Furthermore: information is power; what was the last time anyone gave up power they've acquired? Never.
Finally, law or no law, do you really expect any corporation to go along with this? They'll all cheat one way or another, because it affects their profits. They'll find some loophole around it, or lobby the living fuck out of Congress when such a law was being drafted, to make sure it's got enough holes in it so they can effectively do an end-run around it.
I agree with Stallman 100% on this in theory and wish it could be done, but as a practical idea it's a non-starter for the above reasons.
And problem solved, or hugely mitigated.
From the USA spying on France in the 1950's.
The USA over Vietnam.
The UK in Ireland. The UK into West and East Germany.
The NSA collecting it all.
Computer users have two options.
Stop using network computers. Thats difficult for most people.
Start flooding networks with random cultural junk when online. Bonus points for creating new intelligence thats collected on.
Remember what made the East German system so complex? A new file on so many people. Confidential informants reporting on undercover police. Add to your file everyday.
Into math, science? Talk of your new patent, ideas, crypto advancement.
Finance? Talk of cryptocurrencies.
Medical? Pollution and talking to the media.
Art and culture? Remind the world of past mil and gov projects.
Enjoy the collection and add to it every day in funny random ways.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Stallman sounds like he would be happy in a "bare bones, no personalized customer service" world.
The opposite extreme is full-bore "we know you better than your mother/spouse does" concierge service, which requires knowing your needs, likes, and dislikes pretty intimately.
The real world, where the restaurant waiter that you like best knows when you come in, what table you like, and what food you like but on his day off the backup waiter probably does not unless you've enrolled in the restaurant's customer-rewards program (or it's a classy place where waiters "train" their backups), is in between.
What is the "basic function" of a restaurant is in the eye of the customer, and that will determine what amount of information needs to be collected. Do you, the restaurant patron, want just food, do you want just a decent one-time experience, or do you want an ongoing experience with a particular waiter or maybe the entire staff of a favorite restaurant? If you want more than a decent one-time experience, you will EXPECT the restaurant or its waiters to learn your names and what you like. If you just want a one-off experience or "just food" and you think like Stallman does, you will want the waiter to conveniently forget you ever existed the moment you walk out and the bill payment clears.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Cooperation is cheaper, easier, quicker. And humans are lazy before they are greedy.
Cooperation also yields better results, which is why America and Britain are sliding down every metric and Scandinavia is on the rise.
Stallman uses simple economics. You don't have to agree with him, but you will be uneconomic and unsustainable if you do.
He is not a communist, he is a pragmatic capitalist.
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)
I am with Stallman on this one. He gave it a thought through the years unlike you.
People tend to not give a sh!t about privacy (like freedom) till they lose it. Hence, billions willingly insert records into social media databases about their likes, fears, friends, enemies, purchasing habits, deviate behavior and any other random thought that might cross their brains then have the audacity to feign outrage when that information used against them. ...
The other part is that this information is the fuel driving most of the economy. Just over the past decade empires have fallen and replacements have risen as fortunes redistribute based on these records. Your not going to displace the current titans without fight.
The true retail battle is over how to acquire more - car companies are going to start collecting your driving / gps data for monetization, in home IoT devices are being pushed by every company imaginable, people flock to sites to get their DNA tested as they waive their rights to their own DNA forever... so go ahead and buy that Alexa, google home, Xfinity One, or any myriad of spyware toys companies are tying to insert into your personal lives.
That's a lot of platitudes and no concrete ideas about improving privacy in the real world.
Here are some hints, Richard:
(1) Government mandates on privacy don't work and are even harmful. EU privacy directives contain massive loopholes, in particular for government spying.
(2) No individual has the necessary knowledge to determine whether something is a privacy invasion or a benefit. You may like to step untracked into a black cab, but I'm quite happy that Uber and Lyft track my every move. Ultimately, when government stays out of these decisions, privacy comes down to individual transactions between businesses and their customers.
(3) Privacy preserving cash transactions are a non-starter, in particular in the EU: financial regulators are never going to let it happen.
(4) When you say "we" and "require", who are you talking about? If it's any particular institution, they are going to abuse that power. If you are saying that "end users should require", well, then you need to convince end users to do so, and your incoherent writings are not doing a good job at it.
If you want to advance the cause of privacy, Richard, you need to build software and build businesses that serve the needs of a broad range of end users, and you haven't done that. Stamping "GNU" on some third rate open source software projects that are vaguely related to privacy isn't going to have any impact on the world.
...because the tech today is far more advanced than 26+ years ago. If the Soviet Union had modern technology, they would have had real life Telescreens.
There is a key point missing that isn't brought up much. The data is not there to help you and will be absent when it's your turn to actually need it. I can easily prove this....
State tracking car insurance. That data will get me pulled over if I let my insurance lapse, but if I get pulled over for other reasons and lack my insurance card, that data is unavailable to exonerate me. I'll still have to physically go to court/police station to show that card. They won't just "look at the data" showing I have insurance.
Same for medical records. It will be used to raise my insurance rates but I will have to actually pay to get my own records and even then it won't be the electronic copy that's legible, instead it will be the doctors scribbling that is incomprehensible. I even had a doctor tell me I wasn't paying him to read his handwriting to me when dealing with carpal tunnel years ago.
If I lose my cell phone, despite it containing enough tracking to immediately find it, the phone company will not give me that data. But if I rob/hurt/steal/kidnap/etc with that phone on me, that data will ID me and I will be in trouble. When I need it and can prove I am the account holder this data unavailable to help me recover my lost phone.
Stop thinking the data is okay because it helps us and makes our lives easier. That is not the case!
This is a great idea for all humans, unfortunately our ass-backwards idiotic economic system would be greatly wounded by it, since targeted advertising is a decent chunk of the economy.
This isn't the first or last activity that is harmful but profitable, but the only other one so profitable is fossil fuels, and unlike most there is no vastly less harmful but comparably profitable alternative to take the place of the activity we're stopping (like renewable energy for fossil fuels, or "living" for cigarettes). Privacy isn't profitable - this is quitting cold turkey.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I own my personal information, and for me, it is more valuable than shitty webmail, and social platforms. I will not trade it for (most) those things, and those that take it without my consent are stealing from me. All of the same reasoning that is used to claim the right to sell access to aggregated collected data should be valid for the opposite as well. If my data is a product, I should be able to choose not to sell. If you guess, and get it wrong, I should have recourse when you choose to sell access to wrong data in relation to me.
So what happens when I have my own terms of use for my personal data, say it's available on my website, and goes something like "Accepting legal tender from me implies acceptance of my terms. I may also change these terms at time, and this agreement supersedes all previous agreements entered... yaddaa yaddaa yadda...." The same standard crap from EULAs..
It seems to me, the more these companies collect, and the more they spend buying laws, and crafting EULAs that allow them ownership and license rights to personal and demographic data,then the easier it should for everyday guy to leverage the same rules and laws to not give up data, and sue those who take it without consent.
Does the fact that I could have traded my data for services highly valued (and chose not to) show material loss when my personal data is used anyway?
The question: If I'm willing to fight for it, accept no EULAs, and instead issue my own, can I really own my own data?
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
i wonder, i wonder what would happen if we go the complete other route?
what if we change the attributes on data to be "read-all"?
what if instead of a granular persmission approach to data, all data would be open?
for example, it would mean, that if the data is generated/collected, that EVERYBODY MUST BE ABLE TO READ IT?
that means, for example, a URL that uniquely allows to watch a certain video-surveillance camera that the government has installed, for each and every camera installed, for anybody?
another example, if the data is generated for a sub-way trip for john doe, then EVERYBODY can lookup john joe's subway trips?
the problem with data collection is not that data is collected in bases, but to whom the bases are belong!
It just went underground for 40 years to win the war. Their longterm covert agents have reunited Germany and brought all of Europe under their heel. Bush Sr. knew who they were and protected them. SHAME.
Citizens have proven, billions of times, they want Free Stuff. Not Freedom Stuff, just Free $ Stuff. They will sign up, give their information, accept nearly any TOS language (which of course never gets read).
As long as it is free the average Joe or Jane will give their rights away. If we make it illegal then we'll have irate citizens venting about how they have to pay $10 for something they used to get for free.
And don't say, "it doesn't matter what the citizens vent about. We made it illegal!" Those laws can only exist in an environment where the average citizen supports the basic principles behind the laws, and often the specific language of the laws themselves (I'm speaking in terms of a democracy here, in case that wasn't clear).
... for people to see that. Or rather another catastrophe. There are enough fascist catastrophes in human history and there are enough new ones currently happening or in preparation. Humans are stupid and cannot see a clear and present danger when it stares them into their faces. Even Germany, with first the 3rd Reich and then the DDR now thinks excessive surveillance of citizens is a good idea. Since we cannot identify the proto-fascists at birth (and then drown them to everybodies benefit), we need to find some other mechanism to finally stabilize this in a state of "non evil". Will likely not happen his century, though.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I think this is a pipe dream for two reasons. First, "information wants to be free". Even if site X doesn't need to collect it, site Y might. One way or another, "they" will get site Y's data. Once it is copied, the cat is out of the bag. Secondly, collection is only part of the problem. A lot of data are extrapolated. A given site may not need to have travel data, but travel will still be observed if you post a picture of a famous monument at the destination, or ask frieds about good hotels there, etc.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Rights cone with responsibilities. If you learn how to (safely) handle a gun, you should be granted the right to do so; if you shirk your responsibilities, you should necessarily lose your rights
Maybe that's the way gun rights should work. The actual gun rights, in the U.S., are that you have a right to as many guns as you want regardless of whether you can use them safely.
Let us build systems that do not provide value. I propose a law where all systems are useless.
But the Russians in control of the US don't care.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
St. Ignutius often sounds radical at first but then turns out to be entirely right in the long-run. Irreplaceable.
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
War over, you lost. Oops, you never even got to fire a shot. Too bad. Better luck next time. Oh, sorry, there won't be a next time. Sucks to be you.
For half a second until its out of the tellers short-term memory. As opposed to being permanently recorded in a database that will be shared with advertisers and the NSA.
Maybe if the anti-gun crowd wanted to be reasonable, that's how gun rights would work.
Once you call them the "anti gun crowd", you have already stopped being reasonable.
The sensible gun control crowd is, in fact reasonable. But the assholes running the NRA takes anything unreasonable and amplifies it at tremendous volume to make it sound as if there are only two choices: the NRA, or "unreasonable" nuts who want to ban guns. Anything "reasonable" is ignored.
Here, for example, is the full quote from David Hogg that is being "spun" as "he wants to repeal the second amendment!":
"What a lot of the media and especially Fox News has messed up with me is they’ve made it seem like I’m trying to take away people’s guns, that I’m against the Second Amendment. My father is a retired FBI agent. I have guns in my house. I’m not against the Second Amendment I’m trying to push for common sense gun reform and mental illness reform so we can make sure that these individuals that have a criminal background that are mentally unstable and have a history of domestic violence are no longer able to get a gun
I don’t understand what’s so hard to understand about this. We simply want to save lives and democracy, please stand with us."
Does that count as "wanting to be reasonable"? If not, then it's really you who has decided not to be reasonable.
Being a commie whose genius solution is "pass a law" doesn't sound like it takes much thought.
Travel is a natural right, not a privilege.
This is possibly the most important thing we can do _right now_.
Life has moved online and this particular life is dominated by corporations. This will not change. They have and will continue to concentrate power. The laws have not kept up -- if unchecked, this will allow for a de facto circumvention of any 4th amendment rights you still believe you enjoy.
1984 is the default unless society consciously decides to have it not be.
Society is busy looking at cat pictures and being trolled by foreign powers.
If we don't do something now, the next generation won't see anything wrong with not having done anything ...
Ad blocking is not theft.
Theft implies the deprivation of tangible property. If a website wasn't to disallow ad blockers, they can do that and prevent people running a blocker from visiting.
It's not my problem if websites are going bankrupt because their terrible business models can't adapt without ads. It's their job to solve their revenue model. If they go out of business because they can't do that without cramming my browser with trash, too bad.
It doesn't. Enjoy supply shortages. I hope you can eat fluffy fairy cotton candy made with rainbows because that's all that will be on your imaginary plate. Meanwhile, in Venezuela, they've resorted to cannibalism.
We have to cripple the tech...
This story sounds very familiar
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
In a world of only good citizens, what you said is true.
Reality is far from it.
GPL, one of his babies, already limits freedom more than some other licenses that preceded it (and even followed it). GPLv3 is far more limiting than the initial GPL he released. This limiting of freedom is one of the common criticisms against GPL - by supporters of less limiting licenses like MIT / BSD etc.
Freedom is a complex concept. Frequently, you have to limit / subdue freedom for an overall improved freedom environment. This is what Stallman has always understood better than others - and he continues to do that.
No groundbreaking event has actually happened in him saying this.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
But the NRA is a $350 million dollar lobbying machine, while the "anti gun crowd" are a handful of completely unfunded people who occasionally get an editorial in a newspaper. And the NRA's agenda is black and white: any regulation of guns whatsoever is attacked as a proposal to ban all guns, and needs a vigorous political action to remove any politician who even mentions this as a possibility.
There is no "reasonable" discussion of gun regulation almost entirely because the NRA attacks any reasonable discussion as "they're coming to take our guns."
..is to seek denial. They simply won't ask, since you might decline.
Organization? You must be joking..
I think Facebook and Google should comply with
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Casteism