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Comment by bikamonki | Hacker News Reader

You can go get an off-contract sim card, use it on a clean Android, create a fake gmail account in order to download and install Whatsapp. Now you make connections (you add family and friends to your contacts) and start communicating. By now both FB and Google know who you are simply b/c other people in your network, not concerned with privacy, have you saved on their contacts list, pressumably under your first and last name. Using analytics data that you inadvertedly share through your usage habits, both companies build a detailed online persona that will never be forgotten. B/c we are creatures of habit and social bonds, it is quite easy to determine who you are and what you do, by indirect information like your locations (gps), connections (contacts), online presence (IPs), browsing habits, etc.

THERE IS NO ESCAPE. Unless you do what they themselves say you should do if you do not agree with the terms: don't use their services.

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You could always, I dunno... stop using Facebook and WhatsApp and other software that you find harmful. I know, totally crazy idea. Just throwing it out there.

Network effects – at this point even some schools and newspapers are heavily using WhatsApp – make that impossible.

Which means either WhatsApp is replaced by something else, or it becomes as regulated as any governmental media.

EDIT: A bank already replaced most of their support channels with a WhatsApp chat.

It IS a utility at that point.

Also, employers and travel authorities who view the lack of a Facebook accountant as suspicious.

That snark is uncalled for. Stopping using WhatsApp and Facebook would make communication with some groups much more difficult for me, for example, because everyone uses them.

Ok, so in return Facebook and WhatsApp get to learn about you. That is the cost of doing business with them.

Why is that cost so different than the normal cost we pay for things (cash money)? Yes, things we value have costs. It is always a sacrifice to go without that thing, but if we want to AVOID having to go without it, we have to pay something.

"I can't believe you are making me pay this cell phone bill! I have no choice but to use it, and you are CHARGING ME MONEY for it?! This is outrageous!"

I mean, there are things we need even more that we have to pay for - food, shelter, etc. In order to get something from someone else, you have to give them something in return that they value. That is just how the world works.

When you pay cash your business relation ends there. When you pay with your personal information...it never ends.

You misunderstood my comment. My point is that quitting WhatsApp, when everybody around you uses it, is not simple and does not warrant that snark.

If I give someone money, it is their money and they can do what they want with it, it does not matter to me. If I give someone information about myself, it's still connected to me, but now it's under their control. They can use it to exploit or harm me, and so can anyone they sell it to, or anyone who steals it. It's that indeterminate potential for future abuse that makes it important. That's why we consider it differently.

I hate to break it to you, but when you make a payment online, the recipient learns your legal name, probably a billing address i.e. where you live, and you probably don't even think about it.

I do see a lot of double standards in these discussions. People never articulate who is specifically being hurt or what the specific problem is. Instead allusions to fascist governments are made, which would be fine, if these companies were governments. But they aren't: they have no power. If you're rightly scared about the combination of information and force, it's government surveillance that deserves the attention, not harmless chat apps.

and who do you think gives that data to the government?

> ... if these companies were governments. But they aren't: they have no power. If you're rightly scared about the combination of information and force, it's government surveillance that deserves the attention, not harmless chat apps.

In the meantime government surveillance agencies can piggyback just fine on information collected from fb, emails etc and can continue to spend money on even more scary surveillance tools.

I can give you personal example of harm: family member was a victim of fraud because of the leaked information online. I would argue that the existence of social media and it being promiscuous with our data makes it extremely easy for criminals.

> it's government surveillance that deserves the attention, not harmless chat apps.

Oh, but it's not harmless when it gets in wrong hands. The only precaution is to get assurance that those services don't collect your data indefinitely and more than necessary.

> allusions to fascist governments are made, which would be fine, if these companies were governments. But they aren't: they have no power.

It only takes one affected person to know what it's like to be spied on and abused with the information at hand. We don't need an entire country to come to shambles to know what such vast information collection could result in. You also seem to be making assumptions that governments cannot force a private company to part with data or that those in power cannot manage to create a warrant just to pay lip service to "due process". Additionally, there is also potential for abuse of the data by the private company's employees. Like how LOVEINT [1][2] exposed the fact that NSA employees used their privileges to spy on and track people in their personal spheres of life, Facebook employees may be doing the same without any kind of monitoring at all. We just don't know yet.

[1]: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog-...

[2]: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/09/loveint-on-his-fi...

>But they aren't: they have no power.

Sorry, what?

Even if that were true, nothing prevents them in principle from serving as the eyes and ears of a fascist regime. Nothing prevents a government, in principle, from compelling them to reveal sensitive information.

At the risk of being conspirational, need I remind you that Facebook was funded by DARPA? Need I remind you that the NSA is installing backdoors in ISPs and other service providers?

Do you really not see the problem being described by the parent comment, or are you just being contrarian?

It looks like you hit reply on my comment by mistake instead of on the parent comment (which was the one that said "But they aren't: they have no power", and I quoted that to add some counterarguments). :)

whoops! Indeed! :)

If you think it takes the power of the state to cause trouble, you're not imaginative enough. If you need convincing, just download your information from all the sites you visit (I know FB and google provide an easy way to do this), send it to me, and I'll help you understand the problem.

That's a moot argument because every human transaction, whether money or messaging, has meta data tied to it that can be exploited by bad actors.

True, but no reason to let companies collect even more data than they need to perform the transaction. Your argument goes a bit like "every lock can be picked, so why are you opposed to just keeping your door open?"

That's a terrible straw man. My counterargument to the "indeterminate potential for future abuse that makes it important" is that the same logic applies to all human transactions, so it's a moot premise.

Increased security standards on metadata for human transactions is actually the right response to the existence of bad actors, but increased security != forcing bans on the use of metadata.

It's not about outright banning, it's about limiting to the minimum amount required to perform the service. Btw. nobody complains about WhatsApp holding metadata about connections between people. We complain about WhatsApp transmitting this data in a quite hidden fashion to Facebook.

>It's not about outright banning, it's about limiting to the minimum amount required to perform the service

That's not how the German government is defining their ban.

>We complain about WhatsApp transmitting this data in a quite hidden fashion to Facebook.

FB announced last month [1] that they were sharing specific types of data between Whatsapp and FB. That's not "hidden".

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/26/technology/relaxing-privac...

An article in NY Times does not help to make it less hidden, particularly for German users. What is required is to inform every user individually and ask for his/her permission to transmit the data to another party. Explicit permission (= informed consent) is necessary because this data transfer is not required to perform the service (see above).

The larger point: Has it been meaningfully asked, and conclusively decided, that that amount of communication with those groups is a positive benefit to your life, large enough to justify all the hassle and humiliation of dealing with Facebook? Without adding any further snark, I would just like to offer my (probably fairly extreme on the continuum) viewpoint of, maybe fuck those groups.

No, you can't stop using Facebook. On a lot of carrier provided phones, it cannot be uninstalled.

And if you've signed in once, it will continue to run, auto update, and collect your information.

On every Android phone I've used, you can always disable the carrier-provided apps, so they won't show up in your app tray, or run any processes. iOS doesn't pre-install it, and I've no idea what Windows Phone does.

I had an HTC Droid Incredible. Facebook was included in the factory build, was always running per the process list even after force quitting, and with the exception of rooting the phone [0], was impossible to remove from the device.

http://forums.androidcentral.com/verizon-droid-incredible/10...

[0] Corporate-provided and payed-for phone, so I was prevented from rooting because of "security reasons." Even after (or, especially because) the phone developed the surprising habit of snapping pictures at random times -- as evidenced by the distinct sound made by my DInc's shutter -- after the corporate-required malware was installed. I'm sure someone, somewhere really enjoyed the view of the inside of my pocket.

Facebook will still build a "shadow profile" of you, based on information gleaned from contacts.

How could someone have me in their Facebook contacts if I don't have an account?

I believe they meant phone contacts since Facebook et al request phonebook permissions.

I haven't activated my FB account in years now, but can't members still add you as a family member even if you don't have an account?

I avoid FB more out of principle, not because of some deluded idea that I can avoid FB having my information. The solution "stop using Facebook and WhatsApp and other software" is harmful at worst and flippant at best.

Unless you never get your photo taken, your face is on FB and any other social media service your friends and family use. Unless you only have friends and family who never use FB, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, etc., your name, phone number, and email are on those services.

The idea that not using these services stops them from getting your information is fanciful, because your friends and family have no problem giving your information.

> The idea that not using these services stops them from getting your information is fanciful, because your friends and family have no problem giving your information.

The problem is that sometimes this information is incorrect and based on gossips. When would you know that it resulted in real life consequences, can fb sell this info to e.g. insurance companies?

Because for example you could have sent them an Email, SMS or called at some point and are in their phone contacts/contact book. That user then shared their phone contacts with FB.

So even though you may not have signed up for FB, they have [your name]{your number} in a table somewhere so that when and if you do sign-up it will be easy to link you with people you already have contacted.

You know, in the old days everyone had a whole book that was basically a table of everyone's name and phone number.

It was called the telephone book.

sure, but that telephone book didnt include the conversations you had with everyone in there

And some people were unlisted.

What's your point?

Not just contacts, some users obsessively tag photos with full name even when they captured non-fb users in their photos. And often there is no way for non-users to find out about it other than by joining facebook.

It seems the population is literally addicted to FB hence the cognitive dissonance. If anything should be lobbied for it's better mental health services related to social media addiction.

It's an addiction that can be quit instantly with no ill effects using nothing more than the willpower it takes to turn down a second slice of cake. Unfortunately I can't imagine what sort of social service can teach all these progressively-more-coddled generations how to tap willpower.

This is not a useful argument.

One could certainly stop stop Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Snapchat and so on. But you'd have to consider what the impact is; maybe you'll become more distant from friends and family. Maybe you'll miss out on events. These things are pretty important, for obvious reasons, and it's a shallow argument that everybody can simply walk away "instantly with no ill effects".

It's up to the individual to decide if the trade off is worth it. Clearly, for some, it is.

I'm not arguing, just stating simple facts. I have quit many of these things and went back to phones for communication, which still works perfectly well. Do I miss out on things? Maybe. It doesn't harm me in the least.

I certainly made no proclamation as to how anyone should live, which you seem to have mistakenly inferred. I suspect that level of unprovoked defensiveness to have an interesting underlying cause.

Your error is confusing "I can" with "people can".

No, I committed no error. You seem to be confusing what people strongly desire with what is actually possible.

It's pretty baffling. When you suggest that people try simply not using Facebook or WhatsApp they act as though you just suggested they stop eating and breathing.

It's because most of those suggestions try to imply that people can't quit Facebook, because they're stupid or addicted or something. One should stop and consider here that just because you can, doesn't mean you should. A lot of people, myself included, get actual value from using Facebook and thus don't have a reason to stop using it, even though they are perfectly able to.

Both the "friends and family" and "events" arguments sound like something Facebook itself might say, in the course of its browbeating you with subtle fear-mongering. Take it from me, the impact might actually turn out to be much less than you think. In some cases (like mine), it's even a positive. For example, not going to every single "event" leaves more time for all sorts of productive activity. Not keeping up with what everybody else is doing, leaves more time for you to actually do something yourself. And a certain amount of distance from friends and (especially in my case) family is actually fucking GREAT.

Please go explain this to a gambling addict. I'm sure it will turn them right around on the whole issue.

It's scary: the litany of "reasons" that always get brought up to explain why its literally impossible to stop using Facebook often sound a lot like the reasons addicts can't stop doing whatever it is that they do compulsively.

What's even more scary: you get the same litany of "reasons" explaining why people can't stop eating hot meals every day.

Comparing Facebook to alcohol/drug abuse is like comparing piracy to theft - it misrepresents both issues while making it more difficult to discuss their impact and ways to solve them.

So now FB is the equivalent of a hot meal. I think you're comically making my point.

No; what both FB and a hot meal have in common that they're things we do for pleasure, that are not necessary from biological standpoint, that you can stop using them at any time without much issue, but which many people use anyway because of the benefits it brings - in terms of both personal pleasure and strenghtening social ties.

Instead of calling people addicts, it'd be better to give them an actual compelling reason to stop. Hint: that whole privacy thing is not good enough of a reason.

But people don't just want a hot meal. They want Zuck to heat their meal for them AND they want Zuck to wear a blindfold.

So instead of heating your own food, or finding someone else to heat it - they demand politicians to intervene - to make sure Zuck - and all future food heaters - are properly blindfolded to respect your delicate sensibilities.

My fear is for the future of food heating technologies that don't involve Zuck. Hint: All the rest of them.

This is a great point. And for convenience, the price you pay is your privacy. Today, anyone is capable of communicating via encrypted email. You can use OpenPGP with an email client, for example.

>THERE IS NO ESCAPE. Unless you do what they themselves say you should do if you do not agree with the terms: don't use their services.

Or as so many others have called out in the thread - you get legislative relief.

But if you have a database of the entire population and can correlate relationships in data - what exactly does this legislation look like? "Ok Zuck, here's all my data. But don't run a `SELECT *` because that would violate my privacy".

The solution here is obviously open-source and protocol based mediums. Proprietary social networks exist to extract data and sell ads. But let's ignore that and give politicians more power to regulate internet services as a whole. I'm sure the German government would love that.

> But if you have a database of the entire population and can correlate relationships in data - what exactly does this legislation look like? "Ok Zuck, here's all my data. But don't run a `SELECT *` because that would violate my privacy".

Yes, there are laws restricting how and when data can be processed.

That someone has the ability to do something bad does not mean they cannot be restricted from doing it by the law.

Yes, just because you can do something with someone's data doesn't mean you should be able to do so.

That this sort of restriction is largely missing from US data laws is one reason we see so much fuss about data centre locations and 'safe harbour' provisions.

>But if you have a database of the entire population and can correlate relationships in data

That's exactly what the legislation constrains - Zuck's select * from where user_id = 'technofiend' returns 3 rows not hundreds or thousands, or zero if I've opted out of data collection entirely.

You can't simply throw your hands up and say "Well Facebook has a billion users too bad so sad if they collect data you don't like" because there are in fact plenty of laws elsewhere that restrict their activity. It's entirely possibly to tell them to keep their grubby hands of my bits and their cookies out of my browser. And yes if that means I have to pay for sites I use for free now, so be it. I can't help but think that'll drive content towards quality anyway.

Adopting an alternative to Zuckernet is the exact opposite. Continuing to hand your life's data to Zuck is to throw your hands up. Begging your politician for a little privacy from Zuck when strong encryption exists is to throw your hands up.

People care enough about privacy to complain about it but not enough to do anything. I don't have much sympathy for them.

Getting your democratic government to legislate protections is doing something.

One problem is that they collect "shadow" profiles of people who aren't even on the service. If someone who has your contact info is on the service, they'll start a profile of you based on that. Plus, there's many web sites that are connected to Facebook and send info back to it without you even knowing about it, just by having a Facebook share button on the page. It's very difficult to avoid having any of your data on Facebook's servers.

Ah, shadow profiles again.

Maybe the real problem here is that people talk about "your data". There's no "your data" in a shadow profile of you. There's data about you. I have a feeling that talking about the data as if it belonged to the person it refers to makes people reach weird conclusions.

I'm having problems with articulating clear examples, but I don't like the very concept of ownership of facts - whether they're algorithms or phone<->name associations.

In my mind, it's one thing if a Web site that I go to learnt about me based on my interactions and a whole another thing when people start correlating data across sites. That's what Facebook is doing with its stupid buttons on nearly every news site.

Amazon knows a great deal about my buying habits but that makes complete sense. Facebook knowing what articles I read from the Globe and Mail and the CBC is something else.

We're talking about WhatsApp here right? Which already uses strong encryption?

What does that have to do with privacy? Just because the data is encrypted doesn't mean it can't be harvested by FB

WhatsApp is end to end encrypted. Facebook/WhatsApp can't see the contents of the messages. It's the best technology available at the moment - there are no non-toy systems that also scramble metadata.

WhatsApp claims to be end-to-end encrypted, but since it's closed-source, who knows what's actually going on.

Short of using tor I'm not sure anything else really can work. You can dump all the cookies, block all the javascript and use all the VPNs you want but ad companies are working very hard to break through those protections. And until there is a law forbidding them to do so, they'll just keep doing it.

Except I do not trust my government. Do you?

> You can go get an off-contract sim card, use it on a clean Android

The moment you connect to your WiFi, Google gets the SSID and can relate other devices using it. Possibly (?) the SSID is also known to WhatsApp.

Does it really help much?

You don't even have to have wifi enabled, even when Wi-Fi is OFF it will still scan for SSIDs to use for location by default.

You have to disable an obscure setting to get it to stop this behavior.

But even after the device has detected the (B)SSID, you have to enable either Wi-Fi or your mobile data connection for the device to communicate with Google's servers. Still, just as worrisome.

You can escape into noise, but it's work. Privacy is an arms race between information and noise.

That's a nice way to put it, but it may not be that inevitable.

Here is a very simple idea: next time you talk to one of your friends who works at FB/Goog/etc. ask them pointedly how they can work at a place which obviously lacks any morals/ethics. Their first reaction would be to defend their actions, of course, but if a few people start doing this, my guess is that the message will start going up slowly but surely.

After all, what are they going to do? Stop having friends?

Those are the words that the head honchos at FB/Goog/.. etc are telling themselves about the viability of their privacy violations. At this point, no shame in turning it against them.

> After all, what are they going to do? Stop having friends?

They probably opt for more tolerant friends. ..but that's just a guess.

Yes there is. Call in legislation to fix the missing things.

US data protection laws are a joke. EU leads the way. We'll see more in the future, I am positive.

no reason not to make it as hard as possible on them. it makes it easier for alternatives to exist in their shadow.

Just a small heads up, WhatsApp supports installing the apk file directly without going through the Play Store. https://www.whatsapp.com/android/

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