Hacker News Reader

Comment by blakesterz | Hacker News Reader

>> The concept of hurling garbage into the all-seeing-eye is a good one and I hope it gains sustained popularity.

So this is a genuine question, because I don't get it. How is that good? What does it accomplish exactly that makes someone safer or more private on any realistic level? I understand the point at a high level, but what does that actually do for a person on a practical level? Like... "I hurl all this garbage at Google and now I'm better off because...." I can't complete that sentence in a meaningful way and I'd like to be able to. I'd like to believe this really makes some meaningful difference, so I'm hoping I'm missing something. (I'm not thinking in terms of "if everyone did it" but rather "If I do this")

View on HN

Speaking as a data engineer: If your personal data is junk, it limits my ability to derive insights from it, and leverage it. I can't speak in terms of ad-tech/user data selling, I'm in an entirely different space, but if it prevents them from being able to both derive value from and further proliferate my identity as a datapoint, that's both a personal and a commons good from where I'm standing.

I work in a space that's orthogonal to ad retargeting, and from what I can tell after talking to people at the big data brokers, reading their white papers, and reviewing their actual data, I've concluded that their ability to retarget is excellent but they otherwise have a really poor understanding of the targets' characteristics/demographics.

For me, I imagine a scenario like the movie GATTACA where in a future world an employer can base their entire hiring decision on what your genome says about you (theoretically, a lot). Imagine a world where business giants judge you by correlating huge amounts of data about you. "You shop for expensive purses and small dog toys, therefore statistically your personality is x, y, z"

I don't know for sure, but if you try to get a job at certain places where they require you to get clearance, THEY WILL read your search history, emails etc, and that is. Information collected via online surveillance tells much more about you than your genes. Even from genetic standpoint, there is a thing called epigenetics. Environment affect about half the traits of who you are, so knowing what you eat, who you meet, where you go and so on would actually be quite revealing.

Um, no they don't: https://www.opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/sf86-non508.pdf

>I hurl all this garbage at Google and now I'm better off because....

I'm a more obscure/difficult target for hackers and social engineers.

There is no single IT security solution, and there is no 100% security. But the more layers you have against the many different attack vectors the more secure your identity is. This tool is but one layer.

If you left footprints everywhere you went in meatspace, criminals could use that information to own you.

This is a tool which obfuscates the footprints you leave on the web.

I'll try to explain my own reasoning. While "good" may not be the epitome of eloquence on my part, it could in this case be viewed similarly to the subjective manner in which one might say "That music sounds good", or a proposal that "sounds good" because it achieves something I perceive as in my favor. As a privacy advocate, I resent the collection and exploitation of my personal activities and communications, regardless of TOS, etc. I also don't view people as units of profit or as something to exploit to my advantage through non-cooperative means. I find it very strange that so many are willing to accept from strangers, agencies and corporations what they would aggressively protest from an individual. For myself, the unauthorized collection and use of what I prefer to remain private is, regardless of legalese, intrusive and bothersome. The difficulties involved in avoiding this bother are formidable, and in some ways overwhelming. If I can passively convolute the acquisition of this data, it is "good" because it hinders something hostile to my sense of well being. I should clarify that I don't believe that such data is used exclusively for marketing.

Regarding the sentence you found difficult to complete, I'll try:

"I hurl all this garbage at Google and now I'm better off because...." I am impeding something that I protest. I have no reason to believe that such collected data will be used responsibly, nor am I convinced that if it was, it would be innocuous. Just as I don't want my every thought read aloud, neither do I want my every curiosity, concern or inquiry. To the best of my observations, we are not living in a utopia where altruism and goodwill take precedence over profit and personal interests. Our society scarcely has affordable healthcare. Our society is still a brutal one, where such brutality is often administered based not on one's character, but on their finances. America has a thriving private prison industry with a startling portion of inmates incarcerated for victimless crimes. America freely engages in highly dubious wars that cost many innocent lives. The world is still a work in progress. I believe we all have a lot of work to do on our selves as individuals and a species, and before making careers out of furtively siphoning personal data from our fellow citizens for purposes of exploitation, we ought look in the mirror a bit longer. I don't think that's Google's (nor their partners'/clients') plan, despite the ostensibly "good" things they do. I do not believe humanity has evolved through the virtue of smartphones and petroleum to suddenly within one generation have permanently excoriated the dictators and tyrants of the world from itself. Whether I am in error or not, this data is connected to that which is personal to me, therefore if I can confuse it, it is good.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com