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Comment by 1ris | Hacker News Reader

It's a ridiculous and naive view of the world.

Of course it already exists. For example on facebook. For example in the mosques.

Everybody was warned, everybody could have seen this coming. But most people didn't give a fuck. Welcome is post privacy. I didn't need have to be that way. We can still turn this into post-post-privacy. But only if we face what we have already done.

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Well, to be honest, the title is highly misleading.

Sure, they pledged to refuse to participate in the creation of such database, but that's just one of the things stated in the full pledge. I would emphasize more on the following parts of the pledge:

    * to scale back existing datasets with unnecessary racial, ethnic, and national origin data.
    * to implement security and privacy best practices, in particular, for end-to-end encryption to be the default wherever possible.
    * If we cannot stop these practices, we will exercise our rights and responsibilities to speak out publicly and engage in responsible whistleblowing without endangering users.

> * to scale back existing datasets with unnecessary racial, ethnic, and national origin data.

We already have this, as the foreigners Trump is referring to have to get US Travel Visas. Obviously we know their country of origin. Anyone paying attention at all knows Trump's current plan is keeping a close eye on all visitors and immigrants (allowed in) from countries with large anti-western terrorism contributions - which happens to of course coincide with some Islamic-majority countries.

The whole article and 'pledge' is anti-Trump fluff.

That's his current plan, but some of his previous positions were a bit more draconian / extreme. I think the pledge implies level of drawing a clear line in the sand before it it ever comes to it.

That's all nice, but do they believe they can "scale" back? Like how? If facebook drops the table it won't be gone from all the scrapers and law enforcment and intelligence tools.

>Everybody was warned, everybody could have seen this coming.

There has been nothing coming. Trumps pre-election stuff was BS, nothing will be done. Check back in 4 years.

Besides government agencies obviously already have detailed profiles of such things, going far beyond the religion of a subject.

I'm talking about what is happening right now. If you find yourself in a situation where you regret data having this deeply, you shouldn't have collected them in first place.

The second statement is true, but unrelated. It's like saying you are fine because others are worse.

>The second statement is true, but unrelated. It's like saying you are fine because others are worse.

No, it's like saying "Whether I catch a flu or not is not really worth it to fret about, given that I have a couple terminal illnesses going on anyway".

If you didn't see this coming you only have yourself to blame.

This comment distills into "I told you so".

Facebook has all this data. We're trying to do something about it. What are you doing?

Yes, it does, because I did. I tell people not to use facebook. That's not enough, but everything less is in vain.

No technical solutions for political problems my ass. If politics is unfixable (witch was foreseeable) a technical defence was necessary. It was in plain sight what was going to be possible. Any people where talking about post privacy like it was good thing because they failed to acknowledge this.

The first to undo this is to acknowledge the mistake. Without it we are bound to repeat it.

So your contribution is telling people not to use Facebook?

Thank you for your service.

And teach them to use tor. As said, that's not enough. But nothing can safe a fool, so it's important people don't have to reley too much on other and take at least the basic precaution themselfs. If you have any better (as in working better) ideas I'm open to suggestion. But I'm sceptical.

What did you do? And how did it work? I guess for me it did work out somewhat well.

Right, The database already exists and it is called facebook. It can identify you by information you provide, by people you have relationships with, by your conversations, and by the largest database of photos of the world, many of which contain faces and are automatically tagged by the camera with a location and a time.

Bought firearms with a background check? Thanks, now they know to send in SWAT instead of regular uniforms. You carry your tracking device with you at all times and keep it charged every night right? You've helpfully identified yourself as a subversive by encrypting your communications right? All your finances, communications, and your ability to navigate depends on government controlled networks and institutions right?

- All network connected software is surveillance software

- The reason for creating information is irrelevant to how it is used

- Technology is being used activly by rulers for surveillance, repression, and assassination

Mosques don't keep track of members. You can go into any Mosque and hang out if you wish.

Having never once stepped foot in a mosque, I find that a little difficult to believe unless there is a canonical religious text or other religious law that forbids it. Every Christian church I know of keeps track of members, if only for tracking donations so that a receipt can be issued at year-end. Sure, as with a mosque, one can just show up and anonymously participate, but much more participation than that and your name is going into a roll (list of members) of some sort, if for no other reason than, well, organizations like to put a name on the folks that show up regularly.

What you said is true but active attendees like to formally join the mosque as members so they can vote for and participate on the board or other executive positions. Most mosques are incorporated as non-profit organizations and have the same governing structures and types of membership you would expect from typical NPO's.

While I believe that's true for non regular visitors I bet my ass most manage a donors and members list in google spreadsheets.

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