Comment by boron1006 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by boron1006 | Hacker News Reader

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Usually I like Snowden, he seems to be fairly level-headed about most things. This seems like a bit of a nothing statement though. No evidence to back up his statement, no call to action.

I was thinking about reasonable ways to protect personal information. People always say that they delete FB outright, but I don't think everyone has that luxury. It's also a pretty good way of staying in touch with others. I came up with a couple ways of at least making it harder for them to track you.

1. Whatever email you use for FB, stop using it for other things. My understanding is that a lot of how they can put your purchase history together with your facebook profile is that companies that collect purchase data joins it on e-mail.

2. Stop using the FB apps. I think the "FB is listening to me" thing is mostly BS, but apps in general give away a lot more information than websites.

3. Log out of facebook when not using it. A huge reason that Facebook was allowed to reach "beyond" they're own website is the Facebook pixel, which allows FB to know where you're browsing when you're not on the site.

Of course, these won't work 100% (I have no idea if they'll work at all, this is all stuff that I gathered from working as a data scientist at a much much smaller social media company), but I think they're reasonable measures to take to protect your data if you can't just stop using FB outright.

I’m just replying to your comment as it jogged lose an example of what I see as a missing piece of the issue.

Namely, a course of conduct in self protection needs to have an understanding of what the potential harm is from a given threat.

As I see it, the big danger is not from these corporate data vacuums like Facebook, directly.

The biggest threat is the use of this aggregated data by bad actors.

I have yet to hear of a major tech company undertaking actions to directly harm the users of their products. In fact, they are highly incentivized to minimize harms to users.

I don’t see targeted advertising as a bad thing. If I’m going to see adds, I prefer they reflect my interests. I actually find out interesting things from such adds.

Because the overall system has become so complex and monolithic, I think taking steps to thoughtfully minimize personal information leakage is prudent.

But inconveniencing oneself to no discernible benefit is counter productive, and can easily backfire.

For example, if you move your email service to one provided by your shared website host, you open yourself to many potential woes.

Emails from private domains are more likely to get lost in spam filters. I’ve had unfortunately breakdowns in relationships because people who needed to reach me thought I was blowing them off.

Last time I had an email address a private domain, the spam filtering was so bad, it rendered it almost useless.

You’re also hosting your mail on god knows what server, controlled by a company with a lot less security resources than Google.

So there is a substantial cost in avoiding the free email services like Gmail, for nebulous benefit.

I am very concerned about the issue of personal information security. But everything comes at a cost.

The question of whether allowing law enforcement back door access to private communications is worth it is not so straightforward as many commenters seem to imply.

>>> In fact, they are highly incentivized to minimize harms to users.

You may be right. But it really depends who the users are and the kind of Don Corleone proposal the management of the social media company might get. (hint : some group of very powerful people can be the most important users of FB and can make it a proposal that they can't refuse; people like a shady government bureau)

>>> You’re also hosting your mail on god knows what server, controlled by a company with a lot less security resources than Google.

The question is not security. The question is who manages the server and who he abides to. Security doesn't mean nothing as as long as the server is cracked/owned, all your data will be open.

> So there is a substantial cost in avoiding the free email services like Gmail, for nebulous benefit.

Only if you define the alternative as picking a random shared hosting provider. Just pick a better one than gmail.

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