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Comment by walrus01 | Hacker News Reader

> The rest 95% either don't know, or could care less even if they know. I've told my non-techie fam and friends about data harvesting, privacy, and how facebook tracks everything, only to be ignored or outright ridiculed ("Oh you techies are so paranoid").

pretty much exactly my experience with Canadian and American family. People didn't give one iota of a fuck when the Snowden revelations came out because they just assumed that it was the case already.

I think the average techie underestimates how important platform lockin + user interface design + ubiquity are. Once something like Facebook Messenger has reached a critical market share trying to get people to stop using it, no matter how privacy violating FB may be, is about as effective as trying to get people in the year 1985 to disconnect their house's analog telephone line.

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> People didn't give one iota of a fuck when the Snowden revelations came out because they just assumed that it was the case already.

It's more complex than that. The tracking and surveillance are not visible to the average person. Point your camera at someone in a coffee shop or bar and take their picture. They'll be coming over to ask you why you took their photo. The fact that the coffee shop or bar is brimming with overhead cameras is completely lost on them because it is mostly invisible (or least no longer noticed).

Just wait until someone does a massive leak of actual personal data, photos, and videos, as opposed to abstract technical reports and Powerpoint slides that Snowden leaked. The average person will be screaming like a banshee when they can look up all the personal info and private pics of themselves and their neighbors and friends on some public webserver.

The true data apocalypse will come when ISP logs are compromised and leaked (urls visited, dns lookups, tied to ip or even subscriber ids, etc), and there is enough leaked PII floating it out there to join it to people records.

With the exception of big evil things like Comcast, you might be surprised how few ISPs keep detailed logs like this. The effort to correlate them with customers is generally not worth it unless you get a subpoena, and only then is it done manually.

(UK) The new surveillance law requires web and phone companies to store everyone’s web browsing histories for 12 months and give the police, security services and official agencies unprecedented access to the data.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/29/snoopers-chart...

While the UK is still part of the EU, will there be a case to have your history removed under the new GDPR legislation?

No, the GDPR allows states to include exceptions for such cases: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-da...

In the end, incompetence might save us all :)

>The fact that the coffee shop or bar is brimming with overhead cameras is completely lost on them because it is mostly invisible

With the coffee shop, it makes sense; the cameras in retail are expected to only be used for review, when some event occurs. No one expects it to be used for data mining and behavioral analysis purposes. And even if it were, the expectation is that this would be for academic purposes; that is, with no real commercial intent.

Worst case scenario is that it'd end up being archived in a box of tapes somewhere.

Datamining abuses this expectation. But it makes sense for the expectation to exist; it was the norm until extremely recently.

> the cameras in retail are expected to only be used for review, when some event occurs. No one expects it to be used for data mining and behavioral analysis purposes.

Right. Except that this is also not true.

Source: "A crashed advertisement reveals the code of the facial recognition system used by a pizza shop in Oslo..." => https://twitter.com/gamblelee/status/862307447276544000?lang...

The word "reveals" is used because it is not expected by the average person. Otherwise it would be something like "confirms expectation".

No, the word "reveals" is used because the code is revealed. Well, it's more a "log file" than "code", but that's detail. The point is that the "code" (log file) is usually hidden from average people.

Also, the word "reveals" is used to make the headline more sensational, just like any other headline. It doesn't tell you anything about the average person.

How does this show that data mining isn't an abuse of expectation? The reason this is even an article in the first place is presumably because it conflicts directly with expected use.

There is certainly object detection available on the cameras and behavioral analysis applied to this information and POS data in aggregation software at the store and chain level for both loss prevention and marketing reasons. Maybe not used in all cases but I was surprised to learn these systems can be worthwhile in convenience stores, gas stations, and fast food restaurants, let alone larger stores like Target.

But you’re probably right that most people don’t think this is happening but only expect the stream is only flashing on a screen in front of a guard in real time and stored on a tape temporarily.

Worst case scenario is that the stored info is taken by someone more malicious and used for anything unintended beyond the original purpose.

The whole point of "less surveillance" is to limit the amount of information stored, because information stored IS the vulnerability.

>when they can look up all the personal info and private pics of themselves and their neighbors and friends on some public webserver.

I always thought this webserver is called "facebook", isn't it?

My local bar has over a half dozen cameras pointed to customers and workers areas. I installed them plus the DVR at owner request, they're perfectly visible and nobody gives a damn (except a couple customers once asking if the devices were also listening and recording audio). Everyone knows the owner doesn't use the data for anything illegal, and one time thanks to cameras we caught a worker who stole food bags to use or sell them elsewhere. Trust does also play a role here.

You mean everyone assumes he doesn't abuse the data. That's different than knowing. It's just the lazy and thoughtless stance to take. "Why would they be allowed to have the cameras if they were up to no good"? Businesses are assumed to do no wrong and meet some high moral standard because it's easy to.

I also used not to care, because I used to think that "I don't put that much information on it". But it always said data, but not which data, now I know it buys data from other to cross it, don't know which data they buy and don't know what kind of information they are able to get when they do this. This is what we are only now understanding that they are doing and what is possible to do with this. And of course, Facebook say the least minimum necessary to keep profiting with no problems. Hence I don't see how we can expect people to really know what Facebook does.

Excellent point. I'd also like to add, people are afraid and feel powerless and tend to focus on more productive things such as raising their kids.

Normal people aren't obsessing over tech like the common hn reader.

Once something like Facebook Messenger has reached a critical market share trying to get people to stop using it

writing this comment from South-East Europe where many people use facebook not just for cat pics but to find work and network with colleagues. It's a huge problem in developing countries where facebook IS the Internet. FB recently announced it would roll out job-posts for low-income workers[¹]. This will mean an even stronger lock-in for the user. While the discussion on ethics evolve mostly user-privacy and CA/FB role in Brexit/election hacking, the problem for less developed regions is facebook taking from them without giving back (fb is known not to pay it's taxes in Europe)

¹ https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/28/facebook-job-posts/

Echoing your statement, "Facebook is the Internet". In Africa most telecoms have special data bundles for Facebook and WhatsApp. Normal data bundles to browse the Internet are just too expensive. A dollar will give you unlimited access to Facebook and WhatsApp for about 2 weeks.

I have a few cows back in my village. I have toyed with the idea of creating a cattle monitoring application that would have to make use of Facebook or WhatsApp. The herder sends me a picture every evening of the cows. I want to piggy back on the affordable connectivity given to Facebook and WhatsApp. Yes I know, this would contribute to the problem but for me losing cattle is a bigger problem. From parent, finding a job is a bigger problem so we all get sucked into Facebook.

Sounds like a Messenger bot would work well for that use case actually.

Thanks I will add a note to my list of ideas on my rather long list of todo things.

Getting FB to subsidize your cow tracking needs sounds great to me!

It’s a socioeconomic awareness. If you’re worried about food you don’t care. Facebooks 99% are the poorest and least educated.

I’ve always wondered why face book, a platform which could unify teachers from mit with the poorest students across the globe has never done shit to do so.

They claim to “connect the globe” but the haven’t connected anything.

Where is the teacher hosting a class where any single person from fbs vast user base can connect?

Fucking unreal.

Facebook could have become the global educational foundation with their platform at this point.

But it’s just a circlejerk.

To be fair, “connecting the globe —> making the world a better place” has always been a bit of a vague vision.

> educational foundation

Well, that was the original hope with print, radio and TV.

So we mostly get scandal sheets, soap operas and reality TV.

"What we learn from history is that we don't learn from history", as some wag put it.

I'd like to hear a proposal for how print, radio or tv could have successfully served such an end.

I.e. where enough people watched the content, where the proposal was realistically achievable, and would have been financially viable.

Not saying such a thing is impossible but it sure isn't easy.

Hey, don't underestimate it. Protestant Europe got a big literacy boost from the Gutenberg Bible.

And if you dig around the writings around the time that radio and (later) TV got started, you'll see plenty of hopeful plans for universal education.

But after the transient is over, the steady state is kind of underwhelming. People are very resistant to instruction that doesn't suit them, and I really can't blame that.

> Hey, don't underestimate it. Protestant Europe got a big literacy boost from the Gutenberg Bible.

I was responding to your comment saying "that was the original hope with print, radio and TV. So we mostly get scandal sheets, soap operas and reality TV"!

I'm fully aware there's major benefits that have come from those mediums.

> And if you dig around the writings around the time that radio and (later) TV got started, you'll see plenty of hopeful plans for universal education.

Again, you were the one who said it didn't pan out, and you implied the only reason they didn't was because <quote>"What we learn from history is that we don't learn from history", as some wag put it.</quote>.

My comment was pointing out that the reason has to be more than just that -- thus the challenge to come up with a proposal that could actually work.

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