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Comment by daveFNbuck | Hacker News Reader

The recent data breach made many people realize that you're always just 1 instance of bad luck away from having a bunch of aggregated personal data stolen. It's pretty reasonable to decide you're better off removing yourself as a target than hoping Facebook will never again experience bad luck.

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Every direct mail list provider on the planet has just as much info on you as FB, and they have garbage security. This is an overblown risk comparably.

Source: Have bought DM lists of millions of people with full addresses, estimated salaries, employers, etc.

How bad do you think a risk needs to be to justify not using a service you probably don't enjoy anymore anyway?

> The recent data breach made many people realize that you're always just 1 instance of bad luck away from having a bunch of aggregated personal data stolen.

There is no such thing as data stolen but from the files on your hard drive. As soon as you upload something to the Internet you publish it and have no guarantee but hope people you don't want to see it won't notice it.

Data breaches make the news because the data wasn't supposed to be published. Just because a third party has my data on a computer doesn't mean it's public. Under your logic I've published all my banking data, whether I've used online banking or not.

All I've meant is that nobody should ever feel surprised when the data they've uploaded leaks. Now the people have realized it can leak, what amazes me is that they supposedly didn't realize it in advance. Just don't upload your naked pictures anywhere if you are going to feel seriously upset for longer than a couple of seconds once everybody sees them. That's just "a rule of a thumb". I absolutely don't mean companies like Facebook should not bother to protect users' data, I mean users should never actually take this protection seriously. The Facebook problem did not affect me because everything I've ever uploaded/written there is what I would not mind showing/saying on a TV.

> The Facebook problem did not affect me because everything I've ever uploaded/written there is what I would not mind showing/saying on a TV.

Does that include everyone who you've friended and everything they've put on Facebook, plus all the data they've inferred about you and your friends through tracking and other third-party sources?

If a company holds some information internally, and an unauthorised third party surreptitiously obtains that information, wouldn't you call that stealing?

It's not reasonable at all. You're 1 instance of bad luck away from death. But that's hardly a reason to not leave home.

Presumably you get value from leaving home, and these people realized they weren’t getting value from Facebook.

Personally I have still friends I cannot switch to other platforms so I am stuck checking my Facebook messages once a month, but that is the only reason I still have an account, and I have unliked everything else from the service.

The likelihood of death isn't enough to keep me from from leaving my house, but it is enough to keep me from driving without buckling my seatbelt. Everyone has to do their own cost-benefit calculations, and the benefits of Facebook will not always outweigh the costs of having their personal data leaked.

It's hardly a reason to leave home, but it's definitely a reason to, for example, not go skydiving.

You obviously can't remove all risk, but you sure can reduce it.

That might not be the best example, though. You are more likely to die driving to the airport than you are to die while skydiving. That is an activity which is similar to riding a roller coaster: it seems much more dangerous than it actually is.

> You are more likely to die driving to the airport than you are to die while skydiving.

Can you back that up? I thought this was true too but did a quick check anyway and I found skydiving death rates are 8 in a million but driving death rates are 7.1 per billion kilometers. Driving to the airport is probably more dangerous than your average drive, but it still looks like the car trip is less likely to kill you.

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