Hacker News Reader

Comment by userbinator | Hacker News Reader

Security paranoia is ruining the independent Internet and putting more power in the hands of companies like Google.

I mean, you say paranoia, but I think back to the time I had to spend hours and hours unliking instagram posts made by a bot that had harvested our cookies by buying Nano Adblocker.

In this case, we know that extensions are sometimes sold and updated maliciously. Having external arbitrary code is a legitimately concerning vector because it bypasses Google verification of the extension.

Not that Google are great at their jobs in that case, but it's something.

So it's not paranoia in this case, it's "we can't have nice things" because of real bad actors.

I remember back when adware, spyware, and viruses ran amuck on PC’s thanks to lax Windows XP security design and an open internet without any effort to protect users. It was bad.

We do need to decentralize the decision making but the progress toward making the web safer for average folks is good.

Freedom isn't free. An open internet where users take reaponaibility for taking risks is preferable to a safe but locked down and centralized internet.

What is even scarier is one controlled by Google because it's the only browser in town. A company that wants to know everything about you and sell it to the highest bidder in order to maximize profits for their stock holders. Everything else is noise to them except for an occasional public outrage which the fix with a slight course correction.

If we put everybody in jail we don't have to worry about crime anymore! That's a lot easier than trying to have an informed public who can exercise caution and learn to assess risk in their lives. Besides, only a very small market segment of hardcore freedom enthusiasts really care about freedom. There's not enough money in that market segment to be worth the investment. Most everybody will happy watching television in their cells. Anybody who doesn't like it is welcome to go to the jail run by our one competitor.

My hypothesis:

Any vulnerability-prone system, will either fade away or end up with a centralized arbiter quite inevitably.

It's not paranoia if the internet really is full of hackers out to get you

Reply on news.ycombinator.com