Why to care about privacy after years of sharing data
blog.thenewoil.org
blog.thenewoil.org
There's two extremes to being online: you can wear your heart on your shirt sleeve and post under your legal name, and share details about your private life, or you can be a ghost and leave no traces, or at least minimize your footprint.
There is this thing: some people are just so famous online, that reverting back to some private mode is nearly impossible for them. They're so out there and involved with so many services, that 'going dark' for them would be very difficult, but there are steps you can take to minimize your footprint. It's not too late to take those initial steps.
I encourage everyone to attempt to 'go dark' gradually and make it very expensive for people to dox you. If you turn it into a game, it's even better. I said it was tedious, but honestly I kind of like becoming a ghost. I'm so opaque to big tech now, that it must really piss them off, including dragnet surveillance.
It's not a life for everyone however, and sometimes I have to participate in big tech like using my smartphone to do online banking, or buying something on Amazon, but 99% of my activities online are all more-or-less anonymous and private now, and I'm happy with that.
My first suggestion would be to get every account in a password manager like 1Password. In addition to the obvious security benefits, this creates a record of where all your accounts are. For the average person it'll take time for them to remember everything (and they'll realize ones they forgot) - having a place for it all to get documented is the first step.
Once you have that, the next step is to go through every account and close the ones you don't need. After that, go into the ones you do need and modify the settings to disable as much of the tracking as possible.
I'd also suggest people sign up for deleteme: https://joindeleteme.com/ since these public data collectors can't be stopped without continued effort and I don't think there will be laws to stop them anytime soon.
For more technical users, I'd suggest they get their own domain and use fastmail with aliased emails for each account - but realistically regular people will not do that.
There are also advantages to having a public presence online (both professional and personal) - the issue isn't so much that you need to be 100% dark, it's that your public presence should be under your own control. One of the reasons I'm excited about Urbit is because it has the potential to give this control back in a way that could actually work.
I think culturally we also need to be more understanding of people making mistakes as the grow up and saying stupid things as they learn, but that's somewhat of an orthogonal issue so I'll leave it there.
They need that information to actually carry out the service you're requesting of them (namely going around to all these shitty data brokers and going through their intentionally arduous processes to request removal).
In order to do that they need to know the info to query against and remove.
I can understand why someone wouldn't want to do that, but of the available options for this kind of thing I thought it was the best one.
It doesn't even need to be a middle ground. Even the least effort is enough.
Think about smoking, drinking and other risky behaviour.
I make a similar plea and argument in Digital Vegan [1] as is made in the blog post. Like plenty of other thinkers now (Newport, Doctorow, Kingsnorth, Vaidhyanathan, Kardaras, Tufekci, Rushkoff, Lanier, Véliz and Oddell) I framed surveillance capitalism, social media and smartphone addiction as a public health issue. This is now the dominant emerging frame.
People who use drugs and alcohol use the same sunk-cost fallacy:
"Hey, I've been doing this for years now, what's the point in quitting?"
The point is that ANY reduction offers an immediate health benefit. You don't have to become an Olympic athlete to eat a little healthier and exercise a tiny bit more.
By the same token, any improvement to your digital lifestyle is worth making - whether that's refusing to give personal data, not participating in the "cashless" society, buying quality, durable digital goods that reduce e-waste, getting a dumb phone or quitting social media... they all count.
That's why I think the diet metaphor is very powerful.
Are they, though? What tangible benefit does one actually get from refusing to give out personal data one doesn't care about?
>> Are they, though?
Yes
>> What tangible benefit does one actually get from refusing to give out personal data one doesn't care about?
Being loved and respected, and more successful in life. People who care about themselves are generally better liked and so gain social advantages. Self-care does not mean being selfish. If you treat yourself like someone you are responsible for, others see that you are the kind of person who can care for them too.
You should care about every part of your person, including your data, as if it were your literal personal hygiene.
Out of curiosity...are you displaying a "Fuck the Police" kind of message, or do you have a bunch of aftermarket parts that makes you distinctive?
I am probably the most privacy conscious person of my friends (not that I do a particularly good job of it), so I spent lots of time thinking about how to communicate about privacy in a way that is effective. [We're all mid-twenties, for context.] The main issue, I find, is that people just mostly don't care.
That being said, most of my friends do relate (and dislike) the loss of agency that comes with giving your brain to an algorithmic feed that decides what you eat. The narrative of "control your life and decisions" would be an effective piece of rhetoric, I think!
The other argument I've found really effective is one that convinced me after reading Edward Snowden's memoir Permanent Record. A sketch of the point:
Person 1: privacy matters. Person 2: I don't care about privacy, because I don't have anything to hide. Person 1: Historically, the folks who were hurt because of a lack of privacy weren't us (young professionals), but rather the civil rights movement in the 1960s and the Vietnam anti-war movement, etc. Privacy is about protecting those people who the government/institutions/etc already squash down.
It's an argument that comes from Permanent Record, pretty much, and I think for me it is the most compelling reason that I care about privacy! Not as much for myself (although that's nice), but mostly for the people that privacy protects who really need it.
In my experience, it goes over very well, as people can see that privacy isn't just about doomsday preppers not wanting anyone to know where they bury their gold, but rather about protecting those people who need/deserve/would benefit from protection!
P.S. I'd recommend reading Permanent Record. I was only 15 or so when all that stuff went down, and really didn't know anything about it except "Snowden good or bad idk," but the book is a fantastically interesting and well-written story. I think he's kinda awesome.
And this should resonate even among the individualistic and self-interested who might believe they're unaffected, as those who aren't "squashed down" right now would be wise to not get caught in the thinking that the set of people affected today by certain state, corporate and institutional actions is immutable. "They would never do it to us" (along with the often heard "it could never happen here") is one of the most dangerous ways of discounting problems affecting "others" in the present. When you see people, either as individuals or as groups, being treated a certain way by those with greater power, remember that this could just as easily also be you in the future.
Because of this person's lack of caring, they don't realize that it's not just their privacy that they are sacrificing. By sharing their contacts, they just gave up all of the privacy of those people as well without so much as a hesitation of thought. The person who does care about privacy has 0 chance because of the careless actions of others.
Unfortunately, I can't not have it, it's too entrenched because most people do not care about privacy.
In the second world war, the germans went into the municipal buildings, raided the census data and eliminated everyone who wrote the "wrong" religion in the census data.
I think this is why Europeans care more about privacy than Americans. It's not only about why it should matter, but also it shouldn't be weaponized.
(Don't take this seriously): Suppose your country was under attack and foreign troops invaded. They take you and say: "Well, well, it seems you're a javascript programmer according to your linkedin profile... We don't like javascript"
That was WWII, privacy is also weaponized today. Rogue regimes will use whatever is put online to harass or even assassinate people in other countries.
I do believe in data privacy. Mostly from the lens of not living in a future world where data removes an individual's critical thinking ability and engagement of new experiences. This is already pretty true in corporate america & reliance on technology like map apps instead of getting lost like the article mentions.
For ads, I think we have to accept the reality of the world such as Jerry Mander did in 1978:
“If you accept the existence of advertising, you accept a system designed to persuade and to dominate minds by interfering in people's thinking patterns. You also accept that the system will be used by the sorts of people who like to influence people and are good at it. No person who did not wish to dominate others would choose to use advertising, or choosing it, succeed in it. So the basic nature of advertising and all technologies created to serve it will be consistent with this purpose, will encourage this behaviour in society, and will tend to push social evolution in this direction.” - Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander
Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television
https://www.worldcat.org/title/four-arguments-for-the-elimin...
https://archive.org/search.php?query=mander+Four+arguments+f...
http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=F119513A778FC924D7ED96B4...
The framings "your privacy," "your data," "stealing" are interesting and provocative in some cases but I see the more extreme forms of this as pining for a world in which you are the only stateful or intelligent agent. We have never lived in that world, and I don't share your conviction that we obviously or morally ought to.
They buy details from your supermarket, health insurer etc. And yet people here don't often bring them up.
I didn't realize that they could buy my data from a health insurer—where can I read more about this?
They do not support deletion of your data, modifying of your data after 1h, and are what I would describe as a data-tarpit. Nor do they support any of the European privacy directives.
Sure, they're in the US, but they should definitely be forward-thinking about this stuff - The writing's on the wall.
It's why I create junk accounts and abandon them after a bit. Then again, this too is the endemic problem with how silicon valley is run.
We try not to delete entire account histories because that would gut the threads the account had participated in. However, we care about protecting individual users and take care of privacy requests every day, so if we can help, please email hn@ycombinator.com. We don't want anyone to get in trouble from anything they posted to HN.
This has the same energy as "Click here to create account, but do a whole bunch outside the account to delete it".
It's like NYT doing the scammy "pay online, but cancel after calling on business hours to a retention specialist, and they may also just ignore your *request*"
The simple answer: put this in the website, not some email that may or may not actually request anything.
Have you actually tried to follow the process?
Are you aware of any instances in which requests have been denied?
This should be in-app as a request or an action I can self-execute. "Email us" is the New York Times model of "buy online, but deal with hours of phone-hell"
What possible issues might that create?
What specifically is your issue with an email-based request?
You seem to be seeking opportunities to be unsatisfied. Those tend to be easy to find.
I've pointedly avoided revealing my meatspace identity. Though simultaneously cultivating some manner of pseudonymous reputation.
There are numerous other anonymous / pseudonymous members, and throwaway usernames are supported for that reason though discouraged in general use, to cultivate community.
It's an interesting balance.
The question seems like a justification for what many want to do, which is just close their eyes to the problems and not put the energy into resisting the tide toward compliance and giving power to government/corporations; it's easier, right now, to give up, and despair and powerlessness are normalized - instead of quitting being at least a bit shameful, it's cynically embraced, flauted as rebellious.
Decline does not mean zero, but the point is older data is less valuable. So, making your data leaking footprint smaller today will still provide you value (not infinite value though) as time goes on.
But I think if you look at this problem from an individual perspective. Key data that is unique to them doesn't change most of the time. Say a target person has dental issues and you have their phone number. There is a high chance that in 5 years from now, they still may require dental services and their phone number hasn't changed. They may have moved jobs, neighborhoods etc. in between but their need for dental service has remained constant and probably will into the future.
Let me give you another example. Say you want to run for public office, and in your young adult life some of your social media pages had questionable posts/media. Is this data any less valuable to your competition running for the same office?
I may be taking a different approach with this but a lot of nuances get lost in the numbers.
My point is once the data is out there on the internet, it can be hard to control it and/or assign value to it.
Proof of existence is enough to invalidate a claim of non-existence, even if it doesn't hold for any condition in the world.
How would you do that?
You could be male, female and any other gender, any race, any job, work as a CEO and a janitor, live both in Russia and the US.
You could probably do this to Google search.
Edit: Apparently somebody already built an extension which does exactly this for Facebook. https://floorvandenberghe.be/derivedscrolling/
Optimistically, this would mean any resistance made today hurts the state-corp alliance hard now, and benefits the human being especially hard later, giving courage to make efforts for the long game.
For most people, privacy isn’t a goal in itself.
This, or are plugged in too tightly into the various digital dopamine dispensers to care about the flip sides.
It’s the same for all that data about you out there. If anyone who accesses your data goes rogue or leaks it, it’s hanging over your head forever.
It could be that this data will be judged against changing standards, so that your once innocuous behaviour is now considered bad. It could be that your data is misinterpreted and the judgement used against you.
Once you get bitten, it’s too late.
“Imagine you your car insurance is triple because waze said you speed”
“Imagine you and your entire extended family can’t get health insurance because of genetic conditions discovered via 23andme” (assumes law change)
“Imagine your health insurance goes up because you buy too much junk food”
Etc
Example where his reasoning in the article is coming short, one might answer: Yes, I wanted to go to store a, and yes, after my 'highway hypnosis' I went or was brought to store b instead. So what? It doesn't really matter if I go shopping in store a or b. The important thing is - I am at a store now and can start my shopping.
If we evaluate that from an ethical point of view then we would have to ask about emancipation and sovereignty in regard to the choices we make, and where that fine line is, where it really starts to matter, if we go for store a or b.
(Who, furthermore, already violated their promise made when buying WhatsApp to not use the phone numbers and contact books they got from them for their other services.)
Information based industries are absolutely abusing their access to our personal information, and they’re refusing to self correct. The governments of the world are now stepping in to correct that.
To be blunt, the corporations have only themselves to blame.
2. Any reduction of data theft is progress
3. As a greybeard, I care more about the next and future generation's loss of privacy and impending totalitarian enslavement.
In a capitalistic system, people should be able to charge what they want for their commodities. My data is worth more than the thieves could pay.
Seems like you aren't happy with the price they charge for access.
1. The monopolistic position of many of these service providers drastically limits the ability to choose alternatives and creates social and economic hardships for those who would avoid the use of these services altogether. For example, my ISP lobbied my government to allow them to steal my data. I have exactly one choice of ISP.
2. When we look back on the colonizers handing the natives trinkets in exchange for land, we consider that egregious theft. Most people lack any real understanding of the price that they are paying for these services and the intrinsic value of their data. They also lack an understanding of how this data can and will be used against them now and in the future.
3. And what about the data thieves who build shadow profiles on people who have not signed up for their services? (e.g. Facecrook)
The market does not care enough about its own privacy to justify those alternatives. DDG has been available for years... It's doing fine, and it's a great alternative to Google, but it's not doing the gangbusters that one would expect if people weren't mostly satisfied with the privacy trade off.
And personally, I think it's extremely elitist for us to assume that we can better evaluate the privacy / service trade-off than most users can. Comparing the average user to a native being taken advantage of by European colonials is a view terribly dismissive of people's self-determination.
Whenever possible I try to not use Big Tech. My choice: Firefox, Tutanota, DuckDuckGo.
What if we just continue like we did in the last two decades?
Would there be any real harm if we simply returned to the pre "cookie banner world" of the internet?
And this ad based system only works if you spy a lot on people.
Everything is affected by this: the vaccine opposition in the covid crisis, the presidential election... Everything.
I feel like promoting alternatives is a better idea than participating in the creation of a dystopian future for the generations to come.
out of question for me to just "let it slide", we have too much to loose here