Privacy advocates are worried that public acceptance of corporate and government spying on our most intimate details is dangerous:
Private business tracks your clicks. Your boss knows your digital trail. Your online activity is more public than private.
Almost all Americans now realize this. Most still aren't bothered by it.
A poll released this month - two years after startling revelations about the government's digital surveillance capabilities - shows 9 out of 10 Americans recognize their digital lives aren't secret. Yet clear majorities said they weren't overly concerned about the government snooping around their calls and emails.
"I am not doing anything wrong, so they can monitor me all they want," one user told researchers from the Pew Research Center.
That view worries a growing coalition of privacy experts and advocates trying to speed up efforts to block surreptitious peeking into our digital habits.
[More after the break]
The article goes on to say that:
So privacy experts are stepping up efforts to convince consumers of the need for digital privacy. A fundamentally private Web won't be a reality, they say, until ordinary Americans demand broad protection from government and business intrusion into their phone and computer use.
"If anyone in society is going to have privacy, then everybody has to have privacy," said Alan Fairless, CEO of SpiderOak, a company that offers encrypted data storage for consumers.
...
The White House recently proposed a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights designed to protect online habits from improper use by private firms. The measure would require businesses to tell consumers what data is being gathered - and offer "reasonable means to control the processing of personal data."
Some industry groups have criticized the plan.
"The proposal could hurt American innovation and choke off potentially useful services and products," the Consumer Electronics Association said.
I think asymmetry in the information seems to be the biggest worry. If the public had access to the same databases of information the government and corporations have, then it's a level playing field. What do Soylentils think?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 31 2015, @01:29PM
In other words, it's just a case of the unintelligent and ignorant majority being completely ignorant of history and not possessing the small amount of critical thinking skills required to realize that humans with immense power (those in the government especially) could use all this information against anyone they want. You have to be extremely ignorant to ignore history and pretend that not only will the current government not abuse its powers, but no government ever will do so. All governments throughout history have done horrendous things to people who were doing nothing wrong, so the idea that innocents will be fine is just nonsense. It is not the individual who decides what is 'wrong'; the people who want to violate your rights will do that, and you may find that what is 'wrong' to them isn't 'wrong' to you at all.
Maybe it's unlikely that anyone will target a completely normal and mundane person, but that's only a relevant point if you're so selfish that you care only about yourself. Leaders of movements (like MLK), politicians, and potential whistleblowers will be the main targets, and that's enough to destroy the small amount of democracy that we have.
I think asymmetry in the information seems to be the biggest worry. If the public had access to the same databases of information the government and corporations have, then it's a level playing field.
Privacy is a basic human need. There should be no mass surveillance to begin with. Just giving everyone access to the information will not stop the privacy violations. Abuses of power aren't the only things to consider here.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by kaszz on Tuesday March 31 2015, @01:44PM
Perhaps there will be another large scale elimination of people that are careless? Ie selective pressure leaves only the resistant ones to go on.
In the meanwhile. Protect yourself against the ignorant majority.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by FatPhil on Tuesday March 31 2015, @02:51PM
More contemporaniously, a photo of me has just appeared in one of the national web-newspapers. I don't want to be identified from that, as from the write-up and photo, it appears I was doing something illegal (it was a silly little stunt in the vein of /Improv Everywhere/, and a little mis-reported). How can I protect myself being identified by goodness-knows how many people? You can't protect your lifestyle by changing your lifestyle. If I must no longer do harmless anonymous pranks, then I am no longer me, and the oppressors have won.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Tuesday March 31 2015, @03:49PM
Wear balaclava? or Zentai suit over normal clothes? when in public.
I know it's a hard problem. You could upload you photo with another profile and tag it with a fake name to ruin the face association to name system? Report taggers as imposters or copyright fraud? etc.
Input appreciated.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday March 31 2015, @05:20PM
I like the idea of wearing a mask everywhere at all times in public, but I see two major problems with it.
First of all it makes people feel uncomfortable. When I'm walking along and I see a stranger in a mask coming towards me, I assess them as a larger threat than a stranger without a mask. This is totally rational, and I suspect that most people do it. I have no desire to make other random people feel increased anxiety, I just don't want my every movement tracked at all times.
Secondly, anti-mask laws already exist in some places. They don't where I live, but I suspect that will change at some point. If they don't change, it will be because the surveillance state feels comfortable in its ability to track us based on other biometric data (heat signatures, gait-matching, etcetera).
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday March 31 2015, @05:54PM
You can paint your face asymmetrically to throw of the visual cues. Haven't seen any laws against makeup. It may require some social courage though.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday March 31 2015, @06:15PM
I think my first point applies to all face-obscuring tactics. As the effectiveness of a face-obscuring tactic goes up, the reasonableness of an uninformed bystander assuming you may intend them violence also goes up. It seems like using makeup instead of a mask would just shift both of those scales downwards, in equal measure.
I'm not arguing that we shouldn't be allowed to film people in public or anything. It just makes me uncomfortable, and I don't see any good solutions that get around the issue (other than simply opting out of the public sphere altogether).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 31 2015, @06:51PM
When I'm walking along and I see a stranger in a mask coming towards me, I assess them as a larger threat than a stranger without a mask.
Then once a significant number of people start wearing masks, this nonsense will largely vanish.
But I would say government mass surveillance is *far* more dangerous than some random person with a mask.
(Score: 2) by nukkel on Tuesday March 31 2015, @06:54PM
In many locales there is the exception that one can wear masks for religious reasons.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday March 31 2015, @08:14PM
So religious people get special rights over the rest of us who aren't part of a religion.
(Score: 1) by gawdonblue on Tuesday March 31 2015, @09:04PM
That is easily fixed Brother Pumpernickel. Any particular beliefs you would like of our new church (beside the requisite devotion to tax exemption)?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday March 31 2015, @10:13PM
Claim FSM as your deity. There was a guy in Austria who won his lawsuit to have his driver's license picture taken wearing a colander, which he claimed as "religious headgear" as a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday April 01 2015, @09:01AM
While that is funny, there are many other places where governments decide which religions are "True Religions" and which aren't. Try being tax exempt in a lot of places, for instance; that would be more difficult.
And you really shouldn't have to make up a religion in order to get these rights.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday April 01 2015, @11:55AM
You're right, you shouldn't. In the meantime, when the world has gone crazy you have to hack and disrupt however you can. Using the absurd priority religion has been given in many societies against itself is as good a social hack as any, isn't it? The FSM example has been used successfully several times before, like the guy in Austria and that town in Florida that backed down on its plan to put Christian symbols in public places because the Church of FSM demanded to display a bowl of pasta. I think there was even someplace else like Kansas or Colorado where Evangelical Christians were demanding the Christian creation myth be taught alongside the theory of evolution in science class, and FSM demanded equal treatment for their creation myth. So that's why I suggested it.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by edIII on Tuesday March 31 2015, @05:49PM
I just asked most of my friends and family some time ago to stop taking pictures of me.
Of course, I was very nice and just played it off as a spiritually eccentric request, but it worked. I'm not in photos anymore. Truthfully, there was no part of my lifestyle before conducive to massive amounts of recording (even benign from friends). Now, my friends that I know who aren't so wholly ignorant they're on Facebook (they know what I mean), they *can* take a picture of me. I know it will be protected a lot better.
Unfortunately, you aren't going to get away from being oppressed. It's not the government really oppressing you in this case, it's the ignorant people around you that cause that to happen. I can't change government, but I'm usually pretty good at convincing another person 1:1 to see my way. What I've also figured out, is that it would be far easier just to offer better services than Facebook and take over. I'm running an Owncloud server now for family, and it's *working*. Instead of sharing stuff elsewhere, they actually loved the idea of putting on a family owned server with some privacy.
Government is a cancer, and so are corporations. That being said, we can find ways to live with these cancers (no choice anyways). Perhaps, that's the best way to fight stuff like this. For the technical among us to gather our friends and family best we can, and move them to different services. I've pushed at least a dozen people to zero knowledge services this year, and I'm pleasantly surprised that I'm having success with Owncloud.
It's funny that you bring this up, as I'm heading out with friends and family for the day. We had a good discussion about where to go today, and as usual, it was mostly about where we could go and still have *privacy*. As an aside, state parks are super sweet.
P.S - Owncloud is PHP, and the security might be cardboard, but it's *not* in Facebook's data centers.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by AlHunt on Tuesday March 31 2015, @07:21PM
If you don't have a Facebook account, can you still be tagged? I assume because I'm not on facebook, there's no way to tag me in photos.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2015, @12:30AM
It tracks and builds ghost profiles. Once you create an account, the ghost profile is merged with yours and suddenly you get all these suggestions for people to add as a friend, accurately & 'out of no-where'...
Also, all those pictures your ghost profile was tagged in now become really tagged.
Where's my tinfoil hat? Damnit, I loathe that piece of shit and everything like it.
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Wednesday April 01 2015, @04:22AM
They have face recognition software that other people can tag. And I've noticed the face recognition software is getting better over time. So, in short, yes.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 31 2015, @04:17PM
"Ie selective pressure leaves only the resistant ones to go on."
Unfortunately, as some people here have pointed out, it seems like the uneducated and ignorant tend to have more babies.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by CRCulver on Tuesday March 31 2015, @02:11PM
Citation needed. Humans might have evolved to have a desire for privacy, but I'm not sure you could call it a need. Historically human beings have had very little privacy: your whole tribe or whole village knew who you were, could figure out who you were sleeping with, would find out if you shirked work or religious duties, etc. The human race may have secured a little more privacy through the development of large urban communities and the rise of a very mobile population who could get far away from their hometowns. However, now it looks like we're back to the status quo, which seems to have worked out for tens of thousands of years.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 31 2015, @02:17PM
There is a massive difference between occasionally seeing/overhearing something in a small community and having random strangers perform mass surveillance on the communications of people who live all over the planet. Even in this villages or tribes, there were ways to achieve privacy. Now we have mass surveillance of our communications, cameras everywhere in public places, and facial recognition is getting better. Not a good combination.
I understand the point you're trying to make, but I don't think it's really similar.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Tuesday March 31 2015, @02:27PM
Yeah we know how that worked out. Church that dictated how life should be lived and small minded people that bothered you all the time while you broke your back to get fed.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by CRCulver on Tuesday March 31 2015, @02:49PM
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday March 31 2015, @03:30PM
The point you totally miss, is that in a small community where everyone knows everyone's business, they know what the leadership is up to as well. In a nation with millions of inhabitants, that dynamic totally changes so that only those in power are privy to such information. In the small community, the leaders can be held accountable. In the nation-size situation, the leaders are totally unaccountable and gain vast power.
IOW, your example is crap, worse than a car analogy.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 31 2015, @05:06PM
I think you have a somewhat myopic view of the past. Those in power do not willingly let the proles know everything about them. The view that the hoi polloi get of their overlords has always been carefully stage managed. Leaders have always known that effective management of their public persona is essential to maintaining public trust. This is also why leaders are so eager to know everything they can about the private lives of those under them. It is considered an effective means of control of any would-be challengers.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday March 31 2015, @06:10PM
I agree with you. From the context here though, I was thinking the 100 person village. But once you get into even just a few thousand people, privacy for the people becomes extremely important because of the potential for abuse by those in power having more information available to them those underneath. The problem is the disparity -- in the 100 person village, that disparity isn't likely to be large. Beyond that though, privacy protection is extremely important.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday March 31 2015, @02:32PM
However, now it looks like we're back to the status quo, which seems to have worked out for tens of thousands of years.
There's an interesting section in "Fire in the Lake" you should read where ridiculous elderly patriarchy authoritarianism works really well in a delta village of 100 because by the time you're the old man in charge, pretty much all of the 100 are somehow related to you, so Fing over one dude because you're greedy is an epic fail because he's probably your own grandson-in-law or it'll piss off your daughter or piss off your wife because he's her cousin or maybe all three at once and if momma aint happy aint nobody happy. So as long as the absolute dictator leader is well connected and not insane, nobody minds because it works ridiculously well with darn near 100 feedback loops in a village of 100 people.
But you try to scale that cultural and political outlook to a 10 million person post colonial nation its an epic fail because ain't no way that dude you greedily screwed over is in any way related to you, and the millions suffering under your leadership don't trust you because they know darn well you're not related to them. And you have no culture or tradition of any other form of governance so the whole country is kinda lost. And this was one of the root causes of Vietnam's early post colonial era political turmoil.
Basically fascist authoritarian feudalistic dictator organization politics works excellently, almost perfectly, at the 100 person scale and is a dismal failure everywhere on the planet its been applied to more than a million or so people.
I think you can see the obvious analogy where sharing everything you do scales culturally well at the family or village level, but not so well to an entire world scale especially where multinational corporations are the first class citizens and biological humans are the distant second class citizen.
The "status quo" as you put it would involve facebook (and everywhere else) being strongly government regulated as a monopoly to never release any social data to anyone, ever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 31 2015, @03:57PM
Good thing regulation is the devil, so we can never worry about anything like that happening!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday March 31 2015, @02:18PM
An interesting thing about "wrong" is it changes over a time period much shorter than a human life.
If there isn't a digital record of my support of gay marriage, there should be, because "those people" should be made to suffer as much as us married straight guys, etc etc. Anyway I might live long enough to see the theocrats finally take over, at which point I would be crucified or otherwise disposed of in some camp, for my formerly perfectly legal belief. This has historically been a pretty big problem although thankfully the new big brother usually did not have enormous perfect records of data, although in the inevitable future pogroms, new big brother will have the records.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday March 31 2015, @04:43PM
All governments throughout history have done horrendous things to people who were doing nothing wrong,
Including this current government. People seem to think that history only applies to all those OTHER governments, BEFORE.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 31 2015, @08:29PM
Gosh you're smart. May you continue to grace our internet with your wisdom [xkcd.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 31 2015, @09:17PM
When I say that most people are unintelligent, I mean they are unintelligent overall. No comparisons or averages required.
This very article provides some evidence of the general public's immense ignorance and stupidity.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by wantkitteh on Tuesday March 31 2015, @02:17PM
People don't realise who is snooping on them, or why. It's not what you do wrong, it's what you do. If the general populace knew the extent of the economically-motivated spying they gave their permission to when they downloaded that free app or signed up for that free service or used that ad-supported web service, they'd realised these services aren't free. You don't pay for them with money in the first instance, but it's extremely likely someone looking to make money from you will pay to find out who you are and how to get their message out to you. IMHO, that's not a bad thing in itself - better targeting of adverts means reduced irrelevancy of the adverts we're forced to see as consumers, in theory - shame that theory doesn't work so well in practice.
(Score: 2) by pnkwarhall on Tuesday March 31 2015, @06:52PM
So you're saying that better targeting of propaganda is a positive?
You seem to be making the point that it's economic/corporate interests gaining the majority of the benefit from Internet spying, and implicitly, that this is not as harmful as government spying. Your comment that "increased relevance of advertisements" **for you** is a good thing is short-sighted, ignoring widespread long-term consequences of economic interests having to much knowledge about "us". Propaganda is propaganda is propaganda--anyone or anything whose only interest in people is their ability and willingness to buy something that the propagandist is selling is not going to be a positive influence on the overall direction and development of those "target" people. Cyberpunk fantasies are dystopias for reasons that should be obvious.
Marketing is NOT affectless or harmless, and I argue that it is in fact incredibly, if subtly, dangerous to humanity. A poison may work fast or slow, but it is still a poison.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Tuesday March 31 2015, @08:51PM
You seem to have missed the bit where I said that my nice little theory about properly targeted ads being good doesn't work? And yes, business makes far more profit from it's use of personal information than governments do. If that wasn't true, our governments wouldn't be in the economic crapper right now. I never said that situation won't change. I personally despise being subjected to marketing and use AdBlock and Ghostery to avoid it as often as I can online.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2015, @09:47AM
Try Disconnect. [disconnect.me]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Arik on Tuesday March 31 2015, @07:29PM
No, it's a bad theory. Look at the assumptions it entails.
1.) We're going to be forced to see ads.
No. Just no.
2.) We're "consumers."
No. I produce as much or more than I consume. I am a citizen, not a consumer. Aren't you?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by WillR on Tuesday March 31 2015, @02:23PM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Tuesday March 31 2015, @02:32PM
So make up an inconspicuous politically correct persona for social networks that has no connection to your real life?
(Score: 4, Funny) by wantkitteh on Tuesday March 31 2015, @02:38PM
I have no profiles on social networks (any more) and I don't consider myself at all ostracised. Now, if you'll excuse me, Wilson appears to be floating away again...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by CRCulver on Tuesday March 31 2015, @02:52PM
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Tuesday March 31 2015, @04:31PM
Facebook - letting criminals steal your identity, whether you're a customer or not!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 01 2015, @09:50AM
Rather, Facebook - criminals stealing your identity, whether you're a customer or not!
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Tuesday March 31 2015, @02:33PM
I'm trying post a reply to an article about privacy, the server vanishes off the net for 30 seconds and it's IP address changes... spooky.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TLA on Tuesday March 31 2015, @02:35PM
Where do you draw the line between eavesdropping on private online conversation and collection of data in honeypot operations and deep pattern analysis of specific profiles to build makework cases against those the State considers to be more trouble left alone than worth the risk of letting them continue with what is still essentially completely legal activity?
I know the point is made that you should assume that any and all interctions you have on the internet should be considered public but when you "delete" a photo from your public profile on Facebook, you should have the expectation that some TLA isn't later going to take that record lifted directly from the server and hang you with it, no matter how innocent it is.
Personally, I think the Government should be concerned about what its own staff are doing and also consider that it exists, legally speaking, at the sole pleasure of the PEOPLE IT SERVES. If my window cleaner puts bricks through my windows I am going to fire his arse. If my Government betrays my trust I will do the same to them.
Excuse me, I think I need to reboot my horse. - NCommander
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 31 2015, @05:55PM
Given your pseudonym, I would have thought a score of "Ironic" would be more appropriate than "Interesting". Just sayin'.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday March 31 2015, @06:09PM
What is this "page 1|2" stuff? I'm sure I've not seen it previously, and I must say I don't like it. Is there any way to get it back to all on one page?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday March 31 2015, @06:11PM
Ah, found out on any but the first page, it's on one page, so the simplest solution is to just click the "change" button without actually changing any settings. Still, it's annoying.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday March 31 2015, @10:30PM
What is this "page 1|2" stuff? I'm sure I've not seen it previously, and I must say I don't like it. Is there any way to get it back to all on one page?
This should (and we thought it was) have been removed from the article before it was posted to the Main Page.
I've rectified this.
Please note that this was unintentional *and* entirely my fault.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday April 01 2015, @06:23PM
Thank you.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VortexCortex on Tuesday March 31 2015, @08:47PM
"I am not doing anything wrong, so they can monitor me all they want," one user told researchers
Well, neither were most of the people the FBI and NSA sought to spy on, discredit and disrupt with their COINTELPRO campaign [wikipedia.org] wherein they targeted primarily activists including those supporting women's rights, civil rights, and anti-war.
The citizen's definition of "doing wrong" is different than the government’s definition. The key to understanding why warrantless spying is harmful is to realize that "National Security" means maintaining the status quo -- even against the will of the citizens. National Security has nothing to do with making the people safe, it's concerned with securing institutions, ideals and corporations in the name of public safety. [theguardian.com] Militarization of the police isn't due to claimed fear of energy crisis, it's the fear of "ideological extremists", such as those targeted by COINTELPRO, or anyone who wants to reform any form of government.
For instance: Police agencies and Prisons are in desperate need of reform before the nation is covered in riots. Rather than fix the corruption the FBI, DHS, NSA, etc. uses counter intelligence capabilities against activists; Their current tactics include everything from spreading lies among colleagues, friends, neighbours and relatives to screwing with cell phone data using Stingrays [nytimes.com] and even trying to drive people mad via remote harassment using energy weapons. [youtube.com] As these practices and weapons [telegraph.co.uk] have become adopted more broadly at lower levels they've also fallen into the hands of petty, unscrupulous, vengeful, and corrupt more often. Now if you anger a cop by filming them they can utilize their spying and tracking capabilities to track down your car and have its ECU inexplicably fried by their new and improved trunk mounted "anti-extremist non-lethal" crowd control weaponry. [youtube.com] Even if you have evidence such as measured and recorded frequency analysis samples along the EM beam's path witnessed by multiple individuals, the courts won't hear the case due to desire to keep the use of the technology secret -- It's a matter of "national security", you see? Most people would be surprised to find out what other "tools" are used against citizens who have being "doing nothing wrong". [wired.com]
Blind trust is folly, but remaining uneducated as to the nature and scope of the forces being used against citizens who have done nothing wrong is dangerous. For instance, you can find yourself in a world of trouble if you're deemed to have "self radicalised" into an environmental activist by examining your "social" media.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday March 31 2015, @09:49PM
What do you mean by "examining your "social" media" ..? (in this context)