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I'm about to give up.
On the one hand, I see countless people get loyalty cards and enjoy discounts on their purchases. They connect with friends on Facebook and Twitter. They use apps on android or apple smartphones to give them turn-by-turn directions, find out where their friends are, or find places of interest. Their e-mail is "in the cloud" where they can get to it from multiple places. They use services like dropbox to share files. They get their news on-line and read e-books. I could go on and on.
On the other hand, I see opportunities for tracking and profiling in every one of those activities. So much so that it seems like one would be under constant observation and surveillance. We are just data points to be sliced and diced and marketed to — a society of consumers rather than customers.
So, I've got a major "ick factor" knowing about these practices and yet I'm hard-pressed to explain any negative consequences to otherwise intelligent people. "I don't do anything that's THAT interesting." "I've done nothing wrong, so I don't worry about it." "I like getting the bonuses and discounts."
Yet, I see companies expend great amounts of money implementing tracking mechanisms such as cookies, super-cookies, clear gifs, as well as huge databases of purchases, travels, and interests. I don't believe they are doing this for purely philanthropic reasons.
In no particular order, I include these for consideration:
- "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." - Cardinal Richelieu
- "If you are not paying for it, you are the product."
- Joel on Software - Strategy Letter V: Commoditize your Complement
- Using Metadata to find Paul Revere
I use a variety of Addons while browsing the web using Pale Moon: a custom HOSTS file, Self-Destructing Cookies, Ad-Block Plus, Ghostery, NoScript, Better Privacy, Flashblock, and Ref Control. I have a firewall and use anti-virus products. "In real life" I prefer to use cash over charge cards for my purchases. I have no loyalty cards.
What say you Soylentils? Am I being unreasonably paranoid? Or not paranoid enough? What dangers, really, are there? Why not sign up for all those loyalty cards and social apps? What privacy protections do YOU use?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by lentilla on Wednesday May 13 2015, @12:01PM
As for web-browsing, I'm fairly similar to you: Iceweasel, Ghostery, RequestPolicy, NoScript, HTTPS Everywhere. Incidentally I no longer use ad blocking extensions - it doesn't seem to be required with the other extensions - which I find amusing, since most ads come from farms, scripts and redirects, it leverages this annoyance against them.
Sadly, these techniques break a good deal of the web and requires a considerable amount of knowledge to operate successfully - a skill few people have. You have to be able to identify: a) when a web page is broken; b) when it is your "fault"; c) what is broken; and; d) have an understanding of which of the many pieces is likely to "unbreak" it enough to use. This is not a common skill.
I won't have anything to do with loyalty cards. On the other hand, I'm not greatly fussed by being tracked by payments, probably because it can't manipulate my purchase decisions - they can track what I bought but can't make me buy something I don't want. I also appreciate some level of analytics because a store that has the product I want, when I want it, happens to be the kind of store I like to shop at!
I am increasing worried; not so much about commercial enterprise collection of data; but about government retention of data - for the "Cardinal Richelieu" reasons you mention in your posting. We have only to remember that Kristallnacht [wikipedia.org] happened in living memory to be aware of the clear and present danger. My country's government is well on it's way to a totalitarian approach to data retention, so it's probably time for a VPN - if even to make it a like it a little less automatic for them.
For your list of "considerations", alongside Richelieu, may I submit the C.S. Lewis quote:
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
It is for this reason that I am more concerned with government, rather than commercial enterprise. At least the sellers in the market-place merely want to get their hands on my cash!
So I've talked about what I do to reduce my exposure. Like you, I am painfully aware that I am being tracked everywhere and I do not like it. I am not ashamed of not liking it either, and I do believe it isn't a universally "good thing". I do try to be pragmatic though and also try to remain calm about it. Other people comfort themselves by saying "I don't have anything to hide"/"don't do anything wrong"... I simply say "I'm not that special" and "there's a limit and a trade-off to what I can do". So I try not to get worked up about it and get only with my life.
At the end of the day, what makes me most sad is that I feel I am missing out on some of the wonderful parts of technology because I see the pitfalls that others are not aware of. It is ironic that I; technically skilled as I am; have to be the one that misses out on using what I have helped build. That makes me sad. Like you, I won't do many of the things that give other people so much joy and enthusiasm for technology. Again, ironic, because I have always been able to see the potential in technology and now; at the very moment someone shows me something cool they have just discovered that has been obvious to me for decades... is the very moment I have to say "yes, that's cool, but...".
So no, you are not alone in your caution. You are; in the grand scheme of things; fairly unusual but the tide is turning. More and more people are becoming aware of the bigger picture. Perhaps you might like to see your role as answering questions when people ask you. I know that people are asking about these topics more and more, especially in the last couple of years. You don't always need to provide them with answers (because frankly, technical solutions only go so far). It might simply be enough to get them scared. At least that begins those discussions amongst the wider population which is what drives change.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday May 13 2015, @01:39PM
Heinlein's Friday had a better idea, I think, that anticipated this situation: don't try to have no data trail, but rather project an innocuous one. Use your trackable means to buy diapers and dog food at CostCo, pay cash (Bitcoin?) for things you want to remain anonymous.
I have a Facebook account, but I only post pictures of my kids' birthdays and puppies and such. It's a projection, not who I am. Who I am is saved for those whom I know intimately. It's no different from the many masks people have always worn, really, only that it's extended into the virtual world.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday May 13 2015, @05:26PM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @07:51PM
Diapers and dog food? Are those for personal use? Sounds suspicious
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2015, @12:49AM
Unless every single thing you post to facebook is fake then you are giving away more than you realize.
> It's no different from the many masks people have always worn,
It absolutely is different because in the real world normal people don't have perfect memories that they share with everybody else you've ever met.
Facebook and Big Data in general aren't just about the literal facts you give them. They are primarily about inferences based on what you give them. Post pictures of your kid's birthdays, they know you are a parent. Mention what year birthday it is and they can start to narrow down your age. They also know when you logged in, where from, what kind of browser, etc. If you haven't taken extreme precautions they can cross-reference that with the information collected by other websites you visit. Big Data is about teasing out knowledge that you don't even realize you are giving away. Putting together multiple disparate facts to synthesize otherwise undisclosed information.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Friday May 15 2015, @08:27PM
I am disgusted that you would infringe the privacy of innocent children for your own ends.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday May 15 2015, @08:49PM
Well, they are my children, and my family do like to see pictures of them and Facebook is an easy way for them to do that. It's likewise a convenient platform to share pics of our vacations and innocuous information like that. But talk about my health, my finances, my consumption patterns, or anything else? Nah, nobody's business but my own. People who know me already know me and what my interests are.
So, my Facebook profile and presence are real--they're not fabricated--but it's a very two-dimensional, selective, wholesome projection of who I am, much like a work persona that one would adopt for one's colleagues in the office.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday May 18 2015, @03:44AM
Well, they are my children, and my family do like to see pictures of them and Facebook is an easy way for them to do that.
Too bad, then. I'm glad that things like Facebook didn't exist when I was a child, because otherwise my privacy would have been violated long before I would come to understand the significance of privacy. I feel sorry for kids today; their privacy is being sacrificed for convenience, and they're taught that it's normal and okay.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 18 2015, @01:01PM
Their images have already been captured, and their privacy violated thousands of times. Every time we go through a toll, every time we walk through a mall or down the street or we take photos of them with our smartphones or the fucking NSA capturing every time I message a cute photo of them at the park to my wife. Their privacy is constantly, pervasively violated and there's nothing I can do about that apart from removing ourselves to a bunker buried in the tundra.
What I can do, and what I can teach my children to do, is to project a false image, or, rather, something that represents a true side, but only a side. Celebrities, politicians, the wealthy, and a lot of other people do that all the time by hiring image consultants and PR firms. We tend to think of that as a luxury or something gratuitous undertaken only by the narcissistic. But I am saying that unless the heavens split apart and America does have a Second Revolution that comes to enshrine privacy and control over your data as a sacred right, that doing the same thing is becoming a necessity for regular people as well.
It seems some people see that as terribly cynical and exploitative (another Soylentil has "unfriended" me over it--I had "friends?"), but I see it as the best I can do in the fucked up age we're in. The dystopias of 1984, Gattaca, Equilibrium, Running Man, and all the others (to use references to fiction people will understand) are here, now. They will get worse unless and until average people pick up skills, weapons, and the gumption to do something about it. In the meantime, everyone needs tactics and tools to push back. This, is one of mine.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday May 18 2015, @05:55PM
Their images have already been captured, and their privacy violated thousands of times.
What a bullshit excuse. "Well, their privacy was probably violated already, so I'll just make it even worse by giving them more information on a silver platter!"
Their privacy is constantly, pervasively violated and there's nothing I can do about that apart from removing ourselves to a bunker buried in the tundra.
I'll tell you what you can do: Not intentionally violate their privacy. That would be a nice start, and it's something you personally have control over.
This, is one of mine.
I disagree that taking pictures of others and uploading it to Facebook is a valid tactic.
I don't even have a 'smart' phone, and I insist that people don't take pictures of me when I can help it, and I certainly don't take pictures of others. Having a Facebook account is just foolish. [stallman.org]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 18 2015, @06:27PM
You're sidestepping the point that photos of you are taken all the time, wherever you are. Your not owning a smartphone doesn't avoid that. Other people all around you do, and they take pictures all the time, some of which have you in frame. Your friends and coworkers and acquaintances do, and you show up in them. So, there is photographic evidence that you exist. Should there not be? Well, that's fine, but then you ought to have been born in a yurt on the Siberian taiga, not living in a modern society awash with such things.
Given that *reality*, then, what do you recommend? Should we all close our eyes and stick our fingers in our ears and wish it all away? No one says you have to join Facebook or any such platform, but others around you have and some of them have posted photos that have you in them, or talked about the fishing trip you took together, or so on and so on. So your refusal to join does not guarantee your absence or your privacy.
Sure, it would be great to have tough privacy and data protection laws in the United States the way they do in Europe, but good luck getting the federal government to do anything protective of its actual citizens in this age.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday May 18 2015, @08:04PM
You're sidestepping the point that photos of you are taken all the time, wherever you are.
That depends on where you are and what you do to avoid it. Some people wear masks.
And you are sidestepping the point that, even if that is true, that doesn't make it sensible to give corporations even more information on a silverplatter.
Well, that's fine, but then you ought to have been born in a yurt on the Siberian taiga, not living in a modern society awash with such things.
That doesn't make any sense.
Other people all around you do, and they take pictures all the time, some of which have you in frame. Your friends and coworkers and acquaintances do, and you show up in them.
Incorrect.
but others around you have and some of them have posted photos that have you in them, or talked about the fishing trip you took together, or so on and so on.
That seems extremely unlikely in my case.
So your refusal to join does not guarantee your absence or your privacy.
You have a strange view of privacy. "I can't have absolute privacy, so I'll give up and give them information of my own accord!" That's an intelligent attitude to have, clearly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @01:49PM
I simply say "I'm not that special"
You are not the one who decides. In a surveillance state, people will sometimes be chosen seemingly randomly to be destroyed, even if they are not leaders of some movement that challenges the status quo. Sometimes people who seem perfectly normal will be chosen, even if it is unlikely.
And it's quite a selfish thing to say, as if other people who are harassed don't matter.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anne Nonymous on Wednesday May 13 2015, @03:21PM
I like Watterson's data poisoning suggestion [blogspot.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @04:00PM
It is ironic that I; technically skilled as I am; have to be the one that misses out
I remember about ten years ago that someone assumed that I was not on social media because I lacked the technical skill required. I laughed because this person did not know the difference between a hard drive and RAM. Now I just tell people that social media wastes too much time and that I would rather meet with people in person.