Did We Lose the Privacy War? 521
eihab writes "I've been a fanatic about my online privacy for the last few years. I've been using NoScript and blocking Google Analytics, disabling third-party cookies, encrypting IM and doing everything in my power to keep data-miners at bay. Recently, I've been feeling like I'm just doing too much and still losing! No matter what I do, I know that there's a weak link somewhere, be it my ISP, Flash cookies, etc. I've recently gotten AT&T U-Verse, who, according to their privacy statement, will be monitoring my TV watching habits for advertisement purposes. I'm extremely annoyed by that, yet I love the service so much and I don't think I can cancel it. I just can't take this anymore. I have nothing to hide, but I do not want to be profiled and become member #5534289 in a database somewhere that records everything I do. I know I'm not that interesting to anyone, but the idea of someone being able to pull up everything about me with a simple SQL SELECT statement and a couple of JOINS makes me cringe. One of the reasons I hate data mining is that data security is not understood and almost non-existent at a lot of places. Case in point: I changed my life insurance two years ago, and the medical firm that conducted my health screening was broken into and computers with non-encrypted hard drives and patients' data were stolen. That medical firm didn't really need my SSN, but then again neither did AT&T when I signed up for U-Verse. Am I just too paranoid? Is privacy dead? Should I just give up and accept the fact that privacy is not the norm anymore (like Facebook's founder recently said) or should I keep fighting the good fight for my privacy?"
There was a war? (Score:2, Funny)
Damn...If it wasn't so private maybe I'd have heard about it and fought...
Re: (Score:2)
Then you have already won because the only winning move is not to play.
You insensitive clod! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:You insensitive clod! (Score:5, Insightful)
Would have been better if you'd actually used his slashdot ID instead of the message number, but you get a few points for at least trying to make the obvious joke.
Just call me uh, Clem.
Hobby (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone needs a hobby. If you enjoy playing cloak and dagger, then let that be your hobby. Otherwise invest your time in more worthwhile endeavors.
Re:Hobby (Score:5, Insightful)
I put virtually no effort into remaining anonymous or hiding my digital footprints, yet oddly enough I've never had the secret police bust down my door, or had any clear reason to believe that my privacy has been violated.
This just means you're an average Joe that makes no attempt to disturb the status quo, has no real power or influence and has nothing anybody in a position of power wants.
Re:Hobby (Score:5, Insightful)
"or had any clear reason to believe that my privacy has been violated."
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Your statement seems to be almost the corollary to statements like "If you don't have anything to hide what are you worried about?" I would also suggest that you're not looking at the bigger picture.
"I also happen to believe that anything I do online, by nature of the internet, is public, and accordingly I choose not to put most of the details of my life onto it."
What is preventing your friends from doing that for you? If I have an Android phone, and I have your contact info, along with perhaps your birth date, address, email, an ID picture of you, and some other interesting details in your contact, now I've given that data to Google, haven't I? What contract or understanding do you have with Google to govern how that data is being used and protected?
You surrendered. (Score:5, Insightful)
You are agreeing to give up your privacy. You are not losing - you surrendered.
Re:You surrendered. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
It's like the 4th/5th amendment: it's set up that if you do anything at all involving any topic, you basically give up those rights.
It's not a good thing, but I'm not sure what decent alternative we have either. Clearly judicial and other governmental interests are in conflict in how privacy comes together. They just don't want to acknowledge it.
There was another slashdot article about this [slashdot.org] - basically government has an interest in encouraging all of this tracking, because they can profit from the informati
Re:You surrendered. (Score:5, Insightful)
Its not like there are not alternative ways to get your media, TV shows, movies or otherwise.
Indeed. Most 'media providers' on the net certainly don't seem to be asking for SSN...
And in cases where it's hard to avoid some tracking, like social networking sites, just sprinkle freely with sockpuppet identities to screw with the tracking. If you're worried about leakage between browser profiles or users, create virtual machines to run multiple virtual identities. Create your own happy little multiple-personality collective.
Those with the idea that they want to track 'everything' often seem to miss how much crap 'everything' actually contains. And while they can attempt to record as much as they can, they can neither make you tell the truth, nor the whole truth, nor shut you up once you wander off into fantasyland.
And hey, best of all, polluting the data really seems to piss the data mining junkies off.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:You surrendered. (Score:5, Interesting)
The poster's problem is that he's going about protecting his privacy the wrong way. Trying to hide all personal information is a losing proposition, as he's noticed. The best way to protect your privacy is to drown the real bits in a sea of fake information.
If AT&T wants to monitor his viewing habits, write a script that will chose programming at random and switch the U-Verse box to that station while he's not watching it himself. Web analytics and ad servers are equally easy to poison with fake data. The health insurance records are a bit harder, but that's an area where we have more rights and is easier to push for laws that protect privacy.
If enough people did this, data mining would be almost worthless since you couldn't get reliable results. Of course that's a pipe dream, since not enough people have the technical acumen to do this, but those of us who can should be doing our part.
Re:You surrendered. (Score:5, Interesting)
You are agreeing to give up your privacy. You are not losing - you surrendered.
Indeed. I like his whining about them not needing his SSN. Then why did you give it to them? Phone and cable service is regulated in most states. I've yet to read state regulations that allow them to deny you service you refuse to fork over the SSN. If they refuse to give you service without the SSN then contact your state regulators and open a case.
I did this here in New York with Verizon and the public service commission compelled them to turn on my service within two business days of my filing a complaint. All they can do is ask you for a deposit -- the law usually requires them to return it to you after a certain number of timely payments (usually a year's worth) have been made.
Re:You surrendered. (Score:5, Insightful)
As an alien living in this US, I find this SSN situation ridiculous. Everybody is going to say that you should not give your SSN to ANYBODY. Yet everybody is asking for it...
It seems to me that people are schizophrenic about SSN number. Is it a public unique identifier of a tax payer or a secret information ?
Re:You surrendered. (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>Is it a public unique identifier of a tax payer or a secret information ?
Both, unfortunately
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This is misunderstood a lot. Companies are not allowed to require your SSN for service. They often ask for it, just to be able to track you down if you fail to pay. (alert: USA-centric info follows). The loophole is, most companies are not required to offer service to everyone. So they can refuse to provide service to you without explanation (usually "incomplete application" or something similar), while technically following the law. That's why there's usually no state (or fed) regulation which allows
Re: (Score:2)
You surrender only because you cannot win.
Try NOT agreeing to give up your privacy. Life will get so difficult and doing business will be such a pain in the ass that you regret it right away... _
And if you don't, well, there's always gitmo.
Re: (Score:2)
You are agreeing to give up your privacy. You are not losing - you surrendered.
Doesn't he know that AT&T's motto is, "Your World Delivered... to the NSA"
Privacy is dead, deal with it. (Score:2)
There is nothing you can do to preserve your privacy while remaining in society. Privacy is dead and gone. The best thing you can do is work for a company which gathers private information on the richest and most powerful. If you don't want to help reduce privacy, then you are part of the problem and that is why you are being watched.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsxxsrn2Tfs [youtube.com]
answered your own question (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm extremely annoyed by that, yet I love the service so much and I don't think I can cancel it.
Then you answered your own question. If you continue to use the service, you're giving them positive reinforcement that their activities are acceptable.
Re: (Score:2)
solution: add noise (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems that the only solution is to add so much noise that data miners will have a really hard time filtering out the real data.
Here [nyu.edu] is a start.
Re: (Score:2)
Black-hats are a group that need to avoid getting found so it is good to look at how they do it. Setting up multiple personas to have 'scripts' to go on that data miners grab hold of. And the other way is to make a lot of random meaningless noise. Lastly you give as little real information as possible.
You need to approach it from all angles. You don't necessarily need to give up your favourite w/e u-verse so long as you do other things.
Inherent privacy is dead. (Score:5, Interesting)
Given how interconnected our world is, if you want to participate, you have to do it in public. You have to connect to someone else's machine, hook up to someone else's fiber, talk to someone who you can't immediately trust, and you have to do it in the open.
That is to say, SSL, TOR, NoFlash, NoScript etc, still don't have a place in our lives as geeks. Just, forget privacy.
Besides, I think we live in a world where we have obscurity through density, instead of obscurity through privacy. Billions of people on this earth, nearly a billion of them connected to the 'net. Embrace it. Eventually, if enough personal data gets out there, it may become worthless to mine it due to the sheer volume available.
Re: (Score:2)
Eventually, if enough personal data gets out there, it may become worthless to mine it due to the sheer volume available.
Wouldn't that be like saying Gold would become worthless if we had it in large volumes?
Does it not still have many applicable uses?
Personal data mining will continue - it will only become more automated.
Re:Inherent privacy is dead. (Score:5, Funny)
>>Personal data mining will continue - it will only become more automated.
Mr. Shepard: Our records indicate that you have been dead for the last two years. Have you ever considered looking into Asari burial shrouds? Our burial shrouds are of the finest quality, hand-woven on the Asari homeworld by skilled artisans. You'll appreciate the difference the next time you die!
Re: (Score:2)
Yes.
Gold WOULD become worthless if we had it in large volumes.
Rarity is what MAKES it valuable. Ditto for diamonds, silver, and any other precious thing.
There's something about having something that someone else doesn't...
Re: (Score:2)
I've come to understand it - it has a pretty high aesthetic value, is an excellent conductor for electricity, and is very maleable, making it a very desirable resource, in everything from Jewelry to electronics.
Re:Inherent privacy is dead. (Score:5, Insightful)
So what we have in lieu of privacy is occasional access to anonymity. You can maintain that anonymity for a little more of your life for a little more effort, but maintaining it 24/7 for everything you do is increasingly difficult.
Re:Inherent privacy is dead. (Score:5, Insightful)
Speak for yourself, not all geeks share your defeatism.
Re:Inherent privacy is dead. (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, I think we live in a world where we have obscurity through density, instead of obscurity through privacy. Billions of people on this earth, nearly a billion of them connected to the 'net. Embrace it. Eventually, if enough personal data gets out there, it may become worthless to mine it due to the sheer volume available.
Panopticlick [eff.org] wants to disagree [eff.org].
That, and "billions" / "sheer volume" are meaningless in the face of computers processing billions of cycles a second. The whole point of data mining is software can find neat correlations and connections that a human never could. You are not hidden in the billion bits of data.
Re: (Score:2)
"You have to connect to someone else's machine, hook up to someone else's fiber, talk to someone who you can't immediately trust, and you have to do it in the open."
That is to say, you didn't zombie someone elses machine, hijack someone elses connection, impersonate another individual or conduct your activities through covert channels.
Re:Inherent privacy is dead. (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, I think we live in a world where we have obscurity through density, instead of obscurity through privacy. Billions of people on this earth, nearly a billion of them connected to the 'net. Embrace it. Eventually, if enough personal data gets out there, it may become worthless to mine it due to the sheer volume available.
Sure. Until someone uses that to steal your identity, and all of a sudden you will need to prove to N different government, banking and credit institutions that you are not a fraudster.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
and you have to do it in the open.
So use a false or constructed identity. This can be done to varying levels of quality and sophistication depending upon how much time and money you are willing to put into it. Will this prevent a determined adversary from penetrating your disguise? No, but it will make it too expensive for most commercial entities to consider and unless they have reason to doubt your credentials then it is likely that they will never see past the deception. This is the sort of basic tradecraft that intelligence agencies hav
Just Because You're Paranoid... (Score:3, Insightful)
OP, show some backbone (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is a privacy war it is a war of one. You know the chef is poisoning the soup but you find it too delicious to stop eating.
Cancel your cable. War won.
Fuck you buddy (Score:2)
If you really want to have privacy in the digital age the only winning move is not to play. The people in control of things want to endlessly analyze every single thing they can in order to better control and shape society to their will and it is too easy to get that data through computers.
See: The Trap [wikipedia.org]
You aren't fighting properly (Score:2)
You can agree not to give the companies your social security number - at least here in Canada. There is some law regarding that information only be required to do credit checks, otherwise a company can't NOT give you service based on you retaining your info.
You will have to give them some other piece of Identifying information though, but it doesn't have to be permanent. Usually an address works - my ISP and Mobile phone (as thats the only services I purchase) don't have any information on me besides my pho
Re:You aren't fighting properly (Score:5, Interesting)
In the US, they want your SSN in order to run a credit check. Want to know where the real privacy problem is: credit. It's virtually everywhere. Want cable, they run a credit check. Go to a new dentist/doctor, they run a credit check. And then try reminding these businesses that by law they have to offer another way around it. By law, the only people you are supposed to give out your SSN to is the government for Social Security and tax purposes. No one else is supposed to have access to it. The credit system is broken and required by just about everyone these days.
Oh, and god forbid you pay cash for everything and live within your means. I have 1 credit card, but I've carried a balance of a few hundred dollars for 3 months out of 10 years. Apparently that doesn't help your credit score. I paid cash for my last car and now drive "company" cars. Company provides my cell phone and cell card and I've always rented. Even then I've tended to pay the lease upfront just so I don't have to bother with it.
Get !Prozac. (Score:5, Funny)
Good privacy is really difficult (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Firefox uses Google Location Services. From their privacy policy:
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It offered me the option to use Firefox's location services. Curious, I let it, and despite being logged in via VPN, it accurately pulled up my location to within a few hundred feet. Still not exactly sure what it's doing to figure that out, but boy, that's scary...
I'm not sure why you are surprised. Now, I haven't worked in IP networking for a while, but I don't see how a VPN would have any effect on what you did.
Lets say the termination point for your VPN is a server at your house. IP A.B.C.D
You connect
Relax (Score:2)
Unless of course you have a vengeful ex somewhere.
No SELECT is necessary. (Score:5, Funny)
I know I'm not that interesting to anyone, but the idea of someone being able to pull up everything about me with a simple SQL SELECT statement and a couple of JOINS makes me cringe.
Actually, we've written a stored procedure to determine whether or not you're interesting.
EXECUTE IS_INTERESTING(5534289);
Very interesting indeed.
Re: (Score:2)
I'da modded that funny if I hadn't posted.
Accept that privacy is a relic and move on. (Score:2, Flamebait)
You have no privacy, none. Any hacker, any private investigator, any stalker, can access your data from thousands of private or public databases. If you are jewish then the neo-nazi's probably already know where you live. If you voted for Bush the lefties already know who you are and where you live. If you disagree with how I think on privacy, I could find out where you live.
And nothing stops me from creating a huge list of names and addresses, putting it into a database, and selling this list to advertises
Re: (Score:2)
Now these jackasses lose privacy. Now if I am attacked on what I did, I can answer to them that they wrote "I love my poo!" ten yea
Just wait until they find out what porn you like. (Score:2)
Leviticus 20:13:
"If a man lies with a man...They must be put to death."
This quote represents the mindset of a segment of the population. If they find out you have sex in a way they disagree with, they'd have no problem killing you and everyone like you, essentially genocide is made easier now that all the people who want to do it know exactly where the jews live, the gays, the blacks, and the liberals. Good luck staying alive if you are a minority.
Re: (Score:2)
>If you voted for Bush the lefties already know who you are and where you live.
I can't exactly picture Al Franken and Russ Feingold sitting around smoking cigars and laughing while their servers churn away printing reports about opposition voters. Now Cheney on the other hand...
Re: (Score:2)
Great post, as a rant. However, what I think it really means is:
You are the only person who can effectively protect your own privacy. If you create permanent, or even transient, records of what you do by using conveniences such as credit cards, telephones, the Internet, or a diary, you are creating some potential (maybe likely) privacy exposures. Note that some activities have a much higher likelihood of exposing information you would rather not be publicly available.
Just as in other aspects of your life, w
Queueing job "MineSoulskill5534289" (Score:3, Funny)
Creating record "Soulskill5534289"
Set "Slashdot Story Submission alias"="Soulskill"
Set "PrivacyFanatic"=true
Set "UsesNoScript"=true
Set "BlocksGoogleAnalytics"=true
Set "disables3rdPartyCookies"=true
Set "UsesIM"=true
Set "EncryptsIM"=true
Set "blocksFlashCookies"=false
Set "UsesATTUverse"=true
Set "TimeStartedCurrentATTUverseSubscriptionRange"=1/1/2009-2/16/2010
Set "ProbablyReadsPrivacyStatements"=true
Set "LovesATTUverse"=true
Set "EnjoysBeingProfiled"=false
Set "WantsToBeMember5534289"=false
Set "HasInflatedEgo"=false
Set "HadInsuranceRecordsStolenTwoYearsAgo"=true
Set "ChangedLifeInsurance2yearsAgo"=true
Set "AsksSlashdot"=true
Set "MoreNotes"='Ask Slashdot: Did We Lose the Privacy War? on Tuesday February 16, @11:44AM
Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday February 16, @11:44AM
from the no,-now-finish-your-cheerios-and-straighten-your-shirt dept.
background: url(//a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topicprivacy.gif); width:71px; height:53px; privacy
eihab writes "I've been a fanatic about my online privacy for the last few years. I've been using NoScript and blocking Google Analytics, disabling third-party cookies, encrypting IM and doing everything in my power to keep data-miners at bay. Recently, I've been feeling like I'm just doing too much and still losing! No matter what I do, I know that there's a weak link somewhere, be it my ISP, Flash cookies, etc. I've recently gotten AT&T U-Verse, who, according to their privacy statement, will be monitoring my TV watching habits for advertisement purposes. I'm extremely annoyed by that, yet I love the service so much and I don't think I can cancel it. I just can't take this anymore. I have nothing to hide, but I do not want to be profiled and become member #5534289 in a database somewhere that records everything I do. I know I'm not that interesting to anyone, but the idea of someone being able to pull up everything about me with a simple SQL SELECT statement and a couple of JOINS makes me cringe. One of the reasons I hate data mining is that data security is not understood and almost non-existent at a lot of places. Case in point: I changed my life insurance two years ago, and the medical firm that conducted my health screening was broken into and computers with non-encrypted hard drives and patients' data were stolen. That medical firm didn't really need my SSN, but then again neither did AT&T when I signed up for U-Verse. Am I just too paranoid? Is privacy dead? Should I just give up and accept the fact that privacy is not the norm anymore (like Facebook's founder recently said) or should I keep fighting the good fight for my privacy?"'
Close record.
Create job "MineSoulskill5534289" "Compare record Soulskill5534289 against all known databases".
Queueing job "MineSoulskill5534289". Monitor job queue for job status.
RE: Privacy war (Score:3, Funny)
Thank you for being a loyal AT&T U-verse customer! We have received your email and have created a trouble ticket for you automatically by monitoring your web postings. Please submit both a fresh semen sample and a two day old fecal sample so our customer service reps can verify your information and begin to investigate the issue.
Thank you. AT&T Customer Service.
No, you're confusing what the war is about. (Score:5, Interesting)
Facebook lets me keep in touch and aware of what my friends are doing. On the other hand, photos of me doing something that may reflect poorly on myself to an employer or other friends. I have pretty strict privacy settings on Facebook, but the reality is that something bad could easily be associated with my profile and seen by many before I could get it pulled.
On the other hand, if I didn't share quite a bit of personal info on Facebook, I wouldn't even be aware when I was tagged in a photo.
Today, people are accepting convenience at the sacrifice of some privacy. It's nice when I can call up the cable company and have them able to see what services I have, that I'm paying the bill, and the modem has the wrong DOCSIS file. On the other hand, I'm in a database that is easier to access than ever. I accept the sacrifice for convenience when I have to work with the cable company.
Or credit cards. The majority of my purchases are now associated with my SSN in a database. The ability to track my spending and have some degree of purchase security is worth the sacrifice for me, so I choose to use electronic payment.
So did we lose, giving up so much? On one hand, there are plenty of alternatives- I can buy online with a Visa Gift Card, registered to whatever name and address and purchased in cash. I can buy in cash in person. On the other hand, it's virtually impossible NOT to be in a database- even if you were to forego electricity, television, cable, etc., you'd still be in a government tax database. Someone I know got a letter last year saying "an IRS employee with your and a couple million other taxpayer documents, including your taxpayer ID number, full name, and address, lost their laptop. We'll try not to let it happen again. Here's a year of credit monitoring from one of the three bureaus, then you're on your own. Seeya!"
So, yes, to some degree we lost. It's hard to avoid changes that the rest of society is fine with. Living like a hermit in a powerless shack in the woods is still possible, but for the average person, it definitely has been eroded.
It's no longer in your hands (Score:2)
If you interact with anyone who does not value privacy then your efforts are wasted. They can also expose your data. This is how facebook is able to know who your friends are even if you've never had a facebook account, or given them a single piece of data: they can mine the contact lists of people who have willingly exposed theirs. If you appear on any of them, facebook can start building a profile of you.
Unless you're living without human contact, you will be profiled in a database somewhere.
Try to skew their stats, if you must... (Score:4, Funny)
If you can neither accept being the statistics (and you seem to admit, that you can't put together a rational explanation for your aversion), nor avoid it, try screwing them up...
I share the same syndrome as you (although, perhaps, to a lesser degree), so this is, what I do:
The offensive part. (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing that bugs me about being endlessly monitored and categorized is that it's never used to make my life better. It's only ever done to help some random corporation improve their profits by some fraction of a percentage.
If being tracked watching a TV show for a full season resulted in them going "hey, thanks for being a loyal viewer, have this X as a token of our appreciation", I wouldn't complain so much. It wouldn't necessarily have to be a material bonus, in this day and age they could simply grant access to some kind of insider info website. The possibilities are only limited by imagination.
But no. Everything I do gets dumped into a database and sold to the highest bidder. It serves no purpose but to try and get more money out of my wallet. Or if the government is involved, measure my odds of being a terrorist.
Tracking your TV watching is good (Score:4, Informative)
Clear (Score:2)
Halfway off topic...
Anyone know anything about Clear, the company trying to promote 4G WiMax for home internet and phone use? They seem to be advertising reasonable rates, and I would love to dump AT&T for my home phone and internet service as protest against their data sharing.
Who owns them? Anyone have experience with the quality of their service? How much do they tack on in other fees and such that don't appear until the first bill?
(Rates seem to be about the same for home use, but with Clear serv
Yes, privacy is dead. (Score:4, Interesting)
The division between the "public" and the "private" only matters when there is a world of hidden "private" lives (from which the public is excluded) and your public life (with private excluded) has to circulate within and be measured against other public lives (with private excluded).
Once everyone's private becomes public, your own private is no more embarrassing or important than the "private" of most other people.
The same thing applies to thinks like identity theft. The more these things become regarded as "public" rather than private, the more identity theft (a) will happen in volume and (b) will be commonly understood and mitigated through tools and common forms of recourse as a "regular" thing, and others won't hold you nearly so responsible for it.
The reason, in other words, that privacy seems critical is that you assume that you're being marked by and held responsible for everything in your "private" world at a much deeper level than whatever is in your "public" world. Meanwhile, however, the rest of the world continues to increasingly dissolve the "private" into the public, with the inevitable shift that the "private" will be less and less something that people will be marked and/or held responsible for.
Once your boss has a Facebook profile with pictures of their drunken weekend, and friends you with it, your own photos aren't so embarassing.
Once the bank has so much identity theft going on that it's considered a cost of business and made easily reversible, your responsibility for protecting these "identity" records is diminished, as are any consequences of failing to do so.
You've mistaken privacy as an inherent value and end in itself, rather than the means to an end (social success). Increasingly, social success lies along the very opposite path: being as open, public, and omni-visible/trackable as possible.
So hold on to your privacy if you really love it, but realize that society is going to reward you for it less and less, and in fact may even punish you for it relative to much less private others.
What if you are privately gay? (Score:5, Funny)
Leviticus 20:13:
"If a man lies with a man...They must be put to death."
If you are gay, and a jew, and you voted for Obama.... it's only a matter of time before the Christians who take Leviticus seriously find out where you live.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I found this on the web. Great points to bring up.
Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination... End of debate.
I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them.
1. Leviticus 25
U-verse tip... (Score:5, Interesting)
Temkin's u-verse tip... Turn off the TV using the native remote. The box stays on, and continues to stream for hours. It eventually turns off after a timeout of roughly 6 hours. But they can never be certain where I stopped watching. Just adds a little noise to their data.
Apt quote ... (Score:2)
... from the intellectuals of yore:
The intensity and complexity of life, attendant upon advancing civilization, have rendered necessary some retreat from the world, and man, under the refining influence of culture, has become more sensitive to publicity, so that solitude and privacy have become more essential to the individual; but modern enterprise and invention have, through invasions upon his privacy, subjected him to mental pain and distress, far greater than could be inflicted by mere bodily injury.
— "The Right to Privacy", Warren and Brandeis, Harvard Law Review, Vol. IV, December 15, 1890.
Hmmmm... (Score:2)
Privacy is more nuanced than that... (Score:4, Informative)
Privacy is a nebulous concept, and it's possible that in some cases, we give up privacy, and in others, we don't. It's not necessarily a binary on/off thing that you either have or you don't. I don't believe that people who say that privacy is dead are correct; or if they are, it's a very narrow view of privacy. You still don't have people watching you in the shower, for example. (Hopefully...)
Check out Daniel Solove's work- here's a good start.
"I've got nothing to hide" and other misunderstandings of privacy
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565&rec=1&srcabs=667622
He's got some other interesting articles on the subject there, and some interesting books as well.
There are still things you can fight for to protect privacy, even if you are giving up some facets. You can fight against ubiquitous surveillance, and continue to do the things that you're doing to protect your privacy. You can help make threats to privacy transparent, for example, by supporting groups like EFF.
Medical needs it. (Score:2)
That medical firm didn't really need my SSN
Yeah, they did - unless they don't mind being paid. Trust me on this: your doctor couldn't give two whits less what ID# they use for you. The problem is that all government agencies and (to the best of my knowledge) all insurance companies use your SSN as a primary key, and unless the doctor collects the information, they're not getting paid beyond whatever you give them at the time of service.
Privacy is Illusion (Score:2)
Privacy is an illusion at best. At worst, it is an unachievable ideal that can never be attained.
What we should be doing is making sure that people's information and identity and personal security are paramount in governmental roles.
The problem is that progressive governance is opposite this. Government intrusion into every sector of a person's life is gaining all sorts of leverage into a person's private life.
And as we expand government's role into intruding into peoples lives under the guise of "poor, opp
Computers are the weapon... (Score:5, Insightful)
For ages our privacy was protected only by the others' ability to remember. A human being can only remember so many faces and facts about other people (and himself, for that matter)...
Written records reduced the privacy immensely. Computers made the next giant leap. The only thing we can do is legislate, what the computers are allowed to memorize, but those would be merely human (as opposed to physical) laws and have serious limitations. Legal pitfalls will abound — an Evil Corporation may lease a server in a foreign locale [huffingtonpost.com] to keep your data, for example. WikiLeaks has shown the ways around various attempts to close access to information.
Information wants to be free. Does not it?
Are we over using 'war' and question headlines? (Score:4, Funny)
Yes. Yes we are.
are you the tv shows you watch? (Score:3, Insightful)
so somebody knows all the tv shows you watch. ok, so fucking what?
the question is not that somebody has profiled your viewing habits, but that you consider such effluvia about you to be some sort of vital intrinsic part of your identity, worth protecting, worth fighting for, or worth even caring about
i don't know about you, but when making a list of private facts about my identity, what i watch on tv doesn't even remotely enter the realm of relevancy. and no i'm not some "i don't watch tv" weirdo, i watch a lot of tv
i just don't care if anyone knows what i watch, because i don't particularly consider that information about myself remotely valuable or interesting
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I voluntarily gave my SSN to my cable company so they could run a credit check to see if I would pay my bills. I guess I should have no expectation that they won't sell that information on the open market.
Maybe if my ISP has the horsepower, they could start decrypting my SSL streams and snoop out my medical history, selling that information to those marketing cures, literature, insurance, etc.
While I'm running this to its logical conclusion... maybe leaving a window in your house unlocked should be a good
Don't borrow money (Score:4, Interesting)
I get very little junk mail and very few promotional calls. This despite living in a good neighborhood in Silicon Valley.
It may be because I don't have any debt. The big source of personal data is credit-reporting agencies, and since I have nothing but a bank credit card, they don't know much about me. I've obtained a copy of my credit report; they see my bank credit card and my cash bank account only. They have no info about brokerage accounts and mutual funds.
I use a local ISP, Sonic, for DSL. They don't seem to give out any info about their customers. I don't have TV cable. I don't have any "affinity cards", other then a Costco membership. I belong to a few organizations, none of which seem to send junk mail. I have AdBlock and FlashBlock installed in Firefox.
But I make no attempt to hide. My phone number is listed (and on the Do Not Call list). I'm registered to vote. My web sites have valid, non-anonymous WHOIS information. Yet I get almost no targeted advertising.
So I think that much of the targeted information is coming via credit-reporting agencies.
Spend less than you earn, and life will be good to you.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
> So I think that much of the targeted information is coming via credit-reporting agencies.
Obviously, you also do not respond to charities received in the mail. My family used to do this, occasionally, and my parents are still inundated, even though they stopped responding after my father retired, over a decade ago.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Oh, charities...
When I was a kid I donated $2 to a charity for guide dogs. My parents still receive a letter every year asking if I want to give more money this year. So much for those two bucks, they must've spent several times that by now just writing to me...
So what you are saying is: (Score:3, Funny)
I sympathize (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Err no (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not even a small, select list. It's the ultra-wealthy -- same as it has always been. I'm not one to advocate class warfare... but it's an entire socio-economic class on the top reaping the rewards of control of the political system. Don't exclude the Bushes or the Kennedys from your list. Don't exclude the wealthy in the banking and energy industries who are relatively anonymous. It's misleading and harmful to think that the list is limited to a few families with old money -- and it makes you seem like a conspiracy theory moonbat. Far better to "Do. The. Research. Yourself." and discover that it's a wider problem with no easy scapegoats to blame.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe not, but they were so opportunistic in exploiting them that they might as well have caused them. They want you to win the war on terror by being afraid.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Most other countries didn't even have a blitzkrieg, people did an Anschluss instead.
Re: (Score:2)
Until you walk by an e-billboard and a loud commercial for some herpes treatment starts up.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And if you just buy their product, there won't be any public evidence of your little problem.
Are you a homosexual? Lets find out. (Score:2)
I bet if I pay someone they could tell me whether you are or aren't.
Thats where this is going.
Re:Accept and enjoy! (Score:5, Funny)
Until you walk by an e-billboard and a loud commercial for some herpes treatment starts up.
That can work two ways. Consider the following:
You finally made it to the magical third date. You have a good idea as to what will happen, but you know she holds the cards. You took special care to clean your undercarriage and wear the underwear that has no holes or stains. You meet her at the restaurant. She is wearing something sexy! You... Are... In!
After a flawless dinner where you managed to not say anything stupid and she laughed at all your jokes, you are walking with her back to your car, hand in hand. You pass by one of the new billboards that recognizes your ID card's chip and gives you the new personal ads. You wonder what add will you get this time; WOW4? Duke Nukem Forever Expansion? XBox720? The new Android V? Nope. It looks like it picked up her card first.
Worried about your genital herpes? Try Herpago and get those bumps GONE!
We had a great evening. What, you think I'm going to let a virus filled pus pockets stop me? It's not like I get this chance very often. I'm a Slashdot user after all.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps if their intent was to give it to you; but more than likely just plan to use it as a carrot you will never quite get. Poker is really the best representation of daily life in game form. You really are better off the less the other players *know* about your hand be it strong or week.
Re:Privacy (Score:5, Funny)
"...don't think that was a problem which the people originally started worrying about what people knew about them were concerned with."
Still trying to parse this. Will get back to you when parsing is completed... ;]
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
don't do stuff that you're going to be ashamed of
This is very good advice. Online and offline. Be proud of your actions and don't be afraid to put your name on them.
I know this isn't possible in all parts of the world. But the real problem in that case isn't lack of privacy.
Re: (Score:2)
Darn, you found it before I could.
Re: (Score:2)
You have a point but at least in the real world the authorities need a warrant to search your house, etc.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What little privacy you DO have can always be taken from you by force.
_ ...or corporations like Google that completely foul up a new feature and accidentally expose everyone's contact list to each other.
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's so much work walling parts of our lives
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
We're not there QUITE yet, but that's not stopping me from armor plating my walls and installing a drive-thru with a tunnel-and-cart pulley system in my back yard.
You know, to sell the guns, knives, and pipes I've been stocking up on when the time comes.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Problem is, in the case of AT&T, they're doing a credit check. So, give the wrong SSN, it'll error out, and you don't get service.