I think this thread demonstrates why the privacy issues with the likes of google, facebook, etc are pretty much vapor complaints. Essentially, people are happy in the end to sacrifice privacy for convenience. With that mind set, we can easily see why no one really cares about NSA slurping. As far as they are concerned, all the NSA has is what facebook, gmail etc, have. So, what is the problem exactly? And you know what, I can understand the point. I disagree, but equally, I understand.
Having read about how people won't move form FB because it easy to stay there, since their "friends" are there, I now realize most people really are not committed to privacy while it means some sort of inconvenience. There is even a reply here where a friend who wont use facebook is referred to as an "outcast"... Understandable, but also says it all.
You're presenting a false choice: It's entirely possible to care about privacy, and still use Facebook and GMail.
Simply pretend that everything you post on Facebook and GMail is in the public domain, posted in the public square.
If I never share anything I don't want public, then my privacy is guaranteed. I'd advise others with privacy concerns to do the same.
Given that you NEVER KNOW, EVER that you can 100% trust the people you're sharing with (no matter which media you use), I think people are kind of crazy to act any other way.
This only considers the current state of 3rd parties, governments, and laws. The gigantic issue with all this is that everything is stored indefinitely. Also, laws and governments change. What's to stop you from suffering tomorrow for seemingly innocuous actions you performed today? And I'm not just talking about getting prosecuted for some specific crime. This data is used as a means of proactive prosecution and profiling. This means that the powers that be are actively looking for signals in the noise that indicate crime(and most likely just things they don't agree with, illegal or not). If the profile created off your various seemingly innocent actions and "meta-data" over the course of many years puts you within the error bars, you could become a false positive. With secret courts, secret prisons, and indefinite detention all possible, what's to stop you from simply disappearing? Or, at the vary least, what's to stop all of this from ruining your life even if you are never convicted of anything(e.g. months of detention and interrogation without prosecution, inability to travel, holds placed on bank accounts, calls to employer, etc...)?
That said, the focus shouldn't be on the companies that collect this data. They are simply doing the best they can to make a profit within the bounds of the law. No, the issue is government. There should be strict laws regulating how data is collected and stored(even non "PII") and even stricter laws around how 3rd parties are allowed to consume, store, and use this data, especially governments. But alas, this is asking the police to police themselves, so I guess this will never happen.
I opted out of facebook, years ago. Now I am seriously considering the possibility to go back because I fear the lack of an idiot FB profile will at some point be a strongly weighted part of the very signal you are mentioning.
It's sad that the default state for most people is to have a facebook account and that you have to decide to opt out. I did the same a few years ago and its a painful process with lots of downsides (missed invitations and opportunities to track people down). Taking your privacy seriously means its also harder for friends and family to find you.
Taking your privacy seriously means its also harder for friends and family to find you.
I don't follow. My friends and family have always know how to find me. This has been true even without Facebook.
They know because I've told them. Often in person. Or by phone.
I'm sort of puzzled by the idea of there being people who are important to me who I don't keep in regular touch with without having to rely on some specific Web site.
If anything, sites like Facebook are good for looking into people I don't really care about, or who don't really care about me.
I personally live thousand kilometers away from my family and friends, and it's just hard to keep in touch with everybody without a social network. Phone calls, mails and chat would never be as efficient/cheap/time-saving that social networks. Plus, they lack that "social" thing.
Regarding that "elitism" when you talk about your friends, there's "family and close friends", and there's "friends", the ones that are not _that_ important in your life, but with whom you'd still like to be in touch with.
Take for example the "keeping in touch" point. I'm going home in few weeks, I just had to post a Facebook status to tell all my friends so we can meet. How would I do it without Facebook? Send mails? Not everyone use emails. Call them, it's freaking expensive.
Privacy concerns scare me, and that's why I'm trying to leave Google stuff, but leaving Facebook is just impossible at the moment, simply because it's useful and there's no alternative.
I guess it's different if you have a large extended family. Personally, the extended family on my mother's side keeps a directory (she had a large family) of email + phone + address for all of the aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. Someone just updates it once a year.
I can see people relying on Facebook to keep track of this rather than needing to have someone manually manage it. On the other hand, since it's family, you can just call someone you do have the number for, and work your way through the chain to get to someone that has the correct info.
Facebook has become an essential communications platform. Opting out is like someone opting out of the telephone 50 years ago because the operator could listen in to your calls.
The privacy concerns we have about Facebook I know older relatives had about the telephone. To this day they still refrain from giving out much information on it and keep calls as short as possible.
Tell me how I can share private information, but avoid the consequences you describe. I don't believe you can. Therefore, I see no particular disadvantage to Facebook and GMail (over any other possible solution), as long as I realize that the government IS watching me.
It's technically possible with encryption. One cannot be sure that said encryption will not be trivially broken in the future, but theres a massive difference between using a service that doesn't know how to read your data now and one that does.
Facebook tracks your external web browsing history through the use of their embedded buttons, and links that history with your profile. So even if you don't post private information to Facebook, they're tracking your private activity unless you take measures to block such buttons across the web.
> or specifically log out of Facebook when you're not using it
will probably not, because they set tracking cookies that remain even when you log out.
Complete speculation here, but if they're willing to do that, who's to say they don't link traffic from known IP addresses as well? It might be linked less strongly but in many cases could still be associated in some way. They track web browsing for non-users already anyway, so if they can connect that to existing users by IP I'd be fairly surprised if they didn't.
In order to prevent this, you have to block trackers in all your browsers and devices with Ghostery or similar tools.
With the immaturity of the app permissions model and Facebook's abysmal record, I feel like you're far better off using a mobile browser (in incognito, of course) than the mobile app.
Nope, not if you're outside the US. Seriously getting sick of repeating this, but whatever. Facebook Ireland (mmm, double Irish) is the data controller for all Facebook users outside the US, and they released a report which prevents facebook from doing this. AFAIK, they said that this data can only be retained for 30 days and cannot be linked to user profiles and/or used for targeted advertising.
For some strange reason, the same requirements do not apply to Google, and Twitter are currently being investigated.
Facebook tracks your external web browsing history through the use of their embedded buttons, and links that history with your profile
Not if you log out of FB. Conveniently, the "Like" button tells you when you're logged in and the "(Not You?)" link allows you to log out of FB whenever you notice you're still logged in. Hmm, this gives me an idea for an indicator browser extension.
They say they don't keep shadow profiles of your external Web traffic [though I can't imagine that's true].
In line with other responses, I use a browser plugin that blocks all traffic to Facebook when I'm not on a facebook.com domain, and I exclusively sign in via incognito mode so the session is destroyed when I'm finished.
Easy enough: I have a separate browser for connecting to Facebook. I also have the usual set of tracker-blocking plugins installed on Firefox, which I use for normal browsing.
How is it silly? When someone loads jQuery from Google, and their site depends on jQuery, do you expect the site to still work when you block Google's CDN?
But the part about never sharing anything private with anyone, regardless of the media used... maybe I'm misunderstanding it. That sounds like a terrible way to live. By living that way, you are not retaining your privacy... you've already lost it.
You could die when get on plane, but you still do it, because the reward is worth the risk. Someone could wire tap my house, but I don't let that stop me from having private conversations with my family. There's a risk/reward balance that each of us have to set with respect to our privacy and our ability to share and interact with other people. To say the risk always outweighs the reward seems a little extreme.
Pretend I choose that the risk of me sharing something with you (that you might make it public) is worth it.
By doing that, and using any given media that I don't entirely control and that I can't guarantee I can perfectly secure, I'm also accepting the risk that either the provider of the service(s), or a hacker, could also make the information public or share it with the government.
Think about the risk of my friends making the information public, intentionally or unintentionally (they have lousy passwords, or share passwords with friends, or don't use SSL in a cafe, or have an easy to guess Password Recovery answers, or they forget to log out on a computer someone can sneak onto, or they get hit by a keylogger and don't use two-factor authentication like I do, or they get hit by phishing).
I think that risk is ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more likely than the risk that the media provider (Google, Facebook) will, intentionally or unintentionally, make the information public. Or somehow use it to harm me.
Also, the damage, should that risk occur, to me, is very low. (Based on the type of information I share.)
Now, every layer of the service provider is also demonstrably sharing with the government. That's happening.
And many people here are blaming Google (the victim) rather than the government (the abuser), which makes no sense to me.
I accept the argument that we ALL need protection from government spying. I really do. But I have yet to see someone propose how to avoid using an ISP. And many of the people abandoning Google are still running Windows. Or how to abandon a major cell provider.
Dropping Google, while continuing to use major ISPs and Cell providers is like changing which STAMP you put on your postcard, and expecting that will somehow stop the postman from reading it.
Given the scope and reach such services have, one ought to be parsimonious with any private information put online, because it might eventually be correlated with the former.
The problem with that is that while you might be conscious of that, other people might not be. And you using Facebook and Gmail pulls these people in, for example an email sent to you by someone not using Gmail will still end up on Google’s servers.
It is a difficult choice, not a false one. That is why you and others are trying to justify not making one. Writing it off as false is a convenient excuse.
I'm not sure if that's more depressing or that so many seem to feel that boy-cotting services is an effective way to address the illegal actions of governments and corporations.
I would hope that people would consider instead demanding we hold governments and organizations accountable for crimes directly and demand our rights be respected. Picking up your ball and going home is not the correct response to these things, nor will it help or fix anything.
exercising choice is exercising freedom. pleading for rights from entities that have seized them without your consent is truly depressing because it is hopeless.
Is it, or is it not criminal acts we are talking about here?
But ignoring that boycotts are largely fruitless. So if it is truly hopeless to demand your government respect your rights and freedoms then yes, you are probably fucked.
This, online services, and not taking action is no different than not taking action over bankers/politicians stealing your future.
If somebody had told me in say 2005 or 2006 that "hey, the government will just print like several trillions of dollars, ultimately backed only by your tax money, and just like that give them to failed banks and other corporations, the CEOs of said banks will then give themselves hefty bonuses for almost killing the economy. oh and the banks will also foreclose many peoples houses because the small people cant pay their debts either." and not one beep was heard from the population, not one broken window. Its not some small money stolen from them either, its entire college-educations and pensions, standard of living lowered. But, hey, they're still better than Africa so its fine.
It is not about convenience, it is about participating in society. I am dependent on Facebook to keep my friends. No quotation marks. They are my real friends and they moved there for a lot of important communication. Should I instead be an outcast? No, THAT would be depressing.
I'm never sure if this is a generational thing or just a who-you-happen-to-know thing, but the concept of being an "outcast" because of not using Facebook just sounds ludicrous to me. Your friends wouldn't IM you or email you or text you or call you or talk to you in person if you weren't on Facebook?
I have one friend who doesn't use Facebook (for reasons unrelated to privacy), and it's really quite frustrating. If someone wants to hang out, they send a group message on Facebook. Then someone has to be responsible for communicating to my "outcast" friend via some other medium about the event. This becomes a pain in the ass when trying to schedule things.
I personally would love to use email, but people just refuse to do it. Everyone wants to use Facebook because everyone is on it. Believe me, I've tried to get people to switch to email. But it always reverts back to Facebook.
For some (many?) people, these steps are followed:
1. Plan event (e.g. party)
2. Invite people on Facebook
It’s massively easier than texting/IMing people. Yeah, you will do it for people you really care about, but you can easily miss out if you aren’t on FB.
There are different kinds of friendships. One of the best kinds of friendships are the ones where you support each other, help each other with your hardest struggles. Spend time together, make each other feel safe, and push each other to be the best you can be. Things like this aren't really best done on Facebook. Frankly, most of what is best in life is not done on Facebook.
So these "real friends" of yours would stop talking to you if you do not use their favorite communication service? I think you may need to reevaluate either your assumptions about your friends or perhaps whether or not they really are your friends.
I have friends all of the world. I am not on Facebook or any other social networking service. Yes, I talk to my friends.
Yah, this argument always strikes me as hollow (or really sad). I have a lot of good friends. They are mostly on Facebook. I am not.
The worst that happens is that every now and then I get asked why I wasn't at the movies last night or something because they didn't realize that I couldn't see the invite.
I deleted my facebook after the NSA leak partly due to feeling uncomfortable sharing that information with the government, but more because I feel that facebook doesn't really do much for me. I'd rather have 5 great friends than 200 "friends" who passively consume information about me.
Is it just me or was the author's point that services can disappear (Reader) yet most of these threads assume the reason to switch are privacy concerns. Maybe we're projecting too much?
Definitely not just you; privacy concerns were a very (very) small part of this (when Google has all of your data, they have more than the sum of the individual parts). In general, if I want more privacy, I'll say, use PGP instead of switching email providers.
This was about not relying too heavily on any one service provider. Plain and simple.
> [A]ll the NSA has is what facebook, gmail etc, have.
Facebook has what Facebook has. Google has what Google has. Verizon has what Verizon has. The NSA has what all of them have, put together. The NSA can therefore draw conclusions that Facebook and Verizon and Google can't, and therefore I lose privacy when that data is handed over even if I happen to use some subset of the services in question.
That's not my only objection, but it's a substantial one...
Privacy isn't just about hiding my data in general. It's also about hiding it from certain people.
I'm not sure why you haven't considered the possibility that I don't want the government to have my data from an entire collection of web sites, but might not mind any one particular web site having it. More to the point, I worry a lot more about what the government can do with my data than what Facebook can do.
Do you know what is depressing? The gamification of society, of human kind: in the past intelligence agencies needed intelligence and resources to work. Now, they press a button and they receive all the information without much effort.
Skipping the obvious opinion against the NSA and "The Society of Likes". At least taxpayers (how I hate this word! but it is ironic in this context) should force the Government to fire a big percentage of its workforce since the work is trivial and algorithms to analyze the information are in general already published.
if someone made an sGoogle/sFacebook/s whatever that could move your info and maintain same look/functionality with one button, people would switch, because a button switch for more security (like turning the deadbolt on your door) is something people are willing to do. Otherwise the cost of switching is too high.
The fact that people are not prepared to stand alone doesn't mean they don't care about privacy.
Very few people are in a position to make a difference alone, and even fewer dare to act. There's only one Snowden.
The rest of us, we vote, support civil liberties organisations, sign petitions, and the most active amongst us lobby and demonstrate.
The notion that the way to change things is by individual sacrifice, and if we don't we obviously don't care enough, is an fundamentalist libertarian fantasy.
The real world doesn't work that way. Real people don't work that way. At least 99% of us don't.
> Real people don't work that way. At least 99% of us don't.
This statement rings with me quite a bit.
I'm reminded of the day the FBI released the video and photos of the Tsarnaevs just after the Boston bombing and it was discovered that they were from Chechnya. If you visited twitter and searched for their names, you could have found a few thousand tweets asking why the Czech Republic was attacking the US. Here are thousands of Americans, typing words into a computer connected to the largest distributed information storage network ever conceived by man, and they don't bother to verify that Chechnya and the Czech Republic aren't the same place.
Most people aren't stupid, they just don't care. How many times last week did knowing the difference between Chechnya and the Czech Republic come in handy for you? Likewise, knowing that the NSA is actively slurping all your phone calls and emails, what can you do that doesn't require massive lifestyle changes?
>>The notion that the way to change things is by individual sacrifice, and if we don't we obviously don't care enough, is an fundamentalist libertarian fantasy.
Thank goodness not everyone feels the same way you do. You can't change the world if you don't at least try.
I'm glad that at least 1% does work that way. I think it's too bad there aren't more of these types of people in the world.
I think this thread demonstrates why the privacy issues with the likes of google, facebook, etc are pretty much vapor complaints. Essentially, people are happy in the end to sacrifice privacy for convenience. With that mind set, we can easily see why no one really cares about NSA slurping. As far as they are concerned, all the NSA has is what facebook, gmail etc, have. So, what is the problem exactly? And you know what, I can understand the point. I disagree, but equally, I understand.
Having read about how people won't move form FB because it easy to stay there, since their "friends" are there, I now realize most people really are not committed to privacy while it means some sort of inconvenience. There is even a reply here where a friend who wont use facebook is referred to as an "outcast"... Understandable, but also says it all.
Depressing.