Discuss privacy

[Muse]

A lot of people, seems like most people, have feelings, ideas about privacy. They have "concerns" about it. I'm personally not clear on a lot of privacy issues. I'm uncertain why. Internet privacy, personal financial information are commonly involved in discussions about privacy. Obviously you don't want to be hacked or ripped off, but people seem to be concerned with far more than that. I see a lot of talk about privacy concerns with location information. The Chinese have high res cameras all over their country and know who's being seen by those cameras and have profiles, dossiers, etcetera on its citizens. Some of those people become restricted in what they can do... travel, etc. I get why that's a problem.

I've seen people voice privacy concerns that appear to me to be counterproductive. Many times. I very often have no clear idea what their misgivings are based on. It seems most times those privacy concerns are referenced, they are not explained in any way whatsoever.

One of these issues is those letters you get or questions online about sharing information. There seems to be a whole realm of activities related to this. Also, of course, ISP's, even whole platforms (iOS, Windows, Google, Facebook, other social media...), government agencies (e.g. FBI, NSA).

What I'm seeking here is some clarity about the issues, some insight into why people think one way or another about "privacy issues."

 

[IronWing]

I can't talk it.

 

[Muse]

I can't talk it.

Noted. You are under investigation.

 

[sandorski]

That violates my HIPAA.

 

[dullard]

Go watch or read 1984, then come back to the thread and tell us what you think.

 

[RPD]

OP needs more "quotation marks".

 

[nakedfrog]

Well, if you just kinda go with the defaults on everything and say "yes" every time something asks for permissions, data mining companies end up with a pretty robust picture of your travel and shopping habits, and they sell this data. Did you happen to follow the news at all when Cambridge Analytica was a hot topic?

 

[Muse]

Go watch or read 1984, then come back to the thread and tell us what you think.

I read it in high school, saw the movie as well. I'm aware of it's impact. Big Brother is watching you, War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and all that... It doesn't resolve the issues I suggest in the OP. I read Brave New World too.

 

[Muse]

OP needs more "quotation marks".

whatever... you grade me C- on my English. Thanks a lot.

 

[Muse]

Well, if you just kinda go with the defaults on everything and say "yes" every time something asks for permissions, data mining companies end up with a pretty robust picture of your travel and shopping habits, and they sell this data. Did you happen to follow the news at all when Cambridge Analytica was a hot topic?

I was following the news, didn't dig into the Cambridge Analytica thing particularly.

That violates my HIPAA.

Actually, I don't think so. HIPAA is generally little understood by the general public, you know.

 

[Muse]

I was following the news, didn't dig into the Cambridge Analytica thing particularly.

Actually, I don't think so. HIPAA is generally little understood by the general public, you know.

Here's some pretty deep info about HIPAA provided recently here by @Meghan54:

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[dullard]

There are some very legitimate fears regarding privacy.

In many locations, you can and likely will be jailed, fined, or killed if people find out information about you. Here are just a few:

• Go try saying or writing something against a dictator in their country. You likely will end up dead. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...tin-who-died-violently-or-in-suspicious-ways/
• Go try "dishonoring" your family in many locations. If that information is found out, you could be subject to an honor killing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing
• Go try being LGBTQ in areas where it is frowned upon. If that information is leaked, suddenly you end up stabbed or similar https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...fricans-resist-war-on-queerness-idUSKBN2CU0QB
• Ever hear of the Gestapo in Germany? Given full power to do anything they want without judicial review if they find out your secret information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestapo
• I could go on and on with examples in North Korea, Belarus, Syria, etc.

This isn't just outside the US.

• Do you want thieves to know you are out of your home and for how long?
• Do you want hackers to know your SS number, address, birthday, mother's maiden name, and phone number?
• Have you heard of the witch trials?
• Do you want to be the target of any form of supremacists ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_violence_against_LGBT_people_in_the_United_States or https://www.splcenter.org/hate-map
• Do you want to be flooded with spam phone calls, emails, mailings?

Or maybe it can just impact your ability to be employed or have health insurance.

• If the ACA (Obamacare) is ever repealed, then suddenly all of your pre-existing conditions can be legally used to reject you from care or even the ability to buy health insurance. Better keep that information secret. https://www.cms.gov/CCIIO/Resources/Forms-Reports-and-Other-Resources/preexisting
• You can be fired (or not hired) for exercising your rights to free speech: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/employer-s-interests-outweigh-free-46497/ Do you want your employer to know everything you ever said, even say while sober, drunk, under muscle relaxants, while sleep talking, etc.

Or maybe, you just want to have secrets.

• Maybe you have something legitimate to hide. Maybe you don't want your spouse to know you hate the new hairdo and don't want that information public and starting a big fight. Do you want your entire family to know about your STD?
• Maybe you have something illegitimate to hide. Maybe you don't want the police knocking on your door after your last internet search went awry.

Or maybe you want real, true freedom. Are you really free to your thoughts, feelings, religion, etc if you know your society can ostracize you at any moment when things aren't private?

 

[Torn Mind]

Privacy is truly a double-edged sword.

It does protect people from unsavory interventions from authorities or other prying eyes.

On the other hand, it is privacy that allows shady conduct to fester.

Privacy, like many things, is a necessary compromise in accepting many evils(private corruption with some spillover into public government) to prevent a greater, more eternal evil(states with prying eyes rarely get overthrown)

 

[Captante]

Rumors of the existence of this thing referred to as "privacy" have persisted into 2021 despite rampant and largely irrefutable evidence to the contrary.

Well, if you just kinda go with the defaults on everything and say "yes" every time something asks for permissions

That isn't nearly the worst that could come of it!

 

[Muse]

OK, I'm wondering about those cookies in your browser. I just went to a site I maybe never visited before, at least on this machine, and was asked if I was OK with their saving cookies on my machine. What are the implications of that?

 

[13Gigatons]

I hate data mining and wonder what the real use of such useless information is for?

 

[nakedfrog]

OK, I'm wondering about those cookies in your browser. I just went to a site I maybe never visited before, at least on this machine, and was asked if I was OK with their saving cookies on my machine. What are the implications of that?

It depends, and you'll see that with almost every website now. Most of them will have an explanatory section about each type of cookie and what it's used for. You mostly don't want the 3rd party cookies.

 

[Muse]

I hate data mining and wonder what the real use of such useless information is for?

I do disable that type of thing when I install Windows. I don't like the idea that my OS or sites I go to have some ideas about what I do, want, etc. I don't want to be profiled.

 

[snoopy7548]

All this data collection going on, and I still need to enter my zip code into shopping websites every time I visit them.

 

[Muse]

I hate data mining and wonder what the real use of such useless information is for?

Data mining is the process of finding anomalies, patterns and correlations within large data sets to predict outcomes. Using a broad range of techniques, you can use this information to increase revenues, cut costs, improve customer relationships, reduce risks and more.

 

[Iron Woode]

some sites are using your PC's cycles to mine cryptocurrency.

I would suggest a good VPN for online protection.

 

[Muse]

some sites are using your PC's cycles to mine cryptocurrency.

I would suggest a good VPN for online protection.

What are the mechanics, costs? Does it slow down your system(s)?

 

[Scarpozzi]

You know the problem with privacy? It doesn't exist.

There may be some instances where you are off-grid far enough that you might have some. The Internet isn't as much of an issue as the way it allows companies and organizations to buy and sell your data.....or make agreements that then have it flowing freely where others can compromise it. So you have an account with Company A. Well, company A doesn't want to pay their IT staff or support the infrastructure required to run the business, so they buy Software-As-A-Service from Company B to lock in savings and ship all their records to them in a nightly feed. If the data is ever compromised, unless the attack happens at Company B and can be proven, they won't be blamed. Company A was only doing what was best for the investors, so you can't blame them either... To make matters worse, the people who make the decisions of what data to ship back and forth are often idiots and at the end of the day, they had lawyers draw up agreements that insulate themselves from litigation risk, but don't solve the problems if any data breach actually occurs.

We actually had this one company's engineer send an FTP list of passwords to us via Email by mistake for 120 of their clients that was stored in plain text on a Google Drive. Those contracts were around $150k annually for each client company. He lost his job over it, but the company never told the other clients about it. We tried to get out of the contract with that firm when it happened, but were locked in by then....


On the physical side of things....I work outside a lot and while I don't see a soul, every now and then I see a drone fly overhead. It makes me want to start carrying a shotgun when those things fly over my property.

 

[Iron Woode]

What are the mechanics, costs? Does it slow down your system(s)?

it can.

I use one and I like it. You set some up on a router so everything can be protected online.

 

[Muse]

You know the problem with privacy? It doesn't exist.

There may be some instances where you are off-grid far enough that you might have some. The Internet isn't as much of an issue as the way it allows companies and organizations to buy and sell your data.....or make agreements that then have it flowing freely where others can compromise it. So you have an account with Company A. Well, company A doesn't want to pay their IT staff or support the infrastructure required to run the business, so they buy Software-As-A-Service from Company B to lock in savings and ship all their records to them in a nightly feed. If the data is ever compromised, unless the attack happens at Company B and can be proven, they won't be blamed. Company A was only doing what was best for the investors, so you can't blame them either... To make matters worse, the people who make the decisions of what data to ship back and forth are often idiots and at the end of the day, they had lawyers draw up agreements that insulate themselves from litigation risk, but don't solve the problems if any data breach actually occurs.

We actually had this one company's engineer send an FTP list of passwords to us via Email by mistake for 120 of their clients that was stored in plain text on a Google Drive. Those contracts were around $150k annually for each client company. He lost his job over it, but the company never told the other clients about it. We tried to get out of the contract with that firm when it happened, but were locked in by then....


On the physical side of things....I work outside a lot and while I don't see a soul, every now and then I see a drone fly overhead. It makes me want to start carrying a shotgun when those things fly over my property.

Yes, you know what? I suspected that. Haven't given it a lot of thought recently, but yes, I have been of that opinion, i.e. that privacy doesn't exist. I suppose in some contexts the term has meaning, but that there is no real privacy attainable for most people in a lot of situations.

I was the sole database administrator and programmer for the mission critical database of a service company that had contracts with many of the largest companies in the USA, many if not most of them Big Tech (Microsoft, Texas Instruments, companies of that nature). It's been about 20 years, so don't remember all the companies. We provided perks for their employees. I personally had the credit card numbers, names, contact info for thousands of employees from among scores of companies. We had an encryption algorithm but it was nothing special, it was actually quite weak and hackable. Besides that, I could see the data unencrypted anytime I wanted. I had all the code, and the code itself wasn't particularly well guarded. I could take all that home, code, data, no problem. I had integrity and I would never have considered doing anything with that info that would besmudge my reputation. But just the situation had me realizing that data security was pretty much a mirage. When I see stories of companies' customers data hacked, even credit agencies, I'm not surprised in the least. It's one of the reasons I like credit cards. If my card's number is ill-gotten and I get charged for something I didn't order, they have my back. It's happened to me. Don't know how, but doesn't matter. I don't get dinged, just get a new card number.

I had a credit at Walmart disappear. Somebody siphoned off the cash from it. I bitched like hell until they restored it. I figure it was an inside job. Didn't surprise me in the least, but pissed me off, more than anything because it wasn't easy dealing with it.

I'm not obsessed with privacy because I figure there isn't any. I'd rather think that I'm proud of myself, who I am, what I believe in, am good to my word than that who I am is my business and nobody else's. The latter attitude is insane, sort of paranoid. At one time I thought anonymity was cool, but I changed my mind. Fortunately, in the USA you don't have to hide who you are... at least I don't think so!