Limiting analysis to the personal impact of privacy / security issues arising in our rapidly evolving society is simply poor analysis and certainly not helpful in contributing to a well-planned, well-designed future society.
This narcissistic / short-term mindset is unhealthy, and is manifested in discussions around security ("I'm boring, who wants to hack me?") / privacy ("I'm boring, who's interested in me?") / liberty ("I have nothing to hide!") / environment (tragedy of the commons).
Someone working up a societal cost calculation as you outline clearly does not suffer from the narcissistic defect of security / privacy analysis that obviously rankles me. As long as people take a broader view it's perfectly reasonable to disagree on the importance / severity of a particular security / privacy breach.
In this particular instance the cost of modifying iOS to encrypt consolidated.db, store less data points, or allow users to easily opt out would be negligible.
If it was a little Silicon Valley startup they'd potentially go down in flames as HNers howled at them for taking such an amateur and reckless approach to users personal data. It'd certainly be a software defect that would quickly be patched by any little software house.
Comments
Limiting analysis to the personal impact of privacy / security issues arising in our rapidly evolving society is simply poor analysis and certainly not helpful in contributing to a well-planned, well-designed future society.
This narcissistic / short-term mindset is unhealthy, and is manifested in discussions around security ("I'm boring, who wants to hack me?") / privacy ("I'm boring, who's interested in me?") / liberty ("I have nothing to hide!") / environment (tragedy of the commons).
Someone working up a societal cost calculation as you outline clearly does not suffer from the narcissistic defect of security / privacy analysis that obviously rankles me. As long as people take a broader view it's perfectly reasonable to disagree on the importance / severity of a particular security / privacy breach.
In this particular instance the cost of modifying iOS to encrypt consolidated.db, store less data points, or allow users to easily opt out would be negligible.
If it was a little Silicon Valley startup they'd potentially go down in flames as HNers howled at them for taking such an amateur and reckless approach to users personal data. It'd certainly be a software defect that would quickly be patched by any little software house.