The author jumps back-and-forth between statements such as "fundamental rights" and talking about Google ads. I believe he's mixing market and government data harvesting as a single entity. This hurts the thesis as they are somewhat distinct in reality.
I can opt-out of Google (and other networks) ads via technology and market choice (decentralized options are also becoming a reality). But I can never opt-out of state-surveillance. Fundamental rights often only apply to the state for a reason, because of they have a much greater ability to abuse them.
Privacy is a question of associating data to an identity. I can control my identity I provide online services. But I can't obscure my identity to the state without threat of jail/violence.
You could argue the state has to operate within warrants, but as we're seeing this often is not the case, and governments everywhere are attempting to support warrantless wiretapping (such as by the Canadian government again announced this week for police-level investigations, not even national security).
So while I deeply agree with the sentiment, I don't agree with the convergence of the two (market/state) as a singular privacy issue. One is a far greater threat.
I can control my identity I provide online services.
Different levels of pseudonymous identity available only to the technically savvy isn't privacy.
It's a depressing datapoint in the ongoing attrition extinguishing privacy.
edit: I'm not throwing up my hands and saying it is (should be, or will be) dead. Just that your portrayal is an overly optimistic reading of the current state of affairs.
@dmix, good points. However I want to clarify that the point of the article is to provide my counterargument against Zuckerbergian ideology that privacy is not needed/dead. If you are tech savvy enough to escape G/F dragnet surveillance it doesn't mean that others are and there lies the problem.
The difference is I'm quite confident in our industry being able to help people protect their privacy now that it's a mainstream issue. The markets reacting. I'm a strong believer in decentralized web services replacing monolithic ones like GMail. These companies may even get pressure from new information privacy laws about data retention/sharing similar to HEPA and health records.
Whereas I'm completely pessimistic about the possibility of state-surveillance being repelled by policy or technology.
But agreed right now, infosec/privacy is a class war. Only those with sufficient knowledge and resources can live a truly private life.
I would think Upton Sinclair's statement would more likely apply: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
And entrenched power interests rarely choose to give up their power willingly.
That said, I agree along the lines that the tech savvy can assist by making all/nearly all Internet communications encrypted sufficiently that those who wish to spy are once again searching for a needle in a haystack without the benefit of a large electromagnet.
Then it remains to educate non-savvy about the true costs of participation in "free" services. Maybe allowing the "creepiness" factor to be more prominently in evidence, as the images from the "naked body scanner" did for back-scatter scans.
How is the guy marketing the decentralized services going to beat the guys who hate decentralized services, considering those guys already know everything about everyone's customers?
One way might be to let the user push a button to get $20 for giving up some purchase patterns. Ugh ;)
I believe he's mixing market and government data harvesting as a single entity.
On the other hand, the tools are eerily similar. It would be relatively easy for instance to re-purpose Google's spam filter into a threat detector, or customer profiler. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if 2 of those three actually share a fair bit of code.
As Eben Moglen said, the main threat is not data going out. It's code going in. Who knows what the vendors will invent, and who knows which of those inventions will be re-purposed or re-implemented a few semesters later.
Comments
The author jumps back-and-forth between statements such as "fundamental rights" and talking about Google ads. I believe he's mixing market and government data harvesting as a single entity. This hurts the thesis as they are somewhat distinct in reality.
I can opt-out of Google (and other networks) ads via technology and market choice (decentralized options are also becoming a reality). But I can never opt-out of state-surveillance. Fundamental rights often only apply to the state for a reason, because of they have a much greater ability to abuse them.
Privacy is a question of associating data to an identity. I can control my identity I provide online services. But I can't obscure my identity to the state without threat of jail/violence.
You could argue the state has to operate within warrants, but as we're seeing this often is not the case, and governments everywhere are attempting to support warrantless wiretapping (such as by the Canadian government again announced this week for police-level investigations, not even national security).
So while I deeply agree with the sentiment, I don't agree with the convergence of the two (market/state) as a singular privacy issue. One is a far greater threat.
I can control my identity I provide online services.
Different levels of pseudonymous identity available only to the technically savvy isn't privacy.
It's a depressing datapoint in the ongoing attrition extinguishing privacy.
edit: I'm not throwing up my hands and saying it is (should be, or will be) dead. Just that your portrayal is an overly optimistic reading of the current state of affairs.
@dmix, good points. However I want to clarify that the point of the article is to provide my counterargument against Zuckerbergian ideology that privacy is not needed/dead. If you are tech savvy enough to escape G/F dragnet surveillance it doesn't mean that others are and there lies the problem.
The difference is I'm quite confident in our industry being able to help people protect their privacy now that it's a mainstream issue. The markets reacting. I'm a strong believer in decentralized web services replacing monolithic ones like GMail. These companies may even get pressure from new information privacy laws about data retention/sharing similar to HEPA and health records.
Whereas I'm completely pessimistic about the possibility of state-surveillance being repelled by policy or technology.
But agreed right now, infosec/privacy is a class war. Only those with sufficient knowledge and resources can live a truly private life.
I would think Upton Sinclair's statement would more likely apply: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
And entrenched power interests rarely choose to give up their power willingly.
That said, I agree along the lines that the tech savvy can assist by making all/nearly all Internet communications encrypted sufficiently that those who wish to spy are once again searching for a needle in a haystack without the benefit of a large electromagnet.
Then it remains to educate non-savvy about the true costs of participation in "free" services. Maybe allowing the "creepiness" factor to be more prominently in evidence, as the images from the "naked body scanner" did for back-scatter scans.
How is the guy marketing the decentralized services going to beat the guys who hate decentralized services, considering those guys already know everything about everyone's customers?
One way might be to let the user push a button to get $20 for giving up some purchase patterns. Ugh ;)
On the other hand, the tools are eerily similar. It would be relatively easy for instance to re-purpose Google's spam filter into a threat detector, or customer profiler. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if 2 of those three actually share a fair bit of code.
As Eben Moglen said, the main threat is not data going out. It's code going in. Who knows what the vendors will invent, and who knows which of those inventions will be re-purposed or re-implemented a few semesters later.