Internet Freedom

[Momo]

I went to an interesting debate yesterday. I live in a university town that hosts a festival of lectures, events, discussions and demonstrations of things a bit like what we talk about here.

Anyhow, at this debate on Internet Freedom, there was a former founder of wikileaks, an American security consultant (non-technical) to the whitehouse, the director of an Open Rights organisation and a brainbox computer scientist that has developed an anonymous browisng protocol that people like Tibetans (or you and I) can use to communicate with the rest of the world without being censored by China, or anyone. Link at the end of this post.

They raised some interesting points:
1. Facebook. For youth today, you are at a disadvantage socially if you're not on Facebook. There is a lack of informed consent about your data and anyone that has legal access to it (basically any government agency) can run a query against it. Advertisers can mine your data on FB servers - you cannot.
2. The law. The physical location of the server dictates the laws that affect it. What's legal today could not legal tomorrow. Your data is never deleted. People are not given proper informed consent of this. Hence, the potential exists that if your best buddy suddenly becomes leader of a dodgy organisation ten years down the line, you will be investigated. There are currently no laws regarding the extent of the investigation, and you don't need to be told about it. (The security consultant grinned, waved his hand around and said that it could've had something to do with the Patriot Act).
3. Countries. Because legislation takes longer to change than trends on the internet evolve and develop, the law will always be slower than the internet. Hence, trends on the net will increasingly prompt changes in legislation, at an accelerating rate.
4. Government. Some old timers in govt's first instinct when they hear about some trouble on the net is to say, 'just turn the damn thing off'. These old-fashioned ideas are changing as new blood is raised to government, but their presence and past impact cannot be ignored.

There were other things, but those were the main points.

Here's a link to those who might be interested: https://www.torproject.org/about/overview.html.en

Thoughts?

[Dreadnaught]

I stridently have no problems with the first two, but I agree with the latter two.

Most generally, people need to realize that no advertiser is "data mining" anything when it comes to major online ad platforms like Facebook. Facebook doesn't allow that. Facebook is using data that its own users are inputting to provide an ad-targeting platform for advertisers.

But the advertisers don't know who you are. They simply know what criteria within the Facebook ad system they want to target. Facebook then does the actual targeting. But the idea that people don't know this is happening (and that their data can stay on multiple redundant servers forever) is a bit silly.

On the final points, I do agree that government + internet tends to lead to some inane and insane combinations. I've seen it a lot and it's painful. To paraphrase a recent interview the CEO of Google gave to the Washington Post over here: if technology changes about 3 times as fast as other industries, and government changes 3 times as slow as the private sector...that leaves an enormous comprehension gap between technology and government.

[Ominous Gamer]

They raised some interesting points:
1. Facebook. For youth today, you are at a disadvantage socially if you're not on Facebook. There is a lack of informed consent about your data and anyone that has legal access to it (basically any government agency) can run a query against it. Advertisers can mine your data on FB servers - you cannot.
2. The law. The physical location of the server dictates the laws that affect it. What's legal today could not legal tomorrow. Your data is never deleted. People are not given proper informed consent of this. Hence, the potential exists that if your best buddy suddenly becomes leader of a dodgy organisation ten years down the line, you will be investigated. There are currently no laws regarding the extent of the investigation, and you don't need to be told about it. (The security consultant grinned, waved his hand around and said that it could've had something to do with the Patriot Act).

You mght have some fun following the crazy shit this guy is going through. 1,222 pages of information stored on a single user, pokes that are 4 years old, "deleted" chats from years ago, etc. He is still fighting with facebook, claiming they have only opened up 23 of the 57 different data categories they have on him. Facebook also likes to hide behind the proprietary methods claims.

[Flixy]

Wrt 2, without facebook they'd also investigate friends and acquaintances of suspects. I wouldn't even be that surprised if I ever ended up being on a recorded phonecall somewhere. Before fb, that is.

[Dreadnaught]

Now who actually makes phone calls, amirite?

[GGT]

Internet "freedom" shouldn't mean internet "monitoring". Whether it's done by Google, advertisers, employers, or teh gummint via the Patriot Act. Cache capabilities has always bothered me, as well as internet spiders and web crawlers that can catch things faster than any individual can. Black boxes hidden in newly purchased cars has always bothered me, when it's not been explicitly divulged, with an opt-IN choice. (Rather different than rental car contracts, and definitely different than the Black Boxes in airplanes.)

Progressive Insurance is offering a "snap-shot" gadget for their members, tantalizing them with lower rates in exchange for having a Black Box in their car. I wonder if people truly know what that means....

[Dreadnaught]

internet spiders and web crawlers that can catch things faster than any individual can.

Wh...please clarify what you mean here.

Progressive Insurance is offering a "snap-shot" gadget for their members, tantalizing them with lower rates in exchange for having a Black Box in their car. I wonder if people truly know what that means....

I suspect they know they can get lower insurance rates for installing a black box in their car.

[LittleFuzzy]

Internet "freedom" shouldn't mean internet "monitoring". Whether it's done by Google, advertisers, employers, or teh gummint via the Patriot Act. Cache capabilities has always bothered me, as well as internet spiders and web crawlers that can catch things faster than any individual can. Black boxes hidden in newly purchased cars has always bothered me, when it's not been explicitly divulged, with an opt-IN choice. (Rather different than rental car contracts, and definitely different than the Black Boxes in airplanes.)

Progressive Insurance is offering a "snap-shot" gadget for their members, tantalizing them with lower rates in exchange for having a Black Box in their car. I wonder if people truly know what that means....

"We knew how easy it was to look out, but we didn't realize how easy it was to look in"

[GGT]

You two need to define your own parameters of internet privacy and freedoms. I have my own, and they're probably not in line with yours. It's not based on what Google, Facebook, or Progressive tells me it should be. I'm fine with what I've chosen for myself (and my kids).

[Dreadnaught]

So you are making choices to not use Google, Facebook or Progressive. Isn't that the whole point?

[CitizenCain]

They raised some interesting points:
1. Facebook. For youth today, you are at a disadvantage socially if you're not on Facebook. There is a lack of informed consent about your data and anyone that has legal access to it (basically any government agency) can run a query against it. Advertisers can mine your data on FB servers - you cannot.

[...]

Thoughts?

People are morons.

And, yes, if you want to be on the same social footing as the other morons, you must lower yourself to their level of moronery. Not exactly a new phenomenon.