A short, and brilliant, discourse on privacy

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The New York Times just published an amazing monograph by William Gibson, The Future of Privacy. Privacy confuses me, beyond my simplest understanding
[See the full post at: A short, and brilliant, discourse on privacy]

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I appreciate the writers perspective. However, in my opinion, he misses the point.

It is not what I tell or show, it is who I tell it to or show it. If I know I can trust the person/organization I am telling, I will do it.

The problem is in the what they are going to do with the private information, not what I tell them.

It is not telling Microsoft about what I am doing, it is them using what I tell them in some way that I would not approve, without my approval.

I’ll tell you a bit of story to illustrate. I recently went through cancer treatment at a cancer care hospital. Each time I went there, they would present me with an iPad with a questionnaire on it that was pretty much a psych evaluation online. You know, questions like did your mother love you, or did you have trouble getting up this morning.

I refused to do so.

The reason was I knew I could not trust the hospital’s security. I could just see myself one day standing in front of a border guard being confronted with the fact that I was depressed one day in the past. And, therefore he would not let me pass.

Can you imagine a cancer treatment patient that would not be depressed.

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Your story struck a chord with me. I knew of a man who had lost his wife after a long and difficult struggle with terminal cancer. After her death, he was asked some similar questions by a doctor in a medical setting such as are you sleeping well or feeling sad. The man just lost his best friend; what normal person would not feel down in the dumps. Well after answering the questions, a week or so later the local police showed up at his home to search for and take possession of his firearms. That commenced a yearlong plus course of legal actions on his part to recover property improperly seized by police at significant personal cost. You just never know where so-called well-intentioned questions and answers might end up and what the ramifications will be as so many social initiatives are totally lacking due process protections. The apparent disregard of personal privacy issues by young people today emanates, at least in part, by their lack of life experience and the perception that privacy works against social popularity. As a result they will post almost anything online without adequate consideration of possible adverse outcomes. I may not be certain of much, but I do not believe privacy issues are going to go away anytime soon.

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+1. Beware writers who can only describe themselves as “essayists.” I can write an essay for publication. So can many of us. [edited -WL]

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Gibson is one of my favorite writers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gibson

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Add to this lack of proper education not just experience. They may be schooled but they are no longer educated. Those who own the country WANT them like this – education is dangerous

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He may write but I sure dk what’s amazing about the article. It says practically nothing.

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The NYT article was based on the court case where the FBI sued Apple to unlock the iPhone 5C of the San Bernardino Muslim terrorist, ie the power of the US govt to invade citizens’ privacy. In the end, FBI dropped the suit when they found a hacker to unlock the iPhone n they hv ikely found nothing much in it that was useful.
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This is different from what M$ hv been doing with their Telemetry & Data(T&D) collection programs in Win 10/8.1/7.
……. By law, when requested, M$ r required to provide the private info of their Windows users(= desktops/laptops/ /tablets/smartphones) to the US govt, eg the NSA n FBI – similarly for other tech companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Telcos, ISPs, etc. M$’s T&D collection programs r likely also made for this purpose.

The T&D collection program is baked into Win 10 since its release on 29 July 2015 n cannot be stopped or uninstalled.
……. T&D was added to Win 7/8.1 at around Sep 2015 thru Windows Update as non-hidden or hidden security updates n could be stopped or not installed or uninstalled. The Patchocalypse of Oct 2016 resulted in Win 7/8.1 cptr users who hv chosen to avoid T&D to go unpatched = Group W or C.
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Seems, M$ hv been actively collaborating with the US govt/NSA/FBI to invade their Windows users’ privacy by looking at the way M$ implemented T&D in Windows, esp in Win 7/8.1.
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Bear in mind that the NSA/FBI hv been subpoenaing suspects’ private info like handphone conversations/texts/locations(GPS), IP address, visits to websites, posts at social media websites, emails, online purchases, etc.
……. If M$’s T&D r also being subpoenaed, nearly everything that suspects do with their Windows devices will likely be an open book to the NSA/FBI, including the suspects’ keylogged passwords. Problem is, this extensive “spying” capability of Windows could be open to abuse, eg political targeting by the US govt like the Watergate scandal. IOW, Windows users may be opening a window into their private world to others.

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Call me a pragmatist, but I just worry about what the worst that COULD be done with information acquired by the proverbial “they”.

If they don’t have it, they can’t use it against you.

Sure, they could make it up to suit their own purposes. They’ll do that anyway. But maybe they’ll choose to do it to someone for whom they’ve built up a monstrous database of acquired, manipulable information. Maybe they won’t even notice people who minimize the data in that database.

Or maybe they’ll notice the quiet ones more.

Data is power.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

They are many, and you are one.

Food for thought.

-Noel

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It’s more likely that your medical history could be breached in a hack on the hospital’s database, or your health insurance company’s database.

Both have become increasing targets of attacks.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/has-health-care-hacking-become-an-epidemic/

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@Noel :
So sorry to say, but I cannot agree more ….
Unfortunately, the financial institutions and insurance companies already have got too much freedom and power. Very often their actions are not checked because of legal regulations are contradictory and insufficient.

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+1
In my mind sometimes the questions that are asked during these times seem to be so inadequate….. so politically correct. As you say of course you’d be feeling off……… sometimes I think it better to invite people to scream/yell preferably in a sound proof room……… think that would do a whole lot more good than ‘analyzing’ how you feel. But then of course they might record the decibel levels and hold that against you at some later date! I’ve had the privilege to know a lot of cancer sufferers and know that one thing one needs to realise is that
it’s important to accept the responsibility of your sickness and of course by doing so greatly helps you on the road to good health. LT

Start off every day with a smile and get it over with.
– W. C. Fields

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After reading both Canadian Tech’s comments and Anonymous’ I wrote a comment under CT’s which started off with a +1……. I see it is well below others who have posted also……… so maybe my comments would be lost in relation to CT’s…….

_______________________________

@anonymous : +1! As you say the disregard for personal privacy issues that some seem to not care a jot for, I too find rather concerning……. Facebook, Twitter all these social media outlets….. when I speak to my family about this I’m told “It’s all private – behind closed doors- it’s encrypted” Ha! what they forget is that their ISP/Host is privy to their messaging, and even if they think they have deleted their posts/accounts it is still there and used by the encumbant ISP/Host….
It all comes back to haunt you one way or the other. And the other angle is that FB et al also track you and record where you go and view etc. So its a double whammy! Although some countries have disallowed tracking – especially FB.
But there is this thinking that because there are so many doing it that THEIR posts/etc are lost in the crowd! I think NOT! LT

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.
– Peter F. Drucker

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@Noel
I also consider myself pragmatic and think the best one can do is to try to restrict access to personal information to those persons and entities that have a clear right or need for the information. Wearing your life on your shirt sleeve for the world to view does not strike me as a good policy. One obvious problem is the difficulty of knowing where all of the data captured is going and ultimately resides. What is involved in remediating data errors? Another problem is that conflicts of interests are not adequately disclosed in “terms of service” agreements that consumers are routinely forced to accept to what has become vital online services. People need to understand that the data collected will survive multiple management teams at the companies they deal with and these management teams may not share a common ethos.
As an imperfect example, unless you are a cave dweller, you have been bombarded with ads to send in $100 with a saliva sample and get you DNA profile analyzed with a personal report. People are led to believe that this is a personal one off exercise to provide some interesting genetic info about their identity and that is the end of it all. They don’t see that they are helping to populate a database that potentially has commercial value to license access to insurance companies, government entities, etc. These private DNA databases are already being pinged by law enforcement as a possible supplement to their own DNA databases. This is an imperfect example, but it is offered only to illustrate the wisdom of thinking twice about what you are doing and what purpose is ultimately served.

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The discussion on privacy is usually just a confusion between privacy and secrecy. People tend to loathe advocating the protection of secrecy, because it connotes a devious or criminal act, so they resort to a term that sounds more palatable. Secrecy is hiding from the world whether or not I make love to my wife. Privacy is not letting them watch me make love to my wife. The privacy barriers in a public restroom are exactly as described. They make no secret as to what you are doing; they only prevent people from watching. Privacy, if the term is used correctly, always deserves to be protected. Secrecy is harder to defend, but it still deserves protection. My personal data represents someone else’s power over me. That would not be a problem in a world where I have absolutely no enemies. If I’m a criminal, then the justice system is my enemy, and that makes secrecy look bad, but if I’m average Joe, and if there is anyone out there in the world who might try to do me wrong, then I still have the same sort of problem, and it’s a problem worth defending against. Secrecy is an issue for nations in wartime, because it’s all about protection against one’s enemies. It’s also an issue in peacetime, because the world is still full of bad people.

Yes, history will be written falsely because of people who took their secrets to their grave. If you’ve ever had to keep such a secret then you know that sometimes there’s no excuse for allowing someone to be killed, or a nation to return to war just for the sake of mere historical accuracy, which is often nothing but an academic pursuit.

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@ Woody and Contributors: The NSA is the head Agency for our national law enforcement agencies. Under the NSA are: 1. CIA 2. FBI 3. ATF 4. DEA, and so on down thru the rest of our security agencies. Microsoft and the NSA have been “in bed” with each other for years but now is very intense since 9-11. They use a program called PRISM (an updated version) constantly and thru out all versions of Windows. The other participants are not so involved as is MS, but nonetheless are involved. Bottom line is we the people can’t stop this, just live with it or around it. Just my take of things.

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When we see ourselves as an average Joe or Josephine we determine that there is nothing about us that would be of any value to anybody else. We are just not that interesting and anything known about us would put a snooper into a deep sleep.

What many ‘average’ people do not consider is how AI (artificial intelligence) is going to use that so-called mundane data. Processed for whatever end, that data will be used to make recommendations to decision makers. The data has a high degree of accuracy so it will be leveraged and strongly defended. It would be tough to fight a decision based on ‘facts’. Used with care, AI can enhance decision making, but it can also be used to oppress or subvert.

The younger generation considers itself special – nothing average about this lot! They share anything and everything and have a false sense of security. This is the one group that should be protecting their privacy above all others, as their lack of it makes them vulnerable. They may find the data used at anytime to damage their prospects, for extortion or diminished rights. AI will definitely be used in their future.

By protecting our privacy we are limiting data collection. The less that is stored and shared by known or unknown actors, the less likely it can be used for ill-intended purposes.

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I must live in a cave because I’ve never received such an invitation. But speaking of DNA, [the remainder has been deleted – although I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiments, I’d like to keep politics out of this blog. Sorry. -WL

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I started a practice years ago that has proven quite useful and produced some hilarious results.

When I have to give my name to someone or some organization that I do not trust, I use the first letter of my first name, then my last name.

When I receive mail in the post box addressed to that name, I know immediately it is garbage mail.

I have received phone calls that start of with hello (first initial). I just laugh my head off.

This is small by interesting way of protecting myself a bit.

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Very late with this comment, but would like to say that when presented with “psychological” surveys such as you describe, I just provide answers affirming that everything is fine in this best of all possible worlds. My doctor apparently is required by Medicare to present me with similar questions each year, and while someone reading my answers might suspect I was not being completely truthful, there really isn’t a thing they can do about it.

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ebrke, Thanks.

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Sadly, when people

who actually are having unusual difficulties with their mental health / physical health / life / past / future

and who could really be helped by getting support/care/treatment from an MD and/or a therapist/counselor

understandably feel these valid privacy/security pressures *not* to reveal to “the system” their concerns or low moods or anxiety, they are missing the chance to get some professional help and perhaps to feel better and be healthier/stay alive longer. There will be knock-on effects in the lives of their spouses (if any), their children (if any), their work colleagues (if any), etc.

—
Having to pretend and put up a front and always guard against appearing unusual and not being able to say anything real in written or verbal communication that could possibly be recorded in one way or another is so insidiously horrible and it’s got a stranglehold on us — life will never be the same as it was for us in Western countries in the prior 50-100 years, it’s like living under surveillance, voluntarily, supposedly in the name of progress and technical innovation.

There will be a day when people will be able to type in our names/id number, or show our photo, or scan a biological sample like a hair, and pull up our emails, physical correspondence, purchasing records, physical movements (gps tracking), appearances over our lifetime, medical records down to genetic code, private relationships, even a selection of our deepest un-uttered thoughts.

I don’t want anyone to be able to see into my life and mind that way; some people in some organizations could take a stab at it now, the general public might be able to in 10 or 20 years. I have no choice about it, but I do not want to permit it, it is tremendously violating of one’s privacy and spirit.

At least the kids growing up now have the potential to know this and to live accordingly (if they care; most don’t care), but we who were already adults when it dawned on us how rapidly this was developing had lived relatively “freely” before then, and our open, vulnerable, private past behaviors, correspondence, thoughts, utterances, prayers are stuck in time, they can’t be changed or erased, and we can’t know what is already captured and indexed and stored, for centuries to come.

If you aren’t a self-obsessed fool, living in a virtual panopticon is so stifling, horrifying, soul-crushing; and it’s our life now.

Who knows what sort of blips even writing some of these words now will trigger somewhere. (And the ridiculous thing is that something like that, which would have been outrageously paranoid to say/think 15 or 25 years ago, is now pretty standard stuff, because it’s true.)

Mix this with the slightest nuttiness/how-do-you-say?/extremes of human nature in the society’s leaders, and things could tip so quickly into nightmarish scenarios.
…Some lower-tech versions of which some people in the world are actually living in now, in what feels to “us”, perhaps, to be “far off” places and cultures.

What is this doing to our mental health and our spirits, our souls… it is devastating to some.

A quotation a la LizzyTish –
“Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain.”
in _1984_, by George Orwell

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I sometimes use a made-up name, quite unusual that probably no one is named (it’s nothing to do with Winnie the Pooh, this is the only place I use Pooh as a name), and when I see post coming to my house, or over email, addressed to that weird name, a person who doesn’t exist in reality, I know another group has sold/lost their mailing list.

I often try to sign up for things with my (real) first initial only, but the forms won’t let me! Just the other day I was buying something online that wouldn’t let me put just my first initial in the first name box. So I left off the last two letters of my first name to be pointlessly rebellious. The cc company doesn’t seem to care as long as the card numbers and street address match what they have on file.

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Poohsticks you write so eloquently and effortlessly and so well defined…… I was instantly in that picture you created…….. but deep down I really feel that each one of us knows that no matter what happens on the outside of things……… no one, but no one can know the truth about us interiorly or take that away from us. We give out hints/clues about our likes and dislikes and views etc………….but it is us that is doing that. But I will say that it does take a very, very special person with ‘second sight’ to be able to actually ‘read our minds’ and that is not 100% anyway….. but they are few and far between. If we look and search inside us we will find that wisdom to face what is outside us. Possibly I’m getting too deep here…….. but I have hope for us. There is alot of inspiration to be found in this world of ours. It’s still a great place!

Charlie Brown summed it up quite well:
I love mankind – it’s people I can’t stand!

Another which reflects life so well
is “Desiderata”
( I quote the last 2 verses)

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
by
Max Ehrmann

For what it’s worth I have this on my website (one of my hobbies!) and find it so inspiring and uplifting! LT

http://www.musingsbylizzytish.com/otm/Desiderata_otm.html

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Here is a recent article that may show how far this issue of monetizing information will go.

http://www.nextgov.com/big-data/2016/12/video-tech-could-turn-your-car-spy/133895/?oref=big-data

And here is a second.

http://www.routefifty.com/2016/12/how-police-are-watching-you-social-media/133907/?oref=govexec_today_nl

Simple rule of thumb, that which can respond to a voice, must also listen to a voice. If that data is connected to an external source, if can be captured, hacked or kept.

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