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Privacy Inequality: The Most Brutal Form of Inequality You’ve Ever Imagined

72 pointsby borjamoyaover 6 years ago

14 comments

slfnflctdover 6 years ago
I&#x27;d say actual human slavery - which I can easily imagine from extensive historical records - is probably worse.<p>Yeah, mysterious data centers logging everything you do is scary, but have you ever been beaten bloody because you lacked the physical ability to pick the required cotton quota? Whoever wrote this title needs a serious dose of perspective. And to rewrite the title.
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bilbo0sover 6 years ago
The article paints a pretty bleak picture, but it&#x27;s even worse when we consider that even the author has bought in to privacy destroying narratives and technologies. I mean, the guy just posted an article on privacy inequality on a site that requires a third party login to discuss said article??? Don&#x27;t even get me started on his belief that Elon Musk and companies like Tesla will be bulwarks against privacy inequality???<p>Keep in mind, this is a guy who, at least, knows that privacy inequality <i>exists</i>. And even he is given to almost naturally accepting narratives and technologies that are a direct threat to equality in this regard. So if even guys like the author are able to be seamlessly integrated into the future system of asymmetric privacy we&#x27;re creating, then there really isn&#x27;t much hope for most of the world&#x27;s population who are liable to be a good deal less thoughtful.<p>All that said, HN User slfnflctd is correct, privacy inequality is bad, but there are much worse causes of suffering for humanity. Slavery does spring immediately to mind. Rape, Genocides. Etc. Privacy inequality <i>might</i> help to enable some of those things, but those things certainly exist with no help from privacy inequality at all.
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bernardlunnover 6 years ago
This took too long to get to the point. Even with aggressive skimming and a big interest in the subject I gave up
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Animatsover 6 years ago
This is mostly a whiny article followed by an ad for the author&#x27;s site which starts by wanting either your email or your money.<p>There are better advocates for stronger privacy. A good starting position is that the US needs something as strong as the EU&#x27;s GDPR. With teeth. Might happen. See this Register article.[1]<p>We need a good event involving the privacy of some political official, preferably one on the right. The US got the Video Rental Privacy Act because Robert Bork&#x27;s porno videotape rentals became public knowledge. Although that was weakened in 2013 due to Netflix lobbying.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theregister.co.uk&#x2F;2018&#x2F;11&#x2F;08&#x2F;gdpr_usa_congressman&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theregister.co.uk&#x2F;2018&#x2F;11&#x2F;08&#x2F;gdpr_usa_congressma...</a>
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GuB-42over 6 years ago
Privacy inequality exists, and it goes the other way, at least in the west. In practice, the richer and more famous you are, the less privacy you have.<p>If you are rich, you are a target for everyone who wants a part of your money, from criminals to opportunists. Stars have their paparazzis. And even in their inside world, the rich typically have many people working for them. If you don&#x27;t drive by yourself, your chauffeur knows where you are going, your accountant knows how you spend your money, your cook knows when and what you are eating, etc...<p>It has serious consequences. It very famously killed Diana for instance.<p>And think about &quot;the fappening&quot;, where celebrity nudes leaked out. It is not the king of things that happen to average girls. I know someone who &quot;revenge porned&quot; his ex girlfriend, it didn&#x27;t go far. She is pretty but average, and no one took interest. That&#x27;s what protected her privacy.<p>The author mentioned things like targeted ads, where only the rich can opt out. Sure, but if you aren&#x27;t rich, where is the big deal. Advertisers aren&#x27;t after the money you don&#x27;t have. Maybe some company have a lot of details about your life, but no one will really care. OTOH, the rich and famous have actual people tracking them constantly. The fortunes they spend for their privacy and security only gets them what we naturally have just by being average.<p>It is interesting to note that in 1984, the ones who enjoy the most privacy are the proles, the lower class.
patient_zeroover 6 years ago
When you&#x27;re 40% through the piece and the author still hasn&#x27;t gotten around to the point mentioned in the title, you&#x27;ve got yourself a badly written article.<p>Don&#x27;t waste your time. Author should have incubated this thought more.
pessimizerover 6 years ago
The idea that you can pay for privacy is a fantasy.<p>Just like in every surveillance state in the past, the people with the most privacy will be the people who are in charge of the surveillance. The people who will be the most monitored are the people who individuals in the surveillance apparatus want something from, or are offended and annoyed by. The civilian government reports to the surveillance apparatus in a surveillance state, not the other way around; and you probably won&#x27;t even know the name of the person who really runs the country.<p>If you can see everything that people do, you can destroy them at will. If you can&#x27;t find anything they&#x27;ve done, you can figure out something they <i>could have done</i>, and extortion easily provides eyewitnesses and covert agents in order to set people up. If necessary, you can extort necessary elements of the justice system to make the decisions you want, or just blatantly do what you want in total daylight, and make sure that nobody ever reports on it, no one is arrested, and witnesses are either securely threatened or disposed of in the same way.<p>It&#x27;s depressing that we&#x27;re arguing about whether public or private surveillance is worse, whether convenience or discounts are worth the exchange, or in this sadly gone awry &quot;left&quot; critique, whether there will be differences between the privacy of the rich and the poor.<p>Instead, maybe argue about why we&#x27;ve installed microphones every 10 feet that report to central servers in a way that cannot be audited. The technology is the enemy, it&#x27;s just waiting for the right user.
analognoiseover 6 years ago
Is it just me, or is this terribly written?
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llmdykiluover 6 years ago
hyperbole: our deadliest foible
monochromaticover 6 years ago
I can imagine much more brutal things.
HugoDanielover 6 years ago
the irony of writing it in medium.com
galkkover 6 years ago
TL;DR - author watched too much sci-fi and decided to write his (bad) own dystopia with castes etc.
nickpsecurityover 6 years ago
Some highlights for people having a hard time reading the article:<p>&quot;Simply put, your raw data is everything about you: your age, location, preferences, how tall you are, go down the list. But the tricky one is the predictability of your data. And what people when say that Facebook knows people better than they significant other (and themselves), is that they can predict what you’re going to do before you, or your significant other, are aware of it. That’s so powerful. When you get tons of data from a person and put the right algorithms to work, you can start getting interesting (or scary) results.&quot;<p>&quot;Privacy becomes a human right in the moment someone or something invades your personal space (either physically or digitally) in order to extract monetary value from you. That’s our value as human beings, and companies and governments steal that value from us. What do we do? We just give away because we’ve got no idea of our own value as human beings.&quot; (great point: it&#x27;s extraction)<p>&quot;There are so many things you can do with data. Today. But, what could be done tomorrow with that same data? If today we can predict the mental health of an individual through a voice recording, what will we be able to do with that same data five years from now?&quot;<p>Employers and governments are either considering or already doing stuff like that in ways that will surely impact workers.<p>&quot;Here’s my prediction: At some point this situation will create two castes of people: The Protected and The Predictables... The Protected are the ones who can afford to pay for privacy. These group understand that their privacy is their very human value and want to protect it. However, The Predictables are the ones who can’t pay for privacy. These are ones who live in a Matrix style algorithm. Maybe they know privacy should be a human right, but probably will fail to understand its value and the impact it has on them. The ones who have lots of opportunities and resources will be given more. And the ones with few opportunities and resources will be taken away, even more&quot;<p>&quot;...it’s easy to see how this inequality is going to hit us: overpriced insurance, bank loans denial (or high interest), unaffordable healthcare, highly targeted advertising, political manipulation, and simple opportunity cost of opportunity.&quot;<p>&quot;Because companies are too busy making money and we’re too busy using their “free” stuff. So it’s not surprising that they end up getting away with it. Consider Facebook. Since 2005 Facebook has been involved in all sorts of scandals, and every single time they get away with it. They masquerade their way out, telling one story to the investor and another to the public.&quot;<p>&quot;Privacy inequality will take everything to the edges. Some kids will be lucky and might be able to afford privacy protection. Maybe that will be paying for products that watch their privacy or a kind of antivirus, who knows. But other kids won’t be able to pay for it and will choose the “free” option — others just won’t understand their value as human beings and will pick the free version, because it’s a bargain, right? Alas, they will grow up with inequalities worse that the one I had at school, or any other you have had in your entire life.&quot;<p>&quot;We seem to forget that for decades we’ve been fighting for freedom and equality. Now we’re throwing it all away, and for what, free dumbass apps?&quot;
Jeff_Brownover 6 years ago
tl;dr, anybody? What makes privacy inequality so bad? And is the inequality the problem, or the lack of privacy? (A parallel question can often be asked of wealth inequality.)
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