Privacy

[___]

??? And that differs from my point of view how? I am saying that exact thing, a victim is not responsible for the violation. I am saying people are idiots for giving out their credit numbers and shouting "here, use it, I want people to see my account and have fun with it". It's not about the abusers and the victims, I am talking about the willingness to plaster opinions and pictures all over the place for egomaniac and narcissictic reasons. I am talking about people who take fricking pictures of themselves on a daily basis and post them online for people to "follow"... random people. That is the choice of those people and it's also their right to choose. They know full well what they are doing. FFS it's even in the User Agreement of Windows 10, they are saying it clearly in there, that they will listen in to your microphone and store that information occasionally. And it's not hidden in the fine print only, newspapers all over the world have covered this. Of course microsoft is the violator here, but they are doing this with the actual consent of the consumer! I told people to the face what they are agreeing to, and they still do agree and have no problem "because they have nothing to hide"! A choice on both sides has been made. Still it's an abomination. So how do we deal with this? Do we bitch about microsoft or are we starting to take responsibility for this as consumers as well? It's not enough anymore to blame corporations and governments is what I am saying. It's time to vehemently argue with anyone in your sphere of influence and raise awareness because people are not going to stop otherwise. Facebook attention whores are not only victims, they become violators of my privacy by possibly sharing information about me, too. We are actively enforcing a culture of absolute transparency and total surveillance.

 

[WizardStan]

And that differs from my point of view how?

Because you said this:

it's just that consumers brought it on themselves

No, they did not.  The rape victim did not bring it upon themself for wearing skimpy clothing.  The muggee didn't bring it upon themself for walking down the street in a nice suit.  The consumers are not bringing it upon themselves for sharing information.  No one is ever responsible for the actions of their aggressor.  No one "brings it upon themselves" when the actions are the result of a willful entity.

 

[Kiga]

2. UMTS and a hardware switch


Some of you here at the boards had a bit of a concern with the (optional) UMTS module:


A modified firmware or software could be created to misuse the UMTS module and send data somewhere without the user knowing it - so they asked for a hardware switch to completely turn off the module physically.


Well, we thought about that - but adding a switch would increase the costs quite a bit (mold would be more complicated, switch would be needed, etc).


However, we found another, pretty cheap but effective solution:


We plan to include a small power measurement chip into the hardware, that is hardwired to a small LED.


Whenever the UMTS module needs power (which it does when it will be activated), the LED will light up.


This hardwiring cannot be changed in software, so you will KNOW when your UMTS module will be active!

What about this? Didn't read about this since then.

 

[___]

okay my wording was a little too vague. I should have written consumers are part of the problem as well. I was not trying to compare the statement you just quoted to the rape situation. The rape analogy was something I used in favor of your argument and reinforcing that argument. I never intended to say a rape victim brought anything upon themselves. This is you quoting me out of context. I brought up that comparison because I was relativating the statement from my first post that you are quoting above, in favor of your point of view. Indeed I was saying the exact same thing: Rape is not the victims fault, for wearing an inviting dress. So don't use it against me now, that's just bad practise. The line that I am drawing is a different one by saying there are two issues coexisting and it's more complex than the victim/perpetrator situation you describe. So I apologize for being polemic and biting my own tail there. Shouldn't have brought up that comparison at all actually, too much to misunderstand and obviously a whole seperate type of violation as you said before. It was merely the argumentation in that case, that I wanted to compare.


I still think these issues are seperate and still one and the same. One issue is that information is being abused by parties that have no right whatsoever to do so. The other issue is that people have lost sense for privacy and respect for the privacy of others and that we are actively enforcing a culture of absolute transparency and total surveillance.


So again: Person sharing their whole personal life with everyone on youtube... possibly dangerous and stupid, not youtubes fault. youtube saving private videos and monetizing on collecting data and profiling that person... very much an offense in my eyes, and not at all the fault of said person! still why would you want to show everybody on the internet how your room looks like while you blabber about some nonsense in your underpants? Probably easier for you to accept that you are being surveilled than for a person who thinks this is an issue and who does not want to show themselves everywhere they can on the internet. I think this is a huge problem! People are willingly surveilling each other!

 

[Grench]

Because you said this:


No, they did not.  The rape victim did not bring it upon themself for wearing skimpy clothing.  The muggee didn't bring it upon themself for walking down the street in a nice suit.  The consumers are not bringing it upon themselves for sharing information.  No one is ever responsible for the actions of their aggressor.  No one "brings it upon themselves" when the actions are the result of a willful entity.

Agree 100% to the above assignment of fault.


However, that should not preclude the individual from being allowed to actively protect themselves.  Back to the data and device example - by using strong encryption without back doors and a physical air-gap between security devices and external networks.


It still baffles me why Google does not allow Android users to have a program permissions firewall - and select which permissions they will or will not allow any given program to have access to.  The fact that this doesn't even exist in Cyanogenmod is even more puzzling.


A challenge for whomever ports/creates a VM/emulator for Android or Android Apps on the Pyra:  Include a user-driven permissions firewall so that we can selectively limit, on an app by app basis, what apps can or cannot do or access - include a user defined 'default' setting.  Bonus points - fake the apps out so they detect that they have the permissions but are effectively routed to a 'null device'.  I.e. if an app 'requires' network access and is firewall set to 'off', the app simply gets 'not connected' whenever it goes for networking, regardless of the overall host device state.

 

[WizardStan]

I never intended to say a rape victim brought anything upon themselves. This is you quoting me out of context.

No no, sorry. I'm not taking it out of context, I am saying that you are correct there; I am not trying to say that you said rape victims brought it upon themselves, exactly the opposite.  It is not their fault, they are not responsible for the actions of their rapist, in that we agree.


Where we disagree is that you have decided that in this case it isn't their fault, but for consumers of information services it is.  You have drawn a line, you've decided that one victim is at fault where another victim is not.  The specific situations are different, the forms of violation are not comparable at all, but the general state is the same.  "If you do X then you are/aren't responsible for someone doing Y", the difference is in what X and Y are.  You are suggesting that there are some values of X and Y where that is an "are" and there are other values of X and Y where that is an "aren't".  That's dangerous, not to mention philosophically impossible to solve.  Where you've placed one pair of actions on the "aren't" side another person puts those same actions on the "are" side.


I refuse to make that distinction.  There are no actions in X and Y that will result in an "are".  You are never responsible for the actions of another person. Ever.  Whether they are out for a jog and get attacked or ranting about the government on Facebook and get arrested, they are four distinct actions taken by four (or more) people.

 

[___]

quoting myself here: I still think these issues are seperate and still inseperable. One issue is that information is being abused by parties that have no right whatsoever to do so. The other issue is that people have lost sense for privacy and respect for the privacy of others and that we are actively enforcing a culture of absolute transparency and total surveillance.


So yes, I do disagree by saying that there is another dimension to the problem. We won't be able to protect our rights from companies and governments, if people are willing to wave these rights because they do not see their value/purpose for themselves. That doesn't make them any less victims of abuse. But still, I am not talking about the cases where this is being abused. One party of this mess should be prosecuted for their crimes, the other party that is often sadly also the victim, needs to be educated and empowered!

 

[WizardStan]

We won't be able to protect our rights from companies and governments, if people are willing to wave these rights because they do not see their value/purpose for themselves. That doesn't make them any less victims of abuse.

It doesn't matter if people are willing, they are still not responsible for the actions of those taking advantage.


You are correct, we won't be able to protect ourselves if the masses aren't willing to stand up for themselves, but this is because it is the corporations, and the governments, that are perpetrating the crime.  People are not "bringing it upon themselves" by being complacent, the corporations and governments are bringing it upon them.  This is a very important distinction.  Don't blame the consumer, they are the victim;  even while we take steps to protect ourselves from the corporations that would sell us out we must still continue to blame those corporations for forcing us to take those steps. Don't blame the ignorant masses, even while they hypocritically complain about lost privacy while posting to Facebook on their iPhone: the blame for these loses lie squarely with the entities that are committing them, it is the corporations that are collecting your data; it is the government that is abusing it; they are at fault, 100%, don't try to reduce it at all by suggesting that the consumers are in any way responsible.


You cannot say the corporation is at fault while also saying the consumer is also slightly at fault, you just can't.  Culpability is finite, you can say one person is half at fault and another is half at fault and if either of them hadn't done the thing they did then the the bad thing wouldn't have happened; you can say one person is 90% at fault and another is 10% at fault, that the second person did one tiny little thing (accidentally or intentionally) that let the first person's actions cause the bad thing; you can whittle it down to 99.999999% one side, 0.000001% the other, or smaller, but it would still be a split, a suggestion that the victim is somehow responsible, in some small part, for the evils of the first.


The victim is never responsible.  It doesn't matter if they could have prevented it, it is still, 100%, no split, no cause, no quarter, fully on the perpetrator.  That includes this.


Could we do something to protect ourselves from privacy violations?  Yes, absolutely.  Should we be doing these things? Without question, we cannot trust the powers that be.  Is it our fault if we don't? NO, it is the fault of the people in charge who are making the choices to collect and abuse the data, we cannot be held responsible for the actions of another.

 

[___]

we are running in circles. We both see different sides to this but are constantly reiterating things we agree upon. I am not interested in discussing culpability, victims and perpetrators, that was not my initial intention. I think I can agree to everything you are saying on that part. Still I believe that there is a separate issue closely connected to this, which I do not see as someone victimizing someone else, but the willing and completely consenting decision of many to take their pants off in front of everyone else. Were I talking about victims, I'd bring up "the fappening" but it's not the point I am trying to make. This is a social political and cultural issue. We need to redefine a lot of ethical paradigms regarding privacy and personal rights because they just do not apply to modern times anymore.


Ah whatever... ED has given his statement: He is not storing any private info, no serial numbers or any profiling of any kind. I think this is the answer the OP wanted ^^

 

[WizardStan]

 I am not interested in discussing culpability, victims and perpetrators, that was not my initial intention

It may not have been your intention but you brought it up when you said

it's just that consumers brought it on themselves

This idea that the consumers are responsible for the predicament is something I will fight against.  The idea that any person is at fault for the actions of another is something I will fight against.


Regardless of the ethics of the current situation on privacy, the user is not responsible for the uses or abuses of the companies, governments, or even other users of the system.

 

[___]

ARGH! Yes they are not responsible for that. They are however responsible for becoming attention whores and narcissistic "follow me around all day" vloggers who post their crap wherever they feel, because they assume that the world is generally interested in them. I feel like I am riding a carousel of semantics. And I already amended my chain of arguments and admitted that I worded that too vaguely, so why do you keep bringing this up? Still, you do not acknowledge any of the points I am making, you are reiterating statements that I agree on with you. Well anyway, I gotta go to work, have to run a show tonight. Good discussion actually, at least we are managing not to piss each other off, I appreciate this!


EDIT: And I really think, that in a discussion one is allowed to make amends, if proven wrong or mistaken, and still be allowed to make valid points, without the other participants using the amended statement constantly to troll them. seriously, I made that statement 8hrs ago!!! Long since have we moved on in our discussion, so it's a moot point.

 

[WizardStan]

Still, you do not acknowledge any of the points I am making

You're right, I'm not, because I'm not arguing against any of them.  Never have been.  I even said that I wasn't going to begin touching on the subject of the ethics of recording and using that private information.  The points you're making are completely separate from the one thing I'm arguing against.

Long since have we moved on in our discussion, so it's a moot point

We didn't move on.  I said from the beginning that that was the one and only thing I was arguing against. I quoted it. I paraphrased it. I've constantly come back to that one statement.  You've restated your opinion several times indicating that you believe that the consumers in this case, the people publicly broadcasting their information, are at fault for any use or abuse of that information by third parties.  I still disagree with that.  I've explained why I disagree, I've explained how dangerous that kind of thinking is.


8 hours ago you said "it's just that consumers brought it on themselves".  5 hours ago you said "it's not the corporation alone, but the people enabling them aswell".  4 hours ago you said "there is a side to this which is indeed the consumers fault".  2 hours ago you said "I should have written consumers are part of the problem as well".  You've been pretty consistent with your statements: the consumer is at least partially responsible for the corporations actions, simply by being complacent to them.  And I still disagree.  The people in charge of the corporations, the government, whomever, they are the ones choosing to collect and store this information, they are 100% at fault.  Should people stand up against it?  Yes, absolutely: we have a moral obligation to protect ourselves and others because we recognize that there are evil (and well intentioned but misguided) people in the world.  Is it our fault if bad things happen for not standing up against it? Absolutely NOT, that's victim blaming again.  It is, and will always be, the perpetrators responsibility for their own actions.  The rapist committed the rape, the mugger commits the mugging, the government commits the big-brother-esque totalitarian state.  If willful entity does X then regardless of anything that came before it it is willful entity that is responsible for that action, not you, not me, not anyone.

 

[PowerGod]

...but... he's EVIL 
 

 

[TrashyMG]

FFS...

 

[ible]

i think you guys are making both interesting points, but i stopped reading once you degenerated into the splicey back and forths...


whoever invades the privacy of a person is culpable for their actions.


most people don't make it difficult for stalkers/governments/etc. to know what they're doing.


in an ideal society, you wouldn't have to worry about the stalkers etc.  but we don't live in an ideal society...

 

[bzar]

in an ideal society, you wouldn't have to worry about the stalkers etc.  but we don't live in an ideal society...

But that's how we should expect people, companies and governments to act, and call them out whenever they don't. Expecting wrongdoing is a foul foundation for a society.

 

[levi]

But it's the reason for people to buy locks, or pay for a police service, amongst other things.  I'm not sure if that's the foundation of a society, but in the real world we all expect some people to be up to no good some of the time.

 

[WizardStan]

But it's the reason for people to buy locks, or pay for a police service, amongst other things.  I'm not sure if that's the foundation of a society, but in the real world we all expect some people to be up to no good some of the time.

No I don't. I expect everyone to behave in a socially responsible way.


I have locks because, despite expectations, I know there exist people that won't.  Just because people fail to meet expectations doesn't mean you should lower them.


Just because I expect it to be sunny doesn't mean I don't have an umbrella in my car, just in case.

 

[bzar]

No I don't. I expect everyone to behave in a socially responsible way.


I have locks because, despite expectations, I know there exist people that won't.  Just because people fail to meet expectations doesn't mean you should lower them.


Just because I expect it to be sunny doesn't mean I don't have an umbrella in my car, just in case.

This. I expect them to behave, but I don't assume they do. Every time they fall short of this expectation they disappoint me. I refuse to accept the new status quo where wrongdoing is considered natural for anyone.

 

[levi]

Sorry, then it appears I alluded to a distinction you didn't make.  I don't quite follow what your comment has to do with people putting private data out there for stalkers of one sort of another to pick up on.  if you assume some people won't behave appropriately, doesn't it make sense to reduce the data loss if they didn't?  That doesn't mean I won't be disappointed if they do take a copy of it, especially if they're a government backed agency, but to do less seems naive to me.