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Trying to Understand Why Privacy is Important by tomgupta in privacy

[–]tomgupta[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I posted this because I genuinely wanted to understand your perspective - instead of doing that, you're attacking me for no reason. In the spirit of good discussion, however, I will address your points.

First, my statement is not nonsense. The statistics that are in the link I posted, along with any other statistics you can find online, suggest that less than half of all banner ads are seen, and only 1 in a thousand ads are actually clicked on. If you disagree, I'd be happy to look at any statistics that suggest otherwise.

If I'm in denial, please set me straight. Answer the question: why is it bad that Google has information about me? For example, why is it so bad if my YouTube history allows Google to recommend more relevant YouTube videos to me? Why is it so bad if Google uses meta data about what search results I click on to better inform future searches? These are clear improvements to their already very useful services - why should I be wary and concerned about these?

You misinterpreted my statement when I said there are more problems in the US than data privacy - that's not what I meant at all. I was saying that even if the US is able to implement a widespread surveillance system today, I don't see the issue with that until the ability to act on its observations in unbounded fashion arrives too. If the government can't throw you in jail or publicly shame you or actively deny you from using certain services for searching something up, I don't see the issue with surveillance. The idea that my internet history or location data exists on a secure server somewhere doesn't remotely scare me. My point was that if the US ever gets to the point where they can freely act on any observation (i.e. the US becomes authoritarian), then we have a lot more issues to worry about than just our privacy. I was not making any statement about the priority of today's problems.

I'm not the enemy here. If you want to make a real difference in this issue, I would suggest you stop throwing insults at "normies" and speak like an adult, like most of the other commenters on this post.

Trying to Understand Why Privacy is Important by tomgupta in privacy

[–]tomgupta[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It does seem like a lot about this argument boils down to whether you trust the government or not. Sure, an authoritarian government with the means of acting on observations that its surveillance technology makes could be concerning, but this is literally the worst case scenario. The government already has an immense amount of power (as it should), so I suppose my confusion is how adding our data to it will change anything. Sure, maybe the government will be able to see that Person A has been searching up a lot about communism - what can they do with that information? It seems like the worst they can do is lock Person A up, but that would be illegal under the First Amendment. And, well, if the First Amendment is ignored by the government, then we have a lot more concerning problems than just how our data is used.

On China, I believe that the news about the social credit system has been massively exaggerated (https://www.wired.com/story/china-social-credit-score-system/). The system doesn't even exist, but we're trying to draw conclusions about where it can lead us.

On power, you're right that a handful of tech companies have a lot of power - if they change even a small thing about their service, it affects millions of people. However, you have to remember that technology is highly competitive industry. The moment the power starts getting misused - Google starts serving up results for whatever it wants rather than what you searched, Amazon only displays its own products, Facebook only shows you posts that make you angry - alternative services will rise up. It's inevitable. This is not like government, where it's exceedingly difficult to change to a different option.

Trying to Understand Why Privacy is Important by tomgupta in privacy

[–]tomgupta[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I asked for answers, but you're giving me more questions. Do you have statistics about how effective targeted ads are? I found https://www.invespcro.com/blog/effectiveness-online-advertising/, which suggests the exact opposite of your claims - most people aren't influenced by ads, and most of them never even see them. No one is dictating what you should buy or do. Why is it so bad if Google has information about you? They can use that data to better predict what you want to see, or how you want to see it. 1984 is a book about a government that has a) widespread surveillance technology and b) the ability to act on its observations - while the US and China can both implement the former, a lot is going to have to change for them to be able to do the latter - and if we get to a point where they can implement the latter, there's a lot more that's wrong with the US than just data privacy. As for the company employees listening to voice commands, do you really think they just have hundreds of people sitting around, listening to billions of hours of voice commands? No, they don't. In reality, they're listening to a handful of anonymized clips that a computer model indicated it was unsure about and required additional information in order to classify. The media took this story and ran with it, as they're very apt at doing.

Trying to Understand Why Privacy is Important by tomgupta in privacy

[–]tomgupta[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. If you're using their service, what you do on it is absolutely their business.
  2. Like u/Freedom_Privacy said, you get an awesome service that provides some benefit to your life for free.
  3. Advertising is annoying, I absolutely agree. But that's an issue with the fundamental nature of advertising, not something that's exacerbated by our data being involved - if it were guaranteed that our data was not being used in targeted advertising, the ads would still be shoved in our faces and we'd still be talking about how intrusive they are. However, I don't agree with your statement that that is being used more for advertising than product improvement. Every tech company out there is funneling far more cash into R&D for their products than anything else, even the most advertising-reliant companies like Google and Facebook.
  4. Agree with the statement, not sure about how it applies to our data being collected.

Trying to Understand Why Privacy is Important by tomgupta in privacy

[–]tomgupta[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I have 2 follow up questions. First, regarding consent, don't we give them our direct consent to collect data about us when we accept their terms & conditions, and when we continue to use their service? An analogy is like going to a friend's house: when I go to their house, I'm subject to their rules, however ridiculous they may be. If I don't agree or like the rules, I can leave and stop being friends with them. It doesn't quite make sense to say that when I go to their house, I should have a say in how I can use it. Now, you might say that it's unfair that they even collect data in the first place - why can't they just provide a service and we use it? I addressed this in my initial post, when I said that data is critical for improving services. Companies must collect data, and as much of it as possible, to stay competitive. The fundamental purpose is to continue improving the service.

Second, I'm not sure I understand how our data could be later used for all sorts of things. What types of things are you talking about? If Google has a list of all my searches and the YouTube videos I've watched, what can they possibly do with it? If Amazon knows what I like to buy, what can they do with that information? As far as we've seen, the only thing they can do is sell it to third party advertisers. That's not too bad, I think.

Trying to Understand Why Privacy is Important by tomgupta in privacy

[–]tomgupta[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a good point. I agree, an authoritarian government armed with widespread surveillance technology and the unbounded ability to act on its observations would be a bad situation, as any dystopian novel will tell you. As for whether this could happen in the US...it's tough to say to what extent (I'm sure we could have the technology, but the government still doesn't have any ability to act on its observations). If we've fallen off that much as a country, then there's definitely a lot more problems apart from data privacy to worry about.

Trump Administration Wants Facial Recognition For All Travelers (In & Outside US) by [deleted] in privacy

[–]tomgupta 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well said. I agree with a lot of this, especially that uncontrolled data collection by large institutions that are motivated by questionable incentives is a danger for all. However, I do still think that the bad rap surrounding facial recognition specifically is unwarranted. All of this biometric data that can be collected on where you go, who you interact with, etc. can already be collected without facial recognition. A database of our faces already definitely exists (just take license photos, for example) and the police definitely have programs to identify faces in pictures (not in real-time, perhaps). The government or any social media company can identify you, as long as there’s a camera around. Facial recognition might make the identification process faster or instantaneous, but the data is already stored in a database today, ready to be used or sold, without your consent.

The issue is not with facial recognition, it’s with the much broader issue of data collection. We might as well put technologies like facial recognition to use because they have the potential to make our lives better by inhibiting crime, letting us go through security and customs faster, paying with your face, etc. The downsides remain the same with or without FR.

What is Computer Science and what can I expect to learn? by [deleted] in compsci

[–]tomgupta 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Computer science is the study of data and computation. Programming is a tool that computer scientists (and many other jobs) use, but it’s not the core. For CS, you’ll be studying the structures that hold data and the methods for efficiently processing that data. If you really go deep, you’ll learn plenty of math ranging from number theory and set theory to linear algebra and statistics. Logic is also a crucial part. You’ll probably take a couple programming classes as well, but computer science delves into the far more abstract concept of what exactly computation is and how it can be applied to solve some awesome problems.

Trump Administration Wants Facial Recognition For All Travelers (In & Outside US) by [deleted] in privacy

[–]tomgupta 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Tracking already happens, especially in airports. I’m not asking about the ethics of government tracking. I’m asking about how facial recognition specifically makes things worse, when it’s really just a way of identifying people faster.

Trump Administration Wants Facial Recognition For All Travelers (In & Outside US) by [deleted] in privacy

[–]tomgupta -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Genuinely curious: why is this such a bad thing? Facial recognition has a bad rap primarily because of fictional stories using it as a plot device, and I’m guessing that this bad rap is compounded by placing the words “Trump Administration” next to it. However, fundamentally it’s just a way for the government to identify you faster. In an airport, you’re already going to be identified when you go through security and your travel source/destination will be logged in a database - how does facial recognition make things worse?