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Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review)Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review)Posted Jun 7, 2012 22:24 UTC (Thu) by jackb (subscriber, #41909)In reply to: Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) by bjartur Parent article: Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review)
Privacy, whether of individuals, corporations or governments, is inherently harmful. It does nothing but restrict the flow of information. I must be misunderstanding what you wrote here because surely you're not saying that keeping certain personal information private, for example your name, phone number, address, workplace, bank, and vacation schedule, is inherently harmful. I'm sure that if you posted all that somebody would find it useful, though most likely at your expense.
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Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 9, 2012 3:25 UTC (Sat) by bjartur (guest, #67801) [Link]
The use of such information would at first mostly be useful to people I know;. For example my family and friends could use my vacation schedule (posted in the subthread below yours) to meet me abroad.
Only when a statistically significant portion of the general public has shared some information can the information become generally useful to the society. The worst thing about the current trend of aggregation of personal information for statistical analysis is that the information is collected by a company for future analysis by that same company. Analysis is hard. Just look at what Google and Facebook think about you. The only way to put such information to use is publishing it to the general community of statisticians, and any amateurs of the general public.
And yes, I do believe that the benefit of the availability of information generally outweighs the harm. So if in doubt, share.
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 11, 2012 22:21 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] The use of such information would at first mostly be useful to people I know;. For example my family and friends could use my vacation schedule (posted in the subthread below yours) to meet me abroad.And burglars could use it to rob your house. I really don't think you want to provide information publically which can be used to determine the state of occupation of your primary residence. There are too many ways bad actors can use it.
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 11, 2012 22:57 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
Burglars have much easier ways to check if you're home than by trawling vacation schedules.
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 12, 2012 7:14 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
The advantage of scanning various not-at-home lists is that you can do it from one location and it is discreet and safe. Other methods either involve looking at a single unreliable data point (e.g. presence of internal lighting or time of day and 'just hope' people are at work) and hoping it is accurate (which it isn't, in either direction), or suspiciously wandering past the house repeatedly to verify its continued state of darkness. Sure, most burglars are doing the latter -- but why make their job much easier by telling them when you're not in?
-- N., not cut out to be any sort of thief so this may be nonsense
Doctorow: The Curious Case of Internet Privacy (Technology Review) Posted Jun 13, 2012 0:35 UTC (Wed) by JanC_ (guest, #34940) [Link]
You're saying what every decent police officer would suggest to a citizen who asks about prevention against burglars.
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