killab66661
6 HN recommenders · recommended in 13 months, 2012–2019
42:50 · 22K views · Dec 12, 2010
Moxie Marlinspike's DEF CON 18 talk on changing threats to privacy argues that surveillance arrived through convenient services and network effects, so opting out is not a real solution. It also includes his framing of getting social democracy rather than the fascism people feared.
Cited repeatedly to rebut 'just don't use Facebook' arguments and to explain why tracking becomes hard to escape at critical mass.
17 comments from Hacker News
> I think part of the difference in HN opinion color is somewhat related to transparency. It's not that I disagree with you on the topic of transparency, it's that I think we can't really compare opinions on two very different topics as if they were the same topic. People complaining about too many subscription content providers are not really arguing for or against a monopoly. It's not the same discussion. > And I'd say Google and Facebook haven't done a sufficient job in proactively informing the public about what they collect, how they generate revenue from it, and what's currently stored about a user. Granted, but I'm pretty sure that even if they did so, it wouldn't make much difference. I always refer people to Moxie Marlinspike's DEF CON keynote called "Changing threats to privacy" [1]. I would definitely recommend watching it in full, but the key takeaway from it -- for the purposes of this discussion -- is that it all boils down to choice. He talks about the way technology changes the fabric of the society, how it changes the way people interact, communicate and coordinate, and declining to participate in this new way of doing things exposes you to the "no network effect". This is why it's not enough for Google and Facebook to merely inform people about what they collect and how they use it. As long as they're practically monopolies, they can disclose and inform and then go on just the same, because there's no other viable alternative and they'll work hard to ensure
> Or, maybe, IM with OTR without logging, but that . . . might also fall prey to crazy counterparty either not disabling logging or intentionally recording and blackmailing. I thought this was one of the benefits of OTR over, say, PGP. That is, with PGP if you sign a message the counterparty can wave it around and say "look at what this poerson said", while with OTR, since the encryption is done with a shared key, it could be just as likely that the counterparty made it up. At least, that's what I gleaned from this wonderful video[1] someone linked to on HN yesterday. [1] this video
I would highly encourage anyone who thinks that the solution is as simple as "don't use XYZ" to see what Moxie Marlinspike had to say about "Changing threats to privacy" at Defcon 18: this video
Moxie Marlinspike gave a fantastic talk on this subject in 2010, even down to the government mandated tracking device vs mobile phone: this video
Lots of people don't care about voting in elections, giving to charity, partaking in public demonstrations or looking after their health either. The problem is not so much whether people mind if their location is tracked or whether they have control over their hardware etc. It's more that once these things reach a critical mass it is very difficult to start to go back if we don't like where we are or indeed for an individual to make a choice to live outside of this stuff. It is articulated quite well here: this video At around 09:00