[Bartweiss]

Data you release can never be recovered. Even if we were to chuck out the entire House and reverse this change in 2018, VPNs would still be a key part of the solution. It would only take one medical search sold to insurers (as a random example) to seriously affect you, so I agree that downplaying technical defenses is unreasonable.

[dredmorbius]

You can make holding and using that data highly intractable.

If there are blisteringly strong penalties to holding and trading in personal data, the incentives to do so will largely disappear. Unfortunately, statutory regimes, particularly in the United States, seem to be going in the opposite direction.

With the ability to seek out and purge disclosed data, at least some of the damage can be mitigated. Considering that there is far too much information for humans to ever process but a small portion of it, that might actually be sufficient -- we won't be needing the Men in Black eraser pens.

[Bartweiss]

All fair points, though I specifically had individual defense in mind. I don't know any good way for an individual to restrain accurate data once it's released, so poisoning is the only option I see to dilute the value of it.

At least when thinking about individual defenses, I tend to treat the regulatory landscape as a lost cause - currently I'm just hoping that privacy tools won't be actively outlawed.

[dredmorbius]

Information-related activities have far more in common with epidemiology -- and at all kinds of levels -- than pretty much anything else.

Whether it's concern of your data going out, or bad genetics patterns coming in, your best bet is to cut off the routes of transmission.

In a plague-infested land, it's practicing exceedingly good hygiene which is in your best interest. If that means walling yourself off from the rest of society for a few years (as one royal household in Europe did), so be it.

Keep in mind that the Black Death even eventually reached Iceland, though some years after it scorched over the rest of Europe (4-5 years as I recall).

There are domains of problems which are intrinsically personal. Though rather more which manifestly are not.

(Though you've also got me thinking about what equivalents to own information spreading out there are, epidemiologically.)

[Bartweiss]

> (Though you've also got me thinking about what equivalents to own information spreading out there are, epidemiologically.)

This seems like a really good question, actually. The disease model of information is quite effective, at least in terms of ideas like herd immunity, transmission rates, quarantine, etc.

But at the "patient zero" level it's quite strange, with personal information being a thing you know you have and don't want to spread unintentionally. It definitely changes some things compared to the standard model, though I think you have a point that you can invert things fairly effectively (i.e. 'hygeine' is to avoid spreading info, instead of contracting it).

I also wish there was more good writing on information hazards, which follow the epidemiology model almost precisely. So much of what's out there descends into Cthulu references or 'fake news' rants, rather than looking at the actual metaphors for things like "herd immunity".

(Surely someone has written an ironic essay about "vaccinating against anti-vax ideas"?)

[dredmorbius]

There is some public-health treatment of information spreading, though not a whole lot of it. I've been the source of some, though the ideas pre-date me considerably. You could go back to religious contexts, the concepts of apostasy and blasphemy, or even (per I.F. Stone) the Trial of Socrates, for prior art.

For information specifically, it's interesting in that there are at least three possible goals:

1. Restricting or combatting the spread of toxic information.

2. Encouraging the spread of useful or helpful information. There's a great deal of this under the rhubric of "diffusion of information".

3. Limiting, for socially beneficial or malevolent purposes, the spread of generally private information.

The first two instances have clear epidemiological and evolutionary cognates: limiting the spread of disease or disease agents (bacteria, viruses, prions, contaminants), or the process of evolutionary advance or propogation of fitness adaptations.

The question of concealment ... thinking through here, I'm coming up with concepts such as camoflage, mimickry, colour or shape-shifting (e.g., cuttlefish, octopus). There are bacteria and viruses which evolve or mutate rapidly making various antibodies or antibiotics less effective quickly (another element taken up by fake-news and propaganda sites -- one article I was reading yesterday noted how new most such outlets were, earlier pieces I've seen noted how new sites were emerging late in 2016 and growing to million+ daily user). I need to think more about that.

As for the antivax situation, I've pointed out that information campaigns to refute anti-vax ideas regarding the efficacy (and safety) of vaccines against viruses which attack DNA/RNA, are an information attack on an information attack on an information attack on an information attack on information.

https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/manw8sighyj2in4661tyla