[novum]

Is this it? This is our brave new world of pervasive data gathering, social network analysis, and the dying gasp of any shred of privacy? This is the future we've built for ourselves?

I haven't had a facebook account for 3 years. I'm certain FB has a shadow profile for me today and there's nothing I can do about it. My friends don't understand (or don't care about) the implications of everything they do online being tracked, in minute detail, and stored indefinitely.

Real-time indefinite mass surveillance is a fact and yet failed to galvanize the public into action. What can I do other than allow the cynicism to take hold and become a recluse?

I earn my livelihood from technology. I want to believe technology has great potential for medicine, exploration, and improving the human condition. The cognitive dissonance has to give somewhere.

[hyperplane]

You think your cognitive dissonance is bad? You're heaps ahead of where the people that "don't care" are. I try to evangelize privacy to friends and family all the time, and 60-80% of the time I am written off or ignored.

Most people don't seem to want to accept the fact that something terrible may ever happen to them, and will gladly drown out the pain of dealing with a potential future threat to prolong happiness in the short-term. How's that for dealing with cognitive dissonance? After all, the easiest way to remove the dissonance is to render the counterargument false without resorting to reason that might shake your emotional foundations.

As for your own cognitive dissonance: I don't believe that you are death, destroyer of worlds, by default just because you have the ability to build technology, no more so than a man with the capacity to develop firearms is by default a murderer. Improve the human condition, engineer systems toward that goal, and just pay more attention to the question of "what would somebody evil possibly use this product for?" and try to mitigate against the evil bits.

If you are terrified of ever having unintentionally built a weapon, then it is best not to be an engineer at all, as nearly every tool can be weaponized in the right environment with some degree of effectiveness by someone that means harm.

[Jupe]

I have the same issue with the 60-80% - trying to convince others of the deep evil that can (and when there's a bad quarter probably will) be done.

I generally let people know how absolutely permanent this stuff really is... More permanent than a tattoo. The information people put on facebook will, like it or not, outlive your grand kids.

[RougeFemme]

and then there are those engineers who have intentionally built weapons, hoping that they would be only be used defensively, but knowing that's likely not the case. . .

[kintamanimatt]

We work with technology and love to see cool new things developed and released in the world, but like anything, it can be used for evil too. There shouldn't be any cognitive dissonance and it's good that you're cognizant of the possible downsides. I wish more people would think of the possible negatives before they lay finger to keyboard and start coding.

What can you do? Keep talking about it; don't give up. Most people have to be exposed to an idea many, many times, and also see social proof (i.e. their peers accepting the idea too) before they will accept it. This is why we as entrepreneurs love early adopters because they give us the social proof we need to pull new, less adventurous customers on board.

What else can you do? Don't code bad shit and compete against those that do. Make the privacy destroyers lose.

[otakucode]

While your recommendations are great - keep talking about it and DON'T CODE BAD SHIT (if you do, no matter if you think its just to feed your kids or whatever, you're a bad person).... there's more we can do.

The NSA and their ilk think they can take the knowledge of CS, and other aspects of information science, and use it against us. But what is preventing us from defending ourselves with that same knowledge? Surely there's enough public information out there to, say, build a system which uses the public news stories and communications from politicians previously busted for adultery to train a machine learning system that will also monitor contemporary news stories and communications and let anyone check their politicians "aduletery score" to see what % likelihood there is that they're a cheat (according to the system, of course).

There are many projects like that which could be done that would help the public, and the politicians, understand why the things the NSA wants to do are radically dangerous and must be stopped.

[quantumpotato_]

Personally, I don't give a shit about a politican adultering. How did they vote when it came to my rights?

[krichman]

Yes I'd rather have a politician who regularly attended brothels than voted for SOPA. Raising alarm over OMG sex is a great way for media to control the dialog away from actual issues.

[kintamanimatt]

Creating no-cloud solutions that are heavy on good encryption is probably the best bet to secure the world's privacy and defeat global surveillance!

[novum]

I admire your positivity.

However, is it not the case that this:

  Don't code bad shit and compete against those that do. 
  Make the privacy destroyers lose.

...has been disproved by facebook? They are (one of the larger) privacy destroyers. They are not -- at present -- losing.

[kintamanimatt]

Facebook made MySpace lose. MySpace made Friendster lose. Facebook isn't invincible, it's just that nobody has created the next Facebook.

People are growing tired of Facebook and it's becoming passe. People are leaving and new generations are failing to sign up because it's not longer cool. Teenagers give a shit about Tumblr, Instagram, and Twitter, and less about Facebook. A growing number of people are getting tired of it and becoming less active or leaving. It's becoming cool to deactivate your Facebook account, and that's the most hazardous thing to Facebook's longevity.

All brands die. Facebook isn't immune from this law.

[novum]

You are correct. Facebook was not the first social network and they will not be the last.

I guess I'm more concerned about the precedent they've set, in terms of (mis)handling user data, and how other companies seem to be falling over themselves to add 'social' features. Very few companies begin with a commitment to user privacy.

My fear is that FB has done some kind of irreversible damage, even if only as measured in terms of the attitudes other companies are adopting towards privacy.

[otakucode]

They have made real data privacy an issue they can be competed with on.

Who says the next social network has to be run by a corporation seeking a profit motive? Why can't the next social network by a peer-to-peer network where your personal data stays on your personal machine at home and where you have total control over who has access to what. Don't want to give access to your pictures to the guys who wrote the system? Fine. No problem. Want to delete your profile and know it's offline for good? Easy as pie.

Yes, of course it can't be spun out today as a web service because the web is designed like a piece of shit. We need like some sort of simple home appliance that serves as your node on the network, preloaded with the necessary software that people can just put in their closet and forget about. If you're really ambitious, make that box your business. Make it a simple, secure server that you plug 'apps' into as easy as you do your phone... except the box makes sure you can access those things - and so can the people you authorize - anywhere in the world... without you having to learn DNS, figure out your IP, or any of that jazz.

Of course then the ISPs will cancel the accounts of all your customers for running servers. Oh well, go back to giving all your data to Google and Facebook. I'm sure your ISPs 'no servers' policy actually has nothing to do with guaranteeing a stranglehold on data by hosting and other companies.

[Amadou]

Why can't the next social network by a peer-to-peer network where your personal data stays on your personal machine at home and where you have total control over who has access to what.

Eben Moglen's FreedomBox project has been working on a soup-to-nuts software stack for that sort of thing for a couple of years now. They can use more talent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedombox

[kintamanimatt]

I see your point, but I disagree. There will always be those that just don't give a shit, but I get the feeling that people generally are better educated about privacy and the consequences of freely giving up information online.

People not respecting their own privacy is a marketing problem. Teach people it's cool to respect their privacy and people will be more careful. It used to be cool to smoke too, after all.

[RougeFemme]

"It used to be cool to smoke too, after all." True, but I don't think marketing made it "uncool", at least not initially. I think that started with individuals, families, friends, health-oriented groups. . .the marketers were among the last to the table. I think the same is true of individual privacy.

[pessimizer]

>Teach people it's cool to respect their privacy and people will be more careful.

There is no profit in this, and the government makes facebook privacy-encroaching look trivial, so looking to them to regulate it is a non-starter.

[webvictim]

I think that Facebook has a social duty to set the bar in terms of what is acceptable to do with this wealth of user data. Never before has there been one place that has so much detailed information about so many people - with great power comes great responsibility. The rules are still being refined. Things get tried - some work, some don't - then from this, lessons are learnt.

[novum]

Yes. However, I believe Facebook has a history that shows it repeatedly failing to be trustworthy enough to make those decisions.

[mark-r]

My fear comes from a different old saying - absolute power corrupts absolutely. I've never trusted Zuckerberg.

[pasiaj]

If 'has your contact info in a database' amounts to a "Shadow Profile", there are quite many shadow profiles of you laying around. It probably has relations to all the people on Facebook who have your contact info added, but overall this is much ado about nothing.

[novum]

By what measure do you assess "quite many shadow profiles of you laying around" to be "much ado about nothing"? Isn't that exactly the problem?

What of one -- and one is all it takes -- company, disaffected employee, or black hat desiring to analyze, filter, or publicize data about me, even in aggregate? What of user preference or control? What of the right to be left alone?

[mtarnovan]

But how much can others fill in the "blanks" of your shadow profile compared to FB ?

[otakucode]

> tracked, in minute detail, and stored indefinitely.

Don't forget being analyzed and profiled. When I get arrested for conducting my life in a way that is more than 2 standard deviations outside the norm by some metric the government has deemed critical, it's on all your heads!

[RexRollman]

Worse, you'll can labeled a security concern just because you express an opinion that differs from the government's POV. Just look at the surveillance the government does to peaceful protesters.

[AJ007]

I wonder if FB also has deep facial recognition data sets for these shadow profiles?

[bennyg]

How many people have a picture with their contact information for friends and family? My guess is a metric fuckton. Since they're allowed to access "contact information" then a few cross references of a different picture of you along with your name and phone number should be more than enough to add facial recognition data to your shadow profile. They can already guess who is in a picture of your friends. Why would this be any different?

[RougeFemme]

And add in the number of times you're tagged - often against your will - in others' photos. . .