back to article Bruce Schneier's Data and Goliath – solution or part of the problem?

Think of some of the ways the Enlightenment helped advance the human individual. The ability to shape your identity. The ability to own and control your stuff. Economic autonomy. All three help to define the modern world, they’re ways we know that ‘now’ is not like ‘before’. All three are founded on the sanctity of the …

  1. Mage Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    Great analysis

    Yes, The error of false authority, Schneier is undoubtedly a genius in many areas and the leading expert on Cryptography and a good exposer of fake security solutions and responses.

    But that doesn't make him an expert at everything and certainly not on what to do about privacy. Cory Doctorow and Martha Lane Fox are blinkered ideologues and are far far worse than Schneier's worst ideas in this area.

    1. Sir Runcible Spoon
      Facepalm

      Re: Great analysis

      I can give you two bits of advice to counter Google and Facebook, and you don't have to buy my book to get them either:

      1. Don't use Facebook

      2. Don't use Google (use Duckduckgo for example)

      Not perfect, I know - but it's a good start.

      Next week: Setting up VPN's with exit points in countries with better protection laws than our own.

      1. Gene Cash Silver badge

        Re: Great analysis

        "Don't use Google"

        Have you looked at how many people hit Google for fonts, some sort of API, or something? From my Adblock+ filter hit-counts list for the past month:

        18,052 fonts.googleapis.com

        16,101 fonts.gstatic.com

        72,047 google-analytics.com

        25,981 googleadservices.com

        50,836 googlesyndication.com

        32,980 googletagservices.com

        So quite a few sites will use Google for you.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Great analysis

        Next week: Setting up VPN's with exit points in countries with better protection laws than our own.

        I have a simple question: what are you prepared to pay for your privacy?

        To do this right costs money, and it's not a trivial amount either. If someone is selling you email that is privacy protected for a low cost they are not selling you privacy, they are selling you security with a "privacy" sticker over the top of it that is already peeling (which is what most of Silicon Valley has been doing for about half a decade).

        The costs are the real issue IMHO - Internet users have grown too addicted to the "free" meme, which is a blatant lie. t's a bit like cows enthusing about all the free grass they get prior to being milked again and again.

      3. Doctor_Wibble

        Re: Great analysis

        Not using facebook/google is less simple than many might think.

        People use google bugs for their website stats, and 'like' buttons that ping facebook just by being loaded (in a 'sharing' bar, so they get some stats too) are absolutely everywhere, so even without using these I still get stats collected about exactly what I've been looking at. And don't forget the CDNs, everyone's trusted MITM!

        Killing cookies doesn't guarantee any escape either, and the effectiveness of script-blocking depends on whether the script is blocked from executing *after* being collected from wherever (i.e. another 'ping' complete with referrer data).

        See also 'migratecookiesacrossdomains.asp'.

        People can take steps to minimise 'exposure' but should always remember it's never guaranteed - if you want to get close to that then do the VPN/Tor/whatever thing but even then 'under advisement'...

      4. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. James 51

    I always wondered, I never fill in my real details on online forms and my facebook profile is riddled with little white lies and I like stuff I have no interest in. What does it do to the 'value' of big data when the well it drinks from is poisoned?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      They believe collecting enough data will factor out those 'errors', because their model implies most people feed in mostly accurate enough data. Sure, if enough people start to feed enough inaccurate data the model breaks, that's why they pretend they're doing their business in your interest.

    2. Gunnar Wolf
      Big Brother

      What's your really valuable data then?

      James: You might fill in lots of little white lies. But you also fill in distilled truth: Who your real friends are? Not those on your list, but those you hold correspondence with. Where did you grow up? Not where you told your profile you did, but the place you uploaded all those childhood pictures from — And the place you have in common with a third of your friends. Where do you work? Not where you told your profile, but where you connect from during daytime. There's too much real data you are not hiding from them.

      1. James 51

        Re: What's your really valuable data then?

        That's why you don't friend colleagues on facebook and facebook is blocked in work. I have unlimited texts but not data so there are big gaps in the communication logs, particularly those who won't touch facebook with a bargepole. I have never uploaded childhood photos though I do appear occasionally in other peoples. You do make a lot of good points though. Going to have to start to be a little more creative with my smoke screen.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Someone didn't do their research

    Germany and the USA probably look identical: they’re Protestant Western countries

    Religion in Germany, 2008 figures:

    Protestant Evangelical Church 29.9%.

    Roman Catholicism 30.7%.

    1. Chris Miller

      Re: Someone didn't do their research

      Culturally, Germany* is a Protestant Western country. Just because the majority of the current populace don't identify themselves as Christian, doesn't change that.

      * Actually, Germany has been a nation for less than 150 years, and individual Länder differ significantly. Bavaria is (arguably) culturally Catholic, for example.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        Re: Someone didn't do their research

        Just because the majority of the current populace don't identify themselves as Christian, doesn't change that.

        Duh, read the numbers. 60.6% - the majority - identify as Christians. My point, which seems to have flown right over your head, is that Catholics outnumber Protestants in "Protestant Germany".

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: Someone didn't do their research

          But the Catholic work ethic in Germany probably exceeds the Protestant work ethic here

      2. James 51

        Re: Someone didn't do their research

        How is over sixty percent not a majority?

  4. DN4

    We?

    > How can we express righteous outrage with Facebook or Google's relentless privacy assault, when we continue to hand valuable stuff over?

    Your ‘we’ is not us.

    Apart from Google Search that I indeed use -- cautiously, with blocking and with a reasonable idea what can be mined from the search terms -- I do not indulge in handing valuable stuff over. So how can *we* express righteous outrage? Easily.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: We?

      You don't but other people do.

      Suppose stores handed your purchases on loyalty cards, your credit card company handed over your payments and your cell phone company handed over your contacts and movements.

      If you don't express outrage why shouldn't they do these things if they "enhance shareholder value" ?

  5. Dan 55 Silver badge

    Out of the remit of the book

    Why should it go into exactly what is privacy, its history, or different western countries' slightly different definitions of privacy, and just because US cryptomeister Bruce uses the word 'fundamental' he must be talking about Brussels' version of it? The point is wherever you are on the planet your privacy has been abducted by the Spaced-out Invaders from Outer California and the book is about how they've done it and what can be done to get it back.

  6. a pressbutton

    hmmm....

    That mr file didnt like the book is no secret.

  7. JonP

    IMO the problem isn't that our data is harvested for advertising and data mining (as mentioned, this is apparently acceptable, because free stuff), the problem is that we don't trust the people doing it (i.e. OUR government) not to come back and screw us over in the future (and based on past events, quite rightly too). The obvious solution is to have some kind of maximum period of data retention - say 6 months - after which it becomes inadmissible in a court of law/anywhere (without an explicit warrant) for any purpose whatsoever. IANAL so this would need bullet proofing, but you get the gist.

  8. John Savard

    Property Rights

    Property rights are a good model for many things. They make sense for freedom of speech; forcing cable TV companies to have "public access" channels, forcing bus companies to accept controversial ads, is a violation of their freedom of speech, to make them a conduit of someone else's speech. It's unfortunate that some of us don't own newspapers, but this isn't the way to address it.

    But there are other cases where they aren't the right model. That's why the Declaration of Independence spoke of "inalienable rights" - rights that can't be sold or given away. If you could sell yourself into slavery, it would be harder to police a ban on all other slavery.

    People "need" electricity and telephone service and banking services - and thus end up having to agree to pretty onerous contract terms for them, since no other choices are on offer. Being able to search with Google is in that area as well. Laws that limit the abuse of market power, such as antitrust laws, do not conform to a laissez-faire mindset, but are in direct opposition to it.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What I really want to know ..

    .. is what Ross Andersen thinks.

    I'm a bit wary of Schneier, some of the books he has written are quite good, but this doesn't seem to be one of them (caveat: haven't read it myself yet, though, but I know Mr Orlowski's skills in this matter are not inconsiderable). What I like about Ross Anderson is that he's very independent and not into self-marketing which moves him up higher in my estimation.

  10. Lockstep Technologies

    You think data protection regulation is complex?

    The idea that privacy should be regulated by market forces seems not very far away from this critique of Schneier. The author says privacy has to be based on data ownership. If regulatory complexity - especially exceptions and special cases - is thought to be a problem with principles-based privacy, just think about consumer protection in retail and financial services. There is no way known that market forces can be left to shape reasonable privacy outcomes without massive regulatory oversight. The ability for consumers to tell what's going on in the weird and wonderful and oh-so-wild digital world, sufficient to make informed choices about competing products and models, is simply zero. No, Schneier is right. Privacy is about fundamental rights and even in the USA, all sorts of difficult intangible human rights are enshrined in law and reasonably well managed.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: You think data protection regulation is complex?

      Privacy is about fundamental rights and even in the USA, all sorts of difficult intangible human rights are enshrined in law and reasonably well managed

      I beg to differ. As soon as someone starts tinkering with due process without any transparency to go with it you have a major problem, and that's exactly what is happening in the US (and some other places, but not to the depth of the US).

  11. Peter Johnston 1

    Privacy is an ancient idea about maintaining a facade. In public you had to pretend to be god-fearing, support the king and government and be a paragon of virtue in all things. Behind the facade - in privacy - you could beat your wife, mistreat your animals and servants, indulge your sexual desires regardless of whether they were consensual and generally use your power to bully everyone.

    Privacy kept corrupt governments in power. Privacy allowed companies like Intel to bribe others not to allow a fair business playing field. Privacy allowed people like Savile and Harris to abuse their positions of influence. Privacy allowed sexism, racism and eugenics free rein.

    Privacy is the scourge of good people everywhere. We should be using technology to tear it down, everywhere it exists.

    1. kwhitefoot
      Pint

      At last a comment that actually has an interesting and relatively uncommon point. Pretty sure i don't like the idea but have point on me for bringing it up.

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge

      We need privacy. We are social animals and territorial animals, if we were brutally honest about everything while socialising then some would use that information to harm us. We are open to a few who we trust not to hurt us and always use some kind of privacy in our dealings with everyone else. Using privacy in this way is not the same as hiding something that's wrong.

      Privacy can be co-opted by some people in power as a way to hide corrupt practices but that does not mean privacy itself is a bad thing. Companies take advantage of a failure in the justice system, not a failure with privacy. People like Saville and Harris didn't particularly hide what they were doing under a facade of privacy either, it was intimidation of people around them which kept what they did hidden from the wider world, not privacy. Sexism and racism are another form of bullying which is done openly, not privately. It is generally unacceptable now and when it was acceptable it was due to ignorance in wider society.

      If you want an example which is still relevant now now, gay people value privacy because there are too many people who can use information about their orientation to hurt them.

      If you want another example, people who post everything to their Facebook wall or mess up the privacy options often end up with problems at work. They might not have done anything particularly wrong, but then again what they do do at the weekend with friends often doesn't translate well to the working environment. Is that discrimination? Until that question's answered, there's always privacy.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Privacy is the scourge of good people everywhere. We should be using technology to tear it down, everywhere it exists.

      Nice troll, or you may not understand privacy. If privacy wasn't important it would not have become part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 where representatives of scores of governments were actually able to agree on something in less than a lifetime..

  12. D Moss Esq

    Brave man, Andrew, tackling this subject.

    Relax, I shall make no original contribution, I promise. I can't.

    Roger Scruton can: "... the shared assumption was that rights are liberties. They are there to protect the individual against oppression, and especially oppression wielded by the clergy, the sovereign or the state. Their existence is fundamental to anything that we could call government by consent, and they capture the essence of the political process as we, in the West, have since conceived it – namely as a device for protecting the individual against the group".

    Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism by Larry Siedentop – that might help, I can't claim to have read it, but my friend Scott reviewed it.

    All very elevated. Back here down on terror firmer, what do we get?

    A person is a set of entitlements. Or a set of credentials. Or a fingerprint. Or a mobile phone with a lot of digital certificates and an associated location history. Or, GOV.UK Verify, a person is a credit history.

    That, or the Mydex/Ctrl-Shift idea, that a person is a quantified self represented on-line by his or her 100% guaranteed hyper-secure personal data store. That quantified self can have rational decisions made for it by utilitarian apps which process the data in the PDS. Never mind the Enlightenment. Back to the ancient Greeks, when people were pawns in the Titans'/Gods' game of chess.

    Just saying ...

  13. Oninoshiko

    "Both justifications prevent Google and Facebook from exploring new, imaginative and mutually useful (to customer and provider) ways of doing business. Ways that don’t require data collection and hoarding."

    I'm not sure this is a solid argument to Google that they shouldn't horde. While I can imagine many businesses that don't require hording, it's only VARY few that the hording actually precludes.

    So, as the meme driven kids today say: "Why not both?"

    (note: I'm not really suggesting that I want google to track everyone. Just that this argument is not something that they are going to find compelling)

  14. John McAfee

    Privacy is a a prerequisite to the existence of civilization

    The exercise of privacy requires freedom if choice. As individuals we constantly choose what to reveal of our lives. When we first meet someone we may choose only to reveal our opinions of the weather and how we feel about the day. As we get to know someone, we choose a set of revelations that makes us feel safe and secure with that person. With certain individuals we may actually create false revelations to help conceal aspects of our lives that we feel may be dangerous or disruptive to our lives if they were to be discovered. These revelatioms and concealmen's are a constant part of our lives. Given the reality of the human condition - jealousy, greed, envy and all the rest, can anyone believe that society could exist if everyone knew everything about everyone else? I cannot. The right to choose our own degrees of privacy in an unlimited field of relationships cannot be abdicated and must be fought for tooth and nail.

  15. Sureo

    Modern society 101

    1. You have no right to freedom

    2. You have no right to privacy

    3. You have no property rights (your property can be expropriated)

    4. Big brother is watching you

    5. Big corporations are exploiting you

    6. You are "free" as long as you don't step out of line and pay your taxes

    7. Do you really have a choice when you go to vote?

    (Sorry, I even make myself depressed.)

  16. This post has been deleted by its author

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