Speaking of Privacy and Traceability
For all those interested in the economics of privacy, I suggest you look at http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/collusion/demo/
This add-on for Firefox shows exactly how your information is propagated over the internet, without your knowledge. A truly mind boggling demonstration of the fact that:
If you're not paying for something, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold.
- Andrew Lewis
Group audience:
Comments
Eliminating this is the key
Eliminating this is the key to european competitiveness and security. Dis-empowerment is distorting markets.
It involves three aspects
a) Isolate the transaction, i.e. ensure there are no reuse of keys and identifiers
b) Secure the transaction
c) Enforce the illegality of surveillance and push public sector solutions through regulation
Collusion is well worth a
Collusion is well worth a look at - it hints at the scale of the problem that's facing us. For me, the solution isn't primarily a technical or legal one, but more one of awareness and education, which is why collusion and similar ideas are important.
If we can make more people aware of what's going on, it will be easier to push for legal solutions (and at least a degree of enforcement of those laws) as well as making businesses start to see privacy as something consumers really care about rather than just pay lip service to.
Ultimately, privacy needs to be a selling point - if businesses can make more by helping privacy than they make by invading it, they'll make that decision. Until then....
I differ on this - this is
I differ on this - this is more of the thinking that created the problems. The wrong assumption that "privacy" is something else than "security" - it is not.
Awareness and education might show the magnitude of problems, but solutions are ONLY found in the technical, economic and legal sphere.
One of the challenges is that the security communicaty is not incorporating security of citizens and thereby leave people thinking the problems cannot be solved.
E.g. the millions of people in Facebook have no idea that the same function could be secure if groups were peer-to-peer enabled without a trusted party.
So instead of solving the problem and creating awareness, we push schoolchildreen into commercial profiling and vaste time talking about "Facebook Privacy Settings" which has absolutely NOTHING TO DO WITH PRIVACY. I.e. perceptions are manipulated into a no-solution-possible thinking.
Privacy should NOT be a selling point - it should be a given through infrastructure design so companies and government ARE NEVER ABLE TO IDENTIFY you in the first place unless you violate a contract. Yes - I do mean eCommerce, eHealth, Tax and communication.
Companies, society and you as a citizen have legitimate security issues that needs to be dealt with as part of the technical negotation phase, but none that justify or can sustainably be handled when control have transfered from citizen to someone else.
Start by assuming a society where people have control. That is all free markets (not anarchies but free trade and value creation with a framework of justice) and democracy are about - when they work.
To look also: This TED
To look also: This TED presentation of Collusion.
Gary Kovacs: Tracking the trackers
http://www.ted.com/talks/gary_kovacs_tracking_the_trackers.html
Sure - and he ends up where?
Sure - and he ends up where?
Telling people that the bad guys got you without empowering them is like showing them Hell without any indication of salvation.
Privacy is not about serviceproviders only doing what you consented to, but knowing that they CANNOT do what you havent consented to.
When I pay cash in a physical store, I know the transaction data stay there. The store can remember data for their use. I can remember and reuse data for my use but nobody else can abuse them against me. That is the equivalent, we need in cyberspace.
Sure there can be surveillance cameras - security is not perfect and biometrics is an attack on citizens.
So lets take the cameras down and replace them with democratic means. When I enter a store, I can create a cryptographic security proof that for 24 hous COULD be opened to identify me, but after that never and I can know if it has been opened.
I and the shop keeper KNOW that I will be identified if I threaten him with a gun, so of course I dont. But sionce I dont, the shop owner has NO JUSTIFICATION OR LEGITIMATE NEED in ever identifying me as the one entering the shop. Neither have telcos, banks or government or anybody else but me.
But I want control to reuse data and to continue the transaction and to know what I bought where.
Empower me. Dont enlighten me that I am dis-empowered, that will make me defaistic and rebellous. People without hope turn into social uinrest.
>> Empower me. Dont enlighten
>> Empower me. Dont enlighten me that I am dis-empowered,
Well for me enlightenment is the first step to empowerment.
Concerning this tool, it made me more aware about the tracking, and as a consequence I configured my browser to block third party cookies, which was my salvation in this case ;-) (which of course needs to be available).
Note:
I get a little bit confused by your arguments (I am not however saying I disagree).
You seem to push for the technology to provide the solution (via privacy by design). But I am not sure after some point that this does not contribute to dis-empower people. Educating people, as well as bringing transparency (as it is the case with this tool) kind of empower people in my opinion. Of course people need then the possibility to act. But one of their action can be then to act on the government via the democratic process.
Sure - it is not an either or
Sure - it is not an either or.
But educating people about problem symptoms without showing them solutions is not helping. Knowing problems without solutions creates defaitism, understanding problems AND solutions drives change through action and from there constant improvement of solutions through the restored market mechanisms.
Awareness campaigns are destructive UNLESS you are also driving awareness on reachable solutions.
Adressing symptoms without adressing problems will just be more of the same that created the problems.
E.g. payments. As long as I cannot pay securely (Empowerment is the main requirement), no value transaction cen be secure. DAE address symptoms that appear as problems (e.g. expensive) but not the problems (the lack of competition originating in the fact that regulation and technlogy by design prevent competition through innovation).
Just as (wrong or bad) technology IS the problem, technology is also the main part of solution. Regulation alone fail unless it prevents the dis-empowering technology design - especially as REGULATION today REQUIRE DIS-EMPOWERING WIHTOUT LEGITIMATE REASON, e.g. Identification in infrastructure.