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Why does everyone make such a fuss about privacy?

In the context of VPNs for example. Some VPNs store and provide information about what sites you go to third parties. Third parties analyze it and figure out what adds to show you. Hmm… then let them show me those adds they want to show me. I do hate adds as a whole and use an add blocker, thus. But I couldn’t care less what particular type of adds they show me, they are still adds.

Someone knows what sites I go, what then. If someone curiously inquired me on this type of information I’d tell them without giving a second thought. Incomparably larger amount of data I put out just by making comments and posts.

Lowered_lifted ,

Your data can and will be used against you, by people who want to exploit you. Owning your data is protecting your assets.

Hazzia ,

Coworker of mine recently told me that his family’s been getting harassed for hush money by some fucker who got his son’s personal information after he visited a compromised website.

That’s why.

If all you’re thinking about are advertisers, as if they’re the only ones who can hop on board the online monitoring train, you are missing a huuuuuuge cybersecurity threat.

ETA for anyone who’s curious: yes he went to the FBI, don’t know if anything’s come of it yet

original_reader , (edited )

Online privacy is not something that anyone should take lightly. It is a matter of protecting personal data and one’s human rights. Personal data can include anything that identifies you or reveals something about you (e.g. your health records, browsing history, etc.). This data can be - and is - collected, stored, analyzed, and often sold by third parties without your consent or knowledge. This in turn can lead to serious consequences for you.

To name just two examples. Advertisers can use your personal data to target you with ads that manipulate your behavior or preferences. Governments can use your personal data to monitor your activities or censor your opinions. The very fact that you post this question under an alias and not your real name makes the point that you value your online privacy.

In line with that, online privacy allows you to express yourself freely and access information without censorship or surveillance. Online privacy is a human right that we should respect and defend. It is essential for social justice and human dignity. Without online privacy, we cannot enjoy the benefits of the internet as a platform for open communication, education and sometimes innovation. We cannot participate freely in online communities, share our ideas, learn new things, or explore new possibilities. We cannot challenge the status quo, expose corruption, or demand accountability. Many might not be able to be themselves, without fear or shame.

In my opinion, we should use encryption tools, trustworthy VPNs, secure browsers, and other methods to safeguard our personal data from prying eyes. We should also support and listen to organizations that advocate for privacy rights and fight against online privacy violations.

It matters, because it is our right and - frankly - our responsibility.

Forgive the rant… this topic is important to me.

TL;DROnline privacy is important, because it protects our personal data and our human rights from misuse by third parties. It also enables us to express ourselves and access information freely on the internet.

Edit: added last sentence of second paragraph

Edit 2: fixed some grammar

off_brand_ , (edited )

(edit: God I’m sorry about this big ass wall. I ranged and rambled. It’s too early to write this much lol. Tl;Dr 1: law enforcement. Police don’t need a warrant to buy your info. In the US, we have warrants for a reason. Constitution outlines restrictions on "unreasonable search and seizure. 2: Consent. Like, I should have the right to just say no. It’s my data, let me be part of the conversation. 3/4: Safety and equity. It’s still illegal to be gay in some parts of the world. An insurance company or an employer could check your race online if they wanted, whether or not you’ve made that available. )

The problem extends across a few metrics.

First, probably the most tangible. The police can and do use data purchased from civilian companies to bypass regulations. For example, you don’t need a warrant to check phone contacts if you can buy it. You might be saying you don’t do anything illegal to worry about. Have you ever been to a protest? Have your friends? If climate change bothers you, could you see yourself going to one?

Protests are frequently targeted by law enforcement. Even if you think that would only happen if the protest becomes a riot, you don’t control the crowd. If you’re there but not rioting, your phone location can be used as proof of participation. There is precedent, too. They used location data to arrest capitol rioters. IMO those were good arrests, but how many BLM protestors were arrested based on phone data?

Second, consent. Even if I change nothing else in your mind here, consider that we might simply value our personal data differently. I should have a right to be part of the conversation about me. Let me pay $20 to use a product without observation. Products should be up front about what is collected too (GDPR has helped lots with website tracking). Facebook is known to collect “shadow profiles”, where data is compiled on you even if you aren’t on the platform. I should be allowed to say no to that, for any reason, simply by virtue of it being my information.

Third and fourth go together some. Safety and equity. People are still killed for being gay. Legally. And the collection of data on people enables that. Just buy data off of Pornhub to identify who is browsing their gay section. And if someone is found in a country where it is illegal to be queer, all you need is a list of their contacts to find more. Maybe Apple refuses to unlock their phone for you, but that’s okay. Just buy their contacts off Meta.

…wikipedia.org/…/LGBT_rights_by_country_or_territ…

But that’s the straightforward issue of equity. Consider someone who has gone to jail. They’ve done their time, they’ve reformed, and now they want to rejoin society. The judge even goes so far as to expunge their records. Well, a background checking company can buy that info still. And that’s just talking about criminal acts that should be reformed. Maybe you don’t care about that. What about crimes that just target BIPOC? In the US, weed is legalizing, slowly. People were still arrested for it, and that history is indelible, regardless of the official record. If even the US Justice System wants to wipe the slate, than the slate should be wiped.

…wikipedia.org/…/Race_in_the_United_States_crimin…

Special mention to Google btw. Good and bad. They do a lot to tell you what and how they collect data, and how they anonymize it. Purportedly don’t sell your data, since they also own the ad network. Like you say, I’m not really worried about the ads, and a lot of their products really are good enough that I don’t mind making that trade. However, I do take umbrage with the idea that it’s fine still. A company does have analytics on their ad campaigns. John Oliver did a funny bit where they put an ad targeted towards Congress. He got a couple of hits too, with their location and had the power to fingerprint their browsers if he wanted. Once you click an ad, you’re in the care of whatever site put that ad out. That means they collect whatever they want on you. Additionally, theyll know what ad brought you in. So if you put an ad out targeting “pregnant people in Texas looking to make a trip”, you’ll have a list of people that Google thinks match.

This whole post misses a lot of nuance and context. It’s a social media post, ultimately. I’m not sure I have enough mental capacity right now to hunt down more links, and I’m about to start my work day. I don’t have any trouble with folks who don’t care – frankly I’m jealous. I’m annoyed that I can’t just use products like most people and not care. It’s just everywhere. Walking down the street I’m on someone’s TikTok, meaning Facebook, YT, Bytedance could get my location without me even interacting with them (shadow profiles from earlier). When I got a covid test recently, I had to download their stupid app to fill out a form. That app has the power to collect endless data points about my phone. Buying concert tickets means signing over my information to your favorite ticket vendor. It’s just endless and exhausting for me.

blargerer ,

You are thinking way too small about what can be done with that amount of data on you. I'll give you an example. I once did some programming work for a website. The website got 'hacked' (An administrative admin had their password guessed because they weren't using good password habits). This website had poor security and with the admins password the 'hacker' was able to get a DB dump. Bad stuff. So me and another guy set out trying to identify who had done it. Via server logs we were pretty sure we had correctly tied the 'hacker' to a user of the site. By looking at their activity on the site, and what referral links they had followed to get to the site previous, we learned where they approximately lived and their first name. But we knew we needed more info than that, so we looked at his hobbies and figured out he liked pokemon quite a lot. We then created a 'what pokemon are you' quiz, asking mostly unimportant questions, but throwing in a couple we needed in order to be able to report him to his local authorities (IE their last name and some other info I can't remember off the top of my head). We then had this quiz get posted by an account not associated with the running of the site. the 'hacker' filled it out, and we reported him for breaking the law with our evidence to his local authorities.

So to reiterate, 2 idiots with no background in data science and like 16 hour between us, were able to manipulate an arbitrary guy into doing what we wanted because of a relatively small amount of data. Now Imagine what people dedicating their lives to this stuff can do to you.

Elevator7009 ,

I probably should care about what big companies are doing with my data, but honestly I feel I’ll just be one more person in a group of a million. Companies won’t care.

What I’m scared of is stuff like the example above. A dedicated person trying to connect my online identity to my real-life one.

FinallyDebunked OP , (edited )
@FinallyDebunked@slrpnk.net avatar

Maybe I lack foreseeing ability but they can… guess what university I study in, what meds I take, the government could know much more if they commit themselves.

Some guy mentioned insurance, that would probably make a point, but I live in a country we don’t have it

blargerer ,

Although my anecdote ended with additional data collection, the scary part is the manipulation of action. You might think that, as an example, they see you browsing a pokemon website and therefore show you more pokemon ads, something that coule be mutually beneficial. What you should be worried about, is something like based on your browsing behaviour they figure out how to manipulate your political action, or figure out your state of mental well-being and manipulate it. There is especially horror cases here when this is algorithm driven instead of being pushed by humans. One could imagine ,and I want to preface this by saying I'm not aware of this ever having happened, a machine learning algorithm relating signs of some mental illnesses with an uptick in firearm sales, and then increasing advertising of firearms to those people. You could imagine this driving things like an increased suicide rate.

FinallyDebunked OP , (edited )
@FinallyDebunked@slrpnk.net avatar

There are many more other outlets for propaganda. Their effectiveness are hard to measure as well as the effectiveness of ads. Figuring out how to manipulate is philosophically impossible. How would you train an AI if you don’t know if your actions led to success or not. Mental conditions are themselves poorly understood and defined. And we only have superficial web browsing data at our disposal.

Lowered_lifted ,

LMAO they really answered one of those password reset answer phishing ass quizzes? Lucky for you they were not sending their best.

blargerer ,

Although they were the target, they were far from the only person to fill it out. Context can make people drop their guards. But yes, not some criminal mastermind. Of course, again, I'm some idiot programmer not a genius forensic computer detective.

theKalash ,

You need privacy for piracy or you’ll get a penalty.

Sabata11792 ,
@Sabata11792@kbin.social avatar

It's like my Netflix subscription. Its enough to stop angry letters from the local natzi monopoly.

pavnilschanda ,
@pavnilschanda@lemmy.world avatar

I’m not too vocal when it comes to privacy but I will tell you that I really don’t like how algorithms take data and use them in order to manipulate the masses. It just seems very controlling, like you’re being controlled by a clairvoyant puppetmaster.

sadreality ,

Low education take lol

LinkOpensChest_wav ,
@LinkOpensChest_wav@beehaw.org avatar

I’m a big advocate of privacy, but it’s good to ask these questions. We shouldn’t shame people for asking.

sadreality ,

Indeed. More educating to be done, no doubt

FinallyDebunked OP ,
@FinallyDebunked@slrpnk.net avatar

your ego is so fragile it crumbles at the thought of some algorithms knowing what porn you jack off to, isn’t it

sadreality ,

I got nothing to hide bro... Got a "smart" speaker my bedroom ;)

CorrodedCranium , (edited )
@CorrodedCranium@leminal.space avatar

The VPN thing really depends on which VPN you are getting. A lot of them prey people’s misconceptions like being able to access Netflix content from different regions or being an all in one solution for privacy. A VPN can come in handy if you are connecting to restricted or monitored networks. If you are at work and don’t want your boss knowing you spend a quarter of your day watching Twitch streams for example.

My big concern and why I’m so privacy focused is because of what people could do with my data and not having any control over it. There were some third party websites for Reddit where you could enter a username and it would spit out metrics based off of what you’ve said. One thing it could do was tell you where someone lived. I know someone could go through all my comments and posts manually for any times I slipped up but the ease and automation of it are things I didn’t care for. I want to add an extra hurdle.

Data leaks are another big concern because then your information is just out there without even a facade of privacy for anyone to utilize

RovingFox ,
@RovingFox@infosec.pub avatar

Selling bad products to customers is about finding just the right amount of inconvenience for the customer. You never know what information about you can be used by an AI model to pinpoint your threshold. I would like not to be used in a borderline consumer herding.

ulkesh ,
@ulkesh@beehaw.org avatar

I mean the “P” in VPN stands for “private”. One would hope that carries some actual meaning.

If you’re so willing to give up your privacy then that’s your call. Some of us cherish our privacy and our freedom and don’t want corporations or the government being able to easily know anything about us without our explicit consent, if at all possible.

FinallyDebunked OP ,
@FinallyDebunked@slrpnk.net avatar

https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/9ca63ed0-7e6f-4141-8326-d797278fb5cb.webp needless to read besides

mtset ,
@mtset@beehaw.org avatar

If someone curiously inquired me on this type of information I’d tell them without giving a second thought.

This is the difference between you and people who care about their privacy, then. I would happily talk about that to someone I trusted, but not a random person on the street, and certainly not someone whose interests I know don’t align with mine, which is mostly true of every company on Earth. Not to mention that any of these companies could be subpoenaed for this information at any time, which would be an issue if the law changed to make something I do illegal.

WhoRoger ,
@WhoRoger@lemmy.world avatar

If you’d phrase this in a less twatty way, you could almost ask this in a “no stupid questions” community.

Elevator7009 ,

As another user said, it’s good to ask these questions. We shouldn’t shame people for asking. I’d rather ask a question and look stupid for needing to ask it once, than be ignorant forever. Could they have just searched “why should I care about privacy” online and gotten tons of answers? Yes. I’d also imagine that not everyone grew up with the norm of exhausting all other avenues of information before you ask other people for help.

As for how they asked the question, I’m just reading it as them saying they don’t care about privacy, not that we’re all idiot twats for caring. I think it’s an honest question, not a disingenuous “why does anyone care, you shouldn’t and you’re all stupid if you do.”

WhoRoger ,
@WhoRoger@lemmy.world avatar

Well imagine coming to a vegetarian forum and asking: “Why does everyone make a fuss about killing animals? I eat meat three times every day, go on hunts every month, sometimes just for fun, I don’t even eat those animals. Also I don’t care about cages and all that, animals don’t have souls anyway.”

It may also be a genuine question, but sometimes it’s good to spend 10 seconds before asking, either by just thinking or maybe do a very brief web search.

In general, questions of the “I don’t care about X so I don’t see why anyone else could” kind tend to be like that. You can ask, but you can also expect people won’t want to talk to you.

Elevator7009 ,

I totally get your point about the vegetarian forum and agree with you, but this is c/asklemmy, not c/privacy. I’ve been around the Fediverse long enough to know it’s generally a pro-privacy environment, not everyone else has been.

Again, I’m really not seeing the “I don’t see why anyone else should” part in their question, I suppose we’re interpreting it differently.

WhoRoger ,
@WhoRoger@lemmy.world avatar

My point is that if it’s something that clearly lots of people care about, it’s probably a good idea to think a little.

The “why anyone would” part is in the “why people make a fuss”. I don’t wish to be a teacher here picking apart every word, don’t get me wrong, but people get upset if you invalidate what they care about. It’s like telling someone who’s angry to calm down.

Fortunately people here have more patience heh.

Elevator7009 ,

Once I wondered why everyone cared so much about something I didn’t. I wanted to give what seemed like most of the world the benefit of the doubt instead of dismissing their care as invalid and stupid, so I sat and thought about it and came up with a guess.

My guess was way off base. It correctly explained some tertiary aspects of why people cared, but totally missed the primary reasons. And until I had it explained to me, I probably would have continued to miss the primary reasons for my entire life. Sometimes it’s useful to get the answer from the horse’s mouth instead of guessing on your own.

But I definitely understand the bit about people getting upset when the things they care about are invalidated. One of my Things is people just assuming the best of each other or at least not namecalling each other when assuming the best is foolish or impractical, so I reacted to your comment and wondered if I should have because half the time I get a nice exchange like this one we’re having, and half the time I get some condescending, snarky replies. And the condescending replies feel very bad.

WhoRoger ,
@WhoRoger@lemmy.world avatar

I understand and even appreciate that people have different priorities, worries and preferences. Which is why I dislike the attitude some take, “if you don’t care about X, you’re part of the problem”. It may even be true in lots of cases, but we can’t all care about the same things, less we all worry about everything all the time, and that’s not good or realistic.

Funny thing though. I’ve seen people have civil debates about the most sensitive, divisive topics, as long as the initial question or statement comes from a place of genuine curiosity.

But whenever I see people ask the “why is privacy important?” question, it’s never just “am I missing something?” but more of a “gimme all the ads, collect everything about me, I don’t care”, sometimes with the “you conspiracy theorists weirdos, nobody cares about you and you’re probably pedos anyway” sprinkled in.

So it’s a bit tiring to see this over and over, hence my snark at the beginning. And I don’t know where the attitude is coming from. Maybe it’s just a relatively new issue and people aren’t used to constantly being exposed to the debate, like with some other topics?

But in that case I gather that it should be the opposite problem - we used to have much more privacy than we have now, that just has to be obvious (hence the questions in the first place), so the proper question to ask would be “wait, why is everyone so interested in everything I do all of a sudden? Why is every corporation suddenly collecting all my data and giving me free stuff in return while raking in billions of profits? Hm, sus”

Eh maybe I’m missing something.

Elevator7009 , (edited )

I definitely haven’t seen questions like this asked at all, let alone repeatedly, which is probably where part of my patience comes from.

wait, why is everyone so interested in everything I do all of a sudden? Why is every corporation suddenly collecting all my data and giving me free stuff in return while raking in billions of profits? Hm, sus

This never occurred to me. I found articles about privacy and the risks that were out there as a young child, way before I noticed any kind of change in levels of privacy (didn’t notice any change myself). As a kid I wasn’t aware that certain corporations were making billions, I just enjoyed the free ride and then saw all the articles about privacy risks. And nothing bad ever happened to me and I didn’t see articles about bad things happening to people, so I still didn’t care (after all, I was on Android, I could just… deny this app permission to access something, problem solved! At least that is what I thought) until I saw someone get doxxed. I’m 18+ now, but sometimes you have kids online who don’t obviously seem like kids because you can’t see them online, and thEy Arent TypIng l11k3 dis!!!! or making constant baysic english lenguige missteaks but use regular English at the same level of fluency as adults. If you transplanted my 10-year old personality into a 10-year old today I could easily see them getting on the Fediverse and passing for an adult for awhile, because my 10-year old self spoke and wrote basically the same way I do now, minus the swear words and life experience.

And also, the fact is most people just don’t care about stuff until it affects them or someone close to them. It sounds nasty and I want to be better than this, but the fact remains we all have a limited amount of care and energy to go around. I mostly try to fix my own issues, not exacerbate anyone or dismiss anyone else’s, and help out where I can.

I’d imagine if you’re not in tech circles you also don’t find out much about privacy risks. I really try to extend the benefit of the doubt to people, give a way they could reasonably not know things, because I know I’m arrogant and want to counteract my own “oh my god how do you not know that you fucking idiot lmao I’m so much better and smarter than you” tendencies. And I truly cannot know what things are actually like outside of my experience, at most I can just read about them and get some idea.

WhoRoger ,
@WhoRoger@lemmy.world avatar

but sometimes you have kids online who don’t obviously seem like kids because you can’t see them

Point taken… Altho personally I don’t care about how old someone is. When I game online or just squat on Lemmy/Reddit/forum, I’m fine taking to people whether they’re 13 or 70. If anything, younger people tend to be more open minded, which possibly comes with having access to all the information.

But yea I guess some topics probably hit different when you grow up in a certain style of environment. Still, when I babysit kids, I find they are curious about everything and are willing to change their mind if they get explained something realistically. And I don’t see younger people ask loaded questions as often as older folks do.

I’d imagine if you’re not in tech circles you also don’t find out much about privacy risks.

I don’t begrudge people for not knowing things. What I find interesting is how they react when they learn about something, or their initial train of thought. You probably know the experiment of asking randos “should dihydrohen monoxide be banned?”

I have this hobby almost, I like finding new things, weird and divisive stuff. Oddball topics, weird fetishes, strange habits, crazy hobbies, wild art, whatever. If there’s a community with “weird” in the title, I’ll probably subscribe to it.

And it also gives me some insight into how outsiders react when they stumble upon that stuff. Most people, when confronted with something out of their ordinary, tend to go “damn good thing I’m normal, everyone is weird” or worse. So I guess it is human nature, but you can also imagine how tiring it can get.

FinallyDebunked OP ,
@FinallyDebunked@slrpnk.net avatar

It is quite amusing to see how local men desperately want make the site known to the general public while opposing everyone who isn’t a linux-minded privacy-concerned fag

Gadg3tm ,
@Gadg3tm@lemmy.world avatar

I’m not a commodity, I’m not a product, don’t trade my shit. Simple as that.

Sonotsugipaa , (edited )

What if some do not want to share this type of information without giving it a second thought?

FinallyDebunked OP ,
@FinallyDebunked@slrpnk.net avatar

something about fragile ego

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