Re: On privacy and cloud services

Yes, Blaise, but that's the fascinating thing about these concepts.
If you added up all the ignorance or missing part of reality in people's
perceptions...
:)
The thing is, I've thought about these issues for a long time, not
particularly on the topic of government spying, but more so about the
financial world.
It's kind of like the area of food quality, it's amazing how quickly a
tipping point of concern by the public can be accomplished or rolls out on
its own.
I have a friend who I used to work with (at Verizon, of all places).
She pretty much used to write on blogs about feminine beauty products,
articles about stuff like that.
Then I merely mentioned to her once about the dangers of those products,
the actual history of acetone used in women's nail remover, for example,
and referenced the documentary Food, Inc, to her, and now she runs (two!)
social groups about food and environmental quality on FB. And they are
growing and on a curve I can testify. And lots of influential people, not
just the grungy fringe.
The same could easily happen to personal data if someone made the case(s).
Dan Smith
Houston


On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 12:40 PM, Blaise Alleyne <email@blaise.ca> wrote:

> On 13-06-10 09:20 PM, Evan Prodromou wrote:
> > On 13-06-10 05:27 AM, Michał 'rysiek' Woźniak wrote:
> >> <rant> I am just afraid that we do not have anything to offer instead
> of the centralised, surveilled services. All we have is a myriad of
> incompatible protocols. </rant>
> >
> > Setting up a social server for your family and friends on a server
> > you control is a step in the right direction.
> >
>
> I find this actually more challenging that it sounds. Not technically
> speaking, but from a privacy perspective -- at least with services designed
> to hold private information.
>
> I'm a competent enough system administration that I can set up this
> software and host it for family and friends, but for social networking with
> any aspect of private data... beyond say my wife and maybe my parents, most
> family members and friends are probably more comfortable with the NSA
> having full access to their data then with someone in their own social
> circle.
>
> It's not that they don't trust me, but very few family members or friends
> what to share *all* their information with me. There's going to be some
> things that they want to keep private, and I will not always be the
> intended audience.
>
>
> If Google or Facebook or the government is snooping on their data, that
> feels more remote to them. It's unlikely that they'd feel the impact too
> directly. But if one person in their social circle has root access to their
> private data, that may make people feel more uncomfortable than if the
> government was collecting it into a giant database. The privacy impact is
> more tangible, in a way, easy to imagine, feels closer to home.
>
> Of course, it depends on the type of data -- hosting calendar or contacts
> of family/friends is different than hosting private email, or a social
> server with private messages. And, I suppose there are some things for
> which encryption might help. But I'm not sure how to get around that
> closer-to-home privacy point.
>
>
>
>