Hello everyone!
Do you ever wondered what information the search engine stores? When we want to solve the problem we start looking for a solution in the search engine. This is normal becouse if you can't find something on the internet, most probably you are looking for a bad phrase.
Now, try to look from another side. You get information about health state, typical work salary, favourite restaurant and the best price for fly to another country for holidays from milions people around the world... Despite you don't know this people personally you can deduce unique profile all of them. What you will do with all this information? Don't you see any danger?
We have a choice for obfuscation information about us. If you are interested in this subject and privacy is important for you check it out!
https://cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/resources/trackmenot2009.pdf
It's quite long but very important for all of us...no one likes it when someone enters into his private life.
I wanted you to reflect on these questions and answer in comment below:
1) Are you ready to share sensitive data about yourself to improve the quality of services (e.g. getting an insurance offer when you regularly search for information about a serious illness despite of you haven't thought about it yet)?
2) Do you think that obfuscation of information about yourself is a sufficient safeguard? Do you have any idea for other solution?
3) Do you think that obfuscation the results is ethical? Give one argument for and against.
Hello!
ReplyDeleteThe paper is not that long :-)
1) Are you ready to share sensitive data about yourself to improve the quality of services (e.g. getting an insurance offer when you regularly search for information about a serious illness despite of you haven't thought about it yet)?
My first thought is “of course not!” but then when I think about it, I’m already sharing quite a chunk of data. It may not be super-sensitive, but still. I have trained Google and Youtube to my taste: I’m getting commercials of cool stuff like industrial packaging systems, pizza ovens or sump pumps. And my YT front page contains interesting clips not some celebrity-pop-junk. What will I see if I submit my queries mixed with noise? I can taste it in incognito mode, and it’s not nice.
So it looks like I’ve traded data about me for convenience.
2) Do you think that obfuscation of information about yourself is a sufficient safeguard? Do you have any idea for other solution?
It might be in some cases, for people issuing mainly popular queries. But I think anything more specific would stick out in search queries analysis.
Panopticlick says my browser fingerprint is unique among over 940 000 others. This fingerprinting can be performed by any site I visit – and data can be shared with others. I suspect that lawyers would deliberate in length if such hash is personally identifiable information. And so browsing profile can be created using it, and I consider it equally sensitive as search history.
Then – when I write anything longer than couple of sentences – it also seems to identify me uniquely. Stylometry is a powerful tool: NSA does not deny they have identified Satoshi Nakamoto by comparing stylometric hash of his writings with trillions of stored emails and other texts by over billion of people.
Looks like there is no way to prevent others from successfully aggregating data about me.
There is a book “The light of other days” by Baxter and Clarke, about world with ultimate surveillance technology, available first for one company, then also governments, and finally – everyone. Authors describe generational differences in people reaction for such technology – the young ones didn’t care they can be constantly watched by anyone.
3) Do you think that obfuscation the results is ethical? Give one argument for and against.
I fail to see anything unethical with obfuscation. It might be illegal, if we agree to take TOSes and EULAs seriously, but in my opinion, should any search engine provider get upset about such actions, can respond with technology: with rate limiting, or something.
Thank's for your comment.
DeleteI am using some of obfuscation tools when it didn't cause many problems with applications. It's quite easy,becouse many of this tools are build in or easy to use (e.g. option simulation of geolocation in settings of mobile phone, changing MAC address or use VPN).
Personalisation views and commercials aren't important for me.
As a curiosity I can add that many information can identify us in the internet. When you get primary inforamtion (which are available from browser) as fonts installed on the computer, system version and other you can be suprised,but not many hosts have similar information. It's huge facilitation to recognition users on the internet.
I have private question. You mentioned about book "The light of other days". Do you recommend this book? Is it worth reading?
DeleteI have enjoyed it very much. I think I can recommend it. Polish edition is called "Światło minionych dni".
DeleteIt's part of my personal /tetrabiblos/ about challenges future humanity can encounter:
- "the Light of the other days" - total invigilation, for everyone
- "Snow crash" by N. Stephenson - world with enclaves ruled by private corporations
- "Accelerando" by C. Stross - General AI, algorithmic corporations, human mind augmentation
- "The Windup Girl" by P. Bacigalupi - post-oil, genetic engineering IP laws, permanent biohazard
According to authors, future is not *that* bad :-)
Thanks a lot :)!
Delete1) Are you ready to share sensitive data about yourself to improve the quality of services (e.g. getting an insurance offer when you regularly search for information about a serious illness despite of you haven't thought about it yet)?
ReplyDeletemaybe I am not ready to share sensitive data but what can I do with it? I think that if you are involved in IT bussiness you should be prepare for this kind of situation. Most of have accounts on Facebook, Linkedin and others and comapnies quite often use information from social networks to get some opinions about you when you are aplying for the job. If think that incurance companies are using data from social media. Also if you are using smartphone it collects many of your data, if your smartphone is connected to smartwatch then companies know a lot information about you. If you don't want to share your serch data you should use search engines which can give you guarantee that they don't trace you (ie DuckDuckGo).
2) Do you think that obfuscation of information about yourself is a sufficient safeguard? Do you have any idea for other solution?
I think that only solution is to stop using internet, smartphones etc. But in todays world it can be real difficult and also even if you stop now we should remember that nothing dies in the interenet.
3) Do you think that obfuscation the results is ethical? Give one argument for and against.
Why not. I mean you should be able to decide which kind if data youn want to share and which you want to hide.
That's true. Many HR using social media to find some more information about potential candidate.
DeleteStop using internet isn't possible, but I think that if we would use some kind of obfuscation programs and doing it regularly we can make unreadable information about us.
At the times when people share their private lives publicly with the whole world sacrificing a little bit of a privacy to let algorithms automatically analyze data about you isn't too much. I even prefer to get personalized advertisements and offers rather than random ones.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I don't see anything unethical in hiding these data. For the people who collect it, there isn't any actual loss. There is only potential conversion rate decrease as they can't offer you a service matching your needs.
Sharing information about myself with the whole world and updating status a few times per day is kind of sickness...but it's only my opinion ;)
Delete1. Definitely, I am not ready to share my personal information. In fact we are not conscious, in which way it can be used in the future. The data once sent to the net may exist there for ages, and while it is easy to put it there, it is sometimes impossible to remove it efficiently.
ReplyDelete2. Honestly, I think we should not talk about sufficient safeguard, but rather about the sense of gathering false data. How can we analyze such material, making any decisions, if the base data is just unreal?...
3. Obfuscation is never ethical… In respect to information also. If we receive – as a result – untrue data, I can only ask, what all of that is for – it does not correspond to the purpose of such information gathering, as I mentioned above.
I have no argument to prove obfuscation’s ethics. For me we lose time and other resources…
I was interested in your point of view. I disagree that obfuscation isn't ethical. I used it many times and don't think that it is something bad. When we obfuscation information about us the only thing which we do is hiding them. As you said this information could be used many years later in way which we didn't know yet.
Delete1) Are you ready to share sensitive data about yourself to improve the quality of services (e.g. getting an insurance offer when you regularly search for information about a serious illness despite of you haven't thought about it yet)?
ReplyDeleteI am definitely not willing to share my data to anyone and especially not to some marketing companies. I am already not accepting any newsletters and providing minimal required data possible. I think all of us are so tired with unwanted ads, cookies and all web crawlers that makes using internet worse and worse.
2) Do you think that obfuscation of information about yourself is a sufficient safeguard? Do you have any idea for other solution?
I don’t think it is sufficient. The best solution is to not provide the data at all but we know it is not possible. I think that anonymisation is a good solution. Irreversibly and effectively anonymised data is not “personal data” and the data protection principles do not have to be complied with in respect of such data. Data can be considered “anonymised” from a data protection perspective when data subjects are not identified, having regard to all methods reasonably likely to be used by the data controller or any other person to identify the data subject.
3) Do you think that obfuscation the results is ethical? Give one argument for and against.
I don’t think it is ethical or unethical.
I agree with your point of view. I'm trying to avoid sharing any data about myself or share as little as possible. Are you using any obfuscation programs? Which one?
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI'm not ready to share sensitive data, but unfortunately I am sharing, consciously and uncounsciously, a lot of information regarding myself when using Internet, searching stuff, buying stuff, using social media, Youtube etc. There is no way to avoid providing data regarding ourselves if we're active Intrnet users. We would have to stop using computers, phones, tablets etc. And I don't think it's possible in modern world. I think ofuscation is ethical, we have a right to privacy, even if we're only cheating ourselves that we're safe online:)
ReplyDeleteOf course it's impossible to avoid using all this site but when we are using obfuscation programs we make our data unrecognized. Do you thinking about using similar programs on your computer?
DeleteSome of this programs are on open source license so we can use it for free.
1) Are you ready to share sensitive data about yourself to improve the quality of services (e.g. getting an insurance offer when you regularly search for information about a serious illness despite of you haven't thought about it yet)?
ReplyDeleteYes, I can share my personal data when the thing I want to for example buy is important for me. Still, I would like to have a choice. In EU it will be harder to violate the law and use user's private data as GDPR will be empowered starting from May 2018.
2) Do you think that obfuscation of information about yourself is a sufficient safeguard? Do you have any idea for other solution?
It is not so simple. Firstly, if you want to buy a real stuff, take a loan etc you simply can't use not current data, as it can be illegal (or you won't get the thing or service you need). Secondly, it is really not easy to cheat if you are a basic Internet user. You can use 'incognito' option or avoid sharing your data, but to cheat all trackings for sure you have to be aware how to do this and to do this professionally to, for example, use VPN.
3) Do you think that obfuscation the results is ethical? Give one argument for and against.
I'm not sure if it can be thought in terms of being ethical or not.
But if I have to answer in that way, I'm sure that not ethical is using the data for reasons that user is not aware of or the data is collected and used only for some company profits. And you can think about "ethical usage" when some institution uses the data for our all good, for example, to fight with diseases, or so.
1) Are you ready to share the details of the information you need?
ReplyDeleteI'm not ready. But I know that this is not avoidable. We would have to stop using the internet.
2) Do you think that obfuscation of information about yourself is a sufficient safeguard? Do you have any idea for other solution?
According to me, this is a good step. But it is not enough. To protect ourselves, we must secure ourselves on many levels. Especially in the IT world.
3) Do you think that obfuscation the results is ethical? Give one argument for and against.
I dont have opinion, it is quite a liquid issue.
Why do you think that obfuscation information about yourself isn't enought? If we will generate a lot of false information about us, algoritm shouldn't be able to get all true of them.
Delete1) Are you ready to share sensitive data about yourself to improve the quality of services (e.g. getting an insurance offer when you regularly search for information about a serious illness despite of you haven't thought about it yet)?
ReplyDeleteI am not ready to share sensitive information about myself. I I have big hope in European Union legislation about storing personal data
2) Do you think that obfuscation of information about yourself is a sufficient safeguard? Do you have any idea for other solution?
We need to be aware howitzers try to use our data and do not share them everywhere.
3) Do you think that obfuscation the results is ethical? Give one argument for and against.
I do not have opinion on this one.
1) Are you ready to share sensitive data about yourself to improve the quality of services (e.g. getting an insurance offer when you regularly search for information about a serious illness despite of you haven't thought about it yet)?
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean by sensitive data? If you mean search content in browsers, it’s not important for me. However, in the case of personal data I would not like them to be made public and further processed. I'm afraid that the example you presented is already in use ...
2) Do you think that obfuscation of information about yourself is a sufficient safeguard? Do you have any idea for other solution?
Maybe it is, I’m not sure. I agree with other opinions that the best way to secure our data is not to give it anywhere. It’s impossible but we should consider what data can be entered even in search engines.
3) Do you think that obfuscation the results is ethical? Give one argument for and against.
The obfuscation of the results is neither ethical nor unethical. It depends on what you want to use it. For example: is the knife ethical? What if you use it to cut bread or murder? It doesn’t matter: the knife itself is neither ethical nor unethical…
1) Are you ready to share sensitive data about yourself to improve the quality of services (e.g. getting an insurance offer when you regularly search for information about a serious illness despite of you haven't thought about it yet)?
ReplyDeleteI don't like how big companies are using our data, so I minimize the usage of their products.
I don't actively use Facebook, I don't owe a smartphone, I'm using duckduckgo.com instead of Google, Firefox instead of Chrome.
So I think no, I'm not ready to share the data about myself.
2) Do you think that obfuscation of information about yourself is a sufficient safeguard? Do you have any idea for other solution?
I'm not sure. At some point in time the tool Google Analytics was calculating the web page traffic in the way, that entering through the phone and entering through the computer's browser were 2 unique visits. Now it is able to figure out that the guy in front of the computer and the phone owner is the same guy. And it is calculated as 1.
I think obfuscation may not be enough.
3) Do you think that obfuscation the results is ethical? Give one argument for and against.
If you accept the terms and conditions and then doing something against them, it is not ok. On the other hand, I understand why people want to hide their private data. But they should switch to different tools, because violating terms and conditions is just not ethic. I cannot find an argument for it.
1) Are you ready to share sensitive data about yourself to improve the quality of services (e.g. getting an insurance offer when you regularly search for information about a serious illness despite of you haven't thought about it yet)?
ReplyDeleteI don't think I am ready to share sensitive data about myself to improve the quality of services. Despite the fact that I am a good driver I am not convinced I would like to share my data to get an insurance cheaper.
2) Do you think that obfuscation of information about yourself is a sufficient safeguard? Do you have any idea for other solution?
I am not sure about this. I think it is possible to retrieve the real pattern of the search even if we use such programs.
3) Do you think that obfuscation the results is ethical? Give one argument for and agains.
I don't think I understand this question. It is rather neutral in terms of ethics. However, If we decide to accept some kind of terms of use of a portal or something else it may become controversial.
1) Are you ready to share sensitive data about yourself to improve the quality of services (e.g. getting an insurance offer when you regularly search for information about a serious illness despite of you haven't thought about it yet)?
ReplyDeleteWe do it all the time. Some of us because we want, the rest have no idea how much personal data they are sharing. Already facebook is able to say how much we earn, where do we live, what are our sexual preferences. All of that based on things that we are sharing and they are very accurate. So I’m not sure are you asking the correct question 😊
2) Do you think that obfuscation of information about yourself is a sufficient safeguard? Do you have any idea for other solution?
I’m not sure is there any solution. We can either stay online and understand that this is how it works or keep ourselves as far as possible from services like google, facebook etc.
3) Do you think that obfuscation the results is ethical? Give one argument for and against.
It is not that I don’t want to answer on your question but it is very hard. If I really must I would say that “why not?”. I want to decide which data and what kind of data I am sharing
1) Are you ready to share sensitive data about yourself to improve the quality of services (e.g. getting an insurance offer when you regularly search for information about a serious illness despite of you haven't thought about it yet)?
ReplyDeleteI feel that I am not ready for sharing sensitive data about myself, but from the other side, using Internet, having accounts in Google, Facebook or LinkedIn services, it is already sharing a lot of my personal data.
2) Do you think that obfuscation of information about yourself is a sufficient safeguard? Do you have any idea for other solution?
I think it depends what we would like to use. In some cases we don not want to do that as the correct personal data is a key to the proper functionality of the application.
3) Do you think that obfuscation the results is ethical? Give one argument for and against.
To be honest I don't know. I am not sure if it is a subject of an ethic.
1) Are you ready to share sensitive data about yourself to improve the quality of services (e.g. getting an insurance offer when you regularly search for information about a serious illness despite of you haven't thought about it yet)?
ReplyDeleteTruly, I don't care about it a lot. I don't use Twitter, FB I use only to set meeting for bascketball play. On the other hand I know that all my emails on Gmail are prcessed by Google and data from my phone is send somewhere by Android apps.
2) Do you think that obfuscation of information about yourself is a sufficient safeguard? Do you have any idea for other solution?
I think it is not. Artur has mentioned VPN which I 'm using. But I'm not sure if it solves a problem. VPN provider store data about his clients and it can be sold or stoled.
3) Do you think that obfuscation the results is ethical? Give one argument for and against.
I agree with Mateusz that violating terms and conditions is not ethic. If you don't accept them don't use service
1) Are you ready to share sensitive data about yourself to improve the quality of services?
ReplyDeleteI certainly am sharing some sensitive data to a number of on-line service providers (mostly monopolies). I am aware of the data collection and limit my exposure to it as far as practically possible. But there is a trade-off here. I don't waste too much time on personalization, and use many services in incognito browser mode. Recently, I was introduced to browser which now contends for my default: https://brave.com/
2) Do you think that obfuscation of information about yourself is a sufficient safeguard? Do you have any idea for other solution?
I could seem a viable option back in 2006, but now it is almost useless. The programmatic spam in searches is an easy target for Machine Learning filters, and the important information is easily extracted. Not to mention the unnecessary network traffic, which can sometimes be expensive - especially in a mobile environment. And it is in these circumstances that you search for important information (e.g. checking office times of a doctor's practice).
The query noise, even when not filtered, was often detected and blocked via denial of service. There is a message about high traffic and a CAPTCHA to solve. The search after solving the CAPTCHA is manual, and performed by a motivated human.
The alternatives are search aggregation, for example by a trusted third party like duckduckgo.com. It is not a protection on the query itself (the information in the queries can still benefit the search service provider), but at least the identity of the querying person is protected to some degree.
Of course, there is a legal solution as well, but it may be harder to promote and introduce to the legal system. The privacy of the service consumers can be protected by law, and retention of query data can be defined as cybercrime. If there was criminal responsibility (prison time) for the executive staff, and fines - for example 3-year company revenue - the theft of our data would stop tomorrow.
3) Do you think that obfuscation the results is ethical? Give one argument for and against.
The data collectors will argue that this is a breach of their terms of service. This is the argument against obfuscation, which I personally find not convincing.
The ethical soundness of protecting against tracking follows from the civil right to privacy.
1) Are you ready to share sensitive data about yourself to improve the quality of services (e.g. getting an insurance offer when you regularly search for information about a serious illness despite of you haven't thought about it yet)?
ReplyDeleteI wish to not share my sensitive data but with my style of living this is impossible by now. I use FB and other social media but I try not to share too much information. Mostly I use them to communicate and find some interesting events which still gives a lot of information about my preferences to others. I wonder why sometimes I get really strange adverts which are not realted to any of my interest.
2) Do you think that obfuscation of information about yourself is a sufficient safeguard? Do you have any idea for other solution?
I think that this is not enough. Good companies have an algorithms to clean the data and get information anyway. Only good solution that comes to my mind is to not use google, fb, twitter etc. Maybe some alternative web search? In any case you share your date with someone.
3) Do you think that obfuscation the results is ethical? Give one argument for and against.
This is not easy to answer. You have to accept the terms that you are sharing your data to use the service but is there written that you cannot obfuscate it? Some services have such point like FB. If you accept them and still do not provide your real name to hide your privacy then is it a good or bad lie?
Of course, I would not like to share my data especially sensitive. Hiding information is a very difficult issue in modern times. We must remember that often a data leak occurs from the poor protection of "trusted institutions". Generally, obscuring I understood as an action protecting certain information while maintaining the functionality of the structure. In general, we can look at obfuscation in terms of software as if to try to hide the way the protected program works - and this is understandable. Of course, it also has its downsides and puts more responsibility on the author ...
ReplyDelete1) Are you ready to share sensitive data about yourself to improve the quality of services (e.g. getting an insurance offer when you regularly search for information about a serious illness despite of you haven't thought about it yet)?
ReplyDeleteI would like to avoid sharing any of my data. Not only sensitive one. However, most of the time I'm forced to agree and share my data.
2) Do you think that obfuscation of information about yourself is a sufficient safeguard? Do you have any idea for other solution?
This really depends. Strong obfuscation can lead to misunderstandings. I think being confused is always a bad option. For example, while obfuscating our medical information we have made a mistake and incorrectly obfuscated something very important. Doing that lead to incorrect treatment and you die. At the end most companies with big enough budget to hire internal hackers will get enough data about us. So, why bother ?
3) Do you think that obfuscation the results is ethical? Give one argument for and against.
This really depends. It's good, because it gives us additional layer of safety. It's bad if it's done incorrectly and leads to confusion.
1) Are you ready to share sensitive data about yourself to improve the quality of services (e.g. getting an insurance offer when you regularly search for information about a serious illness despite of you haven't thought about it yet)?
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I am not open for this kind of activity. In most of cases I decline it. It is not caused that I do not want to help in debugging process but I do not have time to analyse which kind of information is sensitive data for different software developers. If they want to analyse my private photos, bank accounts and messages - I do not want to allow that.
2) Do you think that obfuscation of information about yourself is a sufficient safeguard? Do you have any idea for other solution?
I think it is not a good idea - because organisation that want to collects your data in most of cases gives you free tool that they want to improve. From the other point of view - what is wrong with sharing data that is available in the network? My name and surname and for instance email is present in different public collections. I want to protect my confidential set of data that I do not want to share.
3) Do you think that obfuscation the results is ethical? Give one argument for and against.
It depends … I wrote the answer above.
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