https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/25/t...a-privacy.html

Probably not breaking news...

But, don't pretend to be unaware of what will very-soon be coming down ... draconian laws protecting personal privacy and putting a huge kabash on the present "industry" of selling what nobody needs to know about you.

The health industries in the United States already have laws such as HIPAA and HITECH which especially mandate "personally identifiable health information." You can literally go to prison for a long time.

Don't expect the rest of the computer industry, nor the "Internet of Things," to be exempt from similar treatment ... no matter how much money they pay to Senators and Congressmen to try to prevent it.

If your company has any data which is not absolutely required to run your business, you would do well to identify it, catalog it, and document that you have destroyed it in the presence of five attorneys.

PAH !
In this country the laws are freedom from privacy, not privacy of information.

People happily accept devices that track their every movement, and listen to every word they say. Not to mention their (so-called) smart TV.
Bloody sight smarter than the user that's for sure.

No sympathy.

These situations have a way of turning on a dime. As soon as John Q. Public becomes aware that there is a threat, legislatures are going to be pressured to react ... and, god knows what will happen next.

You place far more faith in the American public than I. The majority are too busy uploading pictures of their hamburgers to Facebook, following twits on Twitter, and binge-watching Game of Thrones to pay attention to stuff that matters.

... until they suddenly are confronted with the realization that they must.

Yes, I think that I do place much more faith in the world's public, than perhaps you do.

Don't bet the bank on your medical information being private.

I was waiting in the lobby of the building I live in while doing my laundry and a woman that was visiting a resident started talking about how she made extra cash from home typing out Dictaphone transcripts doctors make at a local clinic and laughing about all the crazy things different people are afflicted with.

I took issue with it big time and asked her about it. She said all that was protected by HIPA, but I told her I didn't give consent for her to be reading my medical information. She got peeved and I didn't care.

I called the clinic the next morning to look into it but the people in that department wouldn't be in til later that day so I just let it slide as I don't believe in going to the doctor anyway and haven't been for years.

A medical transcriptionist would have access to what is on the recording that she was transcribing, but she was out-of-line to be talking about it with her friend and she would have been in serious trouble if she had named names.

Fortunately, computer voice-recognition technology will probably put the medical transcriptionist out-of-work very soon.

- - - - -
Bottom line, IMHO, is that very draconian privacy laws are coming, along with successful multi-million dollar ("big enough to shut a big-boy down") liability lawsuits which the plaintiffs will lose. So, I tell anyone who will listen what I said earlier – that you should not retain, and should verifiably destroy, absolutely any information that you do not need to collect or to retain in order to run your business ... no matter how much money anyone offers you for it. You'd also better be sure that you actually know what your mobile applications are doing. You'd better know that your communication channels are cryptographically secure. And, you'd better keep an up-to-the-second electronic log, ready for immediate use when you are subpoenaed with a demand for discovery.

When the public finally reacts, it will be with "international outrage," and the lawsuits are gonna fly and the legislators are gonna "do something." 1984 will come a'tumblin' down in a heap, and manufacturers of refrigerators and robotic vacuum cleaners will rue the day when they put wireless communication gear in them in the first place.

What the future will be, is easy to see, as is the fact that it will be so. What's a little more difficult to predict is, when. However, I think it won't be long now.

... if they can see that confrontation when it strikes them in face like a wet sponge. Experience suggests that they either cannot or choose not to.

Keep in mind that, for most persons, computers are mystickal magickal boxes of wonderment. They call the Geek Squad when the magic stops happening and don't have a clue as to how this stuff works.

You and I and most of the persons who frequent sites like this have some clues, but we are very much the outliers.

Mind you, I share your outrage at Silicon Valley's (I use that term metaphorically for the computer industry) abuse of trust, at their willingness to pick the pockets of those who make them wealthy. I just frankly think that most persons just don't get it. If they ever do get it, it will be so long after the damage is done that the damage is irreparable.

Sort of like with climate change. After my city is under water people will get it, but it will be too darned late.

I just stick my head under the pillow and tell myself, "The house isn't really on fire."

You have to realize that most people want to go to work, for eight hours, go home, eat, drink, watch television; and make the minimum monthly payment on their credit cards. They've been turned into mind-numbed robots. They need truth. But they will never find it, because they can't handle it.

All we need is for a high-profile crime or act of terrorism to occur which is based on exploitation of this data.

And, eventually, it will come.

Data terrorism?

In the first place, who started all these things. What do they have in mind? Money, make the word a better place? Or Just take money, don't mind the consequences. (collateral damage)


As what the odds say, to see is to believe. People don't realize until they get soak and wet in a situation that is too deep for them to swim and get out of the situation.

All things is just a matter of time. Time come and Go and it repeats again the next day.

People should realize the their own precious data, should not be Public. Freedom to choose, freedom to exploit, freedom to quit and draw the line that enough is enough.

You're referring to a people, in general, who post their every move, sexual encounter, what they had for breakfast, etc., sometime complete with photos, on Facebook.

Not me.

I am warning against nothing less than "Data as an Act of War."

Our military thinking continues to be based on armies and warships – but the last Act of War that was perpetrated against the United States, on 9/11, was entirely based on infiltration. The opponent rigged three(!) buildings in New York City with high explosives and neatly blew all three of them to the ground in a rather stunning display of demolition skill. And they did it right under our noses. The US Government (quite properly, I think ...) kept Top Secret everything that they learned about it, giving us only a cover-story. But, the vulnerability remains ... and now, with data collection as we see it today, it has become personal. You are vulnerable within your own home.

"We know where you are, where your children are, where in the house your bedrooms are, and when your child is home alone. We know your habits and routines. We know your voice and your face. We analyze every picture that you take with your iPhone and identify everyone in it (You help us, as you 'tag' pictures in Facebook.)" ... And "we" are not(!) your Government!

We're data contractors, working for private companies, sitting in your nice "out-sourced" data center which happens to be only a few hundred miles away from where your armies have been blasting away at our countrymen for a dozen years. And, we have other countrymen, who are present in your country and in your domestic data centers on "non-immigrant visas." We don't communicate with them directly, however. We sew memory chips taken from USB "jump drives" into our clothing – airport X-rays cannot see them, and you of course (trusting fools that you all are ...) do not suspect anything, so certain you are that the whole world revolves around your countries.

We have two other weapons that you should have learned about on 9/11: patience, and cunning. You're handing us this information and not paying the slightest bit of attention to what might be done with it. "What Fools These Mortals Be!"