Comments on: Privacy through Difficulty

By: Daniel Tunkelang

Daniel Tunkelang — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 15:30:25 +0000

Sure, but I don't see how anyone can control that. I can't imagine even a theoretical framework where X and Y are both public, but the aggregation of X and Y is not. I think that we as a society have to start expecting that the information we disclose will be combined, so that those consequences are less hard to predict. The recent "please rob me" story highlights that we have a ways to go before we have rational conversations about privacy.

By: Gene Golovchinsky

Gene Golovchinsky — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:01:30 +0000

The true danger lies in federation of multiple sources, with hard-to-predict consequences to the consumer. Can we come up with a technological solution that would give the user control (before or after the fact) about what data about that person can be aggregated? If this aggregation is of value to some, is there a way to monetize that, to have the consumer derive a revenue stream from the reuse of their data?

By: The Internet hive and a new kind of privacy — Shooting at Bubbles

The Internet hive and a new kind of privacy — Shooting at Bubbles — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 06:02:09 +0000

[...] aren’t. Daniel referred to something in another of his posts of something that he called efficiency of the information market which I think is a key point here Some people are terrified by the increasing efficiency of the [...]

By: No Privacy Through Difficulty | The Noisy Channel

No Privacy Through Difficulty | The Noisy Channel — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 03:41:22 +0000

[...] blogged in the past about the futility of increasing futility of pursuing privacy through difficulty, and generally advocate an approach of “when in doubt, make it [...]

By: The Internet hive and a new kind of privacy - WinExtra

The Internet hive and a new kind of privacy - WinExtra — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 03:04:45 +0000

By: Ephemeral Conversation Is Dying | The Noisy Channel

Ephemeral Conversation Is Dying | The Noisy Channel — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 03:30:29 +0000

[...] inspired people to voluntarily live in virtual fishbowls. I’ve blogged about the end of privacy through difficulty, but it seems we’re heading in a direction of no privacy at all. It will be interesting to [...]

By: This Conversation Will Be Recorded | The Noisy Channel

This Conversation Will Be Recorded | The Noisy Channel — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 02:20:50 +0000

[...] have finally realized a perfect storm where anything can be published and everything can be found. Privacy through difficulty has given way to unintentional [...]

By: Quick Bites: Filter Failure

Quick Bites: Filter Failure — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:13:05 +0000

[...] What I particularly like in his “filter failure” characterization is that it really exposes the human-computer interaction challenges in managing information flow (in both directions). It also reminds me of Danah Boyd’s Master’s Thesis on managing identity in a digital world, and of some earlier discussion here about privacy through difficulty. [...]

By: Daniel Tunkelang

Daniel Tunkelang — Sun, 04 May 2008 16:48:00 +0000

It occurred to me that some might see a contradiction between this post and the previous week's post on Accessibility in Information Retrieval. Here, I'm suggesting that difficult-to-access content shouldn't be considered secure; there I'm suggesting that difficult-to-access content shouldn't be considered accessible.

Of course, these are different use cases. Still, it's worth keeping in mind that different users have different motives. What prevents a casual user from accessing information won't stop a sufficiently determined one.