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0 pointsdredmorbius9y ago0 comments

You can make holding and using that data highly intractable.

If there are blisteringly strong penalties to holding and trading in personal data, the incentives to do so will largely disappear. Unfortunately, statutory regimes, particularly in the United States, seem to be going in the opposite direction.

With the ability to seek out and purge disclosed data, at least some of the damage can be mitigated. Considering that there is far too much information for humans to ever process but a small portion of it, that might actually be sufficient -- we won't be needing the Men in Black eraser pens.

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Bartweiss9y ago

All fair points, though I specifically had individual defense in mind. I don't know any good way for an individual to restrain accurate data once it's released, so poisoning is the only option I see to dilute the value of it.

At least when thinking about individual defenses, I tend to treat the regulatory landscape as a lost cause - currently I'm just hoping that privacy tools won't be actively outlawed.

dredmorbiusOP8y ago

Information-related activities have far more in common with epidemiology -- and at all kinds of levels -- than pretty much anything else.

Whether it's concern of your data going out, or bad genetics patterns coming in, your best bet is to cut off the routes of transmission.

In a plague-infested land, it's practicing exceedingly good hygiene which is in your best interest. If that means walling yourself off from the rest of society for a few years (as one royal household in Europe did), so be it.

Keep in mind that the Black Death even eventually reached Iceland, though some years after it scorched over the rest of Europe (4-5 years as I recall).

There are domains of problems which are intrinsically personal. Though rather more which manifestly are not.

(Though you've also got me thinking about what equivalents to own information spreading out there are, epidemiologically.)

Bartweiss8y ago

> (Though you've also got me thinking about what equivalents to own information spreading out there are, epidemiologically.)

This seems like a really good question, actually. The disease model of information is quite effective, at least in terms of ideas like herd immunity, transmission rates, quarantine, etc.

But at the "patient zero" level it's quite strange, with personal information being a thing you know you have and don't want to spread unintentionally. It definitely changes some things compared to the standard model, though I think you have a point that you can invert things fairly effectively (i.e. 'hygeine' is to avoid spreading info, instead of contracting it).

I also wish there was more good writing on information hazards, which follow the epidemiology model almost precisely. So much of what's out there descends into Cthulu references or 'fake news' rants, rather than looking at the actual metaphors for things like "herd immunity".

(Surely someone has written an ironic essay about "vaccinating against anti-vax ideas"?)

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