[HN Gopher] Privacy is an afterthought. Here's how devs can easi...
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Privacy is an afterthought. Here's how devs can easily make it
better.
Author : c1ll1an
Score : 62 points
Date : 2021-07-23 10:45 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (stackoverflow.blog)
(TXT) w3m dump (stackoverflow.blog)
| mikece wrote:
| Every developer who as been in the industry longer than a year is
| almost certainly part of two or more major data breeches. I can
| only speak for myself but I take privacy and security very
| seriously not only for myself but in architecting system to
| protect client data as much as possible (and to collect as little
| as is absolutely necessary).
| TheChaplain wrote:
| In my experience the devs usually aren't the obstacle when it
| comes to implementing privacy, it's a bit higher up the chain...
| nsamuell wrote:
| Maybe for the "big" decisions (like whether or not to store
| user data in the first place), but I'd argue that in the myriad
| of small decisions (like whether to copy the entire user object
| into an analytics table or just a pseudonymized id) I do think
| the average dev isn't as "respectful" as you think...
|
| YMMV of course
| pmoriarty wrote:
| And yet devs can't entirely wash their hands of responsibility,
| since no one forces them to work at companies that don't
| respect privacy.
| throwaway210222 wrote:
| > no one forces them to work at companies that don't respect
| privacy.
|
| I'll move if my customers move too.
| [deleted]
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| Interviewer: Do you have any questions for us.
|
| Candidate: Will this job require me to violate anyone's
| privacy.
|
| Hold on, how about this instead.
|
| Candidate: Will this job require me to do anything illegal.
|
| Candidate already knows the answers to these questions. She has
| no need to ask.
|
| This "the boss made me do it" defense seems to be a recurring
| comment on HN, perhaps from those with a guilty conscience. But
| is it really persuasive. It is like asking the reader have
| empathy for a drug dealer selling fentanyl because "he really
| needs the money and no one else will hire him".
|
| "I really just want to sell marijuana but the people higher up
| the chain decided we should sell opiates instead."
| csande17 wrote:
| I dunno, machine learning engineers were a key force against
| privacy at one company I once worked at. As an ML engineer,
| your whole career sort of depends on convincing the company you
| work at to collect as much information as possible from their
| users, so that you can then run it through magical algorithms
| to make it look like you're providing value to the company.
| (There are exceptions, but entire subfields like
| "recommendation systems" depend on this--startups aren't hiring
| ML engineers to get better at playing chess.)
| isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote:
| I've also seen plenty of projects which did not use proper
| authentication and authorization because devs were too lazy
| to implement it or to learn the platform they were developing
| on (e.g. AWS). It's an indirect effect on privacy, but when
| it hits it hits hard.
| atoav wrote:
| Where I work devs usually have the most force. We know privacy
| laws, we care about not collecting bullshit data that might
| ruin our day when our org looses it later. We are not a
| software company however, software is mostly for us and our
| customers
| pjmlp wrote:
| The only way to make it part of the original requirements and not
| an afterthought is to start making it like in other industries.
|
| Exemplary punishment for any security exploit gone wild.
|
| Management will start getting the required resources to make it
| happen accordingly.
| stadium wrote:
| There is a risk that good intentioned regulations become a
| barrier to entry that only large, well-resourced organizations
| can meet.
|
| For example, what if "management" is a one or two person
| startup?
|
| Maybe punishment is not the answer, but rather liability
| insurance coverage requirements. Or treat it like workers
| compensation where a small tax funds an insurance pool. And
| make it so repeat offenders get charged an increasingly higher
| tax rate.
| b3morales wrote:
| Penalties can be both severe and proportionate to revenue at
| the same time, as one option.
| fitblipper wrote:
| I think a huge chunk of bad privacy outcomes arise through data
| retention policies and aggregation across many sources.
|
| To operate, a phone company might need to know where you are
| calling from and who, a doctors office might need to know your
| medical and contact info, an isp might need to know your ip
| address, a dating website might need to know your ip address,
| your chat app might need to know your contact list, your gps
| might need to know your precise location at this specific time.
|
| Do they need to know them for years though? And once all this
| info is aggregated, how personal is the information that can be
| learned?
| pintxo wrote:
| Quite a complex approach, where most will be able to gain a lot
| with some very simple actions:
|
| - dont collect data you do not absolutely need to service the
| user
|
| - do not use third party libs or services, where you do not
| understand how they handle the data you submit to it
| seanpreston wrote:
| That second point is very interesting. Beyond reading code /
| SLA for the lib, I'm not sure there's an easy (read: time
| efficient) way to understand what data points are used for what
| purposes currently. At least it seems that would hold for a lot
| of services.
|
| Am I missing something here?
| formerly_proven wrote:
| The easy way is a Data Processing Agreement, which has to
| precisely list what data is processed which way.
|
| This is of course a legal document and the implementation may
| do something else.
| swiley wrote:
| Privacy and most other things are always an afterthought for
| closed software.
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(page generated 2021-07-23 23:02 UTC)