A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749 (2006)(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749 (2006)
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/technology/09aol.html
47 comments
https://web.archive.org/web/20170715075814/https://www.nytim...
This is important to look back on in the context of what's happing now with AI tools. This story is obviously about the leak of the data publicly, but what it shows is the profiling that is available to corporations.
Search has exposed so much data about ourselves to the services we use with very little regulation on what they are permitted to do with it inside their own walls.
My fear with AI is that we are moving toward sending even more data to party services. Tools such a co-pilot (which I enjoy using) are a gold mine for behavioural analysis. The profiling that will be possible with these tools is extraordinary and we don't yet fully understand the implication.
It's because of this that I'm a massive proponent of "Local AI". We need to be pushing for the industry to adopt a local inference architecture asap. It needs to become the standard pattern as early as possible to reduce the risk of the AI revolution being a repeat of the invasive internet search and advertising industry.
Search has exposed so much data about ourselves to the services we use with very little regulation on what they are permitted to do with it inside their own walls.
My fear with AI is that we are moving toward sending even more data to party services. Tools such a co-pilot (which I enjoy using) are a gold mine for behavioural analysis. The profiling that will be possible with these tools is extraordinary and we don't yet fully understand the implication.
It's because of this that I'm a massive proponent of "Local AI". We need to be pushing for the industry to adopt a local inference architecture asap. It needs to become the standard pattern as early as possible to reduce the risk of the AI revolution being a repeat of the invasive internet search and advertising industry.
Noise generation is the only answer the common person has against the giant corporate machine.
You need a personal "AI" that just does random searches unconnected with your life, constantly, in the background, and then injects this data into all the portals that are watching you.
Ultimately, their data will become dominated by noise, and ultimately useless to the point of severely destroying the value of the entire enterprise and data collection mechanisms in the first place.
No matter how many tools you make "local only" you're only a forgotten "send telemetry back to the mothership" checkbox away from being right where you started.
You need a personal "AI" that just does random searches unconnected with your life, constantly, in the background, and then injects this data into all the portals that are watching you.
Ultimately, their data will become dominated by noise, and ultimately useless to the point of severely destroying the value of the entire enterprise and data collection mechanisms in the first place.
No matter how many tools you make "local only" you're only a forgotten "send telemetry back to the mothership" checkbox away from being right where you started.
> Ultimately, their data will become dominated by noise
This was a plot point in a Neal Stephenson novel, "Fall [...]". It's been a while so I'm fuzzy on the details, but one of main characters floods the Internet with constant AI-generated content, but I can't remember if it was to drown out bad PR or break the anonymous identification mechanism ubiquitous in the book's world.
This was a plot point in a Neal Stephenson novel, "Fall [...]". It's been a while so I'm fuzzy on the details, but one of main characters floods the Internet with constant AI-generated content, but I can't remember if it was to drown out bad PR or break the anonymous identification mechanism ubiquitous in the book's world.
Until the noise you generate gets you on legitimate watch lists. One day it's going to search for a random product or compound that your neighbor two houses over just murdered their baby sister with and now you are an active suspect and get your electronics seized for a full search.
This argument boils down to "the government is too powerful and you shouldn't provoke it" while attempting to vouchsafe the legitimacy of metadata driven watch lists in the first place.
In my eyes this just strengthens the case.
In my eyes this just strengthens the case.
This might work at an individual level, but it isn’t scalable to the general population.
It’s hard to imagine any population-scale solution that doesn’t involve regulation.
The biggest problem with regulation (in my eyes) is that it thwarts competition between countries. E.g. if the US imposes restrictions on technology, innovation is incentivized to happen elsewhere. The EU has been bold on the privacy regulatory front with GDPR and the like, and has probably lost out on immeasurable monetary gains as a result. There’s a huge cost to regulation, but it works.
It’s hard to imagine any population-scale solution that doesn’t involve regulation.
The biggest problem with regulation (in my eyes) is that it thwarts competition between countries. E.g. if the US imposes restrictions on technology, innovation is incentivized to happen elsewhere. The EU has been bold on the privacy regulatory front with GDPR and the like, and has probably lost out on immeasurable monetary gains as a result. There’s a huge cost to regulation, but it works.
Why isn't it scalable? This could be a $19.95 device that you buy and just plug into your router. Instead of "Totally not the FBI VPN" why not "Noisy Gateway Service?"
I don't believe there's any worthwhile way to regulate this technology nor is there any particular reason to. The imbalance comes about because of spare electricity, which is truly the crux here, that we have so much to waste on dippy language models while also having so little to spare that some people have none... or possibly worse... electricity with random availability.
This you could actually regulate. I think the game is clear.
I don't believe there's any worthwhile way to regulate this technology nor is there any particular reason to. The imbalance comes about because of spare electricity, which is truly the crux here, that we have so much to waste on dippy language models while also having so little to spare that some people have none... or possibly worse... electricity with random availability.
This you could actually regulate. I think the game is clear.
The issue with AI is that people are going to be creating work product with it, and it doesn't require the extensive infrastructure that search has.
Google knows alot about your behavior - they can and have been able to correlate online behavior with health and meatspace actions to identify budding extremists or people at risk of addiction, etc. AI will bring that capability to business processes.
With the number of little companies that are springing up, it will become much easier for outside parties to figure out how instituions work. This capability exists, but it's gated by Google and Microsoft and they have drawn lines to protect the overall business. Some jackass will install a creepy AI tool to scrape outlook and salesguys will be able to get a profile of who makes what decision in a company, for example.
Google knows alot about your behavior - they can and have been able to correlate online behavior with health and meatspace actions to identify budding extremists or people at risk of addiction, etc. AI will bring that capability to business processes.
With the number of little companies that are springing up, it will become much easier for outside parties to figure out how instituions work. This capability exists, but it's gated by Google and Microsoft and they have drawn lines to protect the overall business. Some jackass will install a creepy AI tool to scrape outlook and salesguys will be able to get a profile of who makes what decision in a company, for example.
AI does take a ton of infrastructure.
You need data collection and curation.
Massive amounts of training hardware.
And a large infrastructure to ensure you can scale. No easy feat with the current GPU stack.
And a large infrastructure to ensure you can scale. No easy feat with the current GPU stack.
Are there not relatively tiny workloads that fall under the umbrella of AI? Or does the term itself inherently refer to intense workloads, like how the phrase "big data" refers to sets that can't be processed by typical means?
Training AIs is almost always done with massive data, as small data usually doesn’t have sufficient information content, statistically speaking, to build a good model from it. Certainly this is the case for the generative models.
I think AI refers to large models.
Smaller probabilistic models line linear regression, I’d call machine learning.
Smaller probabilistic models line linear regression, I’d call machine learning.
It takes a ton of infrastructure to maintain a sustained misinformation campaign.
Yet cloud providers happily sell resources and APIs to unethical companies. They rightfully don’t insert themselves into most legal business matters, with exceptions.
Yet cloud providers happily sell resources and APIs to unethical companies. They rightfully don’t insert themselves into most legal business matters, with exceptions.
> Google knows alot about your behavior - they can and have been able to correlate online behavior with health and meatspace actions to identify budding extremists or people at risk of addiction, etc. AI will bring that capability to business processes.
not in the EU it won't.
if you can de-anonymize people from the data it's not anonymous, and collecting this data at all would be illegal in the EU without user consent, unless it's being used solely for the purpose of delivering the service.
not in the EU it won't.
if you can de-anonymize people from the data it's not anonymous, and collecting this data at all would be illegal in the EU without user consent, unless it's being used solely for the purpose of delivering the service.
I fully agree. If local AI takes traction, then we actually have a unique opportunity to take away some of that massive profiling, as some of what you use search engines for today can be done by AI. This may be why there's some fear-mongering around truly open-source AI and such by the big ones.
That episode (releasing the AOL search query log file for research purposes and subsequent aftermath) led to some firings at the company, but some information retrieval searchers used this log to conduct important experiments.
The "60s lady with the dog that kept peeing her sofa" got her hour of fame, and the whole thing became a case study in de-anonymization.
A few pointers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_log_release
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233390862_Privacy_P...
https://github.com/wasiahmad/aol_query_log_analysis
https://www.technologyreview.com/2006/08/15/100592/who-benef...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00200...
https://isquared.wordpress.com/2014/04/24/mining-search-logs...
The "60s lady with the dog that kept peeing her sofa" got her hour of fame, and the whole thing became a case study in de-anonymization.
A few pointers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_log_release
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233390862_Privacy_P...
https://github.com/wasiahmad/aol_query_log_analysis
https://www.technologyreview.com/2006/08/15/100592/who-benef...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00200...
https://isquared.wordpress.com/2014/04/24/mining-search-logs...
https://web.archive.org/web/20131016001916/http://www.someth...
https://web.archive.org/web/20130822124159/http://www.someth...
https://web.archive.org/web/20130822124204/http://www.someth...
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https://web.archive.org/web/20131024112051im_/http://i.somet...
https://www.mercurynews.com/2015/03/23/san-jose-man-convicte...
https://web.archive.org/web/20130822124159/http://www.someth...
https://web.archive.org/web/20130822124204/http://www.someth...
------------------------------------
https://web.archive.org/web/20131024112051im_/http://i.somet...
https://www.mercurynews.com/2015/03/23/san-jose-man-convicte...
There was also a theatre production produced around AOL User 927: https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2008/05/uare-what-u-se...
And a documentary series about User 711391: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1455044/
And a documentary series about User 711391: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1455044/
Couldn't this functionality be automized somehow? Every time there's a link on HN to a paywalled article, I have to the same dance:
1. Click on the link
2. Find out it's behind a paywall
3. Go back in the browser
4. Click on the "comments" link.
5. Look for the post that has the archive.is version of it.
6. Click on that.
Surely that could somehow be collapsed into just a single click?
1. Click on the link
2. Find out it's behind a paywall
3. Go back in the browser
4. Click on the "comments" link.
5. Look for the post that has the archive.is version of it.
6. Click on that.
Surely that could somehow be collapsed into just a single click?
You can go in the browser URL field and type "archive.is/" in front of the URL and press enter after step 2. It'll either redirect you to an existing archive page or lets you create one if one doesn't exist.
I get good use out of this browser extension: https://github.com/arantius/resurrect-pages
Sites are usually archived already.
Sites are usually archived already.
For some reason it isn't loading for me, but if you use a search engine that supports bangs in your URL bar (DDG or Kagi) you can prefix the url with !ais and just search that. Same with !wbm or !ia for Wayback Machine
Open the current page in archive.li:
javascript:(function()%7B%0A%20window.location%20%3D%20%22https%3A%2F%2Farchive.li%2F%22%20%2B%20window.location%3B%0A%7D)()[deleted]
I usually just start with the comments. If I see an archive link I'll use that (assuming I've determined that the source article is worth reading at all).
Here's how this could be done as a HN-side feature with zero interaction with archive.is servers:
* Compile a list of domains like nytimes.com that have soft paywalls.
* When a link like https://example.com/ is submitted and its domain is on the paywall list, insert [archive](https://archive.is/timegate/https://example.com/) after it in the title area. Just prefix the timegate part and it's a working link.
* Compile a list of domains like nytimes.com that have soft paywalls.
* When a link like https://example.com/ is submitted and its domain is on the paywall list, insert [archive](https://archive.is/timegate/https://example.com/) after it in the title area. Just prefix the timegate part and it's a working link.
It cant be a first party feature.
Re-identification of supposedly anonymous data was a problem twenty years ago, and is a bigger problem today. Soon it may become a crisis, as the tools needed to do it become more and more turnkey, effective, and commodified. Now we dox as in a glass, darkly, etc.
This data is already "re-identified" by some somebodies. And complete intent to harm over a course of 5 years proven out. I have evidence, lots of it. The individuals initially affected by the search leak need to be notified by a representative of AOL and probably SOE. Time to stop the dark patterns of attribution games and ready the individuals for what is to come. If I had been caught alone, I probably would have not made it through the harassment that came from the people that have re-identified the data.
Have three identities confirmed - yet the individuals doing the harassment all know best evidence has to come from law enforcement and the logs - not my screenshots. It's part of the game they play with the data.
Maybe some day we'll have a PIR-based[1] search engine-- but then you couldn't harvest data on your users and sell personalized ads, so maybe not.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_information_retrieval
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_information_retrieval
My data is in this list someone used for "research". They evidently correlated with Sony Everquest Chats, LinkedIn, Twitter, AOL, corporate email, Meta, Amazon Purchases, Natural Language Processing Data collections, some DFIR (digital forensics) data collection, HR records and so much more. I would say at the time they collected the info I was planning renaissance fest attire, studying security topics and frantically figuring out identities of some gamers who dogpiled on me as a few made genuine threats towards my life and livelihood.
I'd say yes, throw disinformation at at, as once I started noticing someone was really doing that level of tracking I did throw disinfo at it... a lot. The problem was with their interpretations from there of searches intentionally made to mess them up - as I neither had consent yet realized I was being stalked.
That went on and on and on - until people died - my father thought I was swatting him (I had a welfare check made - not a swat - as they were disclosing his financial advisor and info - he's white and safe presumably) . Yet yes, people did die. It is evident no one understands it is never just them in research or in a channel for conversations. The result of the whole thing was my childhood best friend also being left homeless and run over (by someone opportunistic in the whole process). My brother de-housed by a gang member a party kept sending about (one actually poisoned my dog). My father alienated. My sister used as a puppet for extortion instead of being rehabbed.
It's very very very ugly the string of deaths and alienation that came from what they thought was funny research into AI.
This old data needs to be located and disposed of or put into proper custodianship. It's grown teeth that cost lives. Throwing misinfo at it is just crapping up the Internet more to push to web 3.0, where the same problem will thrive. Requires legislation. Not quite relaxed enough to articulate how and what right now due to the extensive harassment that came about from it all. Maybe some day. It's been pretty terrorizing.
I'd say yes, throw disinformation at at, as once I started noticing someone was really doing that level of tracking I did throw disinfo at it... a lot. The problem was with their interpretations from there of searches intentionally made to mess them up - as I neither had consent yet realized I was being stalked.
That went on and on and on - until people died - my father thought I was swatting him (I had a welfare check made - not a swat - as they were disclosing his financial advisor and info - he's white and safe presumably) . Yet yes, people did die. It is evident no one understands it is never just them in research or in a channel for conversations. The result of the whole thing was my childhood best friend also being left homeless and run over (by someone opportunistic in the whole process). My brother de-housed by a gang member a party kept sending about (one actually poisoned my dog). My father alienated. My sister used as a puppet for extortion instead of being rehabbed.
It's very very very ugly the string of deaths and alienation that came from what they thought was funny research into AI.
This old data needs to be located and disposed of or put into proper custodianship. It's grown teeth that cost lives. Throwing misinfo at it is just crapping up the Internet more to push to web 3.0, where the same problem will thrive. Requires legislation. Not quite relaxed enough to articulate how and what right now due to the extensive harassment that came about from it all. Maybe some day. It's been pretty terrorizing.
I'm trying to learn more about what disinformation is, could you please post your thoughts under the following Ask HN post?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39554369
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39554369
There's one thing could work, but which would be very hard or impossible to implement: management personal responsibility for private data loss/exposure.
[deleted]
2006...
If they only knew....
Now people create accounts to get their searches directly tied to their profile
Like that new search engine that's better than googly?
On tons of search engines and AI services, you are nudged or required to have an account (which forces you to de-anonymize yourself and/or link your activity to a specific account).
20 years ago, when this leak happened, the situation wasn't like that.
Gmail was barely born, so Google accounts didn't make sense.
The article was like "wow we managed to deanonymize a search query", but that's actually the norm now.
Essentially, this scandalous AOL-leak, became a legitimized every-day routine (sadly).
Today when you type anything inside a ChatGPT-like AI app (this is the case also for many search engines), you get tons of contractors, workers and partners who have access to such dataset:
researchers, engineers, support, advertising platforms, technical intermediaries, legal, etc.
Though the future isn't gloomy; in the short-term, with the advent of LLMs, we may actually see a really good solution private-wise: fully local answers.
Which means that for the first time, queries and questions may not leave the device or sent to whoever you need to trust.
20 years ago, when this leak happened, the situation wasn't like that.
Gmail was barely born, so Google accounts didn't make sense.
The article was like "wow we managed to deanonymize a search query", but that's actually the norm now.
Essentially, this scandalous AOL-leak, became a legitimized every-day routine (sadly).
Today when you type anything inside a ChatGPT-like AI app (this is the case also for many search engines), you get tons of contractors, workers and partners who have access to such dataset:
researchers, engineers, support, advertising platforms, technical intermediaries, legal, etc.
Though the future isn't gloomy; in the short-term, with the advent of LLMs, we may actually see a really good solution private-wise: fully local answers.
Which means that for the first time, queries and questions may not leave the device or sent to whoever you need to trust.
You mean Kagi? They’re pretty transparent about how they approach query data, and it’s as privacy-friendly as any I’ve seen.
https://kagi.com/privacy
https://kagi.com/privacy
No, I wasn't referring to Kagi (which is done by a hard-working guy btw), just in general to the trend that the internet is now completely different if seen from a perspective of 2006.
Storage was expensive, and data wasn't seen as a goldmine as now, so most long-term logs went to /dev/null.
That the normality now is to ask users to create an account, have data-scientists (whose goal is precisely to find needles in haystacks), etc.
Storage was expensive, and data wasn't seen as a goldmine as now, so most long-term logs went to /dev/null.
That the normality now is to ask users to create an account, have data-scientists (whose goal is precisely to find needles in haystacks), etc.
> Kagi [...] [is] as privacy-friendly as any I’ve seen
For now
For now
Kagi makes it very clear in their privacy policy and in their settings that search queries are not saved. If they save them regardless, that's a clear cut violation of the law.
From their settings page:
From their settings page:
> Save My Search History
> Currently this option can not be turned on. Kagi does not save any
> searches by default. In the future we may add features that will
> utilize your search history and then we will allow you to enable this.
A violation... of which law?
The FTC enforces (or at least claims to) against companies with misleading privacy policies.