Is Privacy Algorithmically Impossible?

Is Privacy Algorithmically Impossible?.

-- Tom

 

If so, where is the algorithm that proves the impossibility?

I'm really tired of hearing this stupid idea over and over again... No, it is not possible to "predict" someone's future by mining data about him/her.

 

Hi Nebulus,

Predicting where a person will be (approximate location) based on patterns of data collected involving GPS coordinates at an an accuracy of above 80 percent seems to be a benign statement of merely looking at past patterns to predict where someone will be in the future.

The premise of the article is not to state an algorithm, nor to predict someone's future - surely, that cannot have been your expectation - if you even read the article.

The idea is that our fingerprints are out there, and data collection is increasing at an exponential rate. Surely, it is possible to create a more accurate profile of anyone based on the size of their data fingerprints that they leave behind. Future predictions are only based on past identifiable patterns - which is what the article gave in its example regarding location data collected in a certain sample size to illustrate the point.

Privacy hangs in the balance.

Read the article - if you have not already.

-- Tom

 

I read every article that I comment about I also read the study that is linked inside the article, which is about predicting long-term mobility, and not anything else.

First, I was referring to the title of this post. The article itself talks about "pinpointing people algorithmically possible", which is an idea that I agree with, but which is a bit different than privacy being "algorithmically impossible".
My second comment was about a quote from the article, which aside from being kind of sensationalistic, does nothing else than frightening people.

About the study linked in the article... It is nothing new really, and predicting where you will be at a certain time and day is not something very hard even without data mining, because most of the time work place/home/road between them stays the same and there is no much time left to go somewhere else (far from the usual locations). That can be done by following someone a few times, but the availability of location data just makes the task easier, and allows for mass tracking, which is really bad.

 

Predicting mirimir's long-term mobility is trivial. He doesn't move

How about this?

"Without adequate deception and misdirection, anonymity may become a mathematical impossibility."

 

Come on, quit telling us lies. We all know that you leave your mobile phone at home

 

Very well said.

 

Which one I take with me depends on who I'll be being