They don't want telemetry ever disabled, even for a minority of people who do toggle it off. Why?

Disabling telemetry might be interpreted as a self-indicated signal of "I have something to hide", so they jack up the snooping.

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sejje 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Or "I'm a power user" of sorts. Probably a very small minority of users fiddle that setting.

Dang said a similarly small minority of users here do all the commenting.

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Etheryte 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

This is true of practically every online community. The vast majority of the users are passive participants, a small fraction contribute, and a small subset of contributors generate most of the content. Reddit is a prime example of this, the numbers are incredibly lopsided there.

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jodrellblank 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

See: “Most of What You Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People”

https://old.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most...

	▲	asimovDev 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18881827 HN discussion of that link for anyone curious

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HPsquared 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I suspect many (or all) VPNs probably do secret logging. People will do their most interesting secret activities on those.

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throwaway83977 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Any VPN worth its salt has gone through a security audit and/or is based in a sane country where that sort of thing is illegal.

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rvnx 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Like Signal users. The only thing it signals is that the user is interesting. There is also a reason why it is not allowed for classified use.

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const_cast 6 days ago | parent [-]

This isn't true, this is the sort of toxic "if I have nothing to hide then why value privacy" ideology that got us into this privacy nightmare.

Every single person has "something to hide", and that's normal. It's normal to not want your messages snooped through. It doesn't mean you're a criminal, or even computer-saavy.

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rvnx 6 days ago | parent [-]

Mhhh it is not really about “nothing to hide”, it was more that if you use niche services targeted at privacy, it puts a big target on you.

Like the Casio watches, travelling to Syria, using Tor, Protonmail, etc…

When it is better in reality to have a regular watch, a Gmail with encrypted .zip files or whatever, etc.

It does not mean you are a criminal if you have that Casio watch, but if you have this, plus encrypted emails, plus travel to some countries as a tourist, you are almost certain to put yourself in trouble for nothing, while you tried to protect yourself.

And if you are a criminal, you will put yourself in trouble too, also for nothing, while you tried to protect yourself.

This was the basis of Xkeyscore, and all of that to say that Signal is one very good signal that the person may be interesting.

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const_cast 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

1. I don't really think this is true generally.

2. Using a secure, but niche, service is still more secure than using a service with no privacy.

Sure, you can argue using Signal puts a "target" on your back. But there's nothing to target, right? Because it's not being run by Google or Meta. What are they gonna take? There's no data to leak about you.

If I were a criminal, which I'm not, I'd rather rob a bank with an actual gun than with a squirt gun. Even though having an actual gun puts a bigger target on your back. Because the actual gun works - the squirt gun is just kinda... useless.

	▲	latentsea 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		>If I were a criminal, which I'm not, I'd rather rob a bank with an actual gun than with a squirt gun. Even though having an actual gun puts a bigger target on your back. Because the actual gun works - the squirt gun is just kinda... useless Actually, there was a case... I can't recall but it might have been in Argentina, where the robbers did explicitly use fake guns when robbing the banks because doing so still actually worked for the purposes of the robbery, and it also reduced their legal liability.

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bigprof 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

What flag does using a Casio watch raise? I have a G Shock that i love though i don't wear it as often nowadays.

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1986 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

It could put you in Guantanamo Bay: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F-91W#Usage_in_terrori...

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Mogzol 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The F-91W has long been associated with terrorism for it's use in improvised time-bombs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F-91W#Usage_in_terrorism

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spookie 6 days ago | parent [-]

Oh so now we target people for buying inexpensive things? "Oh no! This guy doesn't have a $500 watch".

	▲	Mogzol 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah, I think it's pretty stupid, especially considering the F91-W is one of the most common and best selling watches in the world.

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qiine 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

almost as if it was a trap... ;p

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ethan_smith 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's a dark pattern called "placebo controls" - giving users the illusion of choice maintains positive sentiment while maximizing data collection, and avoids the PR hit of admitting telemetry is mandatory.

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msgodel 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Telemetry toggles add noise to the data at the very least. IMO it's part of the reason you're actually better off with no client-side telemetry at all. Obviously they see it the opposite way.

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viraptor 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's assuming this is intended behaviour rather than just a bug that they don't care about fixing.

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yard2010 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Occam's razor. Not Hanlon's.