Diaspora Policies

[LilBambi]

Choice

Diaspora lets you sort your connections into groups called aspects. Unique to Diaspora, aspects ensure that your photos, stories and jokes are shared only with the people you intend.


Ownership

You own your pictures, and you shouldn’t have to give that up just to share them. You maintain ownership of everything you share on Diaspora, giving you full control over how it's distributed.


Simplicity

Diaspora makes sharing clean and easy - and this goes for privacy too. Inherently private, Diaspora doesn’t make you wade through pages of settings and options just to keep your profile secure.

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That is from the main JoinDiaspora.com site.

Seems pretty straight forward. It's your stuff.

I try to remember to back up my stuff periodically from my account. The pods owe us nothing more than they provide as far as I can see. You can create your own seed pod or join another. They should all abide by the rules above.

Beyond that, what are you thinking about, in particular? What concerns you?

[Sponsors]

[Cosmopolite]

Beyond that, what are you thinking about, in particular? What concerns you?

Me? I'm concerned about owning my own data, which is why I'm here I'm also hoping to see many more in my existing networks move over to D*, and for that to happen we need reasonable reliability and back-up. I'm not saying this isn't already there (David helpfully outlined his routines on diasp.org on page 2), but I am saying that local policies need to be spelled out and understood across public pods because the people we want to come over will be concerned about the profiles they build up. If the model is too distributed or has too much of a tech-feel to it then we won't get the numbers. Without the numbers... meh.

[frogfall]

I guess the collecting, collating, processing and storing of all this peripheral profile activity data must represent a considerable cost & programming overhead for sites like FB. Hence, they are only going to do it if they can recoup that cost in the fees they charge to advertisers � fees that they can inflate by claiming to accurately �target� adverts.

Of course this targeting ability may well be snake oil. They don�t actually have to be able to do it, they need only convince their advertisers that they can do it � which isn�t quite the same thing. In fact FB don�t really need to do much convincing � as all the people screaming about invasions of privacy neatly do that for them.

Currently D* can�t even make links open in a new tab � so the idea that it would ever have the ability to carry out all this �big brother� tracking seems rather fanciful. Furthermore, as open source software, any in-built data tracking ability would be spotted by those users, capable of reading and understanding the source code, who simply cared to download a copy. This fact alone makes D* inherently safe.

Protection from the potentially nefarious activities of rogue public pod owners is a separate issue. I�m sure it�s a matter that has been on the minds of the devs and larger pod owners, and I�m certainly looking forward to seeing their proposals for tackling it. But in the mean time I�m not exactly going to get hysterical over the potential hazards. I�ll just treat D* with the same caution reserved for every other electronic communication system I�ve used over the last 20 years.

[wobray]

A simple, generic ToS for the Beta would make it easier to bring people in -- just something to reassure new and prospective users that their information won't be sold to spammers, etc.

[KOH]

A simple, generic ToS for the Beta would make it easier to bring people in -- just something to reassure new and prospective users that their information won't be sold to spammers, etc.

That is currently being worked on. There has been a lot of discussion behind the scenes and some people that are very knowledgeable of these types of things are helping out.

Not all pods will have the same privacy policy, terms of use, etc.. You just have to choose wisely when it comes to selecting the pod you will be on.

[frogfall]

I gues the whole system will have to be set up with some kind of "federal council" which will decide which pods can and cannot hook up to the federation network. Rogue pods can then be exluded if their owners continue to cause problems for the "citizens" of other pods.

[Brightlife]

I had this concept in my mind that Diaspora would allow me, the user, to store all my data on my own desktop or cloud or server space of my own choice. Then connections would be made in the same way that email works. We each would have a Diaspora software on our desktops that serve as the interface that is now being hosted on the pods. We would each have the option of encrypting all our data that we would send out and entrust to the recipient(s), in the same way as now available via email, and we would connect on the web via Tor or a proxie VPN, if we so choose to further protect our privacies.

I believe that would be a better model than the pods. The vast majority of data/activity that is sent out is text, anyway, which does not take that much space - my little computer is storing a great deal of emails I've sent through the last two decades, that I've opted to save. Each user would be able to periodically trash, or have automatically trashed, as in desktop email apps, whatever content/data we would opt to have trashed. Photos and other media would be made accessible to whomever we choose via whatever storage space we choose, and we can just as easily remove at will, as well. The text and media would be available to view via our own computer's public folder(s).

This would not in any way change the ability of any one who we've allowed access to certain data to copy and paste or download the individual media that we've chosen to allow them to view. We would still have to be judicious about what we share, but copying all that would be ridiculous and piecemeal for whoever would want to do it, while it would keep out the CIA, the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, and their corporate friends, who are all hellbent on violating all our civil liberties. And at the end of the day, we would be controlling completely all our real-time data, and we wouldn't have to worry about pod owners compromising them. The same kinds of networking could be created as what's being created through the pods now - but all the data would be stored in each individual's own computer or some other somewhat secured space of choice.

[folloyerinstinx]

This is very close to what I had envisioned when I heard that "I would own my data". If my data is not stored locally or in/on another location/server that I own, how can I possibly own it? Why can't I "be" my own minipod, perhaps along with my wife/family? One of my concerns is that, regardless of the transmission of data via SSL, my data can still be provided to LE agencies (or worse) without my knowledge. Can I keep my data that is stored on a pod encrypted such that a third party who obtains it is still unable to read it? Of course, as Brightlife pointed out, this still doesn't solve the problem of members of my network's being able to save/store some of my data (such as photos I share, etc) on/in their own devices/locations, but my paranoia has its limits. If I can't even trust my friends, I might as well stick to IRC and keep my shizzle to myself.

OTOH, I'd like to be able to connect with, say, a business or organization via social network without having anyone be able to connect that interaction to my D* profile. Has there been any thought given toward making it possible to anonymize interactions such that even those working at, say, Dunkin Donuts would be unable to tell the FBI that someone with my username liked chocolate bismarks? It would be nice to be able to choose how much information I shared with DD right down to whether or not they knew my username. (This assumes that D* will be open to hosting business/organizational members, though I don't know how or why D* would police that.)

[Brightlife]

Occurs to me that this lack of complete control and ownership is the reason why Diaspora isn't gaining any traction, why only a handful of individuals, at the most, are active in these forums and are active on Diaspora itself. If privacy and control are really no better than on Facebook, what's the point? Why bother? It's really such a shame.