Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant • Hacker News Board

Re: Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

#51

Post by fweespeech » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 7:11 AM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #41

jkonowitch wrote: post #16

This issue always boils down to the LOTR argument for me: the surveillance power is too great, and no individual or group can or should be trusted with it, regardless of its actual current or potential future benefits. The crux of the debate then is where to draw the line between safe and unsafe amounts of power?

It's not the amount of power that makes it unsafe, but rather its nature. In order for it to be safe: 1. It must be granted through democratic means. 2. It must be under strict oversight by an independently elected or appointed group that's free from both private conflict of interest and popular pressure. 3. There must be reliable mechanisms to quickly and efficiently strip said power away from the authority if they…

#2 doesn't happen with US democracy now at any level. It also inherently contradicts #1.

Re: Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

#52

Post by sdoering » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 7:14 AM UTC

tdyen wrote: post #47

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really curious what you think evil is since you keep capitalizing and speaking of it as some spiritual essence that can be eradicated. You have not established the slightest bit of an operational definition, and resort to pathologizing neutral transmission channels as hosts of "Evil". This is a complete non-starter and not worthwhile to deliberate. "Evil uses Tor" is as useful as "Evil uses paper".

But evil uses paper is probably going to do less harm than evil uses Tor or a gun or a nuke. Societal control must adapt to the medium on a regularly adjusting basis depending on the perceived level of evil.

Do not underestimate the power of paper. Because with the right amount of legal framework (on paper) I can evict people from their houses, sell these of for a nice profit and not have to care for the fate of said people.

I could rob whole countries of their future (say Greece) with paper treaties.

I can rob people of most of their democratic power (see lots of tries at treaties like TTIP or some things like this).

All on paper and in my eyes tending to the evil side.

The problem with evil though is, that it isn't an objective term, it is not empirically measurable and it has so many definitions and perspectives, that it has none.

Evil is a weasle-word, is propaganda, nothing more. So we really need a better word, a better definition. And breaking the law or something like that does not work either, as for example the laws in Germany, the US or Saudi Arabia or China tend to differ massively. They are ideologically tainted and do not provide an objective framework/reference either.

So we should work on a actionable and helpful definition first and not go partisan on the medium to be controlled.

Re: Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

#53

Post by hyperion2010 » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 7:16 AM UTC

blitzprog wrote: post #11

"This affects all of us. We must care." is not an effective way of convincing someone. I personally do not care about privacy. I see no reason why I should. It's just my opinion. I know other people do but please don't generalize.

Let us imagine that someone out there doesn't like the fact that you don't care about privacy and thinks that you should. In a world without privacy where everything is under surveillance that someone can simply recreate reality so that you are now a criminal. Hell, they might just smear you on twitter as a racist rapist and post a bunch of fake data. It won't matter what the truth is any more. Allowing the state to trample all over privacy will only make such activity easier and more prevalent. Worse it can create the illusion of 'authoritative' truth which is even easier to manipulate.

Re: Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

#54

Post by mirimir » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 7:19 AM UTC

blitzprog wrote: post #29

dsacco wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your opinion is valid and should be fairly represented, but consider that your reasons for not caring about privacy may be flawed or inconsistent. Assuming that you don't care about privacy because you're apathetic, do you also not care about free speech because you don't say anything controversial? Do you care about your right to assembly even if you don't protest anything? As an extreme example upon which t…

First of all thank you for respecting my opinion. I appreciate it. 1.) Free speech is a completely different topic. Snowden's quote on this page makes no sense to me no matter how often I re-read it. If free speech didn't exist I wouldn't be able to express my opinion about privacy :) 2.) Privacy means hiding the truth. Hiding what really happened. Hiding who you really are. I believe it is a flaw of the human person…

> I don't care if Google or the government knows that I'm searching "[insert embarassing keywords for you here]" ...

If you were living in western China, you might care, because you might end up an involuntary organ donor. Or if you were searching for gay porn in Saudi Arabia.

Re: Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

#55

Post by raminf » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 7:20 AM UTC

The issue with the 'nothing to hide' argument is that it puts the burden of proof and determination of whether something is 'hide-worthy' on the target of the inquiry.

If you subscribe to the 'presumed innocent' premise of the law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence) then the burden of proof is on the inquisitor.

Either you believe in presumed innocence or you don't. Pick one.

Re: Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

#56

Post by sdoering » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 7:22 AM UTC

NhanH wrote: post #30

blitzprog wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all thank you for respecting my opinion. I appreciate it. 1.) Free speech is a completely different topic. Snowden's quote on this page makes no sense to me no matter how often I re-read it. If free speech didn't exist I wouldn't be able to express my opinion about privacy :) 2.) Privacy means hiding the truth. Hiding what really happened. Hiding who you really are. I believe it is a flaw of the human person…

> I believe it is a flaw of the human personality that makes us want to hide information and eventually lie about it. At the very basic, we want to hide things because other people do not like it (which leads to reaction from shaming to prosecuting and stoning). Fundamentally, the only way for it to not happen is to have a completely homogeneous society, or all human to turn into saints. I will just assert the former…

I also feel, that some form of privacy is also needed to develop new ideas. To mull them, to test them out, before everybody with their own interpretations get's a say. How will we as a society develop further, if everybody will be more or less homogenized by means of ubiquitous surveillance and self censorship (or punishment for transgressions)?

We need save (and private) spaces. At least in my view of the world, where I am on your side, not believing all people will turn into saints. Not even most of people.

So killing privacy and upping surveillance of everybody, we as society will shoot ourselves in the foot and killing new ideas before they are even thought i fear.

Re: Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

#57

Post by sdoering » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 7:29 AM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #43

blitzprog wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see your point. If society ends up believing in the fact that assumptions based on collected data have suddenly turned into "facts" then we will be truly...let me say it frankly...we are done for. I believe when this happens Hacker News won't exist anymore because the intelligence of human beings will be comparable to that of a fly. Luckily...this didn't happen yet because I can still have intellectual discussions,…

It's not even about "facts". Suspicion is enough because "innocent until proven guilty" is true in theory, but the period between "suspected" and "proven innocent" can be very ... inconveniencing. And that's IF the internet or real lynch mob doesn't decide to go after you. If it does, then the being proven innocent part is the least of your concerns.

There are enough examples (at least here in Germany), where peoples lives got uprooted and destroyed exactly because false accusations or false interpretations of "facts" happened. Even after the where acquitted lots of people distrusted them, bullied them and such, because the press had already told everybody what awful people these people were.

And hey, if it is in the news, it has to be true - doesn't it?

We will never fix these idiots (myself totally included). Because even if we do not believe these things we will have them forever at the back of their heads, when presented with a name of someone because: "maybe they did do the thing non the less, even if the court acquitted them".

This is just human nature. You cannot actively un-know something you heard and this will sadly inform your inherent biases non the less - even if you intellectually know it to be untrue.

Re: Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

#58

Post by logicallee » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 7:29 AM UTC

meh, I want to have my cake and eat it too. (I'm not making fun of someone, this is actually how I feel, and there is some tension between requirements.) I don't want any surveillance whatsoever, I want to just be able to do whatever I want, jeez. To live freely. I shouldn't even think about being watched.

At the same time, take something like the Dell database that was just stolen, and criminals starting to do their criminal crimes. Then I want courts to be able to flip a switch and say, you know what, if you're brazenly stealing a private company's database and calling its customers trying to defraud them, at some point there is some probable cause to make you stop doing that or figure out who you are. You're not just going to stay anonymous behind a skype number while you're defrauding people halfway across the world.

Also I don't want some bitcoin asshole to pay off an old soviet general and get a nuclear bomb, just because they think it would be a fun troll to blow up a major city, trololo.

These aren't theoretical concerns - ransomware, kidnapping, all these yucky things that civilized societies don't have, all happen absent rule of law.

There's a reason there wasn't a period in the Constitution (specifically the fourth amendment) after the words "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects shall not be violated." (Extra points for what is there.)

Even absent an anonymous Internet, way back in the eighteenth century, there were limits on privacy. Think of it like an operating system - a good kernel isn't reading my memory contents and slowing me down, but if I start performing illegal operations I might very well get shut down :)

It's not an easy line to find. Also, I don't want tens of thousands of people employed doing this crap. It's a minimal thing we need to live safely and sanely, not some fun snooping. Frankly I don't see why humans even need to be involved, until crimes start getting committed and the courts are trying to figure out why or where.

Re: Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

#59

Post by kbart » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 7:29 AM UTC

blitzprog wrote: post #11

"This affects all of us. We must care." is not an effective way of convincing someone. I personally do not care about privacy. I see no reason why I should. It's just my opinion. I know other people do but please don't generalize.

So if police came to your home and installed surveillance cameras (you know, just to check if you didn't beat your wife or smoke pot on your couch) you are OK with that? Everyone has something to hide and needs some privacy, digital or not.

Re: Why privacy is important, and having “nothing to hide” is irrelevant

#60

Post by simonh » Wed, Jan 06, 2016, 7:33 AM UTC

Laaw wrote: post #7

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what about the folks who are doing Evil in these private channels? Evil is agnostic of location. Your question is of no significance. You might as well be perturbed over "Evil" people living in houses or eating food. Unsurprisingly, evil people are people and will tend towards the same activities people generally engage in.

Yours is a defeatist attitude, I think, and there is plenty of evidence that Evil can be stopped/averted in many cases. It's beyond obvious that there is no complete solution for Evil, but if you keep ignoring this question/problem, then people will continue to pick the "no Evil/no privacy" option over your "Evil/privacy" alternative, which is ultimately devastating to everyone. We need to talk about how to create "n…

I think most people just don't think about online and communications privacy in the same terms that they think about physical privacy. Computer and information privacy should be a basic right just as much as privacy in your own home.

The principle that governments should have covert back doors into our information and communications channels is no different from saying they should automatically get a copy of all of our physical keys, a way to secretly remotely activate and use every camera we own, or remotely activate and listen in on every microphone in our houses.

In fact, as everything moves to electronic, always-connected internet of things platforms these things become increasingly not just equivalent but identical. Soon electronic privacy will be the foundation of every kind of privacy.