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

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

#131

Post by golergka »

jacquesm wrote: post #122
golergka wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which sector is building startup after startup for data mining, tracking, building profiles? You talk about it like it's necessarily a bad thing, by default, for everyone. Why?

Because information is power and power tends to be abused over the longer term, all fig-leaves about 'improving the world' to the contrary.

> Because information is power and power tends to be abused over the longer term, all fig-leaves about 'improving the world' to the contrary.

This sounds more like a uncompromising proclamation instead of thorough analysis.

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

#132

Post by jacquesm »

karmacondon wrote: post #127
SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Simply, I and many others do not believe that any western government is going to use information gathered by tech companies to preempt threats to entrenched interests and the status quo. It's simply hard to take your stance as one made in good faith. The US government has a long history of using its national police, the FBI, to infiltrate and subvert domestic political movements that the powers that be found unplea…

You're saying, "We should not trust the government because they did things that I didn't agree with in the past". This seems like an unfair standard to hold any person or group of people to. I would be unhappy if people said "I think that karmacondon has made mistakes in the past, so he shouldn't be trusted to do his job ever again." I understand what you're saying, and I think I get where you're coming from. But lik…

> I would be unhappy if people said "I think that karmacondon has made mistakes in the past, so he shouldn't be trusted to do his job ever again."

It's not about mistakes. Mistakes are - usually - a sign that someone needed to learn. They do not as a rule include wanton intent.

And if a person were to make too many mistakes then they probably should not be trusted.

> I understand what you're saying, and I think I get where you're coming from. But like the GGP post, you're begging the question and assuming that your beliefs are so correct that anyone who disagrees with them must be insincere.

No, that's the opposite. You have beliefs that you state are so correct that they stand on their own, in spite of a bunch of historical evidence to the contrary, starting roughly at the time that we invented writing going all the way into the present. That's a pretty gullible position.

> I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the government monitoring potentially criminal groups or building databases. That's what we pay them to do. If they get out of hand then we, the people, will deal with it.

Potentially criminal groupls: everybody.

You're apparently one of the people where the 'fear' button has been pressed, don't let your fear get the better of you.

Btw, I note that you write all these 'reasonable disagreement' things from the position of an anonymous coward which makes me think that maybe you do realize the value of your privacy after all.

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

#133

Post by jacquesm »

golergka wrote: post #131
jacquesm wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because information is power and power tends to be abused over the longer term, all fig-leaves about 'improving the world' to the contrary.

> Because information is power and power tends to be abused over the longer term, all fig-leaves about 'improving the world' to the contrary. This sounds more like a uncompromising proclamation instead of thorough analysis.

It's simply an observation made over history, it's not a proclamation and there is no analysis involved. Anybody that has been following the applications of information technology from the earliest of times would most likely come to that same conclusion.

The ancients had it as 'power corrupts', the abuses are plentiful and that every company that engages in these practices (and the government agencies as well) do this to ostensibly make our lives easier or keep us 'safe' is very well known and advertised. If you have evidence to the contrary feel free to share it but that's where we currently stand.

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

#134

Post by bitL »

It pains me to see that power-hungry people used most techies as useful idiots to implement their own goals - how many politicians with dirty hands are now getting on board of prime tech companies? They finally understood what technology can offer to them. It seems like the end game is who is going to control everything - those types can finally see the time when technology is sufficiently advanced to control every aspect of our lives. It seems like technology would enable a special caste above law, with power unlike anyone before them. Instead of using technology to improve living conditions of all, establishing new, unseen before, more democratic and free society, we seem to be hell bent on preserving all the nasty traits of previous societies and even doubling down on them by having almost complete control. Seems like some dystopian sci-fi novel is happening now :-(

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

#135

Post by sravfeyn »

blitzprog wrote: post #46
spdustin wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it is a flaw of the human personality that makes us want to hide information and eventually lie about it. Who said anything about lying being a part of a desire for privacy? I don't care if Google or the government knows that I'm searching "[insert embarassing keywords for you here] Would you care if a prospective insurer knows you're (hypothetically) searching for "atrial fibrillation management" or "opiat…

Recognize the real source of the problem. Like you said, someone trying to get information about the topics you mentioned could simply be doing this out of curiosity. Now person A from the government says you are X. However you are not X, you are Y. Think again, what is the actual problem? The actual problem is not the data which is 100% correct. The actual problem is people's prejudices and assumptions. This is what…

> The actual problem is people's prejudices and assumptions. This is what we need to fix.

Right, so the whole premise of your indifference or opposition to the privacy argument is that people should not have prejudices or (wrong) assumptions. Isn't that too idealistic and to rid people of the prejudices and figure out right moral standard for behaviour - will it not take many more generations, if at all it happens? Till then; till we figure out the right _prejudices_; till all of humanity naturally elevates to the right moral standard, shouldn't we be wary of those bad agents who can abuse others by breaking into their private matters?

Your premise, in short, assumes an ideal world where none is troubling others for their private acts, which unfortunately isn't the case yet.

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

#136

Post by puppetmaster3 »

iheartmemcache wrote: post #90
chongli wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctors are actually professional . They have rigorous certifications, they have a professional board that administers examinations and issues licenses, they have a defined structure for reporting ethics violations with a code of ethics dating back centuries. Programmers are just a loosely-defined group of tinkerers, labourers, and the odd scientist or engineer. How do you expect to impose a structure on that? A teen…

Doctors (as a profession) have a professional regulatory board and are educated on the ethical proceedings, but doctors (as an individual) can be just as corrupt as anyone else. The difference is accountability within the profession . If a doctor starts doling out tons of prescription opiates, an auditing system is in place (Many levels in fact - either within the state, nationally via the DEA, by someone arrested wh…

This web site is for you, it insulting to programmers, calling them hacks.

( http://acm.org/about-acm/acm-code-of-ethics-and-professional... )

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

#137

Post by karmacondon »

jacquesm wrote: post #118
karmacondon wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone agrees with you that the tech sector is contributing to the building of a surveillance society or police state. There are a lot of people who have carefully considered the issue and come to the conclusion that facebook knowing what posts you liked or ad networks knowing which pages your IP address has visited is not a Bad Thing. It's clear that you don't agree and all debate is welcome, but I caution you…

> But don't discount people that legitimately disagree with you as being irresponsible. Why not? You may disagree, that doesn't mean you can't be flat-out wrong. Having an opinion does not automatically give that opinion equal weight when history has proven to us again and again that that particular opinion ends up with making society either dangerous or at a minimum uncomfortable. I'm sure there were border guards i…

The problem with drawing historical parallels is that they never apply exactly. Saying "A thing happened in the past" can be instructive, especially to people who didn't even realize that the thing was possible. But what's much more practically useful is to say "I think what happened before will happen again in the current context and for these reasons". An example from the past is only useful if it can be tangibly connected to the current situation, right now in the present.

I can't think of a case where stable and mature democratic bureaucracy has ever used surveillance to influence the majority of its populace. Germany in the early 20th century was a very instable government in a bad economic situation. Soviet East Germany was communist, which isn't quite the kind of democratic that I meant. It's true that any government could turn bad, in the same way that anything is possible. But there's very little evidence for that in the current context.

So my position is this: Given that I live in the United States in 2016, I'm not worried about the government randomly deciding to screw with me by looking at my electronic communications and acting on them. It just doesn't make sense. I'm not significant relative to the scale of the US government, the government itself just doesn't work that way and all of the negative scenarios I've heard seem to be very contrived.

If you really think that it's possible that the government of a modern western nation could turn into communist East Germany, then it seems like your problem might be with governance, not privacy. If it's possible for the government to go all Walter White and just turn evil over night, then no amount of personal privacy is going to save any of us. And until it seems like that's a thing that's actually possible, I'm going to make practical decisions about my own privacy.

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

#138

Post by tombrossman »

kmonad wrote: post #83

Whenever I read one of these articles I am wondering why the examples of WHY mass surveillance affects ME as average Joe negatively have to be so weak / contrived: For example, imagine someone convinced by the argument "nothing to hide nothing to fear". Would this example convince them that in fact they do have to fear something? "You might think twice about contacting or meeting people (exercising your freedom of as…

Flip it around, don't accept the questioners' premise that you need to defend your position. Challenge them to explain why they think a third party should be granted access to your info. And be ready to tell people 'no thanks' and that you are not willing to explain why. Resist taking a subservient position when you have what they other party wants, make them justify the need (this is obviously less practical advice for gov't surveillance than for corporate).

I do this frequently and while it can be a bit awkward when dealing with marketing or PR types, as long as you are polite about it things work out. And anyone pestering you with repeated requests for data or an explanation can receive a less polite response.

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

#139

Post by miguelrochefort »

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.

I agree with you completely.

Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

The value of data by far surpasses any risk involved with it. If people were more honest, transparent and straightforward, we would have a much more tolerant society. Everything would be much more efficient. Crowd sourcing of health data would be facilitated, and we probably would have greater understanding of health and be able to cure many diseases.

All arguments in favor of privacy naturally lead to the conclusion that we should get rid of the internet. And probably communication in general. Heck, make people blind and deaf, that'll solve the privacy problem. People are deluded.

Just one of the many instances where so-called progressive people blindly support an inherently conservative cause.

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

#140

Post by [deleted] »

tobbyb wrote: post #64

I think the tech crowd is in denial about their role in surveillance. We expect professionals to behave ethically. Doctors and companies working on genetics and cloning for instance are expected to behave ethically and have constraints placed on their work. And with consequences for those behaving unethically. Yet we have millions of software engineers working on building a surveillance society with no sense of ethic…

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