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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

#241

Post by vocatus_gate »

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…

I left the NSA a few months ago largely for these reasons. While I knew I personally couldn't do much (if anything) to stem the onslaught against human rights, I knew at the very least I didn't want my life's work contributing to it. So I left, leaving behind a very secure sysadmin position with good salary, six weeks of paid vacation and incredible health benefits. Now I'm a 1099 independent contractor for a financial services company with zero job security. But the freedom of burden on my conscience has been worth it.

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

#242

Post by 6d0debc071 »

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…

> [P]eople will continue to pick the "no Evil/no privacy" option

If that was an available option, it would be fine. I'd choose no evil and no privacy because I'd know that my information, and more importantly the information of public officials and company leaders; folks who wield power; wouldn't be abused.

But that's not an option that's on the table, and whatever it is they intend to pick it is not what people accomplish when they endorse surveillance. Our governments do some pretty evil stuff and those are the people who end up with the power in these sorts of arrangements. What people are being given the choice between is 'a dubious promise of safety; an evil that doesn't offend them personally; and no privacy' - or 'a perceived higher rate of evil that does offend them personally; you're under threat, they're coming for your kids, hate freedom etc; and privacy.'

You seem to be taking the no evil part of things as essentially solved. But it's not. We do not have systems we can trust not to abuse this.

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

#243

Post by brandonmenc »

logicallee wrote: post #61
brandonmenc wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I have access to your Senator's philandering text messages so that I can bribe them to make a vote you don't support?

you don't mean bribe, you mean blackmail. It's a good example. When you get anonymous, credible, extortion/blackmail attempts a good reaction is to go to the FBI and say, look, some anonymous person is blackmailing/extorting me. (a crime). Now you can decide whether you want the courts to have any ability to connect that crime to the medium that you were communicated via, or whether that information should simply van…

If you outlaw anonymity, only outlaws will be anonymous.

But we were talking about privacy, not anonymity.

My argument is that even if you don't have secrets, someone with power over you (politician, judge, general, CEO) may, and you should want their secrets kept.

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

#244

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

sreejithr wrote: post #104

Don't mix misuse of private information and privacy . All the "chilling effects" listed here are implications of misuse of private information. On the other hand, in a world where we have weapons which can single handedly wipe out whole civilizations, we need to make sure it doesn't get used by some lunatic. From that angle, a tight security apparatus (which may include surveillance), is necessary for our survival. I…

Well, yeah, how can we prevent misuse of private information other than by keeping it out of the hands of those who might abuse it?

It's simple: You have to create a perfect test that can tell good people from bad people, and then build a police force that only hires good people.

The fact is that there are people in this world who are willing to hurt other people for their own advantage. You cannot fix that by giving huge amounts of power to some more or less random selection of the general population. There is no silver bullet, and trying to construct one nonetheless tends to end badly.

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

#245

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #145

Why don't privacy proponents don't go all in and just ask to get rid of the Internet? Surely, privacy is easier to maintain when communication is inefficient. Perhaps that's because privacy is actually an archaic and backward idea that maintains all of our problems alive. I can't think of a less progressive (more conservative) idea than privacy. The next most important revolution in human history will be our transiti…

> Why don't privacy proponents don't go all in and just ask to get rid of the Internet? Surely, privacy is easier to maintain when communication is inefficient.

Why don't airbag proponents go all in and ask to get rid of cars? Surely, vehicle accidents are easier to prevent when transport is inefficient.

> Perhaps that's because privacy is actually an archaic and backward idea that maintains all of our problems alive. I can't think of a less progressive (more conservative) idea than privacy.

Perhaps it's because it's the one thing that maintains all of our well-being?

> The next most important revolution in human history will be our transition to a completely transparent society.

How do you know that?

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

#246

Post by TeMPOraL »

nsns wrote: post #220
tombrossman wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good time to remind readers of this Upton Sinclair quote, too: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it".

Well, I actually feel it concerns much more than simply money. The avant-garde - be it technological, artistic or intellectual - has always shown a tendency to join forces with the darkest of regimes during the early stages.

I wonder if it isn't because the darkest regimes, when they're just starting, show the most promise for progress and positive changes. Didn't Nazis offer the Germans their wealth and their honor back, in the times they were most desperately in need of both?

EDIT:

But then again, fascination with "the other guys" is also a thing. See: the intellectual world of the West being in love with Soviet Union well into the Cold War.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/08/11/book-review-chronicles-...

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

#247

Post by chevas »

It's government that has something to hide and it's them I don't trust, which is why privacy is important. I wouldn't want government searching my home on a whim and neither my digital content because they're the ones with the track record of planting evidence, seizing assets, and perpetuating falsehoods for their agendas.

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

#248

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

exodust wrote: post #2

Very good, but it's funny how on the "why IPVanish" page he links to, the first reason given for using a VPN is, to watch Netflix from any location! Oh the horror of limited localised Netflix content. We must protect ourselves. (Really it is awful, I use a VPN for that purpose too). But the point is, it doesn't seem popular to hide metadata from ISPs with VPNs. Will it ever be popular? I'm not so sure. For good or ba…

Who cares about a "real name"? A "real name" doesn't tell you anything about a person. Or at least nearly nothing. It's an arbitrary label. If I know how much money you spend on what, which other people you communicate with, how often, and at which times, I know way more about you than if I knew just your name. And I don't need to know your name to recognize you by your cookies. Or your email address. Or your IP address.

If you regularly send emails back and forth with a specific doctor, I have a pretty good idea which condition you have. If you regularly call a specific company at specific times, I have a pretty good idea that you work there. ...

Also, private surveillance is not about "finding you", but about influencing groups of people. For business purposes. Or maybe for political purposes. If I know that you are likely to be receptive to a specific kind of emotional message, I don't care what your birth certificate says, I care about how to get that message onto your screen in front of your eyes.

And finally, as other have mentioned: Yes, it is a matter of pressing a button. That is the essence of what Snowden revealed, if you will.

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

#250

Post by pdkl95 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #229
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need to regulate any institution that collects data in the same way. I feel like this is too wide. Everyone collects data. I don't mean all tech companies collect data, I mean, for example, your friends have copies of the emails you've sent them. They have photos with you in them of places you've been with timestamps and GPS coordinates. Your coworkers have access to your calendar. Your mechanic has the service…

An interesting point, and I generally agree. But RE "avoidable monopolies": > Why is there a copy of your photos on Facebook's servers? If one of your friends wants to see one of your photos, why are they not getting it directly from you? Then you don't have to trust Facebook with a copy of it. So the solution for this half of the problem is, disintermediate the avoidable monopolies. It's because decentralization lik…

It's only inefficient because NAT ruined the ability to publish.
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