I like this article because it reminds us of the relationship between privacy and freedom. Important freedom. Freedoms that go far beyond our computer code. In fact, survival.
Why Privacy Matters
51–60 of 96 posts
Re: Why Privacy Matters
#52So privacy matters because the information can be used against you. That is reasonable but hiding information is not the only the way to fix the issue. Knife can be used to harm people, sure you can fix it by banning/destroying knife but thats not the only way to fix the issue. I'm more interested to solution where we assume the information will be public and fix the issue that arise due to that.
I think your knife analogy is poor. Banning/destroying data is not what privacy is about. Privacy is about ensuring no one has your data who shouldn't. Knife safety also involves ensuring no one has a knife who shouldn't, such as toddlers. Assuming all information is public and fixing the issues that arise is like giving everyone (even toddlers) a knife and then fixing the issues that arise from that. There is no fix…
>Privacy is about ensuring no one has your data who shouldn't
Yes and that is because that someone can use it to harm you and you'll suffer. Ensuring no one has your data who shouldn't is only one way but not the only way to prevent the suffering.
Let say you know my credit card account number, the reason I don't want other people to know the number is because it can be used to stole my money.
But what if there is way that even though you know my credit card number, you can't stole my money, then having my credit card number public would not be an issue for me.
Analogy is not perfect, but with knife, my point is we let everyone to easily obtain knife even though we know that it can be used to harm people. One way we do this is by having a severe enough punishment as a deterrent for people who use it to harm other. This is what I mean by fixing the issue that arise due to easily accessible knife.
Re: Why Privacy Matters
#53With the existence of shadow profiles, is ideal privacy even possible unless you live in a remote area with a tech averse population? What about the census? The data you provide to the gov is also very sensitive and has a history of being abused (see the role of the US Census Bureau in Japanese Internment Camps). However if you don’t provide it, it affects gov funding for your demographic. What about the computer in…
It is possible.
A census counts people. It might need to know who's a citizen or who's eligible to vote, or maybe even generation or sex. It doesn't need to know name, address, eye color, medical history, fingerprint, etc. The aggregation provides privacy (unless the sample size is incredibly small, like in an extremely remote district).
Another example is the TSA: their job is to protect vehicles and passengers, which means preventing weapons on airplanes. But it doesn't matter who's wielding the weapons. So they don't need ID to do their job, and asking for it (and worse, recording it where it can be leaked) is an unnecessary breach of privacy.
The general problem is there are incentives for collecting excessive information and very few disincentives. Laws and regulation can change that.
Re: Why Privacy Matters
#54The title of the article is "The Why and How of Privacy and Security." That should be the title on this HN post as well.
Re: Why Privacy Matters
#55I do not understand what this article is trying to communicate. It starts with a rambling anecdote and ends with a list of some unrelated terms barely tangential to privacy.
uBlock orogin is blocking 88% of requests for me. Still, I'm able to read the actual content.
I don't want to know how does surfing looks like without uBlock.
Re: Why Privacy Matters
#56I do not understand what this article is trying to communicate. It starts with a rambling anecdote and ends with a list of some unrelated terms barely tangential to privacy.
This is one of the few times that I found the rambling anecdote relevant, perhaps because it dealt with a significant historical period.
Two things struck me: the Jewish census and the human smugglers. I would have to look up the origin and intent of the census, but the moral is that the existence of such records put people in peril. As for the smugglers, the lesson is that trusted people can use that information to betray you.
How this relates to the modern world is an open question, but the author goes on to suggest parallels: governments persecuting entire peoples, trusted parties collecting data; and solutions: being able to inspect what our software does.
Re: Why Privacy Matters
#57With the existence of shadow profiles, is ideal privacy even possible unless you live in a remote area with a tech averse population? What about the census? The data you provide to the gov is also very sensitive and has a history of being abused (see the role of the US Census Bureau in Japanese Internment Camps). However if you don’t provide it, it affects gov funding for your demographic. What about the computer in…
Satoshi Nakamoto apparently did it.
Re: Why Privacy Matters
#58... published on a site that accesses 7 different top-level domains. And that's even before allowing any javascript to run. Oh the ironing.
Yes, that's something I'd love to do differently. The problem is I don't have the technical skills to build that website myself. As I said in the cookie banner, I disabled all the trackers I could. Unfortunately, Squarespace doesn't let its customers disable all of them, which is extremely annoying.
If you value privacy and want to post your voice anonymously online, then don't use or even support tools that you cannot understand. Who cares if things dont look "professional". If they are professional then they probably were created by someone you don't know with intentions you don't know. A perfect blogging site in my mind is one that you own, hosted using a domain with privacy protection and is written in code that you can understand. Basic code knowledge is a must if you want privacy
Re: Why Privacy Matters
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
uBlock says 9 domains, and the article starts with a "trigger warning". Hard pass.
> the article starts with a "trigger warning". Hard pass. You're passing because someone is attempting to help people with mental health problems? Perhaps the problem is with you, not the warning.
It's truly horrific how many people are disdainful of those of us who have PTSD, as though this "weakness" were a moral failing, and therefore also a moral failing to accommodate.
Re: Why Privacy Matters
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh I'm well aware and I wish I didn't have to show the banner. If you know an alternative with which I could build that website, that doesn't force me to use cookies on users, I'm all ears
HTML
This is awfully dismissive. Not everyone with technical skills in one domain or another are capable of building a website from scratch, and that's perfectly fine.