Privacy is the most important concept of our time • Hacker News Board

Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time

#181

Post by npongratz » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

vayeate wrote: post #176

carapace wrote: post #164

I had some chickens on my lawn the other day. Someone driving by stopped, started video recording me, my family, my neighbors, and the birds with their phone (I assume that's what he was doing, that's what it looked like) for a minute or two, then he drove off. He didn't say a word. He didn't respond when I waved. By my standards of social behavior that dude is a fucking creep and (years ago) I would have tried to go…

On the other side of the coin: maybe he didn't see you wave because he's on a video call and looking at the caller's face. Maybe he didn't want to step onto your property or disturb your day because that is often seen as aggressive behavior. Maybe he didn't actually stop for the reason you think he did and just happened to notice the chickens and pointed to take a photo. Calling the cops is a ridiculous reaction to j…

>> Someone driving by stopped, started video recording me...

> ... maybe he didn't see you wave because he's on a video call and looking at the caller's face ...

So maybe the creeper was on a video call looking at the caller's face, while driving? Nope. There's no excuse for that creepy behavior.

Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time

#182

Post by s8e4nrdghu » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

ibobev wrote: post #151

I think that we should also demand laws requiring hardware manufacturers to implement physical switches for controlling the cameras and microphones of devices they produce. There are so many software exploits that nowadays no one could be sure whether her/his smartphone or laptop is not filming/listening to her/him when in private. It seems like an easy thing which can be done to improve privacy, but it seems like th…

That is what 5G is about. The end to all privacy. All devices, always on, always watching, with no off-switch. And the companies and governments spending billions of dollars to implement the system ("to improve user experience") hope that the general public does not connect the dots.

Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time

#183

Post by uniqueid » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

hacknat wrote: post #180

uniqueid wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can't really argue with the results of Westphalia. In which modern nation does one find Westphalia?

The historical results of the Treaty of Westphalia.

Germany is not a poster-child when it comes to avoiding border disputes.

Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time

#184

Post by tzs » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

f154hfds wrote: post #74

uniqueid wrote: post #65

I wanted to like this essay, because I also worry about the loss of privacy today, but the goofy paragraph about borders turned me off. To believe that borders are conducive to peace sounds like a bad case of internet-brain.

I've always wondered how people who advocate for more open borders justify their position. Could you expand? Naively I would think regulating borders is an essential function in maintaining rule of law - undocumented workers are fodder for exploitation. But I'm honestly open to being wrong.

The US had completely open borders for its first hundred years or so. It wasn't until 1875 with the Page Act, which restricted Chinese women, that we stopped having wide open borders. That was followed by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which covered Chinese men.

For white people the borders remained wide open. In the late 19th century some restrictions where added on white people, too, but the borders were still easy to get through. The restrictions were things like a small immigration tax, a requirement that you would be able to take care of yourself, exclusions of people with diseases, and things like that. If you were white and in good health, there was essentially no problem getting in.

In 1917 they added a literacy test, but you could take it in your native language, so it wasn't much of a barrier.

It wasn't until 1924, with the Immigration Act of 1924, that we started seriously limiting immigration beyond the restriction on immigrants from Asia. It limited immigration from a given country based on how many people from that country were in the US in 1890, to "preserve the ideal of US homogeneity". (You would probably not be wrong if you read that as "to keep too many Jews from coming to the US". As things got worse for Jews in many countries in Europe more Jews wanted to leave those countries than did before 1890. Countries that weren't persecuting their Jews did not have such an uptick in emigrants compared to before 1890. Thus, the proportion of Jews in the total set of people wanting to immigrate to the US was going up).

Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time

#185

Post by hacknat » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 6:08 PM UTC

uniqueid wrote: post #183

hacknat wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The historical results of the Treaty of Westphalia.

Germany is not a poster-child when it comes to avoiding border disputes.

Sure, but the Thirty Years War was no joke either. I'm not sure that you're making arguments any more. You may be right that borders cause more harm than good, but the bulk of historical evidence is against you. If you're going to challenge the principle of Westphalian Sovereignty[1] then I think you owe more to a good faith discussion of the topic than a glib remark about German history. Assuming for a moment that you're talking about WWII, then I would cite that as a case in favour of my argument not against it.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalian_sovereignty

Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time

#186

Post by scollet » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 6:23 PM UTC

docdeek wrote: post #8

The author goes too far when they suggest there should be laws (and one imagines punishments for those who break them) that prevent something being shared in one space from being shared elsewhere. For example, if I share something with my family, there should be a law that prevents a family member from making what I said public. Not only would this be a nightmare to police but it would give rise to some anti-social o…

I see a solution with individual auditing.

I want to see my social graph across different proprietary data stores and either charge a dime for use of my data, or reclaim a node.

Auth is one issue, building that graph is another, and hiding data from regulators is the last I can think of right now.

Regardless, the sentiment remains.

When I write this comment, it's work. I made some content for y'all. But if a scraper comes through and builds a social profile of me, it should compensated or controllable in some form.

I wasn't selling this data, but it's not really anyone else's data to sell either. Even if ycomb decides they are going to sell this information, I'd like to know that.

IDK what the solution is. It's probably reclaiming ownership via private servers. It's probably grand trust and code contracts. It's probably even a mandated anonymity filter where PII is opt-in by default and only a certain degree of information can be traded.

I am just under the impression that there has been a massive overreach and that the majority of people online have lost control.

Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time

#187

Post by awkward » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 6:28 PM UTC

This is a well written piece. It describes an issue that, while you could say there are more important issues, is certainly the most important issue in tech.

However, there is an issue with it that prevents me from sharing it, and that is the comparison of current social punishments for speech to lynching. I think there are many people who could be won over by the line of argumentation made, but will immediately tune it out because of that comparison.

In the American context, lynching usually refers specifically to a campaign of violence and murder against black people. In the debate about consequences for public speech, a common argument is that public racialized abuse should face consequences. I think that this will immediately turn off skeptical readers who may be receptive to the message.

Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time

#188

Post by darksaints » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 6:28 PM UTC

f154hfds wrote: post #74

uniqueid wrote: post #65

I wanted to like this essay, because I also worry about the loss of privacy today, but the goofy paragraph about borders turned me off. To believe that borders are conducive to peace sounds like a bad case of internet-brain.

I've always wondered how people who advocate for more open borders justify their position. Could you expand? Naively I would think regulating borders is an essential function in maintaining rule of law - undocumented workers are fodder for exploitation. But I'm honestly open to being wrong.

> undocumented workers are fodder for exploitation

So do the right thing and make their migration legal. That is what people mean when they say they want more open borders.

Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time

#189

Post by rocky1138 » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 6:28 PM UTC

carapace wrote: post #164

I had some chickens on my lawn the other day. Someone driving by stopped, started video recording me, my family, my neighbors, and the birds with their phone (I assume that's what he was doing, that's what it looked like) for a minute or two, then he drove off. He didn't say a word. He didn't respond when I waved. By my standards of social behavior that dude is a fucking creep and (years ago) I would have tried to go…

Perhaps it's a generational thing because I don't see a problem with what happened, at all.

Re: Privacy is the most important concept of our time

#190

Post by uniqueid » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 6:30 PM UTC

hacknat wrote: post #185

uniqueid wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is not a poster-child when it comes to avoiding border disputes.

Sure, but the Thirty Years War was no joke either. I'm not sure that you're making arguments any more. You may be right that borders cause more harm than good, but the bulk of historical evidence is against you. If you're going to challenge the principle of Westphalian Sovereignty[1] then I think you owe more to a good faith discussion of the topic than a glib remark about German history. Assuming for a moment that y…

Westphalia is a blip in history. The world has gone through cycles of war and peace, borders or no.

Meanwhile, there are more separatist groups than there are countries, and some of them enjoy blowing things up. How did borders work out for the Middle East? How did they work out when the USSR disbanded? Etc etc.