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Privacy matters even if “you have nothing to hide”

write.privacytools.io

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Re: Privacy matters even if “you have nothing to hide”

#151

Post by dexterlemmer »

Tokelin wrote: post #59
raspyberr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This approach is one of my biggest annoyances because it's not the same. You're asking for them to give you something but they're not getting anything in return. When people use Facebook/Google etc. they get a service that they end up valuing very highly in return. That common argument of "Give me your phone and PIN" is so pointless because people wouldn't even give that stuff to Facebook if it didn't give them anyth…

Just change the hypothetical into: "Would you give me your home address and keys so I can drop off a newspaper on your coffee table each morning?" Yes, it's a bit long, but it takes into account your concern of giving data and not receiving anything in return. And Facebook/Insta/Social media in general is very similar to having a newspaper available at your coffee table each day.

> "Would you give me your home address and keys so I can drop off a newspaper on your coffee table each morning?"

... Oh. And BTW. I'll be making some copies of your keys to give to a bunch of others interested in placing adds on your coffee table (or so they claim). I'll also go through all your drawers to see if I can't find any other keys/access cards/... to gain access to your office or your colleages' offices, friends' or family's homes, etc. just so I can provide them with the same adds "service" as I intend to provide you. Of course I don't remind you of any of this. Nor do I tell your colleagues, friends, family, etc. After all. What you don't know will aid me and what they don't know will aid me. ;-)

Re: Privacy matters even if “you have nothing to hide”

#152

Post by IndexPointer »

bad_alloc wrote: post #4

Whenever somebody argues having nothing to hide I ask: 1) Where were you last night? 2) How much money is in your bank account? Do you have any debt? 3) What is your Debit Card PIN/account password/... 4) What is your address? Your families address? 5) Can I see your key? And so on. Everybody needs to proctect themselves and potentially others attached to them. There is a good reason for these questions being awkward…

“can you tell me your email password? I wanna check something in your emails..."

Re: Privacy matters even if “you have nothing to hide”

#153

Post by Tokelin »

dexterlemmer wrote: post #151
Tokelin wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just change the hypothetical into: "Would you give me your home address and keys so I can drop off a newspaper on your coffee table each morning?" Yes, it's a bit long, but it takes into account your concern of giving data and not receiving anything in return. And Facebook/Insta/Social media in general is very similar to having a newspaper available at your coffee table each day.

> "Would you give me your home address and keys so I can drop off a newspaper on your coffee table each morning?" ... Oh. And BTW. I'll be making some copies of your keys to give to a bunch of others interested in placing adds on your coffee table (or so they claim). I'll also go through all your drawers to see if I can't find any other keys/access cards/... to gain access to your office or your colleages' offices, f…

That is much closer to the digital reality, thanks for expanding on the idea like this.

Re: Privacy matters even if “you have nothing to hide”

#154

Post by oskrim »

inanutshellus wrote: post #150
oskrim wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This Social Cooling site is nonsense. If you don't like the idea of someone maintaining a "digital reputation" based on your activity on platform X, don't use platform X. It's that simple. Also: "We should compare this problem to Global Warming." Similarities? Social cooling is subtle and complex, just like global warming! Such insight.

Even without a facebook login, facebook still tracks your actions on (virtually) every site you go to, due to facebook API tagging in websites. "Like this page", "Add a comment via the facebook api", "log in w/ facebook", etc. all call home. Even just loading the facebook "Like" images calls home, is logged, and tracks you.

That's client side. If you load 3rd party content into your browser or fail to block, that's on you. I thought usage of ublock origin/privacy badger could be implicitly assumed among the HN crowd.

Re: Privacy matters even if “you have nothing to hide”

#155

Post by [deleted] »

oskrim wrote: post #154
inanutshellus wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even without a facebook login, facebook still tracks your actions on (virtually) every site you go to, due to facebook API tagging in websites. "Like this page", "Add a comment via the facebook api", "log in w/ facebook", etc. all call home. Even just loading the facebook "Like" images calls home, is logged, and tracks you.

That's client side. If you load 3rd party content into your browser or fail to block, that's on you. I thought usage of ublock origin/privacy badger could be implicitly assumed among the HN crowd.

[deleted]

Re: Privacy matters even if “you have nothing to hide”

#156

Post by freddyym »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #142
freddyym wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh, yes that link is broken. Here is an archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20191224125253/https://write.pri...

There are some good points made there, but I found some of the points to be weak. Some hopefully constructive criticism: > Why would you not care about one of your human rights? That's essentially an appeal to authority or appeal to the majority argument. You haven't shown why I should care about privacy, you've only stated that the current consensus is that privacy counts as what we call a human right. > it's not th…

I agree with your first point, and hopefully you can see the changes in the current article. As for the second one, see a comment on the HN thread for the article [0]:

> It is unlikely that you truly have nothing to hide, but it is even more unlikely that every single person who has any influence over your life has nothing to hide. Protecting their privacy prevents exploitation that could hurt you too.

I probably should have used it in this article....

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21923548

Re: Privacy matters even if “you have nothing to hide”

#157

Post by nske »

erikerikson wrote: post #133
cortic wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Posted this five months ago, but its still relevant: My nothing to hide argument; Nothing to hide is an incomplete sentence. Nothing to hide from who? Surly you want to hide your children from abusers and predators? Don't you want to hide your banking details from con artists and fraudsters? Your identity from identity thieves.. Your location from burglars, your car keys from car thieves or your blood type from some…

If we had incontrovertible evidence of every abuse, every predation, every theft attempt via privileged information, misuse of identity information, every inappropriate property action, et cetera... Now include tools for reversing reversable illegal activities (if not identifying them before they are committed). Add real time knowledge of the location and status of all people. What effect would you expect this shift…

Even a generally liberal western government would be tempted to extend this sort of monitoring towards "victimless crimes". Either to boost some arbitrary "effectiveness" numbers, or to boost profit from fines.

I think that a society that is too scared to break every little law or regulation even when it doesn't make sense would eventually tend to becoming conformist -and a stagnant, conformist society is worse than one with the rate of serious crimes that the traditional methods of enforcement leave.

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