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‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

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31–40 of 293 posts

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#35

Unless we’re talking about financial privacy, in which case many alleged privacy supporters will curiously switch sides and defend KYC, transaction tracking and other ways of controlling other people’s wallets.

A lot of people just defend the status quo no matter what it is, and the arguments for why things are the way they are now are what they teach in schools and even universities.

Most people also don't realize how ineffective KYC laws are. Studies have shown that they just don't work. Small time criminals use cash or barter, big time criminals infiltrate banks or have ties to international criminal organizations with their own shadow banking systems. It's just not a useful requirement and the significant costs outweigh the negligible benefits.

Creating a market for shadow banking systems is extra bad because then the large criminal organizations get the bank's margin which they can use to fund more criminal activity.

It's only then that we get to the privacy costs and chilling effects of putting everything people buy in a database. And the costs it imposes on marginalized populations. And the destruction of value of any service that can't exist because it would have to collect social security numbers from users or otherwise impose high transaction costs on low margin transactions.

I'm not entirely sure who the lobby for keeping them even is. People who don't know how ineffective they are? Banks who want to keep barriers to entry high? Just brute authoritarians who want to spy on everyone every way they can?

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#36
I’ve got plenty to hide, and I hide all my most prized things as best as I can.

I enjoy obfuscating things s much as possible just to be a tiny grain of sand of irritation in big data’s crotch.

I’m also maybe a bit oppositionally defiant but I enjoy hiding my shit. Why does anyone assume a right to know everyone’s business?

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#37
post #33
post #22

I found out that asking people that got "nothing to hide so neither should you" to mount a video stream from their bedroom shuts them up right quick.

I don't have anything to hide from a person I can trust.

So what you're saying is that you should be able to determine yourself who you trust with information about yourself?

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#38
post #31

To all those people that have nothing to hide, please provide me with your bank account numbers and mother's maiden name.

The government can have that stuff of mine, but not just any random person.

Why trust an entity that has historically been proven to be untrustworthy?

That's like getting punched by your bouncer and still expecting him to be on your side.

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#39
post #33
post #22

I found out that asking people that got "nothing to hide so neither should you" to mount a video stream from their bedroom shuts them up right quick.

I don't have anything to hide from a person I can trust.

You may trust that the government has good intentions, but do you trust that they properly secure all the information they collect?

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#40
Posted this three years ago, but its still relevant: My nothing to hide argument;

Nothing to hide is an incomplete sentence. Nothing to hide from who? Surely 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 rich mobsters with kidney problems..

we don't know who are any of these things. So we should protect ourselves from all of them, in effect we have everything to hide from someone, and no idea who someone is.

edit; let me just add the obvious, that the government and police, Google and Facebook, are made up of many someones.

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