Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

papers.ssrn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 293 posts

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

#81

Post by avianlyric »

hackernewds wrote: post #70
cortic wrote: post #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…

A murderer would like to hide their location history from civil justice authorities. We often argue the cons but not the pros of being able to trace history. A lot of ongoing evidence is based on timestamped written communication. Including for the 1/6 indictment, here you could argue what constitutes as "right" or "wrong".

What’s more important? Catching every murderer, or protecting the vulnerable from abuses of power?

Murder is reprehensible, and I agree that all efforts to catch murderers should be expended. But not at the cost of allowing those in power to abuse their power for personal gain, and retain their power, at the expense of others.

Abuses of power are far more common, and in aggregate far more harmful to society, than murder is. Obviously murder is incredibly harmful to those murdered, but if we’re gonna use that to justify privacy invading powers, then why stop there? Cars kills far more people that murderers, a person killed by a car or human is still just as dead. So why not ban all cars?

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

#82

Post by dionidium »

chacham15 wrote: post #45

The simplest retort I've heard to "I have nothing to hide" is "then send me a nude photo of yourself." Theres nothing wrong with nude bodies, but it is definitely private. I.e. privacy has nothing to do with hiding wrong/illegal things. (obligatory disclaimer: a little inaccuracy saves a lot of explanation, but I think this gets the gist across)

The easiest response to this is that I can be OK with a limited audience seeing private information about me in service of higher goals without assenting to unnecessary widespread distribution of the same material.

For example, my doctor can look at my genitals any time he needs to, even if I don't want you to see them.

There's no contradiction here.

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

#83

Post by civilitty »

_a_a_a_ wrote: post #62
tremon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

would record ethnicity *religious affiliation It makes sense that ethnicity would have been recorded as well, but FAFAIK the Germans mostly used the data on religious identity (i.e. which persons were a member of which church community).

And that makes what difference exactly...?

They’re still doing it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_tax#Germany

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

#84

Post by GuB-42 »

PSA: please read the article before commenting.

It does a good job defining what is the "nothing to hide" argument in a way that avoids the usual strawmen. The conclusion is also more nuanced and in my opinion way more interesting than what is commonly seen in HN comments.

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

#85

Post by throwaway914 »

I've got nothing to hide.... today. The problem is tomorrow. What's legal today may not be tomorrow. We usually consider "hiding" things to be stuff only criminals do. Society usually makes the right choice on who is a criminal. But society gets it wrong sometimes. Many girls across this nation are hiding their menstrual cycles from school authorities now.

I've got everything to hide because it's none of your damn business. What gives you the right to know what I'm hiding? Nothing. And we're just hurting entire generations from developing thoughts and ideals that may benefit society, because our private space gets smaller every year.

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

#87

Post by sacrosancty »

kypro wrote: post #58
deepthunder wrote: post #10

The problem with the "I've got nothing to hide" argument is it's not "you" who decides what is "right" or "wrong". The entity doing the "spying" determines what is right or wrong. "You" might think "x" is ok, however the "spying" entity may have the opposite view. And it is the "spying" entity's opinion that matters, not yours, because it always them that have the power and authority in determining what is "right" or…

I completely agree with this. I live in the UK and when I raise concerns about government surveillance here people often say, "I've got nothing to hide". I learnt of a case just this week where a guy on Reddit left a slightly controversial comment and ended up being charged with hate speech, lost his job and received hate abuse online for his opinion. It was kinda crazy because "all" he said was that didn't care abou…

[dead]

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

#88

Post by bemusedthrow75 »

kypro wrote: post #58
deepthunder wrote: post #10

The problem with the "I've got nothing to hide" argument is it's not "you" who decides what is "right" or "wrong". The entity doing the "spying" determines what is right or wrong. "You" might think "x" is ok, however the "spying" entity may have the opposite view. And it is the "spying" entity's opinion that matters, not yours, because it always them that have the power and authority in determining what is "right" or…

I completely agree with this. I live in the UK and when I raise concerns about government surveillance here people often say, "I've got nothing to hide". I learnt of a case just this week where a guy on Reddit left a slightly controversial comment and ended up being charged with hate speech, lost his job and received hate abuse online for his opinion. It was kinda crazy because "all" he said was that didn't care abou…

> Insulting people online or just saying something mildly offensive will often lead to prosecution.

"will often": no, not at all. Could occasionally. You're not helping your argument by overstating this. The courts are not stuffed with people being fined for saying things that are "mildly offensive".

And nothing of what you're talking about is government surveillance. The police aren't the government, and the police do not routinely surveil the populace.

They wouldn't have the staff, for one thing! The police actually wanted to close the police station in the town in which I live -- population over 100,000 in the wider borough -- and replace it with what amounted to a kiosk and service from police stations five miles away in each direction.

And yes, really: for those viewers who persist in believing that the surveillance system in Hot Fuzz exists in reality... nope

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

#89

Post by version_five »

kypro wrote: post #58
deepthunder wrote: post #10

The problem with the "I've got nothing to hide" argument is it's not "you" who decides what is "right" or "wrong". The entity doing the "spying" determines what is right or wrong. "You" might think "x" is ok, however the "spying" entity may have the opposite view. And it is the "spying" entity's opinion that matters, not yours, because it always them that have the power and authority in determining what is "right" or…

I completely agree with this. I live in the UK and when I raise concerns about government surveillance here people often say, "I've got nothing to hide". I learnt of a case just this week where a guy on Reddit left a slightly controversial comment and ended up being charged with hate speech, lost his job and received hate abuse online for his opinion. It was kinda crazy because "all" he said was that didn't care abou…

There's two separate issues here. Privacy should be a right, I agree. But also we shouldn't tolerate our countries becoming authoritarian police states. It's already happened in the UK early, Australia and Canada are well on the way, and the US isn't far behind. Good privacy as a substitute for a government that isn't batshit crazy is not going to work in any event. Advocate privacy, but also advocate not letting giving power to insane elements of our society like this.
Post reply on HN