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

91–100 of 293 posts

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

#91

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

fasterik wrote: post #78
tromp wrote: post #49

Here's the first listed criticism of the saying on its Wikipedia page [1], by none other than Edward Snowden: > Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument

That Snowden quote is a good piece of rhetoric and it's the first thing I think of when I hear the "nothing to hide" argument. I'm not sure if it's actually true, though. It's possible that privacy and free speech are different enough that the logical parallel and inference made in the quote doesn't actually hold.

I think in a certain sense they are closely linked, because one of the very important things I keep private is... well, my opinions. I'm selective about who I say things to, and when, and if all my private conversations were to be made public, I would leave a great many things unsaid.

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

#92

Post by i8comments »

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…

Basically, knowledge is power, and knowledge of your stuff results in a power imbalance in the privacy violator's favor.

What business do they have with my life?

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

#93

Post by i8comments »

bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #88
kypro wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Government snooping is a reality if they find you interesting, even if youve done nothing.

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

#94

Post by i8comments »

belter wrote: post #43
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…

The main issue is the reversal of presumption of innocence. Assuming privacy is only to hide wrongdoing...

Violating privacy is itself wrongdoing.

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

#95

Post by DoreenMichele »

In the 1970s, Iran looked similar to many Western cultures:

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=iran+1970s&qs=MM&form=Q...

That changed literally overnight in 1979.

In the US, we had McCarthyism.

Estimating the number of victims of McCarthy is difficult. The number imprisoned is in the hundreds, and some ten or twelve thousand lost their jobs.[81] In many cases, simply being subpoenaed by HUAC or one of the other committees was sufficient cause to be fired.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism#Victims_of_McCarth...

Some weeks back, I started to watch a movie about McCarthyism and didn't make it very far in. It's not really a history we talk that much about, perhaps because it's too disturbing.

Americans like to think that sort of thing happens elsewhere, in "bad" places like Russia, not here. But it did happen here and not that long ago and it could happen again -- here or anywhere.

Milgram's famous experiments were intended to show that what happened in Nazi Germany was due to some weird character quirk or defect of Germans and couldn't happen elsewhere. His experiment proved the opposite. It proved that a high percentage of people will just do as they are told, up to and including potentially killing someone for no real reason.

Milgram suspected before the experiment that the obedience exhibited by Nazis reflected a distinct German character, and planned to use the American participants as a control group before using German participants, expected to behave closer to the Nazis. However, the unexpected results stopped him from conducting the same experiment on German participants.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

In order to take an ethical stand at some risk to themselves, people generally need to both feel very clear what is right and wrong in a particular situation and have compelling reason to stick their neck out.

People who foment evil generally do all they can to instill doubt of various sorts and deny people full disclosure, which tends to be shockingly easy. Even if the information is available, it can take a great deal of time and effort for a person to adequately educate themselves about a particular thing and this can take too long to act in a decisive and timely fashion to avert an ugly slippery slope.

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

#96

Post by matheusmoreira »

It's so tiresome having to argue with the exact same "retorts" over and over again. It's like they do it on purpose to wear down people's willingness to resist. It's such a fundamentally thoughtless statement. In every single case, there's a 100% chance the person does have quite a lot of things that they do actively hide, they just haven't thought it through.

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

#97

Post by waltwalther »

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…

"Show me the man, and I will show you the crime."

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

#98

Post by jedimastert »

hackernewds wrote: post #66
anotherevan wrote: post #60

"I need privacy, not because my actions are questionable, but because your judgement and intentions are." https://infosec.exchange/@itisiboller/109472911587284824

I'd like to save this quote. However Hackernews provides not much functionality in-platform to do so. Although I will contend the quote needs to be amended, since this doesn't apply to agents whose actions and intentions are questionable, and I would prefer they are not able to hide them.

If you click the timestamp (it's a link) you should be able to "favorite" the comment.

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

#99

Post by fsckboy »

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…

> 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.

the guy publically posted a racist comment in the UK where there is not an unlimited right of free speech and anti-social behavior is regulated. I don't see the privacy concern. I prefer an unlimited right of free speech, but I don't call it privacy. This guy did have something to hide, shoulda kept it hidden.

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

#100

Post by specialist »

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".

> We often argue the cons but not the pros of being able to trace history.

With or without a warrant?

Meanwhile, surveillance increases as the number of unsolved crimes goes up. Coincidence?

Focusing on SIGINT while ignoring HUMINT is a terrible strategy.

Post reply on HN