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

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

#141

Post by quickthrower2 »

throwaway914 wrote: post #85

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 bu…

Also what will get you imprisoned is only approximately what is illegal and vice versa. You can probably dragnet a good chunk if the population and get a jury to convict them if a crime based on circumstantial evidence. Kind of like p-hacking for justice.

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

#142

Post by BlargMcLarg »

Zetice wrote: post #124
mptest wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"anything [harmful] could be illegal!" isn't backed by anything real or lasting Are you serious? that's a pretty ahistoric view... Being jewish was illegal, being a free black person was illegal, shit, woman having freedom of medical procedure is illegal in some states today! how on earth can you earnestly suggest things won't be made illegal that will harm people

Every time in modern history western society has started down the path of outlawing some form of existence, we self correct.

Cool. Real question, and truly think about it deep and hard: are you okay with being the martyr who ends up jailed, prosecuted, dead or what-have-you before we self correct?

These statements are very easy to make, but when push comes to shove the individuals saying it won't put their money where their mouth is. So, will you?

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

#144

Post by b3lvedere »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #140
GuB-42 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article addresses that exact retort, and others in the same style. Here is what it says. > Such responses only attack the nothing to hide argument in its most extreme form, which is not particularly strong. The article is way more nuanced, it makes a point in attacking the real argument and not the strawman. Framing the debate into a privacy/security tradeoff. And btw, my naked body ranks pretty low in the list o…

The most private part of your body is often not covered anyway. Your fingerprint.

In that perspective one could also mention that humans constantly keep discarding things that can possibly uniqeuely identify them: dna.

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

#145

Post by teleforce »

Highly recommend this new book by Spafford and co for clearing up most of the security misunderstandings [1].

[1] Cybersecurity Myths and Misconceptions: Avoiding the Hazards and Pitfalls that Derail Us:

https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/cybersecurity-myths-and...

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

#146

Post by bemusedthrow75 »

ekianjo wrote: post #130
bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> The police aren't the government, The police is the dog of the government. What difference does it make to you if the dog or the master attacks you?

I understand that in the simplest way this is true, and I am sure it is very clever, poetic and pithy.

But this is not how it works in principle or in practice in the UK. The police work on behalf of the people, not the government. When government manages to suborn the police in even a small way it is very much noticed.

It’s difficult for people outside the UK to see this, I suppose, but our experience with this is that state directed police overreach is now unusual, and there is a lot of pushback from the chief police officers and the public when they are asked to oppress. There are aberrations (no police force in the world gets protest management right, and ours is no exception) but in general you have to be consciously right up in their faces to cause such an aberration.

The UK is a country of realpolitik at every level. The police go about their business unarmed, with the consent of the population, and generally speaking, they know the public will not put up with overreach anymore. We may find them pompous and overbearing but they are pretty much the envy of the world still.

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

#147

Post by bemusedthrow75 »

runagate wrote: post #126
bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> The courts are not stuffed with people being fined for saying things that are "mildly offensive". If these sorts of speech laws were more consistently applied on everyone, maybe we could get rid of them.

The thing is, few of these cases make it to trial, because the CPS has to demonstrate it’s in the public interest.

The result is that the police are still opening investigations they are asked to, and the CPS is still examining them; it’s a lot of energy spent on no outcome.

That is the actual problem, not the prosecutions, which remain unusual from what I can see.

There needs to be better guidance on the relevant legal standards. Separately we need to do something about (civil) libel laws, but that is a parallel and not criminal law issue.

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

#148

Post by tjpnz »

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 was also a well publicised case where a mother was arrested in front of her children after misgendering a trans person on Twitter. The case was eventually thrown out but it seems the UK police have far too much power and flexibility in terms of what they can arrest someone for.

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

#149

Post by sjducb »

bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #125
HardlyCurious wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We only know what the NSA does because a person who leaked highly confidential documents and is now a refuge for the crime of showing the world what the US govt does in secret. Do you really think the UK govt, or any govt, doesn't use the cloak of security and classification to do questionable things?

I didn’t suggest any such thing, did I? I am just observing that the scope of GCHQ’s abilities are obviously limited compared to the NSA (unless they have the most cost-efficient IT infrastructure in the world, and we don’t do cost-efficient government IT here even now). The budget just isn’t there for them to operate the way the NSA does.

The thing you’re missing is that GCHQ spies on Americans (Foreigners from the UK perspective) using the NSA’s money, then it shares the findings from the spying with the NSA under an intelligence sharing agreement. GCHQ is mostly an outsourced wing of the NSA.

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

#150

Post by godelski »

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've got nothing to hide"

Are you: Jewish? Trans? Gay? A woman? Pregnant? Black? Brown? A furry? Muslim? Christian? Rich? Poor?

Need I go on? All these groups have at one time or another (including now) needed to hide. This is a forum full of techies, and I'm sure lots of people don't want to tell everyone they are a techie right away (remember when you'd get punched if you wore Google Glasses?), or talk about their income.

If you aren't willing to openly publish your bank statements and browser history, you got something to hide. Friends, family, government, foreign governments, big tech, church, whatever. You probably got something to hide.

We just got to stop equating hiding things with doing something nefarious. I don't shut the door when I poop because I'm hiding illegal activities, I just want privacy.

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