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Why was this secret?

sivers.org

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Re: Why was this secret?

#161

Post by grey-area »

sivers wrote: post #148
visakanv wrote: post #124

My interpretation of Derek's point: "A lot of us keep things secret for the sake of keeping them secret without particularly evaluating whether the secrecy serves any purpose. On average, this means that there are things that are secret that shouldn't necessarily be. We might all be better off if we were a little more willing to share things that might not actually need to be secret." Not everything needs to be secre…

Thank you Visakan. You got it, and others didn't. A major challenge in communication is to not be misunderstood. I must not have been clear enough. I never said anywhere that everything should be public. Only that I decided my code and ideas didn't need to be secret. I think maybe commenters here are reacting more to other commenters, instead of the actual article, now.

I went and read the article, and I think it's obvious in retrospect why your point about your code is being ignored, and not just by people who haven't read the article. You start with this premise, which you appear to agree with:

I’m not worried about someone finding out my secrets, because secrets are just facts, right?

and go on to an example of a diary, one of the most personal artefacts we have, and imply that sharing it all with anyone who asks (as per the above statement) is absolutely fine. The implication of the above statement is that all secrets are pointless, including personal ones. In the context of a society in which governments and corporations are spying on every communication and looking for ways to justify it, this attitude is actively damaging and is an after-the-fact justification of that spying.

I think many people would agree with you that opening up your private code repos is a worthy thing to do, and it's certainly an idea worthy of discussion, with pros and cons (as you rightly point out, to do with maintenance and the public commitment more than anything else). The mistake in this article is relating that to personal privacy, and implying that secrets are just facts is a statement worthy of consideration.

If secrets are just facts and cannot hurt you, there is no point in keeping anything secret at all. Unfortunately other people in the world are quite capable of twisting the most mundane facts about your life (like your location at every moment, your sexual preferences, whatever), and using them to destroy your life, either because of their prejudices, or because of those of society at large. Witness politicians brought down because of some affair, or their private sex life - we don't know how many of those are leaked by our 'security services' for political gain but they certainly have done that in the past. No-one deserves that much power over others, and because of the asymmetry of power in our society, private information is far more useful to some people than others.

Perhaps that is not what you intended to imply, but that is the logical conclusion of the statement and your interpretation of it, and that's why people are reacting so strongly to it.

Re: Why was this secret?

#162

Post by pavelrub »

grellas wrote: post #101

Why was her diary secret? Well, because she wanted it so. And that should be enough. When it comes to information that any given person regards as intimate about oneself, that should always be enough. It doesn't matter that someone else might peruse that information and say, "there is nothing special here." Why? Because it is not that person's judgment to make. There may be nothing special about my exact bank balance…

You are misinterpreting the post.

Derek isn't claiming that your decisions about what to keep private shouldn't be respected, but rather that you - the person who wishes to keep things private - might benefit from thinking twice about what is it you are actually afraid of, and whether it is all rational.

Claiming that her diary was secret because "she wanted to" is really beside the point. People constantly "want" many things which are harmful to them. It is of much higher value to try and help them, than to deny attempts to do so on the grounds that "they have a right to do whatever they want".

Re: Why was this secret?

#163

Post by shurcooL »

I've basically made the same realization a few years ago and decided to stop going through the trouble of keeping my personal code private.

It's been great so far. I get all the benefits (like godoc.org providing docs for my code, free github repos, easy to share links with people, etc.) and none of the disadvantages.

It's a personal choice, and not for everyone. But it just makes life so much easier. In fact, I'm trying to reduce the number of things that I'm forced to keep private because they're considered to be "security questions".

On theft of ideas: https://twitter.com/shurcooL/status/266294572949327872

Re: Why was this secret?

#164

Post by bambax »

grellas wrote: post #101

Why was her diary secret? Well, because she wanted it so. And that should be enough. When it comes to information that any given person regards as intimate about oneself, that should always be enough. It doesn't matter that someone else might peruse that information and say, "there is nothing special here." Why? Because it is not that person's judgment to make. There may be nothing special about my exact bank balance…

If you write down your secrets on a diary, or tell some of your friends about it, or God forbid! write it up on Facebook, then you're asking for trouble (or maybe you want those "secrets" to not stay secret forever).

My secrets are in my head, I don't talk about them to anyone, I don't write them down. They will die with me.

Of course that doesn't work for a business. But a business is NOT a person, so it's disingenuous to claim that businesses have a right to "privacy". Businesses have no "human rights". Businesses are things, like a table or a shoe.

Re: Why was this secret?

#165

Post by acqq »

woah wrote: post #111
blah32497 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasons for privacy are always so contrived. "Dystopian futures", "enemies trying to ruin lives" etc. etc. It never resonates with me. I think what the author is trying to say is that if you live an open life with few secrets, then your life will be less stressful. He's encouraging us to really reevaluate what we keep secret b/c when you sit down to think about it, it's most likely all in your head.

Could you please post your real name? If not, you are by definition a hypocrite in what you have just said.

And the address and the phone number too. And where you work. And where you spend the nights.

Re: Why was this secret?

#166

Post by Toenex »

m0nastic wrote: post #34

I can't even imagine about what privacy is going to look like in 20 years, or how society will adapt to deal with it. What seems missing from his thought experiment is how to address privacy for things that concern more than just a single participant. I don't particularly worry about my individual privacy, or care about securing my things. If someone managed to get a hold of my email, I wouldn't be very put out. I do…

Nicely said, although I'd recommend backing stuff up, just so when you are old you show your kids 'what daddy used to do!'

Re: Why was this secret?

#167

Post by Toenex »

jarrett wrote: post #9

In the context of coding projects, the author's conclusion seems realistic. Given current events though, I can't help but wonder if there's a subtext about privacy and snooping. If so, then I would venture this observation: Your friend's super-secret diary is meaningless to you only because you have no desire to abuse the access you've been given. Suppose instead your friend's devious enemy obtained the diary. Then,…

Now imagine a dystopian future when all such diaries are available to a privileged subset of society. Imagine the power that subset would hold, and all the ways it would likely be abused.

Surely that power comes not from the honesty of the words in the diary, but from the fear that those words become widely known. Do most people have something to hide that is so shameful, so damning? In many cases is secrecy a luxury we might quickly be happy not to have? Is this current need for privacy because society is less accepting of us as people? Perhaps our obsession with privacy is the problem, not the solution.

Re: Why was this secret?

#168

Post by nodata »

bambax wrote: post #164
grellas wrote: post #101

Why was her diary secret? Well, because she wanted it so. And that should be enough. When it comes to information that any given person regards as intimate about oneself, that should always be enough. It doesn't matter that someone else might peruse that information and say, "there is nothing special here." Why? Because it is not that person's judgment to make. There may be nothing special about my exact bank balance…

If you write down your secrets on a diary, or tell some of your friends about it, or God forbid! write it up on Facebook, then you're asking for trouble (or maybe you want those "secrets" to not stay secret forever). My secrets are in my head, I don't talk about them to anyone, I don't write them down. They will die with me. Of course that doesn't work for a business. But a business is NOT a person, so it's disingenu…

Businesses have a need for secrets, as grellas explains. Whether or not you call the need "a right" or refer to the secrets as "privacy" isn't really important.

Re: Why was this secret?

#169

Post by bambax »

nodata wrote: post #168
bambax wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you write down your secrets on a diary, or tell some of your friends about it, or God forbid! write it up on Facebook, then you're asking for trouble (or maybe you want those "secrets" to not stay secret forever). My secrets are in my head, I don't talk about them to anyone, I don't write them down. They will die with me. Of course that doesn't work for a business. But a business is NOT a person, so it's disingenu…

Businesses have a need for secrets, as grellas explains. Whether or not you call the need "a right" or refer to the secrets as "privacy" isn't really important.

Businesses may have "needs" but just because they do doesn't mean we should help them meet them. It may be to the benefit of the public (made of humans) that businesses have no secrets or that their secrets can be investigated.

It's of utmost importance that we never refer to businesses' needs as rights.

Re: Why was this secret?

#170

Post by timbro »

hdevalence wrote: post #156
jonahx wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Derek was arguing that she shouldn't have the right to keep it secret, or that we shouldn't respect her wishes. The point of the piece is that many of our "secrets" -- things we guard carefully and fear being exposed -- wouldn't surprise, or even interest, other people. It's just a shift in perspective, not an attack on anyone's right to privacy.

"That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do." (David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest) (But this isn't to disagree with the grandparent post, either. Just a statement on perspective.)

That may be true if you're the kind of person who never stands up to anybody. If you never voice disagreement or opposition, then you can be that 100% transparent citizen.

But it's difficult or impossible to reverse this, once you've gone down that path.

And as soon as you'll feel like saying something critical, you can very easily be manipulated to remain silent, because the other party will know all your weaknesses. It will know where to attack you efficiently. (And if you take a look at our dumb and immature culture, you will notice that we still think it's ok to judge people, btw. all based on the illusion of "free will").

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