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Why was this secret?

sivers.org

181–190 of 219 posts

Re: Why was this secret?

#181
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a competitor came in and took your customer list, would it be good for your customers?

It sounds like you're saying that the ends justify the means.

They do, but not for humans.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/uv/ends_dont_justify_means_among_hum...

Re: Why was this secret?

#182
With respect to ideas in start-up phase , I think if it's your idea , you will pursue it more passionately as compared to others . Idea can struck to anyone , wonder out of billions of people around how many are pursuing similar ideas ? It's the one who do it in right way and right time makes it big.

Re: Why was this secret?

#183

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…

You bring up a very solid point. I've been in situations where I was "forced" to give out information such as my conversations with other people, emails, etc. on continuous basis. Although it had nothing to do with work or to a professional level, even on a personal level, that type of information, to me, was private between me and the people I communicate with.

With society heading more towards social media, connections, and networking. Holding secrets seem to be pretty difficult.

If someone were to ask me to tell them a secret, I wouldn't even know what to say. It seems like all aspects of my life is already known by one person or another, or maybe it's so secret that I don't even remember it myself.

I wonder if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Re: Why was this secret?

#184
I think the diary analogy is great, but the author fails to explore it properly. It ignores aspects such as self-awareness, self-consciousness and self-censorship. Notice a lot of 'self's in the previous sentence? A diary is a very personal thing. When you are writing in your diary you poor your heart out about everything and anything. You can do this because you are the only person who will ever read this stuff. Imagine writing something that other people will read, like your mom (anything sex-related is out of the question), your colleagues (better not say your boss is a total jerk), your friends (don't mention that secret Anne told you about Peter, or you wlll lose 2 friends) or your government (no wait, they already know everything anyway).

Similar things happen when you are writing code for yourself and yourself only. When I write code for my own pleasure. I don't care so much about documentation, clarity, robustness, polish, etc. Yes, I am a bad, bad person. Anyway, compare writing code for yourself with code you share with friends (generally supportive, but add some polish and fix that hack so they don't think you're a complete idiot), colleagues (semi-critical yet supportive, maybe try to score some bonus points using a FactorySingletonVisitorBean) or hackerne.ws (super-critical, probably rewrite it in the language-du-jour first, prepare to be burned at the stake anyway).

Re: Why was this secret?

#185
post #177
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…

We write things down for a number of reasons. Are you really arguing that a person "is asking for it" just for writing it down?

I'm only saying, what's not written can't be read. What isn't said can't be heard.

My mother was a lawyer and always taught us never to talk over the phone about things that were potentially incriminating, much less writing it down -- and this was in the seventies-eighties, long before anything resembling the Internet or the mass-surveillance capabilities of today's NSA.

What I'm saying is that a real secret is something not shared with anyone; if you need to share a "secret" with another person:

- you need to take extreme precautions, such as not talking about it on the phone, not writing about it, not alluding to it when in presence of other people

- you can only talk about it in person, not over any kind of wire, regardless of what you think are good encryption methods

- and even if you do all of the above it's very likely the secret won't stay secret forever

I'd say this is all common sense.

Re: Why was this secret?

#186
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes open transparent society, this the future I'm looking forward to. I would no need to hide my credit card number, bank account, sexual quirk, etc, If anybody trying to abuse that, they will be easily tracked.

Keep private things private. The world doesn't need to know your sexual quirks, or your bank balance, and you shouldn't feel the need to broadcast it. People I interact with know I have a wife, they don't need to know her favorite lube or position. That is crude and unnecessary, and a society that expects that knowledge and welcomes it with open arms has a major root issue.

In the world where information easily gathered I don't even need to hide these thing. If you know my favorite lube then whatever, I would know yours or other people too. These things would not be taboo or strange.

Re: Why was this secret?

#187
post #177
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…

We write things down for a number of reasons. Are you really arguing that a person "is asking for it" just for writing it down?

It's a practical thing. If you write a secret down, then there's another instance of it in the world; an instance that might (and most likely will) be mishandled or otherwise discovered by third party, accidentally or not. So if there's any instance of the secret outside of your head, it's better to treat it as 'public but not yet discovered by people', and adjust your OPSEC accordingly.

Re: Why was this secret?

#188
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The punishment for killing is the deterrent.

For people that have rational minds. What about people who are irrational or have some sort of mental illness? I guess that's just a "too bad" for the person who is now dead?

Yes its too bad when I'm dead. I could done anything I could have done to prevent that but there will always be somebody who are irrational or have some sort mental illness or anybody who could eventually find a way to kill me if they really want to. This is happen in open or private society.

Re: Why was this secret?

#189
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not the problem with open society in itself. The same problem happen in private society. Anybody motivated enough can hack through your secret given enough effort.

"Given enough effort" is the key there. Just because someone can break into your house given enough effort doesn't mean you leave your doors off the hinges.

I would not even need to lock my doors.

Re: Why was this secret?

#190
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,…

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.

And when you step out of line, or just step on the wrong toes, and someone decides to make your life miserable for some trivial reason, you've given them a whole arsenal to use against you.

You consider yourself part of the 'in' group. I follow all the rules, why would anyone bother me? And that works fine until one day it doesn't. The day that happens you'll get no help from the other people that think the way you do.

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