Ask HN: Why is privacy something we should strive for? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Why is privacy something we should strive for?

#21

Post by tambourmajor » Sun, May 25, 2014, 10:01 AM UTC

miguelrochefort wrote: post #17

tambourmajor wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Truth can be misued for misguidance and I think it's easier to allow for a private space than to achieve a society that is not prone to misguidance. 2. Without going too much into the details I would personally prefer spatial declarations of private space. For example the space that is occupied by your home and the space that is constituted by a sphere that encloses your body. Ideally everyone should have the poss…

1. When information is scarce, people are more prone to misguidance. In a world where there's no privacy, misguidance is much easier to spot and invalidate. This is when you don't know much about something that truth gets fuzzy and can take any turn. 2. What if you're loud and I can hear you when you're inside your "private space"? What if my camera captures you in your "bubble"? Can I get into trouble for capturing…

1. That is not true because even if every bit of information is made inherently public it does not mean that the information is not prone to manipulation.

2. Well, there should be laws that enforce that the privacy stuff is included in every product. Windows and walls will work with noise cancelling and act as a Faraday cage. Windows will also need to have mirrors on the outside.

3. That's why I wrote 'wider' in parens. Of course one would be able to widen the privacy sphere, i.e. you'll still be able to join gatherings in a completely natural way.

4. Again, I didn't say that you shouldn't be able to reveal yourself. If you want to share all your relevant thoughts and actions with your coworkers you are free to do so. I think with a slick user interface (e.g. a brain implant) and various automatic/self-adapting filters that could work quite unobtrusively, so I don't think your usability objections are particulary strong arguments.

Re: Ask HN: Why is privacy something we should strive for?

#22

Post by logn » Sun, May 25, 2014, 7:43 PM UTC

It's about the freedom to think and communicate. If all your thoughts were tweeted and all your conversations were publicly blogged, wouldn't that degrade your freedom? Or if in every conversation, someone told you they would send a report to the gov't capturing what was discussed, would you end up having the same conversation?

Re: Ask HN: Why is privacy something we should strive for?

#23

Post by shawnreilly » Tue, May 27, 2014, 2:15 AM UTC

Privacy is hard to quantify from a good/bad perspective because it relates to personal preference. One person might demand it, while another person might not care at all. Because of this, I don't see the issue as cut-and-dry as being good or bad. As a Community that builds Products, I think it is much more constructive to understand that the issue is broad in nature, and your customers likely have opposing views (or may not care at all). I think the real question should be; When building a Product, what are the ethical implications of User Privacy? If one believes that they should be in-tune with their customers (which is what I believe) then the best approach is probably to respect both sides of the issue. So in other words, instead of deciding what is "right", build the Product to support both extremes. When you give the User a choice, it is much more well received than making the choice for them. Most issues I've read about, heard about, or experienced myself resulted from a lack of understanding or respect for the User's choice.