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Lawrence Lessig: Technology Will Create New Models for Privacy Regulation

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Re: Lawrence Lessig: Technology Will Create New Models for Privacy Regulation

#11

Post by forgottenpass »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #3

None of these articles explain why privacy is a good thing. They just assume it to be a fact. I have some issues with this. What if the entire premise of privacy being beneficial is flawed? What if the actual problem is that we build systems and processes that rely on the unsustainable idea of privacy and the wishful ability to keep secrets? Do people not see that this makes everything more fragile and likely to brea…

What if the actual problem is that we build systems and processes that rely on the unsustainable idea of privacy and the wishful ability to keep secrets? Do people not see that this makes everything more fragile and likely to break?

I think you have that backwards. Privacy is a protection from the massive amount of failure states otherwise present in systems by refusing them information to operate on.

Can we build systems and processes that can protect that information from all known incentives and motivations (both commercial and socially driven). And accommodate for all unforeseen ones, in a society that already doesn't have a single set of harmonious goals?

Re: Lawrence Lessig: Technology Will Create New Models for Privacy Regulation

#12

Post by mindslight »

rayiner wrote: post #4

> It is really a generational effect. People in law school learned this way of thinking 10 years ago, and they are coming into their place in the regulatory space. As someone in that group, I don't know if I see any evidence of this generational effect. The Internet is just the latest battleground for ideologies that have always existed: consumer protection, national security, business freedom, market solutions. The…

Politicians/regulators can never be encryption utopians because they always seek more power. However, widespread adoption of secure encryption [0] could turn proposals to ban it from being seriously "debated", to the equivalent of that state senator who wanted to legislate pi = 3. "Physics drives finance drives politics", and all that.

[0] Obviously without centralized database MITM, using software not distributed by a centralized entity that can be easily controlled as you point out.

Re: Lawrence Lessig: Technology Will Create New Models for Privacy Regulation

#14

Post by Archio »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #3

None of these articles explain why privacy is a good thing. They just assume it to be a fact. I have some issues with this. What if the entire premise of privacy being beneficial is flawed? What if the actual problem is that we build systems and processes that rely on the unsustainable idea of privacy and the wishful ability to keep secrets? Do people not see that this makes everything more fragile and likely to brea…

> The real question is, what can we do to make living a transparent and open life possible

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but are you advocating for people to make as many details of their life open and transparent on the internet because we should have nothing to hide?

Re: Lawrence Lessig: Technology Will Create New Models for Privacy Regulation

#15

Post by rayiner »

mindslight wrote: post #12
rayiner wrote: post #4

> It is really a generational effect. People in law school learned this way of thinking 10 years ago, and they are coming into their place in the regulatory space. As someone in that group, I don't know if I see any evidence of this generational effect. The Internet is just the latest battleground for ideologies that have always existed: consumer protection, national security, business freedom, market solutions. The…

Politicians/regulators can never be encryption utopians because they always seek more power. However, widespread adoption of secure encryption [0] could turn proposals to ban it from being seriously "debated", to the equivalent of that state senator who wanted to legislate pi = 3. "Physics drives finance drives politics", and all that. [0] Obviously without centralized database MITM, using software not distributed by…

It's not even a matter of "politicians wanting more power." The public wants the government to have power over people, because they are (reasonably or not), more scared of other people than they are of the government. People fall on different places on the spectrum for how they weigh the loss of privacy versus the need for security, but very few are willing to say "we need pervasive unbreakable encryption, whatever the consequences to law enforcement." Even terrorism aside, very few people are willing to give up the power of authorities to investigate, say, the transactions of suspected financial criminals.

Re: Lawrence Lessig: Technology Will Create New Models for Privacy Regulation

#16

Post by [deleted] »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #3

None of these articles explain why privacy is a good thing. They just assume it to be a fact. I have some issues with this. What if the entire premise of privacy being beneficial is flawed? What if the actual problem is that we build systems and processes that rely on the unsustainable idea of privacy and the wishful ability to keep secrets? Do people not see that this makes everything more fragile and likely to brea…

[deleted]

Re: Lawrence Lessig: Technology Will Create New Models for Privacy Regulation

#17

Post by sbov »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #3

None of these articles explain why privacy is a good thing. They just assume it to be a fact. I have some issues with this. What if the entire premise of privacy being beneficial is flawed? What if the actual problem is that we build systems and processes that rely on the unsustainable idea of privacy and the wishful ability to keep secrets? Do people not see that this makes everything more fragile and likely to brea…

Privacy is important because people are assholes.

My wife has an ex-boyfriend who went to prison. She was pretty terrified when there was an internet trail to our current home address (which I have since closed). Largely because of our Macy's wedding registry which showed up when you searched her name, which had my name, and there's only one of me in the US.

We know he found the registry because he emailed her about it. But he had to be a bit technical to connect the rest of the dots, and I don't think he did.

Re: Lawrence Lessig: Technology Will Create New Models for Privacy Regulation

#18

Post by nunyabuizness »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #3

None of these articles explain why privacy is a good thing. They just assume it to be a fact. I have some issues with this. What if the entire premise of privacy being beneficial is flawed? What if the actual problem is that we build systems and processes that rely on the unsustainable idea of privacy and the wishful ability to keep secrets? Do people not see that this makes everything more fragile and likely to brea…

I wish I could upvote this more. One reply mentions how easy anti-sodomy laws would be to enforce if we had no privacy. Considering how much faith people put in democracy and the democratic process, you'd think that people would concede that it's the law and our influence over it that's the problem, not privacy.

One question I like to propose to those who disagree with this sentiment is as follows:

Imagine you live in a hypothetical world where all things you consider moral, just and socially acceptable were legal and societally acceptable and where everything else was illegal and societally reprehensible. What role would privacy play in such a society? What benefits would it provide?

I have yet to get a good answer to that question; if peeing in public was ok with me, everyone else and perfectly legal, what reason would I have not to do it? (You can mention shaming and whatnot, but I posit that in this hypothetical world based on my morality, if I didn't shame people, no one else would either).

tl;dr: the problem isn't privacy, the problem is law and our inability to influence it, for which our best tool for the problems that arise from our lack of influence is privacy.

Re: Lawrence Lessig: Technology Will Create New Models for Privacy Regulation

#19

Post by [deleted] »

Archio wrote: post #14
miguelrochefort wrote: post #3

None of these articles explain why privacy is a good thing. They just assume it to be a fact. I have some issues with this. What if the entire premise of privacy being beneficial is flawed? What if the actual problem is that we build systems and processes that rely on the unsustainable idea of privacy and the wishful ability to keep secrets? Do people not see that this makes everything more fragile and likely to brea…

> The real question is, what can we do to make living a transparent and open life possible Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but are you advocating for people to make as many details of their life open and transparent on the internet because we should have nothing to hide?

[deleted]

Re: Lawrence Lessig: Technology Will Create New Models for Privacy Regulation

#20

Post by nunyabuizness »

Archio wrote: post #14
miguelrochefort wrote: post #3

None of these articles explain why privacy is a good thing. They just assume it to be a fact. I have some issues with this. What if the entire premise of privacy being beneficial is flawed? What if the actual problem is that we build systems and processes that rely on the unsustainable idea of privacy and the wishful ability to keep secrets? Do people not see that this makes everything more fragile and likely to brea…

> The real question is, what can we do to make living a transparent and open life possible Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but are you advocating for people to make as many details of their life open and transparent on the internet because we should have nothing to hide?

I think he's proposing that it's not privacy that's the problem, but society's laws and morality that require us to use privacy to protect ourselves.

If no one had to be punished under unjust laws for living a decent life transparently, why would privacy be beneficial?

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