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The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

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Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#101

Post by jwitchel »

blaze33 wrote: post #54

Ok so this "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" argument is so recurrent I once went looking where it came from. The oldest account I found is in a religious book from 1832 [1]: "We must have nothing to hide, nothing to fear", but, and this is the important bit, this is in the context of your relationship with Christ. Later accounts are mostly from judicial documents like "well tell us what happened, if you have nothin…

AI slop for all its banality may give us enough noise in the signal to accomplish exactly what the author is asking for.

As the dead web continues to emerge, content looks less like apples on a tree and more like sand on the beach.

And the act of looking for a misshapen grain of sand becomes absurd.

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#102

Post by dfawcus »

mjd wrote: post #83
luckys wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is your contract with Ovo Energy? Companies cannot just go charge random people willy-nilly like that.

You have missed the point of the story. GP is not a customer of Ovo energy. They sent him a bill in error . “Companies cannot just go charge random people” And yet they do. Anyone can send anyone a bill.

Partially "slamming" where agents would try to get folks to switch to a different billing provider, and get paid a commission. So some fraudulently "sign up" random addresses they were supposed to visit.

The other case has been miscommunication over phone or email to someone actually requesting to change billing provider. Or error on the part of the potential customer.

I've had a bill from some random billing provider. In my case it is common for folks newly arriving in the block of flats to get the digits of the address transposed. Due to them using the common English convention, whereas the part of Scotland I'm in uses a different convention.

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#103

Post by faidit »

rpdillon wrote: post #95
faidit wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author clarifies a couple sentences later that the contempt they feel is "the cold, hard anger you hold for a collaborator" - "collaborator" apparently meaning something like the very bad WWII kind of collaborator, rather than the benign artistic co-author kind. So, despite the implicit acknowledgement that there are multiple types of contempt, this particular contempt does sound fairly close to hatred.

No, it sounds like contempt and anger, which is why I suspect the author used those words.

Look up the definition of "hate". How is "cold, hard anger" like one might feel toward a N*zi collaborator not adjacent to that? Why quibble over this?

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#104

Post by robhlt »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #60
PunchyHamster wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer short and snarky "then drop your pants". Shuts up most.

Maybe "give me your bank PIN" for those that have been waiting for an excuse to drop their pants.

Both of these are not good responses and are easily discounted by most people ("I don't take nude photos"/"I never tell anyone my pin").

Average people see zero equivalence between sending nudes or their bank pin to a specific stranger and Google keeping a record of every website they've ever visited.

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#106

Post by pineaux »

slaugh wrote: post #70
estearum wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you don't see it written verbatim "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" doesn't mean it's not the argument being made. Right now you have half the country downright giddy about federal agents terrorizing broad swaths of Americans, driving recklessly down their freeways, waving guns around their neighborhoods, bodyslamming random passersby, all fundamentally because half the country believes the only reason…

The hardcore supporters of the current U.S. administration (e.g. those that go to the rallies, give to the NRA, participate in some militant group), had been very distrustful of government in-general, and I suspect they still are. You may feel that you’re supporting some radical left-wing group you think is cool that just wants people to let everyone be free to think and act how they want, but privacy / hiding commun…

Are you saying that anonymity is bad because there are trump supporters that like anonymity?

Or are you saying that anonymity is not "cool" because radical left-wingers like it and that lets rightwingers do it as well?

Are you saying that advocating for anonymity is not nice because terrorists (who? I dont know many of them) will spit on you (do terrorists do that? does that make someone a terrorist?) and bomb not only you but you family and friends and not read my manifesto on anonymity, while insinuating that the only reason anybody wants anonymity is because they want to watch freaky "crap"?

Pardon, my french, but you sound like a troll from some intelligence agency. It just doesnt make a lot of sense.

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#107

Post by DalekBaldwin »

blaze33 wrote: post #54

Ok so this "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" argument is so recurrent I once went looking where it came from. The oldest account I found is in a religious book from 1832 [1]: "We must have nothing to hide, nothing to fear", but, and this is the important bit, this is in the context of your relationship with Christ. Later accounts are mostly from judicial documents like "well tell us what happened, if you have nothin…

Right, I don't think I've ever actually seen anybody make the "nothing to hide" argument. Maybe it was used more commonly in the past, but I only ever see people pre-emptively attack it without prompting. It seems to be a special case of a straw-man argument: a no-man argument. It's not the only such example, but it seems to appear without fail in the top comments in any discussion of privacy issues.

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#108

Post by pineaux »

deepstate25 wrote: post #35
alan-crowe wrote: post #26

My "importance of privacy" story: I get my gas and electricity from Scottish Power. Recently a rival company, Ovo Energy made a clerical error and sent me a bill, leading to a dispute. The front line of defence against this kind of dispute is that the bills give the serial numbers of the meters. The bill from Scottish Power gives the same meter serial numbers that are embossed on the front of my meters, and is theref…

This is a valid story and I’m sorry to hear that you went through this. However, it’s a strawman for the current argument from the blog post, which is that living life in the open and acting normal is setting things up for failure, and I don’t believe that it is. Having nothing to hide is fine. Nothing to hide and doing nothing wrong is least likely to cause trouble. The blog post’s argument that someone would be mor…

the name fits the post. I have a different take on "nothing to hide" I think it's a shame that you have nothing to hide. Interesting minds have things to hide. It can be new ideas that are revolutionary and need hidden work to develop into a strong idea. It can be things that challenge the status quo in a dangerous way (for the status quo). It might be gaining freedom from stifling sexual norms. It could be information about your status (rich or poor). If you have nothing to hide, please walk around naked. Never close your curtains. Carry a screen with all your assets and bank accounts. Please carry all your passwords in plain text in your pocket or tattooed on your arm. Keep your address visible on a post-it note on your forehead.

Its just absurd to think you have nothing to hide. If it's not from the state, then it is from other people that mean you harm. That will take advantage of the information you are broadcasting.

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#109

Post by grindermaster »

DalekBaldwin wrote: post #107
blaze33 wrote: post #54

Ok so this "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" argument is so recurrent I once went looking where it came from. The oldest account I found is in a religious book from 1832 [1]: "We must have nothing to hide, nothing to fear", but, and this is the important bit, this is in the context of your relationship with Christ. Later accounts are mostly from judicial documents like "well tell us what happened, if you have nothin…

Right, I don't think I've ever actually seen anybody make the "nothing to hide" argument. Maybe it was used more commonly in the past, but I only ever see people pre-emptively attack it without prompting. It seems to be a special case of a straw-man argument: a no-man argument. It's not the only such example, but it seems to appear without fail in the top comments in any discussion of privacy issues.

People around me make the nothing to hide argument all the time

Re: The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

#110

Post by Griffinsauce »

spacecadet wrote: post #27

Speak softly and carry a big stick. Im a fairly private person. Id also end my life in defense of freedom and autonomy... I read posts like this and I cant imagine what an extremist like this is trying to protect? To continue living a life in shadow? Well, when the time comes that his giant "machine" the governments all poorly maintain and utilize finally awakens and results in concentration camps... you better forge…

What is your big stick? Governments and large corporations are unfathomably powerful these days.
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