I've been looking for a similarly comprehensive summary against the encryption back door argument, can anyone point me to one?
‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)
151–160 of 293 posts
Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)
#152The problem with the "I've got nothing to hide" argument is it's not "you" who decides what is "right" or "wrong". The entity doing the "spying" determines what is right or wrong. "You" might think "x" is ok, however the "spying" entity may have the opposite view. And it is the "spying" entity's opinion that matters, not yours, because it always them that have the power and authority in determining what is "right" or…
> "I've got nothing to hide" Are you: Jewish? Trans? Gay? A woman? Pregnant? Black? Brown? A furry? Muslim? Christian? Rich? Poor? Need I go on? All these groups have at one time or another (including now) needed to hide. This is a forum full of techies, and I'm sure lots of people don't want to tell everyone they are a techie right away (remember when you'd get punched if you wore Google Glasses?), or talk about the…
“Pooping for Privacy” is going to be my new slogan if anyone is bringing it into a discussion from now on and brings up “nothing to hide” argument.
Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)
#153I have been watching polite first amendment auditors on YouTube such as Honor Your Oath and Long Island Audit and Too Apree. They will engage in constitutionally protected activity such as video recording or panhandling* in public, or in Too Apree's case, just acting like a goof.
Quite eye-opening. All too often a police officer will attempt to run them off at the behest of a government bureaucrat. Overall, these videos reveal that the people who form our government tend to streamline the operation of government for their own convenience and comfort at the expense of the rights and convenience of ordinary citizens.
Even the people who have sworn an oath to uphold the rights enshrined in the Constitution all too often do not really understand what those rights are. Or don't care. Or think their job is about something else - keeping citizens in line or something.
One must always exercise one's rights or lose them. "I have nothing to hide" is hiding. As The Civil Rights Lawyer says: Freedom is scary. Deal with it.
https://www.youtube.com/@HONORYOUROATH
https://www.youtube.com/@LongIslandAudit
https://www.youtube.com/c/TOOAPREE
https://www.youtube.com/@thecivilrightslawyer
* Honor Your Oath does not actually panhandle until he is told he cannot panhandle. Then he asks the officer for money.
Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The police aren't the government, The police is the dog of the government. What difference does it make to you if the dog or the master attacks you?
I understand that in the simplest way this is true, and I am sure it is very clever, poetic and pithy. But this is not how it works in principle or in practice in the UK. The police work on behalf of the people, not the government. When government manages to suborn the police in even a small way it is very much noticed. It’s difficult for people outside the UK to see this, I suppose, but our experience with this is t…
Curious: then how did the mechanism work of the Redditor that got arrested in the parent comment?
Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)
#155The problem with the "I've got nothing to hide" argument is it's not "you" who decides what is "right" or "wrong". The entity doing the "spying" determines what is right or wrong. "You" might think "x" is ok, however the "spying" entity may have the opposite view. And it is the "spying" entity's opinion that matters, not yours, because it always them that have the power and authority in determining what is "right" or…
This is a great and succinct way to phrase it, I'm going to stash it.
Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)
#156The problem with the "I've got nothing to hide" argument is it's not "you" who decides what is "right" or "wrong". The entity doing the "spying" determines what is right or wrong. "You" might think "x" is ok, however the "spying" entity may have the opposite view. And it is the "spying" entity's opinion that matters, not yours, because it always them that have the power and authority in determining what is "right" or…
> "I've got nothing to hide" Are you: Jewish? Trans? Gay? A woman? Pregnant? Black? Brown? A furry? Muslim? Christian? Rich? Poor? Need I go on? All these groups have at one time or another (including now) needed to hide. This is a forum full of techies, and I'm sure lots of people don't want to tell everyone they are a techie right away (remember when you'd get punched if you wore Google Glasses?), or talk about the…
And that's just the current list of groups / identifiers; this may change over time as well. Like, right now right-wing peoples are terrified / fearmongering that being white and straight will become a targeted minority.
Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
I completely agree with this. I live in the UK and when I raise concerns about government surveillance here people often say, "I've got nothing to hide". I learnt of a case just this week where a guy on Reddit left a slightly controversial comment and ended up being charged with hate speech, lost his job and received hate abuse online for his opinion. It was kinda crazy because "all" he said was that didn't care abou…
There was also a well publicised case where a mother was arrested in front of her children after misgendering a trans person on Twitter. The case was eventually thrown out but it seems the UK police have far too much power and flexibility in terms of what they can arrest someone for.
The true problem is, what offended 20 years ago, does not offend today. And the same is true for 20 years from now!
So how do you codify this? Legislation can't have specific words and actions in it, it would be out of date before it became law!
So to target "offensive things", depends upon the opinion of the officers, the prosecutor, and so on! And can change at a moments notice!
Oh bewoe to thee, which does not watch twitter and be ware of new words this week!
Here's an example. Where I grew up, colloquially, women were called 'chicks' and men 'boys'. "What are you chicks/boys up to", one might say.
This was used by extreme feminists too, with zero objection.
Flash forward a few years, and in a city 1000km away, I started to describe how I was deeply impressed with the clarity of , she's a chick to watch.
Zero offense at home. None. New city? All the women, and some men in the room, went ballistic.
Note that:
* I was complementing the intellect of a person
* The tone and mannerism I used, was as if I said "woman to watch"
Point is, a word which was encouraged and approved by feminists I grew up with, used 1000km away in the same province of my country, meant I was an anti-feminist, woman hater.
And how do you legislate that?!
And... what you say in one place, can be dangerous in another, all with no ill intent!
Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)
#158The problem with the "I've got nothing to hide" argument is it's not "you" who decides what is "right" or "wrong". The entity doing the "spying" determines what is right or wrong. "You" might think "x" is ok, however the "spying" entity may have the opposite view. And it is the "spying" entity's opinion that matters, not yours, because it always them that have the power and authority in determining what is "right" or…
At Def Con the EFF had a talk on just this addressing abortion rights and the means of the state to use your digital footprints against you if you decide to go to a other state for services. I guess the saying should be "you may not have anything to hide until the moment you do"
And then it's too late. Like, early 1900's, it was quite common for people to have their religion listed in your government records or ID. But then one religion became persecuted and hunted down.
There's a few commended civilian heroes whose contribution was that they burned or otherwise destroyed records like these, like Willem Arondeus who bombed the Amsterdam public records office (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_Arondeus)
Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Example: in the 1930, Dutch municipalities would record ethnicity for their citizens. The argument was that ethnicity wasn't something you'd need to hide, and it could be useful should you need to identify yourself. When in 1940 the German occupiers took over, those records turned out to be very useful for their genocide.
would record ethnicity *religious affiliation It makes sense that ethnicity would have been recorded as well, but FAFAIK the Germans mostly used the data on religious identity (i.e. which persons were a member of which church community).
The point still stands; any kind of private information like ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexuality - NONE of those are relevant to a government, and ANY of those can be used to identify and persecute people if there is a regime or law change aimed at any of those categories.
Tangentially related, it's why things like period trackers are dangerous too; the US has had a spate of anti-abortion laws, the data from those apps (if used) can be used to detect pregnancies and whether they have stopped prematurely. For example.
Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)
#160The problem with the "I've got nothing to hide" argument is it's not "you" who decides what is "right" or "wrong". The entity doing the "spying" determines what is right or wrong. "You" might think "x" is ok, however the "spying" entity may have the opposite view. And it is the "spying" entity's opinion that matters, not yours, because it always them that have the power and authority in determining what is "right" or…
I completely agree with this. I live in the UK and when I raise concerns about government surveillance here people often say, "I've got nothing to hide". I learnt of a case just this week where a guy on Reddit left a slightly controversial comment and ended up being charged with hate speech, lost his job and received hate abuse online for his opinion. It was kinda crazy because "all" he said was that didn't care abou…
For context, I'm generally sympathetic to the "I've got nothing to hide" people
I find your example illustrates the point . The UK has insane libel laws
The sane solution would be to address these laws, not to create mechanisms for people to arbitrarily evade laws
A lot of pro privacy arguments seem to boil down to "well we should make it a bit easier for people to break the law, cus maybe the laws are just bad". This line of reasoning just feels really unsatisfying..