always has been
Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty
201–210 of 240 posts
Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty
#202I can sympathize with the general notion that more encryption is better, even if I wouldn't go to the extreme of declaring it a duty . But the author just completely lost me at: > We should all use PGP, SSL or equivalent tools; VPNs, Tor and/or SSH tunnelling; IPFS, or other distributed file systems — and ditch proprietary OS's in favour of Linux or truly free Android distros... Those tools and techniques should ceas…
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Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have an extremely generous and optimistic view of the cognitive capital of the average person.
I'm so sick and tired of techies infantilizing the rest of the population. It started with making apps "accessible" but the result is that they've dumbed down an entire generation by limiting them to their locked down mobile phones. Now everything supposedly should be accessible to everyone without them having to invest a second of thought, so much so that this now has somehow become the norm. People who care will fi…
Quite a few people could do what the article asks if sufficiently motivated. How do you propose to motivate them?
I often have trouble convincing people to install Signal, which requires about two minutes for people who barely know how to use their smartphones and under one for people who know where the app store is. If a majority people don't have the motivation to do that much, we have a very uphill battle.
Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course, the idea that there is any kind of "permanent ground truth" around morals/laws is very much up for debate. Some philosophers think it exists (usually called "natural law" [1]), while many others think it's nonsense. I would guess that most anthropologists, for instance, would say it's rubbish -- people who have studied the exceedingly wide variation in what is considered moral or immoral across cultures. A…
> A duty in one community may very well be a prohibition in another. I think the standard example of this is whether you marry your brother's widow. On the other hand, there is a large list of phenomena that are observed in every documented culture, such as marriage.
Maybe we would say, "whether you are required to marry your brother's widow" - it would be a somewhat unusual choice in modern western cultures, but not forbidden.
Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
And do you think all of your non-tech-savvy relative would go for it?
They already use https for almost everything, don't they? It wasn't the case from the beginning.
The impact of using https versus http is miniscule compared to the impact of using Tor versus not.
Yes, I agree that everyone should have access to those technologies by default. I also think that the implementation for the layperson will make the projects almost unrecognizable.
Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A duty in one community may very well be a prohibition in another. I think the standard example of this is whether you marry your brother's widow. On the other hand, there is a large list of phenomena that are observed in every documented culture, such as marriage.
Maybe we would say, "whether you are required to marry your brother's widow" - it would be a somewhat unusual choice in modern western cultures, but not forbidden.
I didn't think we were restricting the discussion to modern western cultures. In some cultures, marrying your brother's widow has been required; we generally see this as being part of the social safety net in that culture.
In some cultures, marrying your brother's widow is prohibited because it counts as incest.
I don't know how I would describe the state of this variable in modern western cultures. In modern America, I tend to think it would raise eyebrows and people would be uncomfortable with you.
Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have an extremely generous and optimistic view of the cognitive capital of the average person.
I'm so sick and tired of techies infantilizing the rest of the population. It started with making apps "accessible" but the result is that they've dumbed down an entire generation by limiting them to their locked down mobile phones. Now everything supposedly should be accessible to everyone without them having to invest a second of thought, so much so that this now has somehow become the norm. People who care will fi…
Most of the population are not tech involved people, they like and use the entertaining/communication related features of the device. Making things extremely easy is what tech is all about.
People who care will figure it out, and those who don't will be left behind. Is that not the case for most of history? Atleast apps as you say are accessible to everyone without them having to invest a second thought.
Why should the average joe have to consider a second thought? If my Dad wants to watch his favourite TV show, he should be able to do that in the most accessible way possible.
Perhaps Microsoft shouldn't have built a GUI and should've kept the CMD line around so that we would've all had to learn to "do it the hard way" and wouldn't have been infantilizing us with buttons, graphics, file explorers, hyperlinks and applications.
Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty
#208Lot of valid points, too bad all of that is thrown away by telling everyone should support crypto.
Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe we would say, "whether you are required to marry your brother's widow" - it would be a somewhat unusual choice in modern western cultures, but not forbidden.
I didn't think we were restricting the discussion to modern western cultures. In some cultures, marrying your brother's widow has been required; we generally see this as being part of the social safety net in that culture. In some cultures, marrying your brother's widow is prohibited because it counts as incest. I don't know how I would describe the state of this variable in modern western cultures. In modern America…
So looking at the wiki entry on Levirate marriage[1] I see that it's been more common than I remembered, a quick look around didn't turn up any cultures where it would be flatly forbidden as incestuous (I picked modern western as an example where like you say it would seem unusual, but I can also imagine scenarios where it'd be seen as heartwarming, making sure the widow and children were housed and fed etc.)
Re: Encrypting private data and private communications is now an ethical duty
#210>If you don't have something to hide someone else might have something to hide I don't find it ethical to fight for the privacy just to protect criminals.
Your argument assumes a just state that will not outlaw things like dissent against the government, being LGBTQ, etc. Plus, having something to hide does not automatically mean you are doing something criminal. I do nothing criminal, but I still have things to hide.