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‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

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Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#241

Post by Zetice »

danShumway wrote: post #210
Zetice wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time in modern history western society has started down the path of outlawing some form of existence, we self correct.

> we self correct And that usually happens quickly and with zero casualties? I'm sure that Alan Touring would be thrilled to learn that years later his nation has stopped castrating gay people. Progress also isn't linear, backlash over transgender identity has gotten worse recently. People are being prosecuted over abortions that would have been legal a year ago. None of the people who are in those positions are goin…

Why do you presume the number of acceptable casualties is zero? We don’t apply that kind of logic to any other aspect of risk management, why would that be the bar here?

And no, privacy advocates claim privacy protects against the future, not the present. Their whole argument is, “what if stuff you like is made illegal in the future?!?!” with absolutely no tether to realit

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#242

Post by alaxapta7 »

someone321 wrote: post #229
alaxapta7 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but one thing I do is having a fake name on my mailbox and doorbell. I figured my neighbours don't need to know, and parcel services don't care. I don't legally live on that address, so that helps. I also try to keep my browser's headers more generic, especially the Accept-Language header (not applicable or particulary helpful for US residents, though). The rest (VPN, [and therefore] no Google and no social n…

[dead]

To my fake name (from family and friends), anything official goes to the mailbox at my real address to which I have access to. But that rarely happens thanks to e-government. Because of presumed delivery, there's no benefit in receiving that kind of mail on paper, so I opted-in.

For e-mail, I use a domain with a catch-all mailbox. I rot13 the service name or whatever in the local-part to identify where the e-mail got leaked/sold from, which I feel like happens more often than not when buying anything from small e-shops.

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#243

Post by zlg_codes »

elwell wrote: post #127
zlg_codes wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why trust an entity that has historically been proven to be untrustworthy? That's like getting punched by your bouncer and still expecting him to be on your side.

So I can get my tax refund direct deposit

Legitimately funny response!

But I'm sure you know, if the gov't charged appropriately, you wouldn't get money back, and you'd pay less of your paychecks. They make money on any overpayment, in interest.

It's quite disappointing how governments treat their citizens like livestock instead of citizens.

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#244

Post by Karunamon »

jaredhallen wrote: post #41
Karunamon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a useful argument; anyone making the "nothing to hide" argument is implicitly arguing the trustworthiness (or the low likelihood of a mistake impacting them) of the state/justice system. You and other members of the general public are not part of that. This is also why the snippy "so you don't have (locks on your doors/blinds on your windows/etc.)?" comeback does not work.

Who makes up the state and justice system? Is it not people?

"Officer" is indeed a subclass of "Person", but the former includes a StateAuthority mixin that modifies its acceptable and expected behavior in a number of ways that make it unreasonable to blindly substitute one for the other.

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#245

Post by danShumway »

Zetice wrote: post #241
danShumway wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we self correct And that usually happens quickly and with zero casualties? I'm sure that Alan Touring would be thrilled to learn that years later his nation has stopped castrating gay people. Progress also isn't linear, backlash over transgender identity has gotten worse recently. People are being prosecuted over abortions that would have been legal a year ago. None of the people who are in those positions are goin…

Why do you presume the number of acceptable casualties is zero? We don’t apply that kind of logic to any other aspect of risk management, why would that be the bar here? And no, privacy advocates claim privacy protects against the future, not the present. Their whole argument is, “what if stuff you like is made illegal in the future?!?!” with absolutely no tether to realit

> Why do you presume the number of acceptable casualties is zero?

Fair enough. What is the acceptable number of casualties then? Do you have a number of people in mind that you think would need to be killed or harmed before you would agree that privacy is worthwhile?

> And no, privacy advocates claim privacy protects against the future, not the present.

This is a pretty big misunderstanding of what we're saying. Privacy protects against future threats, yes. At the point when you are experiencing those threats, they will be in the present. And at that point, privacy will protect you. Whether you want to call that the future or the present, whatever. I don't care, it doesn't matter.

In contrast, self correction does not protect you. Self correction is about the overall direction of society -- at the point where you are threatened, whether that's a threat in the present or in the future, the tendency of society to eventually stop doing awful things is of no protection at all to you.

Privacy is not a substitute for social change, but social change is also not a substitute for privacy. Social change is the thing that happens after people die. If you want to protect the people who are actually dying (see above, maybe you don't think that's worthwhile) then you need privacy.

> with absolutely no tether to reality

Just as a quick sidenote, there are people being charged for previously legal abortions right now. Maybe you don't think those people are worth protecting in the short term and we should accept the downsides and rely on eventually society changing and say "oh well."

But that's very different than saying that the risk isn't real. The only way that you could say that "what if a thing you like is made illegal" doesn't have a basis in reality is if you really aren't paying attention to reality in the US right now. None of this is theoretical, people are very literally getting prosecuted for abortions right now because Facebook doesn't E2EE its messages.

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#246

Post by Zetice »

danShumway wrote: post #245
Zetice wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you presume the number of acceptable casualties is zero? We don’t apply that kind of logic to any other aspect of risk management, why would that be the bar here? And no, privacy advocates claim privacy protects against the future, not the present. Their whole argument is, “what if stuff you like is made illegal in the future?!?!” with absolutely no tether to realit

> Why do you presume the number of acceptable casualties is zero? Fair enough. What is the acceptable number of casualties then? Do you have a number of people in mind that you think would need to be killed or harmed before you would agree that privacy is worthwhile? > And no, privacy advocates claim privacy protects against the future, not the present. This is a pretty big misunderstanding of what we're saying. Priv…

How many people do you think is an acceptable level of loss for cars to be justified?

How many people need to die because their medical information wasn't available quickly enough to deliver life saving treatment in time?

Pedophiles are walking free right now because the criminal justice system can't gain access to their computers to prove what it otherwise painfully obvious; they're hurting children.

I can make exactly the same arguments you're making here, just in the opposite direction. That doesn't mean I'm right or you are; the argument that anyone being harmed means an idea is not worth doing is pointless and doesn’t provide anything remotely resembling a reasonable view into the issue, but pretending like any loss at all is unacceptable, such as you're doing here, is a farce.

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#247

Post by fsckboy »

kypro wrote: post #221
fsckboy wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. the guy publically posted a racist comment in the UK where there is not an unlimited right of free speech and anti-social behavior is regulated. I don't see the privacy concern. I prefer an unlimited right of free spee…

I'm very charitable so perhaps that's why we disagree here, but I didn't read his comment as racist personally. That said, I understand the use of the word "monkey" could have been used with racist connotations, but the burden of proof would be on you to proof that instead of assuming guilt. But either way he wasn't charged with being a racist. And outside of being a member of an extremist group I don't believe it's…

turns out, you do not decide what and on whom is the burden of proof; I'm just telling you what (obviously) happened. You may be fine with being oblivious, I'd just recommend you then also be less opinionated.

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#248

Post by danShumway »

Zetice wrote: post #246
danShumway wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you presume the number of acceptable casualties is zero? Fair enough. What is the acceptable number of casualties then? Do you have a number of people in mind that you think would need to be killed or harmed before you would agree that privacy is worthwhile? > And no, privacy advocates claim privacy protects against the future, not the present. This is a pretty big misunderstanding of what we're saying. Priv…

How many people do you think is an acceptable level of loss for cars to be justified? How many people need to die because their medical information wasn't available quickly enough to deliver life saving treatment in time? Pedophiles are walking free right now because the criminal justice system can't gain access to their computers to prove what it otherwise painfully obvious; they're hurting children. I can make exac…

> but pretending like any loss at all is unacceptable, such as you're doing here, is a farce.

There's a weird transformation that this conversation has gone through. As a reminder it started out with you saying "besides, doomsaying that 'anything could be illegal!' isn’t backed by anything real or lasting."

Which is just false. And I'm not sure where I or frankly anyone else in this thread has suggested that even just a single person being hurt means that privacy is an existential problem. Quite the opposite, I accepted the premise that there's a threshold, asked you what your opinion of that threshold was, and responded to you saying:

> Every time in modern history western society has started down the path of outlawing some form of existence, we self correct.

and

> Their whole argument is, “what if stuff you like is made illegal in the future?!?!” with absolutely no tether to realit[y]

by pretty objectively correctly pointing out that this doesn't change anything for anyone caught out in the current situation and that, yeah, things being made illegal in the future is a completely realistic concern with countless historical examples backing it up.

Of course we balance concerns about safety. I still use a phone and participate in society, I'm using my real name online right now. Ironically, I'm being less pseudonymous than you are right now. Very clearly I am not saying that a single person dying means we all need to go live in the woods.

But "what is an acceptable level of sacrifice for convenience" really doesn't have anything to do with the argument "I have nothing to hide." If someone dismisses concerns about car safety or medical accessibility or criminal activity by saying that those dangers aren't real, then they'd be very much in the wrong. And it's equally wrong to dismiss privacy concerns by saying that concerns about future erosion of rights "aren't tethered to reality." They are a thing that happens. They're real, just as real as car accidents. So no you don't have to stop driving, but you should wear a seatbelt, look both ways before you cross the street, and use an encrypted messenger on your phone.

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#249

Post by syndicatedjelly »

throw0101b wrote: post #74
hackernewds wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to save this quote. However Hackernews provides not much functionality in-platform to do so. Although I will contend the quote needs to be amended, since this doesn't apply to agents whose actions and intentions are questionable, and I would prefer they are not able to hide them.

> I'd like to save this quote. $ vi ~/quotations.txt

Wow! What's vi

Re: ‘I've got nothing to hide’ and other misunderstandings of privacy (2007)

#250

Post by syndicatedjelly »

hackernewds wrote: post #70
cortic wrote: post #40

Posted this three years ago, but its still relevant: My nothing to hide argument; Nothing to hide is an incomplete sentence. Nothing to hide from who? Surely you want to hide your children from abusers and predators? Don't you want to hide your banking details from con artists and fraudsters? Your identity from identity thieves.. Your location from burglars, your car keys from car thieves or your blood type from rich…

A murderer would like to hide their location history from civil justice authorities. We often argue the cons but not the pros of being able to trace history. A lot of ongoing evidence is based on timestamped written communication. Including for the 1/6 indictment, here you could argue what constitutes as "right" or "wrong".

> We often argue the cons but not the pros of being able to trace history.

Do we? Ad tech and social media have successfully convinced everyone to give up all notion of privacy if they are anywhere near a computing device with internet

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