Lawrence Lessig: Technology Will Create New Models for Privacy Regulation • Hacker News Board

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

#31

Post by nunyabuizness » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 8:45 PM UTC

nmjohn wrote: post #27

nunyabuizness wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

> 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? Sure, that hypothetical would be great for _you_ (you being the decider of morality) - but what about everyone else living in…

Precisely! So the issue to solve is how do we create a world that places everyone in their own private moral world, a result of which is a significantly lower dependence on the losing battle of privacy!

There are a couple ways to give us that world: free markets for law, voluntarism, or to a significantly less extreme, smaller federal governments and more influential, perhaps larger local governments, for which you have a significantly greater say in making law. Other patches to the problem of shitty law include greater accountability of elected (politicians) and appointed officials (i.e. police, bureaucrats). These are only the proposals off the top of my head, but already, in the process of tackling this problem, many other problems dissipate for free.

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

#32

Post by nunyabuizness » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 8:51 PM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #29

nunyabuizness wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direct democracy, free markets for law, representative democracy, voluntarism, etc. There are innumerable solutions to the emergent failure states of our legal system and as I stated elsewhere in this thread, if you declare privacy a greater need than better law, law-making and law-enforcement, you've already lost.

Let's assume for a moment that we can create a society with the most perfect law-making government, and that all laws are now perfect, and they're perfectly enforced. Would people still want privacy? I believe that the answer is yes. Simply because there will always be the fear that things may change. You only need one imperfect law or law enforcer and you need privacy to protect you. There will never be a point wher…

First, thanks for engaging my hypothetical.

Second, while what you said is true, it would also mean that we wouldn't have a perfect law-making govt then, wouldn't it :)?

And even if it was optional (b/c it wasn't necessary), I'd agree that we should still have it, but that's different than codifying it's necessity in law (by the grace of the very people who want to deny it to you) and different than treating privacy as a panacea for protection against unchecked power.

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

#33

Post by mindslight » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 9:03 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #15

mindslight wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

It's natural for regulators to want more power - since they're good, they can always choose to not wield that power later. The motivation is the same at the smaller per-person scale, with democracy encouraging every person to think as a mini regulator - deciding whether a behavior should be prohibited or encouraged and then enforcing the majority's opinion onto the minority, rather than leaving the behavior unjudged.

Encryption is such an obvious target because it enables nothing besides hiding. Society/government can never see the value in anything that serves to keep society/government out of individuals' business, even though the former only exists on the proceeds of individual autonomy.

So in essence, the crypto/software war is self-defense against govermment/society. Not in the sense of overthrowing or repudiating the entire concept, but in the sense of holding the Schelling point of freedom of speech/thought versus a society/government that, through the same information technology advancement, would otherwise seek to subject them to totalitarian regulation (even if by the majority).

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

#34

Post by asntbqjkwbaoeuc » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 9:06 PM UTC

nunyabuizness wrote: post #20

Archio wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Under your scheme, do workers in the military enjoy privacy while they work? If they don't how do you protect the citizens? If they do---and if they are the only people who enjoy privacy in your land of forced transparency---how does this not stabilize to a military dictatorship?

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

#35

Post by miguelrochefort » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 9:12 PM UTC

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?

Yes. I'm advocating for people to make as many details of their life open and transparent on the Internet.

Unfortunately, society is currently built in a way that coerces me into keeping secrets (i.e., private key encryption, credit card number, ridiculous laws everybody breaks because privacy makes it easy to conceal). I would much rather live in a society that's built in a way that I can be honest about myself and not lose everything in exchange.

There is no debate that one needs to keep some secrets in today's society, but unlike most of you I believe this to be a necessary evil due to the current nature of the system, not something we should strive for in the long term by making privacy more accessible.

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

#36

Post by jib » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 9:12 PM UTC

nunyabuizness wrote: post #18

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 i…

Privacy is a protection and insurance for the future.

Things, like say, recording the religion of someone in an open, embracing and understanding society that has full religious freedom, so you understand what your population identifies seems harmless, right?

It certainly seemed like it to the Jews in the Netherlands in the 1930s.

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

#37

Post by mark_l_watson » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 9:21 PM UTC

I think that Lessig has it right: people will not fight for privacy if privacy inconveniences them too much. I jump through hoops to get some small level of privacy and still enjoy web properties that track users.

A little off topic, but I think it is time for the USA to do a "let's go to the moon" type effort to make digital systems secure and protect privacy. I know this is a long shot though: it would take re-purposing the capabilities of the NSA (and the FBI, etc.) to making digital communication secure. Obviously this requires NO BACK DOORS, and more research into digital security. There are a lot of smart people working at the NSA and it would be good to have them working on helpful tasks like securing the Internet for businesses, the government, and individuals - and not waste time on spying on innocent people. In the 1990s the NSA and FBI did a lot of good work in this direction, but then the bogus 'war on terror' pushed them off course.

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

#38

Post by miguelrochefort » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 9:24 PM UTC

sbov wrote: post #17

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…

Do you seriously believe that we can (or should) reach a point where nobody can be identified or located?

Instead of getting rid of the bad guys (or preferably get rid of incentives that motivate actions you don't agree with), you seem to be suggesting that we should hide from them. I can imagine this would lead to a world with more bad guys (because no effort exists in preventing them), a lucky minority of people who have the skills to remain hidden/unidentified (not mentionning the constant worry and utilitarian trade-offs) while letting those who don't have this chance be vulnerable to this threat.

What I hear is "let's keep marijuana consumption illegal, as long as it's easy for my fortunate white self not to get caught smoking it". No wonder so many visible minorities go to jail for crimes that white people commit just as often, ethnicity is hard to conceal. I have yet to see a movement helping black people look white so that society treats them more fairly.

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

#39

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 9:24 PM UTC

sbov wrote: post #17

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…

[deleted]

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

#40

Post by miguelrochefort » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 9:26 PM UTC

jib wrote: post #36

nunyabuizness wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

Privacy is a protection and insurance for the future. Things, like say, recording the religion of someone in an open, embracing and understanding society that has full religious freedom, so you understand what your population identifies seems harmless, right? It certainly seemed like it to the Jews in the Netherlands in the 1930s.

Hitler's a good guy. Jews should have been more discrete. Too bad they didn't have encryption back then. /s