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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

#41

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 »

NGRhodes wrote: post #16

"I have nothing to hide" only makes sense if privacy and disclosure are treated as a binary. In reality, both exist on a spectrum: privacy is controlled disclosure, shaped by what is shared, with whom, at what level of detail, and under what power asymmetry. Large surveillance systems inevitably build baselines. They don't just detect crimes; they detect patterns and anomalies relative to whatever becomes "normal". T…

Yes. In that realm, absence, too, is a signal; perpaps stronger one than just random chatter.

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

#42

Post by sjducb »

When people say they have nothing to hide I like to remind them about fraud and criminals.

All law abiding citizens have data that they want to hide from fraudsters.

Fraudsters often get their hands on government data through breeches and bribery.

Also fraudsters pretend to be government agents to get data from big tech companies. So any channel that governments use to get data from tech companies is abused by fraudsters to commit crime.

Fraud is a very big deal. The UK economy loses 219 billion per year to fraud. Our national deficit payment is 93 billion per year and we spend 188 billion on the NHS.

If we improved privacy of all of our citizens then the savings from fraud reduction would cover our entire government deficit

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

#43

Post by fn-mote »

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…

> Having nothing to hide is fine.

This statement completely fails to engage with the post.

In fact, the parent's whole "argument" ignores the prevalence of encrypted communications in the modern world. To use their (absurd) gun analogy, the modern internet is close to an open-carry state. (Europeans: this means everyone can carry a gun visibly.)

Everyone uses https by default. Phone communications and texts are the least secure by far.

PS There is nothing wrong with the GP's anecdote. It is an excellent argument, understandable argument for casual importance of privacy.

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

#45

Post by fernando__ »

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…

If there were 1 brandishing a gun, I’d be very alarmed.

If there were 5, I’d be even more alarmed.

If everyone in the store and outside the store were always brandishing guns, then it would be a very dangerous place.

Speaking of dangerous places- how about the U.S.?

The U.S. gun death rate is approximately 13.7 per 100,000 people, while the UK rate is roughly 0.04 per 100,000—making the U.S. rate over 300 times higher. This is likely because of UK’s stringent gun laws.

So, if everyone hid their internet traffic, does that mean there would be a 300% increase in hacker crime and convictions? And wouldn’t governments and companies be more likely to develop and use tools for spying on their citizens and employees?

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

#46

Post by ankur3 »

"You hide from those whom you don't trust!"

so now comes the question...

"How much do you trust a human, despite being your favourite?".....

We need to learn about 'trust' and its role in our lives!

Information is power! And 'trust' me, you don't want to give it to anyone over you!

The upcoming era of transparency will come in the form of compliances (or, chains) you will never withdraw yourself from! Surely facility and security will baited for this!

Also, with the rise in the fields of biotech and nano-tech, infused with A.I., they are preparing us to be their 'lab rats', and they don't need our consents! We shouldn't be ignoring this at all!

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

#48

Post by PunchyHamster »

codethief wrote: post #24

To anyone who says "I have nothing to hide" I respond with "Unfortunately, you are not the one who gets to decide whether what you have is worth hiding." (I think I first might have come across this beautifully succinct and unfortunately very true counter in a Reddit AMA with Edward Snowden way back when, but I might be misremembering.)

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

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

#50

Post by duskdozer »

nkrisc wrote: post #31

What’s important to hide is always changing. So even if you have nothing to hide now, you may wish you had hidden it in the future.

It's so difficult to get people to think that way, it's like they feel like they have plot armor like in a movie.
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