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Lawrence Lessig: Technology Will Create New Models for Privacy Regulation

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

#51

Post by nunyabuizness »

mindslight wrote: post #49
nunyabuizness wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

Your proposals aren't really solutions, but ways of kicking the can down the road. The disagreement still exists, it's just hidden in the remainder. They can serve to minimize that disagreement, but it can never be eliminated. The simplest counter-sentence to how you've stated the problem: let's say someone thinks it is moral to impose their will on to others - how do you give them this world? The only way to actuall…

Championing privacy over fixing the reasons we need privacy is the ultimate kicking of the can down the road - encryption won't prevent the government from harassing me based on my skin color or my choice of employment, or anything else I do or am that can't be encrypted.

> let's say someone thinks it is moral to impose their will on to others

I don't know how to respond to that as any rights and morals you could legitimately give yourself or obey by definition can not depend on other people's compliance.

> Good fences make good neighbors - privacy is a fence.

Really? Do you even know your neighbors? Would you really argue that you'd know them less or that they or you'd be "worse" if you didn't have fences?

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

#52

Post by nunyabuizness »

jib wrote: post #48
nunyabuizness wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would privacy protect a black in 1930's Poland? Would it matter to them if they did or did not register their identity or religion with their government of full religious freedom? Where's their right to privacy (of their ethnicity)? The only insurance against unrestrained power for anyone's future is restraining the power, not privacy. Privacy is what you resort to when all else fails, which even then is clearly not…

It is well established that the extended civil records of the Netherlands in the 30s contributed to the high rates of mass murder in the Netherlands compared to other countries with less developed systems. This is a real life example of where a lack of privacy thinking, even though not done with bad intent, led to significant loss of life. Protection of personal rights is not about a single solution, it is about mult…

You didn't answer anything I proposed - if I'm being oppressed based on something that can't be made private, what difference does privacy make?

> it is about multiple systems in a Swiss cheese model where privacy is one of those layers.

True, but acting like it is the cardinal solution for which ultimate personal freedom will emerge is a farce and is ignoring the real reasons we want privacy in the first place - we don't have the freedom of transparency b/c of legal actors over which we have little to no control.

> Stating that there are situations where one of the layers fail isn't proving anything, it is obvious that they fail some of the time

The point of pointing out the flaw is not to prove that privacy isn't important, but that it's not nearly as important as the underlying issues for which privacy still won't fix.

> The question is if a layer adds something significant some of the time. Privacy does.

Until the unchecked power discriminates based on things that can't be made private. Watch the watchman and privacy becomes a nice bonus rather than a critical component of a half-solution.

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

#53

Post by mindslight »

nunyabuizness wrote: post #51
mindslight wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your proposals aren't really solutions, but ways of kicking the can down the road. The disagreement still exists, it's just hidden in the remainder. They can serve to minimize that disagreement, but it can never be eliminated. The simplest counter-sentence to how you've stated the problem: let's say someone thinks it is moral to impose their will on to others - how do you give them this world? The only way to actuall…

Championing privacy over fixing the reasons we need privacy is the ultimate kicking of the can down the road - encryption won't prevent the government from harassing me based on my skin color or my choice of employment, or anything else I do or am that can't be encrypted. > let's say someone thinks it is moral to impose their will on to others I don't know how to respond to that as any rights and morals you could leg…

> encryption won't prevent the government from harassing me based on my skin color or my choice of employment, or anything else I do or am that can't be encrypted.

Agreed. But if these are your overriding concerns, then go campaign for them. Don't campaign against privacy in hope of indirectly fixing your actual concerns. Surely you'd agree a world without privacy but still with governmental discrimination is the worst outcome, and by inverting and campaigning against autonomy you'll find it quite easy to get to.

> I don't know how to respond to that as any rights and morals you could legitimately give yourself or obey by definition can not depend on other people's compliance.

Well it's pretty simple for them to get their subject to comply, by applying pain.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but you'd reply that they are acting immorally. But that is not how you originally defined the problem.

So we change the definition to require non-aggression, there is no one left to enforce transgressions.

So we change the definition to allow aggression only to enforce non-aggression - then we have to pull in a concept of what's-worse to avoid escalation. And this framework must still be agreed upon by everybody!

This is not arbitrary bickering or simply not defining things smart enough. This is the inherent generation of complexity by following implications.

> Really? Do you even know your neighbors?

Now, not so much. In the past, sure. It's a general saying, and it's a general saying for a reason. The idea is to not have to negotiate socially with them. Please read about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_point_(game_theory), it fits right in with the other concepts you are referencing.

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

#54

Post by nunyabuizness »

asntbqjkwbaoeuc wrote: post #50
miguelrochefort wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, let's get rid of the idea that a central government has the authority to create and enfore laws. That's pretty much a recipe for disaster. A free market would pretty much eliminate the need for laws. What's wrong to you, might not be wrong to me. Therefore, you might refuse to help or trade with a person that does X, while I might have no problem with it and even help him. Moreover, do you have any idea what a…

In a free market, there are winners and losers. The winners have a strong economic incentive to keep their communication private, as has been the case throughout human history. If you want to prevent this, you need some sort of system that has power over all citizens. But you argue against a central authority of any sort, so how does this work? In addition, I'm assuming given your distrust for the government and love…

> there are winners and losers

Currently, we are the losers, our governments are the winners.

> The winners have a strong economic incentive to keep their communication private, as has been the case throughout human history.

That's exactly how our govt functions today.

> This group of people might decide to release everyone's data in order to appease your desire for a post-privacy utopia, but almost certainly they'll keep it for their economic advantage.

True, but we are still at the cusp of applications that pay users for using the application and for their info, which could also be made public, but as you said, might not happen.

> The resulting system you are advocating is one in which a tiny percentage of people has near-universal control over the populace.

That's what we have today. Please understand this, the future he is proposing is at worst as bad as what we have today and at best, so much better.

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

#55

Post by miguelrochefort »

asntbqjkwbaoeuc wrote: post #34
nunyabuizness wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Why would workers in the military enjoy privacy while they work?

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

#56

Post by tremon »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #42
jpollock wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans lie all the time. We lie to each other, we lie to the government. We cheat, break rules and break laws all the time. Societies rely on privacy to limit the intrusion of others into our lives. It becomes really easy to avoid enforcing a law when you can't see it happening. For example, without privacy, sodomy laws become much easier to enforce. No longer would it be 2 closeted gay men living together happily, i…

Are you arguing that it's my responsibility to be careful and discrete when I commit crimes that should be legal in the first place? If both murder and sodomy are illegal to the eyes of the government, then wouldn't more accessible privacy protect both murderers and sodomists? Clearly, the issues in the examples you describe are with the expectations of the government and its citizens. I don't want to ever have to li…

> Clearly, the issues in the examples you describe are with the expectations of the government and its citizens. I don't want to ever have to lie about things I'm not ashamed of

That's wonderfully magnanimous of you. But do you think it's reasonable to expect all your fellow citizens to hold that same conviction? Just because you value things that way, doesn't make it applicable to everyone. What I hear you saying is that if everyone would just conform to your worldview, you'd have a much easier time living in it. Or do you think that your view is universal already?

Also, privacy isn't a citizen vs government thing. Privacy is an expression of the power that every individual holds in every interpersonal relationship: the choice to share with or withhold information from another. And that is a personal choice.

Ideologies like "you should not judge" are at least as old as the Bible, yet we still haven't overcome it. In fact, judging from most Twitter stories I hear of (or 4chan/reddit subcultures), I'd say we have seriously regressed as a society in that matter. Please have a solution for solving hate campaigns and other forms of harassment first, before suggesting that we remove discretionary power from every individual.

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

#57

Post by nunyabuizness »

mindslight wrote: post #53
nunyabuizness wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Championing privacy over fixing the reasons we need privacy is the ultimate kicking of the can down the road - encryption won't prevent the government from harassing me based on my skin color or my choice of employment, or anything else I do or am that can't be encrypted. > let's say someone thinks it is moral to impose their will on to others I don't know how to respond to that as any rights and morals you could leg…

> encryption won't prevent the government from harassing me based on my skin color or my choice of employment, or anything else I do or am that can't be encrypted. Agreed. But if these are your overriding concerns, then go campaign for them. Don't campaign against privacy in hope of indirectly fixing your actual concerns. Surely you'd agree a world without privacy but still with governmental discrimination is the wor…

> Don't campaign against privacy in hope of indirectly fixing your actual concerns

So that's my fault for conflating two things without making it explicit - 1) privacy is a non-issue b/c of my aforementioned reasons and 2) I believe that no one really wants privacy, they really want the freedom to act transparently without punishment (since we can't have that, we ask for privacy instead).

> But that is not how you originally defined the problem.

B/c the original problem is about the person and their world according to their morals: if I used pain to get my way and it was legal, what need would I have for privacy?

> The idea is to not have to negotiate socially with them.

The article you provided only declares that there are points that exist that people will converge to when coordinating when communication can't be trusted or is non-existant, and I fail to see the relevance of it to this discussion.

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

#58

Post by TeMPOraL »

mindslight wrote: post #53
nunyabuizness wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Championing privacy over fixing the reasons we need privacy is the ultimate kicking of the can down the road - encryption won't prevent the government from harassing me based on my skin color or my choice of employment, or anything else I do or am that can't be encrypted. > let's say someone thinks it is moral to impose their will on to others I don't know how to respond to that as any rights and morals you could leg…

> encryption won't prevent the government from harassing me based on my skin color or my choice of employment, or anything else I do or am that can't be encrypted. Agreed. But if these are your overriding concerns, then go campaign for them. Don't campaign against privacy in hope of indirectly fixing your actual concerns. Surely you'd agree a world without privacy but still with governmental discrimination is the wor…

Fences in the past were mostly symbolic. If your neighbor wanted to get past it, he could usually just walk over it. Enforcing privacy is an equivalent of contemporary closed-off neighborhoods, with cameras and guards always on post.

The benefit you gain from making a Schelling point is a social kind of thing. It works because people agree it works. Just like all other customs. People bring up privacy of correspondence as an example of ages-old privacy right, but it works only because everyone agrees that reading others' correspondence is a dick thing. If we can relearn to rely more on such things than on direct enforcement, maybe an open world would be better for everyone than private, locked down one.

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

#59

Post by forgottenpass »

nunyabuizness wrote: post #26
teddyh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless someone proposes a solution to the “massive amount of failure states”, I am going to continue to assume that privacy is a necessary protection from them.

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.

if you declare privacy a greater need than better law, law-making and law-enforcement, you've already lost

I don't see law and privacy as competing for priority, I think they're complementary. Part of striving for better law, better law-making and better enforcement is an understanding that law is not always perfect, and improving law is a gradual, iterative process. Privacy - and other legal protections - are failsafes built into the system of law to mitigate the ways is which we anticipate it may fail.

I didn't have this in mind when I used the term "failure states" in my earlier post, but the choice of language comes from the way we build safety critical system. The primary goal is to build a product that improves lives, but part of that process is identifying ways the product could malfunction or be misused, and applying mitigations to prevent the negative outcomes. Ideally, on a prefect product used expertly, they're just extra features that never get used.

The reason they must exist is that our analysis can't assume the hubris of perfect design and implementation 100% of the time.

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

#60

Post by tremon »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #44
hackuser wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are of course welcome to your preferences and opinion, but shouldn't others also be able to make their own choice that they want privacy? Certainly many feel that way. I've tried to put together a smartphone that simply gives me the choice: Control over my own data. It seems nearly impossible without a large investment.

No. It's not up to you. You have no right (or at least shouldn't) to expect me from ignoring or forgetting any data whatsoever. You can't just come to me and ask me to forget that you crossed the street. You can't ask me to forget what I just heard. For some reasons, you people seem to think that you have exclusive rights over any information that involves you. In a way, it's just like the music industry trying to st…

> No. It's not up to you. You have no right (or at least shouldn't) to expect me from ignoring or forgetting any data whatsoever

But should I have the right not to tell you about myself?

For that matter, do you have the right not to tell me your credit card number and expiration date?

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