Live data from Hacker News

Lawrence Lessig: Technology Will Create New Models for Privacy Regulation

blogs.wsj.com

1–10 of 89 posts

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

#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 break?

I don't want more regulations for startups that want to analyze my genome, nor do I want to become an expert in internet security just to browse the web. Writing software is already difficult as it is, and the requirement to protect privacy makes it even more difficult and risky.

The real question is, what can we do to make living a transparent and open life possible.

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

#4
> It is really a generational effect. People in law school learned this way of thinking 10 years ago, and they are coming into their place in the regulatory space.

As someone in that group, I don't know if I see any evidence of this generational effect. The Internet is just the latest battleground for ideologies that have always existed: consumer protection, national security, business freedom, market solutions. The same sort of thinking guides the people who call for backdoors now, who called for banning encryption in the 1990's, who called for easier access to credit card and other transactions in the 1970's, etc.

Businesses that create technological products are always going to be entities the government can control. And regulators will never be encryption utopians. They'll always be mild pragmatists willing to make compromises whose values fall moderately left or right of center on the authoritarian scale.

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

#7

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…

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, it would be acceptable for the government to setup a mobile array and detect that the two men were sharing a single bed, and then charge them with sodomy.

Another example. In New Zealand, prostitution is legal. However, income information and receipts are private between the business and the tax department. Visiting a prostitute is generally frowned upon publicly. So, what happens when all prostitutes are "outed", and their customer lists published? Is that a good thing? Is it just another way of making the job illegal again, with all of the societal ills that making it legal was intended to avoid?

For a US example, imagine publishing the health records from Planned Parenthood clinics - any and all. Venereal disease, birth control, abortion, anything.

I don't see how we can prevent intrusion of individuals and governments into private areas of life without a definition and expectation of privacy. Particularly when there are differing opinions on morality and what the government should do to enforce it.

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

#8

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 of the utmost importance to prevent the degradation of what makes us human; free will.

If Fred goes to a certain three websites fairly regularly, and Joe (a bad guy, thug, gangster, terrorist) also goes to those three websites fairly regularly, some other authority monitoring Fred's traffic could say,"Hey, this Fred guy is following the same patterns as this other bad guy Joe, so we should probably intercept this guy and tell him we're worried he will fall into the same trap as bad guy Joe."

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

#9

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…

On one hand: no fuck you I want to pee in solitude.

On the other hand: I can't remember the title/author but there has absolutely been the argument floating around for a while that the problem isn't the lack of privacy it's the asymmetry of power combined with asymmetry of privacy.

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

#10

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…

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.

Post reply on HN