7 ms·

Brilliant first recommanded comment by "stpman" in the article to answer all those saying "I don't have anything to hide": "Why should people care about survei

by guilamu 10y ago

Brilliant first recommanded comment by "stpman" in the article to answer all those saying "I don't have anything to hide": "Why should people care about surveillance? Because even if you're not doing anything wrong, you're being recorded. You don't have to do anything wrong. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion, even by a wrong call. They can use this system to go back in time and scrutinise everything, and derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer." -Edward Snowden "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." -Cardinal Richelieu You may not have anything to hide, but you should hide as much as you can anyway, because anything you say or write may be one day used against you in a court of law.

gmac 10y ago
See also: https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2015/responding-to-nothing-to-hide-nothing-to-fear https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2015/responding-to-noth...
austinjp 10y ago
I agree. Most people have curtains over their windows, after all. Although, a worrying possibility is that a tendency toward privacy marks you out as a dissenter. Guilty before proven innocent.
planetjones 10y ago
I fully agree with the quote above, but I don't find this as clear a cut issue as perhaps many on HN do. It's undoubtable that surveillance is becoming harder now and that groups who would bring great harm to innocent people are using the internet for research and communication. I don't know what the answer is, but encrypting everyone's communications end-to-end with no-one able to ever intercept does sound like it will make protecting us very hard indeed. And yes, I know these tools for strong encryption are out there and they can't be un-invented - but I can see why Governments want to do "something". I am just saying what that "something" is becomes difficult to define.
- hueving 10y ago
  Yet society somehow protected itself when terrorists learned from books and communicated via mail, meeting in person, and telephone calls.
- geff82 10y ago
  During all history of mankind, wrongdoers were using "words spoken by the mouth" to do all kind of bad things. Yet I miss total surveillance of privately spoken words. Even without total online surveillance, by the nature of computers you are leaving so many traces that full surveillance is not necessary to at least find something. And in countries without Big-Brother like surveillance, police often got good hints by searching the equipment of a real criminal. It is just not needed to include everyone. And even with encryption, you can often see who talked to who. The "something" you are talking about is the following: good old police work. You have a reason to be suspicious? Search the guy. Just as police did the last hundred years. Just do not search everyone. Police work should be hard if we still care about citizen rights.
- tremon 10y ago
  It's undoubtable that [..] groups who would bring great harm to innocent people are using the internet for research and communication They sure are. But are you proposing to cut off internet access for politicians altogether?
- the_jp 10y ago
  Collecting all that data is harmful simply because it can be assumed to be hacked at one point or another. Massive potential for misuse by criminals or authoritarian governments.
- mikekchar 10y ago
  I don't know what the answer is either, but I would like governments to invest more time, money and effort into researching ways of achieving peace, rather than fighting to suppress war. It may, indeed, be more difficult than tracking what everybody does and incarcerating those that are suspected of plotting acts of violence. I think the payoffs may be significantly better, though. I hate to compare these kinds of cultural issues on the internet, but I have lived in many places in the world. Culturally they are very different. How we act in our countries, states, cities and even houses is governed by our culture. Some cultures value peace greatly. Some prefer justice to peace. When you look at the people around you, you may think, "There is nothing I can do. There are evil people and I can't change that. I can only fight them so that good will win." In my experience, this is not true. Many people have problems and it is only society and culture that can save them from those problems. How do we extend a culture of peace and create a global society where we help people in need? That's what I would rather spend my money on. I'm willing to suffer from the attacks of those that need help in the mean time.
Create 10y ago
Panama Papers: Cameron's father was Mossack Fonseca client http://www.bbc.com/news/world-35961422 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-35961422 We begin therefore where they are determined not to end, with the question whether any form of democratic self-government, anywhere, is consistent with the kind of massive, pervasive, surveillance into which the Unites States government has led not only us but the world. This should not actually be a complicated inquiry. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/27/-sp-privacy-under-attack-nsa-files-revealed-new-threats-democracy https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/27/-sp-priva... Employee is held on suspicion of ‘extracting confidential information’ from law firm at centre of Panama Papers https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/15/mossack-fonseca-worker-arrested-switzerland-panama-papers https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/15/mossack-fonsec...
amelius 10y ago
Meh, I'm still waiting for an argument that is capable of convincing a larger audience. The problem with the threat imposed by privacy invasion is that it is just too hypothetical. It is near the bottom of people's problem lists, even below their "first world" problems.
- tremon 10y ago
  Next time someone says they have nothing to hide, ask them for their bank code, or why they're wearing clothes.
  - grkvlt 10y ago
    No, those are not comparable. Next time someone says they have nothing to hide, ask them to send their bank account details and PIN, or naked photographs of themselves, to their countries law enforcement or intelligent services. The question is not do i have anything to hide from some random stranger or the general public, the question is should law enforcement and intelligence services have these rights.
    - amelius 10y ago
      The problem is: this is placing hypothetical on hypothetical. First, the threat imposed by privacy invasion is hypothetical to most people. And now you're asking them to hypothetically send their pictures to the government? Come on, if we want to raise awareness, we need better arguments, and especially better formulations to convince people.
      - eponeponepon 10y ago
        It appears hypothetical. We need to educate people such that they understand why it is not. It's the only solution.
- mfukar 10y ago
  Hypothetical? Ad agencies are already using everything known about you. Maybe you don't care about that, but it's very real.
adekok 10y ago
Or, flip the argument around. Most cops in the US are fighting against the use of body cams. Why? They don't want to be recorded. Most courts don't allow recording equipment in them. Why? They don't want to be recorded. Most government workings are hidden behind bureaucrat walls. It requires other laws such as the FOIA to force government to be open. And FOIA requests are widely ignored, delayed, redacted, etc. If the people enforcing the law refuse to be recorded, why in living hell should you let them record you? You should have as many rights as they do. Including the right to privacy.
- hruwigiuwgrhhiu 10y ago
  yes, the response to "if you have nothing to hide" should be "you first then". Imagine if the question was: "can I watch you through your window ?" - "no." "why, what have you got to hide ?" - "nothing, I just value my privacy like any normal human. It's my house, so mind your own business" Now you could counter "yes but the web is a public space". But it's not entirely. Some of it is public, some of it is private. Our email conversations with our friends and family, our video chats etc should be private. (They're not of course, they're all intercepted and stored forever, but they should be private).
  - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
    Why do you want to watch me through the window. You can come and look if you want as long as you're not doing it to perv over me I couldn't really care less. To keep the analogy don't we need to add two provisos though: you can't tell anyone about it or you lose your job and face prosecution (unless you can convince the CPS that there's a case against me, then you have your say in court); and you'll need to convince a judge that you have a legal need, that also serves the public interest, to observe me. >Our email conversations with our friends and family, our video chats etc should be private. (They're not of course, they're all intercepted and stored forever, but they should be private). // AIUI the UK Investigatory Powers Act is storing domains visited for a limited time and requires a warrant to enable access, access then only being granted to officers of a particular standing (so they can't pass the details around and the named officer is responsible if the info is leaked). Am I getting the wrong message? I've not had time to read the Act yet. Security services are almost certainly able to access that data, but then that's been true for a long time and is covered by far more generic laws, the IPA isn't addressing that (is it?). tl;dr - if I don't care if you sit and watch me watching Masterchef, or playing on Steam, or if you read my emails to customers, or see what I buy (just like you can if I go to a shop), then ... is there anything left that you can say to convince me I should be hiding what I do online. "I don't hide what I do IRL, why hide online"?
balabaster 10y ago
I think you're spot on. A classic example of this: The Jews didn't have anything to hide and lived in the open for many years prior to Hitler's rise to power... and then suddenly their innocent life was exactly what condemned them to their deaths... So yeah, everyone has a responsibility to ensure their privacy. 99.9% of people aren't terrorists. Terrorists cause less death every year than heart disease. Why should the 99.9% of people give up privacy to fight a war caused only because of the "West"'s inability to negotiate fairly for access to foreign resources? Instead of raping and plundering other countries, installing puppet Governments and causing people to act with "an eye for an eye" or "I will rain what you rain down on us a thousandfold over." It's a band-aid solution to a symptom of the underlying cancer that needs to be cured. They're using the war on terror as a land grab for more power and control. Realistically there should be no war on terror, for terrorism is only "an eye for an eye." If you want to stop it, someone has to be the bigger man and say "You know what, we're not doing this any more. This behaviour is bullshit and it ends now." If you want peace, you've gotta live peacefully. You don't spread peace with bombs, guns, violence and invading everyone's privacy to maintain control. You spread peace and trust with acts of love and kindness.
- pvg 10y ago
  The Jews didn't have anything to hide and lived in the open for many years prior to Hitler's rise to power. This is neither true nor a classic example of the dangers of mass surveillance.
  - dijit 10y ago
    What makes you think it isn't true? The Nazi's used census data of occupied territories to ascertain who to deport.
    - pvg 10y ago
      If you redefine everything as mass surveillance then yes, everything is a consequence of mass surveillance.
dingaling 10y ago
Back in the early 1980s my household was one of the few on the estate to have a telephone. You knew by the lack of overhead cables. This was in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. One day a distraught woman came to the door and asked to make a call to her husband. My mother consented, the woman made a very odd short call and left. For months afterwards we had strange noises on our line, clicks and echoes. I suspect our line was monitored after that call had been traced back to us. I don't know who she called but it always stuck in mind that one mistake was enough to emd up on a list. On
adwww 10y ago
I "don't have anything to hide". But I can imagine some scenario where I am in a court and the opposing side have had access to my internet history. It wouldn't be very hard to paint me in a pretty bad light if you were very selective - much like the quote above. Eg. "The defendant has previously looked at gun videos on the internet, reads hacker message boards, and once even read how to make TNT."
- matz1 10y ago
  >"The defendant has previously looked at gun videos on the internet, reads hacker message boards, and once even read how to make TNT." If the court accept this argument as prove that someone is doing harm then thats the real issue.
  - ghostDancer 10y ago
    The system has also the web history of the judge, so he'll probably comply.
    - huherto 10y ago
      Exactly! It is not only your own history. It is the history of those that have some power that are now subject to blackmail.
  - adwww 10y ago
    Not on it's own. But muddying someone's character might confuse a jury in some otherwise mundane technical case.
conover 10y ago
Speaking of "wrong call" -- this reminds me of the poor folks stuck on the "no-fly" and "selectee" lists by accident: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/nyregion/14watchlist.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/nyregion/14watchlist.html http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/14/business/jumping-through-hoops-to-get-off-the-nofly-list.html http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/14/business/jumping-through-h...

by guilamu 10y ago

gmac 10y ago

See also: https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2015/responding-to-nothing-to-hide-nothing-to-fear https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2015/responding-to-noth...

austinjp 10y ago

I agree. Most people have curtains over their windows, after all. Although, a worrying possibility is that a tendency toward privacy marks you out as a dissenter. Guilty before proven innocent.

planetjones 10y ago

I fully agree with the quote above, but I don't find this as clear a cut issue as perhaps many on HN do. It's undoubtable that surveillance is becoming harder now and that groups who would bring great harm to innocent people are using the internet for research and communication. I don't know what the answer is, but encrypting everyone's communications end-to-end with no-one able to ever intercept does sound like it will make protecting us very hard indeed. And yes, I know these tools for strong encryption are out there and they can't be un-invented - but I can see why Governments want to do "something". I am just saying what that "something" is becomes difficult to define.

hueving 10y ago
Yet society somehow protected itself when terrorists learned from books and communicated via mail, meeting in person, and telephone calls.
geff82 10y ago
During all history of mankind, wrongdoers were using "words spoken by the mouth" to do all kind of bad things. Yet I miss total surveillance of privately spoken words. Even without total online surveillance, by the nature of computers you are leaving so many traces that full surveillance is not necessary to at least find something. And in countries without Big-Brother like surveillance, police often got good hints by searching the equipment of a real criminal. It is just not needed to include everyone. And even with encryption, you can often see who talked to who. The "something" you are talking about is the following: good old police work. You have a reason to be suspicious? Search the guy. Just as police did the last hundred years. Just do not search everyone. Police work should be hard if we still care about citizen rights.
tremon 10y ago
It's undoubtable that [..] groups who would bring great harm to innocent people are using the internet for research and communication They sure are. But are you proposing to cut off internet access for politicians altogether?
the_jp 10y ago
Collecting all that data is harmful simply because it can be assumed to be hacked at one point or another. Massive potential for misuse by criminals or authoritarian governments.
mikekchar 10y ago
I don't know what the answer is either, but I would like governments to invest more time, money and effort into researching ways of achieving peace, rather than fighting to suppress war. It may, indeed, be more difficult than tracking what everybody does and incarcerating those that are suspected of plotting acts of violence. I think the payoffs may be significantly better, though. I hate to compare these kinds of cultural issues on the internet, but I have lived in many places in the world. Culturally they are very different. How we act in our countries, states, cities and even houses is governed by our culture. Some cultures value peace greatly. Some prefer justice to peace. When you look at the people around you, you may think, "There is nothing I can do. There are evil people and I can't change that. I can only fight them so that good will win." In my experience, this is not true. Many people have problems and it is only society and culture that can save them from those problems. How do we extend a culture of peace and create a global society where we help people in need? That's what I would rather spend my money on. I'm willing to suffer from the attacks of those that need help in the mean time.

Create 10y ago

Panama Papers: Cameron's father was Mossack Fonseca client http://www.bbc.com/news/world-35961422 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-35961422 We begin therefore where they are determined not to end, with the question whether any form of democratic self-government, anywhere, is consistent with the kind of massive, pervasive, surveillance into which the Unites States government has led not only us but the world. This should not actually be a complicated inquiry. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/27/-sp-privacy-under-attack-nsa-files-revealed-new-threats-democracy https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/27/-sp-priva... Employee is held on suspicion of ‘extracting confidential information’ from law firm at centre of Panama Papers https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/15/mossack-fonseca-worker-arrested-switzerland-panama-papers https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/15/mossack-fonsec...

amelius 10y ago

Meh, I'm still waiting for an argument that is capable of convincing a larger audience. The problem with the threat imposed by privacy invasion is that it is just too hypothetical. It is near the bottom of people's problem lists, even below their "first world" problems.

tremon 10y ago
Next time someone says they have nothing to hide, ask them for their bank code, or why they're wearing clothes.
- grkvlt 10y ago
  No, those are not comparable. Next time someone says they have nothing to hide, ask them to send their bank account details and PIN, or naked photographs of themselves, to their countries law enforcement or intelligent services. The question is not do i have anything to hide from some random stranger or the general public, the question is should law enforcement and intelligence services have these rights.
  - amelius 10y ago
    The problem is: this is placing hypothetical on hypothetical. First, the threat imposed by privacy invasion is hypothetical to most people. And now you're asking them to hypothetically send their pictures to the government? Come on, if we want to raise awareness, we need better arguments, and especially better formulations to convince people.
    - eponeponepon 10y ago
      It appears hypothetical. We need to educate people such that they understand why it is not. It's the only solution.
mfukar 10y ago
Hypothetical? Ad agencies are already using everything known about you. Maybe you don't care about that, but it's very real.

adekok 10y ago

Or, flip the argument around. Most cops in the US are fighting against the use of body cams. Why? They don't want to be recorded. Most courts don't allow recording equipment in them. Why? They don't want to be recorded. Most government workings are hidden behind bureaucrat walls. It requires other laws such as the FOIA to force government to be open. And FOIA requests are widely ignored, delayed, redacted, etc. If the people enforcing the law refuse to be recorded, why in living hell should you let them record you? You should have as many rights as they do. Including the right to privacy.

hruwigiuwgrhhiu 10y ago
yes, the response to "if you have nothing to hide" should be "you first then". Imagine if the question was: "can I watch you through your window ?" - "no." "why, what have you got to hide ?" - "nothing, I just value my privacy like any normal human. It's my house, so mind your own business" Now you could counter "yes but the web is a public space". But it's not entirely. Some of it is public, some of it is private. Our email conversations with our friends and family, our video chats etc should be private. (They're not of course, they're all intercepted and stored forever, but they should be private).
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  Why do you want to watch me through the window. You can come and look if you want as long as you're not doing it to perv over me I couldn't really care less. To keep the analogy don't we need to add two provisos though: you can't tell anyone about it or you lose your job and face prosecution (unless you can convince the CPS that there's a case against me, then you have your say in court); and you'll need to convince a judge that you have a legal need, that also serves the public interest, to observe me. >Our email conversations with our friends and family, our video chats etc should be private. (They're not of course, they're all intercepted and stored forever, but they should be private). // AIUI the UK Investigatory Powers Act is storing domains visited for a limited time and requires a warrant to enable access, access then only being granted to officers of a particular standing (so they can't pass the details around and the named officer is responsible if the info is leaked). Am I getting the wrong message? I've not had time to read the Act yet. Security services are almost certainly able to access that data, but then that's been true for a long time and is covered by far more generic laws, the IPA isn't addressing that (is it?). tl;dr - if I don't care if you sit and watch me watching Masterchef, or playing on Steam, or if you read my emails to customers, or see what I buy (just like you can if I go to a shop), then ... is there anything left that you can say to convince me I should be hiding what I do online. "I don't hide what I do IRL, why hide online"?

balabaster 10y ago

I think you're spot on. A classic example of this: The Jews didn't have anything to hide and lived in the open for many years prior to Hitler's rise to power... and then suddenly their innocent life was exactly what condemned them to their deaths... So yeah, everyone has a responsibility to ensure their privacy. 99.9% of people aren't terrorists. Terrorists cause less death every year than heart disease. Why should the 99.9% of people give up privacy to fight a war caused only because of the "West"'s inability to negotiate fairly for access to foreign resources? Instead of raping and plundering other countries, installing puppet Governments and causing people to act with "an eye for an eye" or "I will rain what you rain down on us a thousandfold over." It's a band-aid solution to a symptom of the underlying cancer that needs to be cured. They're using the war on terror as a land grab for more power and control. Realistically there should be no war on terror, for terrorism is only "an eye for an eye." If you want to stop it, someone has to be the bigger man and say "You know what, we're not doing this any more. This behaviour is bullshit and it ends now." If you want peace, you've gotta live peacefully. You don't spread peace with bombs, guns, violence and invading everyone's privacy to maintain control. You spread peace and trust with acts of love and kindness.

pvg 10y ago
The Jews didn't have anything to hide and lived in the open for many years prior to Hitler's rise to power. This is neither true nor a classic example of the dangers of mass surveillance.
- dijit 10y ago
  What makes you think it isn't true? The Nazi's used census data of occupied territories to ascertain who to deport.
  - pvg 10y ago
    If you redefine everything as mass surveillance then yes, everything is a consequence of mass surveillance.

dingaling 10y ago

Back in the early 1980s my household was one of the few on the estate to have a telephone. You knew by the lack of overhead cables. This was in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. One day a distraught woman came to the door and asked to make a call to her husband. My mother consented, the woman made a very odd short call and left. For months afterwards we had strange noises on our line, clicks and echoes. I suspect our line was monitored after that call had been traced back to us. I don't know who she called but it always stuck in mind that one mistake was enough to emd up on a list. On

adwww 10y ago

I "don't have anything to hide". But I can imagine some scenario where I am in a court and the opposing side have had access to my internet history. It wouldn't be very hard to paint me in a pretty bad light if you were very selective - much like the quote above. Eg. "The defendant has previously looked at gun videos on the internet, reads hacker message boards, and once even read how to make TNT."

matz1 10y ago
>"The defendant has previously looked at gun videos on the internet, reads hacker message boards, and once even read how to make TNT." If the court accept this argument as prove that someone is doing harm then thats the real issue.
- ghostDancer 10y ago
  The system has also the web history of the judge, so he'll probably comply.
  - huherto 10y ago
    Exactly! It is not only your own history. It is the history of those that have some power that are now subject to blackmail.
- adwww 10y ago
  Not on it's own. But muddying someone's character might confuse a jury in some otherwise mundane technical case.

conover 10y ago

Speaking of "wrong call" -- this reminds me of the poor folks stuck on the "no-fly" and "selectee" lists by accident: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/nyregion/14watchlist.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/nyregion/14watchlist.html http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/14/business/jumping-through-hoops-to-get-off-the-nofly-list.html http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/14/business/jumping-through-h...