11 ms·

Why Do We Care So Much About Privacy?

57 points by raleighm 8y ago

readingnews 8y ago
Not sure how to say this: HN keeps linking to articles that are behind "the first ones free" paywalls. Admittedly, I recently read two articles on New Yorker that were thought provoking, and perhaps that is why people subscribe, but should we not be linking to news that we can get without walls?
- jihadjihad 8y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
  - readingnews 8y ago
    I see your point: " Are paywalls ok? It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds. In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic. " So, I am off topic, and behind a paywall :) Once again, I need to find a new place to read great news.
mpweiher 8y ago
How about: "That's none of your damn business"?
- nothrabannosir 8y ago
  Not a convincing argument. You need people to agree with you if you want to win in a democracy. This attitude, while entirely understandable, will leave you alone and naked.
  - mpweiher 8y ago
    It's not an argument. It is a statement. > win in a democracy This is why fundamental rights such as this are enshrined in constitutions and not up for grab by normal political processes. An important aspect of liberal democracies is protection of the minorities. The majority can't just do what it wants, there are limits.
    - nothrabannosir 8y ago
      If the majority is big enough it bloody well can. And it will. Protection of minorities only exists because the majority wants it. Not that it is relevant in this conversation: “people who value privacy” are not a group considered a minority who need protecting from the majority. If you want people to help you protect your privacy, you need to convince them, plain and simple. Asking the electorate for help in electing privacy conscious officials and telling them to fuck off when asked why is going to get us absolutely nowhere. That’s the plain truth of our privacy debate today: we are losing, and we need help but we can’t convince people to help us. Ideas of civil liberty are not cutting it. Evidently. If you need any more convincing, look at how the public sees Snowden. And weep.
- everdev 8y ago
  Yes, that's the surface response, but what's deeper than that? Ultimately I think it's a rational fear of being ostracized (or worse) for having believed or done something deemed by the group to be "not OK". The right to privacy shoes us to explore the nature of ourselves without harming others and without putting us in danger of violating social norms. The counter argument might be that with more visibility and openness, the more tolerant we all might be if each others faults, but unfortunately history does not seem to demonstrate this.
  - matz1 8y ago
    Information wants to be free, its make more sense to promote openness and transparency. LGBT is gaining acceptance, one of the reason is I believe its because its more visible.
    - Bakary 8y ago
      There should still be some way for individuals to have the possibility to experience different facets of themselves. To give a stereotypical example, a middle-aged software programmer might want to experiment with psychedelic substances once in a while without the hassle of having to explain it to people in more mainstream spheres of his life. If every encounter has to be accounted for and recorded, this introduces significant mental strain and ends up impoverishing our lives.
      - matz1 8y ago
        So the issue is, in this context, to be able to experiment with psychedelic substances without hassle. Why do I have to explain it to people in the first place? Maybe because lack of information of knowledge about psychedelic substances ? More transparency and openness can help. Another example, Why I do I feel the need to close the bathroom door when I take a dump ? Because it considered taboo or weird. But if more and more people take a dump with the door open, it will be less weird. Its a hassle too to have to keep things private.
        8y ago
blakesterz 8y ago
Not a bad article at all. A big chunk of it is a review of "The Known Citizen A History of Privacy in Modern America" by Sarah E. Igo I like this quote: "This means the freedom to choose what to do with your body, or who can see your personal information, or who can monitor your movements and record your calls—who gets to surveil your life and on what grounds." (I always like to see just how much garbage uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger block on articles that are privacy focused. This one might be a new record: 51 and 18 respectively)
ordinaryperson 8y ago
"People are inconsistent about the kind of exposure they’ll tolerate. We don’t like to be fingerprinted by government agencies, a practice we associate with mug shots and state surveillance, but we happily hand our thumbprints over to Apple, which does God knows what with them." Great point. People say they care about privacy but willingly Instagram and Snapchat and YouTube every minor detail about their lives. Not everyone of course, but a lot. Facebook has what, 2.1 billion users? There's a vast asymmetry between the privacy people say they want and in reality how quickly they'll give it up in exchange for free services. But this article is a good legal history of American law.
- Mirioron 8y ago
  >There's a vast asymmetry between the privacy people say they want and in reality how quickly they'll give it up in exchange for free services. This is a very interesting point. I think people don't really acknowledge how much convenience they gain from giving up their privacy. Much of the online discussion around GDPR seemed to be about this issue. People didn't seem top acknowledge just how much they gain from it. I guess this is why it was made into a regulation, so people don't have to make the choice of whether to use an online service or keep their privacy.
- kraigspear 8y ago
  Just talked to God, this is what he said. Your fingerprint data is encrypted, stored on device, and protected with a key available only to the Secure Enclave. Your fingerprint data is used only by the Secure Enclave to verify that your fingerprint matches the enrolled fingerprint data. It can’t be accessed by the OS on your device or by any applications running on it. It's never stored on Apple servers, it's never backed up to iCloud or anywhere else, and it can't be used to match against other fingerprint databases. https://support.apple.com/en-us/ht204587 https://support.apple.com/en-us/ht204587
  - jiveturkey 8y ago
    I just took a random survey of 5 people around me. 5 out of 5 didn't know that, and assumed Apple had a copy of their fingerprint. The point, in case you missed it? The fact that privacy is not actually given up doesn't matter. People are willing to give it up to gain some perceived benefit.
belorn 8y ago
In an article full of legal cases and law, I am a bit surprised to not hear one of the better argument for privacy. Put me in a legal case where I (and only I) have full access to mobile data and Internet traffic for each of the 12 juries, judge, lawyers, prosecutor and their families and friends. Does the design of the legal system still work when one party can use data together with machine intelligence in order to figure out how to influence and manipulate the participants? I think the answer is a clear No, and I have heard a professor of legal history come to the same conclusion. The legal system as it is currently designed can not operate without privacy, and it is hard to imagine a system that can.
- pif 8y ago
  >> The legal system as it is currently designed can not operate without privacy, and it is hard to imagine a system that can. Actually, it's very simple. You yourself hinted at it: > Put me in a legal case where I (and only I) have full access... You had to specify "and only I", otherwise your argument would not make sense. Now suppose everybody has access to the same data, and voilà!, your power just vanished.
  - belorn 8y ago
    Does it? I would image that a legal system where lawyers and prosecutors both can use machine learning and unlimited data to maximize what methods to use in order to influence judge, jury, witnesses and so on would be quite different from a legal system designed to find the truth. Through even if we assume so, how would everyone get equal access to the data, algorithms and processing power? If cases are resolved based on who owns most of those resources can we still claim to have a just legal system?
    - notheguyouthink 8y ago
      I totally agree.. though to play devils advocate, I do have to wonder how different what you describe is from the traditional system. By traditional system, I mean; who is the best lawyer? One who can most effectively manipulate the jury towards their clients case. It sounds jaded, but mechanically I think it's true, no? And what makes one lawyer better at this? Perhaps training, personal talent, etc. So in the two scenarios, you have: 1. a lawyer wins because s/he's more talented/trained at manipulation. 2. a lawyer wins because s/he's obtained a better ML software suite for processing data. Is there a meaningful distinction here? Before ML, you always wanted to hire a "good" lawyer. So there were already meaningful differences between good and bad lawyers. Lawyers always tried to manipulate the jury. Lawyers always tried to sell the facts around their case in such a way as to be most effective. I'm not sure how ML will alter this. Aside from cranking the dial to 11.
CyberDildonics 8y ago
There's a big difference in broadcasting what you are doing and giving over every piece of data to the organization with a monopoly on violence, who demands a large percentage of all the labor you do in your life and does not share the same transparency with you.
ahartmetz 8y ago
The kind of absence of privacy between consumers and internet giants is also a massive power imbalance: they know many useful and compromising things about billions of consumers. What do we know about Mark Zuckerberg? I know that some self-serving bullshit about post-privacy came out of Facebook, but I don't see Zuckerberg or Sandberg leading by example.
- duxup 8y ago
  >What do we know about Mark Zuckerberg? I always wanted to know with all the data available, was Mark's data as available as everyone else's, or did they protect it?
  - mrwilhelm 8y ago
    IMO probably they did. It could be done to prevent leak from an fb employee.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
nomadiccoder 8y ago
I dont feel that the question was truly answered. WHY do we care? The author writes about human behavior and discusses the 'natural right' of privacy but arent natural rights just customs from previous generations. Observing human behavior might suggest that privacy somehow is a desired trait from natural selection. ie when pooping, animals are more vulnerable (maybe) suggesting that privacy somehow aids in security from preditors. Financial Transactional data privacy allows a competitive advantage on future trades. Basically id like to hear arguments that get down to the fundamental reasons why humans care about privacy.
- DoubleGlazing 8y ago
  I have two reasons for wanting privacy. For practical reasons, the less info that is "out there" about me reduces the attack surface for scammers, ID thieves and the like. But leaving aside crime and misuse concerns a more fundamental reason why I want privacy is simply because that is my personal preference. And that is a preference I shouldn't have to justify to anyone. I suppose if I were pushed to provide some kind of a justification I would say that I get comfort from knowing that I am privy to information that no one else is - it helps to define me as an individual.
dimico 8y ago
Why do we care so much about being dressed?
decentralised 8y ago
"I'm considerably more pro-privacy than I was a few years ago. A few years ago, my position was closer to "in a well-running society it's probably optimal that everyone sees everything, the value for privacy tech for ordinary people is (i) to let them buy weed, put up beds so people can sleep over in offices, and otherwise circumvent silly regulations, and (ii) to maintain a healthy balance of power, because even if more transparency is good, the government only having the all-seeing eye and everyone else being in the dark would give too much power to the government". Things that changed my mind, and made me believe that even in a hypothetical perfectly equal and fair society people having some privacy is a good idea include: - Reading Robin Hanson and others' literature on signalling, and seeing just how large a portion of our lives it still is. Basically, I see privacy as a way to prevent signalling concerns from encompassing all of our activity, and creating spheres where we are free to optimize for our own happiness and just our own happiness, and not what other people think about us. - Having a deeper understanding of the ways that it's possible to make other people's lives suck even as a law-abiding private citizen, and realizing that privacy is an important self-defense tool for those situations. - Realizing more deeply that "the people" are not always virtuous, and that social pressure as a mechanism for influencing people's behavior doesn't always lead to results I approve of (see: recent string of internet mobs leading to people getting fired for political views). Realizing how bad mainstream media is even today, which makes me more understanding of people's desire to protect themselves from them. Mass surveillance is problematic because (i) I don't trust governments and large corporations to have interests that are aligned with us, and (ii) it creates points of centralized data collection that could get hacked, leading to everyone getting that data even if that was never the original intention. That said, in the physical space it's pretty unavoidable, so we should at least work hard to make the internet a more privacy-preserving place." Vitalik Buterin https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/8m3wj1/rothschilds_in_crypto_goodbadneutral/dzmspgv/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/8m3wj1/rothschild...
- blattimwind 8y ago
  The "in a well-running society it's probably optimal that everyone sees everything" view is something practically only held by people who don't deviate in any significant way from societal norms. It's obvious to "deviants" -- or people sharing minimal insight into the actual breadth of people's behaviours and tastes -- that it's not at all something to strive for. A society of the "everyone sees everything" kind is a tyranny of the masses not just limited to your usual racism and whatnot, but crushing down on literally every property of a human being. Your run-of-the-mill Orwellian nightmare is a fluffy wonderland of individualism in comparison.
balabaster 8y ago
We care so much about privacy because prior to WWII millions of Jews who were innocently going about their every day business filled out a census that asked them their religion. Their religion was no more illegal than their existence. A few years later they were being exterminated like vermin in an attempt to eradicate them from Europe based entirely on a checkbox on a form. The home address they freely provided sealing their fate. "I'm not doing anything wrong, I have nothing to hide. If you're trying to hide, you must be a criminal." I pray that nothing you do innocently today becomes public knowledge and retroactively treated as a crime that threatens not only your livelihood, but your very life and the lives of those you hold most dear. That. That is why privacy should be in our hands. We should be able to choose the information we divulge to the world about ourselves. Not have the world know every last thing about us. Witch hunts happen. They happen today as often as in the days of the Salem Witch Trials. Black people in the southern States live in an atmosphere of racism, wondering if the cop pulling them over will beat them or kill them... most cops aren't racist. Women everywhere live in an atmosphere of sexism, yet most men aren't sexist misogynists. LGBQT live in an atmosphere of not being accepted and have their lives threatened regularly just because of who they are sexually attracted to. If you don't think you could be on the receiving end of a witch hunt just because your life is "boring", you are as naive as you are ignorant. Privacy matters. That's why attorney client privilege exists. That's why the 5th Amendment exists. That's why the right to remain silent exists. Just because there is a void in public information about you, doesn't mean it needs to be filled.
- triviatise 8y ago
  gun owners are going through this right now. This is why gun owners are so sensitive to any registration. They know that gun registries are a precursor to gun confiscation and prosecution. Historically speaking governments have always been the worst perpetrators of violence on their own people.
  - mpweiher 8y ago
    "This is what car owners and house owners are going through right now, they know that car and house registries are precursors to confiscation and prosecution." Oh..wait...
dayvid 8y ago
Why do the people who want our data care so much about their own personal privacy? http://time.com/money/4346766/mark-zuckerberg-houses/ http://time.com/money/4346766/mark-zuckerberg-houses/ If everyone knew what everyone else was doing, it might change the world in a positive way (Not really sure, but it would be a change, e.g. #metoo, panama papers). Otherwise, it's only a privileged group of people who can maintain their privacy while accessing other's personal information. And that's a well established power dynamic throughout history.
lalos 8y ago
Good regulation protects people from themselves. Before the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook fiasco, people would claim why care about privacy I have nothing to hide. Its not about hiding the things you do, its about protecting you from smarter people with ulterior motives that might use your data to straight manipulate you (make you buy something, make you feel something, make you do something, etc). We have to change the dialogue regarding privacy into its for your own benefit not because you're doing illegal activities but because your data is valuable to many outside actors.
awat 8y ago
I’d make the argument that privacy is a neccessary pillar for growth in society. Things like marijuana usage could likely not have become legal had private use not occurred and many people found it to be not harmful. This private space for experimentation and self-evaluation (of products, substances, and norms) isn’t given much attention but could adversely change society if it’s lost imho.
wpdev_63 8y ago
I would say we don't care enough. There hasn't been any real blow back from the nsa vault leaks. The government has and still is monitoring all forms of internet communication in the US en masse. Now they want to implement camera surveillance programs that use AI to track movements of people. Where are the protests? Where are our political leaders? Our DAs, Supreme Justice, and what have you. You hear about these leaks almost monthly at this point and there are no repercussions. It will continue business as usual.
jhoechtl 8y ago
Because of the Stasi in german peoples republic or the Gestapo in the third reich. Two examples which only by coincidence happen to be Germany related, there are certainly many more examples like that. I did not read the article, I admit, and won't do that as it is deliberately catch to attract click-bait. But is is so utterly bullshit to even phrase it in such a way.
osrec 8y ago
Do we really care that much about privacy? We really should, but every Facebook scandal that goes seemingly unnoticed by the majority of the general public makes me think otherwise...
pasbesoin 8y ago
Throughout my life, I've had people discover facts about me and use them against me. Personally. "Friends" who used -- and sometimes stole -- secrets to bully me. Commercially: Insurance companies that used past treatment to discriminate against me. (In combination with the employer-provided insurance model, that marginalizes individual purchasers.) So, I for one worry about privacy, because I've experienced first hand what its breach has cost me. I imagine I'm hardly alone.

57 points by raleighm 8y ago

Not sure how to say this: HN keeps linking to articles that are behind "the first ones free" paywalls. Admittedly, I recently read two articles on New Yorker that were thought provoking, and perhaps that is why people subscribe, but should we not be linking to news that we can get without walls?

jihadjihad 8y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
- readingnews 8y ago
  I see your point: " Are paywalls ok? It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds. In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic. " So, I am off topic, and behind a paywall :) Once again, I need to find a new place to read great news.

mpweiher 8y ago

How about: "That's none of your damn business"?

nothrabannosir 8y ago
Not a convincing argument. You need people to agree with you if you want to win in a democracy. This attitude, while entirely understandable, will leave you alone and naked.
- mpweiher 8y ago
  It's not an argument. It is a statement. > win in a democracy This is why fundamental rights such as this are enshrined in constitutions and not up for grab by normal political processes. An important aspect of liberal democracies is protection of the minorities. The majority can't just do what it wants, there are limits.
  - nothrabannosir 8y ago
    If the majority is big enough it bloody well can. And it will. Protection of minorities only exists because the majority wants it. Not that it is relevant in this conversation: “people who value privacy” are not a group considered a minority who need protecting from the majority. If you want people to help you protect your privacy, you need to convince them, plain and simple. Asking the electorate for help in electing privacy conscious officials and telling them to fuck off when asked why is going to get us absolutely nowhere. That’s the plain truth of our privacy debate today: we are losing, and we need help but we can’t convince people to help us. Ideas of civil liberty are not cutting it. Evidently. If you need any more convincing, look at how the public sees Snowden. And weep.
everdev 8y ago
Yes, that's the surface response, but what's deeper than that? Ultimately I think it's a rational fear of being ostracized (or worse) for having believed or done something deemed by the group to be "not OK". The right to privacy shoes us to explore the nature of ourselves without harming others and without putting us in danger of violating social norms. The counter argument might be that with more visibility and openness, the more tolerant we all might be if each others faults, but unfortunately history does not seem to demonstrate this.
- matz1 8y ago
  Information wants to be free, its make more sense to promote openness and transparency. LGBT is gaining acceptance, one of the reason is I believe its because its more visible.
  - Bakary 8y ago
    There should still be some way for individuals to have the possibility to experience different facets of themselves. To give a stereotypical example, a middle-aged software programmer might want to experiment with psychedelic substances once in a while without the hassle of having to explain it to people in more mainstream spheres of his life. If every encounter has to be accounted for and recorded, this introduces significant mental strain and ends up impoverishing our lives.
    - matz1 8y ago
      So the issue is, in this context, to be able to experiment with psychedelic substances without hassle. Why do I have to explain it to people in the first place? Maybe because lack of information of knowledge about psychedelic substances ? More transparency and openness can help. Another example, Why I do I feel the need to close the bathroom door when I take a dump ? Because it considered taboo or weird. But if more and more people take a dump with the door open, it will be less weird. Its a hassle too to have to keep things private.
      - 8y ago

blakesterz 8y ago

Not a bad article at all. A big chunk of it is a review of "The Known Citizen A History of Privacy in Modern America" by Sarah E. Igo I like this quote: "This means the freedom to choose what to do with your body, or who can see your personal information, or who can monitor your movements and record your calls—who gets to surveil your life and on what grounds." (I always like to see just how much garbage uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger block on articles that are privacy focused. This one might be a new record: 51 and 18 respectively)

ordinaryperson 8y ago

"People are inconsistent about the kind of exposure they’ll tolerate. We don’t like to be fingerprinted by government agencies, a practice we associate with mug shots and state surveillance, but we happily hand our thumbprints over to Apple, which does God knows what with them." Great point. People say they care about privacy but willingly Instagram and Snapchat and YouTube every minor detail about their lives. Not everyone of course, but a lot. Facebook has what, 2.1 billion users? There's a vast asymmetry between the privacy people say they want and in reality how quickly they'll give it up in exchange for free services. But this article is a good legal history of American law.

Mirioron 8y ago
>There's a vast asymmetry between the privacy people say they want and in reality how quickly they'll give it up in exchange for free services. This is a very interesting point. I think people don't really acknowledge how much convenience they gain from giving up their privacy. Much of the online discussion around GDPR seemed to be about this issue. People didn't seem top acknowledge just how much they gain from it. I guess this is why it was made into a regulation, so people don't have to make the choice of whether to use an online service or keep their privacy.
kraigspear 8y ago
Just talked to God, this is what he said. Your fingerprint data is encrypted, stored on device, and protected with a key available only to the Secure Enclave. Your fingerprint data is used only by the Secure Enclave to verify that your fingerprint matches the enrolled fingerprint data. It can’t be accessed by the OS on your device or by any applications running on it. It's never stored on Apple servers, it's never backed up to iCloud or anywhere else, and it can't be used to match against other fingerprint databases. https://support.apple.com/en-us/ht204587 https://support.apple.com/en-us/ht204587
- jiveturkey 8y ago
  I just took a random survey of 5 people around me. 5 out of 5 didn't know that, and assumed Apple had a copy of their fingerprint. The point, in case you missed it? The fact that privacy is not actually given up doesn't matter. People are willing to give it up to gain some perceived benefit.

belorn 8y ago

In an article full of legal cases and law, I am a bit surprised to not hear one of the better argument for privacy. Put me in a legal case where I (and only I) have full access to mobile data and Internet traffic for each of the 12 juries, judge, lawyers, prosecutor and their families and friends. Does the design of the legal system still work when one party can use data together with machine intelligence in order to figure out how to influence and manipulate the participants? I think the answer is a clear No, and I have heard a professor of legal history come to the same conclusion. The legal system as it is currently designed can not operate without privacy, and it is hard to imagine a system that can.

pif 8y ago
>> The legal system as it is currently designed can not operate without privacy, and it is hard to imagine a system that can. Actually, it's very simple. You yourself hinted at it: > Put me in a legal case where I (and only I) have full access... You had to specify "and only I", otherwise your argument would not make sense. Now suppose everybody has access to the same data, and voilà!, your power just vanished.
- belorn 8y ago
  Does it? I would image that a legal system where lawyers and prosecutors both can use machine learning and unlimited data to maximize what methods to use in order to influence judge, jury, witnesses and so on would be quite different from a legal system designed to find the truth. Through even if we assume so, how would everyone get equal access to the data, algorithms and processing power? If cases are resolved based on who owns most of those resources can we still claim to have a just legal system?
  - notheguyouthink 8y ago
    I totally agree.. though to play devils advocate, I do have to wonder how different what you describe is from the traditional system. By traditional system, I mean; who is the best lawyer? One who can most effectively manipulate the jury towards their clients case. It sounds jaded, but mechanically I think it's true, no? And what makes one lawyer better at this? Perhaps training, personal talent, etc. So in the two scenarios, you have: 1. a lawyer wins because s/he's more talented/trained at manipulation. 2. a lawyer wins because s/he's obtained a better ML software suite for processing data. Is there a meaningful distinction here? Before ML, you always wanted to hire a "good" lawyer. So there were already meaningful differences between good and bad lawyers. Lawyers always tried to manipulate the jury. Lawyers always tried to sell the facts around their case in such a way as to be most effective. I'm not sure how ML will alter this. Aside from cranking the dial to 11.

CyberDildonics 8y ago

There's a big difference in broadcasting what you are doing and giving over every piece of data to the organization with a monopoly on violence, who demands a large percentage of all the labor you do in your life and does not share the same transparency with you.

ahartmetz 8y ago

The kind of absence of privacy between consumers and internet giants is also a massive power imbalance: they know many useful and compromising things about billions of consumers. What do we know about Mark Zuckerberg? I know that some self-serving bullshit about post-privacy came out of Facebook, but I don't see Zuckerberg or Sandberg leading by example.

duxup 8y ago
>What do we know about Mark Zuckerberg? I always wanted to know with all the data available, was Mark's data as available as everyone else's, or did they protect it?
- mrwilhelm 8y ago
  IMO probably they did. It could be done to prevent leak from an fb employee.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

nomadiccoder 8y ago

I dont feel that the question was truly answered. WHY do we care? The author writes about human behavior and discusses the 'natural right' of privacy but arent natural rights just customs from previous generations. Observing human behavior might suggest that privacy somehow is a desired trait from natural selection. ie when pooping, animals are more vulnerable (maybe) suggesting that privacy somehow aids in security from preditors. Financial Transactional data privacy allows a competitive advantage on future trades. Basically id like to hear arguments that get down to the fundamental reasons why humans care about privacy.

DoubleGlazing 8y ago
I have two reasons for wanting privacy. For practical reasons, the less info that is "out there" about me reduces the attack surface for scammers, ID thieves and the like. But leaving aside crime and misuse concerns a more fundamental reason why I want privacy is simply because that is my personal preference. And that is a preference I shouldn't have to justify to anyone. I suppose if I were pushed to provide some kind of a justification I would say that I get comfort from knowing that I am privy to information that no one else is - it helps to define me as an individual.

dimico 8y ago

Why do we care so much about being dressed?

decentralised 8y ago

"I'm considerably more pro-privacy than I was a few years ago. A few years ago, my position was closer to "in a well-running society it's probably optimal that everyone sees everything, the value for privacy tech for ordinary people is (i) to let them buy weed, put up beds so people can sleep over in offices, and otherwise circumvent silly regulations, and (ii) to maintain a healthy balance of power, because even if more transparency is good, the government only having the all-seeing eye and everyone else being in the dark would give too much power to the government". Things that changed my mind, and made me believe that even in a hypothetical perfectly equal and fair society people having some privacy is a good idea include: - Reading Robin Hanson and others' literature on signalling, and seeing just how large a portion of our lives it still is. Basically, I see privacy as a way to prevent signalling concerns from encompassing all of our activity, and creating spheres where we are free to optimize for our own happiness and just our own happiness, and not what other people think about us. - Having a deeper understanding of the ways that it's possible to make other people's lives suck even as a law-abiding private citizen, and realizing that privacy is an important self-defense tool for those situations. - Realizing more deeply that "the people" are not always virtuous, and that social pressure as a mechanism for influencing people's behavior doesn't always lead to results I approve of (see: recent string of internet mobs leading to people getting fired for political views). Realizing how bad mainstream media is even today, which makes me more understanding of people's desire to protect themselves from them. Mass surveillance is problematic because (i) I don't trust governments and large corporations to have interests that are aligned with us, and (ii) it creates points of centralized data collection that could get hacked, leading to everyone getting that data even if that was never the original intention. That said, in the physical space it's pretty unavoidable, so we should at least work hard to make the internet a more privacy-preserving place." Vitalik Buterin https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/8m3wj1/rothschilds_in_crypto_goodbadneutral/dzmspgv/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/8m3wj1/rothschild...

blattimwind 8y ago
The "in a well-running society it's probably optimal that everyone sees everything" view is something practically only held by people who don't deviate in any significant way from societal norms. It's obvious to "deviants" -- or people sharing minimal insight into the actual breadth of people's behaviours and tastes -- that it's not at all something to strive for. A society of the "everyone sees everything" kind is a tyranny of the masses not just limited to your usual racism and whatnot, but crushing down on literally every property of a human being. Your run-of-the-mill Orwellian nightmare is a fluffy wonderland of individualism in comparison.

balabaster 8y ago

We care so much about privacy because prior to WWII millions of Jews who were innocently going about their every day business filled out a census that asked them their religion. Their religion was no more illegal than their existence. A few years later they were being exterminated like vermin in an attempt to eradicate them from Europe based entirely on a checkbox on a form. The home address they freely provided sealing their fate. "I'm not doing anything wrong, I have nothing to hide. If you're trying to hide, you must be a criminal." I pray that nothing you do innocently today becomes public knowledge and retroactively treated as a crime that threatens not only your livelihood, but your very life and the lives of those you hold most dear. That. That is why privacy should be in our hands. We should be able to choose the information we divulge to the world about ourselves. Not have the world know every last thing about us. Witch hunts happen. They happen today as often as in the days of the Salem Witch Trials. Black people in the southern States live in an atmosphere of racism, wondering if the cop pulling them over will beat them or kill them... most cops aren't racist. Women everywhere live in an atmosphere of sexism, yet most men aren't sexist misogynists. LGBQT live in an atmosphere of not being accepted and have their lives threatened regularly just because of who they are sexually attracted to. If you don't think you could be on the receiving end of a witch hunt just because your life is "boring", you are as naive as you are ignorant. Privacy matters. That's why attorney client privilege exists. That's why the 5th Amendment exists. That's why the right to remain silent exists. Just because there is a void in public information about you, doesn't mean it needs to be filled.

triviatise 8y ago
gun owners are going through this right now. This is why gun owners are so sensitive to any registration. They know that gun registries are a precursor to gun confiscation and prosecution. Historically speaking governments have always been the worst perpetrators of violence on their own people.
- mpweiher 8y ago
  "This is what car owners and house owners are going through right now, they know that car and house registries are precursors to confiscation and prosecution." Oh..wait...

dayvid 8y ago

Why do the people who want our data care so much about their own personal privacy? http://time.com/money/4346766/mark-zuckerberg-houses/ http://time.com/money/4346766/mark-zuckerberg-houses/ If everyone knew what everyone else was doing, it might change the world in a positive way (Not really sure, but it would be a change, e.g. #metoo, panama papers). Otherwise, it's only a privileged group of people who can maintain their privacy while accessing other's personal information. And that's a well established power dynamic throughout history.

lalos 8y ago

Good regulation protects people from themselves. Before the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook fiasco, people would claim why care about privacy I have nothing to hide. Its not about hiding the things you do, its about protecting you from smarter people with ulterior motives that might use your data to straight manipulate you (make you buy something, make you feel something, make you do something, etc). We have to change the dialogue regarding privacy into its for your own benefit not because you're doing illegal activities but because your data is valuable to many outside actors.

awat 8y ago

I’d make the argument that privacy is a neccessary pillar for growth in society. Things like marijuana usage could likely not have become legal had private use not occurred and many people found it to be not harmful. This private space for experimentation and self-evaluation (of products, substances, and norms) isn’t given much attention but could adversely change society if it’s lost imho.

wpdev_63 8y ago

I would say we don't care enough. There hasn't been any real blow back from the nsa vault leaks. The government has and still is monitoring all forms of internet communication in the US en masse. Now they want to implement camera surveillance programs that use AI to track movements of people. Where are the protests? Where are our political leaders? Our DAs, Supreme Justice, and what have you. You hear about these leaks almost monthly at this point and there are no repercussions. It will continue business as usual.

jhoechtl 8y ago

Because of the Stasi in german peoples republic or the Gestapo in the third reich. Two examples which only by coincidence happen to be Germany related, there are certainly many more examples like that. I did not read the article, I admit, and won't do that as it is deliberately catch to attract click-bait. But is is so utterly bullshit to even phrase it in such a way.

osrec 8y ago

Do we really care that much about privacy? We really should, but every Facebook scandal that goes seemingly unnoticed by the majority of the general public makes me think otherwise...

pasbesoin 8y ago

Throughout my life, I've had people discover facts about me and use them against me. Personally. "Friends" who used -- and sometimes stole -- secrets to bully me. Commercially: Insurance companies that used past treatment to discriminate against me. (In combination with the employer-provided insurance model, that marginalizes individual purchasers.) So, I for one worry about privacy, because I've experienced first hand what its breach has cost me. I imagine I'm hardly alone.