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As long as people will think that privacy is a normal thing to seek, we'll keep using personal information and secrets as authentication methods, and those whos

As long as people will think that privacy is a normal thing to seek, we'll keep using personal information and secrets as authentication methods, and those whose data leaks will suffer the consequences. What we should do is think about the post-privacy world, where all data is available to everyone. We won't be able to keep secrets and passwords anymore, but we won't have to secure them either, as we will have better authentication methods. No more paranoia, encryption, or fear of data leaks. It blows my mind how few people are willing to concede the benefits of transparency, even if they're not willing to fully endorse it.

dahart 8y ago
> What we should do is think about the post-privacy world, where all data is available to everyone. Either I don't fully understand what you're suggesting, or you don't fully understand what you're suggesting. ;) Right to privacy is part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for good reasons. Violations and abuses of privacy have done a lot of damage to a lot of people throughout history. So what does authentication even mean to you if all data is available to everyone? Why would you still need to authenticate? Do you think it's a good idea for me & everyone else to see your bank balance? Personal emails? Personnel reviews at work? Letters to your girlfriend? Late night browsing habits? Purchase history? All your photos along with the video feed from your phone? I don't see privacy ever not being a normal and reasonable thing to seek, not to mention rather important for developing democracies and as some protection against government abuses. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument
- miguelrochefort 8y ago
  I suggest that a right to privacy is a mistake. It shouldn't exist. Unsustainability: It will only become more difficult to keep secrets as technology improves. Imagine cameras that can see through walls and drones the size of a fly. Unenforceability: How do you make people forget information on demand? How do you delete data from the internet? Inefficiency: We waste a lot of resources securing data. We waste a lot of resources requesting data. Allowing data to flow naturally would be more efficient. I think it's a good idea to let "everyone else see [my] bank balance[.] Personal emails[.] Personnel reviews at work[.] Letters to [my] girlfriend[.] Late night browsing habits[.] Purchase history[.] All [my] photos along with the video feed from [my] phone[.]" However, I think it would be unfair to make the life of one person transparent in a society where the social and technical expectation is to keep secrets, although I think it would be better to make everyone's lives transparent in a society where transparency is supported. I think the transition to a transparent society is inevitable. I also think that the later we prepare for the transition the more people will suffer. This is why I bring up the subject and encourage people to think about it. David Brin explains it much better in his book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society
  - thg 8y ago
    Bruce Schneier has written an essay on a few key points why privacy is essential: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/11/how_surveillanc_1.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/11/how_surveilla... "If there is no privacy, there will be pressure to change. Some people will recognize that their morality isn't necessarily the morality of everyone -- and that that's okay. But others will start demanding legislative change, or using less legal and more violent means, to force others to match their idea of morality. It's easy to imagine the more conservative (in the small-c sense, not in the sense of the named political party) among us getting enough power to make illegal what they would otherwise be forced to witness. In this way, privacy helps protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority."
  - mch82 8y ago
    How would Martin Luther King survive long enough to lead the civil rights movement in a world without privacy?
  - dahart 8y ago
    > I suggest that a right to privacy is a mistake. It shouldn't exist. You need to think more carefully about your position. Your statement makes it seem like you are ignorant of history. People have been imprisoned and killed for their correspondence. It is still happening in the world today. > David Brin explains it "Brin spends an entire chapter exploring how important some degree of privacy is for most human beings, allowing them moments of intimacy, to exchange confidences, and to prepare - in some security - for the competitive world." Brin doesn't agree that it's a good idea for everyone to see your letters, bank balance, and other personal secrets. It seems like you got the wrong idea about his book. > I think the transition to a transparent society is inevitable. You haven't explained or justified this idea at all. The problem with your concept of absolute zero privacy is competition. As long as privacy can be exploited, as long as a lack of privacy can be used against you in any way, the need for privacy will exist. The idea you have that privacy could go away can only happen if all humans are cooperative, and economic systems based on competition are eliminated. We can't have absolute transparency and Capitalism at the same time. We can't have politics or business either. Absolute transparency works for fictional races like the Borg on Star Trek. What you're talking about seems like a theoretical concept that is divorced from reality. Current trends are in the opposite direction, so what makes you think we're on the way? Business is getting more competetive, not less. Societies are getting more political, not less. In some countries, government and human rights abuses have been regressing. The need for privacy is going up, not down. > I think it's a good idea to let everyone else see my bank balance ... You didn't explain why. Why is it a good idea? Do you want to post all that information here and now? Why aren't you publishing it already if it's a good idea? Your purchase history is just one of many examples of something that is being used against you. There are insurance companies buying personal data like purchase history in order to gather evidence for denials on claims.
- bookofjoe 8y ago
  "Privacy, as we understand it, is only about 150 years old."https://medium.com/the-ferenstein-wire/the-birth-and-death-of-privacy-3-000-years-of-history-in-50-images-614c26059e https://medium.com/the-ferenstein-wire/the-birth-and-death-o...
  - dahart 8y ago
    Aristotle wrote about privacy more than 2000 years ago. The ancient Greeks had secret ballots in their elections. Ancient China and ancient India have concepts of privacy written into their laws for thousands of years. The core idea of privacy, as something that is a basic human need, and should be a right, has existed for a long, long time. There's a lot of qualification to hide behind in the clause "as we understand it". This is a blog post about Silicon Valley, by someone making some pretty loose inferences, using specious logic to construct an argument. Many people pointed out glaring, major flaws in that blog post in the comments. But sure, privacy wasn't exactly the same 300 years ago as it is now in Silicon Valley with the internet. But ironically that post contains a lot of evidence of the idea that the idea of privacy has been around for a long time. John Adams wrote about not publishing his bank balance 300 years ago. This blog post does not amount to rigorous historical research or evidence of a lack of privacy before modern times. Right off the top, I don't really buy that houses without walls somehow demonstrates that privacy didn't exist. For one, only poor people lacked walls. Rich people have had them for a long time. Walls also didn't matter as much because people didn't poop in their houses as often as we do now, so lack of walls doesn't prove a lot.

dahart 8y ago

> What we should do is think about the post-privacy world, where all data is available to everyone. Either I don't fully understand what you're suggesting, or you don't fully understand what you're suggesting. ;) Right to privacy is part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for good reasons. Violations and abuses of privacy have done a lot of damage to a lot of people throughout history. So what does authentication even mean to you if all data is available to everyone? Why would you still need to authenticate? Do you think it's a good idea for me & everyone else to see your bank balance? Personal emails? Personnel reviews at work? Letters to your girlfriend? Late night browsing habits? Purchase history? All your photos along with the video feed from your phone? I don't see privacy ever not being a normal and reasonable thing to seek, not to mention rather important for developing democracies and as some protection against government abuses. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument

miguelrochefort 8y ago
I suggest that a right to privacy is a mistake. It shouldn't exist. Unsustainability: It will only become more difficult to keep secrets as technology improves. Imagine cameras that can see through walls and drones the size of a fly. Unenforceability: How do you make people forget information on demand? How do you delete data from the internet? Inefficiency: We waste a lot of resources securing data. We waste a lot of resources requesting data. Allowing data to flow naturally would be more efficient. I think it's a good idea to let "everyone else see [my] bank balance[.] Personal emails[.] Personnel reviews at work[.] Letters to [my] girlfriend[.] Late night browsing habits[.] Purchase history[.] All [my] photos along with the video feed from [my] phone[.]" However, I think it would be unfair to make the life of one person transparent in a society where the social and technical expectation is to keep secrets, although I think it would be better to make everyone's lives transparent in a society where transparency is supported. I think the transition to a transparent society is inevitable. I also think that the later we prepare for the transition the more people will suffer. This is why I bring up the subject and encourage people to think about it. David Brin explains it much better in his book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society
- thg 8y ago
  Bruce Schneier has written an essay on a few key points why privacy is essential: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/11/how_surveillanc_1.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/11/how_surveilla... "If there is no privacy, there will be pressure to change. Some people will recognize that their morality isn't necessarily the morality of everyone -- and that that's okay. But others will start demanding legislative change, or using less legal and more violent means, to force others to match their idea of morality. It's easy to imagine the more conservative (in the small-c sense, not in the sense of the named political party) among us getting enough power to make illegal what they would otherwise be forced to witness. In this way, privacy helps protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority."
- mch82 8y ago
  How would Martin Luther King survive long enough to lead the civil rights movement in a world without privacy?
- dahart 8y ago
  > I suggest that a right to privacy is a mistake. It shouldn't exist. You need to think more carefully about your position. Your statement makes it seem like you are ignorant of history. People have been imprisoned and killed for their correspondence. It is still happening in the world today. > David Brin explains it "Brin spends an entire chapter exploring how important some degree of privacy is for most human beings, allowing them moments of intimacy, to exchange confidences, and to prepare - in some security - for the competitive world." Brin doesn't agree that it's a good idea for everyone to see your letters, bank balance, and other personal secrets. It seems like you got the wrong idea about his book. > I think the transition to a transparent society is inevitable. You haven't explained or justified this idea at all. The problem with your concept of absolute zero privacy is competition. As long as privacy can be exploited, as long as a lack of privacy can be used against you in any way, the need for privacy will exist. The idea you have that privacy could go away can only happen if all humans are cooperative, and economic systems based on competition are eliminated. We can't have absolute transparency and Capitalism at the same time. We can't have politics or business either. Absolute transparency works for fictional races like the Borg on Star Trek. What you're talking about seems like a theoretical concept that is divorced from reality. Current trends are in the opposite direction, so what makes you think we're on the way? Business is getting more competetive, not less. Societies are getting more political, not less. In some countries, government and human rights abuses have been regressing. The need for privacy is going up, not down. > I think it's a good idea to let everyone else see my bank balance ... You didn't explain why. Why is it a good idea? Do you want to post all that information here and now? Why aren't you publishing it already if it's a good idea? Your purchase history is just one of many examples of something that is being used against you. There are insurance companies buying personal data like purchase history in order to gather evidence for denials on claims.
bookofjoe 8y ago
"Privacy, as we understand it, is only about 150 years old."https://medium.com/the-ferenstein-wire/the-birth-and-death-of-privacy-3-000-years-of-history-in-50-images-614c26059e https://medium.com/the-ferenstein-wire/the-birth-and-death-o...
- dahart 8y ago
  Aristotle wrote about privacy more than 2000 years ago. The ancient Greeks had secret ballots in their elections. Ancient China and ancient India have concepts of privacy written into their laws for thousands of years. The core idea of privacy, as something that is a basic human need, and should be a right, has existed for a long, long time. There's a lot of qualification to hide behind in the clause "as we understand it". This is a blog post about Silicon Valley, by someone making some pretty loose inferences, using specious logic to construct an argument. Many people pointed out glaring, major flaws in that blog post in the comments. But sure, privacy wasn't exactly the same 300 years ago as it is now in Silicon Valley with the internet. But ironically that post contains a lot of evidence of the idea that the idea of privacy has been around for a long time. John Adams wrote about not publishing his bank balance 300 years ago. This blog post does not amount to rigorous historical research or evidence of a lack of privacy before modern times. Right off the top, I don't really buy that houses without walls somehow demonstrates that privacy didn't exist. For one, only poor people lacked walls. Rich people have had them for a long time. Walls also didn't matter as much because people didn't poop in their houses as often as we do now, so lack of walls doesn't prove a lot.