5 ms·

One of my favorite lines against "I have nothing to hide" is from national security whistleblower, Edward Snowden: “Arguing that you don't care about the right

by mtgx 8y ago

One of my favorite lines against "I have nothing to hide" is from national security whistleblower, Edward Snowden: “Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7308507-arguing-that-you-don-t-care-about-the-right-to-privacy https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7308507-arguing-that-you-do... But ultimately, the idea that you want privacy because you have something bad to hide is a deeply flawed one, pushed by governments, maybe not necessarily because they are "evil" and want to abuse that power (although that certainly seems a factor to consider lately), but also because pretty much the only times they do want to bypass privacy laws is when they deal with criminals. So that gives them a very narrow view of the issue. When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Privacy is both about "keeping things to yourself" and not wanting others to know everything there is to know about you for no good reason, as well as to protect yourself against potential abuses (from governments, but also criminals, unscrupulous companies, etc) that can't be predicted ahead of time. There are thousands of potential uses for the data, like say using your data to manipulate you with ads during elections, make you buy anti-depressants, make you pay higher insurance, and so on.

yura 8y ago
"Privacy is both about "keeping things to yourself" and not wanting others to know everything there is to know about you for no good reason, as well as to protect yourself against potential abuses (from governments, but also criminals, unscrupulous companies, etc) that can't be predicted ahead of time." Yes. To put it succinctly: I may trust the current government to use this data for (mostly) good, but I don't trust all future governments.
- Bizarro 8y ago
  A "government" is a big abstract entity that is made up of people and procedures. People come and go, and procedures/regulation are changed all the time without direct legislative efforts. You don't have the knowledge to know if you trust "that" government or "another" government. The best solution for all is always be suspicious of concentrated power....especially power that involves state-sanctioned violence against you.
crispyambulance 8y ago
Like you, I think the "I have nothing to hide" problem needs to be addressed so badly. But it takes a level of nuance to explain and sensitivity to understand. You have to talk about hypothetical situations to make the case. Unfortunately, IMHO, it will take a large-scale "privacy disaster" unlike anything we've ever seen and where people are profoundly impacted, before the public gets wise to what it means to give up privacy.
- renholder 8y ago
  >Unfortunately, IMHO, it will take a large-scale "privacy disaster" unlike anything we've ever seen and where people are profoundly impacted, before the public gets wise to what it means to give up privacy. Those have already happened but no one has explained the gravity of those situations thoroughly enough for people to understand them. For example, the OPM hack[1] dumped all of the people who applied (note: weren't granted - which is an important distinction) for security clearances in the United States. This is very extensive information about a person's life, going back at least 10 years of their lives, and includes people they knew at addresses that they've lived at, spouses, fingerprint data, etc. When you couple that with the Marriot/Starwood hack[2], this is information that includes passport numers, times stayed at hotels, etc. When coupled together, if I'm a foreign adversary, I now have a larger picture of a group of people who have security clearances, their travel patterns, their passport numbers, and - if coupled with the OPM data - a veritable life's history. This might seem tin-foil hat but if I have this data, I can then turn to the great advertising machines of the world (e.g.: Facebook, Google, etc.) and attempt to obtain targeting information related to those individuals, specifically. Going out further on a limb, let's assume I've found an individual of interest, whom I want to "spoof". I have their life's history, I have all of their identification-relavent data, I - quite possibly - could obtain their historical advertising data to see patterns. If this person was living in the United States and is no longer doing so, say they moved away 10 years ago, I now have enough information to impersonate them (including fingerprint data) - in person - and all I require, then, is (possibly) a little cosmetic surgery to insert my foreign intelligence operative to impersonate them. Now, I understand that all of this is a far stretch and is seemingly implausible but your large-scale "privacy disaster" has already happened (see also: 2016 elections). What, instead, I think would have to happen (sad as this consideration is) is that the privacy breaches result in some other nefarious event that ties directly back to them. Otherwise, people still live with this "it's no problem because I have nothing to hide" mentality. To them, so what if China stole their life's history? Unless someone takes that data and then makes them indebted for life (e.g.: to banks or the IRS and that ends-up in jail time, etc.), then they're still going to keep trucking along like it isn't that big of a deal because no one has explained the gravity of the potential use of that data. I think that onus is shared between the governments (themselves), businesses that were hacked, and the news agencies reporting these events. If you told everyone affected by the OPM hack that they could be impersonated (almost perfectly), as long as the actor[s] had other data to correlate specifically to them, I imagine the response[s] would have been drastically different. Instead, what you get is a couple of years of credit monitoring and that's about the extent of it - which, in my honest opinion - is woefully inadequate for the level of data that the compromise[s] exposed. Monitoring your credit is great and all but it does absolutely nothing for someone impersonating you for employment at other companies - say those who don't require a major background check - to build a recent history in a new city - let's say Philadelphia - to latter leverage that background to infiltrate a government sector. Again, I get that most of what I'm positing is tin-foil hat seeming kind of stuff but the statement inferring that a large-scale privacy disaster hasn't occurred is, to me, a bit flawed (no offense intended or inferred) and discounts that it, indeed, has occurred - it's just that no one has explained it in the right/correct way[s]. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management... [2] - https://www.wired.com/story/marriott-hack-protect-yourself/ https://www.wired.com/story/marriott-hack-protect-yourself/
fghtr 8y ago
I would say that privacy helps to hide crimes which should not be crimes and therefore to change the laws in the future. For example, gay relationships or pot smoking.

by mtgx 8y ago

yura 8y ago

"Privacy is both about "keeping things to yourself" and not wanting others to know everything there is to know about you for no good reason, as well as to protect yourself against potential abuses (from governments, but also criminals, unscrupulous companies, etc) that can't be predicted ahead of time." Yes. To put it succinctly: I may trust the current government to use this data for (mostly) good, but I don't trust all future governments.

Bizarro 8y ago
A "government" is a big abstract entity that is made up of people and procedures. People come and go, and procedures/regulation are changed all the time without direct legislative efforts. You don't have the knowledge to know if you trust "that" government or "another" government. The best solution for all is always be suspicious of concentrated power....especially power that involves state-sanctioned violence against you.

crispyambulance 8y ago

Like you, I think the "I have nothing to hide" problem needs to be addressed so badly. But it takes a level of nuance to explain and sensitivity to understand. You have to talk about hypothetical situations to make the case. Unfortunately, IMHO, it will take a large-scale "privacy disaster" unlike anything we've ever seen and where people are profoundly impacted, before the public gets wise to what it means to give up privacy.

renholder 8y ago
>Unfortunately, IMHO, it will take a large-scale "privacy disaster" unlike anything we've ever seen and where people are profoundly impacted, before the public gets wise to what it means to give up privacy. Those have already happened but no one has explained the gravity of those situations thoroughly enough for people to understand them. For example, the OPM hack[1] dumped all of the people who applied (note: weren't granted - which is an important distinction) for security clearances in the United States. This is very extensive information about a person's life, going back at least 10 years of their lives, and includes people they knew at addresses that they've lived at, spouses, fingerprint data, etc. When you couple that with the Marriot/Starwood hack[2], this is information that includes passport numers, times stayed at hotels, etc. When coupled together, if I'm a foreign adversary, I now have a larger picture of a group of people who have security clearances, their travel patterns, their passport numbers, and - if coupled with the OPM data - a veritable life's history. This might seem tin-foil hat but if I have this data, I can then turn to the great advertising machines of the world (e.g.: Facebook, Google, etc.) and attempt to obtain targeting information related to those individuals, specifically. Going out further on a limb, let's assume I've found an individual of interest, whom I want to "spoof". I have their life's history, I have all of their identification-relavent data, I - quite possibly - could obtain their historical advertising data to see patterns. If this person was living in the United States and is no longer doing so, say they moved away 10 years ago, I now have enough information to impersonate them (including fingerprint data) - in person - and all I require, then, is (possibly) a little cosmetic surgery to insert my foreign intelligence operative to impersonate them. Now, I understand that all of this is a far stretch and is seemingly implausible but your large-scale "privacy disaster" has already happened (see also: 2016 elections). What, instead, I think would have to happen (sad as this consideration is) is that the privacy breaches result in some other nefarious event that ties directly back to them. Otherwise, people still live with this "it's no problem because I have nothing to hide" mentality. To them, so what if China stole their life's history? Unless someone takes that data and then makes them indebted for life (e.g.: to banks or the IRS and that ends-up in jail time, etc.), then they're still going to keep trucking along like it isn't that big of a deal because no one has explained the gravity of the potential use of that data. I think that onus is shared between the governments (themselves), businesses that were hacked, and the news agencies reporting these events. If you told everyone affected by the OPM hack that they could be impersonated (almost perfectly), as long as the actor[s] had other data to correlate specifically to them, I imagine the response[s] would have been drastically different. Instead, what you get is a couple of years of credit monitoring and that's about the extent of it - which, in my honest opinion - is woefully inadequate for the level of data that the compromise[s] exposed. Monitoring your credit is great and all but it does absolutely nothing for someone impersonating you for employment at other companies - say those who don't require a major background check - to build a recent history in a new city - let's say Philadelphia - to latter leverage that background to infiltrate a government sector. Again, I get that most of what I'm positing is tin-foil hat seeming kind of stuff but the statement inferring that a large-scale privacy disaster hasn't occurred is, to me, a bit flawed (no offense intended or inferred) and discounts that it, indeed, has occurred - it's just that no one has explained it in the right/correct way[s]. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management... [2] - https://www.wired.com/story/marriott-hack-protect-yourself/ https://www.wired.com/story/marriott-hack-protect-yourself/

fghtr 8y ago

I would say that privacy helps to hide crimes which should not be crimes and therefore to change the laws in the future. For example, gay relationships or pot smoking.