7 ms·

> "Privacy" is taking a new meaning in today's world than what it would have been understood to mean previously. Try to imagine the most personal and private t

by dgzl 8y ago

> "Privacy" is taking a new meaning in today's world than what it would have been understood to mean previously. Try to imagine the most personal and private thing about a person, what would it be? Their medical and biological information, of course! In the future we'll be able to look at 3d renders of our body systems, see real-time health statistics, and be able to discover our ailments near instantaneously. Now, who else should have this data? In my opinion, only the doctor. Definitely not the government, and definitely not my neighbors. Possibly some businesses for product development. Possibly medical researchers, for educational advancement.

shrimp_emoji 8y ago
I'd rather have the government have it than any company. The government's (usual) mission statement, in practice, is our well-being; any company's mission statement, in practice, is money.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Governments have far more capacity to harm people though.
  - aylmao 8y ago
    But we have far more capacity to change governments.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - Rescis 8y ago
      Why do you say that? Far more industry leading companies (much less companies as a whole) have rose and fall in power, changed their goals/products/management/etc in the past 5/15/50/etc years than governments. Turnover is far higher in corporation management positions than congresses and parliaments, and further, there is no law saying that I have to buy any specific good from a company, whereas I don't get a choice in which government I pay to build the the roads or police where I have established my life.
- dgzl 8y ago
  Do you mean you would rather have our current government to have the data, or a specially crafted government that we can control? If you pick the former, then I'll assume that you're naive to the abuses in our government. If you pick the latter, then I'm going to leave and be productive somewhere else, because you're never going to get it.
xg15 8y ago
> Definitely not the government, ... Possibly some businesses for product development. Presumely, usage by the business would be open-ended and very openly for the gain of the company first. Meanwhile, a government agency were (at least in theory) bound by publicly available purposes and regulations. Out of curiosity, why would you trust the private company more than a government agency? I understand your point though and definitely agree with your on the sensitivity of the data.
- dgzl 8y ago
  American government is something unique. The Constitution provides a framework for operation, and the Bill of Rights restricts the government from alienating our implied/explicit rights. Originally the federal government was meant to be small, while the states were supposed to manage civil laws (see A9/A10). Since 9/11, I've seen insane power grabs at the federal level, in what I see as an attempt to get citizens accustomed to having their rights washed away (see Patriot Act, NDAA, TSA, NSA hacking tools, etc...). Put simply, I personally don't trust the American government at the federal level, and it's hard to find reasons why anyone should. People who restrain criticisms of the feds often like to pretend that all they need to do to prevent corruption is get into office any make the changes we want. Unfortunately that's extremely naive and huge waste of effort, especially when Congress has no term limits. I believe the only way to reign in federal abuse is by taking its power away. My point here is that the government has a long track record for abuse at the highest degree, quite literally, and giving them my most personal and private data is terrifying. The problem is that we can't change governments on a whim, thus if we have a crappy one, we have to deal with it. In a free market however, if a corporation is caught with abuses, we can bury them in court and move to a competitor.
  - jonahb 8y ago
    Yes, the free market is making it very easy to move away from Facebook.
    - dgzl 8y ago
      Is this sarcasm? Because I'm fine without Facebook and there are plenty of social media options.
pjc50 8y ago
> not the government Point of information: "the government" should not be regarded as a monolithic entity unless it actually behaves as such. As a Brit, my medical records are held by the nationalised health service, but this doesn't mean that random cabinet ministers or police can go leafing through them on a whim. For me, they're held with https://nhsnss.org/how-nss-works/ https://nhsnss.org/how-nss-works/ ; quite a lot of England actually has them held by a private company, Serco. (edit: should probably add another distinction between "illegal" and "doesn't happen at all")
- dhimes 8y ago
  As a Brit, my medical records are held by the nationalised health service, but this doesn't mean that random cabinet ministers or police can go leafing through them on a whim. Yet.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    If they decide to legislate to read them, the fact that they're stored in a private company, on a blockchain, or on the surface of the moon becomes irrelevant.
    - godelski 8y ago
      > on a blockchain Fuck that! Seriously. Why do people keep wanting to put data on the blockchain? All that does is make the data public. Sure, it can't be decrypted __now__, but do you want to take the risk that it will always be encrypted? Even if you update the security of the entire chain the previous blocks are still decryptable (and we repeat the with same problem). We don't need a fully audit-able system this type of data. There are advantages to centralized data systems and I would even take a decentralized approach over a BC method. Unless you can give a very compelling reason why the data needs to be audit-able through the entire history.
    - dgzl 8y ago
      No it doesn't. A private company has an obligation by contract to protect that information, even from the government. Our 4th amendment privacy rights apply to businesses as well. Edit: I thought we were talking about America.

by dgzl 8y ago

shrimp_emoji 8y ago

I'd rather have the government have it than any company. The government's (usual) mission statement, in practice, is our well-being; any company's mission statement, in practice, is money.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
Governments have far more capacity to harm people though.
- aylmao 8y ago
  But we have far more capacity to change governments.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Rescis 8y ago
    Why do you say that? Far more industry leading companies (much less companies as a whole) have rose and fall in power, changed their goals/products/management/etc in the past 5/15/50/etc years than governments. Turnover is far higher in corporation management positions than congresses and parliaments, and further, there is no law saying that I have to buy any specific good from a company, whereas I don't get a choice in which government I pay to build the the roads or police where I have established my life.
dgzl 8y ago
Do you mean you would rather have our current government to have the data, or a specially crafted government that we can control? If you pick the former, then I'll assume that you're naive to the abuses in our government. If you pick the latter, then I'm going to leave and be productive somewhere else, because you're never going to get it.

xg15 8y ago

> Definitely not the government, ... Possibly some businesses for product development. Presumely, usage by the business would be open-ended and very openly for the gain of the company first. Meanwhile, a government agency were (at least in theory) bound by publicly available purposes and regulations. Out of curiosity, why would you trust the private company more than a government agency? I understand your point though and definitely agree with your on the sensitivity of the data.

dgzl 8y ago
American government is something unique. The Constitution provides a framework for operation, and the Bill of Rights restricts the government from alienating our implied/explicit rights. Originally the federal government was meant to be small, while the states were supposed to manage civil laws (see A9/A10). Since 9/11, I've seen insane power grabs at the federal level, in what I see as an attempt to get citizens accustomed to having their rights washed away (see Patriot Act, NDAA, TSA, NSA hacking tools, etc...). Put simply, I personally don't trust the American government at the federal level, and it's hard to find reasons why anyone should. People who restrain criticisms of the feds often like to pretend that all they need to do to prevent corruption is get into office any make the changes we want. Unfortunately that's extremely naive and huge waste of effort, especially when Congress has no term limits. I believe the only way to reign in federal abuse is by taking its power away. My point here is that the government has a long track record for abuse at the highest degree, quite literally, and giving them my most personal and private data is terrifying. The problem is that we can't change governments on a whim, thus if we have a crappy one, we have to deal with it. In a free market however, if a corporation is caught with abuses, we can bury them in court and move to a competitor.
- jonahb 8y ago
  Yes, the free market is making it very easy to move away from Facebook.
  - dgzl 8y ago
    Is this sarcasm? Because I'm fine without Facebook and there are plenty of social media options.

pjc50 8y ago

> not the government Point of information: "the government" should not be regarded as a monolithic entity unless it actually behaves as such. As a Brit, my medical records are held by the nationalised health service, but this doesn't mean that random cabinet ministers or police can go leafing through them on a whim. For me, they're held with https://nhsnss.org/how-nss-works/ https://nhsnss.org/how-nss-works/ ; quite a lot of England actually has them held by a private company, Serco. (edit: should probably add another distinction between "illegal" and "doesn't happen at all")

dhimes 8y ago
As a Brit, my medical records are held by the nationalised health service, but this doesn't mean that random cabinet ministers or police can go leafing through them on a whim. Yet.
- pjc50 8y ago
  If they decide to legislate to read them, the fact that they're stored in a private company, on a blockchain, or on the surface of the moon becomes irrelevant.
  - godelski 8y ago
    > on a blockchain Fuck that! Seriously. Why do people keep wanting to put data on the blockchain? All that does is make the data public. Sure, it can't be decrypted __now__, but do you want to take the risk that it will always be encrypted? Even if you update the security of the entire chain the previous blocks are still decryptable (and we repeat the with same problem). We don't need a fully audit-able system this type of data. There are advantages to centralized data systems and I would even take a decentralized approach over a BC method. Unless you can give a very compelling reason why the data needs to be audit-able through the entire history.
  - dgzl 8y ago
    No it doesn't. A private company has an obligation by contract to protect that information, even from the government. Our 4th amendment privacy rights apply to businesses as well. Edit: I thought we were talking about America.